Latest / Everyday Ancestral with James Barry / Creativity as a Life Force: The Intersection of Music, Movement, and True Health with Abel James

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Creativity as a Life Force: The Intersection of Music, Movement, and True Health with Abel James · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

• 0:00
  very skeptical of any gimmickry. This idea of biohacking or shortcuts, using this one thing that's
• 0:06
  going to solve all of your problems, that can be very, very powerful for businesses to kind of like
• 0:11
  get an edge in there, but there's not that much new that's going to completely change the game,
• 0:16
  so it's worth putting in the education to just learn how to eat in a way that's honoring our
• 0:21
  ancestors and all around real food and then hopefully move in a similar fashion.
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  Welcome back to everyday ancestral. I'm your host James Berry. Today's guest is Abel James.
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  Abel is someone who I recently got connected to maybe like six months ago and we've had a
• 0:41
  handful of conversations I was on his podcast and every time I talk with him, I feel a connection
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  of brotherhood, conversation goes deep and he's just truly a lovely person who is on mission.
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  You know, he's on mission to help people and ground them and be a source, a resource for them
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  as they are on their health journey. Abel James is a New York Times bestseller author, a top
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  podcaster and a musician. He's a leading voice in health and technology for more than a decade.
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  I actually think it's like 13 years now. He hosts an award-winning podcast to help people
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  across the world optimize performance mindset and longevity. Please enjoy this podcast with
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  Abel James. I am so honored to have you on here. You're one of a handful of people who I would
• 1:38
  say are the OGs of podcasts and you started this what in 2012? Yeah, I actually started recording
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  in 2011. It's incredible. I mean, it's kind of rare in these days in time for anyone to say,
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  oh, I've been doing this for 12 years or 13, whatever it is. You know what I mean? I think that was
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  like our fathers and grandfather's generation where oh yeah, I've been at this job 19 years and
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  I'm about to get a raise. But you've been doing this a long time. I just have to immediately wonder
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  like you have spoken to over 500 world renowned experts. How has that changed you? Because would
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  you have said you're the expert when you started? No, not really. Generalist and a passionate
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  hobbyist is how I considered myself because I was mostly coming at this from my main sport which
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  was like marathon running and trail running and that sort of thing. And so as far as I was concerned
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  there, like I was finishing pretty quickly, but nowhere near like elite pro level or anything like
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  that. So I was just kind of like getting into this as a strong passion. You know, I've always loved
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  the world of movement and getting outside sports. That sort of thing. And for a while there,
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  you know, it was kind of like nutrition was a necessary evil and something that you needed to
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  figure out to perform at your best. So I think as the years went on and I talked to more people,
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  especially, you know, extremely bright, intelligent, researched sorts of folks, I was surprised by the
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  fact that if I sat down and like read their books, if I spent the weekend before going through
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  their work and getting deep with it, then I kind of could hang with them. That did surprise me
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  because I didn't consider myself like near their level, especially in their domains. But if you do
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  your homework, you can really perform at an incredible level with some of the best world class people
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  out there. And I think that's important to know like you'll be bad at first. But if you put in the
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  time, whether it's behind a microphone or on stage or or practicing your craft, whether that's
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  cooking or an instrument or a sport or something like that, you can get there. But it's really all
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  through consistency. None of this happens like magic out of the blue. There's a reason why we
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  move towards health, right? Particularly this field of health. What's your reason? So I shared that
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  I've always been really passionate about being outside moving, hiking and that sort of thing,
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  which means you kind of need to keep your eye on the ball from a power to weight ratio standpoint
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  if you want to be competitive. So that was kind of a driver when I was younger. But as the years
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  went on, I found myself paying off my loans, working in strategy and management, consulting,
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  as my like my first career after college, one of the major projects that we took on was working
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  with the federal government, Department of Education and looking at what improved outcomes in schools.
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  And so for me, I wanted to be a part of the solution. I wanted to help, you know, it's a cliche
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  make the world a better place. But mostly you want to have like meaning and purpose in your life
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  with like knowing that if you work hard, there's going to be some payoff for the people around you
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  or the people coming up, the next generation, whatever that looks like. And so I worked long story
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  short on a project for more than a year, identifying it and then kind of digging into the best
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  schools out there that change student outcomes from being dropouts or really low levels of performance
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  to not only attending school, but then going on to continue their education. What were the main
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  drivers of this? What were the levers that the best performing schools used was the question we
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  were trying to answer. So after more than a year partnering up with all sorts of institutions
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  and doing this work, we kind of found a number of answers, but the one that that rose to the top
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  that seemed the most critical was the lever that changed student outcomes was food.
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  Having high quality food available at the places where these kids were being educated. So for
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  me, that was a huge surprise, you know, but I saw this pattern repeated over and over again.
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  After working on that project, basically the government decided not to pursue any of the action
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  items that would, you know, if they put any of this into place, it could improve schools across
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  the globe, not only in this country, but whatever they basically put it on a shelf and said,
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  don't talk about this anymore. Like we paid you, move on to the next project. In my late 20s,
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  that was devastating. And I'm like, I never want this to happen again. I don't want to feel like I'm
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  wasting my time here on earth. And so that's when I really started writing about health,
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  sharing some of these things that I'd learned about how health and food can really change the state
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  of our bodies, the states of our minds and our performance overall. And then I was mad enough,
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  you know, with through my own personal experience, kind of losing my health in my 20s, gaining a bunch
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  of weight, having thyroid problems and high blood pressure, high triglycerides, all that,
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  turning that around completely through pure lifestyle factors, getting off all the pharmaceuticals.
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  I was mad enough to start up my podcast and just keep going. And this is one of those things where
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  like, I've considered many times like, should I just stop? Should I give up? Am I tired? Like, is
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  this worth it to keep going? And it pretty much always is because I can't imagine ever giving up
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  the opportunity to spend quality uninterrupted time with some of the smartest, most passionate,
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  generous people on earth talking about, how can we make all of this better through simple factors
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  that are accessible to most people? So I love having these conversations. And I think, hopefully,
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  I'll be able to do it forever. It almost sounds like you haven't had to face any imposter syndrome
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  or anything around that you're not a man. I'm a machine. I'm so into machine mode, but everybody
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  has the moments of imposter syndrome of just feeling like you're not up to snuff in one way or another.
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  Or you know, at your weakest moments when you're really tired, that's one thing. But also,
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  sometimes at your best moments, you don't want to show up for the workout. I don't want to show
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  up for the interview. I don't want to have to do this today. I'd rather just kick back or whatever.
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  I think we all get there, but the thing that separates the people who perform at a high level from
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  the more normal level of performance are the people who do it anyway, but also critically,
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  schedule time to rest and recover from that activity, whatever that activity is. And so it's not
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  generally this frantic thing where you're just out there all the time doing all these things.
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  It's a very strategic and consistent approach to training and performance.
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  Is that something you learn now? I can't imagine you knew that in your 20s.
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  Well, I learned a lot of this through music. If you think about the world of building a business
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  or entrepreneurship or kind of starting your own thing, it's remarkable for musicians in some
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  ways because a lot of those skills are directly transferable. What I mean by that is like when I
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  first tried to get gigs as like a teenager, for example, I would have to go into places and
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  really put myself on the line. I'd have to introduce myself to people, put my heart out there and
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  like music is a very emotional thing, right? So you're sharing your personal songs with someone.
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  If they think that it's crap and they don't want you to play there or ever see you again,
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  like you could take that very personally, especially as a teenager. And so like putting yourself
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  out there, recruiting a team of people to play with you who you can compensate in one way,
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  managing the finances of all of this. Like this is what I started doing as an early teenager,
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  not just selling lemonade, but actually like getting out there playing gigs, live performances,
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  trying to recruit people and get them to play with you, pay them, recruit people to come to the show
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  as an audience, get a newsletter going and try to like build this community around. It's like
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  I found that like shifting gears into the world of entrepreneurship after college and working in
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  traditional business after a while. I was actually pulling a lot more skills from my experience as a
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  kid trying to book and play gigs back then. Then I did from all of my Ivy League education
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  and fancy time at private schools and all that stuff. In fact, I needed to unlearn a lot of that
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  in order to really excel in the world of business because it gets hairy, especially when you're
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  bootstrapping and you're going after it, you don't know what's going to work or what's going to stick
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  and you need to stay nimble and you need to stay humble because we all go through the hard times.
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  I find this mindset of what you just shared of like, you know, it wasn't my schooling
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  that I leaned on. It was actually my bootstrapping. Well, what if we equate that to interpretation
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  around health science? Where do you lean in terms of like, this is what I use to determine what's
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  a value around health science. And this is what I don't. Yeah. I think it's much more about
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  foundational principles and I'm very skeptical of any gimmick. Not that gimmicks can't work. They
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  can work a little bit in the world of health and other worlds. But specifically in the world of
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  health, there's this whole cloud of hype and gimmick rate, this idea of biohacking or short cuts
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  or just kind of like using this one thing that's going to solve all of your problems. That can
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  be very, very powerful for corporations and for businesses to kind of like get an edge in there.
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  But the people who have long careers like I was just talking to Paul check the other day. And
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  some of these other people who have been like literally working in the world of holistic health
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  and beyond for like four plus decades. And these people are extraordinarily skeptical of all
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  of this gimmickry and gadgetry because the truth of the matter is it's really about these
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  foundational principles of moving your body, never really letting yourself lose the standard of
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  maintaining strength. It's not about like bodybuilding or going to the gym. It's about like having
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  the standard of never getting weak and flabby and losing your ability to contribute to society
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  and be useful. It's coming from this completely different perspective, right? Then the typical
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  world of health where you're just scrolling around on TikTok or Instagram and they're just like,
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  hey, you need to eat broccoli for 28 days straight. And that's going to solve all your problems.
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  Or you need to put this on your face. You got to buy this thing. This consumer-based self-care
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  is really not serving people as much as it's serving these corporations and these people with
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  new gadgets and things to put out there. So yes, some of these new technologies can be extraordinarily
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  useful and powerful for healing and that sort of thing. They can be really expensive. I've tried a
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  lot of them nine out of 10 of them are not worth it. And then every once in a while you do find some
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  really cool cutting edge stuff. But then usually you find out that that cutting edge stuff only
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  seems cutting edge to you because it's actually been around since the turn of the century or it's
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  been around in Russia for decades. And now something changed through technology or regulation that
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  now we have access to it. So there's not that much new that's going to completely change the game.
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  So it's worth putting in the education to just learn how to eat in a way that's honoring our
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  ancestors and all around real food and then hopefully move in a similar fashion. And to that
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  point you kind of have focused on the wild diet and before that it was kind of more paleo.
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  What's the difference for you between the paleo and the wild? Is it kind of like vegan versus plant
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  based? Especially early in the ancestral health movement, there was a little bit of drama in terms
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  of like what could be called paleo even from a trademark standpoint and that sort of thing.
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  Lauren Cordayne originally got some of the trademarks around the words paleo and paleo diet.
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  You know, meanwhile, this world of ancestral health had really grown a lot bigger than just that
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  or what that meant. And the trademark was originally there to sell supplements, which I found like
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  just very ironic. And I have connected with Dr. Lauren Cordayne since then and like talked through it.
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  But there was a little bit of beef for a minute there. And so I'm just like forget it. Like I'm not
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  even going to touch that word. I'll go over here because basically what we need is an alternative
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  to the standard American diet that honors nature. And the word natural even back then was
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  completely abused beyond recognition. So natural didn't mean from nature anymore. And the word wild
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  is something that to me anyway feels like it can't be owned. I don't own it. And it was, you know,
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  in many ways a funny play on words to me more than a diet book. I named the book The Wild Diet
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  as an alternative to the standard American diet or whatever the fitness bunny diets and the
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  dieting down thing. Most people were expecting. So the wild diet represents basically the way that
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  we would have been eating many generations ago before the advent of all this newfangled
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  technology, industrial foods, artificial flavorings and all the rest of that. So the closer that we can
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  get to a world that honors nature works with nature instead of against it. I think the better off
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  we're going to be. So basically I'm not territorial about that word. I am territorial about some
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  other words like carnivores who also drink orange juice and eat vegetables sometimes. It's like,
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  okay, I see what you're doing here, but like you're just using words wrong. I'm not trying to come
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  from a place of judgment, but I think it's doing people a disservice if you get too wrapped up in
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  the identity piece of what you call the way that you eat. So I try not to be too specific about how
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  anyone does all of this. Well, you bring up a good point though is like, you know, you've been in
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  this long enough to have an opinion, but also to see a lot of hypocrisy. One thing I'm really
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  taken by from your podcast and just from the time now I've gotten to know you, you have this deep
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  resonating grounding voice, but you seem to have this tone of just optimism to it. Every time you
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  talk, there's something like you just feel optimistic like it's going to be okay. I think that's
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  in itself could be a contradiction towards like all the things you're exposed to. So how do you
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  navigate keeping that optimism when you're surrounded by hypocrisy? That is such a great question
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  because I do get that a lot from people. They're just like, I love how optimistic you are and this
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  sort of thing. I'm like, really? Because if you look at the words that I'm writing for like a
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  typical podcast intro, I'll spend usually a few hours like crafting a few really poignant questions
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  and trying to summarize the interview and that sort of thing. And if you just read the words,
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  maybe without me involved or whatever, as pure text, it's like to me, super dark. And so maybe
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  it's kind of the sparkle that I'm putting on top of it so that it doesn't come off as too dark and
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  scare all the children away or whatever. And I'm trying to just like wink at the audience a little bit
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  and approach this from a place of kind of amusement because from a spiritual side, I do believe that
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  everything is connected to God. Like no one is better than anyone else. This is all kind of like a
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  big sea of magic that we're in. And some people call it an illusion. Some people call it a
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  simulation. It doesn't really matter what you call it. But I think it is important to recognize
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  that we're all part of it and hating a piece of it doesn't really help. And so I try to kind of
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  take a step back from the situation that we're in, especially in the world of health and try to
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  clarify a few of the issues and hopefully say something unique. The funny part about that though
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  is that like as soon as I write something and put it out there, whether it's a particular word or
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  phrase or I'm kind of naming something like within a few minutes or a few hours, like I see so
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  many other people saying exactly the same thing. And for a while there, I'm just like, oh my god,
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  like look at all these copycats just kind of like parading around with these ideas that they're
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  just kind of lifting from other people. And so it bummed me out for a little bit. But you know,
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  the longer I've done this, actually that is a huge win. Because if you don't care about credit
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  and tracking back all this stuff to you in an ego based way, then anything that happens where
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  people kind of like get a little bit of your memo as long as they're getting the message right.
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  And then they spread it farther along. That is a huge win for humans in general. And so that's
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  really what I'm after. And so maybe privately, I'm more bummed out than I sound when I'm behind
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  a microphone and public or whatever. I certainly think that's important too. Because like the musician
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  and me from a writing standpoint, I appreciate the downs and I appreciate those feelings that are
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  really tough to go through and process because it's just part of being human. I wouldn't want to
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  give that up just so life could be easier because a lot of times the greatest thoughts that I have
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  the greatest pieces of writing and the greatest pieces of art come from from that really. So I think
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  we all need to approach this with the understanding that things can be good and bad at the same time
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  and we don't need to be bummed out about it even if it seems like a huge bummer.
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  It's very beautiful how spiritually grounded you seem. I mean, I find it fascinating
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  that you've gone down this path of what's really creative, you know, you're an author,
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  so you're into writing, you're a musician, you're dealing with music and creativity in that sense.
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  But then you're also an orator, you know, a curator through your podcast and all of these tracks,
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  there's no blueprint. So you're very much an explorer in your life and yet you seem so grounded
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  and you've been very successful at it. Where did this motivation and acceptance of your creative
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  self come from? I mean, obviously you had it before you were 20 and you started the podcast or
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  you wouldn't have even come to realizing you wanted to start the podcast. I don't want to say
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  it's always been there, but when I was a kid just like cripplingly shy in a lot of ways and
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  it was through writing, performing, playing music and that sort of thing that kind of like got me
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  out of my shell and showed me that I can bring a lot of joy to other people's lives if I put in
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  the time to developing skills on an instrument or putting on a show and then putting myself out there
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  and putting on that show for other people and making them a part of whatever is being created.
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  And so for me, like once I experience that kind of transfer of energy, maybe you could say
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  where it's like multiplied coming from you and you share it with other people if that makes sense,
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  it made me want to create more and more often. And then from a personal standpoint,
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  it's an incredible way, you know, writing and songwriting specifically is an incredible way
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  to kind of capture these memories and feelings for a later time in life where, you know,
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  writing a love song at 15 years old or something like that. When I listen to that now, I'm like,
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  wow, look what a totally different person, yet I remember being there when I listen to this song,
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  especially it's like viscerally I can feel being there again. And that is like some of the closest
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  that I've ever come to like feeling magic in the world, you know what I mean when you're transported
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  through art, through words, through sound or through performance, it's always been a practice
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  that's been there as a performing musician who sometimes I've gone years and years playing
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  hundreds of shows with many different groups or whatever that I've taken years where I'm really
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  not playing live. I'm still playing at home quite a bit and maybe recording that sort of thing,
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  but it's something that I have tried to stop doing and never succeeded in that if that makes sense.
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  So it's like sometimes I wished that I didn't need it or I could get to that place in another way
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  or through other types of work and I think that there's just something extraordinarily powerful
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  about a human sitting down and looking at a blank page and then filling it up with whatever comes
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  out and then having a piece of writing, music, art, something visual or whatever else might come
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  out of that a business idea. I just think that that is so cool. That is the exact opposite of looking
• 20:51
  at YouTube, Twitter or Instagram and just scrolling the whole day away, you know what I mean?
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  It's the opposite. So I want to spend as much time as possible kind of spending my energy there
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  and then when you're out of that creative energy, you have to wait. You have to go to sleep
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  or wait a few days. That's what makes it magical is it's a limited supply. It's really delicate
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  and you have to be super careful with that reactive energy, the distracted thing where
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  you could just get carried away down any rabbit hole or pulled away from what you really don't.
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  You have to be so careful not to get wrapped up in that while you're trying to work on
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  whatever is precious to you from a creative standpoint. So I think it's like our responsibility
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  as humans to like get there on a regular basis. How did you learn to connect? Because clearly music
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  is a portal for you, a connector, but how did you connect these qualities, these important
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  necessary qualities to an ancestral piece or to the more natural side of life? Like,
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  did you grow up with that kind of awareness from your parents? Or when did you label,
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  like, oh, no, no, I see that what makes life even better is when we connect to that ancestral part
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  because that's not common, particularly in today's day and age. As you mentioned,
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  we're struggling to get our young ones off of screens. And yet you somehow knew like, no,
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  no, this is the answer. Maybe now, but not then necessarily, but I was raised in that answer
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  if that makes sense. I was raised in the middle of nowhere and New Hampshire, much to my chagrin
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  because there wasn't enough action or things to do. And so I was super bored. And so was everybody else.
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  But I was very fortunate to grow up in a family where my father's side, they were all farmers.
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  My grandfather, Horus, was one of the first organic farmers way back in the day,
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  going hard against using all of these pesticides and chemicals that were coming out at scale
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  during those years. And so this world where natural was the answer. And basically,
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  these chemicals are coming from war. We shouldn't be using these on our food. And that was kind of the
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  ethos passed down. And so all the aunts and uncles were raised in that. And my grandmother almost
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  lived to the age of 100 years old, but passed away just a few years ago. And she was a huge part
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  of my life and had all the nieces and nephews and cousins and all this gigantic family. And so
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  there was really a lot of pride in the fact that people brought food to the family functions
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  that were grown by hand in their gardens. They cooked those pies. There was a pie competition,
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  not officially, but every year there was really a competition between who was making the best pie.
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  And we all kind of voted through word of mouth or whatever. And it was one of these things where
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  like we took food seriously. It was like the highlight of every party and we got together all the time
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  in those tiny little New England towns and crowded into these old houses. And I just it felt like
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  I kind of grew up a few generations before a lot of the other people I later met who grew up in
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  cities. My mother as well, I should say, was a trained nurse practitioner and credentialed as well
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  and worked in ERs and that sort of thing. But seeing how how much exploitation could exist in that
• 24:01
  system and how dangerous the incentives can be in that particular system of medicine,
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  which is usually just trying to extract as much profit through the bodies that are moving through
• 24:13
  the system. She rebelled hard against that, started up her own practice, studied deeply how to
• 24:20
  heal people through herbal medicine and then incorporate those herbs into clinical practice. And so
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  she was taking through research, wrote a book about that. And so in many ways, I was kind of coming
• 24:31
  from that world, which has gone through different phases over the years, you know, like Weston
• 24:36
  a price and the foundations and institutions built around that have been around for many decades and
• 24:41
  many other groups in the world of kind of natural health, real food and that sort of thing. So
• 24:46
  there's a tendency for a lot of people to think that, oh, this is new or someone owns it or someone
• 24:50
  is the godfather of it or whatever and that may or may not be true. But it's important to recognize
• 24:55
  that this has always kind of been there, but you do have to look for it. So of course, like when I
• 25:00
  became a teenager and then went to these fancy schools or whatever, it was taught different things
• 25:04
  about how, oh, no, science is better than nature. This is the way to do it. And whether it's through
• 25:09
  this pharmaceutical or through this pesticide or through this protocol, whatever it is. And so I
• 25:14
  thought that I was better than that world for a while. And it was through following that world
• 25:19
  and following my doctor's advice when I first became a consultant and advanced health insurance
• 25:24
  that I lost my health. I got fat and sick and developed those problems I was talking about before.
• 25:29
  And that's when I really had that come to Jesus moment where I was just like, oh, I'm wrong.
• 25:34
  I've been following the wrong advice too well. And that's what has gotten me sick. And then, you know,
• 25:40
  still from a place of ego that made me mad enough to just go out there charging and really try
• 25:46
  to bring this message to as many people as possible with a blog and a podcast called fat burning
• 25:51
  men, just like silly tongue and cheek like, I don't care. Make fun of me if you want. Like this is
• 25:56
  the answer. And we can actually help heal people with this answer if you do take it seriously. So
• 26:02
  I like kind of combining the silliness of the approach of not being a credentialed doctor or
• 26:08
  something like that, but talking with serious credentialed professionals about these subjects.
• 26:13
  It gives me a lot of freedom in the conversation that someone who is an MD doesn't really have. They
• 26:18
  have to be really careful about what they don't say. Sometimes they're paid for what they don't
• 26:22
  say. And I appreciate not being caught up in that that whole world. I met this scientist who
• 26:29
  works for the government. It was just a dinner party so I could talk to him, you know, candidly.
• 26:34
  And I said, so is there anything that you're doing that you wish you could talk about? You know,
• 26:40
  that you feel is a crime that you're not getting to talk about it. And he said, well, it's not
• 26:45
  necessarily here in the US, but there's things that are going on in third world countries that we
• 26:49
  have solutions for. We literally could go into that country. We could solve everything that
• 26:54
  they're struggling with. And we can't because it's military secrets. And he said, so that feels
• 27:02
  horrible. We see someone crying for help. We can help them. And we can't do it due to legalities
• 27:09
  and politics. There are so many people there. And I can't imagine what that feels like or how to
• 27:15
  navigate through that. But people do. Dr. Casey means and Callie means they're kind of examples
• 27:21
  of that who have really exploded recently in terms of like how many people have heard of them.
• 27:26
  But sometimes you need to turn your back on your entire profession and become the black sheep
• 27:30
  or the enemy. And that's that takes a lot of courage. And obviously you can take some hits
• 27:36
  for that. And people do you got to weigh it, you know, I wouldn't want to be a cog in a broken
• 27:40
  system that's hurting people. That's pretty easy to say though after being out of that for a while.
• 27:45
  And we all have to make compromises. We all have to put a roof above our heads and take care of
• 27:49
  the people who we love and our responsibilities and that sort of thing. And that is easier said
• 27:54
  than done. So hopefully though, we can all trend toward work that is ultimately helping solve
• 27:58
  a problem instead of perpetuating these systems that we know are terrible for everyone.
• 28:03
  You've been a beautiful model of what's possible. Like I said, I don't think you went down paths
• 28:09
  that were clear cut when you started down them. In many ways, I think you supported the definition
• 28:16
  of some of these paths. Life is its own credential. You mentioned I don't have this professional
• 28:21
  credential. So what credential do you have now after 13 years?
• 28:26
  Hopefully it's trust. Hopefully people, enough people have heard my voice or seen me around and
• 28:31
  been like, I don't know. Most of this stuff sounds kind of true. But like that one thing you said,
• 28:35
  that doesn't sound true. But then a few years later they come back. I was like, oh yeah,
• 28:38
  that was right. Like interesting. And so like there are lots of those experiences where hopefully
• 28:43
  I'm challenging my listeners and the people who are part of our community to come along and be a
• 28:48
  little bit more forward looking than a lot of the conversations that are happening out there.
• 28:53
  We all have to keep things interesting and I'm excited about what the future holds for all of us.
• 28:58
  I never have all the answers. It's always a moving target and I am fascinated by a lot of the people
• 29:04
  have come to the world of health recently with guns blazing like Matthew Lee Shack. I had on
• 29:11
  the podcast a few months ago and he wrote an incredible book called Fiat Food. He's a journalist
• 29:16
  who's been deep into the world of crime investigating crime and school shootings and just kind of
• 29:22
  this these atrocities for decades. He's been doing this. And so he's specialized doing these
• 29:28
  criminal investigations and we when he caught what was going on in the world of food and medicine
• 29:35
  and how those things are connected and how that's also connected to the monetary system and banking
• 29:39
  and all the rest of that perpetuating these systems once more that exploit and hurt people.
• 29:44
  He is so much more pissed off than I am after doing this for 12 or 13 years than I am. So like
• 29:50
  that new energy is really important. What credentials do I have? Hopefully it's some level of
• 29:55
  reputation or trust even if people don't directly recognize me. Maybe they'll recognize some of
• 29:59
  the ideas or like what my voice kind of sounds like and be like, oh yeah, that guy like I can trust
• 30:04
  him maybe because that's going to be the most important thing looking forward. I think now that we
• 30:08
  live in a time of AI generated content voice cloning. You can get anyone in your family or like
• 30:15
  unknowns to public figures. You can create something that looks like it's coming from them whether
• 30:22
  it's video, audio, text, whatever. So that's going to erode the trust that humans naturally have
• 30:27
  in each other through these digital interactions anyway because you won't know if anything's true
• 30:31
  or already kind of there. But when you meet someone in person at live events at dinner parties or
• 30:37
  you know them in personal relationships, whatever that is, I think that's going to become more and more
• 30:41
  meaningful. So we need to double down on that. So hopefully that's the most important credential
• 30:45
  that pretty much anyone can have now because especially post pandemic, it's difficult to trust a
• 30:50
  lot of these credentials and the credential professionals who are creating around saying we
• 30:54
  have all the answers. Look at our credentials because obviously that's not always you know lining
• 30:59
  up with the truth. How do you trust all this science-based facts, all the people that are saying,
• 31:06
  no, I only trust the science. If there's no trust, what do you believe? And maybe I should have
• 31:11
  asked you that is like, what do you believe? Anyone that looked at your life would say okay, music
• 31:18
  clearly that those are his two pillars, music and health. What connects those two for you?
• 31:25
  To me in many ways they're the same. If you're talking about training and you want to be good at
• 31:31
  running or weightlifting or basketball, you need to run drills and you need to show up every day
• 31:36
  and you need to put in the work and you need to stay fit. Once more you need to have the right
• 31:41
  power to weight ratio, the right speed and endurance and stamina and that sort of thing. You need
• 31:45
  to train for those things and that's exactly what music is. I think a lot of people have a tendency
• 31:50
  to think of music as being frivolous. Maybe that's because it's not compensated that well.
• 31:55
  But I think it is the one of the most direct trainings that we have for the nervous system,
• 32:02
  keeping that performing at a high level. If you're talking about reflexes, athletes are kind of
• 32:08
  the top performers in that world of like using their body and developing those reflexes in
• 32:13
  skills and strength and power and speed and that sort of thing. But on a more micro level,
• 32:17
  that's what musicians are doing with their hands for the most part or with their voice. It's
• 32:22
  acrobatic. It's very technical. It's fitness-based and the training-based. Looking at those two worlds,
• 32:30
  I love to see the parallels between them. If you look at the world of music for example and compare
• 32:34
  that to the world of health or you use it as a metaphor, then there's no new music or new instrument
• 32:41
  that's changed hardly anything in the world of music. I would argue in decades, maybe longer.
• 32:47
  There have been critical things like sound recording. When that first happened, you were able to
• 32:52
  use wax and then record something and through these magical cylinders, recreate a portion of that
• 32:58
  sound anyway with a thin representation of what that actual sound sounded like. That's a major
• 33:04
  development. The first time we could do things like that and then acoustic guitars, turning those
• 33:09
  electric, another huge step. But then ever since that, the biggest thing that's happened is we went
• 33:14
  from downloads to streaming. We haven't really seen any major instrument, any major technological
• 33:21
  development that's changed too much there. So my point is, I see health in a similar way. There's
• 33:27
  not going to be some magical news supplement that solves everyone's problems or drug or food
• 33:33
  or anything like that. It's more like, no, you just got to train for health and train for eating.
• 33:38
  That sort of thing. You train for basketball or train for music. You have to sit in a chair and
• 33:44
  learn and practice and then apply that consistency over time. This is not a popular answer. This is
• 33:49
  why not as big as a lot of those TikTok influencers. Well, that's one of the reasons. These are the
• 33:55
  real answers. I think at least someone needs to give these answers. Thankfully, we can have long
• 34:00
  form conversations and flesh some of these things out. The world of music and the world of health
• 34:06
  to me both fall under the world of performance, if that makes sense. So they're also very much
• 34:12
  reliant upon each other. You cannot be a musician with a long career performing at a high level
• 34:17
  if you're not super focused on your health. I know that violates the stereotype of all these
• 34:23
  doped up crazy rock stars who were just lucky to be alive and were born talented. So maybe that
• 34:29
  has happened over the course of time and some people have actually lived that way. But I really
• 34:34
  kind of doubt it. I think that's more of a marketing ploy and that's a sexy idea of a musician.
• 34:39
  It's basically like being a circus performer. That's what musicians actually are. If you're putting
• 34:44
  on a tour and you're gone 10, 11 months out of the year and you're going up on stage running around
• 34:50
  jumping, just like doing all these moves for two, three, four hours every single day essentially
• 34:56
  for years on end. You're basically a circus performer and you need to be in shape and you need to
• 35:01
  eat right and eat for that performance. And so I see this all caught up in the world of performance
• 35:06
  and also, you know, if you look a little bit more broadly, I think everything is kind of wrapped
• 35:11
  up in that world of performance. It's just for me like my particular areas of experience and
• 35:16
  interest tend to fall in the worlds of somewhere around music and somewhere around kind of like
• 35:22
  health, but not the way that other people do health like outside sunlight, real food, not too much
• 35:28
  gimmickery or biohacking or like over achievement and that sort of thing more about balance and
• 35:33
  kind of the eastern way of thinking of a lot of this, I would say. It is interesting when you think
• 35:38
  about ancestral practices. I honestly cannot think of anything that's more ancestral than music
• 35:46
  and food. You could argue both are extremely necessary, but one is clearly functional. You know,
• 35:52
  if you don't eat, you're not going to survive. But I would actually offer that music was probably
• 35:57
  obviously was around before we could even talk and it was around because it was also necessary.
• 36:03
  I wrote a book called The Musical Brain that was kind of trying to answer this question like,
• 36:07
  where does music come from and why is it there? Because as you say, like there's no clear adaptive
• 36:12
  function for music. Like it makes things better. It seems like the way that I think about it,
• 36:15
  though, is it's primitive communication between humans and between animals as well. You can
• 36:21
  communicate with animals kind of musically through inflection more than obviously where it. So there's
• 36:27
  a difference between the content of what we say that's just pure language and words and the much
• 36:34
  more emotional sound and inflection and prosody and speed and rhythm of what we're saying. And through
• 36:40
  those things, I am absolutely fascinated by that whole world because we're deeply affected by what
• 36:47
  we listen to and kind of like our media and sound environment. And it's really important, I think,
• 36:54
  to make that ancestrally informed as well, where you're listening to instead of
• 36:58
  traffic all the time or just like city sounds, hopefully a bit of bird sounds too. You know,
• 37:03
  like going out there in nature and like experiencing the quiet of that is so important.
• 37:10
  The world of music, it's one of those things where it's connected to so much in us that we don't
• 37:17
  directly understand. It's a subconscious process, but it's just about as primitive as it gets. And
• 37:23
  back in the day, like if you were in one tribe and there were another tribe coming through,
• 37:29
  you most likely wouldn't speak the language that they spoke and wouldn't be able to directly
• 37:33
  communicate, but you could definitely communicate the gist of what you were saying through a drum beat
• 37:38
  or through a song that someone's saying, you could tell if it's a war beat, you know, we all
• 37:43
  know the difference between like an army marching and something that is meant to celebrate a feast
• 37:49
  or a wedding and like completely different sounds in our minds and in our bodies, same thing for
• 37:54
  moving our bodies. So I think it's really important that all of us get more connected to the world
• 37:58
  of music if you don't consider yourself a musician or a singer like try to just put that on for
• 38:04
  a second try to like go into beginners mind play with it a little bit because we all are and
• 38:09
  more connected we are to that even if it's just a little bit the better same thing with dancing
• 38:13
  I'm a terrible dancer, but I know that it's extraordinarily important for us to just kind of
• 38:18
  use our bodies that way and music and dance are really emotional exercise if you think about it
• 38:24
  that way and and very cathartic in that sense. And so whether you resonate more with music or with
• 38:30
  dancer maybe with both like try to put that in your life to ideally with other people as well
• 38:36
  it's not like necessarily meant to be only experienced alone but a lot of this is based around
• 38:41
  the gift of being with community and dancing together same together chanting together
• 38:45
  whether it's religious or kind of recreational those both are kind of the same thing it depends on
• 38:51
  how you think about it, but I think we can be a lot more intentional than most of us are because
• 38:56
  if we're honest about we're kind of living in a sea of mediocre content like musically in terms of
• 39:01
  the movies that are on there just like looking at a queue on Netflix of all the stuff that you kind
• 39:05
  of want to watch but it's like not really worth it because it's not great alternatively you can
• 39:10
  spend some of that time like going deep and trying to go into creative mode and so I think we both
• 39:15
  have to go back and forth between those modes because like I said that creative energy or that energy
• 39:21
  that you have to train up is limited and when you run out of it for the day like sometimes you don't
• 39:25
  want to spend the end of the day like reading another super intellectual book you just need to kick
• 39:30
  back and relax a little bit so going back and forth with those things is really important to you.
• 39:35
  I have heard this said before and I think this is very much what I hear you saying is that if we
• 39:42
  were ever invaded you know by aliens and I don't mean invaded like they're going to come and
• 39:48
  destroy us I just mean if they ever came and they witnessed our society they would actually look
• 39:52
  at us and say oh that music thing that's interesting everything else we do would have no interest
• 39:59
  but it would be like music they tap something there that's universal that's infinity what what is that
• 40:07
  I'm totally with you what is that I don't know but I can say that the closest that I've had to a
• 40:13
  true religious experience has always pretty much had something to do with music whether it's listening
• 40:19
  you can get there but especially for me playing it's like I'm just at my best and it's hard to get
• 40:24
  there and it's hard to stay there but when you're truly in flow it's like that that is the thing
• 40:30
  that I'll miss the most if you know when I leave this earth and hopefully you can continue that
• 40:35
  after you leave this earth too but I'll miss it for the past few days we've been waking up and
• 40:40
  singing like Christmas songs without saying my wife and you know spending the first hour or two
• 40:44
  of the day doing that is just like max level it doesn't get better than that and I want to share
• 40:50
  that gift with others and also I want people to know that like they can do that too I literally
• 40:54
  learned how to play piano over the pandemic I'm mostly a guitarist and saxophone player and a few
• 41:00
  other instruments but I was never great at piano I sat down and learned how to play properly running
• 41:04
  scales you know like playing chords and developing technique and that sort of thing and so now as an
• 41:08
  adult I learned how to play piano we're sitting around as a family you know singing these songs so
• 41:13
  it's like that's not just because I'm some special musician like you just got to sit down and do
• 41:18
  it build those skills and then you can share it with other people so I really want to encourage
• 41:21
  other people to go after that because that's what it used to be every family before recorded
• 41:25
  music would have like a mandolin in the house or piano or a banjo and they would be their own
• 41:32
  entertainment that is such a gift for individuals and families that I think most people are missing
• 41:38
  out on you know I live in a musical family and so we do still jam out and do that and it's just
• 41:43
  the best so I want everyone to be able to get there and and have that sort of party we all can't
• 41:48
  we are in this world now we're we're exposed to people that are defined by what they do
• 41:55
  and so we think oh if I'm going to go down that path I have to be what they are and I can't be who
• 42:01
  I am because I don't know who I am with that within that craft right and so it stops us from
• 42:06
  even trying because we're comparing ourselves to some thing that's not part of the journey that's
• 42:12
  that's the end result and what I hear you saying is like no no this is not about do you want to
• 42:18
  become a musician no we're saying music is part of our ancestral creativity and it's a life force
• 42:25
  food is a life force these two things have been around before us and for us before us and they are
• 42:32
  for us oh I've never said that before but you know what I mean so it's like this is what I hear
• 42:39
  you saying is that the audience should leave with from this episode is that creativity is not
• 42:44
  something that you have to be good at it's something that is an ancestral tool for you to get
• 42:49
  closer to who you are naturally that's exactly right I couldn't put it any better than that
• 42:56
  I think I said this last time you and I talk every time I talk with you I just like oh yeah it
• 43:01
  just gets better and better every time we interact it just deepens and it's so lovely and
• 43:08
  as I started this out I'm just so honored that you took the time I've interviewed you're now
• 43:14
  the third or fourth of what I would say are the OGs of this space and I bring this up around them
• 43:20
  and I bring this up to you because I do believe you need to be honored and I am one of those people
• 43:25
  that if I if I'm in a space particularly if I'm new to a space I don't sidestep the people that
• 43:31
  came before me I think it's extremely important to honor them because they pave the road they
• 43:36
  pave the path and they showed those of us that weren't doing it what was possible and they
• 43:41
  introduced the thought because the reality is we don't know anything until we know we need someone
• 43:48
  modeling it we need contrast we need something that inspires us with that knowledge of like oh this
• 43:55
  is possible and you did that and my want is that you feel as much gifts from those around you is
• 44:05
  those that you've given out because you have given so many gifts you have been on mission and
• 44:13
  really co-created something very special that I think even most of us in space don't even understand
• 44:19
  yet similar to music I think it's something that continues to emanate and we might think it means
• 44:25
  one thing in one place but then 10 years later it means something else I think that's true as well
• 44:29
  I think the path you have taken that had no blueprint that you've kind of co-created a blueprint for
• 44:35
  is going to have even more resonance and continue to reveal itself so I just want to thank you
• 44:39
  James thank you so much yeah that really means a lot to me more of my heart
• 44:43
  how can people listen to your music look up able James there are new platforms called wave lake
• 44:50
  and fountain that are built on podcasting technology that allow you to download the songs as
• 44:54
  opposed to Spotify and Apple which make it part of a subscription if you stop paying them
• 45:00
  you lose access to all of your music so I'm working hard and have a few shows coming up actually in
• 45:05
  the kind of like independent alternative music podcasting space which is really exciting but
• 45:10
  easiest place to find it is probably going to be Apple music and Spotify look up able James swamp
• 45:15
  thing able James calm you can see some of my live stuff I've got a bunch of YouTube channels as well
• 45:21
  with just hundreds of music videos some songs are mine many of them are cover songs and then I've
• 45:28
  got a sub stack that's got some music there and wave lake and fountain if you look for able James
• 45:34
  that's a great place to find my music and I'm going to be releasing a new tune in just a couple of
• 45:39
  weeks if all goes according to flat so we just covered the music part of your creative self so
• 45:44
  let's cover the orator the podcast it started out as the fat Bernie man now it's the able James show
• 45:50
  how can people listen and learn more from you you can find the able James show just type that in
• 45:56
  a B E L James wherever you listen to podcasts and once more my favorite podcast player is fountain
• 46:03
  it's been so cool working in the world of podcasting because I've gotten to meet a lot of the people
• 46:07
  who have built these protocols and these platforms and some of them are really cutting edge trying
• 46:11
  to work on behalf of artists and creators like us so look forward the able James show you can find
• 46:17
  that wherever you listen to podcasts as well as on my sub stack able James sub stack and able James
• 46:22
  dot com and lastly the creative writer where can people find your books and your writings where can
• 46:30
  they learn more about those yes so I've got a few different books first ones called the musical
• 46:35
  brain the wild to diet is focused more on health and nutrition and has some tasty real food recipes
• 46:42
  in there as well and then I have a book of poetry and satire called designer babies and I'm working
• 46:47
  on a few more book ideas as well but you can stay up to date on the newsletter at able James dot com or
• 46:52
  my sub stack newsletter as well look at that we honored these three facets of what's probably very
• 46:58
  you know a lot more facets of you because I know you're into tech you're into all these other things
• 47:01
  too but I think those are the three main ones when you say yes and I really appreciate that because
• 47:06
  most people are way too confused by me operating in these different domains then so they never ask
• 47:12
  the question you know people love to put each other in a box so those of us that don't fit neatly
• 47:17
  into the box I think just need to act out as much as possible so I appreciate you seeing that in me
• 47:21
  and I see it new as well James thank you again able take care and thank you everyone for listing or
• 47:28
  watching the everyday ancestral if you liked what you heard please follow us share it with a friend
• 47:34
  stay curious thank you again for joining thank you so much for joining me on every day ancestral
• 47:42
  if you enjoyed this episode hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one you could find the show
• 47:47
  notes links and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com that's eatpluck.com and hey if you know someone who
• 47:59
  gets something out of this share it with them too stay curious live well and keep it ancestral