Speaker 1: The good news is that the most powerful biohacks are free.
Speaker 1: In biohacking the definition and I thought really hard about this.
Speaker 1: It's the art and science of changing the environment around
Speaker 1: you and inside. Do you say you have control? So first,
Speaker 1: what are the goals if you're a mom with four kids?
Speaker 1: I have two kids, and I know the goals are.
Speaker 1: I just want to have enough energy.
Speaker 2: I try to fail every day when I talk to
Speaker 2: my daughter all night when we go to bed. When
Speaker 2: she goes to bed, she's eight years old, I tell
Speaker 2: her how daddy failed that day and how Daddy succeeded,
Speaker 2: And I ask her how will she fail and how
Speaker 2: did she fail that day? So she gets used to
Speaker 2: understanding that failure is a part of the process and
Speaker 2: that it comes along with successes.
Speaker 3: What happens when you bring together two visionaries, two disruptors,
Speaker 3: two friends who have both mastered the science of success.
Speaker 3: On my legacy, we're sitting down with Dave Aspiry, the
Speaker 3: father of biohacking and the mind behind bullet Proof, and
Speaker 3: Damon John Shark tank Icon and the self made entrepreneur
Speaker 3: behind Fubu. From peak performance to business strategy. They reveal
Speaker 3: the game changing insights they've gained along the way and
Speaker 3: the best lessons they've learned from each other. And we're
Speaker 3: joining them from the Lake Nna Impact Forum at the
Speaker 3: KPMG Lake House Learning and Innovation Center in Orlando's Lake
Speaker 3: Nona Community, a place where the brightest minds come together
Speaker 3: to shape the future of health, wellness and medical innovation.
Speaker 3: This is My Legacy, hosted by me Andrea Waters King
Speaker 3: alongside my husband Martin Luther King the Third and our
Speaker 3: good friends Mark and Craig Kilberger.
Speaker 4: Let's dive in.
Speaker 5: Welcome to My Legacy. Today, we're joining by two groundbreaking
Speaker 5: entrepreneurs who have reshaped industries in completely different ways. Damon
Speaker 5: John turned forty dollars into Fubu, a six billion dollar
Speaker 5: fashion empire, and has helped cauntless entrepreneurs find their footing
Speaker 5: as an investor on Shark Tank. Dave Aspury is known
Speaker 5: as the father of biohacking. He turned a simple blog
Speaker 5: into a billion dollar series of businesses Bulletproof Coffee, Upgrade Labs.
Speaker 5: The list goes on with four New York Times best
Speaker 5: selling books. He's inspired millions who followed his journey spanning
Speaker 5: more than a decade, as he explores new ways to
Speaker 5: enhance health and longevity. Together, these close friends share a
Speaker 5: deep personal passion for innovation, self improvement, and pushing boundaries
Speaker 5: in both entrepreneurship and human performance. Welcome, Dave and Damon.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm super happy to be here.
Speaker 5: We're very grateful. We're excited to be with icons who
Speaker 5: have shaped America in the world in such interesting ways.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I'm going to start with you, Damon, because
Speaker 3: you know, I'm of a certain age that you know,
Speaker 3: there was a certain part of you know, growing up
Speaker 3: in the nineties that there was not one black person
Speaker 3: that did not have a fo bou something in their closet. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so you always what you have done and inspired
Speaker 3: me your entire career. If you can take us back
Speaker 3: a little bit to when you first got started, is
Speaker 3: there anyone in particular who really really influenced you.
Speaker 2: There are so many people influenced me. But of course
Speaker 2: my mother influenced me, and then my stepfather or I
Speaker 2: called my stepfather. You know, his I was selling people
Speaker 2: earlier today. His brother was the lead attorney fighting over
Speaker 2: here for Mandela's release, and he happen to be Jewish,
Speaker 2: as I shared with you, and he was impactful in
Speaker 2: so many ways. He always told me be pro black,
Speaker 2: but never anti anything else, and never become the thing
Speaker 2: you're fighting against. And I think after that it was
Speaker 2: the black men in the community also who were businessmen.
Speaker 2: And I had three mentors and they had small businesses.
Speaker 2: But I always say, if you're able to keep a
Speaker 2: business open twenty years, you're dealing with the same things
Speaker 2: that you know Jeff Base was dealing with. You're dealing
Speaker 2: with competition, inflation, you know products, you know, all kinds
Speaker 2: of new technology. So you know, my life has been
Speaker 2: just really a series of mentors.
Speaker 3: You know what, My husband almost kicked me when you said,
Speaker 3: never become like that you're fighting against. Yeah, because my
Speaker 3: co hosts have heard me say this many times. I
Speaker 3: monitored hate groups and hate crimes for many years, the
Speaker 3: klu Klux Klan, Neil Nazi skinheads, and on the wall
Speaker 3: of my office I had the quote by Bill Hooks,
Speaker 3: we must never become like that which we're fighting against, absolutely,
Speaker 3: and that was my north star every day when I
Speaker 3: was going into that basement in that work.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: All right, well then they you have. I mean, I
Speaker 2: wish more people would think that way. But you know,
Speaker 2: we get so caught up with our passion that we
Speaker 2: don't realize that we're becoming that Dave.
Speaker 6: When you think about the values that shaped you, is
Speaker 6: there someone in your life, whether family or mentor, who
Speaker 6: influenced you the most.
Speaker 1: It's hard to pick one person. In my mid twenties,
Speaker 1: I was three inner pounds. My brain was failing. I
Speaker 1: couldn't remember anything, and I had a job in Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley as a tech entrepreneur, and I started hanging out
Speaker 1: with people more than three times my age at one
Speaker 1: of the first longevity nonprofits, and soon they asked me
Speaker 1: to be president because I was the only guy under thirty.
Speaker 1: And my friend Mike was eighty eight at the time,
Speaker 1: and he would call me up at eleven thirty at night,
Speaker 1: just bursting with energy and ideas and enthusiasm like he
Speaker 1: was in his twenties. And it was my elders who
Speaker 1: taught me that you could take old people and give
Speaker 1: them the energy of youth. And since I was young
Speaker 1: and I had the energy of old age, their techniques
Speaker 1: helped me get my brain back, and there would be
Speaker 1: no bioacing without my elders teaching me so Mike would
Speaker 1: be that guy.
Speaker 3: Wow, And I'm curious because I'm sure everything that you
Speaker 3: have on is intentional. So are the glasses to Yeah,
Speaker 3: for a blue light.
Speaker 1: Glasses are one of my companies. It's called true Dark,
Speaker 1: and they're blocking the bad part of blue and they
Speaker 1: let the good part of blue through.
Speaker 4: Because if you wear.
Speaker 1: Blue blockers in the morning, you never wake up. But
Speaker 1: if you have all these bright lights in you all
Speaker 1: the time, by the end of the day, your brain's
Speaker 1: kind of cooked.
Speaker 4: Beautiful, what about your the energy? Is that energy?
Speaker 1: This is a metea rte that fell in New Mexico,
Speaker 1: where I was born.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: So I love meteorites. There's some kind of good energy
Speaker 1: in them.
Speaker 5: Beautiful for those who are listening rather than our viewers.
Speaker 5: I do love how your glasses have that little tint
Speaker 5: of yellow, and the circular nature encompassing that meteorite is beautiful.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5: Damon good Craig as following along, I love it, Damn.
Speaker 5: So many people shared with us and how excited they
Speaker 5: were the opportunity to hear from you, partially because you've
Speaker 5: inspired so many people who want to follow in your footsteps. Now,
Speaker 5: one thing I don't know if you want to always
Speaker 5: realizes was your journey wasn't linear, it wasn't always easy.
Speaker 5: And one thing I love how you've been relating to
Speaker 5: people by being very open about how when you were
Speaker 5: younger you hadeslexia. School was not an easy pathway. It
Speaker 5: was a bit of an unconventional journey in high school.
Speaker 5: Can you take us back to that so that people
Speaker 5: see today this billion dollar success, but they don't always
Speaker 5: understand the origin story.
Speaker 2: I mean, the origin is, you know, I think it's
Speaker 2: an American dream. I think that it is. You know,
Speaker 2: I was less fortunate than many, and I was way
Speaker 2: more fortunate than most of the people on the planet.
Speaker 2: I had a house, and I had clean drinking water,
Speaker 2: right so, and I had access to food and electricity.
Speaker 2: But you know, we only know what we come from.
Speaker 2: It came from, you know, a place that was riddled
Speaker 2: like most of the you know, American communities riddled with
Speaker 2: crack and most of my friends became drug dealers. I
Speaker 2: decided that's not a path that I wanted. But I
Speaker 2: was dyslexic. Eight of the twelve sharks are actually dyslexic.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 5: It almost a lot of people to share that on
Speaker 5: social media for the family.
Speaker 2: That's why he said, I it Branson is dyslexic, Barber's alexic,
Speaker 2: Kevin's alexic, I believe Rohans and lexic and there and
Speaker 2: because of dyslexic, I've got the other three. So you know.
Speaker 2: So I didn't do well in school, like I left
Speaker 2: back in the seventh grade. I didn't go to college,
Speaker 2: but I applied myself and started working. But I did
Speaker 2: realize I was hanging out as well because I grew
Speaker 2: up in Hollis Queens and almost majority of at that time,
Speaker 2: a lot of the famous rappers came from their local
Speaker 2: Jay Salt and Pepper's trip coal quests and all that
Speaker 2: I was on. I was on all these big tours
Speaker 2: since I was fourteen years old. I became too cool
Speaker 2: for school. But then I turned around. I was laughing
Speaker 2: at the kids who were going to college in school.
Speaker 2: I laughed at all the band geeks as they call it,
Speaker 2: and the nerds. Well, those band geeks became people like
Speaker 2: doctor Dre and Timblin right in Pharrell, and those nerds
Speaker 2: became Zuckerberg and Baseo. I remember I was working at
Speaker 2: Red Lobster right around twenty one years old. All those
Speaker 2: kids I was laughing at, not that I knew zuckerberning.
Speaker 6: Of those people.
Speaker 2: And I'm just using an example. I remember all those
Speaker 2: kids that I laughed at that were going to college
Speaker 2: investing in their future. Well they were coming back now
Speaker 2: and I was in Red Lobster serving them shrimp, and
Speaker 2: I was like, well, I'm the idiot. And I started
Speaker 2: to double down and try to, you know, get any
Speaker 2: form of education I could. I would, and being dyslexic challenge,
Speaker 2: but I would read a book a week, I would
Speaker 2: find mentors, I would go and apply and do a
Speaker 2: lot of different things. I was reading the sales sheets
Speaker 2: that Red Lobster, finding out how this large corporation was
Speaker 2: making money. Well they needed help back a year ago,
Speaker 2: but they were making money back then. And then I
Speaker 2: started investing things I love to do, which was this, this,
Speaker 2: this fashion, and I used what I call the power broke.
Speaker 2: I realized that you know, sixty five percent a lot
Speaker 2: of winners and athletes that broke three years after leaving
Speaker 2: the league because they don't know how to use the
Speaker 2: tool of money, and another sixty or seventy percent of
Speaker 2: four wealthy. This one thousand people are self made men
Speaker 2: and women. That's like the men and women in this
Speaker 2: room and listening to this podcast. So obviously money is
Speaker 2: just a tool, and I started to use what was
Speaker 2: around me as normal entrepreneurs. Well, I knew rappers, why
Speaker 2: don't you wear that? You know? While I knew this,
Speaker 2: why don't you do that? And it slowly grew. I
Speaker 2: had a lot of challenges. I started fooling eighty nine.
Speaker 2: I closed it three times from eighty nine to ninety
Speaker 2: two because I ran out of money. I found my
Speaker 2: beautiful three partners who believed in me. After that, now
Speaker 2: there were ten people who believed in me, but most
Speaker 2: of them didn't stay around. Was those three that believed
Speaker 2: in me. And then by nineteen ninety nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 2: I was doing three hundred fifty million dollars a year. Now,
Speaker 2: that's a long story. I started in eighty nine. In
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, I started making I started get public
Speaker 2: recognition after failing three times. But you know, that's the
Speaker 2: American dream. That's why when we look at you know,
Speaker 2: people like me and all of us on Shark Tank,
Speaker 2: we all went through that process.
Speaker 4: Have you failed since then?
Speaker 6: I failed?
Speaker 2: I try to fail every day. When I talked to
Speaker 2: my daughter or night when we go to bed, when
Speaker 2: she goes to bed she's eight years old, I tell
Speaker 2: her how daddy failed that day and how daddy succeeded.
Speaker 2: And I asked her, how will she fail and how
Speaker 2: did she fail that day? They maybe I planned on
Speaker 2: doing this and I didn't get to this, and I
Speaker 2: was late for a meeting. And you should never be
Speaker 2: late because when you're late, you make the other person
Speaker 2: feel like they're not of value and whatever the case is.
Speaker 2: So she gets used to understanding that failure is a
Speaker 2: part of the process and that it comes along with successes.
Speaker 1: You know, the fact you do that with your daughter,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that about you. I've done that with
Speaker 1: my kids, where every night when they were little, I
Speaker 1: would say, tell me three things you're grateful for, and
Speaker 1: tell me one failure you had, and I would celebrate
Speaker 1: the failure more than the things they're grateful for. So
Speaker 1: they would look at it that way. And so few
Speaker 1: parents know this.
Speaker 3: Wow, what we do in our home are the roses
Speaker 3: and thorns? Oh so like, okay, so what was your
Speaker 3: roles for today and what was your thorn?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: Our daughter is sixteen years old, so she journals every night.
Speaker 3: We still have family dinners when we're together, and I
Speaker 3: just saw her this new journal where in the morning
Speaker 3: it you know, you talk about kind of your intentions
Speaker 3: for today, what you're grateful for, and that night, before
Speaker 3: you go to bed, you do what would you change, like,
Speaker 3: what would you do things just a little bit different
Speaker 3: or better. It's a way of looking the same way
Speaker 3: at your at your failures, or what you would do
Speaker 3: differently for your day every night before you go to bed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's help. Reflection is extremely important.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, you're listening to my legacy. We'll be back
Speaker 5: shortly with more of this inspiring conversation.
Speaker 4: They're back to my legacy, Daman.
Speaker 6: You've seen hundreds of entrepreneurs on Shark Tank make presentations.
Speaker 6: So what is a surefire way to lose a deal
Speaker 6: on shark Tank?
Speaker 2: Well, a little of the deal anywhere is and not
Speaker 2: understand who you're talking to, and not to understand what's
Speaker 2: in it for them, you know, I don't you know,
Speaker 2: they say, don't tell anybody your problems. Twenty percent don't care,
Speaker 2: and the other eighty percent are really happy you have them.
Speaker 2: And so when you tell somebody your problems, then they
Speaker 2: don't care what's in it for the person on the
Speaker 2: other side. But if you're talking about Shark Tank, you
Speaker 2: know you'd have to do a homework on the target.
Speaker 2: A lot of people pitch me clothing brands on shar Tank.
Speaker 2: The main reason I got on shar Tank is because
Speaker 2: I had ten clothing brands and oh seven. Nobody's buying
Speaker 2: clothes when they can't pay their rent. Want to diversify
Speaker 2: my portfolio because out of my ten clothing brands, eight
Speaker 2: of them were dead. The last thing I want is clothing.
Speaker 2: You didn to do your homework. Robert himself, Robert has
Speaker 2: done better in clothing on the show, well besides my
Speaker 2: sock company. Robert has done better on clothing on the
Speaker 2: show than mean he likes clothing companies. The next thing
Speaker 2: is to not know your customer. Who is your customer?
Speaker 2: Is it a person of this gender, primarily this ethnicity,
Speaker 2: who wants to pay twenty dollars instead of twenty two?
Speaker 2: Where do they live? If you don't know who your
Speaker 2: customer is, I don't know who your customer is, well,
Speaker 2: then you want to use my money for tuition, and
Speaker 2: that's not going to work out. And the last one
Speaker 2: is to think that it's my job. I'm an investor,
Speaker 2: it's your business. Damon is not a crutch. I have
Speaker 2: a day job, and if I wanted to actually put
Speaker 2: more on my day job played well, I would bring
Speaker 2: Foobuo back in a bigger level where I own all
Speaker 2: of it. The true and the best pitch is you
Speaker 2: tell somebody a story on qualifies why there was a
Speaker 2: problem in the market, or you want to bring somebody joy,
Speaker 2: because that's only two things that you're gonna ever do.
Speaker 2: You're either going to solve a problem or bring somebody joy.
Speaker 2: And if you bring somebody joy, you solve the problem.
Speaker 2: You solve the problem. Brout somebody joy. And that how
Speaker 2: that train is going to leave the station no matter what.
Speaker 2: You want that investor on the train, but it's leaving
Speaker 2: the station no matter what. Then you qualify why you're
Speaker 2: the one to do that job. Whenever you have a business,
Speaker 2: you have to ask yourself three questions, why me, why now?
Speaker 2: And why this? If you can't answer all three of
Speaker 2: those questions, well then you're a me too. Product.
Speaker 3: Is that something that you knew instinctively? And that's what
Speaker 3: I was curious. Is this something that you knew instinctively
Speaker 3: or is this also garnered from all of your experience?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's by far as experience, you know. I thank
Speaker 2: god social media wasn't around up until my thirty thirty five,
Speaker 2: maybe even forties, because I look back and what was
Speaker 2: wrong with you? Sure? But it's by getting the door
Speaker 2: slammed in my face so many times and having to
Speaker 2: go back. Now, we didn't talk about you know what
Speaker 2: it takes to get to the pitch, To get to
Speaker 2: the pitch on shark tank or to anybody in this room,
Speaker 2: you got to kiss a lot of frogs. You can't
Speaker 2: take it personal. You have to. When you leave a
Speaker 2: room and you know somebody says no, you have to
Speaker 2: say something like, well, did I study them accurately? Did
Speaker 2: I ask enough questions that I communicated accurately? You know what?
Speaker 2: Maybe they had a bad day, Maybe they were arguing
Speaker 2: with this significant other. Maybe they don't have the vision.
Speaker 2: And even if they invested about it, they weren't the customer.
Speaker 2: I wanted it anyway, But you have to then kiss
Speaker 2: another frog. You know, I got it backed by Samsung's
Speaker 2: textile division. Does anybody know that Samsung had a textile division.
Speaker 2: I never go to number one, two, three, four and
Speaker 2: five in the market. I go to number two hundred.
Speaker 2: Who wants to be number one, two, three four five
Speaker 2: because one, two, three, four and five they'd good.
Speaker 4: Wow and Dave.
Speaker 3: You totally, I mean you totally started entire inty. Biohacking
Speaker 3: did not exist before you came along, and I believe
Speaker 3: that you actually did you somehow start the first person
Speaker 3: to sell on the Internet a product.
Speaker 1: Wait, before I started biohacking. Yeah, the first product ever
Speaker 1: sold over the Internet was a T shirt that said
Speaker 1: caffeine my drug of choice, and it has this molecule.
Speaker 1: I've got a tattooed on my bicep.
Speaker 2: And the first product ever sold on it.
Speaker 1: It was yeah, before e commerce didn't have a name,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't a web browser yet, so this was
Speaker 1: before actually Mark Andresen was making the first web browser
Speaker 1: right when I did this.
Speaker 2: It's cool.
Speaker 1: So I'm an entrepreneur magazine wearing a double extra large shirt.
Speaker 1: People say, da if you weren't fat, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: here's my twenty fe year old fat picture an entrepreneur magazine.
Speaker 1: I think that one counts. And at the time I
Speaker 1: was just trying to pay for my tuition, right. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that that would be anything. And I was
Speaker 1: on the internet early because I'm a nerd, and I thought, man,
Speaker 1: I know the people I talk to every day and
Speaker 1: they're in the car and so am I. So I'm
Speaker 1: just going to make a product. And I in fact,
Speaker 1: one of the article on Estrement magazine it said, if
Speaker 1: you exploit it, it's gone. I said, there's a culture.
Speaker 1: Don't just put ads up. Be a part of the
Speaker 1: community and serve your community if you're going to put
Speaker 1: something up there.
Speaker 5: But it was amazing you created a category. Well both
Speaker 5: of you actually created it, Like Damon created a category
Speaker 5: and Dave you created a category. If you actually stop
Speaker 5: and think about it, and you took like mct oil coffee.
Speaker 5: There was a lot of skepticism when biohacking came as
Speaker 5: an idea.
Speaker 1: That was great.
Speaker 5: Well, I can ask what gave you the drive to
Speaker 5: push through that skepticism to bring it to mainstream.
Speaker 1: Well, I was pretty sick when I was young. I
Speaker 1: had Asperger syndrome. It's a form of autism, a lot
Speaker 1: of weird behavioral issues, fat at arthritis. Since I was fourteen,
Speaker 1: and when I reversed all that with what is now biohacking,
Speaker 1: my goal was I want five people to read my blog,
Speaker 1: and if they don't go through the hell I went through,
Speaker 1: I have done my active service. I thought about making
Speaker 1: it a nonprofit. I didn't collect a list, I didn't
Speaker 1: do anything. I made a quarter million a year. I
Speaker 1: had stock options at a publicly traded computer security company
Speaker 1: because I'm a computer hacker. I was a pretty good
Speaker 1: one back then. So it was that I don't want
Speaker 1: people to go through it. I went through, and then
Speaker 1: after I recovered, like I'm not going to stop, and
Speaker 1: I was you can make your brain work better than
Speaker 1: you ever imagined, and you can reverse your age, and
Speaker 1: you can. I'm six percent body fat and I was
Speaker 1: really obese with a forty six inch waist, and I
Speaker 1: feel so good. And when my brain works, I'm nice
Speaker 1: to other people. And you give me MSG and the
Speaker 1: wrong foods and I feel like I'm doing exercise with
Speaker 1: my middle finger muscles, like I'm a jerk. Right, So
Speaker 1: being HYPOGLIBITCHI was a problem for me. So I just
Speaker 1: want to teach people, and I write all my stuff.
Speaker 1: If I was nineteen or twenty and I just would
Speaker 1: have known this. It would have saved me a million
Speaker 1: dollars to recover, and the other million and a half
Speaker 1: was for longevity. I'm happy with that, but the suffering,
Speaker 1: all the times I was just a jerk to people.
Speaker 1: It was not because I was a bad person. It
Speaker 1: was because my hardware wasn't working right. And so every
Speaker 1: time someone reaches out and says, you know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: lost the weight, but my brain works so much better.
Speaker 1: That was the why, and people say, oh, you're wrong, Okay,
Speaker 1: then don't do it. But look who started drinking this
Speaker 1: idea of butter and coffee. I didn't invent that.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 1: I kind of did in coffee, but I was in
Speaker 1: ti bed at Mount Kailash, the holiest mountain in the world,
Speaker 1: had yact better team, like, what does this work?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 1: So I this whole process I just wanted to share.
Speaker 5: So I was also a bet alside yack better tea.
Speaker 5: I didn't have the brilliance and idea of scaling. So
Speaker 5: I don't want to take away what you did was amazing.
Speaker 1: Why were you into bed well after I exhausted all
Speaker 1: the Western medicine that was supposed to make me well.
Speaker 6: I tried.
Speaker 1: I made and lost six million dollars before I was
Speaker 1: twenty eight. Tried being rich, didn't make me happy. Tried
Speaker 1: to getting married that didn't work very well in my
Speaker 1: twenties didn't make me happy. And I was an Entrepreneur
Speaker 1: magazine when twenty three, being famous didn't make me happy.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm miserable. Nothing that's supposed to work works.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to try all the stuff that I
Speaker 1: don't even believe in, So I'll learn meditation from the
Speaker 1: masters in Tibet, and I have since studied with gurus
Speaker 1: all over the world. And I would say ancient practices
Speaker 1: are as much a part of biohacking as the latest
Speaker 1: gene therapy or the true dark glasses or anything like that,
Speaker 1: because end of the day, once your body's working, everybody
Speaker 1: wants to do things. We want to live a very
Speaker 1: long time, longer than we're supposed to, because life is
Speaker 1: so precious, and we want to be conscious, We want
Speaker 1: our brains to work, we want to be happy. So
Speaker 1: you can start by saying, you know, I don't arthritis
Speaker 1: my knees anymore, or I want to fix this one
Speaker 1: annoying problem eventually you're going to say, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to work on becoming enlightened, whether I make it or not,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have to work on being a good
Speaker 1: human being. And once you get that, like man, I
Speaker 1: don't want to stop. That's why I was there. I
Speaker 1: wanted to learn from the people who studied it for
Speaker 1: five thousand years because they probably knew something I didn't.
Speaker 6: So when you first started out, you were like your
Speaker 6: own guinea pig. You went through that process. And in
Speaker 6: going through that, what was the craziest thing that you did?
Speaker 1: Ah, Man, only one. There's a point of desperation if
Speaker 1: you're obese and your brain is fogged out and you've
Speaker 1: tried dieting. I went to the gym six days a week,
Speaker 1: ninety minutes a day, without fail, for eighteen months. At
Speaker 1: the end of that time, I had not lost one
Speaker 1: pound and I had not lost an inch on my waist,
Speaker 1: and I thought, maybe I'm eating too much lettuce. It's
Speaker 1: all that's left. So the exercise didn't work, and I
Speaker 1: just got really frustrated. So I said, I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: the crazy stuff. One of the things I did that
Speaker 1: comes to mind, I had the worst digestive problems. You
Speaker 1: didn't want to be in a room with me after
Speaker 1: I ate. So I bought this pill from Russia. It
Speaker 1: was an electrical stimulator pill and you swallow it and
Speaker 1: it shocks your intestines as it goes through you seconds
Speaker 1: to muscle stronger. Well, it got stuck right here on
Speaker 1: my leg, and so for about two hours I was
Speaker 1: kicking like like what do I do? I'm just going
Speaker 1: on a trampoline and all. And I do not recommend
Speaker 1: this as a biohacking. That was a pretty crazy one.
Speaker 3: One of the things though, that I that I often
Speaker 3: think about is that there's a certain privilege if you will,
Speaker 3: to longevity or health. What advice would you give a
Speaker 3: single parent with four children that she wants to be
Speaker 3: as healthy as she can be, and she wants her
Speaker 3: children healthy. But we all know it's much more expensive
Speaker 3: to eat at I'm not going to say the name
Speaker 3: of places, you know, versus getting a value mil at
Speaker 3: x place. So what are things that she can incorporate
Speaker 3: for the health of her herself and her children.
Speaker 1: The good news is that the most powerful bioacks are free.
Speaker 1: In biohacking, the definition and I thought really hard about this.
Speaker 1: It's the art and science of changing the environment around
Speaker 1: you and inside you so you have control. So first,
Speaker 1: what are the goals if you're a mom with four kids.
Speaker 1: I have two kids, and I know the goals always.
Speaker 1: I just want to have enough energy, right and I
Speaker 1: got to make sure I put food on the table
Speaker 1: and all these things. So you look at it from
Speaker 1: that lens, and whether you gain or lose ten pounds
Speaker 1: probably isn't your biggest goal. Of course, we all want
Speaker 1: to lose the weight, but that's not most important. It's like,
Speaker 1: can I show up right now the way my family
Speaker 1: needs me? So what are the affordable or free things?
Speaker 1: One of them is sunlight. Go outside without glasses on
Speaker 1: for twenty minutes in the morning and it actually charges
Speaker 1: your mitochondria and it sets you up to get better
Speaker 1: sleep at night. Number two, turn off the lights at night,
Speaker 1: get some dimmer switches, so sunlight in the morning and
Speaker 1: darkness in the evening, and eating dinner a little bit earlier,
Speaker 1: even if it's not the best dinner. And then you
Speaker 1: look at Okay, what are the food choices I can
Speaker 1: make for the same amount of money that are better choices?
Speaker 1: And as an example, if you learn how to cook.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be fancy French cooking. White rice
Speaker 1: is really cheap and it's better for you than French fries.
Speaker 1: Butter is not more expensive than many other foods on
Speaker 1: a per calorie basis. It's cheaper than vegetables. So now
Speaker 1: you're getting good fats instead of some canola oil. So
Speaker 1: you didn't spend any more money, but you're more nourished,
Speaker 1: and your kids are not having these blood sugar swings
Speaker 1: that makes them into little monsters, right, And they say,
Speaker 1: how do I get more protein? And I used to
Speaker 1: say eggs, but man, they've gone expensive lately. And if
Speaker 1: you go to a place like a Costco where you
Speaker 1: get a big old hunk of meat, it still can
Speaker 1: be two dollars a pound, And you say, but that's
Speaker 1: a lot of work to cook it. It's not boil
Speaker 1: some water, throw the rice in there, chop up the meat,
Speaker 1: throw the meat in there, and add some spices. It's
Speaker 1: called soup and it's highly nutritious. And you can do
Speaker 1: that for less than you'll spend at Mickeydea's.
Speaker 5: You're listening to my legacy. We'll return in just a
Speaker 5: moment with more stories. And more wisdom. M M.
Speaker 4: Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 5: I love the friendship the two of you have created.
Speaker 5: And damon, what's one thing that Dave has brought into
Speaker 5: your life that's helped with your own health and well being?
Speaker 2: Well? Dave and I were on a board of a
Speaker 2: company that was now we talk about you know, things
Speaker 2: that could be affordable, you know, a company with about
Speaker 2: dental stuff, and and and and I remember I think
Speaker 2: I was gonna call with him or somebody in there
Speaker 2: where they were like, you know, you just got to
Speaker 2: flush your teeth or get dental cleaning because you don't
Speaker 2: realize that plaque goes into your system and that can
Speaker 2: help cause strokes. Very simple for interesting concept. Right then
Speaker 2: they started hearing about this stuff about probiotics and providicts
Speaker 2: your gut. Well, then I heard, well you also, you know,
Speaker 2: no matter how good your gut is, if you're drinking
Speaker 2: tap water of various other waters with chlorine in it,
Speaker 2: it kills your guts so you can't digest. The saying, well,
Speaker 2: is that expensive. No, there's a bunch of springs where
Speaker 2: you can go with big bottles and put it und there.
Speaker 2: And I started hearing things that were very very like, uh,
Speaker 2: you can, you can start down the path and see
Speaker 2: if it's for you. And I think I reached out
Speaker 2: to Day and said, hey, uh, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: think i'll ask some something going to this conference, and
Speaker 2: he was of such service because he just wants to
Speaker 2: share the information. And then we started getting to know
Speaker 2: each other besides sitting across from Zoom on those board seats.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure it's impacted too if you have your
Speaker 3: daughter and so.
Speaker 4: To get this impact.
Speaker 2: My wife has always been in that world. But I
Speaker 2: just try not to listen to her. I have to
Speaker 2: listen to about everything else around the house. At least
Speaker 2: I would go, this is my body. But then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden I had to go listen to her too,
Speaker 2: because she was right.
Speaker 1: I little thought on that too about our friendship. A
Speaker 1: mutual friend of ours talks about categories of people.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, I read about this.
Speaker 1: In my new book Heavily Meditated and Doctor B And
Speaker 1: category one people are people who are always win win
Speaker 1: like they're always helping and they're not going to do
Speaker 1: a deal where the other person loses. They might you
Speaker 1: might win different amounts, but and the more consistent you
Speaker 1: already call that a category one, and Damon is a
Speaker 1: category one person's every everything I see you just you
Speaker 1: talk about the security everyone.
Speaker 6: Do I help? How do I help?
Speaker 1: I respect that so much and I want to surround
Speaker 1: myself with category ones.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: We share that friend in common.
Speaker 6: So Damon, certainly, financial literacy is an area where you
Speaker 6: have a great deal of knowledge when we think about
Speaker 6: our children, and you also are involved in helping maybe
Speaker 6: the world become financial literate. What is the What are
Speaker 6: some of the things that you would recommend that be
Speaker 6: done for children to expose them to more financial literacy.
Speaker 6: I'm aware of most or many communities of color are
Speaker 6: not focusing. There are some, but we got a long
Speaker 6: way to go. But what do you suggest as some
Speaker 6: techniques that can be used.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's a setup. I wrote a
Speaker 2: book called Little Damon Learns to Earn became a New
Speaker 2: York Times bestseller. It's the only book that teaches financial
Speaker 2: intelligence for children. The reason I had created it is
Speaker 2: not only just about community of color. Absolutely, community of colors.
Speaker 2: How the gap is widened because we don't come from
Speaker 2: legacy wealth, so we don't have anybody to share with us.
Speaker 2: You know historically how to operate money and use money.
Speaker 2: But it's America period. We're going off of an eighty
Speaker 2: year old school system where we were at war and
Speaker 2: we were teaching our children to build ships and to
Speaker 2: be great workers for organizations and corporations, and we haven't
Speaker 2: changed that. And so financial intelligence. When I advise a
Speaker 2: lot of the teachers, they don't have financial intelligence. They
Speaker 2: are absolutely amazing in science and history, and they're saying,
Speaker 2: we don't know what to do. So I created a
Speaker 2: little damion learns to earn for that purpose, because the
Speaker 2: reality is a lot of stuff we're talking about here
Speaker 2: comes from the lack of financial intelligence. You see, if
Speaker 2: you don't get this and learn what interest is and
Speaker 2: various other things and credit and all those things at six, seven, eight, nine,
Speaker 2: ten years old, well then at fifteen, sixteen years old
Speaker 2: you get marketed by predatory loan people who want to
Speaker 2: sell you a seven hundred thousand dollars school. You know,
Speaker 2: education for a career. You're not even sure you want
Speaker 2: to have. Fifty percent of the kids graduating today will
Speaker 2: retire with a job title that doesn't exist today. It's
Speaker 2: like telling somebody twenty years ago you're going to be
Speaker 2: a gamer, a social media expert, a pay per click
Speaker 2: expert of AI. So now, all of a sudden, if you,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden get out of school, you have
Speaker 2: five six, seven hundred thousand dollars worth a student debt. Well,
Speaker 2: it's expensive to eat healthy. So now you start eating
Speaker 2: the cheapest things in this country. What are they made
Speaker 2: out of? The cheapest thing in this country are made
Speaker 2: out of butter, sugar, and salt. Right, so you consume
Speaker 2: more bad things. So understanding financial intelligence at a young
Speaker 2: age is extremely important. You know, I knew it. My
Speaker 2: mother was cruel. She made She did so many tricks
Speaker 2: on me. She would sit there and do big puzzles
Speaker 2: with me, thousand piece puzzles, and I would say, I said,
Speaker 2: I said, about ten years ago, Mom, let's do a puzzle.
Speaker 2: She said, why do I want to do a puzzle?
Speaker 2: I said, we used to want to do one, you
Speaker 2: know when we came She's like, I hated puzzles. I said,
Speaker 2: what do you mean you hated puzzles? Yeah, but damon,
Speaker 2: if you were sitting there for three hours, you let
Speaker 2: down your guard. And I would and she would say
Speaker 2: you I would go, oh, where's Alfa that he's not
Speaker 2: in school anymore? Albert brought a new car, Alfred brought
Speaker 2: a new car.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: And so she would pull information out of me. When
Speaker 2: she had to go to work. She said, damn, I
Speaker 2: gotta cook food for three days because I'm gonna go
Speaker 2: to all these jobs. Do me a favor. Stand on
Speaker 2: this little cabinet, right on this little thing here while
Speaker 2: I wash the dishes and cook and read me the
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal. I don't have time to read it,
Speaker 2: and she would have me do. She was a cruel woman.
Speaker 4: But I learned.
Speaker 2: Financial intelligence, you know, through those things. When she said
Speaker 2: the neighbor the meet, Now, neighborhood is always going to
Speaker 2: be the worst meat ever. Just drive to that neighborhood
Speaker 2: over there, and you're gonna get better meat, did a
Speaker 2: better quality for a lower price. These are the things
Speaker 2: that you dought me.
Speaker 3: And now, Dave, i'd know that you have faced some
Speaker 3: controversy and criticism, right particularly like during the pandemic and
Speaker 3: stance on vaccines and with the when we were talking
Speaker 3: earlier about the privilege of health, and you gave some
Speaker 3: very tangible ways in which we.
Speaker 4: All can have access to it.
Speaker 3: How do you kind of reconcile the vulnerable communities, particularly
Speaker 3: black and brown communities.
Speaker 1: Well, I did not have the privilege of health as
Speaker 1: a kid. I was antibiotics every month for fifteen years.
Speaker 1: I was pretty sick and so when I regained my health,
Speaker 1: this is powerful and the whole idea of bioarching. We
Speaker 1: change our environments so we become healthier. It's not about
Speaker 1: going out and spending a bunch of money. It's about
Speaker 1: just no one give us the manual for the body,
Speaker 1: and if you just know what to do, you can
Speaker 1: have leverage. One thing, I've done a couple of shows
Speaker 1: on this, so I've mentioned on shows that just it
Speaker 1: just makes me angry. So vitamin D is a longevity
Speaker 1: sep one. It's five dollars a month. It's a very
Speaker 1: very cheap drug.
Speaker 4: They're very critical, particularly for black children. Well there you
Speaker 4: go more deficient traditionally, not just.
Speaker 1: For black children, for black parents. Yeah, these good parents
Speaker 1: take their kids to the hospital because they're crying. And
Speaker 1: then hospital says, well there's five broken bones. Which of
Speaker 1: you beat the child? And then because this our child,
Speaker 1: we love our child, we didn't beat him. And they say,
Speaker 1: well you're gonna We're gonna take the child to CPS
Speaker 1: unless one of you confesses. So then the guys confess
Speaker 1: and they go to jail. And doctor Cannell from the
Speaker 1: Vitamin D Research Institute has testified dozens of times to
Speaker 1: help get black men out of jail for a nutrient
Speaker 1: deficiency that has nothing to do with abuse. And the
Speaker 1: more we're indoors, the less sunshine we get. I have
Speaker 1: very pale skin. I don't get enough sunshine. If my
Speaker 1: skin was darker, I would need it even a bigger dose. Right,
Speaker 1: So teach that this very cheap supplement makes for better brains,
Speaker 1: less risk of diabetes, cancer, all the bad stuff, and
Speaker 1: that the darker your skin and the more north you live,
Speaker 1: and the more your endoors, the more you need. This
Speaker 1: is cheaper than one meal at McDonald's. And just the
Speaker 1: knowledge is so critical? Is it just tell me what
Speaker 1: to do with very little money or no money to
Speaker 1: get results.
Speaker 4: You should have DMK together, correct, You should have d.
Speaker 1: Have to have vitamin K because vitamin K stops the
Speaker 1: tissues from getting all crusty as the age.
Speaker 4: Okay, so damon.
Speaker 3: You created Black Entrepreneurs Day to support up and coming
Speaker 3: founders who was one of your biggest mentors, And what
Speaker 3: was the best piece of advice they gave you for
Speaker 3: business and for life.
Speaker 2: You know it'll be hard, but you know, I think
Speaker 2: that a person named Jay Abraham great mentor, and Dave
Speaker 2: knows them. I think that he had said to me
Speaker 2: one day, and I talked about it several times. He say,
Speaker 2: you never arrive. You know, every problem that you solve,
Speaker 2: you create another problem. And that became very powerful. You know,
Speaker 2: if I become an empty ness, you know I've solved
Speaker 2: the problem. Right, hopefully my daughter is off living a
Speaker 2: beautiful life. Well, now I have to rekindle that relationship
Speaker 2: with my wife. All right, Once I saw that problem,
Speaker 2: well how do I rekindle it? Where do we go
Speaker 2: and what do we start to do? Now I saw
Speaker 2: that problem, how do we do that more? You know?
Speaker 2: So you know when you understand that. So, whether I
Speaker 2: solve the problem of losing weight or just having more energy,
Speaker 2: how do I either lose more or gain more muscle?
Speaker 2: Maybe visually I'm losing weight from the outside, but how
Speaker 2: do I kill visceral fat on the inside? You know?
Speaker 2: So it and when you when you go to even
Speaker 2: in love, right, if you fall in love, how can
Speaker 2: you be of more value to your spouse, your children,
Speaker 2: your family, or your God. So I think that that
Speaker 2: was probably the best vice ever because you know, growing
Speaker 2: up you think, I mean mine, I'm letta be rich,
Speaker 2: I'm done. You know, I get a college degree, I'm
Speaker 2: guaranteed a job, I get married, It's guaranteed to be
Speaker 2: happily every after No, you have to work at it.
Speaker 2: You have to work at every single thing. And if
Speaker 2: you when you stop working, well, what's the what's the
Speaker 2: reason to live at the end of the day. And
Speaker 2: then that's what drives me that that that one statement.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I hold on to is
Speaker 3: that life is about continual expansion and fuller expression. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, that's kind of That's what we're here to do,
Speaker 3: to continue to expand and express ourselves more and more fully.
Speaker 5: To both of you, it's been fantastic hearing the conversation,
Speaker 5: the friendship that you have for each other, the mutual
Speaker 5: admiration as you talk about health and well being and
Speaker 5: innovation and getting an MBA sitt next to you. I
Speaker 5: love it. We always invite our listeners and viewers to
Speaker 5: take this wisdom on how they can live a life
Speaker 5: of fulfillment and impact. I just want to underscore a
Speaker 5: few of the things you said. One it's it's not
Speaker 5: actual anything you said, but just together as friends. I
Speaker 5: love that you are both titans in your own area
Speaker 5: and you create this friendship to learn from each other.
Speaker 5: It's actually remarkable and as a guy, frankly, there aren't
Speaker 5: those friendships that you see in that way, and especially
Speaker 5: leaders admire it. Number Two, how health is accessible to
Speaker 5: us sunlight, you know, the food, we the sleep. It's
Speaker 5: not only the elaborate things, but it's the simple things
Speaker 5: that have such an impact. And so how our listeners
Speaker 5: can share that wisdom in their life. And number three
Speaker 5: fail fail every day. Be proud of the failures. Both
Speaker 5: of you wouldn't be where you are without those failures,
Speaker 5: and asking your kids how do they fail today and
Speaker 5: therefore what are they learning today? Love it and so
Speaker 5: we are deeply grateful to both of you for joining
Speaker 5: us at the Lake Nona Impact Forum on the KPMG
Speaker 5: Lake House Campus, Orlando, in the Lake Nona community. And
Speaker 5: we're especially grateful to both of you for living your
Speaker 5: legacies every day.
Speaker 3: And Greg, one thing too that I want to add
Speaker 3: is that it's interesting we have a plus one. You know,
Speaker 3: we have all of these wonderful conversations that we're having
Speaker 3: and they're taking so many different forms.
Speaker 4: And I like you.
Speaker 3: I love when you have two men, because we don't
Speaker 3: see that quite enough, I think. But this also not
Speaker 3: that either one of you lead with this, but I
Speaker 3: think is important, particularly in this day and age, to
Speaker 3: elevate it. This is our first conversation with a black
Speaker 3: man and a white man, and I want to highlight
Speaker 3: that particularly, And you know, it's sad that we're at
Speaker 3: a time that we still have to highlight it, but
Speaker 3: I think it is important to highlight that as well.
Speaker 6: Thank you all so very much.
Speaker 4: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3: If you enjoyed today's conversation, subscribe, share, and follow us
Speaker 3: at my Legacy Movement on social media. New episodes drop
Speaker 3: every Tuesday. At its core, this podcast honors doctor King's
Speaker 3: vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.
Speaker 3: A Legacy Plus Studio production, distribute it by iHeartMedia creator
Speaker 3: and executive producer Suzanne Haywood co executive producer Lisa Lyle.
Speaker 3: Listen on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your
Speaker 3: podcasts Until next time, May you find inspiration to live
Speaker 3: your legacy