[00:00:01] Luke: All right, Jim. What's the difference between anxiety and fear?

[00:00:05] Jim: Ooh, that's a good one. Are we live?  

[00:00:07] Luke: Yeah, we're live, baby.

[00:00:09] Jim: Awesome. 

[00:00:09] Luke: We're doing it.

[00:00:10] Jim: So difference between anxiety and fear. Fear will elicit, hopefully, a fight or flight response. Fear is your indicator. "Hey, we need to protect ourselves. We need to mobilize for a threat.  We need to activate our fight or flight or freeze." Anxiety is a whole different ball game. Anxiety, by definition, is anticipating a future event that hasn't happened yet, and worrying that it's not going to go the way you want it to go.  The challenge is it's the same physiological response in your body.

[00:00:50] Luke: Ah, damn it.

[00:00:51] Jim:  So the anxious response, there's a physiological shift in your body.  It pings the amygdala, and it activates and mobilizes the body to protect itself.  That's the anxious response. And then the anxiety feeds upon a worry pattern.  You'll notice you don't need to eat to feed anxiety.

[00:01:10]  You don't need to exercise to feed anxiety.  You just have to think, and the anxiety builds upon itself.  But yeah, the physiological response of the thought pattern, fear, "Hey, I'm in danger.  Something's happening here." Physiologically similar response to anxiety.

[00:01:26] Luke:  That's a bitch.

[00:01:27] Jim:  Yeah. I would say it may be a set up for--

[00:01:30] Luke: So I think about it like this. Anxiety is waiting in line to get on the rollercoaster. Fear is  you're at the top of the rollercoaster and you're about to descend. But to your point, your  nervous system, your physiology views both of those situations as the same, and you respond in the same way.

[00:01:52] Jim: Correct.

[00:01:53] Luke: To a perceived threat, you're still full of adrenaline and cortisol and completely sympathetic, even though it's a fake threat that you think might exist in the future, when it should be reserved, if we were really in charge of our nervous system and had some sense of agency. It would be reserved for the time when we're on the rollercoaster when we really should be afraid, not before.

[00:02:17] Jim: Correct. So you'll notice when you're anxious, like in a worry pattern, usually it's around interpersonal conflict for most humans. Things happen. Your mouth gets dry. You perspire. You get distracted. Your lip might twitch, or you feel some redness in your face. Your heart might palpitate. Your breath gets shallow.

[00:02:46] So basically, the fear response is immobilizing all the necessities to protect you. And it's taking all the resources that make us human and saying, "We don't need those right now. I don't need you to think. I don't need you to feel. I need you to protect." So it's fascinating how that all happens, and you get narrow in your vision. You get very reactive. And you can do that just by thinking. So when people are anxious, you might say, "Wow, it's just in her head." Precisely. It is just in her head. But the physiological response is the same.

[00:03:28] Luke: I've noticed throughout my life when I'm emotionally charged, really afraid, angry, so on, that I lack all capacity to think clearly and logically. It seems like there's something that the emotions do that shut down the ability to critically think.

[00:03:51] Jim: Yeah.

[00:03:52] Luke: What's up with that? Why can't you be really emotionally heightened, but also think clearly?

[00:03:58] Jim: You can at a certain frequency, like 41 hertz. But other than that, you can't. So why? All right. Can we talk about the brain a little bit?

[00:04:07] Luke: That's all I want to talk about, baby.

[00:04:08] Jim: Let's do this. All right. So the currency of the human brain is not time. It's not money. It's not attention span. It's oxygen-rich, red blood. We've already talked about anxiety and fear, and that aspect of our brain is called the autonomic nervous system. And it's managed by the amygdala, which is the reptilian part of our brain. So it's not high consciousness. We wouldn't call it a reptile brain.

[00:04:35] It's an almond-shaped piece in our mid-brain, and it has an incredible capacity for self preservation and protection. It's a really perfected system. This part of our brain, our prefrontal and frontal cortex separates us from primates. We're a lot like primates, but this part of our brain separates us from primates.

[00:04:59] This part of our brain is our cognition, our thinking, our executive functioning, our logic, our emotions, our decision making, our ability to be patient, present, our character, and our personality. This is my humanity. This is my reptile. So what happens when you are emotionally charged, stressed, anxious, fearful, agitated, filled with shame?

[00:05:23] Your amygdala is a little more sophisticated than your prefrontal and frontal cortex because it has millions of years of neuronal circuitry. Imagine how much you've learned in your lifetime, how much adaptation, how much resilience, how much shifting.

[00:05:39] You're a learning animal. Well, add millions of years to that. You think the amygdala knows how to do its job? It knows how to do its job. It is a perfected system. This part is trying to make up millions of years of expertise here. So when you are anxious, your amygdala says, "Out of the way forehead. I got this. I don't need you thinking. I don't need access to anything. I don't need your personality. I don't need your charm. I don't need your patience. I don't need your presence. I'm going to protect you. So go sit at the kid's table. I got this."

[00:06:14] That is what's happening. And this part of who we are as humans is fascinating, and it's a real challenge because we don't know this. So when we are in that reactive state, I wouldn't call it conspiratorial. This is more like evolution of our brain. But when we're in that state, we can't even down-regulate it on our own. So if you're in a angry state or hypervigilant just like this, and I said, "Hey, dude. Chill." That doesn't work.

[00:06:51] You'd be like, "I'm going to show you chill." How about if I said, "Wow, you're in a bad mood." "What?" "Take a breath." So even the people around you who may know, hey, let me help you downregulate, the thing that we need to understand is when there is no oxygen-rich, red blood flowing through your prefrontal and frontal cortex, there is no you. You're not there. You are in a survival instinct of like an animal.

[00:07:18] Luke: I'm thinking of road rage.

[00:07:20] Jim: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:07:20] Luke: Someone who's an otherwise logical, happy-go-lucky person can turn into a homicidal maniac in an instant.

[00:07:28] Jim: Correct. And this is the evolution of the human brain. So the challenge is, again, there's aspects of our brain that have evolved in a longer period of time than in other parts of our brain. Other parts of our brain are trying to catch up. But even today, our brain is a much like it was as a caveman. So the evolution hasn't caught up.

[00:07:49] In the case of road rage, there is no executive logic, there's no executive functioning. There is no access to anything but that rage machine. And that rage machine builds upon itself. Think about in road rage, the reaction of the person you're raging against and think about how specific and targeted you are on every little movement of that person.

[00:08:14] So if they go to flip you the bird, or they swerve a set, whatever it is, you have a hyper microscopic viewpoint on everything they're doing because your rage cycle wants more ammo. Feed me more. Let me really go down this path. Yeah.

[00:08:32] Luke: When we're looking at something like PTSD, what I've observed in myself is, well, in relationships, but in a lot of different areas in life, a situation will occur that consciously, I don't know, reminds me of something similar in the past, but there seems to be a realm of the subconscious mind that identifies this current thing, misidentifies it as the same threat from the past wherein it, or I got hurt.

[00:09:04] So it comes to the surface to protect me thinking it's the same thing that happened before, when in reality it's not, people getting triggered and things like that. It's like people overreact. Is it because there's a part of the brain that holds onto that time you touch the electric fence or you put your finger on the stove, and so it's like, it logs that, okay, we're not going to let that happen again.

[00:09:29] And then 20 years, 30 years later, it tells you you're about to touch the hot stove, but there's actually no hot stove there. It's just a red painted stove. You see what I'm saying? How does that work in terms of past traumas resurfacing and causing us problems that are unnecessary?

[00:09:47] Jim: All right. So we've started with anxiety, fear, rage. We're going deep here.

[00:09:54] Luke: This stuff, I think all the listeners want to know.

[00:09:57] Jim: Here's what's happening in trauma. And again, a lot of this has to do with the physiology and the evolution of the circuitry of how the brain has evolved. And with that as the foundation, hopefully people can be less self judgmental and critical and less critical of others.

[00:10:19] We as a species think we're in control a lot. We're in control of almost nothing. Literally, almost nothing. Your brain has a memory pattern and remembers everything that you've ever done, everything, and it catalogs it. In trauma, the magnitude of the trauma, the length of the trauma will have a physiological impact on the brain.

[00:10:42] You can't see it when you were traumatized. You couldn't see it, and you weren't wearing a gauze on your head. You didn't have crutches at your ears to get your brain around. So we can't see what's happening in your brain. But here's what happens. Trauma, physical, sexual, psychological, systematic, doesn't matter what it is, it shifts the blood flow to areas of your brain.

[00:11:10] Specifically, it diminishes blood flow to your hippocampus, which is your memory center and your prefrontal, frontal cortex. Now, we've already established that the prefrontal and frontal cortex is our patience, our personality, our character, our executive functioning, our logic. It's who we are.

[00:11:29] So the traumatized brain loses blood flow to the memory center and here. So what does that do for me as a human? One, it has me stuck in a pattern of memory that elicits that response of I'm in trouble. Two, I'm not creating new neuro coherence. I'm not growing. I'm stuck. So if it's complex trauma, that person is stuck.

[00:12:02] Now, often the brain's smarter than you. The brain knows a thing or two, is paying attention all the time to everything. And it knows that, hey, you've had a really tough day today. Why don't we go get a glass of wine? Because you know that sip of wine, all your problems will go away right now and then tomorrow we'll do that.

[00:12:26] We'll take care of it. That's the brain's mechanism of understanding drugs and alcohol since the dawn of mankind have had a really dramatic impact on stopping the stress response with immediacy, predictability and efficacy. Okay. So all of this is related, but your central nervous system, you are always evaluating everything in your world, and you're looking for two things, familiarity and security.

[00:13:00] Your central nervous system has one defined job, self-preservation and survival. It doesn't care about anything else. It's nothing in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's nothing in spiritual ascension. Nothing. Keep me alive. So I have my five senses. I have my intuition. Those are my tools. This is how I evaluate my world.

[00:13:21] And then everything that happened to me, anything that created shame, anything that put me in danger, any failure, my central nervousness is like, "You don't want to do that again. Do you remember when you were seven, Luke, and you failed miserably, and everybody was laughing at you?"

[00:13:38] So the memory bank is there, and your central nervous system does not want you to take any risks, because then it has to work. I don't want to work. I'm relatively lazy. The central nervous system is relatively lazy, but the amygdala and the anxiety and the fear is a workaholic.

[00:14:03] Now we're getting into some really challenging aspects of being human. So what you're saying is the central nervous system is constantly evaluating me for familiarity and security. It's looking at my surroundings all the time. Self-preservation and survival, priority number one. Taking risks, never. I don't want to take risks. I want to be a creature of habit. I want to make this very easy for me.

[00:14:28] Then the amygdala, the fear center, the anxiety, the worry, the stress, the anticipation, the agitation, that's a workaholic. So the amygdala's always like, "Hey, look over there in the corner. Maybe that guy wants to jump you." So it's a profound challenge for us. None of us know this. We're not taught any of things of how our brain works. But in certain situations such as trauma, the physiological changes impact our behavioral pattern.

[00:14:56] And here's the challenge with trauma. You may go through a traumatic experience. Okay, I'm sorry that that happened to you. Chances of you repeating that traumatic experience may be diminished. But your central nervous system is constantly looking for those patterns. So when it sees anything that even mimics that pattern, it asks the amygdala to step in and say, "Hey, I think we're in trouble over there. Evaluate that. That's trouble. Activate." It's not good.

[00:15:24] Luke: That's beautiful. It's a great explanation. And as you're going through that, I think, why isn't this first grade in school, you're learning this? You know what I'm saying? Imagine if this was part of the education platform, to help kids as they're coming up start to differentiate these different responses and mechanisms of mind and emotion. Imagine how much trouble we would be saved if we had a fundamental understanding of this as we go throughout the world.

[00:15:57] Jim: It makes no sense to me. I don't understand it. I think a lot about it because for 16 years I've been Johnny Appleseed to educate into the world how our brains work. I don't think it's conspiratorial, but it's a big blind spot for humans. We all have a brain. What's funny is we all think we're unique. Literally. It's not narcissism and egomanical behavior.

[00:16:28] We really think that our experience is, man, is me. No, it's not like that at all. There's 8.4 billion people. That's a real big number. It's hard to understand what that number is, but there's 8.4 billion people, and of all those people, your brain is made from the same parts. It's like the NAPA Auto Parts store.

[00:16:54] You have an amygdala. So do I. You have a prefrontal cortex. So do I. You have an HPA axis. So do I. So your external stimulation, your external stressors, your relationships, your toxins, your food supply, that's unique to you. But what is not unique is when the stress response comes to your central nervous system and your amygdala is activated, your HPA axis and all the different things that happen in your body, creating cortisol and all the stuff that happens is identical to every human on earth. We should know that.

[00:17:35] Luke: No doubt.

[00:17:35] Jim: We should know how our brain works. We should be taught that the battle for our brain between a reptile and a human is oxygen-rich, red blood. We should see with great clarity, when I'm aggravated, if I can downregulate that aggravation, I need to get breath. If I can get breath, I can stop this. But I can't because I don't have any function here to even remember to get breath.

[00:18:08] And like I said earlier, if our friends or someone tells us, it further perpetuates the anger cycle. So the whole thing, again, is it conspiratorial that no one tells us this? I don't believe that to be the case. But is it conspiratorial the way that our brains have evolved and look how amazing we are today and look how much opportunity we have for expansion, for higher consciousness, for love and gratitude and joy and all the cool things?

[00:18:35] Being a human is freaking amazing. It's amazing. But we're still saddled with a cave brain. That's demoralizing. But again, humans have known us for a long time. Meditation was invented 3,500 years ago. Have you ever been to Italy or Greece?

[00:18:59] Luke: No.

[00:18:59] Jim: Have you ever been to Turkey?

[00:19:01] Luke: No.

[00:19:02] Jim: Have you ever been to Egypt?

[00:19:04] Luke: No.

[00:19:04] Jim: You got to get to Egypt. You'll love Egypt.

[00:19:06] Luke: I've never left Texas.

[00:19:08] Jim: Well, I know that's not true because I've seen you in California.

[00:19:09] Luke: I have been to India. That was probably the most culturally impactful place I've been.

[00:19:18] Jim: And so some of the--

[00:19:19] Luke: It really changed my perspective on life. Yeah.

[00:19:22] Jim: And gratitude for the beauties of life that we have here we take for granted.

[00:19:28] Luke: And also seeing how much I'm just taken back. This is many years ago, but remember I was in a very remote village in southern India called Puttaparthi, and I was just cruising around in my little tuktuk way out in the country, just exploring. And we'd go to these villages and these little kids would run up to the tuktuk.

[00:19:49] And it's like they'd never seen a camera before. I had a video camera. They're just freaking out. And it was so cool to see people living with such little means who were so happy. Not just the kids, but everyone. It's just like you guys cracked the freaking code here, man.

[00:20:08] You don't have plumbing in your hut, and you've cracked the code on joy and happiness more than I have. And I've had a life of privilege, comparatively speaking. That was one of the biggest things for me, is just seeing like, wow, it really is an inside job.

[00:20:22] Jim: Same's going to happen for you in Kenya too. The gratitude, vulnerability, love, joy, access to aspects of their heart that we don't have. We're on a quest for economic growth. They're on a quest for love. And you feel it immediately. You're like, "Ah."

[00:20:38] Luke: I remember you were texting pictures from Kenya.

[00:20:40] Jim: I was like you--

[00:20:40] Luke: And you're like, "You got come over here next time."

[00:20:42] Jim: Yeah. I said, "These guys got it."

[00:20:44] Luke: Yeah.

[00:20:45] Jim: So the reason I was asking that is you go to some of these places and you're like, "Wow, this architecture's 1,000 years old. This architecture is 2,000 years old." Well, it's hard for us to fathom 3,500 years ago, meditation's invented. So they already knew at some point, I don't need to be like this all the time. I can't just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. They learn to meditate.

[00:21:08] Meditation is a practice. It's a discipline. It's amazing. But why do you meditate? What's the physiological benefit of meditation? Ah, it's redistributing oxygen-rich, red blood from your amygdala back to your forehead. Oh.

[00:21:25] Luke: I didn't know that.

[00:21:26] Jim: That's why you meditate. That's why if you go to a monastery, the monks aren't beating the crap out of each other or having interpersonal conflict or fighting or agitated. Ah, yoga. Tai Chi, breathing exercises, anything that's a practice of mindfulness.

[00:21:47] No one tells you this either. The whole physiological benefit and why you would even practice any of those is to oxygenate your forehead. Because when your prefrontal and frontal cortex are fully oxygenated, you have access to being present in the moment without judgment. You have access to your personality.

[00:22:10] You have access to deflect the chaos. When you're in a good state, someone comes to you, triggers you. If you're in a good state, you listen. You pay attention. You deflect, and you're able to respond with command of your thoughts. When you're not in a good state, someone comes to you with the same trigger. Huh.

[00:22:35] You do not deflect. You do not respond. You react. Some people react in isolation and sadness, and other people react in anger. So it's epigenetically your pattern and your socialization, but it's all related to this. So if I'm in a state where I'm agitated, think about it. If I'm in a state where I'm agitated, what's happening? My breath is shallow.

[00:23:05] What's happening there? I'm not getting any oxygen here. So to think that I would have the capacity to think, I clearly don't know how the brain is wired because there is no capacity to think. I will not do it. It is a physiological impossibility. And yes, I do fundamentally believe that we should all be taught how our brain works. It is our operating system. It is how we're going to make it or break it in this world. And no one tells us, here's your operating manual. Here's how your brain works.

[00:23:38] Luke: It's crazy because I look at humans like, I don't know, a reptilian brain might be good, like a Komodo dragon or a gorilla with a super computer in the front of our head. It's our greatest gift, but also our greatest enemy at the same time. It's like we have agency, but because we don't know the things you're sharing with us today, we're controlled by the Komodo Dragon, gorilla. So many of us, right?

[00:24:10] Jim: Yes. We don't have agency because we do have that computer here. We can't access it because of the Komodo dragon. And the Komodo dragon seems reptilian and lower functioning. That son of a bitch knows how to work. So that's why I said earlier, you got a workaholic, reptile brain, and you got an amazing but lazy supercomputer. We can't access this because this thing keeps--

[00:24:41] Luke: Yeah.

[00:24:42] Jim: We're not this. You know like sometimes you worry about something and you solve it, and then in that empty space, maybe it's a second, maybe it's two, your brain says, "Hey, you didn't worry about this yet."

[00:24:54] Luke: Totally.

[00:24:54] Jim: It's like, what?

[00:24:56] Luke: Totally. Yeah.

[00:24:57] Jim: Yeah. So you're right. And I think that's a good way to look at it. We are gorillas, or we are reptilian. There's a lot of primal function in a human being, but we do have access to a supercomputer, and they say, "Hey, you have access to 10% or 7% or 3%, and you have this fight between your unconscious mind and your conscious mind.

[00:25:15] All of that's true, and it's a battle. Now, physiologically, we look at the biology of it and say, "Hey, this is the battle." The battle is oxygen-rich, red blood. Distribute oxygen here, and you will not be able to tip me, and you will not be able to get me reactive unless you're literally trying to kill me.

[00:25:32] Luke: Yeah.

[00:25:33] Jim: Other than that, I'm going to stay my ground and I'm going to be in a patient, present state, and I'm going to see the manipulation. It's fascinating. It's like being in the matrix. I can see the manipulation. And not only can I see the manipulation, I can entertain and have empathy to see where it's coming from.

[00:25:50] I can see that that person is not purposely trying to manipulate the situation. They are in a survival pattern. They have no access to this, and their body is doing exactly what it's programmed to do. They're not in control. They're not in command. So I can literally see that, and then I can move with it.

[00:26:10] Luke: Yeah. That's such an important teaching and one that's helped me a lot in the realm of resentment, which I used to be really tortured by. Just rumination and thoughts of revenge. I used to just hate people, not even for good reasons half the time. But it's this idea that everyone's literally doing the best they can according to their programming.

[00:26:35] Even the most abhorrent, awful people in the world literally cannot be any different than they are or else they would be. And I wasted so much energy wishing people would be different than they are. Because if you look at how hard it is to change yourself. I've been working on this machine here for 28, 29 years, man. And I've made a lot of progress, but there's still a long way to go.

[00:26:59] Jim: It's a whip, baby. It's a work in progress. There is no end game.

[00:27:02] Luke: So that helps me a lot in just dealing with people in the world, but I think it's important the part that I'm learning, is also the discernment, and to be able to not be so compassionate and empathetic toward people's plight and the way that they are, that I allow them to interfere with my space. Right?

[00:27:20] Jim: You're bringing up two awesome points. So your listeners know your heart, they know your compassion.

[00:27:26] Luke: I hope so.

[00:27:27] Jim: They know your vulnerability. So any caretaker out there knows the challenge with a caretaker. A lot of the reward of a caretaker is taking care. We can't really impose what we believe to be the recipe for that other person's success. And when we try, there's an existential battle where we give, give, give, give, give.

[00:27:51] But there's no vessel on the other side that can reciprocate that giving. And so you're going to literally existentially empty your tank, but not have anything fill it because they are not capable of filling it. It's not because they don't want to, but the lack of capability. That lack of being fulfilled, you go, go, go, go, go until you finally capitulate and says, "Shit, I can't help this person, man. My goodness."

[00:28:17] Then comes a resentment because now you're empty. You're emotionally fatigued, you're frustrated. You're giving it. Then you look internally and say, "Wow, something must be wrong with me. I can't do anything for this person." See how that cycle is?

[00:28:30] Luke: Yeah, totally.

[00:28:31] Jim: So you can still give. You can still give, but you have to have a better understanding of the landscape of where the line needs to be drawn. So I, like you, give. My whole soul is about giving. I'm a giver. I've spent the last 16 years bringing to the world technology to literally emancipate humans from stress.

[00:28:57] And it's been an incredible journey. And I'll give, give, give, give, give. But I learn where the end point is because if the person is not capable of evolving or growing or shifting, then I know. I can't continue down that path because then my tank is empty and there's less in reserve so the next person down the line. And that's a life lesson.

[00:29:20] We learn this as we go, and you are learning this. And so you have less resentment because you're finding that there is a line that you don't need to cross anymore. And it is fascinating and hilarious to me when people think they can control other people when they're not even remotely in control of themselves. They're not.

[00:29:38] Luke: Social media's full of them.

[00:29:40] Jim: Yeah, it's fascinating.

[00:29:41] Luke: People trying to solve the world's problems. And I'm like, "You can't even solve your own interpersonal relationship issues, let alone trying to get the whole world to get along.

[00:29:51] Jim: Our brains are incredibly sophisticated. There's millions of neuronal connections, synapses, firings. There's a blueprint for your health, but there's also a memory pattern for every time you failed. So when people think they're in control, they have no idea how their brain works, because you're not in control.

[00:30:10] A simple example. We can do an example of like snacking. So say you like salty snacks, or say you like sugar. Sugar is one of the worst drugs on earth. It has an amazing capability of tricking you. So you're at 7 o'clock at night, you had a long day, and you sit down to watch TV with your family, and you get a ping. "Hey, I think you got some M&M's in the cupboard."

[00:30:35] Luke: I'm familiar with this ping.

[00:30:36] Jim: Over there. Yeah. Shut up. Let's watch TV. 10 minutes go by. "Hey, remember there's M&M's in the cupboard." Shut up. I'm not interested. I'm not going to have snack tonight. So many conversations happen until the amygdala and this manipulative pattern says, "We're not losing. We don't fatigue. We keep coming." And we know your weaknesses.

[00:31:05] It doesn't matter when it is. It could be 8:11. It could be 8:36. I guarantee you, most of the time, you are finding your way into that cupboard, now mindlessly eating those M&M's that you've tortured yourself for the last 95 minutes talking about. So when people think they're in control, they're not.

[00:31:26] Your amygdala's more in control. Your history's more in control. And the food companies that are put in the glutamate and the excitatory neurotransmitters and the neurotoxins and all these incredible chemicals in the food to create addictive behavioral patterns. Sometimes you eat salt, and you're like, "Wow, I could really use something sweet."

[00:31:46] And then you have something sweet and you're like, "Wow, now that I have something sweet, I could really use something salt." What? So yeah, I don't hold people in high regard. I think they can control or have all the solutions because first we have to stop. We have to have some humility. We have to understand the human brain.

[00:32:07] Once you understand the human brain, then you really have humility because you're like, "Wow, this thing is a complex mechanism." I understand it's a closed loop ecosystem. Your brain and your body is perfect. It has a perfect blueprint of perfect health for you. It doesn't need anything. It has biochemistry balance. It has neurotransmitter.

[00:32:24] Everything is there. It's everything around us and the choices we make, our epigenetics, our friends, our family, our food, our drink, whatever it is that alters that homeostasis. That's how this works. And then we start building these patterns, and then this manipulative behavior happens.

[00:32:39] Luke: Going back to the meditation piece and bringing more blood flow to the prefrontal and the frontal cortex, how does that relate to building that witness observer perspective? And I say that as someone who's been meditating for a long time, although I got the NuCalm guy here, and we'll talk about how that's basically replaced meditation because it's just faster, easier, more effective.

[00:33:08] But we'll get to that, which was hard for my spiritual ego to accept. Because I'm like, "No, I'm going to go old-school, Vedic." But one thing that's been a huge benefit for me over decades of meditating is the building of a part of myself, higher self, call it what you will, that is in the room right now.

[00:33:31] It's like one of those jokes when you talk to your shrink. Is it in the room right now? But there's a aspect of myself that's aware of the Luke sitting here talking to Jim. And it's a self-awareness, but it's also a meta awareness that's observing the thoughts before they come words and impulses and feelings and all of that.

[00:33:50] And that is the part of myself that has more and more agency over how I respond or react in different situations, whether they'd be stressful or not. There's a babysitter or an adult in the room that's watching the persona version of me run around and do its thing and keeps me in line, and keeps me in a state of joy more so than I would if that wasn't present. In other words, I feel, control isn't the right word. Just aware.

[00:34:20] Jim: I like command.

[00:34:22] Luke: Yeah, command. Or just there's a more broad awareness. And I know, absolutely, that is a result of meditation. Because when I'm in meditation or I'm using NuCalm, there's a person, there's a me that's observing the phenomenon of thought and feeling. Well, then who's the one watching that? That's someone.

[00:34:43] And I think in the years before I had that separation, there was no gap between life happening and me reacting to it from that animal limbic brain. Because there's no separation there. There's no differentiation between the thoughts or feelings that I'm having and me as the experiencer of those thoughts and feelings.

[00:35:03] Jim: Yeah.

[00:35:04] Luke: How does that relate to blood flow? Because I've never thought about it in that way.

[00:35:07] Jim: Ah, it's all directly correlated. Your meditation journey, your experience with NuCalm, every time you do it, there's a cumulative benefit of you downregulating the strength and capacity of the amygdala. I liken it to putting the amygdala at the kids' table.

[00:35:23] Luke: I like that.

[00:35:24] Jim: Well, Dr. Holloway--

[00:35:26] Luke: That's good.

[00:35:26] Jim: Yeah. He said, "Listen, you don't belong here. You haven't really belonged here. You've overstayed your welcome. I'm in command. I'm in command of how I want to think, the choices I want to make. You're not going to command me." Before social media and the connectivity of technology, we had a lot more command.

[00:35:48] Someone would've to come to your door to activate your discussion realm. Or someone would come to your house and sit and share a drink with you or a cup of coffee and talk with you. Those days are long gone. In fact, they seem so nostalgic. It's like, wow. Yeah, we used to do that. We used to go to people's house.

[00:36:07] Luke: Remember when you're a kid, you just roll over to your friend's house and knock on door and just go hang out? If Somebody showed up to my house without a warning-- I get annoyed if people call my phone without texting first. That's how warped we are.

[00:36:20] Jim: But today, it's free access to trigger you. So somebody is having a bad day. They choose to lash out in someone else. They send a nasty text. This unbeknown person takes the text, reads it, and reacts. So not only do we foundationally have a challenge in how our brain has evolved and the strength of the reptile brain versus our forehead. That's already fundamentally a real challenge.

[00:36:51] But now we have everybody else's chaos coming at us on all these different angles. There's no warning sign on your phone that says, "Hey, angry text coming from an A-hole. Do you want to open it?" No. You just open it and you're like, "What?" So every day that you practice mindfulness in the form of meditation or yoga or tai chi, or breathing exercises or NuCalm or some other modality, you are purposely activating and channeling oxygen-rich, red blood to your prefrontal, frontal cortex.

[00:37:23] And every time you do that, you'll notice even in the event that something happens that could be demonstratively triggering, you're not as triggered as you would be. You're not as reactionary as you would be. So you're still able to have the capacity to live whatever life you need to live just without that rage or the pounce.

[00:37:44] So there's that cumulative benefit. Meditation is a practice. Yoga is a practice. Tai chi is a practice. I've been using NuCalm for 16 years. It's almost impossible for you to knock me off kilter. But 16 years ago, it was nearly impossible for you not to.

[00:38:07] Luke: Yeah.

[00:38:08] Jim: Serious. I was born with an identical twin brother.

[00:38:11] Luke: Yeah. I've met your brother.

[00:38:12] Jim: I had the luxury of sharing a baby apartment with another man for nine months. We fought the whole time we left the womb. We were wrestlers our whole life. We fought. We were ambitious. We were triple A, go, go, go, go, go, ass-kicking machines. Very judgmental. Very quick to be critical. Fast decision maker, but boy, I gave no one any quarter.

[00:38:39] That's shameful. I'm disappointed in myself that I lived like that. But my brain was like that. And easily reactionary. And if you put me in a corner, my first thought is always, I will kill you. I'm sizing you up. I'm looking at your knees, your hips. I'm looking at what I'm to dislocate, and I'm looking at your throat, and I'm going to throw punch at you, and going to kill you.

[00:39:00] So just how my brain was wired. I look at that person who was 40 years of my life. I'm like, "Wow, what a braggadocious, self-centered, critical, a-hole. I was still a good person. I was still raised by two psychotherapists. I still would do anything for you. But I was so quick to judge and so quick to react. I would never go back there.

[00:39:30] I love being in the position that I'm in today, where the world is open to me. I can observe and be that active listening and being quiet. Silent and listen are spelled with the same letters. Huh, wonder if that was meant that way. But it's fascinating to live in an observational pattern because everything you see, you're aware of.

[00:40:03] Most people, because we're stuck in this loop of high stress and poor sleep and high stress and poor sleep, and high stress and poor sleep, we are spectators in our own life. Now, anxiety is future thinking. Depression is past thinking, but we're not present in our life.

[00:40:20] My practice of NuCalm has allowed me to be present in my life, and I love my life. And I've accepted the end of my life. If I were to die flying home, I'm okay with that. I have no fear of anything in my life today. I have an access and a vessel to joy and gratitude, patience and presence, good people or bad, where to apply resources, and it's a command that I never had before. And so that's a cumulative benefit. You don't become a monk because, hey, I'm going to go shave my head and go live in a monastery.

[00:40:51] Oh, okay, you're now a monk. Let me give you a badge. No, you're going to practice meditation for thousands and ten thousands and hundred thousands of hours to establish that right and access to where you are today, which is being patient and present in the moment without judgment.

[00:41:08] Luke: Yeah.

[00:41:08] Jim: Those words mean a lot, but very few people understand what that is. Present in the moment without judgment means you have no thoughts going through your head. I don't have three conversations going on behind my eyes right now. I don't have seven pings and dings. I don't. Nothing.

[00:41:24] Luke: You know what it feels like to me is that there's a gap of separation between subjective and objective reality. So I was just in Colorado as you know. We bumped you to today because I couldn't get out of the airport. Our flight gets canceled. In those situations, I hear them on the loudspeaker, "Oh, Austin, passengers, yada yada. The flight's delayed."

[00:41:51] In that moment, I see the thought come up, fuck this. But there's a little bit of a gap where I go, "Mm-mm. That's just an opinion that the mind had on this situation that has nothing to do with reality." And then a few more announcements come and it's like, flight's canceled. Bye. Go home, people.

[00:42:11] And it's like there's a gap of separation wherein I have the command, I guess is the word used, which is good. It's like I have the opportunity to make a decision on how I'm going to frame objective reality. Because the objective reality is neutral. I'm sitting here in a building. I thought I was going to get on that metal thing and go somewhere. Now I'm not. It's totally neutral.

[00:42:37] But the mind makes up a whole story about how dare they? I need to get home. What's Jim going to think? Maybe he'll miss his flight. This phantasmagoria of fantasies that have nothing to do with the actual reality. There's a separation where I can go, "Okay, I'm going to actually just surrender to this moment and just be in the reality."

[00:42:55] And the reality is, I'm sitting in a building. I got a beautiful wife sitting right in here. We're having the best time ever. We've got a cute little dog with us. We're in freaking Aspen, Colorado, one of those beautiful places on the planet to be during the summer, at least, for me.

[00:43:10] And this is awesome. We get to stay another night here. We go to a great resort. We live our best life. I go out in the gym. They have a barrel sauna outside looking over the mountains. You know what I mean? I'm living my best life. The objective reality hasn't changed. My flight got canceled. I'm stuck somewhere. I want to be home.

[00:43:30] But those small gaps of separation where I can actually find a completely different experience based on my perception, it's like there's a moment there, there's these microseconds where I can elect to have a different perception of the same reality.

[00:43:46] And it's like I totally attribute that to first years of meditation, and now, I don't know, I've been on NuCalm since 2018 probably, or something. It's been, I don't know how many years is.

[00:43:59] Jim: Eight years at least. Yeah.

[00:43:59] Luke: Math isn't my strong suit. That's like almost every single day I'm doing NuCalm. And I'm not just saying that because you're here. But it's like for people that think, oh, meditation's boring, or I'm not good at it, or they don't understand something like NuCalm, which hopefully we will in a few minutes as we get into it, it's not exciting to meditate and take time in presence.

[00:44:24] But the payoff, man, is so life-changing because you-- the thing at the airport is relatively no big deal, but my dad just died a couple of months ago, and it's like, wow, the grace and courage with which I was able to walk through that and continue to walk through that, it's the same thing.

[00:44:41] It's to be able to alter my perception to be able to ward off thoughts that have no basis in reality, that are only here to hurt me, while the amygdala's trying to protect me. It's like, wow, you can live in a completely different world if that amygdala is at the kids' table and the adult in the room is the higher self or the more intelligent.

[00:45:03] The eternal self is the one who's actually calling the shots on where our attention and focus and what opinions and judgements we allow into our consciousness or not. It's like you literally create your own reality.

[00:45:16] Jim: You do. And what's interesting in that half a second where you had a choice, you have a choice. If you'd stopped while you're doing your choice and reflected and looked at everybody else's reaction, everybody's going through the same choice.

[00:45:31] Luke: Yeah, totally.

[00:45:31] Jim: I can be subjective. I can be a victim here, or I can objectively see for what this is. And it's fascinating that there's 8.4 billion people, but there's really 16.8 billion people because we all have this thing going on behind our eyes, all the energy that we use in that decision making process.

[00:45:53] Meditation may not seem exciting. Yoga may not seem exciting. Tai chi may not seem exciting. Doing a NuCalm PowerNap may not seem exciting, but the more you understand about resilience, longevity, [Inaudible] information, living your best life, it's mandatory. It's not about exciting.

[00:46:10] I don't think a lot of people view sleep as exciting, but it's mandatory. If you don't sleep, you die. Well, we're going to get to a point in the chaos of life and the acceleration of all the things that are coming at us, that having some type of mindful practice will become mandatory if you want to stay sane, if you want to achieve.

[00:46:27] Luke: I don't care what's going on, I'm going to do some form of meditation every single morning. It's been like that for years. I learned the hard way because that ability to have that choice, as I was describing in the airport, I might do okay if I skip a day here or there, but I don't want to risk it.

[00:46:45] Because you never know what life's going to throw at you. Say the morning I went to the airport, I didn't have my NuCalm session or a meditation or whatever. I don't know. It probably would've been harder to access that split second where I could make a choice on how I was going to respond or how I was going to frame that reality. It's like I'm not willing to take the chance.

[00:47:02] So for me, it's been, I don't know, 20 years or something. It's just like, I don't care what's going on. It's non-negotiable. I'm going to make time for that, especially in the morning. If I get an afternoon one in, hallelujah. But the morning I'm going to be more of an animal person than I am an angelic person.

[00:47:23] And I'm going to suffer. Even if other people aren't affected by it, my internal experience is going to be shot. I'm just not remembering who I am and remembering what this reality is all about.

[00:47:36] Jim: You are actively and consciously making a choice to command your day. I do the same thing, and I wouldn't change that.

[00:47:47] Luke: You know what is a trip too, is in the-- this is a great analogy because this thing just happened with the airport, but when those announcements started coming in, I was looking around just to gauge how other people are reacting or responding. And you heard a few people bitching and stuff, but not as much as you might think. It's a smaller airport too.

[00:48:06] Jim: It's also Aspen.

[00:48:07] Luke: Yeah. People, they're like, "Oh, I guess I'll go next door and go private." But what was really interesting is the representative, the American Airlines woman who gave us our boarding passes, and now she's at the gate, she's the one making the announcements. All these people are coming up to her, "Well, what about my--" And she was just cool as a cucumber man, didn't flinch. Happy. Not stress out, just chilling.

[00:48:30] And when I was in line to talk to her about our options, when I finally got up there, she's still happy, and I said, "Can I ask you something?" I said, "Do you meditate." And she goes, "Oh no. But I probably should." I was like, "Dude, how are you being who you are right now? What's your secret." She's like, "I don't know."

[00:48:45] Jim: She's what's called desensitized. It's like an oncologist around death.

[00:48:49] Luke: Got it. She's used to--

[00:48:50] Jim: She sees it every single day.

[00:48:52] Luke: I was just looking at her. I'm like, "You are like a yogic master." She's just chilling.

[00:48:56] Jim: She's a yogic master. She's completely dissociated from reality and has no empathy for anything that's happening because she's like, "Listen, this is every day, every hour of every day."

[00:49:06] Luke: But she wasn't even checked out or dismissive. She was actively present and just kind and patient with every person that's coming up there. I was very impressed. I thought for sure she's going to go, "Yeah, dude. I've been meditating for years. She's like, "Oh, that'd be nice." So she was a unicorn, I guess.

[00:49:23] Jim: She was. And she also lives in the mountains.

[00:49:26] Luke: Yeah, that helps. Let's talk brainwaves. So we're talking about blood flow, but in a NuCalm, the way it works has a lot to do with putting brainwaves where we want to be. And I've done a lot of neurofeedback training and have a fundamental understanding of what brainwaves feel like and do what, but for those listening that understand how the electrical impulse is running through the brain actually control our lives in reality.

[00:49:55] Jim: Everybody's brain oscillates in a frequency range, 41 hertz. It's a wave form, frequency. What does frequency mean? Well, this is a wave. You can see what a wave looks like. And in this frequency range are five categories. There's delta, theta, and alpha. Those are slow wave forms in sleep. There's beta, and there's gamma, in action oriented. Those are faster.

[00:50:22] 0.5 hertz is the slowest waveform. You have to have some brain activity or you're not going to be here. And so 0.5 hertz to 4 hertz is delta, and that's dreamless-like deep sleep. So when your brain is oscillating in that frequency, we know what you're doing. It's not, hey, I wonder what Luke's doing.

[00:50:40] No, you're in dreamless-like deep sleep. Dreamless-like deep sleep is fascinating because it's what happens when you fall asleep on the couch and your partner or someone tries to get you and you're 2,000 pounds because it's full gravity, and your body baths, and there's no activity. You're just like in a coma.

[00:51:00] Theta is 4 hertz to 7 hertz, faster frequency above deep sleep. It's a lucid dream state and is the healing zone. That sounds pretty good, the healing zone. This is the only time in your bio rhythm that your cells, clean your toxins, do your cellular maintenance, that your mitochondria, which is the energy source of your cells, is restored.

[00:51:25] This is why humans must sleep to stay alive, because your cells, which is critical for your biology and your living, that's when they restore. Alpha is 8 hertz to 12 hertz, and it's commensurate with creativity, being in the zone, transcendental meditation, falling into sleep. And then we have beta, 13 to 15 hertz as you're awake, but not really that excited to be living.

[00:51:53] You're just like, "Ugh, getting through it." 15 to 20 hertz is the learning zone. There's a frequency associated with learning, which is fascinating. Again, one of those things that we should know. What do you mean there's a frequency associated with learning? Well, in this frequency, you will learn. Outside of this frequency, you won't.

[00:52:10] Luke: Why aren't we pumping classrooms with that frequency during the classes?

[00:52:15] Jim: Exactly. Doesn't make any sense. 20 to 25 hertz is a faster frequency, and that is associated with stress and worry and fear and anxiety. I like this one.

[00:52:30] Luke: Is that what's called high beta?

[00:52:32] Jim: Yeah. I like this one. Anticipatory anxiety. I'm anticipating an anxious thing coming on, and it's making me anxious. Only humans have to deal with this. No one else in the animal kingdom has anything that-- anticipatory anxiety? What are you talking about? 25 to 30 higher beta is a stronger sense of fear and stress, anxiety, worry, agitation, impatience, distraction. 30 to 38 is a state of shock. So you're fully dissociated.

[00:53:11] You are literally in survival mode, and there is no function. Your ears can hear, but your brain can't interpret information. So if you've ever looked at anybody who's in shock and you look in their eyes, they look like they're sharks. There's no life in there because there's no activity there. They're literally simply just surviving. And they probably have blacked out.

[00:53:29] They won't remember having an aphasia experience there. And then above all of that, and this is a cool nuance of the brain, is this sweet spot called gamma, 39 to 41 hertz, a high tight band of frequency associated with exceptional mental acuity, emotional intelligence and activation, activating your gross motor cortex and your sensory motor rhythm. So your musculature and your physicality is activated. Your peripheral vision, so you can see better, survival. Your olfactory, your memory center, you're peak.

[00:54:06] So this is fascinating to me because everything is math and science. Ah. So frequency, and the exact frequency that my brain is oscillating at, directly correlates to my mood, my thinking pattern, and my behavior. This is the last of the, how do we not know this? Why has no one told us this? This mic working? Who's watching us? It's insane.

[00:54:44] Okay, so it's correlated. There's a correlation, and there's a fabric to all of this. The amygdala, the reptile brain, strong, sophisticated, loves to work, activates, and does all these things to suck the oxygen-rich, red blood from our forehead, our patience, our presence, our philosophical thinking, our waning our humanity.

[00:55:08] Your  amygdala doesn't care. It's like, "Listen, I'm a reptile. I just want to work." This frequency-- if I'm at 25, 26 hertz, and my frequency's going too fast, well, then no wonder I'm distracted. No wonder I'm perspiring. No wonder my heart is skipping a beat. No wonder my breath is shallow. That's the relation.

[00:55:35] Stress, shallow breath, shallow breath, amygdala activated. Who's going to take the resources? Not this. So all of our behavior is directly related to the frequency of our brain at that time. That's a mind-bender. Humans, since we were cave men and women, dragging knuckles across this earth, trying to survive and build a species, we have relied on, created, or discovered ways to change our state of mind by modulating the speed of our frequency.

[00:56:15] And I guarantee you, most people have never even thought about this. It's our life. So when we are feeling mentally lethargic, we woke up, we're not feeling our best, we got a big to-do list, what do we reach for? We reach for espresso, Red Bull, 5-hour Energy, Monster, Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, a multi-billion dollar accelerant drink market.

[00:56:37] Now I have some sips. All of a sudden, voila. It wasn't magic. It increased the frequency of my brain. Oh, okay. You have a tough day, interpersonal conflict, things weighing on you, you just feel miserable. You say, "Hey, I'm going to have a glass of wine." You have a sip of wine. Wow, my life isn't so bad. That's not magic either.

[00:57:02] It slowed down the frequency of your brainwave. If we feel anxious, we take an anti-anxiety pill. If we feel depressed, we take antidepressants. If we have trouble sleeping, we take a sleeping pill. Wow, we're pretty pedantic, this highly-evolved human species. We have to rely on all this external stuff to regulate how I want to feel.

[00:57:26] How about if I just choose how I want to feel? Exercise, intimacy, texts, all of these things modulate the frequency of our brain. And the frequency of our brain directly correlates to our behavior, our mood, and our thoughts all the time, every time.

[00:57:45] Luke: That's so cool. I love the way you outline that because I think when many of us hear frequencies, man, vibrations, it sounds a little woo woo, but this is so grounded in science. It doesn't sound woo woo to me because I'm a woo woo guy. But I think that many people discount that realm of the human experience, and the way you just described it makes it primary.

[00:58:10] That's what everything in our experience is, is everything is a projection of our brain and our senses and how we interpret our environment and things going on. And to your point of self-regulating with all of this exogenous input, I never thought about it that way, that it's like all a game of brainwaves. That's crazy.

[00:58:32] And so I'm running through my day, and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I'm pinging back and forth, just doing all these different things to get my brainwaves right so I can do what I want to do and feel how I want to feel."

[00:58:41] Jim: Your mind is telling your brain what it wants to do next. Oh, I got to do this. You know what? I'll have an energy drink. Oh, I have to do this. I'll have some water. Oh, I have to do this. I'll have some glucose. It's crazy to me.

[00:58:56] So meditation, yoga, breath work, it takes your brain wave frequency from wherever it is. Now, it's nearly impossible to begin a meditative practice if you're in a high stress response. That's going to create some anxiety and some challenges just downregulating. But in those practices, the game is simply slow down the frequency of my brain and start to cycle me near alpha. Because that space, I can be present in my life and a participant in my life.

[00:59:27] So for those of you who look at frequency as woo woo, fine, whatever. It's just ignorance because you don't know, and that's fine because no one told us these things. But this is a fundamental operating system of your brain. If you want to get down to the brass tacks of how you operate and who you are as a human being from birth to here and wherever you live, it all frequency modulation.

[00:59:55] Now, the command and the control, meditation, yoga, tai chi, NuCalm, that command and control over time gives you the right to say, "Hey, I want to downregulate. I want to prepare. I want to absolve myself of stress or anxiety or worry."

[01:00:15] So from what we started talking about today, beginning with anxiety and fear, and then talking about the reptile brain and the amygdala, talking about the prefrontal, frontal cortex, talking about oxygen-rich, red blood, talking about frequency, they're all related. It's all a triangle of the capacity of the human brain and the operating system of what it means to be a human.

[01:00:38] And we all play with the same operating system, every single one of us. Frequency-related, breath distribution, here, or here, those are our choices. That's fascinating to me. And that allows me to be a far less judgmental human being and far more empathetic to look around and say, "Okay, I see what's happening here."

[01:01:03] And it's unfortunate that they're in that space, but they'll get out of it at some point. But they're not-- and then when we look at-- to me, I look at the last five years. Now, before COVID, we were already challenged as a species. We were living in the second great age of anxiety, which seems really unfortunate.

[01:01:27] I don't want to live in that age. Of all the time of human beings, there's a age of anxiety, count me out of that one. I'll sit that one out. The first great age of anxiety was after World War I. Now remember your central nervous system, number one job, self-preservation. What does it need? Familiarity and security. When you knock that all aside and nothing that was normal, is normal now, that creates fatigue and anxiety. Fatigue will create anxiety. Anytime you've been overly fatigued or malnourished, what's happened? You're easily triggered.

[01:02:00] Luke: Oh, 100%.

[01:02:01] Jim: Because the reptile brain's like, "Hey, he's tired, and he's vulnerable."

[01:02:05] Luke: A bad night's sleep, yeah, it's over.

[01:02:07] Jim: Yeah, because you're unhinged because you don't have the command here. So the advent of technology, the abuse of our food supply-- I was telling one of my daughters the other day, I said, I find it fascinating and really disturbing that humans, we only need a few basic functions to live. We need food as fuel and nutrients. We need sleep, we need water, and we need a sense of connection. We need some kind of intimacy with other humans. That's all we need.

[01:02:39] But in America, we've been poisoning one of the four pillars of how we live for decades. We are literally poisoning our own population. It's sickening. You're like, "What are we doing?" It should be alarming to any American. When you fly into the United States, you can't bring food from other countries.

[01:02:59] That's food you're bringing in. They don't have the pesticides, the preservatives, the excitatory neurotransmitters, the glutamate. That's crazy. So in the '90s and the 2000s and 2010s, the advent of technology, the environmental toxins, the food supply, we are now living in the second great age of anxiety.

[01:03:23] Things don't feel normal and don't feel grounded. What used to feel normal and anchored doesn't feel that way. When we nostalgically reflect on our childhood, you're like, "Wow, we were very naive, and things were just easier." And they were. So then COVID happens. Hey, you guys having fun in the second great age of anxiety. Let's throw a little more kindling on the fire.

[01:03:49] How would you like COVID? What? How would you like everything you thought was normal is no longer normal? In August of 2020, I'm in FanDuel Hall. I'm from Boston. It is August, peak season of tourism. I'm in FanDuel Hall, one of the biggest tourist traps in the United States of America, and there's nobody there.

[01:04:11] I look straight, left, right, behind me. There's not a single human out. My brain can't accept this. It's like post-apocalyptic life. So now central nervous system needs familiarity, security. Nothing of what I felt was normal is normal now. Doesn't exist, which means I have to burn a lot more calories, constantly evaluating everything, and I now I'm fatigued.

[01:04:41] So now we have a human species, five years removed that is fatigued and hanging on by a thread. We are all a thread away from the amygdala, just saying, "Hey, I got you. There is no prefrontal cortex anymore. I couldn't care less about anything you have to say. I'm going to just dominate your behavioral pattern."

[01:05:00] So we are in a crisis. We're in a crisis. A lot of times when I lecture, I say the human race appears to be in a race to erase the human race. And you can't argue with that. because you see all the variables against it. Like, wow. So that brings me to our mission and our movement and what we're doing.

[01:05:24] When I first spent time with Tony Robbins about 11 years ago, and he said, "Jim, why are you here?" He didn't say it like me. He said, "Jim, so tell me, why are you here?" And I told him, and I said, "I'm on a mission to change the world, Tony, and it's not what you think it is. I'm going to emancipate and liberate humans from stress. I'm going to solve your stress. And if I do that, I'm going to give you good sleep. And if I do that, change the game."

[01:05:52] That's what we're doing. So the amazing, esteemed, illustrious, brilliant, compassionate human being by the name of Blake Holloway, was a naturopath, a quantum physicist, a neuroscientist, a genius amongst geniuses, went on a quest to help people that related to his life, because as a child, he was abused.

[01:06:16] So he grew up with the structure of trauma in his brain physiology. And I think he carried that trauma with him for his entire life, and made him stay on this quest of incredible perseverance and trial and error and persistence to figure out one thing.

[01:06:32] Jim, if I can help solve complex trauma, trauma, and addiction, I will do it by effectively, safely, and predictably slowing down everybody's brainwave and holding it into theta, which is the healing zone. Your body knows how to heal you if I can liberate your monkey mind from dominating your body's healing response.

[01:06:56] So theoretically, that was the challenge. He began this process in 1990. I can't overstate his intellectual genius. I've never met anyone remotely like him. We have 52 medical advisors on our advisory board. These are the best and brightest academician scientists and doctors in the world. We have mathematicians from NASA.

[01:07:17] We have statistical biophysicists from Harvard. We have psycho neuroimmunologist, neuropsychologists, you name it. We got it. You could put them all in a room collectively. 52 of them together weren't as intelligent as Blake. He was a super freak. It took him 19 years to figure out how to manage the human brain.

[01:07:39] That'll create humility, when you realize how complicated the brain is, the evolutionary stuff, the neuronal circuitry, the way the brain compensates for anything you do. You do this, it responds this way. You do this, it responds this way. So the goal was, I need to empower a human that has lost their power. Traumatized brain cannot self-regulate. Coming out of trauma, if someone said, "Hey, go meditate." What? I close my eyes, man. It's go time.

[01:08:12] Luke: Yeah.

[01:08:13] Jim: What are you talking about? All you're doing is going to create shame because I'm going to sit there. First of all, I don't even know what I'm supposed to feel, but it certainly shouldn't be that. Feeling like I'm going to puke is not meditation.

[01:08:25] So how can we empower those who need it the most? We have to figure out a way to downregulate your brain like a thermostat. That's what he did. So he spent 19 years of his life building a software bed, software, algorithms, frequencies, pitch, binaural signal processing, isochronic waveform. He brought the kitchen sink because of the complexity of the brain.

[01:08:55] It's in a software. Then we compose music on top of the software. We compose music on top of the software for two reasons. One, we can add additional layers of complexity to the music to serve as a better envelope to deliver to the brain. Hey, you got a package here. You want to sign for it? Yes, please.

[01:09:14] Well, this is going to be good. Secondarily, we didn't want you to have to hear the physics, which sounds like this. Woo. It's agitating. You're not going to help me relax if I'm listening to that. So he built the software, we built the music, and here's the brilliance of Blake's invention.

[01:09:34] We use your ears to present your brain with precise signals. Your brain happily synchronizes to those signals, and off you go. And the real cool thing here is your brain, my brain, everybody's brain, nobody's brain wants to be managed. You have what's called a locus of control. You don't want anything touching you.

[01:09:59] You don't want a surgery, a drug, nothing. Don't touch me. I got this. So your brain would naturally resist any type of thing to modulate it, but 4 hertz is inaudible to the human brain. You can't hear what we're doing. So you have an app, you select Rescue, it takes you to 4 hertz. You put a headphone on, you're listening to music. And all of a sudden, bye-bye.

[01:10:28] Luke: You're drooling.

[01:10:29] Jim: You're done. We took you where we needed to take you. So NuCalm is synonymous with meditation, yoga, tai chi, breathing exercises, only in the physiological benefit of oxygenating your body.

[01:10:50] So when your body is at 4 hertz, when we have shut down your sympathetic nervous system, your stress response, your cortisol, your adrenaline, and we've raised your parasympathetic nervous system, your rest and digest, and we've allowed the body to get into homeostasis or balance, oxygen permeates from your toenails to your prefrontal cortex.

[01:11:14] You'll notice, and you've got self-awareness and a meditation background, for a while in NuCalm, you can be somewhat lucid. You'll notice your respiration slows down dramatically. Hmm. How dramatically? One breath every 10 seconds. Deep in Rescue you're breathing six breaths a minute.

[01:11:34] That's the ultimate diaphragmatic breathing of a human being, allows us to oxygenate the entire enterprise of your body. And we do this with no effort. You put a headphone on. You hit play on the Rescue app. You put an eye mask on. That's it. Our neuroscience will do the work for you. What we're doing to you is no different than what you used to do to yourself before the advent of technology.

[01:12:01] When the sun comes down, your body says, "Hey, it's been a good day. It's time for us to downregulate. Let's start preparing for sleep. Let's create melatonin. Hmm. Let's see how much GABA we have available. Let's think about some serotonin. Let's prepare for sleep." Blake is mimicking the pathways and the circuitry and the vibration and the frequency of how we prepare for sleep. That's what we did.

[01:12:31] Luke: Great explanation. It's been frustrating for me over the years to try to explain NuCalm to people because I think people conflate it with a meditation app or something, which I've tried a couple of those and I go, I just do better just meditating, using my practice. It's frustrating to me and probably more so to you as the spearhead CEO of this company.

[01:12:57] This is a neuroscience company. It's not an app company. The frustration for me is trying to convey the efficacy and power of NuCalm and how much it's transformed my life and enabled me to be in an airport and not freak out just as one of many examples, because it's an app that you download to your phone, and you're just listening to some tracks.

[01:13:20] It's almost like the simplicity of it, I think is lost on people because there's things out there that are similar or binaural beats. You can listen to binaural beats. The calming theta one might work for two days and then your brain seems to recognize it, memorize it, and it doesn't work anymore. And I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm just like, "Ah, I wish--" Because I get so many questions from people.

[01:13:42] Jim: You're tearing me up.

[01:13:43] Luke: Well, people have anxiety, and they ask me these questions. I'm like, "Dude, just get NuCalm. It's a few bucks a month. You listen to that thing a couple of times a day. You won't have stress, at least not to the degree that you have it now. And it's like people just have a hard time, I think, grasping the power of something because on its face it represents simplicity.

[01:14:05] It can't be that easy or that simple to calm your ass down. And that's not even going into the focus, which don't let me forget to talk about the Focus tracks because you guys don't really even talk about that. That's my shit all day long on the computer. I'm like a freaking machine. But we can get into the Focus and how the brainwaves work.

[01:14:24] Jim: Let's start with--

[01:14:26] Luke: You share my frustration. I'm sure, right? You're trying to convey something to people and it's like, well, how can that little thing do all that? And it does.

[01:14:38] Jim: Pioneering something that's never existed before on earth is a challenge I had no idea I was signing up for. I think I'd probably would've still taken the challenge 16 years later. I don't know. There's not a lot of efficiency in pioneering. I didn't know this. I do now. Because in my isolation and frustration, I had to study pioneers in our past to see what's going on here.

[01:15:06] And here's what's happening. When I explained to you or express something to you that sounds too good to be true, number one's I'm going to list is skepticism. That's fine. You should be skeptical. But number two, if I try to explain something to you that you don't understand, you've never heard about before, and your brain cannot establish a point of reference, you're paralyzed. You literally go nowhere. Your brain demands a comparison.

[01:15:33] That's how the brain works. That's why we have law of proximity. With a McDonald's, next to it a Burger King, next to it a Wendy's. We've established one thing. Now we have a benchmark. So that challenge is profound, and of course, it's frustrating, but we're visionaries on a mission to emancipate humans from stress and give you good sleep.

[01:15:54] Because we know invariably every human on earth deserves it, and every human on earth will be a better human being if you're not stuck in the cycle of high stress and poor sleep. This is a fatal [Inaudible], and this is inevitable. It's done. I'm just the vocal leader and the visionary bringing it.

[01:16:14] So there's challenges associated with that. The other challenge is I don't care that I'm going blue in the face trying to explain complex neuroscience to somebody, and they don't understand it. That's not my mission. My mission is how do we make this so simple that I don't have to explain it?

[01:16:31] So the biggest corollary, the best analogy I can think of is the microwave. The microwave was invented by a Raytheon physicist in 1946. It did not become a household item until 1986. When you historically look at pioneering technologies, you'll see a 40 year arc. I don't know.

[01:16:53] Well, we do know because the central nervous system demands familiarity and security. If it's never existed before, you're not getting past that, bro. And then you try to explain something to me I've never heard about before, and I'm paralyzed. 40 years is the arc. But what I love about the microwave analogy is today, if you queried 100 people, maybe three people know how a microwave works.

[01:17:18] The rest just simply say, I don't know how it works. It just conveniently heats up my food. Our quest, Luke, is to get to a place where I don't know how NuCalm works. It just makes me feel better when I'm having a stressed out day. It helps me focus when I'm distracted. It helps elevate my energy when I'm feeling low, and helps me sleep.

[01:17:37] So our quest is not parallel to the experience we're having trying to convince humans of this what can be. So there's two paths that I take for the common human being who does not know why this is different, and I don't blame them. We now deliver the simplicity of an app 35 years and almost $50 million of the world's first and only patented technology clinically proven to balance the nervous system of a human being.

[01:18:08] It is a magnitude. We're coming with a truckload of, what? Into an app. But consumers don't know this. So they see an app. They immediately, because their brain demands a comparison, compare it to another app. But like you said, we're not an app company. We are a neuroscience company that chose with eyes wide open in 2016 to figure out how do we take a 6,000-dollar complicated 4-component FDA Class III medical device and move it to a simple, affordable, and accessible outcome.

[01:18:44] Luke: I remember right after that transition. So that's when I found NuCalm, and I was like, "Oh, this is great, but who can afford it?"

[01:18:50] Jim: Not a lot of people, not a lot. I spoke to a high-level architect yesterday, and he says, "I never heard about NuCalm before." I said, "I wouldn't think you would have." He said, "Why do you say that?" I said, "Unless you were a special forces operator, a Navy Seal, worked for the FBI, you were a pilot, doctor, professional athlete, or a celebrity."

[01:19:08] We never marketed NuCalm. It was an FDA Class III medical device, and we served certain verticals. So unless you were one of those, of course, you never heard about it before. The second thing that I will tell somebody is, "Listen, let me explain to you binaural beat." Binaural beat is a delivery mechanism. What does that mean?

[01:19:28] Well, say for example, I order a pizza, and the pizza delivery boy shows up. I don't eat the pizza delivery boy. I eat the pizza. So when you're talking about binaural beat, you're mistaking the delivery mechanism for what you're actually presenting to the brain. And people, they don't want to pay for anything, and they don't want to learn anything, and they don't want to think too much anymore.

[01:19:53] Everything's short attention span. So we can use logic. We say, "Do you think a 99 cent binaural beat app may be different from a 6,000-dollar FDA Class III medical device that's patented? I don't know. That doesn't work. I hit him with the delivery piece. The brilliance of Blake Holloway was that he wasn't an audio file. Binaural beat was discovered in 1839 by a German scientist, which fascinates me.

[01:20:19] And basically, it leverages the brain's compensation. Your brain compensates. So you trick the brain. You put headphones on, and you present the brain with one hertz in one ear and a different hertz in the other ear. The brain gets the signal and says, "Wait a second. These are asynchronous." And it naturally subtracts the difference, and you're left with a beat.

[01:20:39] So if we want to bring your brain to 4 hertz, we'll have 512 hertz in your left ear, 508 hertz in your right ear. The brain subtracts a difference. Inaudible. Now your brain is being presented. Binaural beat apps have the theory right. They don't have the complexity of the brain right. So like you said, you do a binaural beat app.

[01:21:00] It's theta. First time you listen to it, it's fascinating. Second time you listen to it, it's amazing. Third time you listen to, it's pretty good. Fourth time you listen to it, yawn. Brain doesn't care. Because your brain has what's called the reticular activating system. And a reticular activating system helps you stay alive and not go insane.

[01:21:19] How does it do that? It filters everything. You get billions of packets of information from your visual cortex every day. Can you imagine if you had to process every bit of information? You'd go mad. You get tons of information from your auditory motor cortex, from your tactile, from your olfactory. The reticular activated system is the most profound, complicated, and amazing filtering system in this world.

[01:21:45] And then, after it's figured out the patterns, it finds shortcuts. Because remember, the amygdala's a workaholic. This thing's lazy. It's a shortcut machine. This is why there's no such thing as a second first impression. You'll never have a second experience that's profoundly better than the first. Why? Central nervous system, familiarity, security.

[01:22:07] This is new. Activate all my senses. Make sure I'm safe. Figure this out. Second time you do it, I've already figured it out. I already know the patterns. I already know what the waiter's going to say. I already know what the linens are like. I already know what the appetizer's like. What? It's a bummer.

[01:22:24] Because sometimes we want a repeat of an amazing experience and it doesn't exist because of the complexity of our brain. So the reticular activated system is this incredible, complex filtering system. Blake's genius was, "Hey, I know how to trick it." What am I presenting to it? That is where he built what is a non-linear oscillating algorithm.

[01:22:51] What does that mean? That means that the pattern is perpetually dynamic. What does that mean? That means you activate the reticular activating system to follow this pattern that never stops. That means never figure out NuCalm.

[01:23:06] Luke: Dude, subjectively, one of the weirdest things about NuCalm to me has always been, even though there's music tracks over the software that he designed-- and I still do this, and I don't know why. Maybe it's just the way the brain works. I try to memorize the music. Like, oh, next is going to go ding don, don ding. It's like by the time I get to it, it's changed, and I can never memorize it, ever. It's crazy.

[01:23:33] And it probably has something to do with why you can't build up immunity to it or a tolerance to it. I think like, "Okay, I've listened to, I don't know, the Rescue 20-minute thing." I'm going to probably listened to it a few thousand times by now over the years, and it amazes me that it still works.

[01:23:52] I would think my brain would've been, "Ah, nice try. We're still going to have stress out and worry about this thing. You're not going to relax even though you want to." But it's like, I cannot outsmart it. It's bizarre, dude.

[01:24:02] Jim: It's amazing.

[01:24:03] Luke: Because if you just listen to it on a surface level, it's like ding, ding, ding, not a little relaxing music. It's very ambiguous music. It's not like a style of music. Can't even really pick out the instruments in a lot of them. Maybe in a couple there's electric guitar and I'd be like, "Ooh, here comes the little solo part." And it's like, bzz, I'm gone. It's weirdest thing, dude.

[01:24:22] Jim: It's by design.

[01:24:23] Luke: Because you can listen to any other music, and if you listen to it dozens of times, you can really memorize every pattern of every instrument.

[01:24:31] Jim: This is by design.

[01:24:31] Luke: You know what's coming.

[01:24:32] Jim: Our goal is to trick your locus of control. Our goal is to allow your monkey mind to take a little hiatus. How do we do that? Remember, your brain is really, really sophisticated. Really sophisticated. So you bring up some really good points, which I love. In the music, as soon as you start to connect emotionally to a melody, your mind will begin to control you again. That's why it shifts. It's always moving because it's always tricking you. Everything we do is designed to trick your mind.

[01:25:07] Luke: That's another thing I've wondered too, is I'm like, "Who are the musicians playing this? Are they just free styling?" It's like a jam band or something. You know what I mean?

[01:25:16] Jim: Not even close.

[01:25:18] Luke: As a amateur musician, I'm like, "I couldn't do that if you asked me to." Like, "Hey, make this track in this key, but never repeat the same measures again." How do you just invent every couple bars a whole new measure, and you never go back to the original core idea? There's no structure to it. It makes jazz feel structured. You know what I mean?

[01:25:42] Jim: And jazz is intense, the key changes. Yeah, it's amazing. Okay, this is great. And this will elucidate a little bit more complexity of just a 99 cent binaural beat. Our goal is to pace your mind to a certain outcome, all mathematical. And we have a physics platform, and the physics has a non-linear oscillating algorithm.

[01:26:04] So the pattern, the signal presenting in your brain is non-linear and constantly dynamic. You'll never figure it out. I know the math. I've been using it for 16 years. I used NuCalm Rescue today, this afternoon for 20 minutes. Went to the same place I always go. I don't know where. So the music, we have Dan Celine, who's an incredible gift to humanity.

[01:26:26] He was one of the pioneers who brought new age music to the world in the '90s. He sold his record label to Virgin Records, and he went on a hiatus and went to India and followed meditation and was retired. He got introduced to NuCalm through a monk. How does this happen? This is awesome.

[01:26:45] The monk, introduced to NuCalm, he contacts me. He tries NuCalm. Two weeks later he says, "What is this?" I said, "What is what?" He said, "I'm reaching levels of meditation I've never reached before with a predictability I didn't think was possible and a depth that's blowing my mind. What are you doing?" So I explain it to him.

[01:27:03] Great. Cool. This is fascinating. Really like you. Have a good day. Two weeks go by, I get another call from him. He says, "Jim, I don't know your spiritual or religious affiliation, but I'm going to say something to you that you may find strange. I'm being called to you." I said, "No, I don't find it strange at all. It's been happening the entirety of this journey. What are you being called to do?" He said, "I don't know. But I have an expertise in composing music designed to trick the human brain."

[01:27:33] Luke: Oh, wow.

[01:27:34] Jim: So, bingo. Thank you, universe. You can't really make this up. He has access to some of the best engineers in LA and one of the best musicians in the today out of California. This musician plays over 60 instruments with a precision and efficacy that you've noticed. They have an expertise in what we're doing, and we have a 10-year learning curve on this. We've been doing this together for 10 years.

[01:28:03] So here's what we do. I give to them the matrix. So Rescue 30. Rescue 30 starts with an eight-minute departure lounge. What does that mean? You have a locus of control. I have a locus of control. I can't just take your brain to 4 hertzs. Your brain will be like, "No, not doing it." So we take you down; we take you up. We take you down; we take you up. We take you down; we take you up. I'm literally seeking permission from your central nervous system to allow us to control.

[01:28:30] That's fascinating. Happens every time. Eight minutes into Rescue 30, you are now at the floor of theta. You're in that lucid dream state. You may be snoring, you may not be. You're not with it. You may be in and out of consciousness. Okay. And then you're there for the entirety until the last four minutes.

[01:28:49] In the last four minutes, we begin to cycle you up, and at the end of the track, you're back to 15 hertz. You're welcome. Yay. You just had three hours of restorative sleep in 30 minutes. We've restored. We've repaired you. We've solved your stress, and we've oxygenated your frontal cortex. They get the matrix.

[01:29:06] They have to compose the music with the math. So that's why it's choppy like jazz. Here's the math. Whatever you do, gentlemen, do not obstruct the physiological outcome of what we're trying to accomplish. You are an accompaniment. You're not the method of action. So it takes us 11 to 26 months to create a single track.

[01:29:34] Luke: What?

[01:29:34] Jim: When you're listening to this, you're going to notice a level of complexity and overlays. You'll notice the environmental pieces we use. And every track has a specific outcome. And I love the math and science and the art of it. There's an art to this. So I will give to Dan, "Here's the matrix. We're going to do a Rescue 30, and I'd like this to be maybe reflective and introspective and maybe a little bit on the sad meter."

[01:30:03] Okay. They'll listen to it, just the physics. They'll listen to it for a couple weeks, and they'll get their inspiration. Then they'll think through the music, the instruments they're going to use, and then they have traveled this earth with a 3D holophonic microphone recording at the highest levels of recording nature sounds. Whether it's cicadas at a vortex in Arizona, whether it's the beach in Kauai, whether it's sunrise in Big Sur. So all of those tracks you get, everything's layered. The most layered one was Rescue 50 with 54 layers on the track, 50-minute track--

[01:30:38] Luke: I love that one.

[01:30:39] Jim: --with 54 layers.

[01:30:39] Luke: That's the one I use most of the time while flying. Yeah.

[01:30:42] Jim: Yeah. So we're right now doing a collaboration with Roger Love, one of the top vocal coaches in the world.

[01:30:49] Luke: Oh yeah, yeah.

[01:30:49] Jim: If not the top.

[01:30:50] Luke: Yeah.

[01:30:51] Jim: And he was like, "You know, Jim, Tony Robbins is one of my students, and so is Jim Kwik." And I know that they're dear friends of yours and they love NuCalm, and I know that they're the two collaborations you've done and the only two voices [Inaudible] done. So this is going to be amazing. He has an understanding and a gift for music, tone, pitch. So we're doing collaborations now with one of the best people who understand the voice in the world.

[01:31:20] And the first thing I asked him is, what would you like the person to feel? He's like, "What?" I said, "We can elicit a emotional outcome, the whole track. Would you like them to be down regulated? Maybe take the edge off. Would you like to have access to their subconscious? Would you like them to be focused, a little energized, maybe a little elevated?"

[01:31:36] He's like, "What? You can do all this?" I said, "Yeah, we can do all of it. It's like alchemy. We do anything we want." So it's a fascinating aspect to this. We are such the antithesis of an app. We're such the antithesis of a meditation app or a Gizmo, or a gadget. And for us to be compared to an app that might have bedtime stories and music is a joke, and I don't like the joke.

[01:32:02] But I get the joke because, of course, you compare us to an app. We deliver by an app. So it's up to us to say, "Hey, this is 35 years of clinically proven patent neuroscience. This is FDA, Health Canada, military approval, NSS Certified for Sport. This is 52 medical advisors. This is the only patent in the world for balancing the human nervous system without drugs.

[01:32:25] Luke: Really?

[01:32:26] Jim: Again, in 2015, we received the only patent in the world for a system and method used to elicit and balance the autonomic nervous system of a human being without drugs. It took us five years of very, very complicated research with the best mathematicians at NASA and Harvard Medical School studying stage four cancer patients versus the Chicago Blackhawks.

[01:32:52] You learn the most from the extremes. No one had ever invented what we've done before, so there's no comparable studies for us to benchmark. We had to create all of this ourselves. That's why I created the medical advisory boards today. I don't know what Blake Holloway did. I don't know how he invented this.

[01:33:07] I just know that he invented this. Either corroborate it or destroy it. I don't know. I didn't invent it. Figure it out. I don't care what your research design is. We're not paying you. There's nothing here. You're going to buy NuCalm. You're going to design the research you want to do, and we're going to go on this journey together of figuring this out together.

[01:33:24] That's how we started this, and that was way back in 2011. We launched in 2009. So the complexity of the software is amazing. Great. We have done, with Rescue, which is your jam, my jam, and everybody's jam who wants to live a better life.

[01:33:43] Luke: I wanted to sneak one in between your interview and the one before, and I didn't have enough time.

[01:33:48] Jim: Yes. And I'm sorry.

[01:33:50] Luke: No, that's fine. I know you, so it's not--

[01:33:52] Jim: But I am sorry because--

[01:33:54] Luke: I don't have to be as on as someone I'm just meeting for the first time. Oh, by the way, you guys, Jim's been on the show two times before.

[01:34:00] Jim: I have.

[01:34:01] Luke: We'll put the two prior episodes which were number 265 and 318. Wow, that was a while ago because we're up to 600 and something now. We're going to put all of this at lukestorey.com/meditation3, and we're also going to put the nucalm.com link in there. And if you use the code LUKE, you'll get 15% off any subscription for life. Sorry to divert you, but I'm supposed to do that earlier.

[01:34:27] Jim: Let me just expound on that. When you buy NuCalm and you use Rescue three times in a seven-day period, we know something you don't know yet. We got you for life. Wow. That's interesting. No, we do. We got you for life. Why? Because it seems to be three times-- the first time you try it, you can't believe what just happened to you, and you're not really sure you can equate it to that.

[01:34:53] That's the human brain and skepticism. Second time you try it, because the [Inaudible] system is so fast at building patterns, you glide right in the second time because your brain's not trying to figure it out. Third time you try it, now you're starting to get that cumulative benefit.

[01:35:06] At that point, three Rescue experiences, you're like, "I don't want to go back to living the way I used to live. I wasn't in command. I was reactionary. I was fatigued all the time. I wasn't myself. I never felt in balance. I never felt like myself, and I don't want to do that." That's how we know.

[01:35:24] We also know, because as I said earlier, we've been serving discerning audiences since 2009. There's not a lot of technologies out there that support and work directly with the Navy Seals, the Special Forces Operators, the FBI, the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, BORTAC, Boar, the FedEx Pilots Union, 78 professional sports teams, thousands of doctors, cancer patients, and they've been with us for years.

[01:35:48] So we have an idea of how this all works. We started in medicine. It was a 6,000-dollar FDA Class III medical device. It was complicated. It looked to me back in 2009 that we had jerry-rigged this at RadioShack with parts from 1976 East Berlin. It looked insane.

[01:36:07] Luke: These were like the electrodes you put on the vagus nerve and all that stuff. Right.

[01:36:11] Jim: Cream, electrode, stimulation device. We had it all. I couldn't believe doctors were paying us $6,000 per system. They didn't care the form factor. The outcome was so profound, they're like, "I'd pay 50,000 for this." What did we do? We started working in periodontal surgery, oral maxillofacial surgery, dental surgery, full mouth reconstructive surgery, neuromuscular work, and we started replacing any general anesthesia.

[01:36:40] So you're now operating on people, and they're listening to your physics with a headphone, wearing an eye mask, being operated on, and then they're walking out of the hospital. Yes. That's exactly how we started. So we've done more than 2,600,000 surgical procedures replacing general anesthesia with an incredible, predictable, and safe ability to simply slow down your brainwave and hold you in 4 hertz.

[01:37:07] Go get operated on. You're fine. And the fascinating thing, Luke, was this, we've done hundreds of before and after interviews. And the before interview is fascinating because you're going to see fear at a that you're just like, "This is bizarre." Their neck is red. Their eyes are darting. Their mouth is dry. They're literally talking in gibberish.

[01:37:25] They speak English, but they're not speaking in English. They're just like, "What are you talking about?" Then they go get operated on. You witness the operation. It's bloody. It's gory. Sometimes it's barbaric, whatever. You're like, "This is crazy. They're just listening to our physics."

[01:37:40] After the surgery, they look into the camera and they say, I knew I was being operated on, but I couldn't find a place to care. That's when we knew. We're like, "We're doing this?" And it was in 2016. I was with Dr. Holloway. We were witnessing probably our 400 surgery. It never got old.

[01:37:58] It always was like, "I got to suspend my disbelief and witness this." And even to the surgeons, they're like, "This is unbelievable." I looked at Blake and I said, "Blake, if we can take everybody's brain to 4 hertz, and there's an acute stress response when you're about to be operated on, and it doesn't matter who you are, gender, age, where you live, disease state, can we take everybody's brain to 0.5 hertz and put them to sleep?"

[01:38:24] "Yes." Can we take them to 7.83 hertz and put them in a creative state? Yes. Can we take them to 18.4 hertz and put them in a focus state? Yes. Can we take them to 41 hertz and put them in a high intensity elevated state? Yes. See, the thing, I loved working with Blake-- there's a lot of things I loved working with Blake, but one thing I loved was I never heard no.

[01:38:47] No was never was part of his lexicon. I always heard yes. But Blake, for all his gifts, and there was many, he had Asperger's, so executive functioning and timelines didn't exist. So I always knew, yes, with great confidence.

[01:39:03] Luke: But not when.

[01:39:04] Jim: I never knew when. I never knew how, and I loved it. He would call me up randomly. I'd be traveling wherever I was. He'd say, "Jim, I did it." I said, "You did what?" "I did what you asked me to do." I said, "I've asked you to do a lot of things. What'd you do?" "I invented Focus, or I created this." So 2016 was the genesis and the beginning of shifting a medical company that was doing really well.

[01:39:28] We were serving cancer patients and doctors and pilots and athletes and military. It was great, but it wasn't good enough. We needed to help more people. If we have the only solution in the world, this isn't a Band-Aid. I'm not managing your symptom. I'm solving your stress in your mid-brain, where it starts.

[01:39:47] Then we need to get this to the masses. They deserve it. Humanity deserves it. So that was the shift in our company, and it all happened in different ways. But it was weird because in November 15th, 2021, we launched the app. And in that day, one single day, we went from a one product company to five products.

[01:40:06] Who does that? How'd that happen? It just was the parallel path. Deep Sleep took us the longest, Focus, KwikState, all these different things. And they just came together. And we're like, "Okay, we're ready to go." So today we took, which was the most powerful therapy and the only patented therapy in the world for balancing the nervous system.

[01:40:30] We took that, and we expanded the outcome by changing the mathematics in the matrix. The endpoint was no longer 4 hertz. The endpoint was 0.5 hertz. The endpoint was no longer 4 hertz. The endpoint was 7.83 hertz. Once we perfected that, because in the science world, we will discover, invent, trial and error, figure it out, but then we had to go through clinical validation, all the studies, all the quantification, and then the subjective stuff, and we had all this access points.

[01:41:00] So it was a fascinating science journey. But in July of 2022, we launched Focus, which was our sixth and final product. And at that point, we as a neuroscience company had solved the riddle of all 41 hertz of human brainwave function. So you literally, as a human today, and this is a really cool thing to think about because this product and this way of us living will change how humans live for forever.

[01:41:27] You can literally, today, if you wanted, take all your accelerant drinks, your coffee drinks, your sugary drinks, your sodas, alcohol, recreational drugs, pharmaceuticals, everything. Put it on one side of the table, and the other side of the table, put the NuCalm app and a headphone. We figured it out. We solved how to modulate with the exceptional precision, your brainwave frequencies.

[01:41:52] People were like, "You're controlling my brain." I said, yeah. So is everything else, caffeine, alcohol, recreational drugs, pharmaceuticals, a hug, intimacy, conflict, exercise. So two things at play for us, Luke, and we only have to educate you on how your brain works. So you're like, "Okay, this is possible." And then we have to say, "This is what we did."

[01:42:18] But we have created a way for you as a human to modulate your brainwave frequency so that you can now be in command of your patients, your presence, your personality, your executive functioning, your logic, your ability to either respond or react to stress, your ability to sleep, your ability to focus, your ability to elevate. You can do anything with a mobile app.

[01:42:45] So yeah, it's definitely a challenge on the education side. And do we suffer fools? Listen, I'm not in a place to judge anymore. I see how the patterns work, and I see, of course, you compare us to a mobile app. That's fine. But all you have to do is try it. I think one of the biggest things that we've done, we're the world's leading experts in solving complex neuroscience problems with complex neuroscience solutions.

[01:43:12] Nobody's done what we've done before. And the patents showcase the novelty and the efficacy, and we stand alone. We're in a category of one on neuroscience. Great. We're really social psychologists. If we don't make this easy for you, it doesn't matter. I don't care how complicated. I don't care how cool the science is. Who cares?

[01:43:33] If you don't use it, then it's a failure. That's what drove us to the simplicity. So now today there's 8.4 billion people that inhabit planet Earth. 7 billion people have access to a mobile device. So our total addressable market today is 7 billion humans that we can help modulate and solve your stress, improve your sleep quality, help you focus like a laser on demand, and elevate your energy.

[01:43:59] And all you need is a mobile app and a headphone. So if that doesn't get you excited and be like, "Holy shit." I've been doing this for 16 years. I still cannot reconcile the magnitude of what we're doing. It is so profound. This is generations of shift changing in how we live. And I'll be long gone on my next life, my next adventure, when people start realizing, wow, this has happened.

[01:44:25] And that's really fun. And so does it get tiresome to look at people and they look at you like you're crazy? Sure, it does. I've learned not to. So here's my elevator pitch. You're ready? Hey, Luke. How're you doing with sleep? Not too well. Of course, you're not. Nobody's sleeping well. You're not alone. How about stress? Eh. How would you like to have access?

[01:44:45] Used to be exclusively available only to elite military, like Navy Seals and special forces operators, pilots, professional athletes, celebrities and doctors. Would you like access to that? Used to be a 6,000-dollar FDA class III medical device. Today it's available in a mobile app for low as 50 cents a day. That's all I say.

[01:45:07] Luke: That's pretty good.

[01:45:08] Jim: Because I don't need to explain it anymore.

[01:45:11] Luke: I think to your point about someone trying a Rescue track three times, it's a thing that you just have to experience.

[01:45:19] Jim: You do.

[01:45:20] Luke: And I don't know. For me, there's no turning back. I would freak out if the app disappeared and you guys just went away. I don't want to say I depend on it in a negative way, but it's one of my primary tools.

[01:45:33] Jim: You can say you depend on a negative way. Listen, it'd be like--

[01:45:38] Luke: I like to think that I have all the resources within me. And on one level I do, but it's really nice to have tools that support me in being able to do that.

[01:45:48] Jim: You don't have to qualify having a tool to help you. And you're right. Years ago, I came to this realization, and I would tell people, you can take anything from me in this life except for my family and my NuCalm. I will kill you, period. I can't live without it.

[01:46:04] Luke: Tell me how the Focus tracks work. Because last time we sat down, I think the first time it was still like $4,000 or something, and I felt bad for even telling people about it. Because who has four grand laying around?

[01:46:19] Jim: A lot more people than you think because you know what? Cancer, addiction, trauma-- trust me, people find other modalities. So yeah.

[01:46:27] Luke: But then in the second one, it was mostly based on the Rescue tracks, the nervous system relaxing, those meditative states. But since then, the Focus one came out, and every once in a while, I look at the app and there's an update. There's a mastermind one now with some deep hidden tracks and stuff, which I love.

[01:46:47] But the Focus one, and then there's a FlowState menu too. And so those are new, and I'm just like, "Ah, I don't know. I think these guys, they do the relaxing thing, not to discredit, you." But I was like, "Ah, they probably just threw that in there because why not?" I started using the focus one and I'm like, "What the fuck, dude?" I'm pretty focused already." I have pretty good brain. I've built the capacity for focus. I've done a lot of neurofeedback.

[01:47:12] I've worked on my brain a lot because I did so much damage to it when I was young and stupid, or young and traumatized, depending on how you look at it. Probably a bit of both. But when I really noticed was when I started writing my book, which has been an ongoing process-- and that requires, for anyone that's attempted to or completed the writing of a book-- you talk about the level of focus and creativity that you need to be able to do that.

[01:47:36] It's hours and hours and hours and hours a day sitting there and hopefully not moving much, of just like getting the ideas out. And dude, those Focus tracks, I've been through all of them. There's some of different lengths. Some have rain. Some have a little music. I just put it on repeat so it don't get the end chime. It just keeps going and going. And I'll put on, I think it's the one Full Focus.

[01:48:00] It's the one with the rain that I find works the best for me because I don't start listening to other sounds. It's just like sssh. It's probably rain from freaking Bali or wherever you guys recorded it. Dude, and I'll set the repeat thing on that and go through cycle after cycle. It's three or four hours I'm at the computer, and finally, my body goes like, "Dude, you should get up and do some squats and move around. You're sitting too long." But as far as my brain's capacity to do focused work, but also creative work at the same time, it's nuts, dude.

[01:48:30] Jim: One thing you should know--

[01:48:32] Luke: Absolutely insane.

[01:48:33] Jim: --about NuCalm, is we have a high degree of efficacy, trial and error, validation, clinical proof. We don't do anything with any levity, ever. You'll never see anything--

[01:48:47] Luke: So when I was like, "Ah, they just threw a Focus track on to be queued."

[01:48:49] Jim: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You have no idea. Five years of research and then validation, and then studies and quantitative EEGs, and all the stuff we do. Nothing we've ever done is done as an afterthought ever. Remember, we have created the only method. We have the only patent in the world for bouncing the nervous system.

[01:49:11] But in 2021, we were awarded the only patent in the world for a method used to elicit a state change in a human brain. We have the only patent in the world. So if anyone says to you, "Hey, do this. It'll change your state," is either lying to you or they're infringing on our patent.

[01:49:27] Luke: Wow.

[01:49:28] Jim: So yeah, we're light years beyond.

[01:49:31] Luke: So when I'm using, say, the Focus tracks, what brainwaves are happening there?

[01:49:35] Jim: So with Focus, once we figured out--

[01:49:39] Luke: Because I don't feel like high beta. I'm not anxious. I'm actually calm. I'm not tempted to open up other apps on my computer or look at my phone. It's like, no problem just to sit there with a Word document and just geek out.

[01:49:55] Jim: So we take your brain expressly to 18.4 hertz. This is another one of those we should know. 18.4 hertz is exceptional laser focus. In that state, there's no clutter. There's no other space in your brain. There's no pings. You're not thinking about what's for dinner, nothing. You're intentional. You are able to analyze and create new cognition, new thought patterns, new neuronal circuitry, and even consolidate the memory in that state. 18.4 hertz is the peak for the learning state of a human brain.

[01:50:33] Luke: What brainwave range is that?

[01:50:35] Jim: It's beta. It's mid-beta. So 15 to 20 hertz is the range. 18.4 is the specific. Focus and Ignite are two of the products that to me, feel like magic. We invented it, and when I first started using it, I was like, "How are we doing this?" It takes you a minute or two. And then all of a sudden, you are in. And the fact that you lose sense of time showcases you how in it you are.

[01:51:05] Luke: Oh, it's crazy.

[01:51:06] Jim: You don't miss anything.

[01:51:07] Luke: Dude, you can ask my wife. She'll knock on my door and be like, "Dude, you need to eat." She's almost every day like, "What are you doing?" I go, "I'm writing." And she goes, "You've been in here for four hours."

[01:51:17] Jim: What I love about Focus is, first of all, its effect and ability to put you in a laser state, period. And it's just physics.

[01:51:27] Luke: How does it make it possible that you're not even tempted to do other shit? You know what I'm saying? I can sit down on my computer. I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to do whatever." And it's like, well, I better open the text app and just check on that. I can't resist letting myself be distracted. It's not even that I'm distracted. It's like there's temptation to be distracted that I cave to. Whereas if I'm using Focus, it's like I might have the thought of like, "Hey, you could do this or that." And it's like, no, I'm locked in. It's so easy to resist multitasking.

[01:52:00] Jim: When we know the outcome associated with the behavioral pattern, we can dial your brain to that specific frequency. At that frequency, Luke, which I love, there is no capacity for anything else. The laser focus is you were literally honed in. There is no distraction. You'll also notice, and this was fascinating, when we first started evaluating this, I'm one of the betas, and so I'm walking around my home neighborhood with headphones on.

[01:52:29] First thing I would do in the morning. And I chuckled thinking, wow, in Russia, they'd call me the village idiot because I'd find myself smiling. And I was like, "Why am I smiling?" Well, of course, I'm smiling. At 18.4 hertz, there's no space in my brain for anything else. The space in your brain, the clutter, the distraction, are usually the amygdala hitting you with different thought patterns.

[01:52:52] But when there's no space there, you're left with nothing but feeling good. There's like a mood elevation to listen, to focus. What I love about it is you can do no harm. 18.4 hertz is innocuous. We can do no harm. You can do it as long as you like. Now, physiologically, you do have to shift in your body and your posture. I usually do it in 60-minute increments, and gosh, darn it. Every single time it's over, I'm like, "That was 60 minutes? That's insane."

[01:53:22] And then I hydrate, whatever. So 18.4 hertz Focus is incredible, and we brought it to market. And this is one of the challenges we have. We believe, and what we see is this decline in human resilience and strength and ability to function at a high level all goes back to the derivative of stress and sleep, high stress and poor sleep. That's the lifestyle of most humans.

[01:53:48] We have the only solution in the world. Hello, we're going to focus our attention on getting you healthy first. But we know that we can also help you with laser focus, productivity, mental efficiency, mental acuity, concentration, and comprehension. Amazing work that we all need. But we can't focus there yet because we got to get you healthy first. So a lot of our materials, a lot of our education is focused, no pun intended, on the recovery of your nervous system.

[01:54:15] Luke: Ah, okay.

[01:54:16] Jim: We want to reset your nervous system first, because if we give you distractions in something that's easier-- because humans are inherently lazy, but also in daylight, you don't want to take a nap. Your brain wants activity. Your amygdala is like, "I'm not taking a nap, bro."

[01:54:31] So if you think about the complexity of us in daylight, taking you down and holding you just above deep sleep, we're going against the inertia of what your brain wants. That's a lot for us to do that. It's amazing to me that we figured it out. But once we did, Focus and Ignite are easy. You can tell something's happening. Ignite's crazy. You put something on, you're like, "How are you making me feel like this? I'm just listening to something."

[01:54:58] Luke: A few years ago, you sent me the Ignite tracks with AC/DC. Stevie Ray Vaughn and Van Halen, I love those, dude.

[01:55:07] Jim: Oh yeah, I bet you do.

[01:55:08] Luke: Obviously you can't release those for copyright reasons. Was I even supposed to say that? I guess you're not selling it, right?

[01:55:16] Jim: No. For anybody out there, I have what's called the CEO Vault. It's one of the gravitas, nice things I get as a CEO. In that vault, I have had our sound engineers master our physics for Ignite, which creates an amplification of your brain to 41 hertz and activates you. And I've taken my favorite artists, and I've built [Inaudible].

[01:55:39] Luke: So good.

[01:55:40] Jim: They're incredible.

[01:55:41] Luke: There's the Guns N Roses, The Doors, Van Halen, AC/DC.

[01:55:47] Jim: Stevie Ray is my fave, Life Without You.

[01:55:50] Luke: Yeah, yeah. Those are cool, but they do get you hyped. Because sometimes I'll lay down and listen to them and I'm like, "Yeah, I'm not relaxed at all."

[01:55:58] Jim: No, they're designed for hype. They're designed for working out. Last year, in 2024, we built a whole separate additional strength Ignite product for the United States FBI. So they said, "Hey, can you amplify and activate us?" It's called Elite Operator, and it activates your warrior brain. So nobody will know it. Nobody will see it. You're one of my close buddies, and you're one of my favorite NuCalmers, and when you scroll on the app, you see this, and you see this. You'll never see that because you're not an FBI operator.

[01:56:40] Luke: Damn, bro. What? The Elite Operators missing from my playlist.

[01:56:45] Jim: It's only open to the elite FBI House of Rescue Team and elite FBI operators. How crazy is it?

[01:56:52] Luke: Wow. Because that one go super hardcore gamma? Is that--

[01:56:56] Jim: It does, and it holds you in gamma longer? So the Ignite tracks we have today-- so Ignite, you guys, is fascinating. A lot of us need an energy boost before we work out. A lot of us want an energy boost in the mid-afternoon when our energy hits a lull. What we should do is Rescue or PowerNap, and listen to our body because your resilience, your inflammation, all the things that are negative to toxic drinks that you put in your belly, we don't have.

[01:57:22] However, in the event that you need to amplify, you're going to go work out, or whatever you're going to do, within your buds or headphones, you put on Ignite track. It's 12 to 14 minutes long, and it's insane. It literally activates you. We start at 15 hertz, and we slowly amplify you up. In the last three minutes, we call warrior brain.

[01:57:42] You're at 41 hertz. Your mental acuity is spot on. Your ability to feel completely invincible is right there. There's no self-doubt. There's no confusion. There's no mental nothing. You're just, boom. Your olfactory peripheral vision, your musculature. Elite military operators, FBI, FBI, hostage Rescue Team, SWAT, they're listening to this in their comms, in earbuds, in route to mission.

[01:58:09] Luke: Really?

[01:58:10] Jim: Mission preparation, mission execution, safety. Think about it. In a mission, say, a special forces operator, and there's a dozen of you or wherever there is. It's in the middle of the night, and you're in a foreign country, and you're acclimatized with a different altitude. You're malnourished. You're sleep deprived.

[01:58:26] No one cares. You're on a mission, and life and death is a nanosecond split decision. What you can afford is to be confused to, what's the mission? What am I supposed to be doing? No. So with Ignite, you are literally peak performing, and it overrides the natural human need for sleep deprivation and climatization, glucose. It's insane.

[01:58:46] Luke: You know what I've never tried, is doing Ignite before an interview. I usually am trying to get relaxed, but I'm probably putting myself to sleep before I need to sit down and be really sharp with someone.

[01:58:58] Jim: You would have a really interesting experience with Ignite before an interview.

[01:59:03] Luke: I should try that.

[01:59:04] Jim: It would amplify you.

[01:59:05] Luke: I think I've been afraid that it'll make me too hyper and anxious.

[01:59:08] Jim: Well, there's a couple of tracks that aren't hyper amplification. The new track in the mastermind vault is called Ascend, and it's melodic, and it's mathematical, and it's built more for 40 hertz mental acuity. It's not so much for the gross motor cortex.

[01:59:25] And then Triumphant, which is our old Beethoven and Bach, that's my morning jam. So my morning is I get up and I work out and do all the exercise stuff, then I shower, then I go into my office, and the first thing I listen to is Ascend, which is the new one in the vault. And then I listen to Triumphant. So it's about 25 minutes. I don't put headphones on so that I'm not totally peaked and pounding on my keyboard. No, I'm in the zone.

[01:59:50] Luke: So you play it on speakers.

[01:59:51] Jim: I do.

[01:59:52] Luke: Okay. If you're using noise canceling headphones with any of the tracks, is it more of a profound effect than if it's just ambient in the room on speakers?

[02:00:01] Jim: So this is a really good question for anyone of you who are using NuCalm, and for those of you who are going to be new to the family. There are two ways to deliver a signal precisely to your brain. One's called binaural beat or binaural signal processing. We've already established that. You need headphones. We're tricking the brain.

[02:00:20] The other way is called isochronic waveform, where we can imprint patterns and beats into the music, into ambient airway flow. That's what deep sleep is. That's why it took us so long to invent Deep Sleep, because we didn't want you to have to wear headphones to bed because it's uncomfortable, and it'll stop compliance.

[02:00:37] So all of the tracks that we've ever developed, and there's over eight days of patented neuro acoustic software on the app today, have both delivery mechanisms. See, we're really, really smart at figuring out ways to--

[02:00:51] Luke: I didn't know that. I thought I always had to have headphones.

[02:00:53] Jim: Yeah. To trick the brain.

[02:00:54] Luke: Yeah. I've never listened to it on speaker, ever.

[02:00:56] Jim: So here's what this means.

[02:00:59] Luke: We should have done an interview sooner than whatever the one was, three or four years ago. I'm missing a huge piece of this.

[02:01:06] Jim: Perhaps. However, there's a continuum of strength and efficacy. When you put headphones on, because you can't hear what we're doing, your brain has no resistance mechanism. You are going precisely to the outcome that is part of the matrix. We know exactly where you're at at every second.

[02:01:23] When you listen to it ambiently, you are going to battle your senses. We can't take you to the end point with great specificity, but we take you there. So you get in the vicinity. You know sometimes in GPS it can take you close and then it can't get you to that house?

[02:01:39] Luke: That's ways when you're out in the boonies.

[02:01:40] Jim: There you go. It is. So this gives you continuous strength. So for me, I'm going to wear a headphone, fine. I'm going to wear a headphone when I demand an intentional focus where I'm not making a mistake. So we're a global neuroscience company. There are many times I'm looking at contracts from partnerships with India or Brazil, and they're 13, 14-page contract.

[02:02:05] I don't want to miss anything. So for those intentional purposes, and it could be 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I could [Inaudible] since 5:00. I put the headphone on, focus, and I'm in. I'm in the matrix. I'm not getting out till I'm done. But in the morning, as I'm preparing and just going through my daily schedule, I usually have calls with our partners of Vietnam or Australia morning time because the 11-hour, 13-hour, 14-hour difference.

[02:02:30] And then I'll put Focus on and just start catching up on whatever. It's with a speaker right next to me, Sonos speaker in my office. I can do that without the fatigue of the headphone on my cranium or the heat on my ears. When I need maximum effect, I put the headphone on.

[02:02:49] For Ignite, in the morning, I don't put a headphone on because I'll be way too ambitious and way too energized for the first 30 minutes. And as you know, it lasts. That mental acuity lasts for a couple of hours. So I will have just a speaker. Then when I need that energy, pre-workout, during a workout, in ears. Every Rescue, headphone. Every PowerNap, headphone. Every FlowState, headphone.

[02:03:18] Why? Because I want maximum impact of the time I'm giving you. Feed my soul, take care of me, balance my nervous system, make me whole again, and I'll do anything I want. I'm your compliance subservient guest here. And I'll say that. When I go into NuCalm, sometimes I just say, "Just take me away."

[02:03:35] Take me wherever you're going to take me. Because I know in those last minutes or when the chime comes, it's like, pop up, like the button on a Turkey. And I'm like, "Okay, let's go. Let's roll." So I'm happy that you didn't know there was a continuous strength because every time you've chosen to do NuCalm, Rescue, PowerNap, FlowState, you have given your nervous system the most impactful health that you can give.

[02:04:00] But now moving forward, when you're working on your book or you're going to do a long writing time, you can do both. Just know that when you want to amplify the intensity and the specific outcome, you want the headphone on.

[02:04:14] Luke: Noted. Great to know. What's happening in the FlowState? What brainwaves--

[02:04:20] Jim: 7.83 hertz. So the Schumann resonance, the earth's magnetic rotation, grounding, we've lost that. In America, we live on cement and steel, and we have rubber soul shoes on. We're not touching the earth. We're not picking up 7.83 hertz  Schumann resonance, which is the earth's magnetic rotation. We're not connected to the universal energy, and it's all related to health, DNA, everything. It's all math. This is all related.

[02:04:51] The human body cavity oscillates and vibrates at 7.83 hertz. It was Nikola Tesla said, "Hey, the earth's rotation is at 7.83 hertz. It's not by coincidence the human body cavity resonates at 7.83 hertz, and that is the key to alpha brainwave management." 7.83 hertz is the intersection of alpha, the creative state, and theta, the healing zone.

[02:05:14] So FlowState, our goal was to open up a doorway to your subconscious in a calm manner that even if you're triggered by some memory pattern that you don't control, your body can't elicit a response. And so FlowState is a prep time for your creative work.

[02:05:33] Luke: That's funny because I didn't know that but that's what I use it for.

[02:05:37] Jim: That's exactly how you're supposed to use it. Perfect.

[02:05:39] Luke: Yeah. If I'm about to do something that requires creativity or focus, I'll run the FlowState. Because it's quite relaxing. It doesn't knock me out like one of the theta-based ones, but I've never intuitively listened to a FlowState track and tried to do anything at the same time. I'm always laying down. But I'm not as deep as I would be in a PowerNap or something.

[02:06:02] Jim: You're exactly where you're supposed to be.

[02:06:04] Luke: That's cool.

[02:06:05] Jim: With FlowState, PowerNap, Rescue, and deep sleep, you're not supposed to do anything. Because even you try, it's nonlinear. You're going to lose your thought. You just are subservient guest, and we're going care of you, seriously. Have your way with me. Just take care of me. FlowState cleans out the junk, gets rid of the procrastinations, the writer's block. Writers and creative artists and anybody who has deadlines, it's fascinating your amygdala's sabotage mechanism.

[02:06:33] When you have a deadline, it start literally creating blocks for you and challenges for you. You can't even get to your subconscious and your creative mind because you're building so much cloud on your left shoulder. And it's like, you got a deadline Sunday night, and you're not going to make it.

[02:06:48] What? This started on Thursday. So FlowState just says, "No, we don't give a shit. Hey, amygdala. Go sit at the kid's table. Adults are speaking." So you get in your bed, you put an eye mask on, a headphone, you get in the flow state. We take you to 7.83 hertz. We don't knock you out like we do with PowerNap and Rescue.

[02:07:08] We just open up the door so when you come out, you have a free clean access point to your subconscious creativity in a calm, grounded, centered fashion. It's brilliant for the work you're doing when you're writing. So you FlowState before, Focus during, the combination is incredible. About June of 2022, I was invited to speak to a whole host of authors and artists in Las Vegas, and I just show up.

[02:07:36] I have a crazy schedule, and I don't prepare for anything, so I just was there. But it was curious to me, why am I speaking-- I didn't know who the audience was. Who are the audience? Authors. And I said, "Why am I speaking to authors?" And the guy looked at me and says, "Dude, your FlowState product is brilliant for getting rid of procrastinations, writer's blocks. Everybody would benefit from everything that you're doing, but FlowState is pivotal for them."

[02:07:58] So it's been fascinating to hear all the people who said similar things. You said to me, "You have no idea how fast and how amazing I wrote my book using FlowState as a precursor to get rid of and declutter my mind and then focus to just crush it.

[02:08:16] Luke: Yeah. Also with the FlowState and the procrastination, which is a beast, I seem to be able to resist the impulses to go do something less important. Because what'll get me is like-- because I work from home. My office is right there. That's the computer where that big document, that big scary document is.

[02:08:36] Jim: Yes.

[02:08:36] Luke: I'll have the idea, okay, what do I got on the calendar today? Well, I need to be writing, and I need to put in four hours today. And there's something in my brain that's like, "Yeah, but you could go power wash the driveway. That's really important." And I'm like, "Okay." Next thing you know, I've missed my window. And then I kick myself in the ass. You're loser. You were power washing the driveway while you were supposed to be riding today.

[02:08:58] I find the FlowState-- there's, again, back to that commander, that agency. It's like, I might have the idea, well, the driveway looks pretty dirty. And I go, "No. I actually feel like writing." It's not like a chore, a task, or something I have to muscle myself into. There's less self-discipline required.

[02:09:17] Jim: You can also do Ignite.

[02:09:19] Luke: In that, just already feeling prepped for that sort of work.

[02:09:23] Jim: Do ignite for that. I haven't suffered a distraction like that in years. I don't know what that feels like, seriously.

[02:09:29] Luke: Really?

[02:09:30] Jim: Seriously, none. Everything's so pointed, but I'm on the app all day long, every day, 16 years now. Everything's modulated. I know exactly what I want, when I want, how I want, but there's no distraction. I don't have enough time in the day to manage hospitality and hotels, cancer patients, United States military, active military, the veteran community, doctors, professional athletes, pilots. All the people we serve is a blessing and a curse. I just don't have enough time in the day.

[02:09:57] So I don't have that luxury, and I couldn't care less. If an idea came into my-- and it's the amygdala just messing with you. You know that. Now you know. You're like, "Amygdala's just saying, hey, let's do this." If the amygdala says that to me, I just say, "Hey, bitch. Shut up. I got my schedule, and I ain't listening." I would do Ignite.

[02:10:16] If ever on your schedule want to go write and you find yourself power washing the driveway, that's when you say, "Wait a second, I'm going to put Ignite on." Because Ignite will do this, let's go. I'm doing what I'm going to do. Get out of my way. Yeah. So to your audience, we've talked a lot about a lot of cool stuff. It's been a lot for people to assimilate and to structure into their schema and their mind and understand skepticism and understand how this is different.

[02:10:51] But let me make this very simple. Your body and your brain have a couple of key factors that help you survive, help you thrive. One is oxygen. Oxygen is the healing property. Everything related to oxygen is critical for your health. Oxygen is also critical for your mental acuity. If you oxygenate here, you win. This is who you are as a human. This is who you are as a reptile.

[02:11:16] The frequency of your brain is directly correlated to your mood and your thought pattern, the command of your thoughts, and your physical behavioral pattern. If you modulate your frequency without drugs and alcohol, caffeine, pharmaceuticals, whatever it is, and you simply use a mobile app with headphones, you get the outcome you want with exceptional precision, safety, and reliability.

[02:11:39] And yes, there are people that say, "Well, you're cheating." So what? Yeah, I'm cheating. You're right, Luke. I'm 56-year-old man. I'm built to bust ass. I'm a wrestler. I'm a martial artist. I love all that kind of stuff. I'm not a meditator. I meditated for 20 years of martial arts, and I was a categorical failure, saying meditation makes me anxious. I can't do it. And I'm never going to. My wife's a yoga instructor. You're never going to see me doing yoga. I will never do yoga.

[02:12:13] Luke: I would pay to see you do yoga.

[02:12:15] Jim: Tai chi. If I can't throw a crescent kick in your face, I'm not going to be doing slow-- no, that's not-- that's who I am. I understand I have the humility to know how I'm wired. But now you're telling me there's a tool that's safe, effective, used by all these cool people, has been around for 35 years, and is scientifically backed and allow me to modulate the speed of the frequency and allow me to behave the way I want to behave?

[02:12:43] I'm all in. When we first started working with monks 12 years ago, they had this sense of, I don't want any external stimulation. I'm a monk. I'm going to command my own thoughts. And I was so taken aback. 10 days of them trying it, I went back out to LA and said, hey, what do you guys think of NuCalm? And they looked at me and said, we love it.

[02:13:01] And I was like, "You're monks." And they were like, "Yeah. And we're all so people. So when we meditate, we have to go through checklists. We have to go through all this stuff. NuCalm just gets us through all of that and facilitates a space where we can do the best meditation we've ever done. And maybe we had judgment that external stimulation shouldn't be modulating that activity. But boy, are we impressed. And boy, are we happy."

[02:13:26] So get out of your own way of principle of what-- there's no black and white. Humans, first of all, there's no such thing as perfect. Secondly, there's no such thing as an endpoint. Doesn't exist. Vibration and frequency is how we live. Everything has a frequency. This bottle of water has a frequency. This bag has a frequency.

[02:13:48] Inanimate objects have a frequency. You will never be the same as you are at this exact moment. A minute from now, your mood will shift. A minute from now, your vibration shifts. You'll never look the same in pictures. The people you love will never look the same in pictures.

[02:14:04] Why is that? Because you vibrate at a different frequency all the time. So this isn't woo woo. This is math and life, from Einstein to Nikola Tesla, to Georges Lakhovsky, to Nassim Haramein. These folks knew it. It's just really hard to articulate it. And this isn't voodoo. This is science, but we're on a path to help solve your stress in your midbrain.

[02:14:29] We go right to the amygdala and the HPA axis. We say, "No, thank you." And then you just lie down. You have an eye mask on and a headphone. Why do you have an eye mask? Because you're visually stimulated by light. You don't meditate with your eyes open. You don't sleep with your eyes open. You get so much information from your visual cortex.

[02:14:48] It is impossible for your brain to get to four her where you can heal with your eyes open. So Power Nap and FlowState and Rescue are an immersive experience. You give yourself 20 minutes, and we will give you your life back. It's just that simple. Find time in your day to do it. And don't tell me you don't have time.

[02:15:09] Don't tell me that you don't have 170 seconds of your day to take care of yourself, to be present with your family, to increase your resilience, to lower your information, to live a longer, happier, healthier life. It's insane if you say, I don't have time. Well, then your priorities are skewed, and you want to reflect on what you're doing. Because I guarantee, every night that you go to bed wholly unimpressed that you didn't solve your to-do list that is, a matter of fact, garbage half the time, think back.

[02:15:37] Hey, Luke. September 13, 2013, what'd you do? I don't know. Of course, you don't. There are very few highlights in our life that are memorable. But we get so consumed with our to-do list and everybody else's expectations of us. Stop, unplug. Put your headphones on. Let neuroscience do its job. Meditate like a monk. You don't even have to spell meditation. Get up, and be amazing.

[02:16:04] Luke: That was great, dude. That was a great ending pitch. And I relate so much to the monks in LA because this was a struggle for me in the early days of NuCalm because I was a Vedic meditator for a long time. And that helped a lot, having some actual training and having a practice, having a technique, which was not about trying to stop your thoughts.

[02:16:27] It's just, you say your mantra, and that's the only thing you lightly focus on. But I was a purist, thinking, if you're going to be a truly spiritual person, you can't have headphones on. You shouldn't have any sound. It's just be you and your thoughts. And so there's a transitory period there where I had to let go of that ideal and, I won't say shaming myself, but I was mildly disappointed in myself because I felt like, man, I really have much more success when I'm using the NuCalm than I do when I'm just doing it on the natch.

[02:17:00] I have to admit now, and I'll say it without shame, I very rarely do a traditional meditation anymore. And I still feel a little twinge of guilt for that, but it's just like, I don't know, I've only got so many hours of the day, so many years of life. And it's like, I don't know, I'm decent at meditating as a skill that I practiced. And yeah, you could walk out of here today, and I could sit here have a nice, 20-minute meditation. But it's not guaranteed that I'm going to be dropping into that deep theta drooling, beautiful place that I love so much.

[02:17:34] One day I might get it, the next day I don't. There's a lot of variables there. With classical meditation, it's like I don't want to take a risk of not getting a really good one. And one could say who's to say what's a good one and what's not, but what--

[02:17:50] Jim: I can say it. You're ready?

[02:17:51] Luke: What feels good--

[02:17:52] Jim: Four hertz is a good one.

[02:17:53] Luke: Yeah. What feels good subjectively is dropping into that place that's in between sleep and awake. That's my favorite zone to be in. And some days I hit it, some days I don't. But it's like, I don't know. I guess I have to accept the fact that getting a little boost--

[02:18:08] Jim: I think do.

[02:18:09] Luke: And knowing that reliably I'm going to be able to drop in there.

[02:18:11] Jim: I think you do. I think you need to give yourself a little break.

[02:18:14] Luke: Yeah. Thank you.

[02:18:15] Jim: Purism is a setup for shame and disappointment, number one. Number two, you are using a tool that has a predictability and a specificity that meditation doesn't have. Because meditation's human. This is physics and math.

[02:18:29] So replacing it to be more efficient, more present with your lady, more present in your life, more present with your friends and your family and your dreams and your vision, there's no shame in that whatsoever, period. Now, you can augment it with meditation, and maybe when you have some downtime, you can do both.

[02:18:44] But for the most part, if you queried most of the monks who are practicing, I guarantee you there's a lot more NuCalm activity than you'd ever think there would be, seriously. Because it's a great facilitator. And one thing I like about NuCalm is we're using technology, the most advanced, sophisticated technology ever created in this space.

[02:19:01] We get that. But we're using technology to unplug you and to bring you back to the formative state of your nervous system. We're going forward in the future with advanced science to bring us back to the origins of who we are. And all of our life centers around our nervous system. Without your nervous system in balance, you're faking it until you make it.

[02:19:22] Nothing works easy with your nervous system out of balance. With your nervous system in balance, everything is easier. So it's fascinating that we've done this because we've gone forward to take tech, to bring us backward, literally to the formative ages of mankind starting. It all starts with your nervous system. And our product is the only that resets and balances that.

[02:19:45] Luke: Epic.

[02:19:46] Jim: So yeah, there's no shame. There's no harm.

[02:19:49] Luke: I'm letting go of it. I'm letting it go. It is what it is. It's about the results. That's the thing. It's like, well, I can have all these ideals and hold myself up a standard, but--

[02:19:59] Jim: People who meet me today, who knew me 15 years ago, can't believe the man I am today. And they'll literally look at me and say, "What happened to you?" I'm like, "Thankfully--"

[02:20:09] Luke: I can see that. I see the wrestler. You're an intense guy. When I've described you to people, oh, my buddy Jim Poole. Because you've been really helpful to me. And by the way, thank you. I've called you in a few times of crisis with business things that are outside of my experience.

[02:20:24] Jim: And you can share with the audience. I never responded with crisis. I always responded with--

[02:20:28] Luke: Solutions.

[02:20:29] Jim: Let me hear what you have to say. Okay. It's all going to be okay.

[02:20:33] Luke: But you can be an intense guy. Oh, I was going to say, when I describe you, say, "Ah, Jim Poole, what's he like saying?" He's the quintessential CEO. If there's a template for a role in a company or in life, if you wanted to paint me like CEO, you're that guy.

[02:20:50] And CEO requires a certain degree of like, I don't want to say aggression, but confidence. You got to be a go-getter. You've got to be extroverted. You're the face of a company. You're the one that's moving things in a certain direction. And I can see, if you were a less chill guy, more of the wrestler, roundhouse kicking guy, you could be a lot less chill.

[02:21:13] Jim: I used to be a lot less chill.

[02:21:14] Luke: That must be what people are seeing 16 years later when they're like, "Wow, you're you, but you're a more chill you. Well, dude, this has been incredible. I'm so glad we got to get the update. It's been years, and this one, I think we've been trying to get this in the books for a year or something now.

[02:21:30] Jim: The problem with traveling 300 days a year. That's the problem.

[02:21:35] Luke: Yeah. I'm glad you made it to Austin, and thank you for the work you do.

[02:21:38] Jim: And I also head back to Africa in the fall. I'll see if you can join us this time. Because remember, I've asked you a few times.

[02:21:45] Luke: Yeah, yeah.

[02:21:46] Jim: There's a lot of people I know. There's about 4,000 people on my phone. There's a few people that I would say, "Hey, this is a transcendent, transformative experience." But we'll be going back for the third time. Last time we were there, we donated $4 million of NuCalm to the disenfranchised students at five universities.

[02:22:04] We did water treatment. We did feminine hygiene products for day schools. It's amazing work. It's angelic work, but the reward is their love. It's amazing. So I'll speak to you about that offline. So yeah, the travel piece. But here's one thing that I really appreciate. If we're going to do a podcast, Jim, it's going to be in person. And I love that.

[02:22:26] Luke: Oh, it's got to be.

[02:22:27] Jim: It's got to be.

[02:22:28] Luke: Yeah. Can you imagine? We've probably been going two hours. If we were on a Zoom, I would be exhausted right now. I feel hyped after every conversation I have sitting in these chairs. I'm like, "I feel alive." You get me on a Zoom, I don't care if I'm talking to Jesus Christ himself, I'm going to be smoked afterward. The interface of that is just-- it's the black box, the black square.

[02:22:52] Jim: Well, thank you very much. It's fun to watch your Life Stylist grow and evolve. It's been several years, and this is really fun.

[02:23:00] Luke: Yeah, it has.

[02:23:01] Jim: To all of you out there who don't know Luke personally but watch his podcast, he is who you think he is. Amazingly gifted human being who's on a quest to help you. And he's inquisitive. He's bright. And he finds the tools that can help you. So it's always an honor and a pleasure to be here.

[02:23:19] Luke: Likewise. I appreciate that. Thank you.