Dave Asprey transformed his life from a Silicon Valley geek with multiple chronic disease to the the most acclaimed biohacker. During this process he created Bulletproof Radio podcast where he interviews the top performers and explores the latest science of longevity. In this book he shares all this experiences and knowledge he has gained in the form of 46 laws.
I’ve made a note of key insights form each chapter along with his recommended listening (episodes from bulletproof radio), recommended reading (books/blogs) and action items mentioned at the end of each chapter.
Part 1 – SMARTER
Focussing on your weakness will make you weaker
? Remove the things that are making you weak and add more of the things that will make you strong.
Law 1 – use the power of no
? Master the art of doing what matters the most to you- the things that create energy, passion, and quality of life with the lowest investment of energy
? Say “NO” more often.
? Think about 20 years from now, what will a day in your life be like in 2039? Whom will you be with?What will you be doing?What impact will you be having?
? And then determine who matters the most to you? What do those people want from me? What do i want from them?
? Decision fatigue – exercise your willpower muscle by doing things you don’t want to do
? Eliminate meal and wardrobe decisions – capsule wardrobe and capsule meals
? Action items
• Take a deep breath and hold it until you’re sure you have to breathe.
• Take note – mentally or on paper – every time you make a decision for a week and ask yourself two questions – did this decision matter? Was there a way to avoid making this decision by ignoring it, automating it or asking someone else who loves making that kind of decision to make it instead?
• My useless decision 1 – choosing what clothes to wear
• My useless decision 2 – planning about gym and where to eat
? Recommended listening – BR – episode 83, 196, 213 and 296
? Recommended reading – https://g.co/kgs/bVLVjy
Law 2 – Never discover who you are
? Do not passively discover who you are, actively decide and create who you are
? Self oppression (tendency to put ourselves down) and Social oppression (people judge us and fail to be supportive) are the two enemies which will not allow us to seek personal freedoms, which is the ability to fully express who we are and pursue the things that are meaningful and important to us.
? These two barriers can be overcome by developing competence-cofidecne loop. – the more you understand something, the more confidence you have to pursue it further, despite what anyone else may say.
? Three words that describe my highest and best self – passionate, grateful, engaged
? Percentage of time spent on things that drain me : percentage of time spent on things I don’t mind : thing that Give me joy, including my primal inclination :: 0 : 10 : 90
? Recommended listening – Bulletproof episode 190, 262, 380, 485
Law 3 – When you say you’ll try, you are lying.
? Stop trying and start doing.
? Clear speech means clear thinking and clear execution
? Weasel word 1 – Can’t
? Weasel word 2 – Need
• Use need only when its 100 percent truthful,
• You want. You choose. You decide.
? Weasel word 3 – Bad
? Weasel word 4 – Try
? Recommended listening – BR episode – 386, 471
• Getting into the habit of getting smarter
Law 4 – even your false beliefs are true
? We hold on to limiting beliefs without even realising it, they seem so real to us that we don’t always realise they even exist
? Action items
• Meditate on things you believe to be true about yourself and the world around you. Do it either in the morning or at night.
• Journal about the things you believe to be true for a half hour once a week
• Schedule a recurring monthly or weekly appointment with a. Coach or a therapist who can point out when you believe your own story.
• For one week, as you meditate or when’s you wake up experiment with repeating and focusing on thesis phrase and actually summoning the feeling of gratitude: “I’m grateful that there is a conspiracy to make things happen the way they’re supposed to . The universe has my back.”
• Build the habit of listening.
? Recommended listening – BR episode 309, 261, 455
Law 5 – A high IQ doesn’t make you intelligent, but learning does
? Speed reading
• F – forget – temporarily forget what you already know about the subject, forget about limitations, forget everything else that’s going on around you
• A – Active – taking notes actively and sharing what you learn.
• S – State – it is the current condition or mood of your brain and your body.
• T – Teach – ask yourself “how would i teach this to someone else?”
? Action items
• Jim Kwik’s course and podcast
• Teach summary to a someone
• Dual N-Back training – for 40 days, at least 5 days a week when you’re not tired, do not subvocalize, push yourself.
? Recommended listening – BR episode – 189, 267, 104
Law 6 – remember images not words
? Action items
• Next time you listen to a podcast or a audiobook, close your eyes and see if you can imagine the pictures that the speaker is trying to draw in your head.
• Mind mapping – draw notes on paper using very few words
• Recommended listening – BR episode – 140, 189, 267.
• Get outside your head so you can see inside it.
LAw 7 – Smart drugs are here to stay
? LSD
? Ibogaine
? Racetam – piracetam, aniracetam, phenylpiracetam
? Modafinil
? Nicotine
? Caffeine
Law 8 – get out of your head
? Recommended listening – BR – 79, 329, 200, 143
? Recommended reading –
• One spirit medicine – ancient ways to ultimate wellness, ALberto Villoldo
• The invisible landscape : Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching : Terence McKenna and Dennis McKenna
The Breath is the worlds most powerful drug
? Holotropic breathing, Ujjain breath, AOL course
? Listening – BR – 428, 434, 162
? Reading – LSD psychotherapy, Stanislav Grof; Holotropic Breathwork, Stanislav Grof; Power up your brain: the neuroscience of enlightenment, David Perlmutter and Alberto Villoldo
• Disrupt Fear
Law 10 – Fear is the mind killer
• Learn to face your irrational fear of criticism and failure and do big things anyway.
• Three pillars of fear
? TIme – When you move away from being present, you allow fear to come in.
? Attachments – it’s the nature of attachments, that can become problematic
? Rigid attachments – like a steel beam that connects you to the object of your attachment
? Gravitational attachments – it is more flexible, nothing is holding you in place other than your own gravity and the gravity of the object of your attachment. You rotate around each other without any stress on the system. As dynamics change you can gradually gravitate towards or away from each other.
? Expectations – being attached to specific outcomes – wanting to see a certain result of your efforts.
? Shift your expectations to preferences.
? Celebrate failure – if you are willing to try something audacious enough that it fails, celebrate that.
• Action items
? Remember that fear requires time, attachments, and expectations.
? Work to stay in the moment by eliminating distractions.
? Rephrase expectations to become preference.
? Get rejected on purpose
• Recommended listening – BR – 303, 336, 237
• Reading –
? The biology of belief: Unleashing the power of consciousness, matter and miracles. BRuce H Lipton
? Rejection proof: How i beat fear and became invisible through 100 days of rejection.
Law 11 – Average is the enemy.
• Ban Useless critics on social media
• Say a silent “thank-you” because they are talking about your work.
• Engage with useful critics both online and offline who genuinely question your work and thank them too.
• If criticism gets to you, use emotional stack. Criticism always touches on either shame or pride, which hides fear, which hides happiness.
• Recommended listening – BR – 227, 444, 304
• Recommended reading
? Change your brain, change your life -n Daniel G Amen
? The fourth phase of water : beyond solid, liquid and vapour -n Gerald H Pollack
Law 12 – Don’t lead a horse to water; make it thirsty
• Dream big that the people around you think you’re crazy. And then, when people start to tell you that you’re Crazy, take it to mean that you’re still not thinking big enough.
• You fail only when you give up. Everything else is just a pivot
• 4 human attributes that make up a caring mind-set – straightforward, thoughtful, accountable, and results driven.
• Do not wait for leaders, do it alone.
• Action items
? Find a problem that you are obsessed with and devote as much time and energy as possible to pursuing it because it will make you happy.
? Develop a caring mid-set – straightforward, thoughtful, accountable, and results driven
• Recommended listening – BR – 452, 319
• Recommended reading – The difference: when good enough isn’t enough, Subir Chowdhury.
? Even Batman has a Bat cave
Law 13 – don’t push your limits for too long.
• 5 stages of development according to Chinese Zen philosophy
? Buddha awakening – when someone has his or her first glimpse of something bigger.
? Great Doubt – even when someone is doing everything he or she is supposed to be doing, he or she is still not completely happy
? Individual becomes the absolute reality – no relative existence, no fear, no suffering, no self and no other. But ego is always present.
? The Fall – let go of being enlightened and begin the process of integrating the fears and shadows and angers.
? Complete descent – everything is shattered – light and dark are fully integrated into the self and you are able to fluctuate back and forth between the two.
• It is important to prioritise self care even when caring for others in your spiritual or professional practice
• Dr Shojai’s advise
? Once you have figured out the things that are most important to you, write down your thirty-, sixty-, and ninety day goals and then weigh all requests for your time against those goals.
? If an opportunity comes up that is not in service of your goals, you owe it to yourself to say no because saying yes to something new typically necessitates saying no to something you’ve already agreed to.
? Promodoro technique
• Action items
? Think about the things you are doing on a regular basis that makes your body think it is under threat. Stop doing them
? Write down the top three things that suck the most energy from your life.
? Write down the top three things that give the most energy to your life.
? Refer book
• Recommended listening
? Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and root cause – 256
? Bigger, stronger and faster – 432
? Learn how to meditate from a zen Buddhist priest – 425
? The urban monk – 283
• Recommended reading
? Hashimoto’s protocol, by Isabella Wentz.
? Spitting out the bones: a zen master’s 45 year journey, by Dennis Genpo Mersel
? The Art of Stopping time, Pedram Shojai
Law 14 : Miracles are possible only in the morning.
• 5 minute rule – its ok to be negative once in a while, but not more than 5 minutes.
• Morning routine – SAVERS – silence, affirmations, visualisations, exercise, reading, and scribing.
• Action items
? Begin a daily practice of doing something meaningful right after you wake up.
? Put your phone into airplane mode before you go to bed, and keep it on airplane mode until you’re done with your morning routine.
? When you feel an urge to vent, complain, or think negative thoughts, seek forgiveness right away. If you don’t find it, set a timer for 5 minutes and let loose. When the time is up, go back to being productive
• Recommended listening
? Be happier, healthier and more productive – 176
• Recommended reading –
? The miracle morning: the not so obvious secret guaranteed to transform your life (before 8AM), Hal Elrod
PART II – FASTER
• Sex is an altered state
Law 15 : Stop thinking with what’s in your pants
? Sublimation – the act of consciously transforming sexual or any other urge into creativity or physical action.
? Sex once every 7 days to optimise both men’s and women’s hormone levels.
? Ideal number of days between ejaculation = (your age-7)/4
? Prolactin – decreases testosterone
? Action items
• For women – sex during love window
• For man – char your sexual activity along with the overall life satisfaction to see how your orgasms affect your energy, happiness and productivity
• Boost your testosterone level by – less frequent orgasms, doing high intensity exercises, reducing sugar intake, increasing your intake of healthy fats and retreating form your partner when necessary
? Recommended listening
• Addiction, sexuality and ADD – 222
• Beyond mars and Venus: tips that truly bring men and women together, john gray b- 414
• Sex, sex culture and sex at dawn – 52
• Relationship hacks for dealing with conflicts, monogamy, sex and communication with opposite sex
? Recommended reading
• Beyond mars and Venus: relationship skills for today’s complex world, John Gray
• Sex at dawn: how we mate, why we stray and what it means for Morden relationships, Christopher Ryan
Law 16: Never underestimate the Power of a female orgasm
? Kegel exercises : for men – better ejaculatory control and stronger orgasms and for women – stronger orgasms, urinary continence and greater sexual desire
? Orgasms decreases cortisol (better immunity and lesser inflammation)
? Frequent orgasms – increase estrogen and oxytocin
? Postorgasm – increases in serotonin
? Action items
• Kegel exercises – to boost libido
• Orgasms are the key to a healthier and longer life.
? Recommended listening
• Orgasms, kegel and sexology, Emily Morse – 233
• Hack your way to a better sex life, Emily Morse – 373
• On women’s health, post-birth control syndrome, and brain injuries – 415
• Hugs from Dr Love – 334
Law 17 : Go off script during fairy tale sex
? If you are focused on a goal, you remain in an analytical state, which blocks emotion and empathy. When you shut off your analytic Maine and tap into your intuition, you feel more empathy, joy, creativity, and calm and sense of oneness with those around you.
? Sex can unleash flow states, creativity, and even spiritual states.
? Action items
• Try Orgasmic meditation, BDSM – to see if it helps access a flow state.
• Ask yourself what you really want in the bedroom and ask your partner for it, even if its scary.
• Think about how your can stop making sex routines and introduce an element of unknown to your lovemaking.
? Recommended listening
• 50 shades of Dave, Mistress Natalie – 341
• One toast, orgasmic meditation and flow state, Eli Block – 254
• Sex, Power and Domination, Geoffrey Miller – 138
Law 18 : Use Sex to get the best drug
? Having conscious sex with the right people creates Neuro chemicals that set you free and create a state of flow. Viewing pornography creates Neuro chemicals that make you an addict and block the flow state. Porn is the high-fructose corn syrup of sex.
? when the limbic system of brain (emotional house) is overactive (stress can make it overactive), you are more likely to make dopamine-driven decisions.
? Action items
• Try quitting porn for a month, if its difficult to do, quite it for another moth.
• Prioritise calming your limbic system through regular meditation, orgasmic meditation, or regular orgasms with a partner
? Recommended listening
• Make bad decision? Blame dopamine – 362
• Orgasmic meditation and sex life hacking – 60
• Sleep, sex and tech – 327
• Find your night time spirit animal
? Study – participants who slept 6.5 hours per night lived longer than those who slept 8 hours a night. Sleep quality drives happiness and happiness drives success
Law 19: waking up daily does not make you a good person.
? Internal clock – suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) – determines when we’re sleepy and when we’re awake by releasing melatonin at particular times of the day.
? mPer3 gene determines your sleep drive, and the SCN sets your circadian rhythm
? 4 Chronotypes
• Bear – follow the sun, no difficulty in sleeping (50%)
• Lions – early birds, go-getters (15%)
• Wolf – nocturnal end of the spectrum; two peak periods – from noon to two in the afternoon and then again later at night. Creaters, writers, artists, and coders. Crave their alone time (15%)
• Dolphin – insomnia patients, may or may not have regular sleep routine; type A; often don’t get as much done as they want to during the day. Light sleepers
? Determining your chronotype – simply taking a week off from work and going to sleep and waking up whenever you feel like it.
? When’s the sensors in your eyes are exposed to full spectrum light, they send signals that prime your body to wake up, and when it is dark they signal your body that its time to sleep
? Action items
• Consider Red light LED therapy such as Joovv before bed and in the morning
• Consider using Truedark glasses or light therapy devices that go beyond red
• Do everything you can to shift your daily schedule so you are stacking the deck in your favour and doing things when you re biologically primed to do
• Make sure you get adequate sun-light during the day, and block all artificial light at night to start experience in dramatically better quality, more efficient sleep
• Don’t eat after dark
? Recommended Listening
• Lions, Dolphins and bears, Oh my! – 344
• Hack your sleep – 340
• Owning your testosterone – 340
• Light, dark and your belly – 466 and 477
? Recommended reading
? The power of when: discover your chronotype- and the best time to eat lunch, ask for a raise, have sex, write a novel, take your meds, and more, Michael Breus
? The circadian code: Lose weight, supercharge your energy, and transform your health from morning to midnight
Law 20: High-Quality sleep is better than more sleep
? Action items
• Start tracking your sleep to find out if you’re waking p at night without realising it.
• Adjust the inclination of your bed os that your head is elevated 10-30 degrees
• Get an awesome mattress (without flame retardants or formaldehyde)
• Try sleeping on thin, hard foam pad for a month (high quality neoprene in 80/48 inch sheets)
• Experiment with a bite guard that helps position you jaw properly
• Try night shift if you believe you are suffering form sleep apnea
• Stop sleeping on your back
? Recommended listening
• Sleep for performance – 129
• A live look at bite realignment and how TMJ impedes performance – 182
Law 21: go to sleep before your wake up call
? Action items
• For one week, force yourself to go to sleep an hour earlier than normal and see how much better you feel the next day
• Go through your calendar and cancel meeting and events that are not critical to your mission and at which your attendace isn’t mandatory
• Replace those appointments with personal time to recharge, recover and refuel
? Recommended listening
• Arianna Huffington is thriving – 133
• Preventing burnout and recharching your batteries – 384
? Recommended reading
• Thrive: the third metric to redefining success and creating a life of well-being, wisdom and wonder
• Throw a rock at the rabbit, don’t chase it
Law 22: Don’t run until you can walk
? You need to master movement practise before you can begin an exercise practise
? Action items
• Work with a functional movement coach to undo incorrect movement patterns. Functional movement systems (www.functionalmovement.com) is a good place to start
• Get an adjustable standing desk so that you can both sit and stand every day
• Try the egoscue method of exercise (www.egoscue.com) to improve your posture, minimise pain and enhance your performance
? Recommended listening
• Bulletproof your mobility and performance – 43
• Systems thinking movement, and running – 156
• Primal movements – 93
• Body by science -364
• Mastering posture, pain and performance in 4minutes a day with egoscue – 429
• Listen to the force: upgrade your life – 462
? Recommended reading
• Becoming a supple leopard: the ultimate guide to resolving pain, preventing injury, and optimising athletic performance, Kelly Starrett
• Body by science: a research based program for strength training, body building and complete fitness in 12 minutes a week
Law 23: strong muscles make you smarter and younger
? Aerobic training raises the cortisol (stress hormone) levels, which causes inflammation and accelarates aging. A high cortisol level elevates the amount of oxidative substance in the body.
? This oxidative substance increases inflammation in the brain, heart, gastrointestinal tract, and other organs. Strength training triggers the release of anabolic hormones that help counter oxidative stress and build muscle, bone and connective tissue, which also lets you do more cardio without damage. Cognition is bootstrapped onto the nervous system. If you want to upregulate cognition, you have to upregulate movement.
? Action items
• Take a lesson from the leaves: if you are still too much, sit too much and don’t move, you will wither and die. But if you move naturally and freely, you will flourish
• Lift heavy things once a week.
• Stretch twice a week
• Sprint once a week
• Walk or do slow cardio for twenty to sixty mins three to six times a week.
? Recommended listening
• Aerobic exercise may be destroying your body, weightlifting can save it. – 378
• Get primal on your cardio – 314
• How to avoid and fix the damaging effects of diet-induced inflammation – 397
? Recommended reading
• The primal blueprint : reprogram your genes for effortless weight loss, vibrant health and boundless energy
Law 24: flexible people kick more ass
? A key ingredient of high performance is resilience, and aligning the mind and body through stretching, yoga, or another type of movement is a powerful way of developing that
? Action items
• Try a few types of yoga to see what works and what teachers resonate with you – ashtanga, vinyasa or “flow” yoga, and Iyengar are the common forms.
? Recommended listening
• Becoming a bullet proof warrior – 38
• Downward dog like a real life warrior one – 319
? Recommended reading
• Kokoro yoga: maximise your human potential and develop the spirit of a warrior, Mark Divine with Catherine divine
• You get out what you put in
Law 25: Make sure you’re really hungry for food
? Action items
• Pay attention to what you eat or drink when you’re uncomfortable
• Try logging what you ear using an app that doesn’t track calories. Rise up + Recover
• Consider following Cynthia Pasquella-Gracia’s program on another personal development program that appeals to you.
• Think about seeing a therapist if you don’t know what you’re hungry for.
? Recommended listening
• Transformational nutrition: why food isn’t the only source of nourishment – 433
• Dinner and a side of spirituality – 328
• The psychology of eating – 114
Law 26: don’t eat like a caveman, eat like your grandma
? Ancient wisdom told your ancestors what to eat and how and when to eat it. The big food industry replaced that innate knowledge with cheap fast food. Go back to your roots, and pay careful attention to what “your people” ate generations ago. Your genetic background may in part determine the best food for you, and there are food habits that were nearly universal one hundred plus years ago. Use them
? Grandma said 4 things
• Eat small meals infrequently throughout the day. It’s healthy to go for extended periods of time without eating – this helps you burn fat and produce ketones
• Eat adequate protein – rich in Leucine. only leucine can activate a gene transcription factor, mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), which increases protein synthesis in your muscle and helps build muscle. Diary, beef, chicken, pork, fish, seafood, nuts and seeds. Too much protein is harmful.
• You cant leave the table until you ate all of your vegetables. They contain polyphenols, which create antioxidant enzymes and contain fermentable fibre which feeds the good bacteria in your gut. Good food source of polyphenol supplements – blueberries, grapes and other blue, red and orange foods and dark chocolates
• You’re not going to leave the house until you take your tablespoon of cod liver oil. Ideally ratio of omega 6 and omega 3 fatty acids is 1.5:1 or 3:1.
? Unsaturated fatty acids have extra double bonds that can react with oxygen, when they are heated they create toxic oxidation by products
? Action items
• Don’t eat vegetable oils such as soy, corn, or canola. Use saturated fat (butter, lard, ghee, coconut oil, brain octane oil, or MCT oil). Use olive oil on finished dishes not for cooking
• Adjust your diet if you get hungry within 5 hours of eating
• Order a Viome test, the best way to see what your food is doing to your gut bacteria: www.viome.com
• Consume more omega 3 and fish oils, but don’t go nuts.
• Get adequate but not excessive proteins from healthy animals or high-leucine vegetables, about 0.5 grams per pound of weight
• Eat a lot more herbs, spices, coffee, tea, chocolate and coloured veggies to get more polyphenols. Consider high quality supplementation to get even more.
? Recommended listening
• Fertility and food, flavonoids and inflammation – 300
• Vegetable oil, the silent killer – 376
• Meat is the new ketchup – 288
• Saturated fats and the soft science of fat – 149
? Recommended reading
• Mastering the zone: the next step in achieving super health and permanent fat loss, Barry Sears
• Deep Nutrition: why your genes need traditional food, Catherine Shanahan
• Eat Fat, Get Thin: Why the fat we ear is the key to sustained weight loss and vibrant health, Mark Hyman
• The big fat surprise: Why butter, meat ad cheese belong in a healthy diet, Nina Teicholz
Law 27: Feed the Little bastards in your gut
? People with higher level of cardiovascular fitness have greater diversity in gut bacteria and they had an abundance of the three types of bacteria that create butyrate
? Microbes in our gut produce nearly all of the fatty plaques in people with heart disease, it is not formed from the fat they eat.
? Glyphosate, used to treat animal grains, changes the human microbiome, affects our ability to utilise vitamin D, and alters how we digest our food.
? Polyphenols and prebiotic fibre are the food gut bacteria eat. Prebiotic fibre is found in high levels in foods such as Jerusalem artichokes, jicama, dandelion greens, onions, garlic, leek, asparagus, and radicchio. Even cooked and cooled white rice. Fermented foods – Kimchi, cultured yoghurt, sauerkraut, and kombucha.
? Action items
• Eat some fibre or resistant starch and lots of vegetables at each meal.
• Focus on whole, unprocessed, organic foods and skip meat if it is not organic and grass fed.
• Avoid antibiotics whenever possible, as well as meat and other products from animals that were fed antibiotics.
• Eat fermented foods that agree with you.
? Recommended Listening
• Autism, Alzheimer’s and the Gut Microbiome – 250
• Connecting your gut and your Brain – 359
? Recommended Reading
• Brain maker: the power of gut microbes to heal and protect our brain – for life, David Perlmutter
Law 28: if you get toxins from only nature, you can get nutrients from
? Action items
• Cover your bases by taking these supplements: vitamins D3, vitamin K2, Vitamine A, magnesium, krill oil/omega 3, copper, zinc, iodine, tyrosine, and methyl vitamin B12 with methyl folate.
• Supplements with polyphenols extracted from plants
• Consider seeing a functional medicine doctor to get your nutrient level tested.
• Look for supplement formulas designed to deliver the results you’re seeking, and try them to see if they work for you.
? Recommended listening
• The man who would stop time – 10
• The power of vitamins K2 – 106
• Gain control of your biochemistry – 132
• Age backwards by hacking your telomeres with stress – 436
? Recommended reading
• Nutrient powers: Heat your biochemistry and heat your brain, William j Walsh
• The Telomere effect: A revolutionary approach to living younger, healthier, longer – Elizabeth Blackburn.
• The future of hacking Yourself is now
? First, quantify what’s going on yin your body; second, determine what changes need to be made; third, implement those changes.
Law 29: Track it to Hack it.
? Action items
• Track your sleep using a sleep tracker such has Oura ring. DO less intense training to fasting on days when you slept like crap the night before, and go hard on the days when you’re at full power.
• If you don’t have a sleep tracker, use your onboard sensor instead. On a sheet of paper rate your sleep on a scale of 1 to 10 when you first wake up. Base the score on how good you feel, how stiff you are, how anxious you are, and how easy it was to wake up.
• Stop using toys to track the number of steps you take per day or fictional “calories burned” metrics. They distract you from the useful data you want: heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature and sleep quality. Knowing those will change your life.
• If possible, by a full panel of health metrics from your functional medicine doctor. Ask for all hormones, full thyroid, inflammation markers, and nutrient analysis plus whatever else your doctor thinks is helpful.
• Have your poop tested by Viome to see what is going to your gut.
? Recommended listening.
• How the health care system keeps you sick and what you can do to change it – 402
• Hack your chronotype to improve sleep and recovery by wearing a ring – 437
• Listen to your hut and decide your own destiny – 452
? Recommended reading
• Why health care has failed you and how you can become smarter than your doctor, William Davis
Law 30: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
• Stop doing the things that make you weak and start doing more of the things that will make you stronger.
? Action items
• Switch to high intensity interval training (sprints or heavy lifting) followed by high quality recovery sleep to see more returns on less exercise
• When your data show that you are stressed, avoid putting additional stress on you body.
• When you have exceeded your stress threshold, recover like a boss. Consider IV nutrients. Get a massage. Try Cryotherapy. Go to a sauna. Watch a movie.
? Recommended listening.
• Vitamin C is taking the fight to the Big C – 379
• Tabatas: like getting HIIT by 4×4 – 313
Law 31: Heal like Wolverine, Age like Benjamin Button
? Action items
• What are your three most significant accidents or injuries you recall now?Do you experience any lingering pain or stiffnesss or lack of mobility in any of those areas? If so, its time to get hacking until they’re back to full strength.
• If you have chronic pain in a part of the body that’s never been injured, it may be the result of an unresolved emotional trauma. Revisit the laws in the this book about healing from trauma for guidance.
? Recommended listening
• Everything there is to know about stem cells – 512
• The healing powers of stem cells. – 332
• The real deal on stem cell therapy for pain conditions – 412
• treating and curing erectile dysfunction with stem cell therapy – 407
Part III – Happier
• Being rich wont make you happy, but being happy might make you rich.
Law 32: You can put a price tag on Happiness
• Real success is the joy you derive from your life. Money can help you with that, but it is not the one and only or even the main pathway to joy.
? Action items
• If your basic needs are met, stop seeking. Money wont make you happy. what annual income do you actually need to have your needs met?
• What would you do if you made twice that amount tomorrow? (That’s a good hint about what makes you happy. Start doing more of that now?)
• If you’ve been lucky enough to secure a nest egg, protect it with your life. Get help managing it carefully, and focus on leveraging your non financial assets to achieve interest payments in joy, not dollars.
• Focus on the journey, not the destination. If you don’t enjoy yourself along the way, you wont be happy when you get there, either.
? Recommended Listening
• Learn how to meditate from a zen Buddhist priest – 425
• Biohacking secrets for success from the greatest executive coach and marketing strategist in the world – 396
• Jay Abraham’s miniseries of interviews – www.abraham.com
? Recommended Reading
• Big mind Big Heart: finding your way, Dennis Genpo Merzel
• getting everything you can out of all you’ve got: 21 ways you can out think, out-perform and out-earn the competition, Jay Abraham.
Law 33: Wealth is a symptom of Happiness.
• Happy people are engaged, productive and successful. Focus on what makes you happy today because being happy unlocks a new level of potential in everything you do.
• Happy people are more successful than people who are less happy.
• Blissipline – the discipline of bliss.
• Two kinds of goals –
? means goals(wanting to get a college degree) – they don’t really speak to your happiness because they’re all really a means to something else.
? end goals (something else) – feelings oriented (i want to travel the world)
? Things you want to experience
? Ways in which you want to grow as a human being.
? Ways in which you want to contribute to or leave your mark on the world.
? Action items
• Set new means goals by asking yourself these questions to determine your end goals
? What do it want to experience?
? How do i want to grow ?
? How do i want to contribute to the world around me?
? Recommended listening
• 10 laws and four letter words – 309
? Recommended reading
• 10 unconventional laws to redefine your life and succeed on your own terms, Vishen Lakhiani.
Law 34: the less you have, the more you gain
• When you get rid of things that don’t bring true value and make room in your life for the things that do, you become happier and more content
? Action items
• Make a commitment to getting rid of at least one item every day for the next thirty days
• When going through items, ask yourself, “Does this add value to my life?”
• Explore choiceism by eliminating items and responsibilities that constantly force you to make decisions.
? Recommended listening
• Minimalism: living a richer life with less – 372
• How giving away all his possessions and living like a nomad made millionaire James altucher happier and more successful – 405
? Recommended reading
• Mimimalism: Live a Meaningful life, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus
• The Power of No: Because one little word can bring health, abundance, and happiness, James Altucher and Claudia Azusa Altucher
• Your community is your environment
Law 35: Get high with a. Little help from your friends
? Seek out strong community that inspires you and read the benefits in all areas of your life.
? Increase in oxytocin makes people more generous and trusting and less suspicious; also makes them better able to read social cues.
? Action items
• Shake less, hug more. Physical contact stimulates oxytocin release.
• Schedule a massage to raise your oxytocin.
• Videoconference instead of calling
• Take the time to meet face to face when you can.
? Recommended listening
• Hugs from Dr Love – 334
• How out toxic environment is impacting out sexy brains and hormones – 418
? Recommended reading
• Trust factor: the science of creating high performance companies, Paul J Zak
Law 36: you are a reflection of your community
• Create a safety net of people who will be there for you when you need them long before you ever need them. Make sure they bring out the best in you and push you to think bigger and better
• You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Choose them carefully.
• Success comes more naturally after you stop thinking about what you want and start thinking about what other people need.
• Think ten times bigger about the impact you can make.
? Action items
• Set goals that reflect your desire to impact the world in a way that’s ten times greater that’s you are now.
• Ask yourself whom you want to be a hero to and what those people need. This will help you determine your moon shot – your big, bold goal.
• Actively seek out people who challenge you to think differently and bigger, and spend more time with them.
? Recommended listening
• Special podcast, live from the genius network – 306
• The space episode – 448
• What the hell is moon shot – 449
• Using humour and sarcasm to improve your life, revitalise mitochondria and defeat self sabotage – 393
? Recommended reading
• Unshekable: your financial freedom playbook, Tony Robbins
• Abundance: the future is better than you think, Peter J Diamandis and Steven Kotler.
• How to be Ultra spiritual: 12 1/2 stems to spiritual superiority, JP Sears
Law 37: No relationship is an island
• Your intimate relationships have the power to drive you to new levels of succes or failure. Fix or end a bad relationship to free up energy so you can do what matters most to you. Invest in any type of great relationship that works for you in order to unlock more power than being alone. Ignore tradition if it doesn’t serve you, but seek the support of your community. The relationship that serves you will be stronger and last longer with a community backing it.
? Action items
• Ask ourself how happy you are in your current relationship. If its making you miserable, it is hindering your performance. Either invest in fixing it or redirect your energy elsewhere
• List three couples who inspire you.
• Are you in a community that supports the type of relationshiop you have or are looking for?
? Recommended listening
• Sex, Sex culture and sex at dawn – 52
• Relationship hacks for dealing with conflicts, monogamy, sex and communication with opposite sex, Neil Strauss
• Sex, marriage, and business: relationship therapy – 456
• Beyond mars and Venus: tips that truly bring men and women together – 414
• Addiction, sexuality and ADD – 222
• Learn how to meditate from a zen Buddhist priest – 425
• Make bad Decisions? Blame dopamine – 362
? Recommended reading
• Sex at dawn: how we mate, why we stray and what it means for Morden relationships, Christopher Ryan
• The state of affairs: rethinking infidelity, Esther Perel
• Reset your programming
Law 38: Own the voice in your head
? Meditation can help you understand when the voice in your head is distracting you with lies and when its helping you. Meditate. Your happiness and performance are waiting for a huge upgrade.
? Meditation enhances working of parasympathetic nervous system, strengthens prefrontal cortex.
? Try to step back from your brain for a moment and observe your thoughts with curiosity.
? Action items
• 10% happier meditation app from Dan Harris – www.10percenthappier.com
• Energy for success meditation from Dr Barry morguelan – www.energyforsuccess.com
• For the first month, commit to doing at least five minutes of meditation everyday.
? Recommended listening
• Hacking Meditation with Holosync – 186
• Mind, Buddha, Spirit – 343
• The ancient energy discipline that stimulates healing and vitality – 413
? Recommended reading
• 10% Happier: how i tamed the voice in my head, reduced stress without losing my edge, and found self-help that actually works – a true story, Dan Harris
Law39: Hijack your body’s attention
? Train your body to stay calm during stressful situations by using your breath to your benefit.
? Wim Hof techniques
• Three elements – deep breathing, gradual exposure to cold and mind-set
• Optimises vascular system,
? Action items
• Finish your morning showers with thirty seconds of cold water
• Practise a “balancing breath” for few minutes a day
? Recommended listening
• Climb Everest in a T shirt and shorts. Survive submersion in Freezing water for hours. Wim Hof tells you how he did it – 403
• Greater sex, better sleep with Ziva meditation – 224
? Recommended reading
• The way of the iceman: how the Wim Hof method creates radiant, Longterm health, Wim Hof
• What doesn’t kill us: how freezing water, extremes altitude and environmental conditioning will renew our lost evolutionary strenght, Scott Carney
Law 40 : Hurry! Meditate Faster
? Action items
• Sign up for a meditation class
• Measure to train your heart rate variability.
• Try other meditation hacks, e.g. light sound goggles, bill Harris’s centerpointe soundtracks, truedark twilight glasses
• Consider going to www.40yearsofzen.com to get your eeg work done.
? Recommended listening
• Lyme disease, heart rate variability and skin care – 297
• Be a boss with your brain, heart and gut – 457
• Get dirty in the sun
Law 41 : Make your environment less like a Farm and more like a Zoo
? Spend more time outdoors. See trees. Smell plants. Taste real food. Sweat in the sun. Shiver when its cold. Give your nervous system a taste of the environment it evolved in so you can read the returns as your biology changes to increase your performance
? Reduce your toxic load, improve the quality of your diet, increase your exposure to fresh air, sunlight, soil, and clean water.
? Action items
• Get some indoor plants (organic). Homebiotic spray can be used
• Go for a hike in nature every time you travel
? Recommended listening
• ReWild yourself – 141’
• Eat dirt: the secret to a healthy microbiome – 458
Law 42 : Allow your body to make its own sunscreen
? Sun is a nutrient. You will perform better and live longer when real, unfiltered sunlight bathes your naked skin and enters your eyes for at least 20 minutes a day. It will improve your sleep, act as an anti-depressant and give you more energy.
? Action items
• Choose organic foods that have not been exposed to glyphosate
• Get adequate exposure to sun – 20 mins a day without sunscreen and without glasses of any type
• Consider supplementing with vitamin D, K2 and A. Wild salmon, egg yolks are good nutritional sources
• Consider light therapy if you feel even slightly less energy during the winter months.
? Recommended listening
• Glyphosate toxicity, lower cholesterol naturally and get off statins – 238
• The real dangers of electric devices and EMFs – 424
• Hacking your pH. LED lighting, and smart drugs – 94
? Recommended reading
• Lights out : sleep, sugar, and survival, T S Wiley
• Effortless healing: 9 simple ways to sidestep illness, She’d excess weight and help your body fix itself, Joseph Mercola.
Law 43: Bathe in the forest instead of the Tub
? It is not necessary or beneficial to be 100% sanitary all the time. For optimum health and happiness, get dirty, bathe in nature, and keep yourself no more than moderately clean.
? Action items
• Let your kids play in the dirt. Better yet, join them.
• Take a walk in nature once a week. Increase your return by adding community (bring friends)
• Eliminate antibacterial cleaners and bleach
• Bring potted plants (including dirt) into your home to benefit form soil bacteria
? Recommended listening
• Talking dirty about spiritual plants and microbial biodiversity – 426
• Forest bathing, repairing your vision and adaptogens – 268
• Eat Dirt: the secret to a healthy microbiome – 458
? Recommended reading
• The dirt cure: Healthy Food, Healthy Gut, Happy child, Maya Shetreat-Klein
• Use gratitude to rewire your brain
? The more you practise gratitude, the more you will default to positivity instead of negativity. Life takes less work when you practise gratitude.
Law 44: gratitude is stronger than fear
? Overcoming fear that does not serve you is necessary to access your greatness. Use gratitude to turn off fear at the cellular level. Freedom from fear leads to happiness, and happiness is what makes you perform your best at whatever you choose to do.
? Feeling gratitude impacts vagal tone.
? When you know your fear is irrational, you can use safety cues to stop panic and keep your body from going into full blown fight or flight.
• Using soothing voice
• Imagine your happy place (environment in which you’re completely at ease, content, and peaceful)
? Action items
• Stop putting yourself into a stressed state by anticipating problems before they occur (worrying). If you sense this happening, work on going to your “happy place”
• Do something kind for someone else every day to improve your vagal tone.
• Every night before bed, think of three things you are grateful for to boost your mitochondrial enzymes.
• Speak in a calming, more soothing voice when you want to turn off the fight-or flight response in yourself or others.
• Listen to night energy music when you need the energy-but if you’re already stressed, focus on music with calm voices.
? Recommended listening
• The poly vagal theory and vagal nerve – 264
• Age backwards by hacking your telomeres with stress – 436
? Recommended reading
• The pocket guide to poly vagal theory: the transformative power of feeling safe.
• The Telomere effect: a revolutionary approach to living younger, healthier, longer.
Law 45: Forgive, but don’t be sorry.
? When you forgive, you reprogram your nervous system to no longer automatically react to memories of past trauma, suffering, and perceived slights.
? To forgive, identify the false stories you tell yourself, then find a way to be grateful for even the worst things you’ve experienced. You don’t have to say you are sorry to forgive.
? Every time a business is not growing or a person is not succeeding, its not because its impossible. It’s because that person has a story about why his or her strategy isn’t working. If you can just divorce the story of your limitation and marry the truth of your unlimited capacity, then the whole game changes
? Action items
• Think about the worst thing that has ever happened to you and come up with one good thing that came from it.
• What is one limiting story you absolutely believe to be true about yourself or the world?
• Can you imagine one thing that would make the story not true, at least one time? If yes, stop believing the story.
? Recommended listening
• Brain hacking and one spirit medicine – 220
• Detox your thoughts to supercharge your life – 455
• Address invisible patters, find joy in solving problems and other lessons with the founder of TOMS shoes – 442
• Mashup of the titans – 370 and 371
• The tim Ferris’s experiment – 215
• Special podcast, live from the genius network – 306
? Recommended reading
• Awaken the giant within: how to take immediate control of your mental, emotional, physical and financial destiny. Tony Robbins
• Abundance: the future is better than you think
Law 46: Use the tools of gratitude.
? Take advantage of simpler, effective tools to build gratitude into your day the same way you build in exercise or healthy food. Gratitude is a muscle. Exercise it.
? Keep a gratitude journal : write down three things you’re grateful for in the morning and three more before bed.
? Practise mindfulness:
? Rethink a negative situation : situations are neutral, how you perceive them is what makes good or bad.
? Appreciate actively : Look for opportunities to be grateful throughout the day
? Fill a gratitude jar : write down what you’re grateful for each day and pop into a large jar. it will serve as a physical representation of all the things you have to be grateful for.
? Practise gratitude with loved ones.
• Each thing you mention should be new
• It should have something to do with the events of that day
• It should be different from another person’s gratitude that night
? Take a gratitude walk : go for a walk and pay close attention to everything you see and experience. Notice all the beauty, the feeling of each step in your soles of you feet.
? Write a thank you note : to someone who has touched your life in a big or small way.
? Practise combining gratitude and forgiveness : write down something that has hurt you, feel the negative emotion, think of a way the situation that caused it benefited you or shaped you into who you are today, and let go of the negativity
? Recommended listening
• Success and gratitude – 80
• Special podcast, live from the genius network – 306
Afterword
We’re all different, what works for one person may not work for you. But when you analyse the date to find out what matters, rather than how someone does something, you can choose your own priorities more wisely.