Escape the Burnout, Save Your Brain: The Supersized Eric Collett Episode

Brett Trainor (: 00:01

Hi Eric, welcome to the Corporate Escapee Podcast.

Eric Collett (: 00:04

Thank you. It's great to be with you, Brett.

Brett Trainor (: 00:06

Now, my pleasure, I'm super excited about this one as we've expanded, you know, beyond just revenue making and escapee journeys to, I don't know, call it performance. You know, one of the things I've been super focused on more recently is health, longevity. And I think you're going to be able to check a number of these boxes for us today. So before we get into that, maybe share with the audience just a little bit about your background and what you're working on today. And then we'll, we'll be off and running.

Eric Collett (: 00:35

Sure. Right now, our mission is to save the next million brains. We want to help a million people improve their cognitive and mental health. And currently, we help thousands of people all across the country with those types of issues. Everything from post-concussion syndrome and working with college and professional athletes or moms that got in car accidents, to people that have degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and ALS.

to people with mental health challenges like anxiety or depression or bipolar disorder. So we help people have better brains. And the path here has been kind of a meandering one. I spent 16 years running assisted living in memory care communities. So I'm a licensed administrator. I've spent a lot of time on stages in front of audiences that are specific to the healthcare realm. And about nine years ago, I started a mind for all seasons and I couldn't have predicted

Brett Trainor (: 01:10

Thanks

Eric Collett (: 01:31

where we would be today and the cool things that we get to do to help improve people's lives and help them get better results. But it's been quite a journey. As you know, anybody that escapes from the corporate world doesn't know exactly what they're getting into. I think you and I were joking before, Brett, that it's kind of like jumping out of an airplane and you don't have a parachute and you're sewing it on the way down. And the ride is both thrilling and terrifying at times.

Brett Trainor (: 01:59

within the same hour. Yeah, I used to joke it's like paving the road while driving 60 miles an hour, right? You can't do one step at a time. But yeah, I wouldn't trade it for the world anymore, right? The first year it's iffy and you just wonder did you make the right decision? But if you stick through it's we still deal with imposter syndrome. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But every now and then we question what path am I actually on?

Eric Collett (: 02:01

Yeah, exactly.

Eric Collett (: 02:26

I think everyone does, but the thing that keeps me going, aside from just I'm absolutely passionate about the work that I do and seeing people's lives change, and that just fires me up every day. But beyond that, I love the fact that there is no ceiling any longer. I don't think I realized until I got out of sort of the corporate structured world that I was living with a perpetual ceiling and it was limiting my progress.

And now to have lived for almost nine years with no ceiling is so liberating and I know I could never go back to.

Brett Trainor (: 03:00

Yeah, it's such a good point and such a good way of framing it too. hadn't thought of you. We really are. You're capped, right? The handcuffs, the handcuffs are awesome. No, they're not. I get it. I know when you're in there, I understand the kind of safety feeling that you have, but they could go to the next day. But you're right. You're absolutely limited. You could work harder and more do everything, but yet you're not going to bring home any additional money or any of that. having that ceiling removed.

Eric Collett (: 03:22

Yeah, it's only the illusion of control. Like it feels like life is in control, that you have a steady job, you're getting that paycheck, but you're actually really dependent on other people making a whole lot of good decisions and responding to market dynamics that now you and I and everyone in your audience gets to be in the driver's seat in responding to those things.

Brett Trainor (: 03:26

Yes.

Eric Collett (: 03:47

And much the same way that when one of my kids is driving the car, I kind of feel a little bit more insecure and I'm actually on high alert paying attention to everything on the road because I'm not behind the wheel. Now that I'm behind the wheel of my business, yeah, it's scary, but in a lot of ways, I'm way more comfortable with it because I can change things if they're not going well.

Brett Trainor (: 04:07

Yes. Yeah, it's well said. And yeah, I think about my daughter, my middle daughter just bought her first car not too long ago. So she's driven me a couple times and great driver never had an issue. But the it's just that little bit more apprehension or you know, you're not in control, even though you trust her. It's a great it's a great analogy.

Eric Collett (: 04:28

Your foot's hitting the floor on the passenger side because you're trying to brake, right?

Brett Trainor (: 04:32

grabbing her thing just a little bit. Yeah, it's just so funny. So, all right, so let's go back because I love escapee journeys and yours is maybe a little bit not traditional to corporate but the way I look at it is if you're in if you've got that ceiling and you're doing things and that somebody else's control, it's all the same, right? We've had somebody that came out of a large church that he showed me that yeah, it's that's corporate, right? Our version of corporate so.

Eric Collett (: 04:35

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 04:58

I'd love to hear how you created this company, what was the vision for it and how did you make the leap? Because again, that's where a lot of people get stuck. Yeah, these guys are talking. That'd be fantastic. I don't know if I can do it. So the more we can share, inspire, and I'd love to hear what was the tipping point for you.

Eric Collett (: 05:19

Sure. First of all, I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. So we used to sit around the dinner table and talk about dad's business and the ups and downs and how he was navigating that. So it's sort of in my blood. And I always felt like I would have my own business at some point. But there I was about 15 years into running assisted living in memory care communities. And in a lot of ways, life was great. I was well paid.

We had a very successful community. We had a waiting list almost all the time. So life was good in that regard, but I was 30 pounds overweight. I was chronically exhausted. I hadn't read anything in years, which is totally unlike me. And things were so stressful that I knew that I was headed down the wrong road. And at the same time, I was having so much success in the workplace that I was getting asked to go to

skilled nursing facilities and hospitals and speaking to other groups to explain to them the kinds of things that we did that allowed us to be successful. And I started recognizing, hey, there's a business in this. People need to know more about what we've worked through here and figured out that's helping us get good results with people that are living with dementing illnesses. And yet my wife had a rare eye disease that had progressed. She was

blind at night the day that I met her. But she also has this disease that causes peripheral vision loss. And so she got down to about a 10 % visual field and had to take herself off the road because it wasn't safe to drive anymore. So there I was, sole driver to a family of four children and having to run my wife around and do everything from grocery shopping to all the other errands that she needed to do. I was on call 24 seven and you see where this is going. I'm just stressed to the max.

But there was one day that was an absolute turning point for me. It was the pivot when all of this came together. I was driving the family to the school play for one of my daughters and the phone rang and it was the memory care community that I was running. And I listened to a very distressed sounding employee who was just almost from the get-go pleading with me to come in because we had a resident who was on hospice services but not expected to be dying.

Eric Collett (: 07:40

yet and something had changed and that resident was starting to die very rapidly and their family was there they were in distress and she was saying eric there's no one else here this family needs support you gotta come and i knew that i needed to go so i dropped off my family at the school honestly not even knowing how they were going to get home after the play my wife said hey i'll figure it out and i spent the 15 minutes driving to the community where i worked

feeling like an absolute failure to my wife and kids. And then I spent about the next three hours feeling like a total failure to the family that I was there to support. Because in the back of my mind, the entire time I'm thinking, I don't want to be here. I want to be watching my little girl on stage. I'm never going to get this moment back. And so I was resenting the situation. Long story short, I got home at about midnight. Everybody was asleep. I looked in the mirror that night, hardly recognized myself and

I just had a conversation with myself that was something like, wow, Eric, you're gonna die an early death if you keep this up. You have to make a change. And so I got up the next morning, dragged myself out of bed and went into the kitchen and started talking to my wife about it. And I said, honey, I have to make a change. I need to do something different.

And she said, what is stopping you? You've been talking for the last couple of years about ways that you could build a business. What would you do? And I described the kind of solopreneur consulting experience that I had in mind at the time. And she said, well, what is stopping you? Now I had in my mind something that I think a lot of entrepreneurs before they actually make the leap were probably thinking, which is I have to moonlight. The only way that I'm going to make this work is to just do it on the side.

and I'm super busy, so how am I going to pull that off? And my wife just looked at me and she said, Eric, have you ever thought that maybe you need to quit your day job so that you have time to start a company? And it was honestly like the heavens opening and light pouring down. And it was that kind of aha moment where I realized, that's it. If she has the courage to support me in doing that, and she has that kind of belief in me, I can have that kind of belief in me.

Eric Collett (: 10:00

And within a few days I gave notice and I took the leap. Now there's a lot more to the story. I never could have predicted meeting my business partner a year in. He had done a lot of advanced training with neurologists and top researchers around the world in all things related to brain health. And he and I realized, dang, one plus one is 10 in this instance, we've got to join forces. And we went all in and there's, it's been a wild ride ever since to get to where we are today. But that was the pivot point, Brett.

Brett Trainor (: 10:02

Wow.

Eric Collett (: 10:29

I'm so grateful for the courage that my wife had then and that she's had every day since then to support me in doing this.

Brett Trainor (: 10:36

Yeah, I'm sure never wavered in doubt, right? Which is awesome. And I think that stops a lot of people is not even having the conversation with their spouse or partner and saying, you know, because it's funny, I'm listening to your story. like, we live parallel lives, different universes, but I was overweight on the surface. Everything looked good.

But one day my wife's like, what the hell's the matter with you, right? Because something was, it just wasn't there. I wasn't feeling, I was resentful. All the things that you just outlined. And you know, when I told her, think I can go solo and take control of this. She's like, okay, I trust you, right? To do it. And that was five years ago, not the nine years, but.

Yeah, it fundamentally obviously changed the way I look at life. My whole plan was just to replace income. That's what I thought I was doing. But it really kind of talked offline. It's now about I've got this time, you know, we can live till 90 plus and healthy if we take care of ourselves. So it's longevity, it's health, it's wellness, happiness, all of these things that I didn't really consider. I didn't know I had control of until, you know, we get we got out of that. So.

I am curious though, because when you went from the stand, the stop, right? You said, all right, I'm going. know, a lot of people are super fearful of that. I always tell people, have a plan, right? I didn't have a plan, it worked, but if you can have a plan, have a plan. So how did you, how did you get started? What were some of the first things that you did to get that traction and momentum?

Eric Collett (: 12:11

Well, first of all, I had what I thought was a really solid plan. And then somewhere around, I don't know, 10 to 12 months in, I realized, oh no, that plan will never work because I'm a different person. So my plan was, hey, I have a long-term care administrator's license. I'm in demand. There are only so many people that do what I do and have the background. And I was well known in my local area for what I did.

Brett Trainor (: 12:15

Okay.

Eric Collett (: 12:41

And so that was going to be my fallback. And one day I woke up and I realized, Eric, you have burned the boats. You can never go back to that. Once I saw things from a different viewpoint and I was used to steering the ship in a different way, I realized I emotionally, mentally, even physically, I could not go back. And so I just continued forward into uncharted territory and just kept

Brett Trainor (: 13:09

Yeah.

Eric Collett (: 13:11

building and growing and made the mental decision, well, I'm never going to go back. So I think that was really key for me.

Brett Trainor (: 13:17

Yeah, that's an important point too, kind of the same thing, and I've shared my journey, it went from consulting and diffractional to this. And now the escapee wasn't even on the radar and all of a sudden this is 90 to 95 % of my time. It's just being open to it. And kind of the same thing, my initial plan, once I developed a plan, I realized that's not what I wanted.

do, right? I don't want to be a solo consultant. Yes, you can make a good money, but it's just it wasn't going to give me what I was looking for. So I think that's, you know, it's always good to hear other points of view. And I'm sure the audience is happy to hear it from somebody other than me. But I think that is part of you just got to stay the course. And I've yet to meet anybody that tastes just a little bit of success outside the corporate that wants to go back.

Right? There's nobody that says, yeah, this isn't for me. I mean, it could, it's more of the fear that keeps them in, I think, than anything else. But, yeah. So how did the, so you went from solo, I'd be curious how you met your business partner. Cause I think that's part of the scapey journey is the networking and keeping doors open and looking for opportunities. Was this just a happenstance meeting? Was it something you guys were working on? How did that work?

Eric Collett (: 14:34

Yeah, great question. And I think it's actually an important place to pause and unpack this story just a little bit, because there's such an important lesson for any business leader in this particular story. So the way that I grew my business originally and the way that I thought of it was, hey, I'm going to be a solopreneur. And I studied interpersonal group communication and psychology in college and then became an administrator. And I thought, wait, I'm working in a little laboratory here.

And I can apply all these interpersonal techniques and the ability to study observable patterns of behavior to help people with dementing illnesses get better results. So I did that work and it allowed us to take on very difficult residents and turn things around and be successful. And so I thought that I had kind of figured things out to the level that they could be figured out when it came to dementia. And so at first I was just consulting with

both organizations that needed training and families that needed guidance and support and cognitive testing and evaluation. And within about nine months, I had replaced my income and I thought I had arrived. I thought, okay, this is great. The long-term picture is playing out perfectly and this is beautiful. Well, shortly after that time, I was approached by...

an assisted living company that had just acquired some memory care communities in Arizona. And they didn't have a lot of experience with memory care. And a colleague of mine who had talked to them found out that they were looking to hire someone to help develop a memory care program for these few buildings. So I flew down to Arizona, I met with the owners, loved them. They were great guys. I was totally impressed that when we were touring their buildings,

They not only knew the names of every resident, but they knew the names of their family members and all the staff. And if you've ever spent time in that profession, it's kind of rare that the owners of the buildings can walk through multiple buildings and just know everybody. So I totally wanted to work with these guys and had a great discussion that wrapped up at the end of a couple of days with them saying, Eric, we love what you're doing. We love your proposal.

Eric Collett (: 16:53

We just have one guy that needs to sign off on this. He's kind of our silent partner. So give us a day or two, we'll get right back to you. So I flew home feeling good. Fast forward two and a half or three weeks, I still hadn't heard from them. And I was starting to get a little bit nervous. And I literally prayed and said, okay, if this is not the right thing for me, please don't let it happen. And I promise I'll be grateful. But as for me, I really want this thing.

This would totally move me to the next level professionally. Well, a couple of days later, I got a call from one of the owners and he said, Eric, I'm sorry, you probably think we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. It's so bad that we've strung you along. Thank you for being patient. But shortly after we talked to you, we met this nurse practitioner who had gone on and done a whole bunch of advanced training in neurodegenerative diseases. He trained with a physician at UCLA that was running the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and

he is convinced that he can help our residents actually function better and maybe reverse some of their dementia symptoms to degree. And I knew the researcher that they were referencing. And so I asked them, are you working with this researcher? Well, that's who he studied with. How do you know about it? And I said, well, because I read research, I'm kind of a science nerd and I want to know what's going on in the field. Well, they said, you should talk to this guy. He actually lives in Idaho like you do.

Brett Trainor (: 18:03

Okay.

Eric Collett (: 18:21

And I thought, well, yeah, I probably should, but I just lost a massive contract. There's no way I have time to call him. I got a hustle and make up for this. So two months later, I'm hustling along, trying to figure other things out. And I get a call out of the blue from this guy that they had told me, we're so sorry, but we can't afford you and this other guy. And we feel like we're going to work with him. He's going to help us change the world. He called me and he introduced himself and he said, I'm trying to help these people.

apply these techniques that I've learned, but they can't do it if their staff isn't well trained. They want me to train their staff. And I had to say, I'm a clinician. I don't know how to do that. And they said, we know a guy. So I was headed through his part of the state. That's about three and a half hours away from me the next week on a consulting trip. And I said, I'm coming your way. Let's just get together. I will never forget the night that I met in Randy Vaudry's living room from about six o'clock till after midnight.

Brett Trainor (: 19:02

Yeah.

Eric Collett (: 19:19

and he literally pulled out this family Bible-sized stack of research and all of his case studies, everything that he had done, and he just walked me through it. And I got to the end of that night knowing, number one, exactly what I needed to do to drop the weight that I needed to lose, to clear my own brain fog, to have better energy, but I also left knowing that he had the tools to help those residents function better.

And so we decided to split the contract and we went all in. We realized that he had the science side, I had the art side and one plus one is 10. So we started working in that facility and within a few months we had had some success kind of along the lines of helping people that had cognitive scores of 15 out of 30 improve in one case to 30 out of 30. We had a guy actually move home, he got so much better. And that led to their family members saying,

you just tell mom, add 10 points on a 30 point cognitive test. What could you do for my brain? And that started opening a lot of doors and kind of the rest is history after that. But the lesson, the key takeaway here for me that I've never forgotten is that if you can learn to be grateful in all circumstances, things are working together for your good. did not know how it was that things would

really be a wonderful experience when that door felt like it was closing. But I never would have met my business partner and had the privilege of working with him and kind of having six months of dating, if you will. We were on contract together before we said, we're always going to work together. We love working together. Let's formalize this. And I asked him to become my business partner. I never would have had any of that had they not said no.

Brett Trainor (: 20:51

Yeah.

Eric Collett (: 21:15

we're gonna go a different direction. And it was a huge blessing.

Brett Trainor (: 21:15

Right. No, and yes too, right? Cause I think that's the one thing I tell people all the time outside of corporate, it's every person for themselves. Everybody's looking out for themselves as promotions, everything. But when you get into this world, people genuinely do want to help each other and it's more cooperation than it is competitive. And, you know, I I'm sure I've missed meetings that I'm like, I don't know. I see the value that I, you know, probably should have. Now I'm super aware of every potential door that's out there. And if it doesn't work.

That's fine. I can accept that. I mean, the fact that you could have called him didn't, but then he ended up calling you and it worked, right? just, these are the opportunities that are out there for folks. And again, people want to escape and just go and do fractional work, 100 % right. But I just, you your story is a perfect illustration of what's out there with people that have a ton of experience, right? You can work together, figure out.

You know, and again, you can choose it. That's the beauty of this. You can choose your own adventure, your own path. And again, that's one of the most refreshing things I've seen doing this podcast and the community is all the different directions that folks have actually taken. So now I'm glad, I appreciate you sharing that story because I think it's a great example of, you know, just what's out there. may not have worked, but again, you would have been smarter knowing that it didn't.

I think there's a lot of opportunity for other escapees to work together to figure out how to partner that you, your skillsets are a great combination together. you mind if I asked you technical, did you guys actually, when you started working, were you just your own two independent companies working together and then eventually formed a single company? you don't have to share if you don't want to, but I'm just kind of curious how modern, how everybody's working together these days.

Eric Collett (: 23:01

Yeah, I was a single member LLC and he had his own business and we basically just split the contract. And then when, when we decided to join forces, we changed the organizational structure and the bylaws and made a formal agreement. So yeah, you know, the, the whole experience really reminds me of a question that I think is key for any business leader, any entrepreneur when they're facing a difficult situation.

Brett Trainor (: 23:17

Yeah, that makes sense.

Eric Collett (: 23:30

And it allows us to frame the current situation with a view to the future instead of fears about the past. There's a quote I love that says, no one was ever crushed under the burden of a single day. Only when regrets about yesterday and fears about tomorrow are piled on top, does today become unmanageable. And kind of along those lines, if you fast forward from the story that I told you about how Randy and I joined forces,

Things were going well and we were developing things for long-term care professionals. We were on a track that we felt really good about. And then the COVID pandemic hit and we literally lost three fourths of our revenue just like that. Because our whole business was built on going into assisted living and skilled nursing facilities and suddenly we couldn't do that. And I had to ask myself the same kind of question that I asked when the

Brett Trainor (: 24:21

Right.

Eric Collett (: 24:28

assisted living community in Arizona and initially told me, we're going to work with this other guy. When the COVID pandemic hit, we had just opened a brain therapy studio and invested in all kinds of equipment that helps improve brain functioning in one way or another. We had gotten a physical space. We had hired new staff. We had all these responsibilities and then everything came crashing down.

And I sat in my office looking out the window on the golf course behind my office, part of me wondering if I should be out there playing instead of sitting there trying to figure things out. And I asked myself the question, what would have to be true for me to look back and say that the COVID pandemic was the very best thing that happened to a mind for all seasons? And that was what unlocked things. As I pondered that question, the answer that came was cast your net on the other side of the boat.

Brett Trainor (: 25:02

you.

Eric Collett (: 25:26

And I knew what that meant. The idea was, Eric, you and Randy and your team have already seen that there's a whole business in serving individuals who need to optimize their brain health. You can go help business leaders improve their cognitive scores by 20 to 30 % because they're naturally going to be way more productive if that happens. And I had just conceived that that pivot would come further down the road. And I realized, no, if we make the pivot now, then really the pandemic forced that.

And it's actually the best thing that could have happened to the business. So here we are today and it really was the best thing that could have happened because now instead of a business that's focused in one area, we have two divisions and we're helping thousands of people across the country as individuals with all sorts of brain related conditions. And at the same time, that long-term care division has come back and we're working with some of the largest providers in the world, as well as some small ones that are

doing such innovative things that they're getting broadcast all over the media about the successes that they're

Brett Trainor (: 26:32

That's awesome. I love that. That reframe of the question. It makes sense, right? Again, we're just wired. We got to break down everything we learned in corporate to go with the flow, overanalyze everything, don't rock the boat, all these types of things. And again, we just got to rewire. I joke that it, you know, as GenXers, we were wired differently before corporate put us in this box. We didn't, we did figure things out, right? We didn't, we lived more in the moment without, um,

Again, I love the burden of the past or the burden of the future, the worry of the future and try to live in the present. So, no, that's awesome. And again, I think that just keep those eyes open as you're going and reframe it and not, this is terrible versus, and people still think like that. I try not to work with too many people that, you can't really change, I don't know, the Eeyore syndrome of it that they're always going to find the negative. I don't know. So I try to focus on, I try to change people, but that's really, really hard to do.

All right, that fascinating. I'm so glad you did share that story. And I did promise the audience dual benefit because we all, as we get older, right? I can be that with the brain fog and we're maybe not as quick and as sharp as we used to be, but we were talking offline and you've got some actionable tips for escapees either in corporate, out of corporate, you know, how do we, how do we improve what we're doing on a daily basis? So don't mean to put you on the spot, but I think you've got the answers.

Eric Collett (: 27:58

Yeah, this is a spot that I love talking about. I never get tired of helping people get better results. And one of the first things that I'd share, Brett, is that it's very easy to confuse what is common when it comes to aging with what is normal. It's very common that people will experience increased brain fog and they start having memory problems that get worse over time. That is common, but it's not normal.

Brett Trainor (: 28:26

interesting, okay.

Eric Collett (: 28:27

So don't confuse the two. The human body, if it's working correctly, is able to maintain good cognitive functioning right to the end of life. And you've probably met people who are 99 years old and still described as quote unquote sharp as a tack, and they're functioning really well. And it's not that there isn't a little bit of slowdown cognitively when we hit our 30s, because once the brain is finally developed by our late 20s,

Brett Trainor (: 28:45

Yeah.

Eric Collett (: 28:55

There is a slight slowing down, but that doesn't mean that we can't learn. And it doesn't mean that we're going to have progressive memory loss that gets worse and worse. The issue is that so many people experience those issues that the whole world thinks, that's just what happens when you get older. And they even joke about it. I had a brain fart. I had a senior moment. Well, it doesn't have to be that way. So that's step one, just...

recognize it can be different. Kind of like you're inviting people to recognize that, when it comes to the workplace, it doesn't have to be this way.

Brett Trainor (: 29:23

in this.

Brett Trainor (: 29:31

Right, yeah. No, I think that it's even on the physical side, right? I mean, we just tend to slow down. you're getting older. can't I'm like, hell no. I'm going to push my body until it won't go anywhere. As soon as I know if I start slowing down, my body's going to be OK. Right? But if I keep pushing, it'll stay with me longer. like I said, I'm all in on whatever tips you have. I haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about the memory and improving that. I'm super curious to hear what you.

what you have in store for us.

Eric Collett (: 30:02

Yeah, thank you. So the biggest things that I hear from the business leaders that I work with, whether it's in our membership program or people that go all in and they want to get labs and have their blood work and get treatment summaries and have a one-on-one review, that kind of a thing. I hear from business leaders all the time, I got to clear the brain fog. I got to get my energy up. I'm tired of crashing every afternoon or I'm tired of being in the middle of my work and realizing

I am not focused or I'm having a hard time paying attention to this. Or I hear people talk a lot about productivity and they feel like their productivity has slipped because they're having a hard time focusing and concentrating. And as we sort through those issues, I think it's important for people to recognize, number one, that brain health is never about one thing. It's not about a magic pill. It's about laying a good foundation and then understanding that

our brain health is affected by a lot of different factors. And we improve it by paying attention to the myriad of factors, but doing it in a really personalized way. So today I wanna share a few actionable strategies with you in the audience related to the foundation, lifestyle factors that affect all of us. And then I'll kind of give you a few tips as far as other things that.

are figureoutable, you might say, but you got to have some blood work to measure those things. So here's what the foundation looks like. I'll just give you an acronym to remember. BEDS. B-E-D-D-S-S. So let's talk about each of those briefly. The B in BEDS is a reminder that if you want to have a better brain as you age, you got to do some brain training. And that is not doing crossword puzzles. It's not Sudoku. It's not any of those kind of gamey things.

Brett Trainor (: 31:31

Yeah.

Eric Collett (: 31:56

Brain training means you give your brain a reason to form new synaptic connections. And what that looks like in practice is new cognitive experiences. So if you travel to a new place and you don't use your GPS and you're forming new mental maps, that's brain training. If you're eating with your non-dominant hand or you're brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand, you're literally forcing new connections in your brain.

Brett Trainor (: 32:15

Interesting.

Eric Collett (: 32:24

If you go learn a new instrument or learn a new language or something like that, new connections. If you practice things like, there's a technique called bilateral asymmetry, which is just a fancy word for saying that your left side of the body is doing a different action than the right side of the body. think, you know, patting your head and rubbing your belly. But what that can look like in practice is like draw sticks up and down with your left hand. And at the same time, draw triangles with the right hand.

And every six beat, you're in sync. Now that's actually hard to do. You have to practice something like that, but there's research on that. It forces new connections. A good app that people could look into, and I have zero affiliation with this. This is just my opinion, but I really like Brain HQ because Dr. Mike Mirzenich, developed it, is literally the researcher who coined the term neuroplasticity a few decades ago.

He's the guy that figured out you can make your brain better. And that app is one of the only brain training apps out there that actually has a bunch of research behind it. And it really does work. And they've got a free version or a paid version. It's something that we use with clients as far as stimulating the brain in positive ways. Any questions? Are you OK if we move to the next one? OK. So the E in beds is for exercise.

Brett Trainor (: 33:33

All

Brett Trainor (: 33:40

I love it.

No, that's good. That's a great start.

Eric Collett (: 33:51

And everybody knows that exercise is good for our health, but most people exercise to look better. The thing that motivates me to exercise is that I want my brain to be sharp. I spent 16 years around people with Alzheimer's disease, and I know how ugly end-stage Alzheimer's is. You're functionally like a newborn child. You literally can't even roll over on your own if you live long enough with Alzheimer's because it destroys so much of your brain. You lose 50 to 70 % of the mass of your brain by end-stage Alzheimer's.

So I'm super motivated not to go down that road. And exercise does a few things for our brains. One is it gets more blood flowing to the brain and you can't have a better brain without that. Two, it releases a hormone called brain derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF. The easy way to think of it is it's like miracle grow for brain cells. So you will stimulate much higher levels of that growth factor if you're exercising consistently.

Brett Trainor (: 34:48

and does it matter what types of exercise?

Eric Collett (: 34:48

When you're exercising, it also moves the lymph through the body.

Brett Trainor (: 34:53

I'm sorry to interrupt you. Is there a specific exercise? Is it like cardio? Is it weights? Or does it matter? Is it just any type of exercise?

Eric Collett (: 35:00

Great question. The shortest answer I could give is one that Randy tells people a lot. They'll say, well, what's the best exercise? And he says, whatever you will stick with consistently because sedentary lifestyle is so much worse than any type of movement. But you can find a lot of research out there on both cardiovascular benefits and strength training. And ideally, you would do both.

Brett Trainor (: 35:25

Yeah, makes sense.

Eric Collett (: 35:26

because they have different benefits and maintaining muscle mass as we age can make the difference between being able to put your carry on in the overhead compartment and not, or being able to get out of a chair or not. So lots more we could say about that, but ideally you do both and you find things that you enjoy. I hated exercising as I was growing up, but I became a runner when I turned 40 a decade ago. And the way that I did it was,

I really liked to read. didn't have enough time to read. And so I told myself, I can listen to audio books while I'm running. So when I'd wake up in the morning, I wasn't headed out and putting on the workout clothes to go run. I was headed out to go listen to something that I was interested in, either a podcast or a book. And the exercise was kind of incidental. And after I'd done that for about six months, I started to crave the workout itself. I kind of overcame that hurdle.

Brett Trainor (: 36:09

Good, yeah.

Eric Collett (: 36:22

So there's tons more that we could say about exercise, but I'll move through the others kind of quickly here. The first D in beds is diet. And certainly how we're fueling the engine has a lot to do with the outcomes that we get. But I have to be careful here because everybody knows, hey, if you're in polite company, don't talk politics and don't talk religion.

But I think you could add diet to the list because there's so much tribalism these days about diet and everyone wants to know what is the perfect diet for humans. And I will just say overall, it's my opinion that if anyone thinks that there is one diet that fits every genetic situation, every metabolic situation, then they probably need to go read a little bit more about how the body functions and all the nuances and they don't appreciate how different we are. My 16 year old son,

who trains for track and cross country by running 8 to 12 miles a day, is in a completely different metabolic state than an 80 year old that's been sedentary for the last 40 years, has type 3 diabetes, otherwise known as Alzheimer's disease, and needs to drop 300 pounds. It's not even the same situation. So where do you start with diet? Number one, one thing everyone agrees on in the dietary world is eat real food. Ultra processed food

Brett Trainor (: 37:36

Right.

Eric Collett (: 37:46

is not real food and it will cause all kinds of havoc in the body. So just cut it out. If it's real, if it's in the form that you find it in nature, as long as it's not covered in chemicals, which is a different rabbit trail, it's good for food. Number two, whatever you're doing dietarily, control your sugars because Alzheimer's disease is in a lot of ways type three diabetes. And we're dealing with the downstream consequences of chronically elevated blood sugar.

Brett Trainor (: 38:00

Yeah.

Eric Collett (: 38:17

That's driving heart disease, that's driving Alzheimer's, that's driving the obesity epidemic, it's driving type 2 diabetes and why that's gone up 30 plus percent in the last couple of decades. So control your sugars. There's a lot more that could be said about diet, but that's a place to start.

Brett Trainor (: 38:35

The good thing is you're already making me feel better. I've cut out most of the sugars, gave up the booze almost two years ago, because it just wasn't working for me anymore. It just wasn't adding the value. So I have never felt better. So I know that's not for everybody, but you're making me feel better that I'm doing the right things with, I physically, but I didn't realize that the brain tied back to it. So.

Eric Collett (: 38:56

Yeah, well, you bring up something really interesting when you mentioned cutting out the booze. This is not popular, although more and more people are getting an idea of where the science has gone with this. But the latest research on alcohol is that there is absolutely zero benefit to drinking alcohol. It's toxic to every cell of the body. And I don't tell people, you can't do this, you have to do that. And nor does anyone on my team. But we do educate people about things like

Even one glass of alcohol, if it's too late in the day, can prevent you from getting into REM sleep. And sleep is one of the S's in our acronym here. I'll talk more about it here in a minute. But I have seen a shocking number of people who, when they've heard some of the science on alcohol, have done a little experiment. And it's something like this. I think I'm just going to try not drinking at all for 30 days and see how I do.

Brett Trainor (: 39:33

But yeah.

Eric Collett (: 39:54

Overwhelmingly, the majority of people that I've worked with who have chosen to do that say, I don't think I'm ever going back. I didn't realize how much that was wrecking me. I feel so much better. That's been a really interesting thing to observe with people.

Brett Trainor (: 40:07

Yeah. And I'll add to that because it was kind of the same thing. I had a health thing. I'm like, you know what, I'm going to try giving up the 30 days and it became three months. But then I had the whoop or I still have the whoop band that measures your sleep. it wasn't like I was drinking a ton, but just looking at my overall sleep performance pre and post it's it's night and day. No pun intended that the sleep, which we're going to get to.

Eric Collett (: 40:22

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 40:35

fundamentally changed. so I'm like, you know what, it's just not, it's not worth it to, for me, right? Others have a, but you're right. I'm meeting more and more people that have kind of taken that same, the same approach. Again, not for everybody. I don't preach to like said, it's like politics, religion, you know, and CrossFit probably could throw in there as well. People that do that, but that's super interesting. Okay.

Eric Collett (: 40:55

Yeah.

Eric Collett (: 41:01

So I want to comment on your whoop ring. I love the idea that data affects behavior. Commonly, when I'm working with clients, I'll have them wear a continuous glucose monitor because then they know in real time what's happening with their blood sugar. And they know exactly how what they're eating is affecting them. Like for me, the very first time I wore a CGM years ago, the single biggest spike in blood sugar that I had was eating a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries.

Brett Trainor (: 41:09

It does.

Brett Trainor (: 41:31

Really?

Eric Collett (: 41:31

And I'm not saying that that's bad for food, but if your goal is to improve insulin sensitivity and to control your sugars, it might not help you towards your goal, which is another important dietary principle. Eat based on your goals. What are you trying to accomplish? There are all sorts of dietary strategies that can be tools in the toolbox to accomplish specific things based on what your goals are. But the fact that you wear a whoop ring, it gives you real-time data.

Brett Trainor (: 41:46

Yeah.

Eric Collett (: 41:59

So quick example of how you can see something that you would have otherwise missed. I have a client who is a high level mindset coach for college and professional athletes. You can watch any professional sports event and it's highly likely that you're seeing someone that this guy coaches. I'm his coach for everything related to brain health and just...

Brett Trainor (: 42:20

wow, okay.

Eric Collett (: 42:25

Kind of protecting the franchise player in this case. We got to keep him operating really well. This guy operates at the highest level. He's so dialed in with his health. It's crazy. But he wears a whoop ring. And we've been trying to optimize his sleep. And his sleep scores were really high. And then just a few weeks ago, he made one little tweak and it bumped his sleep score by 10%. You want to know what the one tweak was? He ditched Allegra. He was taking

Brett Trainor (: 42:49

Really? Yeah, please. I'm interested.

Eric Collett (: 42:55

and antihistamine just routinely every single day. And I talked to him and I said, you know, there's an anticholinergic effect to that. It's not super strong with Allegra, but tell me more why you're taking this. Well, you know, it's just kind of habit. But I don't really have an issue with allergies all the time. So maybe I can do without it. Well, I wasn't expecting to see this in his sleep score, but literally the day after he ditched it, his score bumped up 10 percent and it's never gone back.

And that's the only thing that he changed. We would never have seen that in his case if he wasn't doing this really dialed in N of one experiment where he's measuring as much stuff as possible and then reacting to it. I thought it was super interesting.

Brett Trainor (: 43:38

It is interesting because I do take an allergy pill at night, even though my allergies aren't bothering me. It's the same thing. I just got in the routine of doing it. Guess what? I'm not taking tonight. I'm going to give it a couple of days to see if that actually is having an impact as well. And the funny thing is we talked about this. Some folks that do nothing will think it's just hardcore over the top. It's not, right? It's really just living life and cutting out just certain things.

Eric Collett (: 43:48

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 44:07

Like the sugars was a little bit harder, but not terrible. And just try to eat the real foods and yeah, it's super fascinating.

Eric Collett (: 44:14

Yeah, we're kind of stumbling into a really key principle that's not part of the acronym, but if I take a quick detour and just teach one overarching thing, whether you're looking at Alzheimer's research or you're looking at the research in traumatic brain injury, or you're looking at the research in mental health, all of that research in the last few years has converged on the idea that there is one formula to make a brain better.

Brett Trainor (: 44:23

Yeah, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric Collett (: 44:40

which to any listener that knows anything about science is going to sound absolutely ridiculous, but I believe it's true. And the formula is IA over E, which stands for immune activation over energy production. Now, energy in the cells is produced by mitochondria. If you take high school biology, you learn mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. But in...

about: 2014

crushing fatigue and you're in bed just totally wiped out, exhausted. Well, that can happen globally throughout the whole body or it can happen in a localized area like the frontal lobe. Let's say you get in a car wreck and you ignite this inflammatory response in the front of your brain, you get a drop in energy. Well, if you're not producing good energy in the frontal lobe, what does that look like? Attention deficit disorder, inability to sequence a task.

Brett Trainor (: 45:46

Hmm.

Eric Collett (: 46:03

Maybe you have emotional control issues where you don't have a filter anymore and you just start popping off with exactly what's on your head because the part of the brain that would keep things in check is not making enough energy to do its job. And if you can calm inflammation in that area, which in turn increases energy production, you get better results. But that also explains why so many different modalities seem to have an effect. Meditation

calms inflammation and improves mitochondrial functioning. Breathing exercises do that. Red light therapy does that. In one way or another, if you learn to ask, what's gonna calm the immune response and what's gonna crank up mitochondrial functioning? Then you're finding answers to improve brain health. And so in your case, if you no longer have chronic issues with allergies, you've calmed the immune response down. I personally used to take

allergy medicine every day of my life or my face would just be swollen. My eyes would be swollen shut. I struggled mightily from the time I was a kid with hay fever and all sorts of other allergies. Now I cannot tell you the last time I took allergy medication because when I took care of gut health, when I did all these other things to optimize my health, those symptoms just went away and I just quit taking the medication. I didn't need it any longer.

Brett Trainor (: 47:28

makes perfect sense, right? It just does. And again, it seems why it takes so long sometimes. You gotta buy into it, right? People can dismiss it, but you start tracking it just a little bit, it becomes, I don't know, call it a competition, but how do I improve this just a little bit? And interesting, because I did have a virus not too long ago, and the whoop tract, it gave me the warning signs because it gives you the overnight five vitals.

And all of them spiked when I wasn't. So it's, amazing what you can get away with or learn with just a little bit of education. And the one thing I haven't, again, I'm taking us down another rabbit hole with the glucose monitoring. I haven't quite taken that next step. I think my wife would think I've, I've gone off the deep end if that's, but I am curious to learn about the blood and the blood sugar. that that's coming. just haven't that's somewhere next on my progression of,

to check, right? Right now it's more trial and error with different foods just to see how I feel and those types of things, but.

Eric Collett (: 48:33

Yeah, well, you can learn a lot from observation. It's I like to coach people through you got to measure, learn what the best research has to say about that, apply that in your own life and then remeasure and adjust. So that process of measure, learn, apply, adjust repeated over and over with all sorts of different parameters truly gets us to a different place. And you're always limited by the degree that you measure. So if you're measuring something like.

Brett Trainor (: 48:58

Yeah.

Eric Collett (: 49:01

what you weigh when you step on a scale every morning. Well, that's helpful, but it's not as helpful as knowing where your blood sugar level is. And knowing where your blood sugar level is is actually not as helpful as combining that with knowing your fasting insulin and knowing your A1C and other metabolic parameters and knowing what's going on with your uric acid. It's often driven up by fructose. So you're always limited by how deeply you measure.

But any effort to measure and respond to it and to be thoughtful and observant is going to get you better results in life.

Brett Trainor (: 49:36

Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense to me. All right, I derailed this. I think we're on D, the second D.

Eric Collett (: 49:44

Yeah, so we talked a little bit about diet. The second one most people would never ever think about. It's dental health. And people think, what? Dental health dramatically affects brain health. A large percentage of people with Alzheimer's who donate their brains to science are found on autopsy to have P. gingivalis bacteria living in the brain. Our mouths are open. It's one of those areas where more things can enter our system.

We're not as protected in the mouth. And it's very common that people will have things like a root canal where you remove the root that's providing oxygen to the bone there. And as soon as you remove the oxygen supply, little creatures called anaerobes that flourish without oxygen start to proliferate. And in some of those cases, they can sort of etch away bone and create a situation where

bacteria in the mouth is leaching into the bloodstream and causing all sorts of problems. So quick story that caused me to never ever see dental health the same way again. We had a lady named Gina that came out from the Midwest several years ago for treatment. She had Parkinson's disease so bad by her late 50s that she was forced into early retirement. She couldn't apply makeup, couldn't feed herself, couldn't wipe her own bottom.

She couldn't walk more than about three feet. So she was essentially wheelchair bound. And in a last ditch effort, she came out and worked directly with Randy, my business partner. And Randy was super thorough, went through everything. She said, Hey, I got nothing to lose. just throw it all at me. And as part of that workup, he said, we've got to take a look at your dental health. I want you to go get what's called a cone beam CT scan.

because it might show things that don't show up on traditional x-rays. And she said, no, Randy, I prioritize my dental health. I pay for an extra cleaning every year. I know people say, yeah, I floss. I actually do floss. She was pushing back and he said, no, you said do everything, we're doing everything. So you're going to the dentist. So she went and they actually found these three pockets where bone had been etched away and bacteria was leaching into her bloodstream.

Eric Collett (: 52:03

She did about $10,000 of dental work to repair that bone structure. But within a little over three months, she had a 95 % reduction in her Parkinson's. And I watched it happen. This woman went from basically wheelchair bound and unable to do anything to herself to literally doing jumping jacks on a Zoom meeting with our team where she was telling her story and walking people through it. And when I saw that, I said, I am never looking at dental health the same way again, ever. It was mind blowing.

Brett Trainor (: 52:33

Yeah, it's crazy. It's funny you said, I literally, a couple months ago at a wedding, a friend of mine, we were talking, he's like, dental health, man, it's the key. He's like, I'm like,

Then we got into a debate. I'm like, well, is it dental health because they're sick because they didn't take care of the teeth, just more of a symptom they didn't take care of themselves. Oliver Ali is like, no, there's data and research that's showing that dental hygiene, dental health is a prevent, it's part of the lifestyle that can help you prevent other disease or not even disease, the health issues. So I'll be Dan. I'm buying it because of that conversation that we had before.

Eric Collett (: 53:08

Yeah, and not only could it affect Parkinson's, but all sorts of other neurodegenerative conditions. And notice how it ties into the framework that I gave, immune activation over energy. Well, if you've got bacteria that's getting into your brain and firing up the immune response there, by volume, about half the cells in our brains are immune cells in one way or another.

So you've got this robust immune system in the brain and as soon as you fire it up, it's like kicking over the beehive. You know how bees are nice and calm when a beekeeper is working with them? Man, you go kick that beehive, they're gonna be fired up and chasing you. And that's kind of what happens with the immune response in the brain. So it's such a critical factor. So at the end of it, we come to the S's. And the two S's are sleep and stress management. And when it comes to sleep,

ly really discovered in about: 2014

The body makes about a cup and a half of new cerebrospinal fluid and starts bathing the brain in that fluid. And there's a pumping action caused by slow waves of norepinephrine. We just learned that in a study a few months ago. But this pumping action helps to pull cellular waste and debris and metabolic waste into that cerebrospinal fluid and pump it out into the lymphatic system, which is like the sewer of the body.

If you are not getting seven to eight hours of good, deep, restful sleep, you're not running the clean cycle of the brain. And more than anything, that just wrecks people. Now some of your listeners might hear that and say, well, hey, easy for you dudes to say, but I hit menopause and my sleep fell apart. Well, the reason for that is that as soon as your hormonal levels drop, especially progesterone, progesterone binds to GABA receptors. It's super calming. It helps us sleep.

Eric Collett (: 55:30

And when those levels drop, women have a really hard time sleeping in many cases. But it doesn't have to be that way because you can replace those hormones and get help most of the time. And obviously that's an individualized discussion. I don't want to get too far afield here, but I've watched many people who have struggled with sleep for years get to the point that they sleep really well and they reap the benefits of that.

Brett Trainor (: 55:59

Yeah, apologies a little bit of noise here, but you know, the sleep, when you think about sleep, I can still do a better job. I'm definitely more consistent through routines there. I mean, is it eight hours? Is the individual body different or should we be looking at the deep sleep, the REM sleep and the other piece of that? That's what I'm looking at is three to four hours of the deep sleep. What's the optimal if you were going to give me a benchmark?

Eric Collett (: 56:26

Yeah, overall, most people need seven to nine hours and they need to cycle through all of the stages of sleep multiple times. And you started kind of hinting at sleep hygiene. There's a lot that can be done to optimize sleep. Hormones are certainly part of it, but even from a more practical standpoint, a good night's sleep starts the morning before.

because historically humans have gone out first thing. We didn't have artificial light. So people go out and find a place to use the bathroom and those blue wavelengths of light hit special receptors in the eye called melanopsin receptors. And they literally set the body clock. And 12 hours later, a whole cascade of hormonal events take place that prepare us for sleep. So get out and get first morning light or get yourself a seasonal effective disorder light, which is like 35 to 75 bucks on Amazon and have that.

10,000 lux light shining in your face for the first 15 to 30 minutes of the day and help set the body clock. Have a good shutdown routine. Do the same kinds of things about an hour before bed every night. We go around the house an hour before bed and we turn off about three fourths of all the lights because that alone is a signal to the body that, it's getting to be dark. We set the thermostat to start dropping because when things get cold,

That's a signal to the body that it's time for sleep because that's a normal rhythm in the world. Sun goes down, it gets colder. So you can mimic that. That's why people get a little bit better sleep if they take a warm shower because you get out of the warm shower and your body temperature drops and that's a signal that says, hey, I'm ready to go to sleep. Make sure that you put the screens away because that blue light is suppressing melatonin and you're not gonna sleep very well with that. Make sure that you don't eat.

Any less than three hours before bedtime because if you're processing food when you're trying to sleep doesn't work so well You probably noticed on your whoop ring Brett that if you have a lower carbohydrate Dinner meal you sleep better your sleep quality improves because a higher sugar meal causes more blood sugar fluctuation and one of the things that wakes people up in the middle of the night is They have a bowl of ice cream right before bed and their sugar spike and then they crash

Eric Collett (: 58:45

And when they're coming down hard and steep, they often go too low and you get a hypoglycemic episode. So when your blood sugar is low, it sets off alarm bells in your brain that says, oh my gosh, this is not good. And so your body has a stress response to that that can wake you up a little bit, or it can wake you up all the way and you'll find yourself wandering around the night going, good heavens, what's going on? And many people just feel like, oh, I'm anxious and I can't control my thoughts. And they're having a hypoglycemic episode.

see it all the time with people. It's another reason to wear a continuous glucose monitor, because you get an alarm at night and you realize, I just wasn't aware. My sugar has been crashing all this time. So maybe I need to add a little bit more fat and protein before I go to bed so that I can level the sugars out. So certainly there's more that we could say about sleep, but there's some low-hanging fruit there for everybody. The last is stress management.

Brett Trainor (: 59:25

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 59:37

That's awesome. All right.

Brett Trainor (: 59:41

No, fire away. This is awesome.

Eric Collett (: 59:43

Sorry, it looked like you're going to make a comment there, stress management is something that I just can't overstate because all of us as business leaders have some really stressful experiences. And we often just sit and take it and we try to face it and we more or less do a okay job most of the time. But when stress goes up, our counterbalance to stress needs to go up.

if we're going to have a better experience and be less negatively affected by stress. So you can't control everything that's going to happen. The market might shift and something that you've done in your business for years might just not work anymore. That is stressful and we can't get away from that. But we can choose to increase the counterbalance. So what does that look like? Box breathing, breathe in steady for four counts, hold for four counts, exhale for four counts.

Brett Trainor (: 01:00:25

COVID.

Eric Collett (: 01:00:39

Hold for four counts. It's the same technique that Navy SEALs use to calm their hearts and their respiratory rate before they have to fire off a shot. It works really well. Cold exposure retrains the limbic brain, the feeling part of the brain. It's an intentional counterbalance to stress and it can be helpful. Just deep breathing exercises or mindfulness meditation or taking a walk out in the sunshine for 20 minutes can make a huge difference.

So if your stress is going up, well that's okay, you can't always change that in life. But you can intentionally counterbalance and you'll have a better response to it.

Brett Trainor (: 01:01:20

So good. My wife jokes that I've almost... I don't know if you've seen the movie Office Space when he gets hypnotized, right? Where Peter was stressed. At some point you go back and watch it, but folks out there that... No, I referenced the analogy because there's obviously Office Space and corporate, you know, but he gets hypnotized so he's not stressed anymore. I'm really trying to be more like that. It's easier said than done, but it drives my wife nuts, right? Because...

Eric Collett (: 01:01:27

I haven't seen it.

Brett Trainor (: 01:01:47

She thinks I don't worry about anything, which isn't true, but I'm able to turn it off a little bit better than I used to be, because in corporate, I was not able to turn that off. And so I'm just there. It is possible. I figure out how to help my wife get through that, because she's the worrier out of the group.

Eric Collett (: 01:02:05

So I'm going to share with you something to pass on to her that I shared with a client just last week. So I was talking, this client is a business leader and he's got his ups and downs and he's got some worries and he actually normally sleeps really well, but his worries about a business situation were keeping him up at night. And this is going to sound painfully simple, but it really helped him. And I've seen it help a lot of other people. I said, have you ever considered scheduling time to worry? And he said, what?

Brett Trainor (: 01:02:08

Okay.

Eric Collett (: 01:02:34

I said, yeah, how about you're trying to sleep at night and your mind is going round and round and round. And instead of playing that game, as soon as you start worrying, you just remind yourself, that's right. I am dealing with something hard, but I scheduled time to worry about it tomorrow at three o'clock. That's what I think about.

Brett Trainor (: 01:02:53

That's awesome. It makes sense, right? Because again, if you're able to shut off the brain and the thinking part, that's when you're going to sleep better. And right, if you're going to set aside a certain amount of time, just, makes you right. It makes way too much sense that I love these types of frameworks too. Just easy to follow. Go ahead.

Eric Collett (: 01:02:55

So.

Eric Collett (: 01:03:11

Yeah. Now, if a person can't do that, if the thought just cycles their brain, it's a little bit more complex. That often means the frontal lobe is not working as well as it needs to. You have low energy there because that's part of the brain that would allow you to make a choice and make a shift like that and change gears. And I mean, that's where it starts to get more into the blood work and figuring out.

What's going on with your nutrients? What's going on with your genetics? What's going on with inflammatory markers and metabolic markers and all these things that when someone really wants to pop the hood and look under it and explore how the whole system is working because they really want optimal results, then that's the path that we go down. And so if someone's listening to this and they're thinking, yeah, easier said than done, Eric, I can't just schedule time to worry. Well, just know that there are answers, but

You're always limited by the degree that you can measure, and it might make sense to measure at a deeper level in your case.

Brett Trainor (: 01:04:11

Yeah, that's so good and so true. you know, that old analogy, crawl, walk, run. I feel I'm somewhere in between the walk and run stage and we're getting to the place because I'm doing more blood work, but not more intentionally with it, not just part of the annual checkups, but yeah, I'm all in. I'm investor. can tell by this conversation that, you know, it's, and it's, it's again, it's not hard. people that aren't doing any of this right now, it's just.

Just like anything with the business, just get started and then build off it. Build off the small wins and then pick your poison where you want to start. I mean, I want to do everything all at once. It's just, I don't know, maybe start with sleep is the first thing. If you start getting better sleep, it kind of opens up everything else. But I don't know, you may have different recommendations on where to get started. Maybe diet. I don't know. What do you think?

Eric Collett (: 01:05:01

Well, if I had to pick one, I would actually pick sleep because if you don't eat for 24 hours, do you know what happens? Not that much. And there's actually, we didn't even talk about fasting, but fasting is foundational to our health. We need to have periods where we're not processing food and that stimulates more of that growth factor for brain cells, BDNF. But if you don't eat for 24 hours, there's even some benefits from that. If you...

Brett Trainor (: 01:05:10

You're okay.

Eric Collett (: 01:05:29

Don't do a lot of things for 24 hours. You don't have any noticeable effect. I mean, we've all failed to exercise for 24 hours and nothing bad happens. But you know what happens if you don't sleep for 24 hours? You are absolutely wrecked if it even happens once. And I think that says something about how critical sleep is. So as much as I am a huge fan of a multimodal approach and I think that's the answer to so many of these health challenges.

Brett Trainor (: 01:05:43

It's not good.

Eric Collett (: 01:05:57

If I had to pick one, sleep would be the one I'd choose for that reason.

Brett Trainor (: 01:06:01

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. I know I've way too, I've taken a ton of your time, but again, super fascinating. So what is your quick thoughts on fasting? Right? I haven't done it, but I'm curious because there's a lot of people that I do trust that say they see the benefits. What's kind of the, the starter pack, if you will, for fasting? Is it just 24 hours once a week, once a month? What's kind of your best practices?

Eric Collett (: 01:06:29

Yeah, there's not a one size fits all approach. And I would encourage people to approach it the way they might encourage becoming a runner if they're not. If you decide, you've been sitting on the couch for years and you decide, I think I should become a runner. You don't go out and run a 5K out of the gate because the only thing that's gonna happen is you're gonna be stretched out on the sidewalk somewhere in massive pain, hating life. And the same is true with fasting.

Brett Trainor (: 01:06:49

Yeah.

Eric Collett (: 01:06:54

Now, historically, humans have always fasted because there were periods of feasting and periods of famine. And once you've fasted for longer than 16 to 18 hours, then your body has kind of burned through glycogen stores in your muscles. And that's when your insulin drops enough that at least for most people, your liver gets the signal, hey, it's time to start converting your own fat stores into a molecule called a ketone.

And a ketone is a very efficient molecule. It's what is produced by the liver when we're burning fat for fuel. And one ketone is about four calories. And it's actually the preferred fuel source of the brain because if you're starving, you've got to sharpen the mind and figure out where your next meal is going to come from. So historically, when humans were fasting, their minds got a lot sharper and we still see that same benefit today. I think that's why.

All major world religions use fasting in one way or another in their practices. But a good place to start for people that aren't used to experiencing some of these benefits would be to just make sure that you're going at least 12 hours from the time you eat your evening meal until the time you eat the next day. If you eat dinner at 6 p.m., 12 hours is 6 a.m. That's not that hard. Most people do it anyway. So then maybe you can go 14 hours. Maybe you go a little bit longer.

And I think where a lot of people get off track with fasting is they find something that they like and then they do it every single day. And that can be a little bit problematic because the body does best in a dynamic environment. So for me personally, some days I eat breakfast, some days I don't. Some days I don't eat breakfast or lunch and I just eat dinner. Other days I don't. Most days I eat something for three meals.

I don't do a lot of snacking because that would encourage my blood sugar to just stay up and I think the body needs to cycle. But about once a month, there's some value in doing a 24 hour fast. But again, it's something to work up to and prepare for. Be aware that if you are fasting, that when your sugars start dropping, you tend to also not retain as much salt. You might.

Eric Collett (: 01:09:15

urinate a little bit more and as you lose those salts and electrolytes, you might get a little bit of a headache. And sometimes just putting a pinch or two of Himalayan pink salt in a water bottle and shaking it up fixes that headache because you kind of rebalance your electrolytes. It's also good to kind of get help and support. One of the reasons that we have a membership area that's available to people is so that they can come to online office hours and ask questions of our medical director or

or me or others who provide some of the coaching and support to members. So whether it's something like that, or you talk to your doctor, or you talk to another trusted advisor, it's good to have support from people who know how to navigate these things as you're trying them out for yourself.

Brett Trainor (: 01:09:56

Yeah, so true, so true. Eric, I could talk to you for another hour and keep taking notes, but.

Eric Collett (: 01:10:02

Likewise, I love that you're kind of a neurohacker yourself and you're doing the work, you're seeing the benefit. I think a lot of business leaders fall in that camp because we realize our brain is our tool here in the knowledge economy. We've got to get it as sharp as possible. And I have seen so many business leaders after we've gone through the enhanced protocol, which is that's what we call it when we're doing blood work and writing a treatment summary and doing one on one stuff. I've seen so many people say,

Brett Trainor (: 01:10:17

Yes.

Eric Collett (: 01:10:32

Dang, Eric, I just got my processing speed up 30 % and I thought that I needed to go take a class on productivity. Now I realize I was just trying to load software on old hardware. I just needed a hardware upgrade. I need to get my brain working better again and I'm more productive and I love that perspective.

Brett Trainor (: 01:10:53

Yeah, it's the basis. the full, it's balance, right? It's, you know, people will tell you it's, you know, just everything in moderation, but do all the right things in moderation and slowly can crank up the screws where it's going to provide even greater benefit for you. So, ton of value. Thank you, Eric. And if people want to connect with you, mentioned the membership, give us where we can find you and go deeper into our, our health journey.

How do we improve ourselves?

Eric Collett (: 01:11:24

Yeah, so I mean, obviously we do help people one-on-one. We do blood work with people all over the country, but a lot of people interact with us through our online membership platform. And this allows people to log into online office hours multiple times a week. So we just kind of put it on the calendar and people show up and it's, you come and ask questions kind of like you would have a college professor if you're taking their class. they said, hey, you have questions, come to my office hours. There's also lots and lots of recorded content about.

Wow, we go deeper about the things you and I talked about, but we also talk a lot about more nitty gritty things related to blood work and exactly what to check and why it matters and so forth. So lots of tools and resources there. If people want to check out the membership site, you and I agreed that we can give them 30 days free as a listener to the Corporate Escapee podcast. So if you just go to amindforeallseasons.com

When you get to the checkout there, normally the membership site costs $25 a month to just be a member and have access to our team and ask questions live and participate in our master classes. But if you get to the checkout and you put in the word escapee, E-S-C-A-P-E-E at the checkout when it asks for a code, then you'll get 30 days free. And then it's 25 bucks a month after that. If you decide that it's valuable to you and you want to consider some.

Brett Trainor (: 01:12:53

Yeah, going be signing up after this one for sure. And I'll also put that in the show notes so everybody didn't have to memorize it. But most folks are pretty good about Google searching. And just remember escapee. And yeah, I hope to see folks in there. And the best way to connect with you LinkedIn or just through the website. What would you prefer individually?

Eric Collett (: 01:13:10

Yeah, LinkedIn's a great way to connect. If you become a member, you got to talk to me directly multiple times a week if you want. And you can message people directly on the platform so you can actually network. And a lot of our members are also business leaders and they kind of network with each other. And it's fun to have this little tribe of people that are supporting each other and having more optimal cognitive and mental.

Brett Trainor (: 01:13:30

And I think people, it's surprising number of people actually do care about it. I mean, it's good that people do, but you know, it's again, it's kind of like the politics. Most people don't talk about it. But then when I do have conversations like, yeah, I've actually switched to, you know, trying to get more sleep or a bunch of different things. So no, I'm super excited. Again, I'm really appreciative of your time. I think this is super helpful. And

We may have to bring you back for a recurring guest. Maybe we can go deeper into certain areas because again, I think one of the biggest things is right. We're moving into a knowledge economy and as escapees, that's where we're going to make our money, do our best, you know, best living is through that way. So take care of the body, take care of the brain and you know, good things will follow. So again, really appreciate the time today.

Eric Collett (: 01:14:14

welcome. I would love to come back anytime. I would just say that this has been kind of the iceberg sort of discussion. We've scratched the surface on the top. There's a whole lot under that water line that we could talk about if you want to.

Brett Trainor (: 01:14:26

which I'm nerdy enough to do. like I said, careful what you offer to say will connect you. I will find you in the community. So awesome. Thanks, Eric. Well, have a good rest of your evening.

Eric Collett (: 01:14:28

Hahaha

Eric Collett (: 01:14:32

You too.