Shawn Wells is one of the most sought-out nutritional biochemists in the world, as well as an expert on biohacking and health optimization. Known as the “world’s best formulator,” he’s been responsible for creating over 500 supplements, foods, beverages, and cosmeceuticals. He’s also a chief clinical dietitian with over a decade of clinical experience.
I could literally talk to Shawn all day (as you can tell from this longer than usual episode). What’s unique about this interview is that we get deep into not only the science but also the mental and emotional work that’s just as important. We talk about the keto diet, fasting, anti-aging, mitochondrial health, and key differences between health for men and women.
Also jump below to check out the full video of our interview, a first for the podcast!
Episode Highlights With Shawn Wells
- His incredible story of recovery from bullying, abuse, obesity, anorexia, Epstein-Barr, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s, and a brain tumor… not to mention depression and suicidal thoughts
- How he became the world’s leading formulator and his incredible commitment to quality
- Ways to increase resilience and why this matters
- Anti-aging tips you haven’t heard before
- The inside scoop on how to know if a supplement is good or not
- Why you shouldn’t take supplements every day
- The supplements he takes often and why
- What peptides are and how they’re being researched for fascinating new health experiments
- A compound he discovered in mushrooms that is vital for the body
- And more!
Resources We Mentioned
- Shawn Wells
- Blog Post: Fasting: Is It Different for Women?
- Berberine supplement
- Just Thrive Spore Based Probiotics
- K2
- Ergothioneine
- Sauna
- Grip Strength Tester
- The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz
- Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
- The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday
More From Wellness Mama
- 319: Everything You Need to Know About the Keto Diet With Dr. Dominic D’Agostino
- 329: How to Slow Aging, Fight Inflammation, & Improve Cellular Signaling With Brian Dixon
- 309: How I Overcame Trauma (and Lost 50 Pounds)
- 130: Biohacking for Moms & Reversing Aging with Bulletproof’s Dave Asprey
- Can Intermittent Fasting (Skipping Meals) Make You Healthier?
- How to Lose Weight: What Worked for Me to Lose 80+ Pounds
- What are Telomeres and Can They Reduce Aging and Improve Longevity?
What did you think of this episode? Did it raise any questions we can tackle in another interview? Please drop a comment below or leave a review on iTunes to let us know. We value knowing what you think and this helps other moms find the podcast as well.
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Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
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This episode is brought to you by Alitura. You’ve probably heard me talk about that. This is a skincare company I love, and it’s founded by a dear friend of mine, Andy, who created these incredible products when he was in a horrible accident that left him with scars on his face. And this sent him into an incredible research phase to figure out ways that he could hopefully heal those scars and not have them with him for life. And he’s developed some incredible products that have allowed him to do just that. One of my favorites is their face mask. And if you’ve seen me on Instagram with clay all over my face and hair, this is likely the one that I’m using. It’s a simple mask that does incredible things for the skin and contains dozens of really, really beneficial ingredients. I notice a big difference in my skin tone when I use it regularly. They also have something called the Gold Serum, which I find especially nourishing for my skin without being too oily. And I love to use that, especially before we go outside or if I’m gonna be in front of the red light. I just find it’s really, really beneficial for my skin. I love all of their products because they use completely natural ingredients, and not just natural but incredibly beneficial ingredients. Andy goes above and beyond to make sure that everything that is contained in these formulas are so beneficial for the skin. And his skin is certainly a testament to how well they work. And I’ve gotten incredible feedback from many of you who have tried these products and loved them as well. They’re much less expensive than spa variations of skincare products and I found that the quality is so, so much better. And I don’t worry at all because I know they’re so natural. I would love for you to check out their products and find out all about the different formulas they have by going to alituranaturals.com/wellnessmama. And they’ve generously offered a discount of 20% with the code WELLNESSMAMA, all capital, all one word.
Katie: Hello, and welcome to the “Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com. That’s wellness with an E on the end, my new line of completely natural and safe hair care, toothpaste, and hand sanitizer.
This episode goes deep on some really fascinating topics. We talk resilience, mitochondrial health, a new thing about the science of peptides, and how to know what supplements you should be taking, and how to find a good one. I’m here with Shawn Wells, who is the world’s leading nutritional biochemist and an expert on health optimization. He’s been called the “world’s best formulator,” having formulated over 500 supplements, foods, beverage, and cosmeceuticals. He’s patented 10 novel ingredients and he’s also known as the “Ingredientologist,” the science of ingredients. He’s a chief clinical dietitian with over a decade of clinical experience and he has helped thousands of people on their journey toward health. We talk about his own journey, and now all of the work that he does at all of these various areas. He’s an especially world-renowned thought leader in the areas of anti-aging and mitochondrial health, and gives some really, really beneficial tips and advice in this episode. I really enjoyed this conversation, it went a little longer than normal and it is packed with information. I know that you will enjoy it as much as I did. So without further ado, let’s jump in. Shawn, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.
Shawn: Thank you for having me on, Katie. I’m so excited. It was just such an incredible opportunity to meet you a few weeks back and actually hug you, and spend some personal time with you and so many awesome people.
Katie: Yeah, Incredible after this year especially, it seemed especially important. And, of course, I knew about you and had heard of your work. It was an honor to get to meet you in-person. And after we had a couple of conversations, I knew I had to have you on and share you with the audience. You have so much knowledge, and I feel like I’ve only barely scratched the surface of all the things you know. But to start, for our listeners who may not be familiar with you yet, can you just tell us a little bit about your story and how you became known as the world’s best formulator?
Shawn: Sure. Well, to tell you who I am first, like I’m a biochemist, registered dietitian. I spent 10 years as a chief clinical dietitian doing acute care and long-term care, certified sports nutritionist, fellow in the International Society of Sports Nutrition. I’ve been on a number of academic papers. I have a book coming out this year called “The Energy Formula” that’s on biohacking. I’m known in the biohacking space. I’ve been keto for 20 years. I’ve done, like you said 500 formulations. I’ve patented about 10 ingredients with about 20 more on the way. So that’s who I am.
But like you said, I mean, there’s a long journey there. And just pretty much with anyone that’s super passionate about something, there’s a story behind it and why they became so passionate. And that’s definitely the case for me is, you know, I grew up in a chaotic home and I grew up bullied pretty heavily in school, like laughed at. I had a… I was not only morbidly obese but I had a large rear end as a boy. That was pretty brutal. I got called fat ass and all that stuff all the time. I didn’t wanna, you know, go to gym class. I didn’t wanna be in sports. And I got good with my humor and I did pretty well in school as a defense mechanism. But it was hard growing up and I had very little self-love, I’ll say. And that was difficult. And certainly, I don’t feel like I was getting attention from the ladies at all. And I didn’t have like a high self-esteem, definitely body dysmorphia. Later on, that led to anorexia and orthorexia. And it took a long time to get to a place where I was kind of happy and healthy. I mean, pretty recently, actually, and I’m 46.
So it’s taken a long time. But it was in college, my undergrad, when I was doing business school because that’s, you know, I was told to do the smartest thing. Like, “You go to business school and you get a good job. And, you know, you get some… Hopefully, you can make six figures, you know, like $100,000 a year job for someone like Anderson Consulting, and you work 80 hours a week, and, you know, you get the white picket fence, and the house, and the whole thing.” And so, that was my thought process. But I started working out. I started using creatine, like which was new at the time, reading these muscle magazines, taking protein. And I started seeing, like, changes and, like, getting more attention on my body and, you know, getting some positive attention from females and guys asking me how I’m, like, making this transformation.
And I ended up going to my doctor in between my sophomore and junior year to get my physical. And I was telling him about all these supplements and the science, and how it’s, you know, doing all these great things for me, and I wondered what he thought. And I thought he was gonna laugh, like most doctors would especially, you know, 20 some years ago, like when I was asking these questions. And he actually drew out a lifeline for me, from 20 to 80. And he said, “Why not be happy between here and here?” And I was like, “What? Like, did he just…? He just gave me permission to pursue my passion, the thing that’s, like, changing my life and could change other people’s lives, and I have somewhat of a hero’s journey of here. I don’t have to just work at some cubicle. I can literally do something I’m super passionate about.” And because it was a doctor and not, like, some, you know, hippie guy, that was a game-changer.
You know, I believed in this guy because he was what I saw as, like, the most successful you could possibly be. I mean, I didn’t know back then entrepreneurs like we know now. Like, now I have all these friends that are millionaires and, like, super successful. But to me, like, someone who is just a doctor or someone who made six figures was, like, mind-blowing to me. So that totally changed my path. I finished up business school. And I decided I’m gonna go get all the prereqs I need to get my Master’s in nutritional biochemistry and to be a formulator because I would spend all these hours, like, in GNC or Vitamin Shoppe, literally, I’m not kidding. Like, someone would go to, like, an amusement park and spend, you know, six hours, I would spend, like, that long in a GNC, just reading labels. And then I decided to work there because I was there so much.
But I ended up going to my guidance counselor at this UNC Greensboro telling them, “I wanna, you know, go to UNC Chapel Hill. It’ll take all these prereqs. I wanna do this Master’s in nutrition. And he laughed at me. This guy laughed at me, told me it’s 26 credit hours a semester. “You’re a business student, you’ll fail and you’ll fail miserably.” And he said, “You’re not even in that good a shape.” And I left crying. Like, this dream I had for two years in my head now seemed destroyed. And I had a bottle of vodka and pills in front of me and thought about killing myself for most of that evening. Because it was a difficult life up until that point, and I felt like this dream that I was given almost from the heavens was just snatched from me, like it was a big joke, and my life was just a joke. And obviously, that brought back the body dysmorphia stuff. And luckily, I did not kill myself that night. It fed me with great resolve. I decided… I was like, “F#@! this guy.” You know, like, honestly, like… And I thought that for two years of all these very difficult classes, like, I had just literally six classes a day, of, like biochemistry, organic chemistry, anatomy, physiology, you know, all this stuff, and just back to back classes and labs, and I got straight A’s. And every time someone wanted to go out and go drinking, do anything, I was like, “Nope.” Like, I hated this guy. It’s like all I thought about. And that wasn’t so healthy but it was a fixation for me, and it got me through. And I ended up, despite that guy, getting into UNC Chapel Hill, my dream school, getting a Master’s in nutritional biochemistry, and becoming a dietitian. But I was pushing so hard on my body during this period, you know, like of 80 hours a week of, like, just high stress of, like, so much expectation from myself, and working outs, and dieting, and all these things, and getting very little sleep, that about, well, almost six months out from finishing my Master’s in nutritional biochemistry at Capitol Hill, I ended up getting Epstein-Barr virus, strep, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s, and my whole body just crashed.
And I couldn’t go back to class. I couldn’t get out of bed. Again, I thought about killing myself because I wouldn’t be able to hold a real job. Like, I couldn’t stay awake for more than an hour or two. My whole body was in pain and inflamed. It was hell, like, literally like living in hell. And I wasn’t sure what to do. Like, literally, like, I didn’t wanna live the rest of my life like that, and I thought about killing myself. And I stumbled into the ketogenic diet. I was already eating, you know, clean, like, I was in school for nutrition. And I think clean, like, my definition of that has changed through the years. But the ketogenic diet, and this was 20 years ago, and what I have been doing for 20 years now, like, is what I stumbled into. And it helped me get up, get out of bed, get back to class, and it was like a miracle for me.
But back then, you know, there wasn’t all the recipe sites, and communities, and supports, and treats, and ice cream, and all the cool things. So, admittedly, I’d get on and off. And about eight years ago, I got a pituitary tumor. And that’s when I got really serious, and I started doing paleo, intermittent fasting, ketogenic diet with… I do a cyclical and targeted approach so that I can maintain it and doing all the biohacking, all the, like, resilience things that I can do, like hot and cold, you know, therapy with cold plunges, and infrared saunas, and, you know, blue light blocking glasses, and blue light in the morning, all the things that I’m doing. And I actually summarize all that, like, in my book “Energy Formula” coming out soon. But that’s my story of, like, my health journey.
But I think my mental health journey, I’m still working on that so hard. I mean, I’ve been doing plant medicine recently. COVID was the greatest thing that could have ever happened to me. I was supposed to be traveling 300 days this year. I was pushing to do everything. I’m one of these people that’s just a workaholic addicted because I’m not that good at loving myself. I was thinking that achievement is the way that I can get love. And it’s something that I’m still trying to undo. And that’s really been a massive shift for me this year is that I didn’t have to do all that travel. I was able to start working with a therapist on Byron Katie style work, where I was able to start reframing a lot of my traumas. And then starting to do plant medicine, psilocybin journeys, things like that, MDMA, with the right people, again, under guidance and therapy.
And I’ve been, you know, getting back to reading more, like, you know, books, like “The Four Agreements,” you know, that are just so impactful for me. And then choosing my mentors very clearly and putting those five powerful people around me that I wanna emulate and be like. And my life is finally shifting, and I’m finally feeling some love towards myself. And I don’t have to work 80 hours a week incessantly and drive myself into the ground at the expense of and telling everyone how to live their life in a healthy way. You know, like, sometimes you feel like a fraud when you do that. But I have all the best intentions, I have all the knowledge. So some of it’s just I wanna help people so much. And it’s hard when you’re in this position and it’s hard when working so much at such a high intensity comes easily to you. And when I say easily, I mean, it’s a default mode for me. It’s certainly not easy on my body or mind. So, this year, I’m trying to create that space to allow for more love, and creativity, and spirituality to come in, and heal myself. So that’s been my big focus and a journey I’m trying to take others on as well.
Katie: I love that. I think there’s similarities in our stories, at least a little bit of overlap, which is probably why we were able to connect so quickly in-person. And I think the beauty of that and the lesson I had to learn as well is, like you said, of having to go through these struggles, you know, A, choosing to be happy during the process, not waiting until you get to perfection, that I think alone, that one simple change can be completely life-changing. It absolutely was for me.
I had that same struggle of equating achievement with a way to get love, which on the one hand is a great way to get a lot of stuff done. And I don’t regret that I was able to be very efficient and effective because of that. In fact, when I let go of that, I was worried, I was like, “Am I gonna lose my edge or my ability to get things done if I let go of this trauma that’s causing this feeling that I can only be loved for what I do, not for who I am?” And it turns out, it doesn’t go away. You just get to be in control of it and use it as a helpful tool versus being controlled by it.
And I especially love what you said at the end about reframing and how COVID is one of the best things that’s ever happened to you. Because I think so many people have rightfully struggled with different aspects of this year. And I believe Byron Katie might be the one who said “Think of things happening for me, not to me.” And there are so many blessings in this and so many great things. And at the very least, it’s been a wonderful teacher, at least for me this year. It’s been a very teaching year. You use the word resilience. And I’d love to expand on this a little bit more. The idea of what can we do both physically and mentally, since we’ve already started delving into that side, to increase our resilience?
Shawn: Yeah, and I think that’s going to be the word of the future because resilience, sometimes you hear the word bioresilience of just our biology, how we can bounce back. Our stress, how we deal with stress. There’s something called allostatic load with our body. And it’s really that stress bucket, and how much stress can fit in that bucket, whether it’s eustress, which means a good stress or distress, which is a negative stress. It doesn’t matter, like, that bucket is filling, and you only have so much room in the bucket. But if you do things that improve your resilience, whether it’s mentally or physically, it can affect the other.
So by that, I mean, like, a mindset of, like, stoicism, of gratitude, of growth mindset, that makes you more resilient, both mentally and physically. It will allow you to deal with more stress. It will allow you to deal with more physiologic stress because you’re more mentally resilient. And the opposite is true as well. So physiologic resilience is things like weight training, like I was talking about with contrasting with temperatures, like doing cold plunges by themselves or sauna therapy, like infrared saunas, or even better is when you contrast and you do them both. When you go from hot to cold, you’re creating an even greater delta, even more resilience. But with all this stuff, you have to be careful that you’re not putting yourself in a position of overstressing yourself, of filling up that allostatic load bucket, of overtraining. Because when stress does come into your life, sometimes even that used breath, like cold plunges or, you know, meditation or whatever, you know, breath work, sometimes some things can just be too much.
And so, like I was saying, you have to leave that room in there, especially when you’re talking about trying to create new habits, that takes brain power and energy. So, you have to leave that room in your bucket to allow for growth and even positive, that eustress, so that eventually, your bucket can grow. But resilience right now is the key. And you’re seeing that people that are exposed to viruses or pathogens, they’re bouncing back because they have that resilience because they have that mindset, and because they’re able to physically be resilient because they can take temperatures that are extreme. They can lift weights. They’re good cardiovascularly in shape. Like, they’re taking the supplements. Like, adaptogens help you be more resilient, like Rhodiola, and Ashwagandha, and things like that. Their diet’s cleaner. They’re getting the sleep. Your heart rate variability is in a good place, where you have more resilience. Like, all these things just, you know, add up to you being ultimately harder to kill. That’s what resilience is, is you’re harder to kill.
Katie: That makes so much sense. How can we know if we’re surfing that line between good stress and bad stress? Because I completely agree with you. I think one of the biggest exciting things for me in the past couple of years, the audience has probably heard me talk about my journey, both with inner trauma work and also physically, but is that resilience and flexibility in every aspect. So it’s that athletically in physical ability to pick up heavy things, and put them down or run faster, or even in diet, to be able to eat a whole lot of carbs one day and be fine or eat a lot of protein on the day I need more protein or whatever, and my body can handle all the inputs. And I do a lot of hot and cold as well. Are there any good metrics for knowing how to make sure we’re not pushing the body too hard? And I know for women, especially, we do need to be a little bit more careful because we can send our body into infertility or, you know, if we signal we’re starving or we signal we’re stressed or whatever, our body will choose to shut down certain things. So any good guidelines for how we can watch that line?
Shawn: Yeah, so one of the ones I mentioned before, if you have any of these wearables, like the Garmin Fenix, the bio strap, the whoop strap, the oura ring, they can measure something called heart rate variability. And the tighter your heart rate variability, the lower it is, the more resilient you are and ready to train and deal with stress. And the greater the variability in your heart rate, then you’re not ready. You’re overtrained. You’re overstressed. You need sleep. You need recovery. You know, even in, like, if you look at training studies, the term used to always be overtraining. And that is a legitimate term. But the flip side of that is under recovery. And you’re seeing there’s training studies where they do something called overreaching, where they, you know, make these athletes train harder than they’re used to, and they’re already training at a very difficult level in the study. But they do an overreaching phase, where they’re really overtraining.
But if you have elements of recovery that are greater, where you allow them to get more sleep, where you increase their nutrition, their, you know, calories, where you decrease stressors, then that is more of a factor that they can recover. So it’s not just doing too much, it’s also a question of recovering enough. And you can think about it differently in that there’s sympathetic and parasympathetic tone, your autonomic nervous system. We’re typically in the sympathetic state, which is fight or flight. Okay? So, like, we’re always, like, listening to the music. We got, like, the rock music or, like, rap music, like, full blast. We’re weaving in and out of lanes. We’re late for the whatever. And we’re putting stress on ourselves, and we’re shoving food in our face while we’re going down the highway. And then we get to work and, you know, we’re buried in our emails, and someone says, “Where is this? I need these documents.”
And then you’re drinking coffee and energy drinks, and don’t have time for lunch, but I’ll just, you know, get a piece of pizza, and just keep going. And then I’m exhausted. I need like a candy bar or some monster drink out of the vending machine. And then I gotta race home, traffic sucks, and then just overwhelmed. I can’t deal with my spouse right now or my kids. I’m just gonna turn on the TV, watch something that’s super action-oriented, and literally your whole day is sympathetic nervous system. And we wonder why that bucket is overflowing. A key to keeping that bucket in the right place is having that balance, like the Eastern philosophy of Yin and Yang, like, where you have parasympathetic state balancing out your sympathetic.
Parasympathetic is rest and digest. So doing breathwork, doing meditation, relaxing while you eat. There’s a reason in the Blue Zone areas, like Sardinia, that they live so much longer. Like, everyone’s looking, is it the wine? Is it the Mediterranean food?” I’ve been there several times. It’s not just those things. It’s that they eat for three hours. It’s that they sit down and talk to each other, and relax, and commune, and have therapy. And then food psychosomatically becomes a relaxer. In our culture, yes, our food is less healthy. It’s pro-inflammatory. It’s high glycemic, all those things, over-processed. But it’s also a trigger for the sympathetic nervous system because we’re always stressed when we’re eating. We’re always on the move when we’re eating. We’re arguing when we’re eating. We give ourselves three minutes to shove food in our face. So, food actually becomes a cue to be stressed.
And it’s not always you just being stressed and you eating. It’s literally both, like your body connects both. So, you know, there’s a lot to this. And then you mentioned, you know, women certainly have to be more careful than men, especially if you’re of lower body fat. I go through this a lot. I have some guides on my website that go through fasting related to this. If you’re below like 14% body fat, you have to be very careful with any type of fasting, any type of dieting, doing Ketogenic diet. Like, you know, I would say that you have to cycle it, you know, things like this. Like, the leaner a woman is and the more issues she already has with fertility, the more careful you have to be with those kinds of things. Those can become huge stressors, and not necessarily positive ones. But again, some of that is what we’re attaching psychologically to it. When we’re dieting, quite often, it’s because of body dysmorphia. We’re taking on extreme measures. We’re using diet pills. We don’t like ourselves. We’re not getting enough sleep, but we’re at the gym, you know, training for a couple of hours, and our body is overwhelmed and shutting down. So it’s very different from, “Hey, you know, I’m gonna take a lifestyle approach to my nutrition and exercise. And I’m going to have a positive view of myself. And I’m going to do this so I can be healthier and because I love myself.” That’s very different from, “I’ve got eight weeks. I hate myself. I need to lose 20 pounds. So this is what I’m going to do.” You know, you could take the same diet and have very different results because of that mindset.
Katie: Absolutely. That I think was the biggest key for me was shifting… Because for years, I tried to, like, punish myself to be a certain size or hate myself skinny. It doesn’t work like that. And it was amazing how when I addressed the inner stuff and the mindset piece, like you talked about at the beginning, and it came from a place of love, it became effortless to choose healthy things to nourish my body because I wanted to. And it became natural to move because it felt good to move, not because of this thing I had to check off on the list. And that’s something I always make sure to say when I talk about, especially with the weight loss or all the transitions I’ve made over the last couple of years, is I make sure to sleep every night, at least 8 hours, often, sometimes up to 10 hours. Like, sleep is a non-negotiable for me. And I feel like if you get that piece right, it forgives so many other things.
It lets me be able to exercise without it being stressful. It lets me fast sometimes without it being stressful. But the sleep is a non-negotiable for me. And also I had to learn to fuel myself, instead of deprivation, to your point. If we make that shift to thinking of food as simply fuel and calories as energy, instead of some bad thing we’re trying to avoid, then we can start to think of what’s gonna best fuel my body. And especially to the metabolic flexibility point, I, a lot of days eat a lot of food. And I found as I build that up, the more I eat, especially when I get enough protein and get enough healthy fats, I’m actually still continuing to lose weight and put on a lot of muscle. But I’m doing it through fuelling. So I’m not depriving my body. My body’s learning how to burn more efficiently and how to use that food as fuel versus feeling like I have to take away calories. And I think that’s also gonna be a piece, it seems like, in the anti-aging equation. That’s something I’ve started to think about more, as I’ve gotten older and realizing I’m not gonna avoid the sun because I think the sun has tremendous amount of benefits. So, I’m gonna make sure I take care of my skin, but I’m not gonna avoid the sun.
And so knowing that, like, how do I do things to help myself age gracefully? I’m not opposed to aging. I think it’s a beautiful part of life. But I don’t wanna necessarily rush into it either. I know this is an area you’ve also done a lot of research on is the anti-aging world. You’ve helped people formulate for a lot of these types of supplements and things that can help. And so, drawing from your really vast knowledge on this, what do you think are some of the biggest needle movers that actually make a difference when it comes to anti-aging and protecting our body as we age? Because certainly, it’s not just about wrinkles or not wrinkles on our face. We’re talking about even on a cellular level, protecting yourselves and protecting your body and avoiding, you know, bigger health problems than just wrinkles. So, what’s your take on the things we can be doing for anti-aging?
Shawn: Well, definitely that resilience component is massive in this, and having some of that parasympathetic to balance out the sympathetic nervous system are going to be massive. And for me, the foundation is that self-love and doing therapy. And so we went through those, but if we wanna get more technical, then, you know, just starting with the ketogenic diet, which was helpful for me, one of the reasons that, you know, people are like, “Oh, that’s just like… What is it? The miracle diet? Like, it does like Alzheimer’s and cancer and blah, blah? You know, how does it…? It’s ridiculous. People all of a sudden get energy on it?” So one of the reasons that it does that is going back to your point of metabolic flexibility, is that you are dual-fuel. Right now, most people are mono-fuel. They’re only using glucose. They’re just getting carbohydrates all day long.
They’re eating, like, six to eight times a day. They’re snacking. They’re eating. They’re getting, you know, the sugary stuff. You walk in a convenience store, you go to the vending machine, and it’s all sugar, and it’s all tempting. And it’s all engineered ultra-processed food that has bliss points associated with it, acids, and salts, and sweets, and bubbly. It’s got tingles. And all of that is engineered, and it’s meant to override satiety signals. And when you get back to whole food, you get back to feeling full again. That’s hugely important. But being dual-fuel, allowing yourself to use ketones and glucose, then allows you to not run into metabolic dysfunction. And almost all diseases in biological aging over chronological aging is coming from metabolic dysfunction. So, ultimately, that means the mitochondria are not producing enough energy for your body. It’s a state called insufficient cellular energy states.
And then there’s a windfall of things that happen as a result of that, like your telomere length shortens, and you have inflammation chronically, glycation damage, which is blood sugar damage. And that actually gets called advanced glycation end products, AGEs, appropriately named. And then there’s oxidation, essentially, like, you know, rust to, like, iron chain or something like that. And that happens in our body. So there’s glycation inflammation, oxidation, and lack of cellular energy. And then it can show up in fibromyalgia, where you’re getting that chronic, inflamed tissue. It can show up in hypertonic muscles, where your muscles aren’t relaxing like they should. It can show up with chronic fatigue syndrome and autoimmunity because you don’t have enough energy and you’re running into all these problems. And it’s literally like trying to… You’ve got a Ferrari and you’re putting like diesel in it. You know, it’s just not the right fuel and it’s not moving well enough.
So you need to eat a whole food diet is critical, lower the sugar. Move your body, especially right after you eat. It’s called a postprandial exercise. Like, literally take a stroll right after you eat. It helps lower that blood glucose and get the insulin down. You know, then get your, you know, gym bag out. Get your shoes out, whatever it takes, so that you actually go for a walk in the morning or go to the gym. Or if you’ve got a home gym, do that. Like, you know, try and get all the pieces in place so that you can guarantee that you get out and exercise. And get these things in place. And then if you wanna experiment with a ketogenic diet, I always tell someone that’s down the road. Like, once you’ve kind of locked in the other pieces, then you can experiment with keto, but you need to get to some of the basics of foundation, like, getting yourself off the ultra-processed high bliss point food.
And here’s an example of bliss point food. So if I was to give you raw almonds, you would eat, you know, a handful, maybe if you’re hungry. If I roast them, it brings out a sweetness and a different note in them. Then if I add oil to them, you’d it eat more. And then if I add salt to the oil, then if I add honey to the salt in the oil, it’s sweet, then I add habanero, so it’s sweet and spicy. And they literally do this. It’s a game to, like, trigger your brains for a high dopamine serotonin response, overriding satiety, and you’re addicted, and you keep eating them. You’d eat the whole bag. And it’s just not natural for us. And even with drinks, you know, they work on when you open it, like much of a shhhh, you know, the carbonation makes because that triggers you psychosomatically to get ready. Some enzymes and, you know, different ghrelin, and leptin, and some of these things start kicking in, and there’s anticipatory things that are happening with serotonin and dopamine.
And then they make the sweetness and the flavor on the front end of the soda or the drink, not on the back end. So you are left wanting more and you’ll see people take that lid on and off, on and off, on and off of the bottle while they’re drinking it, put it down, put it back to their mouth, put it down, put it back. It’s literally because you can’t stop. And they even have slogans like that. “Once you pop, you can’t stop. You can’t just eat one.” This is all engineering. There’s food scientists that make you overeat. The battle is real. When you walk in that convenience store, it’s all addictions. You have, like, caffeine, sugar, corn, lottery, tobacco, whatever. And everything’s colorful, colorful liquids, colorful candies. It’s hard to get out of there without succumbing to that. So the battle is real. So if you can move to whole food, if you can move your body and get back on track to where you should be, then you can experiment with things like Keto.
Katie: I love that you brought that up, getting those basics in line first, and dealing with getting out of a state of stress and avoiding the, like, really just blatantly big ones first, before you start getting into the specifics or certainly before you start getting into the more biohacky stuff. Like, I’ve said that for so long, you can’t out bio-hack a bad diet or lack of sleep, and you can’t out supplement a bad diet or lack of sleep. You’ve gotta start with the big pieces first, like breathing, moving, eating, before you add anything else. I love that tip about exercising after eating. Like, I think I’ve heard that in passing before. But that makes so much sense. And this I’m guessing, just to clarify, doesn’t have to be a lot of movement and probably should not be high-intensity movement, but just some kind of gentle, slow movement, which probably also happens in Blue Zones. I’m guessing, like, maybe walk home after a nice calm dinner with their friends. Right?
Shawn: Exactly. Exactly right. Yeah, like a 10 to 20-minute stroll, light walk, and it up-regulates the glute forward translocation, essentially just helping you lower the blood glucose and lower insulin as well.
Katie: Very cool.
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Katie: Okay. So now we can finally delve into something I’m really excited to hear your take on because you have so much experience firsthand, which is the supplement world and I think good supplements. Because certainly there are thousands and thousands, 10s of thousands of options available. And they all write really great sales letters and convince you that you should be taking all of them, yet all of them probably should not be taking 3,000 supplements. So, as someone who’s seen the inside of the industry, and like I have heard from three of the people I trust most in the world, that you formulate the best supplements, and you don’t put any of the bad stuff, and you don’t put fillers, and you absolutely will not even do it if it’s not gonna be effective, so what should we be looking for when it comes to supplements? And how can we know, for us specifically, like, how to choose a good supplement?
Shawn: Yeah, some of the big things are, one, it needs to be a company that you do trust. Ideally, it’s a company that’s been around a while. New companies might be great. I mean, it’s hard to say but certainly like a company that’s been around 20 years is more trusted. I mean, they have a greater body of work. You are allowed to reach out to companies and ask for testing results. That is part of the law. So any company, you can call up and say, “Hey, can I see your testing results for these products?” If they are reluctant to do so, then I would be reluctant to use that brand. Looking on the bottle and seeing if they have crazy claims, “800% more such and such, 500% less of these.” Crazy claims are a big red flag. I also don’t like proprietary blends. I cannot stand proprietary blends. I wanna see each ingredient listed out individually and see the exact dose, the exact form, the genus and species of that herb, the plant part.
So it should say, you know, “Ginseng root, standardized for ginsena side A, 30 milligrams.” Each ingredient, I wanna see that so I can know whether they’re dosed appropriately. There’s a practice that’s been done for years and years called fairy dusting, that they take that proprietary blend, and it might have 20 ingredients in it, and you think, “Oh, all 20 of these ingredients are amazing. I’ve heard of all of these things. That’s great that this one capsule has 20 ingredients in it.” But meanwhile, like, one of those ingredients needs 500 milligrams to be efficacious. So, that’s a red flag clearly that, you know, all these ingredients can’t be at the efficacious dose. Also know that it’s put in order of descending mass. So, that thing that comes first in the proprietary blend could be 99% of that proprietary blend, and then you have less than one milligram of everything else in the blend. And that’s legal. And it’s frustrating.
So, you know, look at whatever is first, like, maybe creatine monohydrate is first in some muscle-boosting blend, and creatine is about $4 a kilo. It’s a great ingredient. I love it, but it’s super cheap. So you’re like, “Oh, cool, it’s got creatine, but it’s got these other 19 ingredients I love as well.” But it really doesn’t. It has fairy dusted amounts of those other ingredients. So that’s a huge frustration for me and something that I look out for.
And, you know, I think looking at, is it made by a formulator that knows what they’re doing? I think once you get above five or so ingredients, barring like a multivitamin, I think that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Usually, you want ingredients, if this is for, let’s say blood sugar or anti-aging, that there’s a mechanism of action for each of those ingredients that are complimentary. If you have three ingredients that all work on the same mechanism of action that are just in there so people say, “Oh, I’ve heard of those,” then that doesn’t make sense. You pick the one that works best, that’s most efficacious. And that’s the ingredient you choose. And then you look at a different mechanism that complements that one, a different pathway that helps blood sugar, and then you get the best ingredient for that one. And that’s what good formulating is. It isn’t just, “I’m gonna include all these ingredients so people have heard of them. I’m gonna get…” You know, and another thing, like with that clarity bit I’m talking about is, for example, someone might include Ginseng. But really all the benefit for the research is in the root. So if you don’t see the plant part, they could just be including the whole plant or the stem and the leaves.
And that part has literally no benefit. But they’re listing Ginseng and you say, “Oh, I like Ginseng. I heard Ginseng’s good.” But it’s not the root, the expensive part. They’re getting the part that gets thrown out from other people that are doing the right thing. So there’s a lot to it. And really, you wanna look at, also, if this is made in a GMP manufacturing factory plant, like, where there’s good manufacturing practice, that has been FDA inspected. And, you know, you’re not getting things in that product that you don’t wanna get, like heavy metals, or banned substances, and things like that. So, it being made at the proper place and having that good track record is important as well. And sometimes there’s third-party information, third party testing that you can find as well from places like Labdoor or Consumer Reports or, you know, companies like that, that’s worth looking at as well. And then lastly, I would say you can look at Amazon reviews. Yes, those can be manipulated. But if someone has a lot of bad ones, that’s certainly a sign that something isn’t right. But that would be some advice I’d give on how to choose the supplement, and then we can talk about what supplements to pick. But yeah.
Katie: Yeah, I do wanna go deeper on which ones to pick. And I love that you brought up, you know, just because people make claims like 800% more of something, I mean, that may sound great in marketing, but we also have to go, “Do we actually need 800% more of this thing?” Like, often there’s a standard dose that’s the most effective and it’s just, like, you know, water boils at 212 degrees. It doesn’t get more boiled if you get it hotter. You know, we don’t always need more of it. It might be ineffective or I would guess at some point a lot of things can become harmful. Just because they’re good in a certain dose doesn’t make them good in every dose. I’m curious, just on a personal level or what you recommend, if you cycle supplements. This is something I started doing with the recommendation of a doctor from Switzerland, who said, “Don’t do anything every single day.” Like, don’t ever give your body an input every day. So do you do that as well? Do you cycle what you take?
Shawn: Hundred percent. I 100% agree with that. I think that would not make sense to chronically overuse something. I mean, if you even think about drugs and the way they work, like typically they inhibit some enzyme, and they work for a week or two weeks, and you can kind of keep inhibiting that enzyme, getting that benefit. Let’s say it’s that Cox-2 inhibitor, like with non-steroidal anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen. But if you use it every single day, then your body comes to expect that, and then your body tries to maintain homeostasis, getting back to some version of normal. So it’ll find a way through, over, under that blockage of that enzyme, and then you start running into all the side effects because it’s trying to get your body back to what it thinks is normal.
So yeah, if you do something too chronically, it can actually work against you. I definitely agree with that. I think it’s most ideal to do that. And you get different benefits from different things. Like, with the adaptogens that we were talking about, you know, there’s things like Maca, Rhodiola, Ashwagandha, Ginseng. And what’s cool is, they’re like the most storied herbs in, like, each culture. Like, Maca down in South America, Asia, with Ginseng, Russia, Rhodiola, India, Ashwagandha. But to get the most benefits, like you’re saying, it’s usually in those first few weeks. So I like to just cycle through them and continue to get the resilience benefits. But, you know, not, like, have my body become too dependent on it and then, therefore, have no more positive benefit. So, yeah, I totally agree with that.
Katie: Okay. I love that. So then let’s go deeper on how do we know what supplements we need? And I guess a piggyback question to that would be, what are you personally taking right now or personally excited about right now?
Shawn: Okay. All right. So, my top supplements, number one is probably surprising to people, but it’s Berberine because I believe so much in metabolic dysfunction. Berberine is something that is a glucose disposal agent. And of all the drugs in anti-aging in the longevity field, everyone knows Metformin. And Metformin has been shown to help people live two to two-and-a-half years longer that are already healthy. I’m not even talking about diabetics. Diabetics, it can be a game-changer. But Metformin is a drug and causes some B12 deficiency, also has been recalled recently by the FDA for being tainted. Berberine has been shown to be as good as if not better than in head to head studies to Metformin. And then there’s a version called dihydroberberine that I patented, that’s about five times more bioavailable, and doesn’t have the GI distress associated with Berberine or Metformin because your body has to convert at the gut Berberine to dihydroberberine, so you’re just taking the active form. And then in the plasma, it actually converts back to Berberine again. But you’re taking that active form, so you can take much lower doses, don’t have the GI distress, and you’re getting all these longevity benefits. So most of us are insulin resistant to some degree, glucose-intolerant to some degree. But even people that have low hemoglobin A1c, low resting blood glucose still see benefit. The lower you can push it down, the better, honestly. So that’s the big one. That’s where I’m starting. I do believe in taking, like, a quality multi that has Coenzymated B vitamins. That means, again, kind of like what I was saying with dihydroberberine, they’re already in their active form. So they don’t have to be converted.
So that means like with B12 methylcobalamin. That means with folate that it’s 5-methyltetrahydrofolate. Some people just call it methylfolate because you’ve probably heard some people are MTHFR, right? Like, they have that gene where they don’t convert folate to the active form very well. So, those can cause issues like anemia, and you don’t even know why. I’m taking plenty of folate. Why do I have this? So, if you get your B vitamins in this more expensive, better coenzymated version, that’s better for you. And then also getting the minerals in that multi in their organic forms, things like malate or citrate or amino acid chelates, like glycinate, things like that are much better than things like oxide or carbonates. Those are kind of inferior forms of the minerals.
Fish oil, I’m a huge fan of. I know that seems kind of basic but IDHA fish oil, a lot of your brain is phospholipids. DHA feeds the brain. It can convert to EPA, which is cardioprotective anti-inflammatory. So I’m just a big fan of getting fish oil. And we have way too high a ratio of Omega-6 fatty acids to Omega-3, in our country. We need a lot more Omega-3s. There’s a new ingredient that I’ve helped bring out to the market that is kind of mind-blowing to me, it’s called ergothianine. It’s an amino acid that you find in mushrooms. And the efficacious amount is only like 5 to 10 milligrams. And it really could be the whole reason that so many of these mushrooms are so powerful when we’re taking Maitake, Shiitake, Reishi, Lion’s Mane, Turkey Tail. We’re seeing all these benefits on the immune system, on VO2 Max and performance, on resilience adaptogens. And what we’re seeing is ergothianine has its own transporter in your body, specific for ergothianine. And it has a storage system specific for ergothianine.
This is crazy. Like, we are literally adapted for this amino acid. And what’s cool is it protects the mitochondria, which like I said, is probably the most important thing in aging, in our cellular energy, and just our wellness overall. And so, this is protecting you from mitochondrial dysfunction. And most antioxidants work kind of at a cellular level, and there can be thresholds where they become pro-oxidant and almost counterproductive. You see that with cancer and a lot of different things or even like timing it around a workout. It could be counterproductive. Ergothianine isn’t like that. It literally works to protect the mitochondria and your body decides when it needs it. And so it’s really amazing, especially in this time where we need more immunity, we need more protection. So I really like that one.
Probiotics, I’m a big fan of but it’s super confusing. We need a lot more research. We definitely know that gut microbiome is massive for our health. There’s the gut-brain access. You know, some people call the gut the second brain. I think some people are actually arguing now that it might be the first brain. A lot of our neurotransmitters are in our gut, actually, more than our brain, like the dopamine, serotonin, GABA, acetylcholine, all these things are in the gut. And a lot of our depression and disease states start in the gut. So, you know, getting a healthy gut and making sure you don’t have things like leaky gut, are pretty critical. So, taking prebiotics is good. Having fermented foods is good. Prebiotics are, like, these short-chain fibers that feed that bacteria in the gut. And then probiotics, I like in the spore form or microencapsulated form because they’re protected. They’re protected in shipment. They’re protected on the shelf. And they’re also protected when you swallow them, and it has to pass through your hydrochloric acid in your stomach. So I like getting, like, these more stabilized protected forms.
The most interesting thing to add to this now is something called butyrate. It’s a short-chain fatty acid that these probiotics actually make. And it’s super important for gut health, and actually can feed into beta-hydroxybutyrate, which is ketones, which is a whole other discussion. But it’s really cool that you can get butyrate now on the market. And the best form is a triglyceride form called tributyrin. And when you put them all together, these prebiotics, the probiotics, and the butyrate, the postbiotic as it’s called, then you get something called a synbiotic because they’re all working together to help with your gut health and reshape that gut. But we do need a lot more research on what specific strains to take.
There was just some data I read today that cardiovascular disease, they can actually use some markers of the gut microbiome and see that if you have these certain strains in this ratio, that your propensity to get cardiovascular disease is much greater. So there’s so much research that we need, and it’s a little confusing right now. But I’d say it’s still important to try and get a quality synbiotic, if you can, from a good company. Let’s see what else do I got? I’m thinking, if immune system is a big deal from time to time, I do boost up my zinc. I do take certainly extra D3. Depending on how much sun I’m getting, D3 is very important. Taking that oil form, and if you consume it with a fatty meal or take it with other oil, it’s better absorbed. I also like getting my D3 with K2. They’re very synergistic and work well together. I think you should get at least 5,000 IUs a day. If you’re not getting outside, then 10,000 IUs. And that’s helpful.
And then there is a compound called AHCC from mushrooms that is really expensive. And for me, when I’m crashing with my autoimmunity, it doesn’t happen much anymore, but if I’m really overflowing on that bucket, I have, like, some red eye flight and I’ve got a speech the next day, and whatever whatever, like this AHCC brings me back every time. It’s a little pricey but it works. There’s also an amino acid that’s actually cheap that helps too, called lysine. So those are some kind of autoimmunity hacks. And I like taking additional magnesium because we’re just so deficient in it. And most multis don’t have enough. Magnesium glycinate is my favorite. It helps with regularity. It helps with muscle contraction. It helps with sleep, immunity, so many things. And vitamin C is an incredible vitamin and antioxidants. I like the liposomal form of vitamin C and taking a higher dose. It’s hard to go above a gram of regular vitamin C because you just get GI distress. But, you know, if you can’t get in and get IV vitamin C, like once a month or something like that, where you can knock out all kinds of pathogens, at least taking a liposomal vitamin C is ideal. So that would be some of my big guns there.
Katie: Awesome. I’m over here taking notes. And I have at least one more topic I definitely wanna delve into if you still have a few minutes.
Shawn: Yeah, of course.
Katie: Another just quick follow up question. I have heard from quite a few readers and I have experienced this myself to some degree. When I start trying to ramp up my magnesium dose, I will sometimes get, like, skin rashes. Any idea what’s going on there? Even with the magnesium glycinate form, is that…? I’ve heard it potentially could be a histamine issue. Do you think this is a source issue or what would you…? Any idea on that?
Shawn: It does sound like a histamine issue. And histamine is so fascinating. It’s something I’ve been studying quite a bit lately. Like, you know, the antihistamines tend to take your energy down. Like, if you think of Benadryl, and I don’t know if you know… Like, have you ever used like Provigil or Nuvigil. It’s also called Modafinil. It helps with, like, alertness. It’s one of the most popular nootropics or study drugs out there that actually works on that histamine pathway. And histamine has a lot to do with alertness and wakefulness. But yeah, there’s a lot of, like, broken histamine pathway stuff that we have, that certainly can tie into things like leaky gut and there’s even leaky brain now, like I was talking about, that gut-brain access. But where these things that are passing through the blood-brain barrier in the brain that shouldn’t be or things that are passing through what should be tight junctions in the gut that shouldn’t be and are inflammatory. And so sometimes, yes, like, if you’re getting supplements maybe that aren’t the cleanest, like maybe it’s coming from a facility that has certain things that are allergic triggers for you, like, think of like tree nuts or, you know, gluten or whatever that could be in there, that’s possible. And it just depends on not only on the outside of it but, like, the powders. Like, what was it that they just processed, just before that magnesium? And especially if it’s a tablet. You know, like, there’s the binders and fillers in tablets add some complexity too. So, that’s where that whole, like, really high-end GMP thing makes a big difference.
If I was going to start somewhere and make my judgment, I’d always start with the most expensive, best form. And then once you know how it does for your body, then you can maybe back down and try some other ones that are a little cheaper, that have good reviews on Amazon or whatever. But like a company like Thorne or, you know, I formula a biotrust and Dymatize, I can tell you, like, my quality control is second to none. So I know those are there. But, like, Thorne is, like, a really high-end company, Pure Encapsulations, Doctor’s Best, those are some, like, really good ones, where if you start there, then at least you have, like, a guidepost to say, “Okay, like, it’s the magnesium, it’s not how it’s getting processed.” So, that’s what I’d look at.
Katie: Okay. Cool. Made notes on that as well. And then last big topic. We talked about this a little bit in-person. I feel like this is gonna be the new thing that people get excited about and start to explore. The idea of peptides. That might also be a new topic for a lot of people listening. So, to start broad, can you explain what peptides are and then maybe give us a few examples of how we’re starting to learn about how they can be used?
Shawn: Peptides is an encompassing term now. It’s not always what these compounds are. But what it means is that you have an amino acid, which is a building block. And multiple amino acids make peptides. And you can have a dipeptide, that’s two amino acids. You can have an oligopeptide, that’s like 13 amino acids, or a polypeptide, which is 20 or more. And, like, there’s different hormones in things that are made up of peptides. Like, for example, like insulin, or growth hormone, are peptides. So, there’s a lot of research going into some natural peptides that have physiologic impact and then some that aren’t natural, but let’s say, they don’t have the side effects that you would expect. Like, there’s a whole class, for example, called SARMS, that are selective androgen receptor modulators that work like steroids, but without the side effects associated with steroids.
So that’s a very interesting class going into the future, where you certainly have cachexia and sarcopenia issues with people not being able to maintain muscle mass but you don’t want the side effects of steroids. And, of course, they’re getting abused, like you would expect, in so many other circles, with athletes, etc. But certainly, as we age, muscle is so important. Like, one of the best predictors of longevity is actually grip strength. It’s one of the simplest tests of whether you’re going to live long or not, whether you’re healthy or not, is grip strength. Really simple test to do. But so these peptides, you have all kinds of peptides, these ones that help your brain, like Cerebrolysin or Dihexa. You have ones that are totally anti-inflammatory and healing. Ones that I use pretty often. Like there’s one called BPC-157 and TB-500 or Thymosin Beta-4. Both of those are incredible, like, to, you know, inject into, let’s say if you just had a surgery, and you used just insulin needles. And these don’t really hurt.
But you do have to know how to mix these bacteriostatic water and all this stuff or you can work with certain physicians that are mixing these peptides and working on anti-aging, and longevity, and healing. Dr. Daniel Stickler is an example. Aperon in Austin, Texas. There’s people all over the country that are doing this that you can look into. Certainly see if they have the certifications and qualifications. But these peptides holds so much promise. There’s another one, for example, Melanotan that actually makes you look more tan from melanin in the skin. And the interesting thing is, you know, usually when you’re darker skin, you are more protected from the photo-oxidation, the photodamage from the sun. And so not only does it give you that tan from an injection, but it also protects you from your skin aging as fast. So, a lot of these peptides are really fascinating. You know, most are injected, some are oral, some are internasal. But it’s becoming a huge science and its way outpacing, you know, the typical pharmacy and medical path of writing out a prescription. Like, you really have to work with some progressive doctors that know what they’re doing. I would really recommend that because you could get unclean sources of these. You could take the wrong doses. You might not mix them correctly. Again, with that bacteriostatic water, get the right needles, all that. But definitely something to look into with longevity, with anti-aging, is peptides. Huge area.
Katie: That’s fascinating. I’ve seen some of the research on these and I’m excited to keep seeing more. I knew you would be able to explain that well. And I feel like we might have to probably do a round 2 as these get more common and people follow up with more specific questions. I cannot believe how quickly our time is flying by today. And I think if you’re up for it, we’re gonna have to do more rounds of this one day because, like, I barely scratched the surface of everything I wanna ask you. But a question I love to selfishly ask at the end because I’m always looking for new books is, if there’s a book or a number of books that have really drastically changed your life, and if so, what they are and why?
Shawn: The “Four Agreements,” is super profound, not only for the actual four agreements, and don’t take anything personal is probably the one that I’ve struggled to most, but the idea of the agreements that you make throughout your life, that you let people project on you, hurt people hurt people. You let people project these things on you and say, “You’re ugly. You’re not smart. You’re not good enough. You’ll fail.” And you believe them. You make these agreements. When you come out of the womb, you are beautiful. You are perfect. You are a genius. You’re the best person in the world that’s ready to do anything. And it’s only through life that you learn all these lessons. We call them lessons. But really you make these agreements, that you’re not good enough. And it’s not true. So I think that book is really powerful. I love “The Obstacle Is the Way” by Ryan Holiday. That is certainly a growth mindset. It’s stoicism. It’s essentially that resiliency that we’re talking about, that not only is the obstacle not bad to have in your life, but it’s so good. It’s how you get stronger, become better. It’s how you become more resilient, harder to kill. It’s how you find your purpose. I mean, if I didn’t get sick, if I didn’t have all those struggles, I wouldn’t empathize with all the people I do today. I wouldn’t be here on this podcast with you. I wouldn’t have the certifications I have. I would be a totally different person. And I’m a better person for having gone through all those struggles.
And the last book, kind of along those lines, is probably Simon Sinek’s “Start With your Why.” It’s just finding your purpose. Like, really bringing clarity to that, I think is so important. Most people talk about their truth, but they really don’t know what it is. They haven’t done the deep self-work. And that’s another discussion about, like, you know, going to therapists, doing plant medicine, having great friends and mentors, all these other things. But I like his method of kind of clearing away all these shiny things that are distracting you, and really focusing on what lights you up, and then saying to go after that with full force because that is who you are, that is your why. And so, those books are probably the most profound for me.
Katie: I love all of those. I will make sure those are linked in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm for any of you guys listening so you can find them, along with I’ve been taking notes over here, if you see me looking to the right on everything that you’re saying, including supplements I’m gonna play with now. And like I said, I’m gonna have to have you back on. This was so much fun. I feel like we could have a dozen fun conversations that would really help a lot of people. But for today, I’m very, very grateful for your time. I know how busy and how valuable you are. And I’m so grateful that you took the time to share today.
Shawn: I love talking to you. I love your authenticity. You do blow me away and it’s a blessing. It’s really a blessing to talk to you, to know you, to now have you in my life. I don’t take that lightly. I always think, like, when these conversations and these friendships develop, that that’s like it’s meant to be and it’s really a part of my path. You know, kind of, like, the obstacle is the way, like this friendship is the way too. And I don’t take that lightly and I wanna reciprocate great friendship to you and great conversation to you. So anything you need from me, I’m here for you. And I’m just so thankful for you.
Katie: Thank you. And thanks as always to all of you for listening, for sharing your most valuable resource, your time, with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the “Wellness Mama Podcast.”
If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.
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