Welcome to Living in the Matrix. I'm Jonathan and I'm left of center.
And I'm Rich and I tend to lean a little bit more to the right. But the bottom line is,
is together we try to look for the balance of what it means to be human in today's world.
But yeah, let's do that. Let's get started. Welcome everybody. This is Living in the Matrix.
I'm Jonathan and my co-host Rich. Say hello, Rich.
Hey everybody. Looking forward to getting this one kicked off. I'm thrilled to be here.
It's Friday, of course, but even more excited about the fact we've got a good friend of mine,
Nate Taylor, who's going to be on with us today. And one of the reasons I love working with Nate
is imagine if you had like a need for something in the back of your mind, you're at a nice
restaurant and you see the wine list, you have no idea what's going on. Nate is your guy. If you
want to talk about enterprise sales, you want to talk about expensive shotguns or living in a small
town in Texas, or if you want to talk about what we're focusing on today, which is how do you live
your best life, your healthiest life, so that you could give back to not only the family that you're
surrounded with, but leave a legacy of something instead of winding up in some curled up ball with
Alzheimer's someplace. So the bottom line is, is how do we talk about things that even though they
could be fun about getting a good bottle of wine or how to propose to your wife in a really special
way, let's talk about today about our health. And Nate, at the beginning of the show, you started
asking a question upfront, and I think it's a great way to get started. So is it good enough for an
introduction or should we just dive right in and let's get going? And maybe you can tell us a little
bit about your journey as we go along. Hey, I'm in your home, however you want to do it.
Well, let's dive into that topic. I think that was a great answer. Yeah, I will say one thing I do
like to start a lot of my conversations with nowadays instead of asking how are you is I like
to just pause for a moment and ask you both, how are y'all sleeping? I just got a grounding sheet
and I love it. Okay, it does it freaking works. It my sleep has been dramatically different since
I got it a week ago. And so I can't say that's, you know, I believe in the placebo, but I actually
believe in grounding. So it's so far it's been excellent. Rich, how about you? Well, the CDC
just published something on grounding. So I can send that to you a little bit later. So we're
going beyond like these ideas of electrons and pseudoscience to actually seeing it really work.
And that's why we're talking today. The other thing I think it's important to mention before
I tell you how I'm sleeping, Nate, is I do believe what I like about your angle is the folks we've
had on are kind of unorthodox in terms of how they actually come to the medical field. One of our
guests said that 99% of the health journals that you read in medical school are worthless. 99% of
what you're understanding isn't even helpful. 1% is. So I think to be fair, Nate is talking about
things that are a little bit out there, but at the same time, I think what he's offering, what
Keyspan offers is a real practical kind of solution. You don't have to get kind of crazy in the
mindset, but it's something that could be helpful. And in terms of my sleep, I find that when I have
a good workouts throughout the day and I go to bed around 9.30 or 10 and take a little magnesium,
my sleeping is great. I'll actually look over at the water that I brought with me to the table site
and not even see it. But when I'm having fun and I'm out there having some good drinks and stuff
like that, and I go to bed at let's say 11.30 or later, I find that my sleep isn't good,
especially with the alcohol in the system. Yeah. Do you guys both have trackers that you wear
to track it? I don't. I have an iPhone. I don't wear my watch at night. Do you wear your watch
at night? I charge mine. I wear mine at night and I wear a WUBE, which I'm not wearing.
I charge it in the morning when I shower. How long does it take? 20 minutes. I didn't realize.
I always thought it took like an hour. By the time I'm done shaving, showering, getting dressed,
all that stuff, my watch is charged and I throw it back on and go. Yeah. So Nate, why don't you
just dive in? We're going to come back to that topic, but why don't you dive in and give us a
perspective? Because you have a company called Keyspan and you took on sort of the healthcare
system. What, give me, unpack that a little bit in terms of there's conventional healthcare,
but we talk to people who are outside of that vein and you're one of them. What is Keyspan doing?
Yeah. I'm so glad you asked. Healthcare is an interesting term for the system that we live in,
I think. And you alluded to medical school and what is useful and what is not. And first,
before I begin any of these things, I need to preface, I am not a doctor.
I do not have any medical background. So this has been a very steep learning curve and a long
journey for me to get to this point. And luckily I'm surrounded by some amazing nutritionists and
doctors and health coaches and functional medicine folks who are in this space. So a lot of what I'm
saying is going to be parroted from what I have learned from the experts and the specialists.
So with that public safety announcement out of the way, let's get into the healthcare system.
I had my first kid in my late thirties, I was an older father. And when I turned 40,
I just had one of those moments where I woke up and I said, I just, I feel old.
I am way too young to be feeling old. And that began the journey of trying to figure out first
off, why am I feeling this way? What is actually going on inside my body? And what can I do about
it? And so I went to my general practitioner. That's the first step that you naturally do in
a process like this. And quickly discovered that the entire healthcare system is designed
to do one thing. It is designed to identify an illness or a ailment and provide a solution
to that illness or that ailment, which is great, right? If I have COVID, I'm going to go see my
doctor. If I break my leg, I'm going to go see my doctor. If I have a stroke, I'm going to go see
my leg. I'm going to go see my doctor. If I have to have surgery, I'm going to go see my doctor.
If I have cancer, I'm going to go see my doctor. But what I've learned is that roughly only around
40 hours of eight years of medical school is spent on preventative education within the healthcare
and medical school community. And they are designed and trained to cure. And that is paired
with the massive pharmaceutical industry, which is then feeding them a pipeline of cures for
whatever it is that they're diagnosing. And when I came to my doctor and asked for a solution,
the first solution, knee jerk solution was great. Well, you have low testosterone. Let's get you on
testosterone, right? There was never a discussion about what can I do naturally or what type of
lifestyle choices am I making today that are hurting my testosterone, right? I found that
later that it's clearly choices that I'm making that are causing me to have low T. It's not because
of my age. It's not because of my place in society. It's my fault if you want to lay blame anywhere.
And I quickly learned that by being on testosterone, it was a terrible choice. It was
going to be something that I would be dependent on for the rest of my life. My body would then
not be producing its own testosterone at the same rate that it would be. And I would still have never
solved the underlying problem that caused that in the first place, which is the fast track to
an eventual bucket of, take your pick. I have a half a dozen different chronic illnesses.
Excuse me. So that took me down the path. I went to look at places like the Cooper Clinic that are
$10,000 a visit. I don't have $10,000 to spend on a doctor's visit, but I reverse engineered all
their tests. And I went back to my doctor and I said, hey, I want all these tests. I want a much
larger blood panel. I want bone density scans. I want lung capacity scans. I want to look in my
arteries and see how things are looking, DEXA scans, all the stuff. And she was able to do it.
Cost me about $700 or so. Insurance was able to cover most of it. She got very creative with
creating the reasons why I needed these tests. But that again, highlights what's wrong with the
system. It was very hard to get my insurance company to pay for preventatives, testing and
screening, which today blows my mind. It makes sense, right? I mean, look at all the losses and
claims are getting out because of theft, but now we go down the path of losses due to people dying
and getting unhealthy. It's just going to be exponential from where it is today. So it's
absolutely vested interest of them to have preventative processes in place and encouraging
it. So verify my stats when I say them. What do they say? 87.6% of all statistics are made up,
but it's some absurd number in the range of like 70 to 80% of all of our healthcare costs are spent
in the last couple of years of life, extending life of someone with a chronic illness. And
this one I am certain of seven out of 10 Americans, 70% of them are dying from preventable
chronic illnesses, which just blows my mind. Anyways, so I digress. Back to the journey of
where we're going. Let me interject here real quick, Nate. Is it fair to say, because this is
my perspective is that modern Western medicine isn't really interested in a cure, even though
that's what they say they are. They're interested in the maintenance of the cure because if they
cure the customer, they don't have a customer anymore. So it's easier to put you on something
that's maintenance to the problem rather than actually curing the problem. Because most drugs
don't really cure the problem. They mask the symptoms. Yeah, they treat the symptoms. That's
very true. Whether that is by design, and it's some sort of conspiracy out there, I don't know.
But I think it does seem to be the status quo, right? You get put on a medication,
and you're going to be on that medication for a while. And I do kind of question the motives of
the governments and the regulatory agencies when you're looking at things like psychedelics for
mental health treatment. Because if it's a one and done, and you have rewired your brain, and you've
solved your depression issue, where's the profit in that for the drug company or the doctor?
Exactly. And I question the motives behind that. I don't have any...
Well, you know, to add on to that. I don't know.
I mean, let's talk about depression, right? I mean, there's a lot of evidence out there that
says that... Well, first of all, if you're on meds, oftentimes they have to change. That's
another sliding scale, right? It's not like one and done. But there's a lot of great studies
that show if you meditate, if you have a community, if you exercise and eat well, spend some time in
the sun and surrounding yourself with positive kinds of environments, that's 80% of the battle.
And I'm not a doctor either, but I do believe we have way too many people on antidepressants
in this country, and the fact that you can die coming off of those things without a long
ongoing process. Hell, if you look at the movie The Fall of the House of Usher, it's a Netflix
series, talks about maybe it's a pseudo Purdue Pharmaceuticals, but you can just see that it's
not a healthy environment. So I guess what I'd love to figure out, Nate, is when you see the pain,
you realize that something's broken, where do you start going down the path of things that A,
are really reasonable and can really work versus this idea of there's a lot of pseudoscience out
there. Like somebody says, eat more cilantro, or somebody goes, do ice baths. Now, maybe there's
some benefits to these things, but where do you hone in, and where does key span hone in on the
things that you know can be a good positive factor and ones that you cast aside as, hey, listen,
those might be anecdotal, they might work for a few others, but let's just focus on reality here.
Where do you kind of draw the line on those kinds of controversial things versus something more
reasonable? Great question. So at key span, the way we began to think about the development of
this was starting with the foundation of the, first off, what sort of makes up the full health
of a person? I can test my blood biomarkers, but does that tell me everything that I need to know
about the person? I can test my gut biome. Does that tell me everything about that person? I can
go to a psychiatrist and talk about my mental health. Does that tell me everything about that
person? And I realized that it doesn't. You really kind of have to look at all three of these things,
you know, with the vagus nerve that is connecting the brain to the gut, the gut being considered
now sort of the second brain that's out there, and then now that ties into the blood biomarkers.
If I just look at your blood biomarkers without having a conversation with you and understanding
your mental state and understanding who you are and what a day in the life of Rich or the day in
the life of Jonathan looks like, I am looking at it in a very limited narrow facet, right? What if
you're going through an incredibly stressful divorce and I see that you have really high
inflammation in your homocysteine or your cortisol is through the roof? What if you are
a chronic, you have a chronic sleep issues and you just aren't able to get sleep, you know,
or you have a newborn child and you're not getting sleep for several months, you know,
that's going to show up in the blood. But if I don't understand your life situation,
how am I ever going to properly diagnose that and properly give you tips and ideas on how to
make some lifestyle changes to address those underlying problems? And so that was sort of the
foundation, that triple point, brain, mental health, gut and blood. And so when thinking
of that, I worked with our medical team and our nutritionist, I was like, okay, if your glucose
says this, what are ways that we can influence it using diet, exercise, lifestyle and supplements?
Because we truly believe that food is medicine primarily, but we know that sometimes people,
for whatever reason, aren't going to get all their nutrients from their food. So we supplement
in the meantime. What can they do from an exercise standpoint, right? What can they do from lifestyle
decisions, right? Are they drinking every night before they go to bed? You know, what are they
doing that is causing all of these things? And that's where the power of the health coach comes
in to really understand the person. So while we're using the biomarkers to test and give us a
scientific point in which to work from, we have to have the context around that.
And that context is then given through the relationship that is built through the health
coach. And the health coach is there to not just explain what we're doing, explain the biomarkers,
explain the remedies, but is to help that person make meaningful lifelong changes to their lifestyle.
Because it's all good if I give you data. Data is not the value. It is the implementation of
the changes that come from what that data tells you.
Are you saying that what Keyspan does, so I understand, Keyspan draws your blood, runs tests
and that creates the basis of the data. What's in the tests that you're doing?
Yeah. So we do 24 biomarkers for men, 26 for women. And we're looking at everything from,
you know, your living path.
What do you mean by biomarker?
Biomarkers are blood biomarkers. I'll name a few of them off. I'm not going to name the entire list.
I'm going to name it the biomechanics.
Biomarkers are blood biomarkers. I'll name a few of them off. I'm not going to name the entire list
here, but you know, your lipid panels, your ASD, your ALT, HbA1c, ApoB, homocysteine, CRP,
iron, B12, all those things. And for women, we have two extra ones in there because women are
very unique biological animals in themselves, separate from men, where we're looking at their
thyroid and their estradiol because the hormonal ecosystem of the woman's body is so vitally
important to their overall health that we can't really apply the same thinking that we do to men
as we do to women.
So that's what we start with. And this is, I think, is a perfect example of this.
What does it say? What does it mean? And then how do you apply it? So how does that cycle work
with with Keyspan? I think you got some Cedar analogies. Is that what came up in the app?
Yeah.
I'm sorry, man.
Cedar has started here in Texas and it's brutal. Sorry about that. All right. Repeat that question.
Yeah. So I mean, we actually, when I remember when I actually used to study scripture, it'd be like,
hey, what does the Bible verse say? What does it mean? And how do you apply it? Right. So you've
got observation, interpretation, application. So you've got the biomarker. You've got the coach.
It helps to the context. What is the next process that helps people actually start to see real
meaningful change? And how do you get to that?
So it's by setting small goals. Habit stacking is one of these ways we'll talk to you. We have a list
of 40 things that we want you to change in your life. No one's going to wake up tomorrow morning
and do 40 things differently. We recognize that. We recognize that that's a very overwhelming thing.
And so we try to break that down into small bite-sized pieces and it's individual. And again,
that goes back to the health coach, which is so important to the change of this. I can go tell
you to go for it and do 40 things tomorrow, Rich. How many are you going to do? How are you going
to know which ones are going to be easiest for you? So they'll talk to you. And depending on
your particular lifestyle or you, Jonathan, are you guys morning people or are you evening people?
I'm an evening person. Okay, Rich. I'm more productive in the morning.
Great. All right. So y'all are going to have two different, very different approaches to things.
Rich, your recommendation might be, Hey, Rich, what if we got up 30 minutes earlier and went to bed
30 minutes earlier and use that 30 minutes to do mindful meditation or a quick workout or
stretching, whatever it is that we might be wanting to work on. And we'll just pick one or two or three
small changes. We'll be like, Hey, why don't you start drinking a dandelion tea in the morning
instead of your coffee? And let's start working to cleanse your liver. Your liver is a big
regulator of a lot of your hormone production and circulation within the body. And for me, for
example, my testosterone, one of the clear things was reduce my alcohol, cleanse my liver,
get better sleep, and then start doing strength training. These are four small things that I could
start to do. And I was able to boost my testosterone 120 points in four months, naturally.
Wow. Is that free testosterone?
Yeah. I mean, massive change in my life. I can't tell you how good I felt.
And it wasn't changes that were not, I wasn't being asked to go on the,
you know, an NFL football training program here, right? These were very easy changes that I could
adapt to my life. And so that's where the health coach really helps come in, identify
where are the opportunities that we can do a few small changes. Let's track those for two to three
weeks and let's talk again. How are you feeling? What worked? What didn't work? Why didn't it work?
Oh, you weren't motivated to do it. What do you think you would be motivated to do? How could we
change that? And really begin to work with you to make those changes. And then it becomes a snowball.
And it goes back to that religion environment, right? When you start doing the right things
in the church with that community, the community embraces you more.
You feel quote unquote closer to God, whatever it might be in the physical body, you're feeling
physically better. Your mental clarity is there. Your engagements with other people tend to improve
because your mood is better. And then all these things start to get one step closer to where it
then becomes the habit to stay on this healthy track. And then you start to get to the point
where you feel like you're not going to be able to stay on this healthy track. And it actually
feels bad to go back to those bad habits. Because you start experiencing what it feels like not
to have them. That's right. Habit is really important because it gives you a new experience
that your body then can reference. Yeah. It's really good that. And the beauty about it is,
you know, it's a very important job, which is selling coaching to large organizations. And
you have a set of assessments that you'll take to determine where that person is in terms of their
leadership and or individual person skills and behaviors. Where are they strong and where do
they have areas for development? And that coach spends every other week digging in and not
actually necessarily telling them what to do, but actually encouraging them to think independently.
So they actually own it, right? And so the beautiful thing about having the coach is it's
the ability that helps you get inspired to do things that you might not have done on your own.
And so I'm encouraged by that concept and the light bulbs that start to go on, that start to
go off, right? People are like, oh my God, I can't believe how amazing I feel now or how much I'm
getting out of this and how much better I'm interacting with colleagues, et cetera, et cetera.
So go ahead, Jonathan. No, no, no, go ahead. Finish your thought.
I was going to go back to the whole religion thing you just brought up because I think it's
time to open up the can of worms. Let me just make one quick analogy about health coaching. You said
there is not one top performer out there in this world, whether it be an athlete or a CEO
who doesn't have a coach. Why don't you? I do have a coach.
It's probably cost for most people. It feels like, and I do, I have a coach. It's not,
I think the cost benefit is it's absolutely worth it, but you have to experience to realize it's
worth. So most people never get that experience to take that over the bridge. And that's where
we think that the power of AI can come in and really make this a really democratized access
to this. Well, let's dive into the AI right now. Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Let's save that for the second half. I'm definitely going to come back to it,
but I want to finish this kind of finish this vein. Nate, when did this idea, because the idea of,
I think that's what's missing is a doctor is not a coach. I've always thought about this because
I worked for a medical billing company. So I dove into the medical world. It's a monster. It is about
business a hundred percent. Yeah. A hundred percent modern medicine is about making money.
And the problem is that puts doctors who want, who believe in the Hippocratic oath,
but they still have a business to run. And all Western modern medicine is based on the sick
model. How do we keep people in a sustainable sick mode? So they always come back. That's how
business works in the medical world. And your model is like, no, we don't need that long-term
approach. The goal is to be, get people to become self-sufficient. Where did that start?
Well, it started when I finished getting all my, when I get all my tests that we finally did,
I went back to my doctor and I was like, okay, I've got it all. Now what's my 360? What do I need
to do? And the recommendations were very generic and left me very unsatisfied. So that then took
me out. I took all my data and I went and hired a nutritionist. I went and hired a health coach. I
went and hired a personal trainer. I went and talked to a psychiatrist and put all four of
those things together. And based on that work and several thousand dollars later, I had a plan,
a roadmap for myself. And when I told all my friends about this, they're like, oh, that sounds
amazing. I want to do that. And then I showed them how much work it took. They're like, yeah, no,
I'm good. Cool. Appreciate it. And that's where the spark began. I was like, I think there is
definitely a place in the market for this. People want this and we just need to make it more
accessible and we need to make it really, really easy for them to adopt it. But more importantly,
we need to make it in such a way that empowers those people to make the changes that they need
to make in their life. So are you familiar with Dr. Brekka and are you familiar with Dana White?
Have you heard that story? Yeah, I've seen it on Joe Rogan's Brekka podcast last night, actually.
Right. So I think maybe I can make an analogy here. Would it be safe to say that what Dr. Brekka
did for Dana White, which is incredible work, right? Fasting and definitely, I think he put
him on some testosterone, but he was on a ketogenic diet. Are you saying your trajectory is let's do
something very similar, but for a fraction of the cost? Because God knows Dana White's got a lot
more money than we do, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We want to do this for a fraction of the
cost. Right now we're starting at $150 a month, but we want to be able to get that down even
further to be able to capture a larger swath of the audience and work with employers to have them
sponsor it for their employees. Oh yeah. I can see how this could definitely work for health related
issues for employees because it's an investment in their improvement. Yeah. Nate, I want to ask
you this question because I think this is what I've been thinking about in preparation for meeting
with you is modern Western medicine doesn't take an intentional approach. It's take this pill
and you're good to go. There's not the mental aspect. And I think that's what's powerful about
this is the mental aspect is really the true barrier to health because all sickness is stress
related. And when you create these stressors in your life, your body says, okay, your body's
going to get fucked up because you keep holding on to all this shit. That's going to cause disease.
So it's dis-ease. What role does coaching play in changing that? Because I think it's an intention.
If I add that voice in my life that helps me develop that intention of health,
I'm only going to be dealing with the stress at its core. What role does the coach work on
in helping people create that inertia and energy to say, I'm actually worth taking care of? Because
I think that's probably part of the journey, isn't it? It's a hundred percent part of the journey.
Yeah. I'm really glad you brought up the mental health and the mental state side of things. And
honestly, I think we're just scratching the surface in terms of how much our mental state impacts
our immune systems. And yes, you are 100% right that a lot of our diseases are caused by that.
I would go one step further and say, most of our diseases are caused by inflammation of some type
before. Stress creates the inflammation. Absolutely. It's a trigger for that. And
you see it as well in a very unscientific way. If you just look at your group of friends,
you've got the Tiggers and you've got the Eeyores, right? Who gets sick more?
Eeyores.
Eeyores are always sick.
Oh yeah. Yes.
No, Tigger's never sick. And even if Tigger is sick, Tigger's pissed off that he's sick
and is still out trying to get stuff done. He's like, he's blind.
He's like, he's not going to get sick. He's like, he's not going to get sick.
He's still out trying to get stuff done. He's like, he's blind. I'm so annoyed that I'm sick.
I got to get over this. Okay. Right. So just validating what you were saying in that sense,
Jonathan, I think there is a lot to be said about the mental game. And that's where we think
the health coaching is that critical link. You can go get your data about what's going on in your
body in a thousand different places, but what do you do with that data? And how do you incorporate
the changes you need to make in your life in order to make the changes in the data?
And the health coach is really your partner to do that. They are trained to be empathetic,
yet encouraging. They're not judgmental. And that's one of the big barriers for a lot of people.
They feel guilty or they're embarrassed because they didn't follow instructions.
And so they're like, oh, I'm going to avoid my next meeting. I have people that I know who are
like, I'm not going to go see my doctor because I don't want to find out what's going on. They're
just truly afraid. That just blows my mind. I'm like, how can you live like that? Just to my
standpoint, I don't understand that completely at all. I understand that there would be fear.
Sure. And I can empathize with the fear, but then using that fear as an excuse to really not ever
know. I really hope that anyone listening to this that is scared, I just encourage you to please
go find out just for your own sanity. I'm going to ask you one of your questions.
Your primer was amazing in terms of giving us lead-ins. What role does spirituality play in
this whole part? Because how do you view that intersection of spirituality and physical health?
Because I think it's huge. I think it's everything. But how do you see it?
Well, I think there've been a lot of studies that have shown that religious and spiritual people
are generally healthier and live longer. And it goes back to a lot of the key things that has
been broken down everywhere from the Blue Zone books to Eastern medicine and traditional medicine
is that having spirituality provides several important mental things. One, it provides purpose.
Tell us. Two, it provides community and support. Three, it provides safety,
and an overall reduction of anxiety. And I would say the last one would be the ability to deal with
grief and pain and suffering that is inevitable in life, with loss and with tragedy and whatever
else might be out there. Those people who are self-ascribed spiritual folks or follow a
particular religion, they tend to be able to manage and handle that better than those who don't,
according to some of the studies I've seen. And again, not an expert on this, but I think
that link is very real and it doesn't have to come in the form of a church. There are a lot of ways
where you can get that spiritual fulfillment. And you're seeing that more and more with the
younger generations as they're moving away from the organized traditional religious
in the Western world. They're moving towards health and wellness, honestly, as their religion.
That is the ethos, because it offers dogma, it offers ritual, and it offers community.
A lot of the same things that power the church and the philosophies behind the church.
No, we had a guest on who went from Mormonism to atheism. And she's in the process today of
helping people, what we call in the postmodern Christian world, deconstruction. So you have
these beliefs, this set of narratives, meta-narratives, if you would, and they come
crashing down because of new things that are introduced. And so for a lot of the church,
and something you can maybe dive into this now, but if you think about the evangelical church,
which we've been a part of for a long time, the idea of evolution, right? If evolution is real,
does that mean Adam and Eve are not real? What do you do with sin, hell? We've had conversations
about hell on this. So for some people, coming out of these things is actually really, it's
devastating. If you have this belief in a place that you can go, that's going to give you all
happiness because you said the right things and did the right things, and that's now
undergirding story behind that is going away, it's traumatic. I mean, people go through,
it's like a big loss, right? And so how would you address helping people that go through it?
Because some people were raised in secular homes, right? And this same gal actually calls
herself spiritually secular, right? She calls it, can you call that laugh? I said, absolutely.
If I'm investing in breath work and mindfulness meditation, and I'm tapping into that universal,
that unified field, and I'm tapping into my heart, you know, that if it's all part of
consciousness, we're all on board there. But how would you be able to help a person make that
transition if that was part of what their journey looks like, right? As they're deconstructing,
would this particular process help them, Nate, in a way?
I'd never really thought of that. That's an interesting angle. And I would say, you know,
we didn't go into this business to address specifically that scenario. But I can't see why
it wouldn't be of some assistance. Understanding what's happening inside your body, and
understanding how you can live a better life, replaces some of the dogma that was provided
by the church, right? Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not send. You have other religions
that are like, you know, do not eat pork or other things. And those were done because
back in the day, right, pork often had a lot of bacteria and diseases that were associated
with it. And this was helping them stay safe and stay clean and live a fulfilling life
and giving them purpose. So I'd say not directly, but I think indirectly, sure, without a doubt,
being able to have a companion there who understands you, understands your health,
and understands the difficulties and challenges you face in implementing these changes, but
giving you that support system, just like the community of the church is, where they
might be like, hey, maybe you should stop drinking. Let's help you do that as a community.
Health and wellness and key span in particular in our community is called the key club. You
have the opportunity to tap into a network of folks who are going to give you a similar
support structure that you might find in an organized religion.
Yeah, it's like a subreddit, but better.
Yeah, before we jump to your idea, because I want to go there. What's the big picture
vision for key span?
The big picture vision is to make chronic illnesses, preventable chronic illness is
a thing of the past. It's really sad that we're spending so much of our money on illness
and disease that is completely preventable just through diet and exercise. It's not a
magic pill. It's not something that's going to be a big issue. It's not something that's
not some wackadoodle science that's out there. It's eating whole foods, not too much of it
and getting out and moving and being social and surrounded by people you love.
You're saying something really profound there that a lot of people need to realize is
if you just switch your diet to non-processed, non-sugar based foods, you're going to solve
90% of your physical problems. Rich and I are going to do the carnivore diet in January,
and we're going to do a podcast episode. Then we had a fruitarian on Dr. Morris in September,
and he's all the way on the other side, no meats. Here's the reality of what Dr. Huberman
always says is what's the one thing they all have in common is they all reduced and removed
processed foods and sugars. You're adding a component of adding the coaching, which is the
mental health part because here's the reality is it does come down to I need mental health help
to emotionally deal with the process of changing my diet and my lifestyle. The habit stacking takes
time and you need someone to push you into that process. Yeah, you really do. Our society has
been built on an industrialized food system. On one end, done an amazing job of being able to feed
billions of people, but on the other end has created a massive amount of sugar-laden
and salt-laden processed foods that have very long shelf life, which allows the transportation
from farm to grocery shelves. It's hard to navigate in this world that carrot stick and that salad over
Doritos. Well, Doritos taste good, man. They do. They do. But the idea also is small iterative
steps. The idea of coaching is you're going to make these small little steps at a time. The
reasons why we've seen the data on this, the reason why these diets of just immediately doing
something so dramatic, they fail because it just seems so insurmountable. If you work on the small
steps, and I think of course, Jonathan, not just good food, but supplements and the foods that
don't have all the things that are there to kickstart things, having the community and the app
and then that coach all combined. Going back to Dr. Morse, Jonathan, this is going to be an
interesting conversation we're going to have at the end of January after we're done with the
Convo-Ret. Dr. Morse believes that when you eat healthy fruits, mostly berries and melons and a
couple of things like vegetables, your body is more spiritual. When you're eating meats, and
everybody knows when you nail back a 22 ounce, even if it's grass fed, prime rib eye, that's
going to set you back. You're not going to be so lively. You're not going to be like Tigger after
Wolf and that meal down. It's going to be interesting, Jonathan, to see if we feel like when
we try to be more meditative or in that field, is it going to affect us in that way? Because Dr.
Morse is probably going to be... He's going to want to tune in because it's the antithesis of
what his diet is. Right? Well, I think the thing that I appreciate about Dr. Morse is he has a good
science behind it. His idea is that the lymphatic system is imbued by the fruits. Of course. I
bought the idea. I think it's a powerful idea. Here's what I'm wrestling with is you have two
polar opposites of carnivore and fruitarian. That's where I begin to believe your body responds more
to your intention than it does to the food. When I eat carnivore with the intention of restoring
my body and I'm fasting, I changed my diet last year in January from probably 3,500 calories a
day. I was eating four times a day, massive meals down to one and a half. My lunch was my shake.
My body responded completely different. I lost 30 pounds because I wasn't overloading it.
I think it's what we put in is important, but the intention we have about it, because I was very
intentional about I'm trying to create health in my body. That's where I really wonder is,
if you have these two polar opposites, what role does intention... I think intention actually plays
more part than the actual food we eat. I think you're right. The alignment of heart and mind,
Jonathan, and a lot of- When you tell your body, this is good for me and I'm loving myself,
myself, you're speaking directly to your body at a mental health state level.
Now you're organizing this as much as you are this, and you're saying,
okay, I'm going to take care of myself. That's a powerful statement to the body.
I think that's the value of why I see in Keyspan or the coaching aspect. You're starting with
really important panels to say, listen, start with your blood work. Where are you at? You have a
clear measurement factor, but then you have it coupled with coaching that helps you improve
these dramatically. You probably start even ticking off diseases as you start. I can see the path
where people can approach this process and very clearly, if they stick with it, see the value,
which is it's that upward spiral effect. You're seeing it and then believing, and you're seeing
it more and then you're believing it more. Then the coach just is lightly pushing you forward.
Absolutely. All right, here we go. It's time for the big one. We did talk about having controversial
guests, people doing outside of the status quo, but we also tuned into the fact that Keyspan is
actually pretty conventional process, very pragmatic. The kinds of things that are happening
are in the mainstream and you can count on them instead of something blowing up.
At the beginning of the podcast, Nate, you were talking about a bold idea that may or may not have
relevance and significance. Why don't you open that question up to our audience and to us and
let's dive in. Yes, this is just a thought experiment I've been thinking about for the
last few weeks. This has not been fully thought out, so we're going to just spill it all the
beans out here on the table here and we'll chase all the squirrels and see where they take us.
The idea is that with the decline of organized religions and the younger generations and even
the older generations just shifting away from organized churches and religions, not necessarily
becoming atheists so much as maybe just agnostic. What is filling that hole? Is there a potential
case to say that health and wellness and the optimization of your own personal, physical,
and mental being is a replacement for that? I throw that out there to ask you guys to bring up some
comparisons. Talk to me about some of the dogma and the rituals in the church and let's see if we
can find those analogies on the health and wellness side. Well, obviously, in a traditional Christian
framework, you're raised up into the church, you do what's called an altar call where it says,
yeah, I'm giving my life to the Lord. You go through a set of learnings where you start off
with probably general older Bible stories and then you got to learn and grow more and more. As you
get to that age of accountability, that's when the bad news starts kicking in. That is that a lot of
the people in this planet, in fact, the majority of them, unfortunately, because they haven't
heard a particular viewpoint of Jesus or of Muhammad or somebody, end up at the end of their
lives gnashing their teeth and burning in hell for eternity. We've fleshed that out on this
particular program because we actually lean towards a more of a reconciliation God who actually does
allow people to go through a lot of pain and suffering through an eon or more, but then
ultimately God's love will redeem them. That's called universalism, Nate. We fleshed that out a
lot. In terms of the dogma, let's just talk about maybe something like original sin, which is a very
common Christian theme. When Adam partook of the fruit with Eve, they supposedly had the knowledge
now of what's good and what's not and God cast them out of there and that's called original sin.
And so that sin has been passed down to all of us. So as we wake up out of the womb, fresh and ready
to go, you were conceived in sin, as Augustine said, and you were born into sin, right? So
what do you think could be an analogy or a way to break out of the original sin dogma?
Sure. Let's talk about generational epigenetic stresses that are passed down from generation to
generation. You have prior generations who experienced serious trauma, whatever it might be,
and that led to serious health outcomes. They have children, those same children are going to suffer
from the same ailments and the same outcomes. And how do you break that cycle? Well, you break that
cycle by changing your mindset and changing your lifestyle and your choices and what you do.
And it's sort of the same sort of process that a religion would do. We're going to save you from
your sin. The body is going to heal itself from its past historical inflations.
Yeah, you've got that in the DNA, you're trying to pull that out of the sequence from a future
generation. I think it's a brilliant answer. Yeah.
I want to validate what you said in the beginning is that you're trying to break out of the
stereotypes of your family. So what I want to understand is the nuns are the fastest growing
group over the last two decades. So the nuns have gone from my kids don't go to church at all.
Rich and I don't go to church anymore at all. So the nuns have grown dramatically,
largely a thousand reasons, but the reality is that it reached its efficacy of what we grew up in.
The church became a place to create community.
Yes, that always happened.
Like I grew up in a world that was one of the first mega churches in California.
And we were seventy five hundred people in 1975.
So we did this explosion thing.
There's a tremendous amount of love, but there's also the culture of this
is how you step into the bubble of safety of community.
But it also included a narrative of you had to be good.
OK, now that you are good, but you had to do good and be good
in order to be part of that community.
And I think that's what a lot of people pushed back on.
When the homosexual community started, you know, getting larger in the 70s and 80s,
they had to really wrestle with that.
And they lost the church, lost the war against the LGBT community
because it didn't respond with love.
And I think our children are now saying, well, if it can't affect
the least of these, the outcasts, then what's the point?
And I think what's happening is now is they're all shifting over.
I saw a meme that I shared with Rich yesterday,
like 20 percent are all shifting onto social media as coaches.
They're doing the same thing.
They're now saying instead of the church, let's just do it through social media
and let's develop all these like I and my algorithm is filled with these people.
And they have a very serious intent of trying to create health,
but it doesn't include God.
So I agree with your premise that the world is shifting in a very dramatic way.
They want something that fills that void because if you remove the church,
the void doesn't go away.
The problem doesn't go away.
You've still got to address it.
So I agree with your basic premise.
What are your what would be your suggestions then?
I mean, obviously, I've got in my mind's eye what that substitute is.
You know, and for me, you know, I do transcendental meditation, right?
That's, you know, in past evangelical lives, that was considered a no, no.
Right. Because you've got this mantra from the Maharashi.
Right. And that's the group that the Beatles, you know, hung out with.
Right. But I find it's been very helpful.
In fact, I've had one of my most successful years in my career this year.
It's been a really great year in a very challenging economic environment.
Nate, as we know.
Right.
Lots of friends, good friends who are just absolute studs and just wonderful people.
And they're they're having a hard time either hitting their number or even, you know,
you know, just finding a job.
Right. So I guess what I'm asking is we know that people who and by the way,
this guest of ours that went from Mormonism to nihilism is a more healthy
atheistic framework. She says a lot of people are going to the occult now.
So if you look where they're where this Gen Y Gen Z are going, they're going to
either like causes. Right.
And you can see a lot of people out there in the streets.
They need to have that purpose. Right.
Like, where do I send my energy and how do I help out marginalized people?
So there's causes. Right.
But then a lot of people are going to the occult.
I guess there's Tiktok where they can read your tarot cards online.
And she said that was a huge thing.
So where would you steer people as you see this kind of movement away?
And where would you is key spend going to create a sense of
content or community that can help fill that gap?
And what do you suggest is a good substitute?
I don't think I'm qualified to answer what a substitute is for God and your
belief in that. I don't think I want to touch that one.
I think that's a very personal thing for each individual.
There is no one answer for anyone.
My only answer would be, you know, that look inside yourself
and look for your answer that that means something to you.
And that's for you.
I don't have any intentions or plans for key span to replace.
Preplace the the role of a god or that in their lives.
I think my.
Reference to health and wellness as it relates to religion is in the
the actual practice of that religion in the creation of those communities
have a lot of similarities to them.
So, yeah, I don't think I can answer that that deep question.
That's that that that would be for a theologian, I believe.
Well, I think it's a good lead with this.
I think it's a good lead with this.
I think Aristotle did say something that was very thought provoking,
and that was if there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.
Well, he believed in God. He believed in an uncaused cause, right?
So he believed in a prime mover, if you would.
Right. So, yeah.
Like, I don't know if that's the human condition that creates it
or if that is what created the human condition.
What you know, what came first?
What made you think of the question?
Which one? Which question? The one you were asking about the shift.
What made you think religion?
Yeah, as organized religion is getting, I mean, the mainline denominations
are drying up. You mentioned that, right?
I mean, and people, this young group of folks are moving away from the church
and massive drugs, even LDS, right?
Because they're seeing very similar things.
And that's a very strong and that you've got excommunication,
you know, in the LDS community when you leave.
So that's such a big traumatic experience.
And I think that's a very strong point.
And you know, you're in the LDS community when you leave.
So that's such a big traumatic thing.
So I guess Jonathan was trying to figure out, you know, where, you know,
where did it come from?
Yeah, where did it come from?
It came from some articles I started reading recently that were talking
about just that, about how health and fitness was and wellness was replacing
the work for that generation and for the groups that are finding their
spirituality outside of the church.
Yeah.
And I just started going down that rabbit hole and thinking more and more
about it and thinking about the analogies of it, why it works,
why that is a place that they're going and what could be the benefits to them
and to society for that if that is a trend.
Yeah.
So we got time for a couple more questions.
Rich, I'll ask one and you can ask one as well, but I'll start because this
one really captured my attention is if you had the power to make one change
in the global health care industry, what would it be?
It would be centered on one word, prevention.
Why is that your choice?
Because of the macroeconomic side of it, the trillions of dollars that we would
save by preventing illnesses rather than treating them, number one.
The human condition itself, avoiding a chronic illness will just lead you to
have a more fulfilling and happier life than having to deal with a chronic illness.
I don't know if either of you have ever had a family member or a loved one that
has suffered or is suffering from chronic illnesses.
It's not a great experience.
It's not a great experience for the person going through it.
It's not a great experience for the ones that, their loved ones that are around them.
And ultimately, it comes down to healthspan and lifespan.
You're going to hear in the longevity space that a lot of people are obsessed
with extending their lifespan, but that's really, to me, that's not where we
should be focusing.
The focus should be healthspan.
I don't want to live to 120 if I'm in a wheelchair.
What do you mean by healthspan?
So our audience understands.
Healthspan is the length of time at which you are feeling generally healthy,
where you can do everything that you want.
Your movement is there.
Your mental capacity is there.
Your physical capabilities are there.
You can pick up your children or your grandchildren, and you can walk up and
down stairs.
You can carry your own groceries to the car.
Having a healthy span of life is much more important than living longer.
Now, inevitably, barring some accident, if you have a long healthspan, it will
extend your lifespan.
And I think that that really needs to be the focus, prevention and healthspan
over curing and lifespan.
So your argument is if you focus on healthspan, you get the lifespan most likely.
Yeah.
100%.
Well, you get the lifespan that you want.
I mean, nobody wants to get 10 years of chronic illness.
It's not fun.
All right.
So I'm going to wrap up with something you brought up earlier, and it's fascinating
to us.
And we've talked about it on the episode several times, but it dealt with psychedelics,
specifically with like, I mean, they're talking about MDMA and psilocybin.
And one of the things that we've seen come out of Johns Hopkins, and this goes back to
the whole atheist thing and the old spirituality thing, is that people who were on
stage four terminal cancer, obviously not very good health, not very good life, were
very fearful of death, as any of us would be.
When they took these HEROES doses, what they found was an amazing experience of being
one with a cosmic force that was full of love.
And our guest on the show said, Christians don't get excited.
They didn't become theists.
But what they did acknowledge was there is something greater than themselves that's
out there, and they had a visceral experience.
So asking you, what do you feel the role of psychedelics is going to play in the next
three to five years in terms of legislation, in terms of health, in terms of overall
well-being?
I think there's a lot of promise there.
Again, I'm not a doctor.
So these are just my opinions.
But I think there's a lot of promise there.
The initial studies that are being done now on humans, the controlled studies that are
happening, the results are truly miraculous.
And I do think that there is something there that could help society and help the collective
consciousness of humanity if we are able to better understand the impact of psychedelics
on our mental health and in our health systems and in our society and the role it plays.
So I just hope that there is more money put into the research.
I hope that there is more education that is given to the general population and importantly
to the politicians who are making the decisions on the regulations.
And I just hope that there's a positive outcome that comes from this initial interest in its
potential.
I think there is something there.
So I'm excited about it.
I hope it's fruition.
Nate, where do people find Keyspan?
How do they find you?
Getkeyspan.com www.getkeyspan.com
And that's the key to your healthspan, keyspan.com.
And you guys think we created a code for all your listeners?
What is that code?
Well, why don't you guys just use the code Nate100 for going to getkeyspan.com.
Use the code Nate100.
Very good.
Yeah.
Nate, it was a pleasure having you on.
I wish you the best because I think what you're doing is surprisingly simple and holistic.
You're taking the base panels.
You're bringing in the coaching.
And I actually love what you're doing.
And I want to encourage our listeners to consider these kind of ideas if you're really needing,
especially with chronic illness, because I love the idea.
You want to be preventative and all of these things are preventative.
So well done in what you're doing.
Thank you for building this kind of organization.
We appreciate that.
Thanks, Jonathan.
Thanks, Rich.
We're excited.
It's a good purpose driven mission that every person that we can make healthier and live a better life.
It's a win all around.
Absolutely.
It's top of mind.
I've been thrilled to see you again.
Looking forward to getting out to Austin in the not too distant future.
But thanks for this great overview of Keyspan.
I'm thrilled about partaking as soon as I get I have to fast for a little bit.
Get some of these supplements out of my system and then I'm going to get lined up with my coach.
So I'm looking forward to the journey.
So yeah, I can't wait to have you.
Awesome.
Thank you, guys.
All right.
Thanks for listening.
This has been Living in the Matrix podcast.
Please review and comment.
We'd love to hear from you.
If you have a guest you want to suggest, please do so at our website, livinginthematrix.ai.
Thanks to Nate for joining us.
Any last words, Rich?
Say goodbye.
Happy Friday and happy holidays and healthy holidays for everybody.
Absolutely.
All right.
Much love, everybody.
Have a wonderful weekend.