James Lacey: We never lose. We only win or learn. Meet Dr. Michael Breus, the CEO of Sleep Doctor, a company on a mission to help people lead healthier, happier lives through the power of life-changing sleep habits. Stay tuned for Dr. Breus' insights and his intriguing sleep statistics.

That may surprise you.

Michael Breus: The statistic that we're talking about is, I am one of 168 people in the world who have taken and passed the sleep medicine boards without going to medical school. So I never attended medical school, but I took their test. and, I've been an actively practicing sleep specialist for about 20 years.

Oh, my gosh. Now, 26 years. Wow. It's gone by fast. and I've seen just about every kind of sleep patient that there is. So what you're going to hear from me today, while I do have a good handle on the research, I'm a clinician, right? So I'm going to tell you about what happens in clinic. I'm going to tell you about how you can apply these principles to yourself, and, hopefully help you out.

James Lacey: Well, prior to even jumping into understanding more about sleep doctor dot com and kind of how that came about. And what it is exactly that you guys do. How do you even begin a journey into specializing in sleep? That for me is just fascinating.

Michael Breus: Right. So nobody wakes up one day and says, Hey, I want to be a sleep doctor.

Right? Like that, that just usually doesn't happen. Right? first of all, sleep medicine in and of itself is actually a very new field of medicine. The very first sleep clinics, I believe, were in the late forties, early fifties. it was, Built by a man by Dr. William Dement in Walla Walla, Washington of all places.

And it was a narcolepsy clinic, before it was anything other than that. And now, you know, fast forward, we're in 2024, right? Sleep hasn't been around that long. I mean, if you think about it, Compared to Hippocrates, right? So medicine's been around for thousands of years. Sleep medicine's been around for about 75 years.

So it's very early in the system. in terms of becoming a specialist. Now, why did I personally become a specialist? I'll be honest with you. It was not my track. Like it was not the direction I was going in. So I was getting a PhD in clinical psychology, which was my area of interest. And specifically I was interested in sports psychology.

So I wanted to work with athletes and teach them how to throw harder and run faster and the mental game of sports and all that kind of cool stuff. Now, to be clear, the reason I was interested in all of this is because I was terrible at all of those sports growing up. I was the last kid picked every single time.

I was awful. I had no athletic talent whatsoever. So I'm getting my PhD. And when you get a PhD, there's a residency program that you do somewhat similar to medicine, where you go someplace for about a year and you really learn your craft. So as opposed to book learning, you're actually in the clinic working with people.

And I wanted to work in a sports psychology research. Place where they were developing protocols, the best one in the country, believe it or not, University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi, they had an incredible program on eating disorders and athletes, which really combined a lot of my interests.

And I thought, this is cool. I can't wait to do this. Here's the problem, dude. I couldn't get into the program. it was only the Harvards, the Princetons, and the Yales of the world. I went to the University of Georgia. It's a top 20 program, right? but, they had an extra track. They had an extra position available for the internship residency class, but only if you were willing to specialize in sleep medicine.

And so I was like, That doesn't sound too tough. I had worked my way through graduate school, working on all the machines. So the hardware that you use to measure sleep, that was my job. So I already knew how to use their machine. So I'm like, Easy. I'm just going to convince these guys I'm a sleep doctor or at least want to be a sleep doctor and just hop.

And then I'll just transfer, right? Like that. That sounds like a good idea. So I get there day one, raise my hand. They said, ah, Dr. Breus, we were expecting this. We're guessing you want to transfer, right? And I'm like, yeah, they said wrong. It's not going to happen. Here's how this works is your funding is only good for, you have to work in the sleep lab for six months to get a year's worth of funding.

So if I wanted to eat You know, if I wanted to pay my rent, I had to work in the sleep lab. So I said to myself, how tough could this be? I sleep every night. It doesn't seem that hard, right? come on. So I got there. And by the third day, I absolutely fell in love with clinical sleep medicine.

And I knew I was never going to change my path. Dude, I help people like this. It's unbelievable. How quickly you can help somebody in the world of sleep. and by the way, when you change somebody's sleep, you change their life. Okay. It is, permanent. It happens throughout every single system. it is extensive.

And it's, really fun like as a doctor, because here's the deal, like as a normal clinical psychologist, I could see Treatment gains in somebody, but it might take weeks, months, even years. I've got let's say I've got a case of somebody with depression, it could easily take, two, three weeks, months, or even years before I start to see any level of treatment gains in that individual, whereas with sleep medicine, dude, sometimes in 48 hours, I changed somebody's life.

So all the entrepreneurs in the audience, you're going to love this. So I got off from my first job and. I, here's the funny part, right? So you'll remember this. So I was at the stage of my life where if they just offered me 30, 000 a year, I could afford health insurance, right? that's where I was in my life.

So everybody out there, where you were when you were at that point in time in your life, right? So it's okay, cool. let's see, how is this going to work? And so I get through the interview and I crush it. the interview was fantastic for me and he says, we're gonna offer you 60, 000 a year.

We're going to give you full benefits. We're going to give you two weeks off of medical leave so you can go to conferences. We're going to give you two weeks of paid vacation. We're going to give you your own office. We're going to frame all your diplomas and put them on the wall. I was like, sign me up.

This is fantastic. I can't wait. He said, there's one catch. So what's the catch? They said, you have to take him past the sleep medicine boards. I raised my hand. I said, dr. D Marini. I said, buddy, I got, news for you. Remember I'm a PhD, not an MD. He said, there's one year of eligibility left because sleep medicine is such a new, thing.

Discipline within it. We, they couldn't find enough people to take the, boards. And so when I was taking the boards, they were actually allowing some nurses, some PhDs, DOs, because they wanted to get enough people to take the boards to make sure the boards were good, blah, blah, blah. And so I, there was one year of eligibility left.

And so I was like, Okay, let's go for it. challenge accepted. And, there was a reading list. So there was a reading list of 14 different books. they were all textbooks. And so I taught myself neurochemistry, neuroanatomy. I taught myself pediatrics, general medicine, all of that. And so what I would do is I'd read a paragraph and I'd say, okay, what is a question that would be on the medical boards from this paragraph?

And I'd write it on a note card. And then on the other side of the note card, I'd write the answer, dude, by the time I was done with all 14 books, I had north of 6, 000. And it would take me about seven hours. If I wanted to roll through all of them at once, I had them by sections, by book and things like that.

And so here's the best part is after I passed the boards, my very first entrepreneurial project is I called those cards down to about 500 cards, printed them, and I sold them to sleep medicine schools as a study tool. So I've been an entrepreneur since day one.

James Lacey: that, also reminds me of. It also reminds me of early YouTube days, I mean, that's right.

You were very early on what it feels like in the people that are self teaching and are actually

Michael Breus: Correct

James Lacey: Going through and not just self teaching, but then building a career out of what you've entered into. That's incredible. Now, it seems common, but. Yeah, I was.

Michael Breus: Definitely a pioneer, back in the early YouTube days and here's the thing. I think I'm just a natural educator. that's where I find myself to be, most comfortable also to be honest with you, the way I had to study for the exam, the flashcards, here's the thing that it did that I didn't know at the time was going to do for me. It gave me an almost encyclopedic knowledge of sleep medicine. So I still remember most of those flashcards to this day, which is kind of bizarre. Like I didn't know I had that kind of a memory. So what happens is one of the things I'm most famous for is I can answer almost any question about sleep based on research because I had to come up with like when you when you're.

Digesting 14 textbooks, right? And it locks and loads in, and then you have to use it for the next 25 years. Like it becomes a very easy skillset to kind of go with. And that's why I ended up creating the sleep doctor. com. So I was working at a company called web MD. If you guys are familiar with web MD, and he calls me up and he says, Hey, Michael, I want you to check out this website.

So I check it out and they had no sleep information. So I wrote him up a little three pager, he's a friend, right? I was like, Hey dude, you're missing out on sleep at the time. I was just finishing up my master's getting my PhD. he calls me up and he said, that list of all the areas you sent me that on web MD, we needed sleep.

I said, yeah. He said, I handed that to my boss. My boss wants to hire you. I was like, hire me to do what he was like, you're going to help us create content. You're going to become the web MD sleep expert. And then I did. So for 15 years, I was the web MD sleep expert. And it was really just a friendship that I had with a good guy with a guy there.

And I just was nice about it. And I just said, Hey, I think you, your website could be better if you had information here. I wasn't offering to provide the information. I was just trying to point out where the holes were. And he just jumped on board and was like, Hey, we want you. and so I became the WebMD sleep expert and I answered over 6, 000 questions on WebMD, again, reiterating all of this information, getting it into my head.

And while I was doing that, WebMD turned to me and they said, Hey, Michael, you're kind of a ham, you like attention. So would you ever be interested in doing PR for us? And I'm like, What's PR? That sounds like fun. And they started getting me on television. They had a whole PR team and it was like, Hey, represent WebMD, go on the CBS early show, go on.

Good morning, America. Go on the today show, Jane Polly, blah, blah, blah. And so I did all of that. And I got to tell you something, dude, it's fun. it's fun to be on TV and educate people. My attorney calls me up and he's Michael, I think you need a website. I'm like, what are you talking about?

Why would I need a website? He was like, you're promoting everybody else. Why aren't you promoting yourself? And I was like, that's a great question. I don't really, I guess I should be promoting myself. Okay. I should get a website. How do I get a website? He was like, here's the problem. You're starting to become popular.

So if you reach out to people who own these websites, they're going to charge you a fricking fortune. So let me do it. So my attorney went and did it. We negotiated it and I bought the sleep doctor. com. And so all I did was I started a blog, right? Where I was just writing what I, my opinions and talking about new sleep research, talking about insomnia, things like that, slowly got a following, but it was the media that kept doing backlinks to the website, because what I would do is I would go on good morning America.

They'd send me a clip and then I'd post it on my blog or I, and once social media started, then I started posting in social media. So that ends up being really, Good, for me that way, which was, which actually worked out really, well, because then I actually bought all of the social media sites.

So I bought the sleep doctor for Twitter, for Facebook, for, Instagram, like literally you name it. And I, so I started creating the brand at that point, because what I realized was number one, nobody can spell my last name, Breus B R E U S. I mean, when we started, you were like, how do I even say it? And I was like, okay, that's, obviously not going to work. And so the sleep doctor, it's perfect. Like it says absolutely everything in three words and it's very easy for people to find. It's very easy for people to search. And so once we gathered that, we just started sending people to it and being able to work that way. So it worked out great.

James Lacey: Yeah, that is one of the more fascinating starter stories that I've heard in. In the not so recent times, say like the past three years, whereas it seems like a lot of people go content business. It's almost like the influencer app, but that, which is so interesting. And also a lot of people can do that now without expertise.

Michael Breus: If that makes sense, okay, like it's just it's so difficult because it's like I was literally an original sleep influencer. I would argue I've been doing this for 23 years, Like I think it's me and Paris Hilton are the two that have been at it the longest I think she was actually the very first influencer.

Paris is actually a personal friend. and she's a super she's a super cool person So I that's why I bring her up but like at the end of the day Anybody can be an expert if you have a podcast these days, or if you have some kind of academic position. take a look at some of my contemporaries.

There's a lot of things that people don't realize or know about them. So I, give you a few examples, right? So Matthew Walker, Dr. Matthew Walker, out of Berkeley, PhD in neuroscience. He's never seen a patient in his life. Like he's never seen a patient. So when you, listen to, let's say podcasts from people who've never actually been in clinical practice, they're really speaking from a very different place in their understanding of the information.

They understand it from that ivory tower research perspective. Hey, I've got all of these, definitions of my environment. And, yes, this process works well in that contained environment. I'm a real world guy. I think you're right. look at Peter Atiyah. And by the way, I love Peter Atiyah's information.

Did you know he's an MD, but he's never taken the boards.

James Lacey: Wow.

Michael Breus: Look it up. Like it's unbelievable. Like all of these people are out there. And what happens is people have these long form podcasts, right? Where they're there for 60, 80, 90 minutes and they're talking, talking, talking, talking, talking over the course of time.

They just wear people down. And by the way, they talk in such an authoritative way. That you're pretty sure that they know what they're talking about. I do the same thing. I'm extremely authoritative in the way I present information. but it is fascinating when you start to listen to these people. So what I all, what I try to tell folks out there is, look, we're all busy entrepreneurs, number one.

So you're going to have to figure out where to get your information that's, that works well for you. I would also tell you that not every entrepreneur should be a biohacker. that is something that a lot of entrepreneurs take on. They're like, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to hack my way into being healthier.

It's, not as great as it sounds. and it's actually quite difficult to do. I think what entrepreneurs need to do is they need to focus on some of the basics of their own personal wellness. While they're growing their businesses. And so what we see happen all the time in the entrepreneur world, and I work with entrepreneurs all the time is they burn out.

Okay. So why do they burn out? It's really because they're not taking care of themselves. So I'm fat. I'm glad number one to be on the podcast, but I wanted to emphasize that I have a new book coming out. It's called sleep, drink, breathe. And. And what's great about the book is as an entrepreneur, I give you a very simple program to teach you three or four basics of sleep that will make a massive, massive difference for you.

Like the data is in, I can show you the three things. It's quite simple. I teach you about hydration. Which is kind of an interesting topic, by the way, I've been a runner my whole life, lived in Scottsdale, Arizona for 10 years. So if you're a runner and you live in Scottsdale, you better figure out your hydration pretty quick or you're going to bonk really hard.

So understanding that has been a challenge for me for most of my life. And now that I've really started to delve into it, it's unbelievable how underhydrated we are as a community. As a community, if entrepreneurs could do something, I would say, do yourself a favor and figure out how much water you need to drink and get it.

It's really one of the easiest things that you could possibly do. And coffee counts, by the way, but not past two cups. Okay. coffee's okay, but not past two cups. Okay. because otherwise you get into that zone of stimulation versus hydration. Now, one of the big things that, by the way, a lot of people don't think about drinking water is because there's no real reward for drinking water.

think about it. there are plenty of fluids out there that have a reward associated with them. Coffee is a perfect example. It's an alerting mechanism. Wine That's an example. It's a, D alerting mechanism, right? So like when you think about it, water is one of those things that doesn't have any real rewards tied to it.

So sometimes we have to place those rewards on ourselves for doing that. So maybe by placing some hydration goals for you during the daytime. So I need to tackle 10 emails and I need to drink 10 ounces of water in the next hour. That is a great goal set that. Every entrepreneur out there can do right, accomplish, make that checkmark and know that they're doing something that's healthy for them.

And in the long run is going to help in a lot of other processes. To be clear, if you're dehydrated, nothing works well. nothing works well.

James Lacey: That makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. I've actually heard, I heard a lady recently. I, again, just going around the social media is Barbara O'Neill. I think her name is.

And, and she was talking about hydration and about how, The brain can often be so dehydrated, people don't realize, and you can't be very conscious. Successful cognitively.

Michael Breus: it's like a perfect example of that is a dehydrated brain. So number one, it actually shrinks like it physiologically shrinks because the brain is made up of it's 75 percent water.

So when you're dehydrated, guess what? Your brain shrinks. Now that actually causes physical pain. So the shrinking of the material, right? The gray matter, it shrinks around the nerves and it causes pressure on the nerves. That's called a migraine headache. Okay. So right. So like when you start to talk to people and you're like, Oh, I'm, pushing it hard.

I'm not getting sleep. I'm only sleeping for four hours a night. I got these headaches in the morning. Dude, what are you doing? get yourself six hours of sleep, drink about 80 ounces of water throughout the day, and you're going to be just fine, right? but entrepreneurs in particular, we don't think about that way.

We just think, how do we grow the business? How do we get more cashflow? how do we get more customers? But if we don't focus on our own. Health. We're not going to be able to serve our customers very well at all. And in fact, I would argue we're going to miss serve our customers. We're going to miss important things that are important for our business, but also is important for the process that we're trying to influence with our customer base, whether that's them buying a particular piece of software or working out at a gym or whatever.

James Lacey: And would you say that your book that's coming out in December, would you say that is? Especially for entrepreneurs or really just anybody. Okay. Okay.

Michael Breus: So here's what I will tell you is it's for anybody who doesn't really know where the starting line is for wellness. Like somebody like I was at the gym the other day and I saw this woman and she got off of a machine and she just stood there looking around.

She was just like, she was completely confused as to what to do next. That's wellness. That's am I drinking a green drink? Am I buying a sauna? I'm like, slow down. Like, why don't, you just hydrate? Like, why don't you breathe? Like, why don't you learn how to breathe? that's a big one.

A lot of people don't even think about that. And delving into this, I started to learn a lot about breath work. It is freaking amazing what you can do just by breathing in different ways. There's one technique where you hold your nostril on one side, breathe in with one, and then breathe out with the other.

Just doing that, like a 15 cycle of that, All of a sudden, your whole body calms down like your whole body calms down like these are techniques. By the way, it's not like I invented these things. These have been around for thousands of years, like the yogis and the meditators and like this. These are the people we need to be listening to, right?

We need to be understanding from a cultural perspective. This whole Indian yogi perspective that they got it right. Okay, and we're in a society that's spinning up anxiety and stress like no other you've ever seen, right? And then there's, oh, by the way, you have to take care of your own relationships, your own family, and your own health.

These days and by the way health is getting so expensive from a health care Perspective that so many people really aren't addressing things like that and then people start to say well I don't even know if I can afford the gym Anymore, so we're really seeing this very interesting shift across all people, but I would argue that the book sleep drink breathe it's probably great for anyone who's just saying like I just want a place to start, like, where do I go to, to kind of catch up and figure all this out.

And so also to be fair, sleeping, drinking and breathing are kind of the fundamental behaviors for all other wellness. If you think about it, right? if you try working out and you're not sleeping well, you're not hydrated and you're not breathing well, you're not going to get a good workout. I can assure you of that.

nutrition, I can assure you that you will choose the wrong foods if you're not sleeping well and you're not hydrated. Easy, right? So again, all of these things, I'm trying to get down to what I, call the DNA of wellness. what are the funda, what are the electrons and protons, of wellness?

I would argue it's going to be things like sleep, hydration and breath work.

James Lacey: I love that. It is about time to Decomplicate,

Michael Breus: Yeah. It's just too much. It is. And I think, and I don't think it's serving people. Well, you know, it would be one thing if the complicated nature of this was helping people and people were getting better.

I don't think they are. I think they're spending more money, but I don't think they're getting better. I keep hearing from people throughout, do I really need to buy a 6, 000 sauna and spend, 300 a month on a green drink? Okay. I don't, I'm not convinced that's the place I would start.

If you want to have more advanced, sure that maybe there's some, things there that could be helpful, but if you're the average Joe or Jane, sleeping, hydrating, and breathing will absolutely get you there and get you there fast, three weeks.

James Lacey: Three, three weeks. That's as quick as that

Michael Breus: Three weeks. I can get, I can get you in great physical shape in three weeks just by sleeping, drinking and breathing. Now, I want to be clear. It's not like you're gonna have a ripped body and you're gonna, go on, Sports Illustrated. Okay. But the goal here, right? The goal here is to give you a foundation from which to start.

I would argue so many people show up at the gym and if you don't sleep well and you're not hydrated, You get upset with yourself because you're like, gosh, like I'm not seeing any results, or gosh, I'm not, I'm not pushing a lot of weight or I can't run very far or all of that has to do with these three things.

Every, every single bit of it. I can show you the evidence. It's very obvious.

James Lacey: What would you say to people in a place of leadership, both aspiring entrepreneurs and also successful entrepreneurs are either going to or have experienced. something to do with either loneliness or isolation. absolutely.

How, can they stay connected to the outside world? How can they, stay in a place of rest or so?

Michael Breus: and I actually, so there's, a few different ways, but one of the things that people could do, if we're talking about based on the book, how could they gain some insights from that?

What we've discovered is that, People like to do the plan in pairs and in triples, right? And so what, I tell people do is buy the book, by the way, if people go and buy the book, now the book is coming out December 3rd. If you buy the book now, it's actually kind of a ticket and then you actually get a lot of freebies.

So you're going to actually get, you'll get the plan right away. Like I email you the plan almost immediately. I also let you into a bunch of lectures that I'm doing on sleeping, drinking, breathing. So you have access to that. you actually get a 28 night program and you're entered into a contest to win a free bed.

So we're giving away mattresses. Yeah. Why not? So we're giving away free beds, in the hopes that people will buy books and start to understand the importance of sleep. so I think that's one way is to do it with somebody because here's the thing. And there's an easy way to do this is what you're basically looking for is an accountability partner.

It's super lonely being an entrepreneur. It feels like you're in a vacuum all the time. Cause it's you're the only person who knows your business. And that makes it very lonely because it's I can talk to somebody else who is an entrepreneur, but they're not going to understand my business and my business problems.

I feel like I'm very lonely in that respect. So what's nice about this is. Everybody needs to sleep. Everybody needs to hydrate and everybody needs to breathe. And so this is something that you can actually relate to anybody with. I think there's a lot of community that can be done by just looking at something other than business and saying to somebody, Hey, I've got, I heard this crazy podcast with this crazy sleep doctor.

And he said, Hey, sleeping, drinking, breathing is a cool thing. He's got this three week plan. I bought the book. You want to do it with me? Yeah. Nobody's going to say no. who is going to say no to, I want to learn how to sleep, drink and breathe better. Like I've, already spent some time and energy in this.

Like just go ask somebody, ask your spouse, ask your kid. and then start to form a little group. you can be an advocate for sleeping, drinking, and breathing to anybody. At the end of it all, I think that entrepreneurs by and large, fight this problem of depression and loneliness. And then there's several different reasons.

number one is, You're the only person who understands your business. Number two, you're the person who's founding, starting, and running your business. It's very different when you show up at work and you get a paycheck. For doing your job versus showing up in your entrepreneurial world and doing your job.

There's not a paycheck necessarily that shows up. You're paying for other people. You're paying for expenses. You're paying for all kinds of things. And maybe, maybe if you're lucky at the end of it all, there's something that falls out. And that's called profit, right? And then you just try to, you know, leverage that and multiply that and get that bigger and bigger and bigger.

So what ends up happening is you become very focused on very small different things. And so it's you ever had this happen to you, James? I've had this happen to me is I'm watching a video on YouTube and I forget to breathe. I'm so concentrated in this thing that I like forget to breathe.

It's called computer apnea, believe it or not. I actually talk about it in the book, sleep, drink, breathe, but it represents an idea that I'm so concentrated in this one thing that I forget about everything else. That's what entrepreneurs do. Is they forget about things like food, they forget about things like showering, they forget, like it's unbelievable what happens because we all become so focused on cashflow or on marketing or on customer acquisition, right?

And so what I'm telling all of us out there, I've been there. Okay, I'm a, small business person. Like I'm an entrepreneur. I built a brand. I sold it. I did the whole thing. Like soup to nuts, start to finish. Here's what I can tell you. Did I make a lot of sacrifices? Of course I did. was I there for my family at all times?

No, of course I wasn't. It's not how entrepreneurship works. Okay. but what I can tell you is I built a really cool company. I did well with it and I survived. And towards the end. I finally started to realize the importance of health inside of my entrepreneurship. Now, I'm 56 years old that had something to do with it when you're young, dude, you can run it and gun it for a while before anything really starts to catch up to you.

But here's the thing is the quality of your work starts to suffer and you don't realize it at first as an entrepreneur because you're just doing so many damn things. But over the course of time, if you're not sleeping well, and especially if you're not hydrating, you're in big trouble now. The other thing that I've noticed with entrepreneurs, and this is interesting is their sleep habits are pretty weird.

And it's not so much. It's fascinating. But I have a lot of patients who wake up in the middle of the night and can't return to sleep because they're worried. About things like, Oh, I said this wrong, or, Oh, I pissed my wife off or whatever. Entrepreneurs have the same problem, but they wake up in the middle of the night and it's just idea set after idea, set after idea set, and it's two o'clock in the morning and they need to go to, And so it's a whole different type of human. I would argue now, don't get me wrong. Entrepreneurs have normal insomnia problems where they wake up at two o'clock in the morning as well. and we can, that's something to deal with, but there's, An entrepreneur, I believe has just got a different brain, it's a different mindset.

It's a different brain. It's a different thing that motivates and moves. And so with that, I think you have to, you have to take care of that brain. I will tell you this. I think structure has probably been from as a solopreneur, which is what I've been my whole career structure has really been the, probably the biggest factor that's allowed me to succeed is forcing myself to be structured, living by my calendar, having dates and times and, really.

Pushing that. I think that's been great. also, I think another big thing to avoid loneliness as an entrepreneur, you got to get out of the house. You got to go have lunch with people. and you need to have lunch with people that are not in your field that are doing something completely different because it, hurts your brain to just think about that one thing all the time.

You can, and by the way, you could create a founders club. there, there are plenty of things out there. You could reach out to five friends and just say, Hey, once a month, I'd love for us all to get together for lunch, just to toss around some ideas and, and to, Kindle our friendship. It may have no business consequences whatsoever, but the mental health consequences for you are immense.

Just getting out and getting some type of social interaction without it being a customer. You get to act, you're not selling, then you're actually being. That's a big difference. And I think that also helps with that lack of loneliness as well.

James Lacey: That, really, that reminds me of maybe even an analogy is, regenerative farming, when I think it has something to do with you allowing the land to rest for a period.

And it causes more growth. And I was, yeah, as you're saying that, I was thinking about that and because I've experienced that myself, whereas you actually choose to lay down the overthinking and you go out and you just be, and then you come back and it's like sparks are flying. yeah, so that's really interesting.

Some incredible tips. even. Just, just the, discussion so far is just being packed with, gold nuggets of yeah, how to bring a better, healthier daily life to then going about, and I think having long term success, because a lot of people are so focused on that short term win that it could be detrimental to succeeding over time.

Michael Breus: and also I think you can be sneaky about getting some of this stuff in, take a walking meeting while you're taking your next meeting. That's okay. I'm not saying you have to go buy a treadmill to stick it under your desk and spend all that money. I'm saying go for a walk while you're on your next conference call.

That is a great way to start to infuse things like that. Have your water, but. Buy your desk and, have a goal every day. Your goal is just to get rid of it, right? Just get rid of the water. Now I'm going to tell you, there's a couple of different ways to hydrate that are important that people don't think about a big one is don't gulp.

Sip. So think about it like this. When you wake up in the morning and you walk out to the kitchen, And you go over to the sink. There's a little square that it looks like a sponge, but it's really shriveled and it's hard as a rock. And it's like sitting right there. If you knock it on the thing, it'll make a noise, right?

If, you. Open up the faucet completely wide open and you stick the sponge under it. What happens? All the water just rolls off of it. But if you put it at a, low amount, small drips coming down, right? What happens? It soaks it up. It soaks it up. It expands. And now you've got a useful tool. That's how water is.

Okay. Don't put The faucet wide open straight down your gullet because it's not going to do you any good. You need to sip. So what I like as an example, one of the techniques that I teach people in the morning time is I give everybody the same morning routine. I have people wake up at different times based on something called their chronotype.

By the way, if folks want to figure out what that is, or if they want to check out the book, go to sleepdoctor. com forward slash book and you'll see what I'm talking about. Or you can take my quiz, which is called the chronotype book. Quiz. This actually gives you a genetic sleep schedule. So what I ask people to do.

Yeah, the science on this is crazy good. So if you go to chrono quiz dot com and you figure out your chronotype and then you just abide by that schedule, which I give you for free. all of a sudden your whole world gets much, much easier just in terms of when do you wake up? But the three things that I asked people to do is number one, take 15 deep breaths.

This is just to wake up your respiratory system, become present. You want to drink 15 ounces of water, and you want to get 15 minutes of sunshine. Why, Michael, you're in California, what are you talking about? Is this some woo, recommendation? No, there's science behind it. So when sunlight hits your eyeball, you have a special cell in your eye called a melanopsin cell, turns off the melatonin in your head.

That's what you want in the morning time. So by just going outside for 15 minutes, you're actually helping reset that melatonin clock every single day. And that level of consistency helps with sleep at night. also you can do all three at once and you can sleep, drink, breathe, right? So think about it, right?

You wake up, so you get the sunlight. So that helps with your sleep. You're drinking water, one ounce per minute. And then you're breathing, just generally speaking, taking 15 deep breaths.

James Lacey: That's incredible. talk about simplifying just, yeah, bringing better wellness. That is awesome. I know that, we, talked about chatting for around 30 minutes and I've taken you for longer.

And so I'm happy about that. But, I really wanted to find out just a little fun question. Do you have a favorite quote? Or piece of advice that you've received over time.

Michael Breus: I do. it's something that I think about more often, especially during harder times, but, Nelson Mandela said, we never lose.

We only win or learn. And I really think that makes sense to me. but when you start to look at people like that and understand some of the things that they've been through and see their perspective, it gets very, interesting. Very, quickly. I would argue that winning. Nine times out of 10 is simply executing a plan to to the level that at which you want to do it, losing is where you learn, right?

I always learn so much more when I screw something up or I come in third place or whatever. that's really what helps me start to drive and understand. And so I think for me, that's one of those quotes that I think is an important one to think through.

James Lacey: I have to ask. how was it meeting Nelson Mandela?

Michael Breus: So it was crazy. So I didn't mean to meet him so I was a security guard at the New York dc ball when Bill Clinton was inaugurated I was dating a girl who was part of their campaign team at the time And so she got me this job and my job was to escort Dignitaries to the press pool or press to the to where the dignity because they kept them apart Otherwise the press would drive everybody crazy, right?

And so I've got a group of people with me and I'm walking them down this aisle, but I'm walking backwards while I'm talking to them saying this is over here. Cause I'm like, my job is to tell them where to go and then how to get, interviews with people and things like that. And as I'm walking, these two monstrous black guys come by me.

And all of a sudden I literally bump into Nelson Mandela. Okay. So I turn around and I'm like, and, he's immediately recognizable. And the guy was in prison for 40 years. So it's you feel really terrible. thankfully I didn't knock him over or anything like that, but I just bumped into him and then all of a sudden everything got very weird.

Very quickly. I was like, everybody's what are you doing? And I'm like, Oh my God, sir, I am Sorry, he was like don't worry about it. He was like it was much worse in prison than it is Like he was like making a joke like it was like that was my big meeting with Nelson Mandela I didn't get it. I didn't get to ask him any questions.

That's incredible thing but it was you know, like sleep is one of those really interesting things where you end up that particular situation doesn't speak to this but sleep is one of those situations where I get to have conversations with some of the Most interesting people you could possibly imagine.

I've talked to every presidential person slash candidate. I've talked to Kings. I've talked to princes, princesses. I've talked to, athletes, celebrities. that's the cool part about sleep is it really infiltrates everyone and everything. And so I tell people all the time, like sleep is a lot like love.

The less you look for it, the more it shows up. So don't worry, about trying to get perfect sleep. Sleep is flexible, right? It's okay. If you don't get eight hours every single night. Okay. Don't shoot for that. Cause you're just going to piss yourself off, right? think about what makes sense and then get what you need for you.

James Lacey: That's great. And it's, a lot more restful and yeah, and peaceful of information that I've heard before. that's, good to know, when I want to be sensitive to the fact that, we've run over a little bit, but question, this is one of the key questions we ask. And then I'd love to just hear any last space that you would love to add on, and even any more information on sleep.com as well. But is there. something that you would say to the question of what real fulfillment means to you?

Michael Breus: Real fulfillment I think comes in a lot of different forms to people. and I think we're all fortunate in that we can get a lot of flavors of fulfillment. as an example, I find myself feeling very fulfilled when I'm, for example, working with my son, that or my daughter, that fulfillment in a very unique way.

sometimes I feel fulfillment, if I make a great stock trade, or have a great business deal. sometimes I feel fulfillment, when I work out and I have a personal best, I've been tracking my, VO two max lately and trying to push myself a little bit further in that area. I think I feel fulfillment there.

I think the key for fulfillment. Is allowing yourself to feel it. Most people, they just bypass it. They're like, oh yeah, I did that. And they don't stop for a second and be like, I did something pretty cool for myself. I think that's the big missing piece. When we're talking about any type of fulfillment is just do yourself a favor recognize that you did something cool today. Stop the negative self talk

James Lacey: That's great.

I'm so guilty of that of not right. Yeah, I do. Yeah, that's great. I'm gonna remember that. Yeah, doctor. Is there anything else that you would like to go into touch on? Share with us?

Michael Breus: I’ll tell you what I want people to go buy this book. So do me a favor. Go by sleep, drink, breathe. Check out me on social media.

I'm happy to connect with you. Answer your questions. But the goal really is to get the book in people's hands and hopefully teach people how to sleep, drink and breathe a little bit better. So I hope everybody has a wonderful, rest of their year. Thank you And I look forward to hopefully interacting with you through the book or whatever means possible.

James Lacey: Dr. Michael Breus, that was incredible. The level of experience and insight into such a niche topic, but one that takes up, I think, at least a third of our life, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. thank you for sharing. And I know this is going to impact a lot of lives. yeah, you heard it. Go buy the book. Go to sleepdoctor.com. You can find more information. and then I believe you can go to sleepdoctor.com/book and you'll find out where to purchase. thank you so much for your time today and for sharing. Of course. That is it for today's episode of Fulfilled Podcast. We'll be back soon. Sweet dreams.

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