2020: The Wrap-up

Boomer: [00:00:00]Welcome to decoding superhuman. This show is a deep dive into obsessions withhealth performance, and how to elevate the human experience. I explore thelatest tools, science and technology with experts in various fields of humanoptimization. This is your host boomer Anderson. Enjoy the journey.

You know, these solo episodes are sometimes the hardest torecord. It's December 27th. I'm hoping to release this episode the week ofDecember 28th, sometime before new year's. And we're going to talk today about2020 in the year. That was. It's boomer. I'm your host as always of thedecoding superhuman podcast.

And I'm armed today with a little bit of fresh water from myBerkey water filter through some Celtic, sea salt in there, decaf coffee. We'llget into that in the experiment section and a little bit of a microdose. Sowe'll see how things go. And today we're going to dive into. All things 20, 20the year that was, and you can think of this as sort of an exploration, if youwill, an experiment or several experiments, and we're going to get into a lotin this time period together, I may bring somebody in at the end.

I may not. Let's see how it goes. But this year started forme in Korea of all places and had a lot of time climbing mountains and socks onand spending time with my future in-laws of course. And 2020 started with, youknow, several key objective dibs. Right. I thought it was going to be publicspeaking all around the world.

I obviously wanted to continue to grow and nurture thispodcast because I love it. Really brings me a lot of joy. And of course I hadmy client business and a numerous other opportunities, but then that peskylittle virus came. Right. And all of a sudden you're like, fuck, what do I do?Because it was shortly after I did my Ted talk in February on my birthday thatmost of the world went into some form of lockdown.

Prior to that. It was very much similar to other years. Iflew to metabolic health summit in January to go visit some of my friends, butalso to hang out with people like Dom D'Agostino and others. And then we wentinto lockdown and for somebody who hasn't really spent much time in the samecity, his entire life, or really since the 10 years I've lived abroad.

Now it was a little bit of anxiety initially. Because priorto that, I'd spent no more than three weeks in the same city at the same timein those three, which are in Amsterdam. If I go back to my days in Singapore,it was no more than two weeks in the same city. And I spent much of my lifemoving from one place to the next delivery in one speak speech.

If you will see if the English comes out today to the nextand really going from one project to the next, but 2020 happened. And itallowed things to Morphin. Very beautiful ways. I was able to go deeper onprojects and topics that I never really thought. I'd get a chance to go down onbefore or go deep on if you will.

And I got really close with this city that I live in andhave developed some amazing relationships and friends just due to being in theNetherlands for a longer period of time this year. And so the format of thisshow is that recap. And we're going to break it out into a handful of varioustopics where I'll go deep on things like the podcast and the top 10 episodesfrom the year.

And what I want to do is really share what I got out ofthose episodes. And of course, we'll link to all of those episodes in the shownotes, which is@decodingsuperhuman.com slash 2020 recap. We're also going to gointo some of my favorite books, but not just favorite books, also theframeworks by which I'm studying and just sort of go into the reasons why I'mstudying different things.

I'll talk about some of the experiments I ran and thetechnologies I used in 2020. I won't go into a lot there because I feel like Icould talk for hours about the experiments that I run on a day-to-day basis.And. I think it'd be more useful to highlight some of the reasons why I didcertain things, what was very successful for me and what some of the technologiesthat I've used in continuing to fall in love with day in and day out.

And maybe we'll have something special at the end. Let'ssee. But for now let's kick things off with the best of the podcast. That's twofor 2020.

All right. So let's get into the top 10 podcasts of 2020.And I must say it's an honor to host this podcast because I get to explore mycuriosities with experts all around the world. And at any given time, a lot ofthese episodes are really reflecting of what I'm diving into deep on aday-to-day basis.

But also this year we implemented something more of like areverse inquiry using a finance term. If you will. And that looked a little bitmore like you guys tell me what people you want on the podcast, what topics youwant on the podcast. And we heard a lot from you around that, the really desireto hear more about data-driven health cognition, nootropics, as well as, uh,things like movement.

And so. It's interesting to see the, how that plays out inthe downloads. Let's go through the top ten one by one. And I'm going to reallyintroduce the episode. Talk a little bit about what I got of it out of it, ifyou will, and really just progress from there. So the number 10 most downloadedepisode of this year is with my friend, Paul Austin.

Paul Austin started the third wave co, which is really agood source for those who are looking to experiment in areas like microdosing.Or even larger doses if you will, of psychedelics. And I reached out to Paulearlier this year, because really it's a topic that I've become more and morefamiliar with in the past 12 months.

And I wanted somebody to come on to really give thebackstory of psychedelics. And that's a fascinating episode in itself. And inthat episode, we get a lot into. Uh, just a history of psychedelics. And I findfascinating that for a good period of time, really leading into the 1960s,there was quite a lot of research being done on these.

And we have a even longer relationship with substances likecannabis, a 5,000 year relationship with, uh, you can see that when you look atsort of old remedies with the cannabis plant in ancient China, and how. No,almost overnight that research ceased and. I encourage you guys to check outthis episode to get to know personalities like Sasha Shogun, uh, Timothy Leary,as well as, uh, numerous others and really the effect of the administrationlike the Nixon administration has had on the dampening of psychedelic research.

But also we get into maps and what Rick Doblin and crew aredoing over there, uh, in terms of the development and really. Seeking to getphase three. Uh, I think there are now in phase three trials of, uh, FDAapproval for MTMA therapy for PTSD. And so I encourage everyone to check thatout because it's a good primer on larger doses of psychedelics and why someonemay want to microdose number nine.

It's the only technology. That's our technology-basedepisode that is on this list. And so in previous years, the podcast I've goneand done deep dives on some of my favorite gear out there, devices like theVielight sauna space, the Carroll, et cetera. And this year, it was interestingto see that the only device that made it onto the top 10.

Listen, most downloaded episodes was the Somo Vedic. AndI've told you guys multiple times that I plugged this thing in, in my office.And for some reason I just have higher levels of energy. I want to get moreshit done, which for somebody who is an entrepreneur and working across a fewbusinesses, but also serving on the boards of others that is incrediblyvaluable.

And I have the medic green ultra. You know, if you go to oneof the YouTube episodes of the podcast, you can probably see it in thebackground. And it's something that fascinates me because I can't exactlyexplain how it works, but they use various crystals and metals to well, beamout various waves, if you will.

And, uh, cataracts. Areas like electromagnetic radiation,5g, but also potentially helps with structuring water as well as, uh, gettingrid of parasites. You can check all of their information out over at someof  dot com and I believe I woulddiscount somewhere that I'll throw in the show notes for you guys.

Number eight, it's always fun to get together with friendsand record a podcast. In the case of this episode, it was absolutely a joy tospeak with the ladies over at two. So wellness, Ingrid dealer, Oh, as well asAlanna Friedman, join me for a fascinating discussion around what really deepdives into ingredients and how to heal the body and to soul, make somefantastic smoothies.

But what I got out of this episode was Ingrid's novel way totackle her Crohn's as well as postpartum depression. And so I would encouragepeople to check that out because I've worked with those with Crohn's, but alsoI've I know it's probably more common than people are willing to admit. AndIngrid went a little bit different than what is now promoted as the carnivalapproach.

And she worked with just really pure, good ingredients toheal herself a Crohn's. So you can check out that episode as well. Number seven,most downloaded episode of the year. And when this person agreed to speakingwith me, it was right around. April. And at that time, a lot of the U S wasvery uncertain in terms of a lockdown.

And he was about ready to launch his book, the wedge and ScottCarney came on the show. And I must say it was one of the most fascinating andfun hour and a half really episodes of this year. And what did I get out of it?So the wedge is really about introducing pattern interrupts to bring back focusinto your life, to bring back resilience, if you will, because we're nowinundated with all kinds of information, distraction, and well informationoverload in a way.

And so bringing you back to that present moment andawareness, if you will, is something that was a reverberating theme on thepodcast throughout this year. And so we had an, just a fascinating conversationand one of the things that I. Brought back into my life was the idea ofthrowing kettlebells. What do I mean by that?

I have, of course I'm not throwing my 28 kg kettlebell at mygirlfriend. No, I'm looking at no much lighter weights and kind of throwingthem with an intent with a focus and playing almost catch if you will, withkettlebells. And the reason why this is powerful is because it does require youto focus.

It's the same thing as really going with a max effort lift.If you will, if you're not focused, you're not going to be able to do it. Youneed to be able to catch a kettlebell in a certain way so that you don't dropit. And just having those brief moments, those brief pattern interrupts allowsme to come back to my work with a certain degree of fervor, uh, and focus thatallows me to just get more shit done and be more productive.

Number six. If you notice the second time for this year, Istarted to reach out to more people in the academia realm. I wanted to speakwith researchers because that was really a part of my own growth pattern. Wehad guys like Dr. Tommy wood on the show, Dr. Neil Greenberg and. Our guest orour podcast for the number six most downloaded episode of the year wasFrancisco Gonzalez, Lima.

And this kind of goes into those compounds of controversythat I alluded to earlier. We talked. Almost exclusively about methylene bluefor two hours. And first Francisco admittedly was going to come on the show totalk about low-level light therapy, as well as methylene blue, but we spokeabout methylene blue at length and methylene blue is such a fascinatingcompound to me.

It has auto oxidation properties. It helps in the Kreb cycle.It's. An antifungal and antiviral, and we got into it in depth. And if you wantto talk to you or really just listen to somebody who is extremely well versedin probably the world's foremost expert on this compound, I would encourage youto check out those two episodes with Francisco Gonzalez, NEMA.

Now let's move on to the next one. And this kind of actuallyties in with number six and it's fascinating to me to see what you guys reallylike and listen to. And it's really pleasing to me when one of those episodeshas to do with a company that, um, I'm involved in. And so the number five mostdownloaded episode of the year was a conversation between myself and fellowtranscriptions, colleague, Dr.

Scott Cher. And this was a fun conversation around blue canteenand methylene blue, or really the product just blue that we produce attranscriptions. And we got very deep into. The cognitive benefits of both ofthose new tropics. We talk about what a nootropic is, and we're going to expandon that further this year in transcriptions, which is really, really exciting.

And we talk about those compounds and how they can be veryused in various ways. So for instance, blue canteen, its original formulationwas to help with verbal fluency as well as short-term memory, as a result ofjet lag and yours truly is no stranger to jet lag. And so this is been acompound, which I use now when I'm flying across the world.

And I'm an attempt to do that again, January and just blueon the other hand has been a really a steady state nootropic for me that allowsme to get just sort of this really, uh, Transition into GSD mode where I'm ableto get a lot of stuff done. A lot of those manual tasks that I don't want todo, or just, uh, require a little bit more focused on the numbers.

So things like financial modeling, if you will become a lotmore easier with just blue. And so if you have questions about what I'm up toover at transcriptions, that's probably a good place to say. Sorry. Numberfour. Most downloaded episode of the year was. My first exploration on thepodcast into the oral microbiome.

And it's been a long time coming, but Dr. Dome and I havemany mutual friends and we had a lot of fun on the podcast. Clearly at onepoint, one of his children popped in and you can watch that happen on YouTube,but it was an enlightening conversation about the importance of the auramicrobiome. And he wrote a book called it all starts in your mouth, which is areally just sort of.

Great primer on the healthy oral microbiome. One of the key thingsthat I took away from that episode was mouthwashing using coconut oil. So thisis actually just called oil Pauline. And many of you may be familiar with this,but oil Pauline yeah. Is a much healthier according to that, Dr. Domealternative to mouthwash.

So you want to check out that episode as well. Now we'regetting into the top three and hopefully I can work out some sort of drug

enhance your mind with Dr. Andrew Hill. And this one wasactually recorded in 2019, but released in early 2020. And it was recorded atDr. Andrew Hills office in. Los Angeles. I had a great time with him. We wentthrough acute EEG, which is essentially just picture somebody with a lot ofwire stuck to their head.

And they're looking at their brainwaves. I went through a numberof different tests, uh, which were enlightening in terms of my focus patternsand participated in some neurofeedback sessions. So, what did I take away fromDr. Andrew Hill QE G's are fascinating and something that I've had a few timesin the past and just given my history and relationship with perfectionism andstress, I do have things like elevated beta waves or have in the past.

Um, and we went through my results in detail in the episode.What was more enlightening to me was the idea that I may have sleep issues as aresult of concussions I had when I was younger. I don't want to label this TBIbecause I think there's a lot going on in that world related to athletics. AndI certainly didn't have as for your concussions as these people did, but it's fascinatingto me that this potential.

Concussion that the last one I had was one, I was 16 yearsold, could result in sleep issues and stress issues. Even now, when I'm now 34

introduction through Mark Richter, who's a great friend. Um,it participates with flow grade, but also is a friend through is bright Feldover at Brightfield biohacking and a few others. And this was an interview withDr. Alexander wench. And I've been trying to get Dr.  on the episode or really on the podcast for along time.

And through Mark, we made that happen. We did a deep diveinto light and color therapy and looking into things like the Lucia test andwhat I took away out of this episode, which I found most fascinating. Waslooking at vitamin D in the winter and the idea that we have to have highvitamin D all the time.

Um, so looking, uh, really. Extrapolating from Dr. Winchesexpertise. It turns out that there's probably some seasonality and vitamin D,which makes sense. Right? Because from an ancestral perspective, a lot of usdidn't have capsules to take vitamin D in the winter time when we were livingin places like Amsterdam.

But I found that really relieving in some aspects, but alsobegged me to. Dive a little bit deeper into the vitamin D world and any time aguest, really all of these top 10 guests have caused me to do that. Really getme to go deeper on a topic. I get really, really excited. So thank you,Dr.  for coming on.

And now we're left with the number one most downloaded andmost streamed episodes of the year in both categories actually. Is notsurprisingly Dr. Dominic D'Agostino and this episode was called keto explained,but we got into a lot of different topics if you want a primer on the ketogenicdiet, but also why it may be good in certain States, like going underwater aswell as, um, for things like seizures.

This is a great episode to start with. Uh, we also haveepisodes with Christie Vlad and it's probably one of the most frequently talkedabout topics on this podcast. At least in previous years, but what I got out ofDr Dom's episode was slightly different. If you go to the end of that episode,Dr. Dom talks about how he dedicates a lot of his time, um, and really justresearch, uh, or really he dedicates a lot of time to research and he set up.

Really what could be a great for-profit business to fund hisresearch. And I appreciated the way he looked at research and actually changedthe way I think about the profits from the podcast. And so, you know, Dr. Dom,thank you for shaping the way I think about the profits from the podcast andusing those more for charitable donations in the future.

And I hope you guys enjoyed the episode. I think it's time.We now go onto the next segment where I want to share some of the experimentsand technologies that I got into. Sure.

All right. Just had a sip of decaf, some water. And nowwe're back to talk about experiments. 2020 was filled with a wide range ofexperiments. And of course, you'd think that would happen because well, 2020 Iwas stuck in Amsterdam for well over 80% of the year. And I say stuck looselybecause I am now rather fond of this city and enjoying all of its quirksfreedoms, et cetera.

And so let's get into the experiment challis. And just togive you a summary of, uh, many of the things that I experimented with thisyear, I went really deep on areas like peptides SARMs, which are selectiveandrogen, receptor, modulators, and different avenues in dealing with anxiety.I've played around with probably a dozen different red light technologies, aswell as created my own vitamin D lamp for this winter.

And of course, when all of the gyms get shut down, what thefuck is one supposed to do? Well, I created my own home gym and given all ofthe obligations I have during the day, I will probably share a little bit of,or shed a little bit of light on the minimum effective dose workout routinethat I've gotten myself into.

And I've also experimented with removing differentsubstances. Foods, et cetera, from my diet. And I'm going to share a little bitabout that as well. But today the idea is to get into three of those moreuseful experiments. And before I get into some of these experiments, I got tosay, I'm not a doctor. I don't try to play a doctor on the internet beforeattempting any of this.

Please go speak to your doctor in certain cases you may needto because they require prescription medications. But don't do anything stupideither you or I wants this on our soul. All right. So let's talk about thetopic of anxiety and fear extinction. Anxiety is something that I've dealt withfor the majority of my life.

For the most part, it's really manifested itself in terms ofperfectionism. But when I was in the thrills of banking that resulted in areas,or just sort of issues with things like panic attacks and panic attacks for me,looked like breaking out in sweats. When in the middle of meetings, it wasabsolutely embarrassing.

And. 2020 was a really big, deep dive for me andunderstanding my nervous system a little bit better, the quirks of it. Sorather than just going into things with eight, like HRV, which is certainly agreat metric, I'd looked a little bit deeper and how to deal with some of theseunderlying themes in my life, or as certain books we'll call them traumas andhow to extinguish those.

So the first experiment, which I've run multiple times onmyself and find it, uh, really relieving has to do with, uh, the use ofpropranolol, which is a beta blocker and fear extinction. So may, let me walkyou through the experiment. And if you want to read more on this, I'll link toa couple of the papers on it in the show notes, but essentially you take 40milligrams of propranolol and over the course of the next hour, you write outthe, uh, and a story, a fear and experience that you had in your life that mayhave left some sort of Mark on you.

For instance with me, it was certain interactions I had withmy father growing up with regards to perfectionism. You write it out, you writeall of the emotions of that particular event recalling the actual day that ithappened in great detail. And you read it out for about an hour. And after anhour, you take the time to read it, read it with emotion.

And in my case, I read it multiple times and this can besomewhat confronting, right? It can really bring up a lot of emotions, somecases, sadness, some cases, tears, some cases, uh, just things you didn'tnecessarily want to remember. But the end result of all of this is actuallyrelief. Uh, The idea is to extinguish the fear so that what was no longerserving you underneath the surface.

Some of these past traumas, some of these past things thathave happened in your life is now no longer there. And on the several occasionsthat I ran, this experiment, what happened? Well, I ended up sleeping better. Iended up not thinking any of these events in the past as a negative. I reallyjust thought of it as more of a life experience.

And it's no longer a part of my story if you will. And soit's something that I encourage you guys to check out, but again, if you'regoing to do it, do it under the care of a physician, number two, and actuallythis may be two, three, four, because I want to get into a little bit aroundmovement or exercise.

2020. Many of us were faced with. Lockdowns and lockdownsincluded initially things like gyms, which is ironic because it's a great placeto, uh, really stay healthy. And so if you're stuck at home as I was whathappens, well, the first thing I did was I went to go buy a bar bell and likemany places in the world, exercise equipment sold out quickly.

Barbells will no longer there. And the barbell was somethingI become quite fond of, uh, for most of my life. And I've done liftingcompetitions. I've competed at a really significant level and CrossFit, and nowI no longer have a barbell and this was way back in March. And so what the fuckam I going to do?

Right. As you know, I can't just stop lifting. I can't juststop really working out. And maybe I, am I going to run for six months? Well,no. So the first thing that I went and did was purchase a couple of sandbags,got weights all the way up to really 50 kgs. So I was focusing more on volumethere rather than absolute max effort and just falling in love with a newpractice, because what the.

But the lockdown actually allowed me to do was to get into alot more strong men training, a lot more of sandbag training and something thatI wanted to do for a long time, but just didn't have the time. And now that allthe barbells in Europe were sold out, I had found myself buying sandbagsrelatively easily.

So I got a couple of sandbags and that stuff, God, intoexplorations with the guys at strong fit, which I'll come back to you on thesecond, as well as just fascinating, uh, Ways to move and carry a lot ofweight, a very long distance and challenge all of your mental language. Theother thing that I had, uh, coming into lockdown or was blessed with coming inlockdown was that my Carol arrived just in time.

And the Carol is an artificial intelligence poweredresistance bike, which gives me a really good workout in eight minutes and 40seconds. But I happen to enjoy. The Carroll for multitude of reasons. I coulddo my zone two training there, which is 30 to 40 minutes of writing, probablymore like 40 minutes of writing at a heart rate.

For me, that is around one 20 to one 30. And so I enjoy myzone two training there. I've actually purchased a little bit of a book holderso that I can read while doing that zone two training. Uh, but the other thingabout the Carol that I like is that you can do. Uh, these crazy sprint workouts.And so they have pre-programmed 20 minutes of 60 sprint workouts where it's,uh, 60 sprints that are eight seconds a piece, and you get a little bit of restperiod in between.

And so those are for my sadistic Sundays, or sometimes crazyFridays where I just want to absolutely have some fun. And do you a lot of workand again, very little time. So we're talking about Tufts 20 minutes here.People are in the case of zone two, maybe when we're like 40 minutes. The othertools that I have at my disposal are the X three bar, which.

I think anybody who has one knows how powerful that thingcan be, uh, just in a general environment. But when you go home and you want tolift a lot of weight, uh, the X three bar allows you to do it in 10 minutes oftime. And so maybe even less actually in certain days. And so the X three bartakes you through a series of eight to 10 movements and.

Those eight to 10 moments are split apart over two days andyou can do it four days a week. You can do it six days a week. I try to do itmore like six, and I enjoy it so much because it's a very, very effectivelifting workout and a very short period of time. And then the last tool that Ihave in the arsenal, actually, one of the last tools I have in the arsenal is,uh, the be strong and the be strong, uh, you know, Dr.

Jim straight, Joe Gunderson is one of the more downloadedepisodes of this year has been on the show. And, you know, he's studied hypoxiaalmost his entire life, uh, wrote the original paper on live high train, low, and.I find the be strong, fascinating, because like all of you out there, I'mlooking for a shortcut.

And the shortcut for me is blood flow restriction training,at least in movement. And so in less than 20 minutes, I'm able to get aneffective workout and you aren't really gassed and you're not really liftingthat much weight and I'm able to put on muscle very, very quickly. So how dothose kind of items, if you will come together in my workouts?

Well, initially at the start of. Um, this lockdown, it was allat once. And so I do some sandbag training followed by the X three, followed bythe be strong. And then I'd work on the Carroll, do the eight minutes and 40seconds with two 22nd sprints on alternate days. That didn't seem to suit mygeneral desire.

So I actually be under split it out into two a days. And somy two days are actually the bookends to my Workday. So in the morning, I'll domy more intense exercise. This includes things like the Carroll, or now thatI'm back running a little bit of running, as well as the lifting, uh, throughthe X three bar.

And then the afternoon will be spent on lower intensitystuff. Things like yoga, as well as the be strong. And so those have been waysto really keep me focused on the Workday as well as to signal to my body whento begin and when to end the day. All right. So recently in movement, I've hadthe pleasure and this is actually a separate experiment within movement ofgetting to know Julian Pineau and Richard from strong fit.

You've had a lot of fun together. We've in Roku recorded apodcast together, which if I were to take strong fits downloads, because theyreally sit at the same time and mine, I'm sure it would be in the top fivepodcasts of this year. And a lot of what I got out of the strong fit cruiseknowledge was bringing awareness to movement.

And I've had the pleasure of working with Richard one-to-oneI should say I've been. Crushed by Richard one-to-one and bringing awareness tomovement me, to bring a certain level of a tenancy to my workouts. And acertain level of intensity also goes back to something that Julian has alludedto in the past called burn the questions and burn the questions is just simply,um, silencing that mental chatter.

And I find that this approach goes very, very well. Um, Insort of a balanced to minimum effective dose because the danger I find inminimal effective dose exercise is that you try to focus on the absoluteminimum to the point where you're actually leaving some stuff on the table. Andso by contrast, the strong fit crew, uh, has taught me a lot more about whatit's like to not leave.

Anything on the table and they call that burn the questions,or I'm actually paraphrasing that it's part of their repertoire, if you will.And so a lot of the bringing awareness to movement has come through the use ofstrategic use of songs. Uh, the classic one that everybody thinks of is flowerby Moby, which is bring Sally up, bring Sally down.

And if you. Picture that in sort of a movement exercise youcan do, let's say sandbag floor presses, bring Sally up. You push up, bringSally down, you contracted in sort of an acentric movement. And if you do thatthroughout the whole song, it becomes very, very challenging. And then if youadd the layer of focus and just continually focusing on the movement of themuscle that you're targeting, it makes it even more exhausting to the pointwhere.

I've had some of these workouts, which have caused me to goto sleep for a couple of days. The strong fit guys were actually going, sorry,not a couple of days. I've had to nap quite often for a few days, but let'sthis strong fit guys have coined this in some ways they've wanted acquaintedmovement Iowasca but in other ways they said that that was too passive, but Iencourage you to.

Just sort of check this out. It's called emotional Momapping. We talk about it on my podcast with Julian and Richard a service, butalso it's talked about at length on the strong fit podcast. All right. The nextexperiment that I want to share with you guys are actually the second to lastexperiment we're going to talk about is revolving around knee pain.

So. At the start of lockdown, I started getting knee pain,which I thought wasn't really a big deal because I had the Carroll here and Icould just bike. And so for three months, actually more for. Yeah, longer thanthat, I did nothing when it came to running, I just used the bike. And that wasjust because I had a significant knee pain as a result of injuries, liketearing my meniscus when, uh, hiking in Patagonia or probably beating myself upin power lifting.

And some of the stuff I did to myself when I was younger,like tearing my quadricep, for instance, And I could barely run and I couldn'tfigure out why. And over the course of lockdown, it didn't get better. It gotworse to the point where I couldn't even jog after like my girlfriend, forinstance, who was ahead of me just as an example.

And. This became some somewhat concerning to me. And I haveto give a shout out to all the people that listen to this podcast and follow meon Instagram because I posted this on Instagram and within probably twominutes, I had dozens of responses and there was this reverberating theme. Uh,and you know, I like to give credit where credit is due and.

This person on Instagram is at knees over toes guy. And he.Well completely fixed my knee pain again, my right knee was barely mobile, andnow this morning I'm able to go. And this is actually after only one month ofworking with him, I'm able to now run a 5k pretty easily. And so the exercisesare completely different from what you would expect.

It's dealing a lot with. Um, sort of how a knee gets exposedin athletics in particular things like basketball, how you move in general andhow we can train those sort of overextended movements. So that knee injuriesoccur less. And so knees over toes guy, shout out to you for fixing my knee.Thank you.

And to all of those listening. Thank you for suggesting himto me. The last experiment that I want to talk about. Cause the segment'sgetting a little bit long is really an experiment in no caffeine and nonootropics last month and a half I've gone without caffeine. You heard meearlier say no, I was drinking decaf without any nootropics of any time.

And why did I do this? Well, You can say that my caffeineconsumption has gone down quite a lot over the past five years, but still Ihaven't really gone with zero caffeine consumption. I was just kind of curiouswhat it would do to me. How tired was I really? And initially when I did this,so it was hard.

The first week was incredibly painful. Actually the first 10days were incredibly hard to, to do. I felt like I had some sort of really.Unfocused attention, if you will, it was more like add experience and then day10 happens and I started to feel great. I started to sleep better. The caffeinewas clearing out of my system.

The know caffeine for me meant no coffee, no cacau, no tea.Uh, none of these nootropics, even though I'm involved in creating them, I laidoff the nootropics for a little bit and. What were the end results? So I'm nowon week six of no caffeine and no nootropics. And whereas before there'sprobably one night a week where I would wake up in the middle of the night andnot be able to get back to sleep, uh, that has gone the way of the Dodo.

I am now able to sleep through the night. I don't reallyhave to worry about, um, Not, uh, not getting sufficient amounts of sleep. Andit's been incredible for me, especially as an entrepreneur, because you know,you're using your brain almost all the time. And so for me, removing caffeineand I'm just beginning to actually start to reintroduce things like cow intocertain beverages.

During the day, uh, has been incredibly, incrediblypowerful. And so I do notice a difference in terms of my stress resilience. Ido notice a distance or difference wow. Talking for too long now in terms of mysleep quality. And I also know, notice a difference in terms of. Really myalertness throughout the day.

So I do look forward to going back to caffeine cause I enjoycoffee quite a bit. Um, and I do look forward to seeing what caffeine now doesto me, uh, as a result of going off of it for so long. But it's an experimentthat I encourage everybody to do. And I do believe a lot in cycling everythingfrom nootropics to caffeine, to certain types of foods.

But in this case, a cycling caffeine has been incredibly,incredibly beneficial to me. Now that we've really crossed through theexperiment side of this podcast. Let's talk about technology. This podcast isbroken out into a number of different segments. And so the segment is all aboutreading. And this year I had the pleasure of going through a number ofdifferent books, but luckily enough, the.

Quality of the books has definitely not gone down, but thequantity of the books is just increased significantly in terms of books thatare referred to me that I just really, really want to read. And so, as aresult, I've had to process a lot more and developed a little bit of adifferent reading scheme, but perhaps I'll just lay out a framework for youguys in terms of how I was looking at my reading for the year, because I.

Kind of derive that, uh, health books are great, but usuallythe idea can be summarized in a few pages. Uh, certainly the scientific papersor some of the, uh, preeminent authors in this space are worth reading the fullbooks. But a lot of these books, particularly diet books, you can gleaninsights from, from just a few pages.

It's the same thing with business books, right? This is whyBlinkist is such a useful tool for me. Is that. Business books. Most of theideas are encapsulated in a couple of pages. Think of that as just MalcolmGladwell's books, you don't need to understand the tipping point ad nauseum.The tipping point is just simply explained in one or two pages, or at least inone of the stories.

So one of the. Um, due to just the quantity of the influxand flux of good books this year, what I did was I allowed myself to not haveto read everything. I don't have to read the full book as long as I understandthe ideas and some of the details. I'm okay with letting go. And so that was ahuge development for me overall, but what were the areas I focused on?

Because I mentioned that business books are certainly easyto read for me, but also very fast reads, um, health books in particular dietbooks are very fast reads if I read them at all, really, but I focused a lotmore on, uh, two specific areas looking at ancient literature. And philosophyand also looking at decision-making because when I look at what really makes animpact on my life on a day-to-day basis, if I make better decisions, thequality of life is going to go up significantly.

So where did I focus? You guys heard in the episode withMads and Dasha, that I talked a lot about evolutionary game theory and digginginto that those were predominantly textbooks, but one of the ways that I lookat developing better decision-making. Is through mental models and thenunderstanding a little bit about our own biases.

And so this really gets to the meat of what my favoritebooks were for the year in this category of really decision-making I think.It's hard to ignore the force that is Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky thinkingfast and slow is hands down. One of the best books that I've read this year. AndI recommend it to anybody.

Who's looking to just develop a better sense of how theymake decisions, because we have this innate system system one and system two a,which. One is a very lazy and a much more methodical decision maker, but it's,it requires a lot of energy of activation. And the other one is a much moreintuitive, fastest paced decision maker.

And probably shouldn't be trusted as much as it is intoday's world. The second book that I read from daily is the art of the goodlife and rafter belly is. He actually has two books that I've read this yearthat are on this list and the art of the good life. I just read one chapter aday and it's really just useful pointers on how to get the most out of life,uh, such as not caring as much about external validation, doing things becauseyou enjoy doing them.

Uh, those types of things. Stop looking for others. Right. Iguess this goes back to the external validation thing, but the art of the goodlife is a good one. Now, perhaps a book that I like even more is the art ofthinking clearly. And the art of thinking clearly again, through this greatorganization system of just like a chapter that you can read every single daytakes you through different biases that we all have.

And those biases. Affect our decisions. They affect ourability to make high quality decisions, but just also affect, uh, things likeego. So, interestingly enough, when you look at, um, how a company is run now,what success can be attributed to the management. Versus the environment. Andmost often you'll find a lot of it is environment.

And so there's a lot of, uh, particularly egotistical CEOsout there that think that they're responsible for the success of theircompanies. When in reality, it's, uh, a lot of, a lot to do with the particularmarket or environment that you're in. So they are to thinking clearly is there.And then I have to throw on the list.

Anything from Charlie Munger, but the Tao of Charlie Mungeris an audio book that I listened to every morning. And the chapters areprobably 90 seconds to three minutes. You can listen to one chapter a day andjust get the wit wisdom and investment philosophy of Charlie Munger, which isincredible. But that will wrap it up on the decision-making side of things.

Now I mentioned more of the ancient texts, spiritualphilosophy, uh, side of books. And so from here, I definitely came into thisspace through the lens of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and a few others, but Ifind going into texts, even something like the origin of species and going backinto those texts and understanding.

You know how they're written and why it's kind of stood. Thetest of time is fascinating to me. These books are a little bit meatier andtakes me a little bit longer to read them. And so generally read them eitherfirst thing in the morning, or right before I go to bed, depending on what Ineed to put myself to sleep at night.

And so from that, Lens of sort of ancient texts. I stillread from the Vedas daily, but more from the lens of just trying to try to learna little bit. Uh, I also look at, uh, books, like, well, Thus spokeZarathustra, which is a fantastic, fantastic kind of gateway into Nicha and alot of his different philosophies.

But that was one of the more eyeopening books that I've readthis year. So that kind of covers my, my top two, if you will, from thatspiritual side of things. And actually, I probably wouldn't put the Vedas inthe top two because I think it's more of a good reference book or just a bookto come back to you from time to time.

There are certainly some things, uh, you know, When I lookover at my bookshelf right now that I look at and say, it's always good torevisit Atlas shrugged, but when it comes to the spiritual side, you know, Ihave been moved by a Richard Dawkins work in particularly the God delusion,but. I would encourage people rather than just, let's say you are a religiousperson.

It's always useful to understand the other side of theargument, because I will still read from religious texts despite the fact thatI may sit outside of that religious label. Uh, and it's always useful tounderstand the other side of the argument. So before saying, Hey. Can't believeyou're talking about this on the podcast, go out and read it.

Um, or read the other side of the argument, because thatwill make for a much more constructive, um, way of thinking. And like I saidbefore, a lot of what I've focused on this year is how to think anddecision-making in particular.

All right. So we're back in this time. I have pants on.

Bessy: [00:50:03]This is a first,

Boomer: [00:50:04]yes, first I I'm notorious for not wearing pants on zoom calls. Uh, and so nowI have, I put pants on to record this podcast, but, uh, for people who arelistening right now, you may hear another voice that you probably haven't heardon the podcast before, but I've mentioned her and I wanted to bring her on theshow and her actually has a name, uh, just to kind of.

Wrap up 2020. And so Bessie, BEB. Welcome.

Bessy: [00:50:35]Hello.

Boomer: [00:50:36]So I've alluded to in the past, I haven't talked about you much. Yeah. You're areal, which most people are shocked, right? Yeah. They'd be surprised. They'relike a boomer actually has a girlfriend. Oh wow. This is crazy. Uh, but. We aregoing to get into a bit today and get into a, watch a bit, a bit of it.

Bessy: [00:51:01]We said, we're going to get into bed. I'm like, Oh wow.

Boomer: [00:51:05]This podcast. X-rated definitely brow. Yeah. Well, maybe later. Um, but let'stalk about 2020 because. You know, our typical year we'll go and visit. We livein Europe, so we can go and visit a multitude of countries, cities, et cetera.And we had to visit family.

Then this whole thing called lockdown, coronavirus happenand shit hit the wall, right. Or if shit hit the fan, how has 2020, um, Ben foryou? Just like what.

Bessy: [00:51:43]It's been a roller coaster,

Boomer: [00:51:44]been a roller coaster. Emotional roller goes, how so?

Bessy: [00:51:50]Start of 2020, you know, everything was jolly. We were supposed to get marriedin August, so we're a busy wedding planning and then yeah, come much Coronahappened, started, um, and I don't think anyone expected it to last as long asit did.

No. Um, head's wide for that, by the way.

Boomer: [00:52:13]Borat two where Mike Pence talks about how long he thinks is going to be,

Bessy: [00:52:18]not make this into a political, this is not a political discussion. Yeah. Youknow, nobody really expected this to last, as long as it has. And it's evidentin the, in that fact that governments have done a poor job in containing thisthing.

But. Regardless on a personal level. Um, so we startedworking from home, which meant that men, we were around each other 24 seven.Um, our home turned into an office slash everything else. Uh, and I think asactually as a result of that, we've become closer. With one another. So let'sgo into that working from home part, because this is very, very topical andpeople still haven't figured out how to do this shit.

Boomer: [00:53:06]Right. Like, and I, and I do think that we do it quite well. Um, in terms ofhaving two people that have two very separate careers working from home, whatdo you think. We've done that has make us, made us not rip each other's hairout, uh, throughout the course of this year. Or maybe you have tried rip myhair out while I'm sleeping.

Bessy: [00:53:31]Um, I think it's actually in the morning we ask each other what our coreschedule is, which I think actually helps. Um, I think just knowing that wecan. Make sure that we are being quiet for the other person, especially foryou. If you're recording a podcast, um, and. It also allows us, you know, we,we live in a small house, so just being able to be considerate, um, cooking atthe right time.

So we're not disrupting that kind of thing. Uh, I thinkthat's been working well and actually we tend to be both very heads down andwork. And so we are very good about not interrupting when we're in the, in thezone. Um, you have your office and I have been working currently in our livingroom and yeah, there really hasn't been any tension I would say.

Um, and I think, yeah, part of that is just being open andcommunicating when we need some. No quiet time.

Boomer: [00:54:37]Yeah. I think that the point you made about just the beginning of the day,nailing down, what are the key times for you where like, I can't fucking be inthe room, right. Or he times where I just need you to, uh, maybe not playmusic.

Cause I know you work well with music in the background. Um,and that has been absolutely crucial, but some of the things I do like that we.Do during the day is we do come together now for lunch, which is something wedidn't do before. Um, which is nice, right? Like maybe we will make completelyseparate dishes, but we come together for lunch and we're able to have mealstogether.

Whereas before you were in the office, I was either at aWeWork or here or some other country. And we weren't able to have thatexperience. And so now we're able to have lunch together, maybe even go out andwalk for a coffee for instance. And that's been really, really enjoyable forme.

Bessy: [00:55:31]Yeah. Actually the going out for a walk is a really good one.

Um, you you're really good about actually grabbing me andmaking sure that I get at least 30 minutes, um, outside. Which I think isreally important for everyone because you know, when you're working from, whenyou're working in the office, you naturally are walking about whether that's togo over to a colleague's desk, um, to check their work or to discuss, orwhether you're collaborating by the whiteboard.

You're kind of. Moving all the time, but then working fromhome, there's a lot less movement. And so I think it's really important to beable to get out just for 30 minutes, walk around the block, get some fresh airand come back because that does help, um, just to regenerate and. Get get yourblood flowing again.

Boomer: [00:56:19]Yeah, absolutely. Shifting perspective is going to have you, or allow you tocome back with better ideas, probably at a more relaxed state, et cetera. Andalso you get to those times, like can be very quote unquote therapeutic, rightwhere you and I can talk. Through whatever problems we're going through thatand that day.

And it allows to, rather than kind of dabbling in the mentalmasturbation of our thoughts, it allows us to get it out and voice it and justsort of have. That, that feedback, if you will.

Bessy: [00:56:51]And it's good. That actually were both in completely different industries. Becausewhen I talked to you about my work, you have a really fresh perspective and yousee it in very black and white, um, and vice versa.

I think when you're talking to me about your work, I have avery different way of looking at things as well. So it's really nice to be ableto. Talk to someone outside of your own industry, which you don't necessarilyget when you're working in an office with this, you're always surrounded by thepeople that you know are in your field.

So that's been quite refreshing.

Boomer: [00:57:23]Yeah. And if anything, like you've completely shifted some of the ways that Ilook at business in the past and it's, it's fascinating to me how that's alldeveloped too. Okay. So, um, No working from home is obviously very topical.But another thing that people are probably curious about, um, is we Ellis gointo food.

So food is, and I've mentioned this on the podcast in thepast, we have different diets. And that's okay, but we make it work. And I knowthis from working with clients or other people that oftentimes they outsourcethe excuse of not being able to eat well because of their partner, but we stillmake that work.

What do you think enables us to make that work really,really well.

Bessy: [00:58:16]Yeah, this is a half one. Um, what's not a hard one. I think when you're livingtogether, um, it's still, you know, it's still about self control. Like I cantolerate grains a lot better than you can. Um, especially rice and noodles andI crave those things.

And so I will make it if I want to eat that and I willalways offer it to you. But then at the end of the day, that decision is onyou. It's your. You know, self-discipline with a, you want to eat it or not.And so I think, um, even if your partner is eating something different, it'sstill within your control and it's not, nobody should blame their partner for.

Having donuts in the house, obviously that is very tempting.Um, and it helps if it, if there are no donuts in the house, but yeah. Andalso, you know, don't take it. So, you know, don't stress yourself out aboutfood, you know, it's okay. If you have one cheat meal a week, um, I'm always afirm believer that what of your body craves, you should eat it because that'syour body's way.

Boomer: [00:59:37]What if your body craves a bucket of fried chicken?

Bessy: [00:59:41]You know what, everything in moderation, if it wants fried chicken, becauseyou're craving it. And it's been two months since you've had fried chicken,fine, go for it. You shouldn't have it every day, but you know, why not justcelebrate life and eat chicken if you want to.

Boomer: [00:59:56]Yeah. I may disagree with you a little bit there, but like, I mean,fundamentally I, I, I get what you're saying. I think there's a, an, arelationship to food that people. Need to develop and they need to develop ahealthy one because you get  in the past.I am certainly guilty of this. You have people that get so restrictive on whatthey eat, the moment that they slip off the wagon.

And it's not just slipping off the wagons, falling off thewagon fucking head first. Right. And that's where the bucket of fried chickencomes in into the ice cream, into the bottles and bottles of whatever. Um, andthat's not a healthy relationship to food, but as. And, and I think I probablygained this from you, just having more of those moments where it's like, okay,fine.

You know, we're having people over for Christmas dinner. IfI want to have dessert, that's okay. The next day I'll be back on whatever I'mfollowing in the moment. Um, and so I think, you know, the, the idea ofdiscipline is extremely important. And so you and I do eat very differentdiets. Um, At a base it's just, yours is more carb heavy than mine.

And being able to, we cook separate meals sometimes, but alot of the times there's, there's compromise there. And so we try and figureout something that works for both of us. And I think, again, it kind of goesback foundationally to that element of communication and that we're able tocommunicate really, really well.

And make both of it work for both of us.

Bessy: [01:01:33]Yeah. And when we do cook together, um, if one person is, has morerequirements. Eating to that standard is beneficial for both the people. And sowhen we're cooking, let's say we substitute rice for cauliflower rice. Instead,that's actually beneficial for me. Um, and that's been quite enjoyable becauseI love cooking to be more creative with these restrictions.

So yeah, I mean, thinking of, but thinking about it as achallenge is. You know, kind of a fun way to think about, um, these foodrestrictions.

Boomer: [01:02:09]Yeah. And we've had some fun and kind of deconstructing meals that work forboth of us, like what the, the healthier egg roll, if you will, uh, as anexample, um, when and how are we making that healthier?

Oh, uh, well, first off we don't have the rapping, uh, butessentially you take an egg roll, you deconstruct it and you can make it an,almost something that's quote, unquote, ketogenic or paleo. So we substitutesoy solicitors tomorrow. Of course. Um, then everything's fresh vegetables. Andso you have fresh vegetables in there.

There's no MSG whatsoever. We take the sausage out of it'sCasey sausage out of its casing. And you're very good at prompting me withthese. And, you know, we use, again, it's fresh vegetables, fresh meat, freshmeat from the butcher. And so it makes it in effect close to what an egg rollwould taste like and close to that egg roll like experience.

But in reality, it checks all of the boxes when it comes towhatever diet you're following minus the carnivore diet.

Bessy: [01:03:15]Yeah. I want to go back to going to what you said about the whole disciplinething, right? When you're, let's take a child, right? Like if you discipline achild and tell them to not do something, they're going to want to do it evenmore.

Don't eat fried chicken. And so it's just all aboutmoderation, you know? You don't have to hate yourself or just having one glassof wine. If you know that I'm just going to have this glass of wine and that'sit, then that's, you know, you can be a lot more free about it rather than I'mgoing to be. Um, what does that, I'm going to be?

I'm going on this? What do you call it? Like detox. Thankyou.

Boomer: [01:03:59]Yeah. You make a good point. And in certain cases that does work everything inmoderation, but there's a lot of people who have done whatever to themselves,all lifelong, where it's, where it can be something like watching porn toooften, too. Uh, just not having.

Any sort of, uh, they have leptin resistance, so they're notable to feel full. They have food addictions, et cetera. And so at some pointyou do need to beat yourself a little bit back into shape, um, in order to get tothat state where you can say everything in moderation. And there are certainpeople from Lake, for instance, myself, with almond butter, right?

Everything in moderation that doesn't fucking work with mein almond butter, I will consume the entire jar, uh, but with other foods atcan. And so. I think it's about being flexible and kind of listening, notlistening to what your body necessarily needs, but like, um, really being realwith yourself and understanding that I may have certain types of addictions ora certain types of, and I don't want to label it addictions.

Certain types of food. Quicksands so almond butter nuts ingeneral, for me seem to be those quicksands. Um, and trying to avoid those as aresult is, is extremely yes. Cool experiments. I run a lot of them. And this isactually a personal request from, or it was a request from a listener tounderstand how you tolerate my running with experiments, because I know attimes like this involves me, pricking myself in finger, a pin in my arm right now.

Um, and I'm continuously running different things. What doyou think, what in your mind makes up work?

Bessy: [01:05:58]I think it's always just trusting that you are doing everything safe. Um, and Iknow they, you, you are doing a ton of reading and always consulting withpractitioners. Um, so I have faith that you're not going to harm yourself. Yes.It gets a little bit overwhelming at times with the amount of gadgets that wehave in our home.

Um, but I think, yeah, it's always just communicating, um, lettingme know exactly what type of experiments that you're doing so that if Godforbid, if anything bad was to happen, at least I know how to react and helpyou out. And so I think that's most important is just communicating, um, withyour spouse to let them know what exactly you're experimenting with.

Even if it's, um, Uh, fasting, you know, for three days. So,you know, that's a long time. Um, and if you are fasting and working out, thatcould be potentially dangerous if you're doing a really a big workout. So thinkcommunicating with your spouses first and foremost, the most important thing.

Boomer: [01:07:07]Uh, and we have several times where I've either over done something, taken toomuch of something and come out and.

Look, this is all kind of Basie and sort of, uh,observation, uh, prediction, observation model, right? And so like, I amrunning an experiment with a certain level of knowledge to it, but I may, theremay be a lot that's uncertain. And sometimes I overstep into that uncertaintyand come out into the room and like up I've completely over done myself and Ido.

Particularly with the last, last incident where I did this,where we kind of said like, Hey, you basically sat me down and said, I need toknow what you're doing. And when, and that was enlightening because before itwas just sort of. Even before we started dating, when I was runningexperiments, I was just kind of doing whatever I wanted, but now it's justlike, okay, now I have to explain this to you as to why I think it's a goodidea.

And it also allows me to be more grounded in my experimentstoo. It allows me to be more, uh, Diligent in what I'm doing in particularlymeasuring things so that I don't blow myself out.

Bessy: [01:08:18]That's a good example of that time. When you took a little bit too much of aspecial substance and you came out and naturally your personality is to not askfor help.

That's true. And when you are at that state, however you.Need somebody to take care of you. And so, you know, asking for help when youneed it. And. Um, not being uncomfortable about it because it is reallyimportant. Like, uh, you it's okay to be vulnerable, especially if you'reexperimenting, you are putting yourself in a very vulnerable state.

You don't know how you're going to react because all of thethings that you're experimenting with is very fringe. And so, um, making surethat other people around you are aware and also if you don't feel comfortableasking for help,

Boomer: [01:09:14]Which is something I'm still working on? Yes. Yes it is. That's okay. 20, 21 isaround the corner.

What are you looking forward to most in 2021,

Bessy: [01:09:26]we have our wedding coming up. If you haven't, if you've forgotten. I haven'tforgotten. I'm not that bad. Come on. We do have our weddings scheduled. Um,it's a very excited about that. And we are also looking to buy a house inAmsterdam. So those are two very big life milestones.

Um, and yeah, I mean, I, I really am trying not to. Get myhopes up that COVID is going to be done by Q1 of next year. Um, so yeah, managemy own expectations around that. But, you know, working from home has beengreat and I hope that continues. Um, or at least the option for thatflexibility is them, um, And yeah, upskilling continuing with some online coursesthat I've been that I've started this year.

Okay. What does upscaling look like? Because some people maynot be familiar with the term, but what are you looking to? Up-skill. So a lotof people have been doing online courses during their time at home. And so for,for me in particular, I am taking an interior design course. Um, hopefully ifwe get a house and if it's, and it's bare bones, then I will have some.

Expertise around that regardless. You'll have to, you'regoing to be the one designing. Yeah, I don't have, I don't have that. I, youget an office. There you go. And they'll be filled with gadgets. Um, and thenthinking about taking a Dutch course since where we have now lived in Amsterdamfor four years and in year five, we can take our permanent residency.

Do you think you'd be here four years? No, I think we were,we were benching three years and then probably the U S or something after that.Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you know, I've got to say it's been, Netherlands hasbeen one of the beta countries to have lived through COVID, you know, therestrictions were not as strict as Italy or Germany or France.

Um, You know, we, yeah, exactly. Um, and the hospitals Ithink were never over run. Um, and so I think that in terms of the, thehealthcare system and everything it's been, it's been pretty solid here in theNetherlands. What are you looking forward to for 2021?

Boomer: [01:12:08]Well, I think you stated the obvious one, which is like, Hey, we're going toget married and.

Or partners or whatever we decide to end up calling itfriends with benefits. Ooh, that sounds. Like the start of something.Interesting. Um, it's just a movie. Yeah. Kindness was something. Oh, MilaKunis. Don't get me started so on. Uh, you know, we're, we're going to getmarried and that's going to be a lot of fun.

And regardless of it happens in the destination, or if weended up walking down to the courthouse, it's going to be a great day. Um, Ifit's down in the courthouse, hopefully it's not raining, but it will be afantastic day regardless. Uh, other things that I'm looking forward to are. AndI don't, I think it's, you mentioned this earlier, but like, I don't want tomake the assumption that this vaccine is going to roll out and everything'sgoing to go back to normal.

And in fact, I don't necessarily want it to go back tonormal because I think there's certain. Trends or things that have happened,um, which have, which were either accelerated because of COVID or just happenedas a result. Um, from a personal perspective, I actually like being in oneplace more frequently.

Uh, what's interesting is that I'm sleeping better than Ihave before. And it's because I'm not persistently jet jet lagged. Uh, the. Uh,the working from home trend, which like, dear God, we've had the technology nowfor five plus years. Why can't we work from home regardless of the industry.And now we now you're kind of being encouraged to, and I hope that trendcontinues.

I hope the trend is actually more, not just work from home,but work from anywhere. And I think there needs to be one of the. The big firmsout there needs to take the step and say that you can work from anywhere andwe're going to keep your pay the same, regardless, because that will encouragepeople to go and see the world.

And I think there are going to be knock on benefits to that,uh, just from like societal level values and just people really having thebenefit of traveling around the world. Um, And so I hope some of those trendscontinue. I hope some of those trends actually accelerate, uh, from a personalperspective, uh, you know, very touched on the wedding.

I just. You know, would like to be able to travel just alittle bit in order to see friends and really close friends that you don't getto see as often. Uh, because I've, I suffer from zoom fatigue, just as much aseverybody else. And if I'm on zoom calls all day long, I don't necessarilyspend the remaining time, uh, talking to friends and family.

And so just being able to reconnect with those people inperson, uh, would be absolutely incredible.

Bessy: [01:15:11]Yeah, we should be in New Zealand right now. We should, but in 27 degreesCelsius. Not fair enough.

Boomer: [01:15:18]Yeah. It don't mean warm as fuck in Fahrenheit. Um, beautiful. Yeah, it'sgorgeous. Yeah. But babe, thank you for coming on the show.

Bessy: [01:15:27]Thank you for having me. It's been fun.

Boomer: [01:15:30]I love you. And I, I love you too. I wouldn't imagine doing this journey withanybody else. Oh, he's crying. Um, been watching too many Korean dramas. Isthis all right? To all the superhumans listening out there. Enjoy your news.We'll see in 2021.