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The following transcription was from the Bulletproof Youtube channel. Here is the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJnm6FnQ_8Y

Peter Boulden
0:00:00
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Bulletproof Dental Practice Podcast.

Craig Spodak
0:00:08
I'm Peter Bolden. And I'm Craig Spodak. Dentistry can sometimes feel lonely. Having over 45 years of combined experience and the chops to run eight successful practices, our mission is simple. Pay it forward and share what we've learned. That's why we developed the Bulletproof Pathway to help you navigate your way to ultimate success in dentistry. And don't forget to join our community's conversation over at

Peter Boulden
0:00:38
Bulletproof.Dental. Now let's get to it.

Craig Spodak
0:00:43
Hey everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Bulletproof Dental Practice Podcast. It's Peter and I again today. And Peter, you were so kind to make this great PowerPoint presentation, and we're going to be doing it. And today we're reviewing it for the Bulletproof Dental Practice Podcast because every single self-help book that you've ever read or ever will read basically falls into 11 simple rules. And I want to bring this up because Peter and I are big fans of Naval, Robin, can't we talk about him all the time? But Naval has this thing about don't be upset about the books you never finished. And he said, in fact, in any given moment, you should have, you know, several books that you started and are only a quarter or half complete because some books will actually tell you the concept and then spend the next 11 chapters reiterating it in different examples. And if you've gotten what you need out of the book, you know put it down and I think there's a lot of guilt Around unfinished books. I mean how many people have told you I get the best book for you And you're like, oh, I've got like five books and I haven't gotten through yet three audibles You know what? Don't don't care don't beat yourself up the goal is is to get what you need out of the book and If it's one chapter or two or three and you got what you need put it back on the shelf But if you are not into reading at all whatsoever, then this is a great way to consolidate all the self-help books. I like this topic from a lot of perspectives.

Peter Boulden
0:02:09
And honestly, Craig, the genesis of this self-help and 11 simple rules, I've actually found from a Medium article where someone was talking about, I can't remember the gentleman's name, I wanna give some credit, but it was on a Medium article and it was written back in 2020. And I was like, man, what a great, and it's every self-help book boiled down into 11 simple rules. Guy, and this guy, Chris Taylor on 2020. And so I love it that you're talking about Naval, but I also love it because we get this question so much. Meaning like, hey, you got any good book recommendations? Well, that's a very popular conversation at Summit. And honestly, it was one thing before you were involved in the podcast, Greg, I used to ask every guest, because like in a closing thing, like, hey, any books you recommend? But I love it that you're talking about the whole thing. And here's why, is because a lot of us are ADD, okay? And we have this weird guilt with like, I didn't finish the book, but I got what, you know. But so if you reframe it with, I got what I needed, I know they're going to discuss the same thing, kind of thing over the next 11 chapters, like, you're right, put it down, move on to the next one. But implement and execute on kind of what you learned versus just being this avid consumer of books, right? You ever see those people that are consummate readers, but they don't advance the life or nothing changes in their personal life, you know, IRL, in real life, nothing changes. A hundred percent. So let's jump into it, because I think this is very applicable because so many dentists I know read self-development books, self-help books constantly. Like, I don't read fiction books, Craig.

Craig Spodak
0:03:53
I just don't. Yeah, I don't either.

Peter Boulden
0:03:55
Yeah, they don't excite me, and I'm honestly, I can't consume. The same reason I'm not a great golfer is because I couldn't use that aliquot of time, I couldn't use that chunk of time away from my practice. Same reason I kind of like fiction. If I'm gonna read,

Craig Spodak
0:04:07
I need to be developing something in my ecosystem.

Craig Spodak
0:04:10
Yeah, I'm the same way.

Craig Spodak
0:04:11
I mean, I do think it would be nice to consume some fiction here and there. It would, it would. I think it's nice as a rest place, the same reason why I typically don't go to movies, but when I do, I just saw that new Bond movie, and I was like, I lost two and a half hours of loving every minute of it. So I guess it's entertainment, but I agree with you. If I'm gonna spend concerted brain power, I wanna use it to get better in some small way. Not just in my practice, my personal life, family life. I wanna get better. That's why self-help is so enticing for me. So step number one, take one small step.

Peter Boulden
0:04:45
Yeah, I'm having camera difficulties.

Peter Boulden
0:04:48
Go for it.

Craig Spodak
0:04:48
So your daily habits aren't just important in the whole ball game. The best way to get big results is to make tiny, continuous changes to daily habits. Improving any metric by 1% of the time adds up to exponential growth over the long term. I love this because people don't, you can't make a great life. It's just too big, it's too big to try to make a great life. But you can make a great minute, which turns into a great hour, which turns into great hours turns into great morning Which is a great day and then a great week and so on and so forth so I think the chunking of Success is important people see Success as one big move like I got on Shark Tank and boom everything is different I I failed at this you know it's not because you ate a slice of chocolate cake that you got fat You just ate a slice of chocolate cake every day every day every week of every month of every season. So this whole act of like one small step and one improvement is the Japanese term, it's like kaizen, right?

Peter Boulden
0:05:43
Yeah, kaizen, right.

Craig Spodak
0:05:44
The whole improvement. Exactly. And that's, you know, there was a book that got famous on this, I think it was like 1%, or maybe it's a saying, but it's like, get 1% better every day. Implement small habits to get you better. But don't focus on, yeah, don't focus on the shark tank being your make or break at success. Yeah, and improving any metric by 1% Craig, at a time, leads up to exponential growth. You know, if you ever, if you kind of do the math, if you're any mathematician, you see that 1%, increasing the aggregate 1% every day makes a massive difference. I love the idea that says make your daily practice quote, too small to fail, too small to fail. So like, you know, it's like working out, like everybody thinks like you need to like literally your first day and do like two hours working out or you have to go to the, you have to go to the store and buy running shoes and a sweatband and a little lemon shirt. Like no, you can actually just leave your house and walk around your block for 12 minutes or 15 minutes in your street clothes on your phone. And that was a workout, you know, so make it so small that it's really hard not to do it. I think that's what the impediment, you know, is the first step to anything. So if it's, you know, getting, it's just that, I love that idea, that's massive right there.

Peter Boulden
0:06:59
Yeah, and obviously then there's a building thing, and I think that's, you gave a great analogy from a workout perspective, because I struggle in this area. Like, I do not want to do it. I don't ever like going, you know, I had a conversation offline the other day about like, you're like, I hate every second of working out. But if you make it to where you're like, all right, and then just build upon it. I can do 10 minutes today, right? I can do that. And then the next day I'll do 11 minutes.

Craig Spodak
0:07:20
So this is-

Craig Spodak
0:07:21
And everybody says they love working out, by the way. I wonder if they really mean they love you in fact.

Peter Boulden
0:07:25
I got a lot of friends like that.

Craig Spodak
0:07:26
You do? You have friends that say they love working out? So my wife loves to work out because if she doesn't, she doesn't like the person she is. So that's like saying, it's a little bit of a different way. Because I freaking hate it every day. I was figuring out a way to not do it this morning.

Craig Spodak
0:07:45
I was really attached to it.

Peter Boulden
0:07:46
Well, I think some people are addicted to endorphins and stuff like that. I think that's a whole different conversation. But there are people who genuinely enjoy it. And usually they're pretty fit.

Craig Spodak
0:07:54
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. But if your one small step is a workout, congrats. Even if you're listening to this podcast right now and it's 10 p.m., you can actually walk out the door as we're speaking, because we've got more time, and start walking or getting a treadmill as you're listening to us. And there's your workout. Next one, Pete.

Peter Boulden
0:08:14
The next one that's been summarized down to it is changing your mental maps. And this is essentially like, look, until your mind truly believes that you can accomplish something, like your body won't do it. So like, if you believe it, your mind can achieve it. And it's just mental toughness. And a lot of books will sit there and tell you like, here's what you need to do and create a plan. And planning is the takeaway. Planning is the key to all of this. You know, I always say that a plan without action steps is just hopium. It's just a wish. I wish this happens.

Craig Spodak
0:08:47
But unless you plan, things cannot become real. Yeah, and you got to actually have that emotional connection to the end point or else you won't be able to sustain the ass-kickings that are going to come. So when I'm working with people and they're like, well, I've tried this and I've tried that, it's just not working out, it really traces back to you probably didn't want it bad enough because if it came down to your family, your kids, or your backs up against the wall, if you have no other plan, you will figure out a way to get it done because there are non-negotiables in life. You know, and I think if you have that tenacity because you really, you know, like how many times have people not had the money to do something and something came up, your kid got sick, something happened, you're like, you're gonna get it done. So if you want it bad enough and you have that mental map to the destination and you understand the destination, you know that vision, you want it bad enough, you can withstand any reason and anything to get it done.

Peter Boulden
0:09:43
Like Benjamin Franklin says,

Craig Spodak
0:09:44
if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

Peter Boulden
0:09:48
Right.

Peter Boulden
0:09:49
All right, next one is the struggle is good. The struggle is good, and this goes into, you ever seen the Stoicism? There's something going on right now. I think you're reading that book, right?

Craig Spodak
0:10:00
Yeah, I read a couple stoic books the the obstacle is the way How to think like a Roman Emperor by Marcus Aurelius. I love the stoic philosophy. I Absolutely love it. This is Ryan holiday stuff Mm-hmm, that's but that's like the whole the whole premise and actually also the subtle of them not giving a fuck by Mark Manson is Also, the struggle is good. So like it's not problems that are the problem, it's actually solving problems is the way you get to happiness. So happiness is not the absence of problems, you're meant to struggle. I think the biggest ahas in our mastermind are people look at you and I with like larger successful practices and be like, ah, so easy for them. And then we start getting real and like, hey, this is an ass kicking, this is an ass kicking. People then give themselves the conscious permission to say, okay, it's meant to be struggle, it's meant to be hard, but it you know it's not about being Unfeeling but about shifting your mental framework so that you can expect and welcome the worst Things that can happen instead of fearing it shit's gonna go wrong. You're gonna get through it and Even though life is suffering Overcoming those challenges is happiness

Peter Boulden
0:11:09
So the stoicism Marcus Aurelius comes to mind when you add, I think that's, like I say, I think it's very popular right now, like his memoirs. And he wrote, he said this, save yourself early in the morning. I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious and uncharitable men. Right, so like he's preparing himself for the day of the struggle. And Stoicism, like you said, it's not about unfeeling, it's just shifting your mental framework because you're gonna have to solve some problems There's gonna be an uphill battle today, and and there's gonna be some suffering potentially so getting ready for battle I think I think that's awesome. I love it

Craig Spodak
0:11:47
And I mean listen the ball bring it back to know all who's like a modern stoic go back just for one second sure I've all Neval says like hey the problems of this generation should be read by you know more modern thinkers Like if you have a social media addiction, you know, don't don't read the stoic philosophy But the human problems the ones that we're all born with the ones that are conditionally like programmed to an order ahead That's the best solved by the ancient philosophers because let's face it This shit was written like two and three thousand years ago If it wasn't good, it would have been you know, it's like seeing an old movie. You don't see old shitty movies you only see good old movies because they wouldn't make the test of time. Even when you go further into the Stoic philosophy, it was also a reminder that, you know, memento mori, one day you shall die. Even when the Roman emperors would come back from battle, they would be shouted back with memento mori, like, you're great today, you're standing on the chariot with your victory, but remember, one day you'll die. All this is transient, so I love that.

Peter Boulden
0:12:49
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Craig Spodak
0:13:01
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Peter Boulden
0:13:02
Head over to dentistquiz.com now to get your results.

Craig Spodak
0:13:05
Next one is instant judgment is bad, okay?

Craig Spodak
0:13:08
And so, this is something that I remind myself of every day, or I've gotten better at, is don't rush to judgment about your fellow people. And one thing that I've always heard that really rings true is you never know what battles. Like everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. You may not know what it is. And so that's empathy, because I think empathy doesn't come to me naturally, nor compassion. It's just I really have to work at kind of these things, Craig. Oh, I know. I'm one of your best friends, I know. So I think in judgment's important to externally and internally don't think that you can be judgy with others and not have it judge yourself. So I always look at judgment like a really heavy like medieval sword. If you swing it, it's going to come back and hit you. So instant judgment on others and also instant judgment on yourself. So it's not all good and all bad. Peter and I were talking the other day that we're like human beings, but we have ape brains. So when shit goes wrong, it's easy to just throw it all away. And that's just not true. So I think that's important.

Peter Boulden
0:14:14
This next one is probably my favorite. It's something that I literally, when I'm qualifying decisions I make, Craig, with, for instance, I'll tell you an example of how I apply this every day, but it's remember the end of your life. Okay. And so I always ask my friends, like when they're saying, I was like, Hey, would your 80 year old self, and I've even told you this, would your 80 year old self be happy or glad that you made this decision? If it feels too big, if it feels too extravagant, it doesn't even matter, whatever. Right. But like, would your 80 year old self and like, dude, you did it, you know, like, good for you. You took that point. You, you put in that boat trip you you bought World Series tickets on Saturday night, right? He took your son that it was like, holy shit That was the price of a car that you did but it was like I'm on this on this side of it I'm super glad that I did it because it's like you get one ticket you know, I always say that the one ticket the Gary V thing and And it's a you know, you have to remember that that we are here for just a blip in time, a blip in time.

Craig Spodak
0:15:16
Yeah, not only the good stuff,

Craig Spodak
0:15:17
but it compartmentalizes the bad stuff. This won't mean shit. I mean, the things that I suffered, we've all suffered. I mean, just to quote Marcus Aurelius again, we suffer more in imagination than in reality. It's always, you know, the pontification of what this is gonna mean. Oh, the bank is not gonna do this. You know, an associate quit, the hygienist quit, whatever it is, I'm sure, it's not gonna mean shit in five years, never mind the rest of your life. So I think that's important to compartmentalize it all. Well, and it's regret minimization, right? As much as you can. I mean, as Bezos talks about a lot, is that like, you know, Amazon wouldn't be here if he didn't say, you know, I'm gonna live bold, I'm gonna get in my car, I'm gonna drive to Seattle

Peter Boulden
0:16:01
and do something big, make a bookstore, right? We wouldn't have Amazon. So I love this one. I think about this one all the time. Maybe, I don't know why, but I think about my own mortality a lot in analyzation of my actions. I don't know why.

Peter Boulden
0:16:19
I don't wanna be that.

Peter Boulden
0:16:20
It feels morbid a little bit, Craig,

Craig Spodak
0:16:22
but I'm constantly auditing that. No, everything else is delusional. I mean, to not think of your mortality is in many ways delusional. It's like, of course you're, I mean, and by the way, when you and I are doing the calculations, we're calculating for an average life expectancy. People there's no guarantee that we're returning back to our beds tonight, you know? So even if you're thinking like, oh, 78 and I'm 40 and I got 38 or whatever, I mean, that's bullshit too. I mean, one of my best friends was in the hospital this morning. My buddy John had to be admitted to the hospital. Like, you know Gavin's traumatic incident. There's no guarantees in anything, so it's not like the end of your life should be so distant. It could be, unfortunately, today. That's why I really viscerally hated that book, The Millionaire Next Door. And I don't want to wrap this into finance, but I think that was a scarcity mentality, and it put people into, hey, never have Starbucks, cut your toilet paper and you'll be rich when you're 75. Like who gives a shit? You had your home life and you blew it. There's also Ramsey too, whatever his name, David Ramsey.

Peter Boulden
0:17:25
Dave Ramsey, yeah.

Craig Spodak
0:17:26
I sent you that. Like, well, I mean, listen, you gotta understand that everybody has a different money problem, but to be on a podium and say, this is how money should be treated, money's different for everybody.

Craig Spodak
0:17:38
Right.

Craig Spodak
0:17:39
Money's different for everybody, so you can't be one size fits all. And they, you know, average person has shit tons of credit card debt. So, you know, it's not, you know, there's a, if anything is, it's not the pandemic, it's not the epidemic of not splurging for experiences, it's the epidemic of ruining your life, chasing today versus tomorrow. So I think that's important to have both sides of it, but I agree with you.

Peter Boulden
0:18:02
But I think more.

Craig Spodak
0:18:03
Yeah, so be playful. Number six, life is way too short to give any fucks whatsoever about what other people think of you when you're living your best life. Others are drawn to you when you behave like that. Actively cultivate your quirks, no matter how difficult your task is. You can always make it playful.

Peter Boulden
0:18:20
You know, I. This is your book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. I mean, this is what it boils down to, is just like, be playful.

Craig Spodak
0:18:26
Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. I think that life is going to give you some shit sandwiches, so you might as well have a good sense of humor over it. And unfortunately, you know, on social media, that's why I think it's one of the most damaging things about it is that social media is designed to let everyone give a fuck, right? Meaning that like you post things to say like, what's people going to think? That I get enough likes? And unfortunately, we are migrating to a place of caring too much about what people think. At the end of the day, I always say this, you may think people care about what you do. Ultimately, they think about what you've done, and like, oh, I can't believe they did that. And ultimately, they're back to thinking about themselves and their families within seconds of thinking that. We overestimate how much people care about what we do. And therefore, it shouldn't drive any of our decisions. Yeah, I think it's really important to tell your kids this too, because my kids, you know, our kids are the same age, Pete, but they're always like, you know, if they make a bad play in baseball, they're upset with the way things are. You know, my daughter just went to the middle school dance. And I think it's important for them to know that we all care. I think caring is, you know, it's hard to say don't care about what people think. I think to remind yourself that everyone cares. So my son asked me an interesting question. He's like, daddy, how was your first girlfriend? How old were you? I'm like, well, why do you ask? Because they were trick or treating. I saw two young kids holding hands. I'm like, I don't know, maybe I was like 13, 15. I can't remember. He's like, were you nervous? I'm like, of course. He goes, do you think she was nervous? And then he's like, yes, she was nervous too. Everybody's nervous. We're all stuck in our own heads, worried about what everybody else thinks. But once you realize this, and everybody thinks the same thing. It's just certain people are better at hiding it, but everybody cares. So I think there's grace in that, that just everybody cares, and then knowing that. So it's not like, because it's kind of telling you don't be hungry, it's a human need to care. So it's like squashing a human need.

Craig Spodak
0:20:19
All right, at this rate,

Craig Spodak
0:20:20
we're gonna get to number 11 by what? Like another two hours? No, we're moving, we're moving.

Peter Boulden
0:20:24
Oh, we are, okay. I just gotta move I gotta move us out of the way we're going all right number seven is be useful to others be useful to others and this is and this is in the in the book it really comes to don't be just don't be an asshole is one of the book this is this is from and really was that a real book yeah it's a 2020 self-help title, Don't Be an Asshole.

Craig Spodak
0:20:49
No way, that's awesome.

Peter Boulden
0:20:51
Yeah, and it's essentially the purpose of life is not to be happy, it's to be useful.

Craig Spodak
0:20:56
And Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that. I loved Emerson when I was a kid reading that stuff.

Peter Boulden
0:21:02
See, that's the weird, let's go back to seven. That's a little weird, right? So you embrace your weirdness. No kid reads Ralph Waldo Emerson as a kid.

Craig Spodak
0:21:09
I had to, I went to like the best part of school in the country, but I think there's another level of that

Peter Boulden
0:21:15
Was that a subtle flex right there? I went to the best private school in the nation. I did

Craig Spodak
0:21:20
I just found out maybe it wasn't the time But it is now if I could punch you through this zoom channel like I would Well, you don't have to you're doing a good job verbally punching me But I think it's important to go back to that one for seven number. Oh, yeah, the next one be useful So it's not just be it don't be an asshole too, but like, you know, we always talk about every achievement is scientific fulfillment as an art form. So you can get everything you want. You can be like, I'm going to get a billion dollars. I'm going to do this. I'm going to bubble, bubble, bubble. But if you're not serving your fellow man, if you don't have purpose, it's very likely you won't have fulfillment. You'll go off into some like Dan Bolzerian, self-absorbed, like, you know, shithole. And even though it looks really fun, it probably is actually pretty fun for a couple of months. You don't want to build a life out of that. You want to build a life out of the game.

Peter Boulden
0:22:06
It's unfulfilling.

Craig Spodak
0:22:07
Right.

Peter Boulden
0:22:07
So find the thing that makes you you, then use it in a way that will help as many humans as possible, and this is as close to what we get to the meaning of life. Amen. And that I believe. Like find that superpower, amplify that superpower, use that superpower for good, however it is. Maybe it's a byproduct of your superpower, but like, I kind of agree with this right here

Peter Boulden
0:22:26
Yeah, I agree with it, too

Craig Spodak
0:22:27
I love it and don't just be you be authentically you because you have your unique gifts, you know I think other people struggle to try to be somebody else. Oh This one's a good one There we go Perfection eagles procrastination. This is you always say this enemy is the I'm sorry perfection is the enemy of execution.

Peter Boulden
0:22:49
Right?

Craig Spodak
0:22:50
That's a Jenny Robbins thing. No, it's Henry Ford, but yeah.

Peter Boulden
0:22:52
Oh, so number eight is perfection equals procrastination.

Craig Spodak
0:22:57
You know, it was funny, speaking of Henry Ford, he actually had this thing, because he said perfection is the enemy of production, because he was the first mass producing automobile. And he says, someone once asked him, he said, Henry, I thought you're quality over quantity. He says, quantity has a quality all of its own.

Peter Boulden
0:23:14
What a brilliant guy.

Craig Spodak
0:23:15
Quantity has a quality all of its own. So if you're single, that could apply to you as well, but probably not. But yes, don't get it all perfect. Peter and I are diving deep into these personalities, as they say, and we see people that have this high detail. They want it all perfect. My wife is one. Yeah, your wife, exactly. So she's not gonna wait, she's not gonna execute a plan until it's literally perfect. Peter and I are very similar. We'll literally start building something halfway through, be like, you know, let's just buy this and throw the whole thing away. So it's like, we just wanna move, move, move.

Peter Boulden
0:23:51
The interesting thing, I think this is great, is so many people in my life wear this badge of honor or say they wear this badge of honor, like, hey, I'm a perfectionist. So like, it wasn't, you know, I didn't do that because I'm a perfectionist. Like, you ever hear people say like, I'm a perfectionist at heart. And whenever I hear that, Craig, all I think about is, you're just too chicken shit to do something. I really do feel that way because when you can say you're a perfectionist, it allows you to wait until you think it's perfect, which isn't scary at all, right? And it doesn't let you embrace your flaws and the notion, like any of that. So I hope I didn't offend any self-entitled perfectionist, but I think that if you say that out loud, it just means that you had to wait until it was perfect to start, it's never gonna be start.

Craig Spodak
0:24:37
It's never gonna be perfect.

Peter Boulden
0:24:38
Never.

Peter Boulden
0:24:39
Never gonna be perfect.

Craig Spodak
0:24:40
And the thing is, is what happens as the perfectionist is that you're trying to anticipate the problems you're gonna run into, you don't know them. You don't know what problems you… How many times have you and I about to start something like, this is going to be the three biggest obstacles. Three years into it, none of those three were big obstacles. They were new obstacles that we didn't even realize. I mean, let's face it, Target spent a shit ton of money trying to out-market Walmart and Walmart-Target, and all of a sudden, like, you know, Amazon comes around. Or like, the American Academy of Orthodontists is spending millions of dollars saying, hey, when you get Invisalign, go to an orthodontist, not a general dentist. All of a sudden, Smile Direct Club comes in and big middle finger to the whole industry. So the point is, you gotta start because you don't know what's lying ahead for you. So the only way through it, or only way to get done is go through it. So perfectionistic behavior doesn't always serve you.

Peter Boulden
0:25:32
Yeah, I think there's also an inflection point. You have to say like, look, if I think here's 100% and here's 80%, like you need to launch or act at the 80% mark because you're never going to get to that thing threshold. And maybe that's sometimes that's building the parachute and the way down and maybe that's not where you thrive, but like, don't just sit on the sidelines and be like, well, I'm a perfectionist.

Craig Spodak
0:25:52
So like I never started. I think what you're saying to Peter is if it's a pattern, if you have multiple things in your life that haven't gotten off the ground, because they're not always figured out. That's an aha moment. You know, there's probably a happy meeting between Peter and I. We tend to jump off the plane sometimes and build parachutes. Works for us.

Peter Boulden
0:26:11
This is my second favorite one of it. It's number nine, sleep, exercise, chill, and repeat. And if you remember, Greg, going back to Naval, Naval gets a lot of love from us, by the way. Naval said, look, you train, you sprint, you rest, and you reassess. Essentially the same, it's kind of the same thing, but essentially going with a healthy mind is a healthy body. So sleep is so big, so big. I know. Right, and it's something that I made a science of. I could do, I needed to do a whole pod just for like

Craig Spodak
0:26:40
the crazy biohacks and the things that I've done. He had me do the Oura ring and the Ulirapad and I'm on both of them. Yeah, and it's working out well for me. Melatonin and Ulirapad and yeah, you should do that.

Peter Boulden
0:26:51
You weren't sleeping, which as your buddy, I was concerned about, like, this is not good, Craig. And you're like, well, I don't really need it. I'm like, bullshit, humans need it. And so, you gotta get, you know, this says six to 10 hours a night. I would say it's more like eight to nine. It would be, everyone needs about eight to nine from the science that I've been reading. You gotta exercise.

Craig Spodak
0:27:09
Would you do a podcast on sleep? Just go through your biographies.

Peter Boulden
0:27:11
Yeah, well, you know, one of the best books I've read recently is about, what's it called? Now I'm drawing a blank.

Craig Spodak
0:27:15
Of course, I'm going to draw a blank.

Peter Boulden
0:27:16
We're doing live, but it's basically about perfect, not human, human performance. And it's talking about, you know, exercise, sleep, nutrition, a bunch of things. And it goes through like all the science and, and sleep is probably the most important thing. You know, so much so, Greg, that you know the book with Tim Ferriss that I gave you, The Tools of the Titans? Which I think is a class, destined to be a classic. Go back, if you have that book, revisit it often because it just gives you these clues about all these successful people. But a resounding theme in this is all these amazing humans that are destined to make their landmark on this planet, they come back to sleep as being a foundational part.

Craig Spodak
0:28:08
Well, there's a blind spot too, Peter, because the average medical doctor gets like one hour in their entire training on sleep. So like there's data to show that like, you know, being tired is more risky to drive than being drunk. And, you know, attention deficiency disorders, usually kids that are sleep-deprived, so what do they give them? They give them Ritalin, which is a stimulant, which ruins their sleep patterns even more. So we have this blind spot, this medical health blind spot where our sleep is, doctors should be prescribing sleep, but they're not. They prescribe pills. So the things that you recommended for me made a huge impact.

Peter Boulden
0:28:47
Huge difference. I'll expand on them a little bit, but I think this slide, Craig, is carve out good time for sleep, right? At least eight to nine hours a day. Eat really good, invest in good quality food. Good quality food, you know, because you are our engines. And then exercise daily. You know, and I always say, like even if I don't wanna exercise daily, I at least say, like my goal is to just sweat one time a day. One time a day, right? And I can only do better. I'm on the path now. Just ordered some new equipment right now because I don't want to go back to the gym so I ordered some better equipment. But those three things I think are a tenet, right? And then also give yourself time to chill and assess where you are and what you've accomplished and then move forward again. But yeah, I think a sleep thing would be an awesome pod. And it's so underrated and it's a little bit boring. Like you say, don't do a podcast on sleeping.

Craig Spodak
0:29:40
Well, listen, best case scenario, you could put people to sleep. You'd be serving them both ways.

Peter Boulden
0:29:44
I could just talk in a deep monotone voice. But look, so much so, Craig, that I had to gamify it for myself because I wasn't sleeping well. So gamifying it with this aura ring. Every morning I wake up and say, how was my quality and quantity of sleep?

Craig Spodak
0:29:59
And then I told you about it because you were sleeping. Yeah, I love it. I slept in the camper this weekend. I'm like, I bet you I got like a 58 because it was like, it wasn't comfortable.

Peter Boulden
0:30:07
And you nailed it.

Craig Spodak
0:30:08
I woke up, it was like 55.

Peter Boulden
0:30:09
Yeah, you can tell when you wake up what your score is, right? So I love it when I get bonus points for waking up and being like, oh, you're a 90 today. I'm like, I'm gonna clobber today.

Craig Spodak
0:30:17
I've never had a 90 in my life.

Peter Boulden
0:30:19
Really?

Peter Boulden
0:30:20
I consistently get 90s. Yeah, well. I'm like, I'm gonna clobber it today because one of my pain points was being too hot. You know, I was a hot sleeper until I got the ChiliPad, which was recommended five years ago to me in the book of the Tools of the Titans by almost every successful business person, right? Trying to get your core temperature as low as possible during the night because it increases your REM sleep and your restorative sleep. And that changed the game for me. Like I sleep amazingly now.

Craig Spodak
0:30:47
Yeah, me too. I love that.

Craig Spodak
0:30:49
I bought the same thing. I bought it for a friend and I think he's got it on the wrong setting, but whatever, it's great. I love it. He said, he like, I woke up, I felt like it was like a London subway. I'm like, well, what'd you put it on? He's like 55. I'm like, dude, that's really cold. That's what I put it on. Oh no, I put mine on like 70. It took me a while, because I was experimenting with the Oura Ring. By the way, did you buy the new Oura Ring yet? Yeah, I did. Me too. We're so similar.

Peter Boulden
0:31:12
Well, we're similar, but we get value, right? Like if it was hokey and I was like, this is not good, but like I use it daily, habitually to help. And this one does, the newer ring does a ton more in terms of all that.

Craig Spodak
0:31:27
That's all that like daily stuff.

Craig Spodak
0:31:28
Metrics.

Craig Spodak
0:31:29
Yeah, better sleep formulas. It's pretty, it's pretty.

Peter Boulden
0:31:31
It's not just, this one's just not for sleep. This one, the one we have on our fingers right now, I think was more geared for sleep. The next one is more like an Apple watch, almost on your ring. Super finger.

Peter Boulden
0:31:41
Yeah.

Peter Boulden
0:31:42
Yeah, that one gets me, that topic gets me excited because…

Craig Spodak
0:31:45
I can see that. Yeah. Thanks for intruding into my life and making me buy all that. That was awesome. That's right. I did it. As soon as you told me, I did it all.

Peter Boulden
0:31:53
You did, you really did.

Peter Boulden
0:31:54
Okay, the next one is pretty important as well. And we talk about this a lot in the summits in terms of when I talk about goals and such is, number 10 is write it all down. Create a plan, visualize it, and then make your list of what you need to do to get there. And I always say, when you write it in your own handwriting, make these lists and you're writing things down. Shit gets real when you write it in your own, sorry, Craig, I advanced. When you write it in your own handwriting, it creates self-accountability.

Craig Spodak
0:32:23
And there's some kind of reticulation, reticular activating system when you write it, physically write it with your with a pen and paper, pencil and paper versus typing it into a note. But also like there's also the gratitude journal, like gratitude is not a muscle that just comes naturally. And, you know, I'm touring a bunch of the reason why I said that about my private school is because I went back to check it out because I'm interviewing for Sage and Gavin. And, you know, they had mentioned what they were doing. I started asking these questions because everybody was like, ìWe teach Mandarin, Mandarin Chinese, we do all this stuff.î Iím like, ìSo what are you doing for the fulfillment, well-being psychology of the student?î They look at me like I have three heads, but listen, weíre not going to out math India and China. The raw power of the future of America is imagination. imagination, good, you know, we need to develop more well-rounded human beings. And gratitude is something that's not taught. So the Gratitude Journal is this way of teaching you how to look for things going right, because people like you and I who are high performers and by the listeners of the podcast, the way we get ahead is by looking for what's wrong and then fixing that. So the Gratitude Journal is just something, you know, you can get it on Amazon.com or You just literally, what would make today great? And at the end of the day, what went well, what didn't? And you create this conscious muscle, you build a muscle on gratitude. And gratitude is really, I mean, not to turn into a Hallmark quote card here, but gratitude is the single thing that is like the master emotion. You can't be fearful and having gratitude.

Peter Boulden
0:34:01
It's the antidote for so much.

Craig Spodak
0:34:03
Everything, for scarcity, for everything, when you have gratitude.

Peter Boulden
0:34:07
Did you ever read that book, Getting Things Done?

Craig Spodak
0:34:09
No, but I know the premise, like checking things off.

Peter Boulden
0:34:12
So the premise is like capture everything you think you might have to do or want to do, now or in the future, and then for every item, it's either an immediate thing, it takes less than five minutes, or you defer it to another date or time or you delegate it. But the key is getting it all down. I noticed, Greg, if you ever write shit down, if you've ever been anxious or flustered throughout your day, it's because a lot of times you're using your, I like how you say, you use your RAM, your computer's random access memory, your brain's just letting those things whirl around in your brain.

Craig Spodak
0:34:49
I know. You ever write it down, it's like there was only four things.

Peter Boulden
0:34:52
Yeah, and you're like, why was I so stressed?

Craig Spodak
0:34:54
It's literally like, buy dog food, check my PNL, and like, it's never what you think it is. So like, the list in my life, I'm like, this can't be the complete list of all the shit I had in my head. It's usually just five or six things. So don't use your precious resource, your brain, as a storage device. You're literally walking around with your external brain. What does an iPhone have? 128 gigs of RAM of memory rather. Don't use your brain for that. And the last one, the last, number 11. So you thought this was gonna drag on. No, I love it all, but it's just, you know,

Peter Boulden
0:35:30
because I like listening to you. That was very kind. The last one is, look, you can't get it all from reading. And this goes back to kind of the procrastination one of the perfectionists, is that at some point, you need to put down the book and do the freaking work.

Craig Spodak
0:35:46
Yeah, do life.

Peter Boulden
0:35:47
Do it, implement it. You know, don't think that like, oh, that was a good book, I'm gonna read another one now. Like, no, implement what you just spent probably, you know, 15 hours on reading. And that is important. That is important to execute. I think there's so much, talk is cheap, execution is rare. And I don't know, I think that, you know, it's just a big thing. Put it down, go act on it.

Craig Spodak
0:36:13
Learn something new, go act on it. Yeah, but I think there's something here too, if you're lucky enough to have someone who will call you on literally all of your shit, hang on to that person for dear life

Peter Boulden
0:36:26
Hang on to me for dear life Craig because I would call I'm a shit caller shot caller shit

Craig Spodak
0:36:31
Caller what about what do I do to you? It is well, but I think that's important. I think a lot of friendships are based on mutual misery And you'll wind up hanging out with people sometimes just because frankly there's such a mess They make you feel like you're doing great in life compared to them Analyze those relationships, you know, I think that you know, we always say there you show me your five closest friends, we'll show you your future. Good friends should always be calling you out. They should love you, but they should call you out. And that's-

Peter Boulden
0:37:01
That is very true. That is very, that's a very good point. Cause you know, like I tell my team even when I'm have to lean in and have hard conversations, like, look, the easiest thing for me to do in this scenario is do nothing. Meaning, I don't have to bust your chops and talk to you. So it's always easy just to be like, hey, good job, friend. Yeah, no big deal. It's not a big deal that you just stole something from that, I don't know, giving a horrible example. But someone being like, yeah, don't worry about it, it's cool. As opposed to like, no, dude, that's wrong. So the easiest thing to do is do nothing. When you have people around you that will dig in and actually have hard conversations with you that is a valuable, valuable person in your life. Valuable. The book that I had forgotten to tell, Greg, I was flustered, it's called Peak Performance, that was one of the best I've read this year. But maybe that's a whole different pod. But I was struggling to find the book title because you put me on the spot.

Craig Spodak
0:37:59
So that being said, that's a wrap. That's deal 11. I got a couple little things too.

Craig Spodak
0:38:04
Okay, do it.

Craig Spodak
0:38:05
There's number 12. Oh wow. I've got 12 and 13. Oh wow. Yeah, you didn't know that I'm pulling it out, just like the last minute here. So number 12, life hack. The summit, the early bird is almost sold out because I wanna make sure that people get to the summit. I think it actually is sold out. It is.

Peter Boulden
0:38:27
The early bird section is, yes.

Craig Spodak
0:38:28
Yeah, the early bird section sold out. But don't let it all sell out, because I think that if you've been telling yourself you're gonna go to this thing and you really need to shake it up, I feel so strongly about, I know we both feel very strongly, we feel so strongly, in fact, that there's a 10X guarantee. So I'm hoping that other dental consulting companies or lecturers or whatever you want to categorize what we do into. Start doing the same thing because I got a buddy of mine who just came back from a well-known conference in Las Vegas. Don't guess because I don't want to say it. I said how was it? They said it was one big advertisement. Ha ha imagine that. It was an award ceremony so it was like the Oscars. So hey this person's done this. Yay great. This person's done that. Yay, great. And then, oh, by the way, buy all this crap. And this is a special end now. So, it's just really upsetting to me that we have a profession that needs help. You know, unfortunately, we have the dubious honor of having high suicide, high drug addiction, high divorce. And there's nothing out there to really, really help people in a grander format. So, I feel strongly about what we do, not only to give people the felt need of their marketing and all the other hacks that we teach to make their practices bulletproof, but also just getting back to basics, because people don't actually know what they want. We have people that are corresponding with us saying, hey, I need help with this, and then we really peel back that onion. I'm like, oh no, you don't need help with that. You've got three practices and only one makes money, the one you're working in. So what do you really need? Do you really need a yell pack or do you really need to get a vision about what you want to do? So number 12, get to that summit. Do whatever you can to get to that summit, and also bring your team, because when the hygienist and office managers and auxiliary team are all engaged at the same time, that is just like literally rocket fuel, absolute rocket fuel. Yeah, that's a one plus one equals three scenario, right? Bringing them allows, it's not such an uphill battle. You know going back to the the the stoicism example We talked about like you're gonna have struggles. Hey lessen the struggle by in looping in your team. Yeah, right

Peter Boulden
0:40:35
I mean

Craig Spodak
0:40:36
Best case scenarios you like meet at the end of those cup those two days and just be like you know what I? Might be the cog in this wheel or this machine What do you people think and then like this is what we need to do and let them run my god That's the best thing ever. I think we conflate the idea that we have to do with a rate limiting, we're the one that sets the standard. In some ways, people like us are the rate limiting step. I know Peter and I have thought that many times. We thought everything, we're the nucleus of everything. And then stepping aside and letting other people rise has really unleashed our team. I think it's a really cool, I know we've talked about this, but a cool evolution from where the summit started was, you know, you and I on stage and now it's kind of morphed into what we think is more valuable and better for dentists is like doing what we're talking about, the divide and conquer with Bulletproof team, Bulletproof hygiene, and then Bulletproof, obviously, the doctorate capacity. But that's where really where I see the magic, you know, where the rubber meets the road and magic starting to happen because you don't get back like we've always said on Monday morning be like, hey, I learned all this stuff, let's do it. And they're like, what are you talking about, right? And they just whisper to each other, don't worry, he'll be done by Thursday, he'll have forgotten all about. This happens all the time.

Peter Boulden
0:41:48
Yeah, so that is really cool. All right, you said you had, that was 12, what's 13?

Craig Spodak
0:41:53
13, you know, this is the 13th hack to make your life amazing, is go on to welovebp.com, and Peter, you can even go there too, because if you write something, it'll feel good for me. But just, if we get emails saying, hey, you've helped, you've done something good for me, I really depend on what you do, or I really like what you do. So if we've added any form of value, if you've gone to a summit, loved it, if you read the book and loved it, if you like the podcast, or anything like that, we've created a really easy place to aggregate testimonials and we need them because we want to.

Peter Boulden
0:42:29
Well, it's a video testimonial. So we just created a tribute page for ourselves because we want to hear from y'all. We want to hear the impact, but also maybe want to use that to help scale it to our audience and let, you know, by you saying that like it helped someone else, but I say, yeah, that helped me too. Or it may gain influence into our industry. But we created just a landing page where people can say, hey, I got a good feedback from this. You changed my life in this, but I'm leading, I'm growing, and do it with your phone as a video. So it's tribute.com or tribute.co we use, and then we just forward it to WeLoveBP. So go to WeLoveBP and then click on the recorded testimonial

Craig Spodak
0:43:05
and let us know how we've helped you or not helped you. Exactly, and that would be, if you do all 13 of those, you're gonna have a pretty epic life. You are, you are. You can put all the books down, all the podcasts down, and just float off into the sunset. Don't go to any other event except for ours. Actually, unless it's clinical, I think. Or go wherever it helps you. If you're in an enlightened state, you can get value from a tree, that's what they say. So, but I look forward to seeing many of you at our upcoming summit in Nashvigas. And keep listening, keep commenting. We appreciate you guys. We appreciate you guys. Spread the message.

Transcribed with Cockatoo