JP Sears: Ego, Comedy & Becoming Ultra Spiritual

Watch the full interview below or listen to the full episode on your iPhone HERE.

Guy:  This week we welcome to the show author, speaker, comedian and internet Youtube sensation JP Sears. He is known for his satirical parodying of veganism, gluten-free fads, new age beliefs, and other “modern hippy” topics with his video series Ultra Spiritual. JP has also been a life coach for over sixteen years helping people overcome their own difficulties and personal challenges.

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Full Transcript

Guy
Hey, this is Guy Lawrence from 180 Nutrition, and of course welcome to another fantastic episode of The Health Sessions, where we are connecting with leading global health and wellness experts to share the best and the latest science thinking empowering us all to turn our health and lives around. I want to apologize up front first because it’s been a few weeks since our last podcast episode, but Stu had to go back to the UK, so we took a podcast sabbatical for the last few weeks, but we are back with a vengeance because our awesome guest this week is JP Sears. I loved every minute of this episode. [00:01:00] He is the man behind the viral comedy videos, and if you haven’t seen any of them you’ve probably been either, A, not on social media, or B, living under a cave, but becoming Ultra Spiritual, and he does an amazing job of getting a great message out there, helping light up the world, but doing it with so much satire and comedy at the same time. It’s just fantastic and if you haven’t seen any of his videos, boy, definitely check them out after this podcast today. According to Wikipedia, JP Sears is a life coach, an internet comedian. He is known for his satirical parodying of veganism, gluten free ads, New Age beliefs, and other modern happy topics with his video series Ultra Spiritual. Did I tell you I’m a bit dyslexic? I can’t even get my words out sometimes. [00:01:30] Like I said, this podcast goes off in all sorts of directions and it was great to see the other side of JP today as well, as we get into some profound topics, may I say it. The other thing I wanted to mention as well, we are offering, if you haven’t tried any of our 180 products back on our website, we are offering a 15% discount for all our listeners. That’s right, you can get our famous smoothie super food mix, our greens, the l-glutamine to help sugar cravings and improve the gut health as well. If you go back on there, we even got the new bars up there now, which we’re super excited about, and of course, all these products fit in with our values and beliefs, and thousands of people are using them every single day. [00:02:00] The 15% discount code if you want to take advantage of it at the moment, you simply enter at checkout “180 podcast.” That’s 180 podcast in the discount field during the checkout, and you can enjoy 15% off at the moment. Anything else I need to add? That’s probably it at the moment. Enjoy this podcast with JP Sears. Beautiful.
Hey, this is Guy Lawrence. I’m joined by Stuart Cooke, as always. Good morning Stu.
Stu
Good morning Guy. [00:02:30]
Guy
Our awesome guest today is JP Sears. JP, welcome to the show mate.
JP
Guy and Stu. Thank you for having me on brothers. Happy to be here with you.
Guy
It’s an honor dude, it’s an honor. Now, mate, we ask one question to every guest on the show, and [crosstalk 00:02:44]-
JP
Man. Short show. I like that.
Stu
Very short.
Guy
Straight off the bat.
Stu
Short and sharp.
Guy
That is if a complete stranger stopped you on the street and asked you what you did for a living, what would you say? [00:03:00]
JP
[00:03:30] Honestly, as that’s been happening, my answer that I’m giving in real life is I don’t know. There’s so many facets of what I do. I think the heart and soul of what I do is I use connection and creativity to help people hopefully live more meaningful lives. My rambling on answer is I make videos, I do a lot of speaking and performing, got a book. I work with different companies, help them promote their products with brand deals. All that equals is I’m confused. Do a bunch of stuff which is all fun for me at least.
Guy
It’s a busy life, mate. That’s for sure, well, it is from the outside looking in, anyway. We see you appearing everywhere at the moment on the internet. It’s quite amazing.

JP
[00:04:00] Cool. Thank you for noticing how busy I am. That makes my inner workaholic feel validated. It honestly has been a breakneck pace here the past few months. Tons of travel. Amazing things happening, great blessings, great projects, so many of them all at once that if I was to be a pretentious white guy it would be like, “Wow. I have a big problem of having so many great opportunities all at once. Poor me.”
Stu
[00:04:30] I get it. I get it. I was just saying to you that I see you all over the internet and just have me in stitches about all of the different angles that you cover. Obviously comedy is a huge part of what you do. Have you always used this approach?
JP
[00:05:00] Professionally no. Professionally comedy just came about right at three years ago. At the time I had no idea it’d become a thing that’s more of a thing than I could have imagined. I thought it’d just be a one-time video. I thought it’d be bad for business, actually. That’s why it took me so long to make a comedy video up until that point. I had been doing emotional healing client coaching work for 13 years, and some nutrition work in there as well. [inaudible 00:05:14] just thinking, “Yeah, acting like a comedic, satirical goofball on video, that’d be bad for your business. Who would want to work with that kind of guy?” In my personal life the comedy has really always been at play. [00:05:30] [00:06:00] I think, like so many other dysfunctional people, I used comedy in my childhood to escape pain. Really it’s just like if I can make people laugh, I feel significant, at least on the outside for three and a half minutes, so I don’t have to feel my insecurities and sense of insignificance inside. I used comedy as a child for that reason, and also to have fun. I don’t want to just pretend like life is really crap. It’s like, no, life is awesome too. It’s been an awesome adventure to integrate comedy into my work life, and kind of like the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It’s really created a beautiful experience that I am incredibly grateful for.
Stu
Brilliant.
Guy
It’s fantastic.
Stu
[00:06:30] Just on that note quickly as well, Guy, what’s the balance between the message and the comedy in there as well? I watched a skit of yours just yesterday and I showed my wife, and it was a gluten intolerance one. It had us in stitches, but the message, the underlying message is kind of important as well. Where is that balance between what you want to say and then the way that you say it as well?
JP
[00:07:00] [00:07:30] I don’t know what the balance is to be honest with you. Is there a balance is a great question that we should discuss for a few hours that’ll probably be answerless. To maybe speak in the direction; I probably won’t satisfy the question completely. It’s important for me to respect the subject matter that I’m doing comedy on. The how to become gluten intolerant video where I’m basically taking the piss out of people who are gluten intolerant and live gluten free. I’ve been gluten intolerant and gluten free for 15 or 16 years. That comes from my life experience, and I very much respect gluten free living as a tool that can really be really good for some people, and honestly life changing for some other people, and for others it doesn’t make a difference. [00:08:00] [00:08:30] With a video like that, little secret of my trade if you will, is the video isn’t really about gluten free living. It’s about the BS, human, egotistical controlling behaviors that we all have. We’re all humans. We all poop out of our butts, literally as well as psychologically, we all do poopy things. We like to hide those egotistical, controlling behaviors, judgment, we hide them behind altruistic hiding spots. It’s like, yeah, that’s an health issue, so that’s the trump card that just negates further discussion, which means my beady little ego, it can’t be found out or I’ll hide it behind the trump card of religion. You can’t question that. That’s behind religion. That’s behind spirituality. That’s behind yoga. [00:09:00] It’s like, no, no, let’s actually look at that. Let’s not make that off limits and just let the altruistic hiding spot be a hiding spot. Let’s open that up and look beyond the philosophy of gluten free living in this case, and find what are the behaviors, what are the mindsets that I can actually enhance my life from when I become aware of them, and start to actually better myself beyond how I act like a jerk, but I hide that from myself because I call that gluten free living. How I’m a control freak, but I hide that from myself because I hide it behind gluten free living, or being a vegan, or being a paleo. I notice that with myself. Gluten free here specifically, I’d go visit my parents and it’s like, “This isn’t gluten free. This is bad.” [00:09:30] [00:10:00] After a few years of doing that, I started to realize, “JP, that’s not being gluten free. That’s being a jerk.” That’s something separate. Gluten free is over here. That means I don’t eat gluten. Being a jerk and a control freak it had been hiding. I believe we can’t get out of a jail we don’t know we’re in. A lot of my videos, I hope that they’re lights of awareness that we can use to find some of the jails that we lock ourselves in, the jail of small thinking, the jail of shame-based feeling, shame-based thinking, being a control freak, but we even control how we’re controlling by hiding it from ourselves. Hopefully there’s some kind of balance in there for the good of human kind.
Stu
[00:10:30] Absolutely. I like that you use the phrase “the light of awareness,” away, because absolutely, it does make you look at yourself. When you watch these videos, you have a great laugh, but at the same time you think, well, there’s a little bit of me in there. Maybe I [inaudible 00:10:33].
JP
[00:11:00] On that note, a little bit of me in there, I find if you laugh at the video or get angry at the video, that’s the sure sign you’re looking in the mirror. If you have zero reaction, like, “That didn’t make me laugh and I’m also not offended,” there’s probably not much of you in the video. When we have the emotional reaction, whether it’s pleasurable, like, “Oh, yeah. You got me there,” or, “Goddammit. How dare he say that?” It’s like, yep, got you.
Guy
Do you get much anger back at all, JP, from the videos?
JP
[00:11:30] [00:12:00] Some. I’m blessed. I have my videos be pretty well viewed, so for as well-viewed as they are, I’m shocked that there’s not more angry, hateful comments. I think it’s, I don’t know, if I had to guesstimate, it’s probably 5% or less of all the comments are hater comments, angry comments. In fact, even when they are, I welcome them. I don’t stay up at night reading them. I don’t engage in that negative comments. They actually help the YouTube algorithms. The more comments there are, so it’s like, well, that actually helps. I also like to have fun with that. Seeing over the couple of years of making comedy videos, I’d see, okay, you can’t say anything meaningful without someone getting offended, so that gave me the idea of well why don’t I just make a video about how to get offended to actually take the piss out of those people instead of being afraid of them, avoiding them, let me actually hug them and embrace the issue. [00:12:30] [00:13:00] It’s like haters are welcome, I’ll just somehow use the … Kind of like Akido. Someone’s attacking you, you use their force against them, only in this sense it’s not necessarily intended to be against anybody. It’s meant to use the force for the haters to drive their nose into their self-awareness, like let me reflect to you what I experience you doing, acting out, offended, no matter what’s said, so let me actually portray that in a very noticeable way in the video called How to Get Offended.
Stu
Love it.
Guy
I’m curious as well from the creativity side of things, because it’s pretty amazing. You’re turning out the videos and they’ve all got, like Stu said, some meaning and some comedy behind it, and there’s a message behind it. Does it come naturally to you constantly, and you just turn up, or is there a lot of planning that goes behind them? [00:13:30]
JP
[00:14:00] [00:14:30] I love the question. There’s definitely planning that goes behind most videos. I’m scripting them and giving it some thought and contemplation, if I want to sound wiser than I actually am. As far as finding the creative rhythm, for actually the past three or four months I’ve been putting out one video a week. I don’t find a shortage of ideas, to be honest with you. I think it’s taken me a while to call it strengthening the muscle of my creativity, where I can put out a video a week, and it just seems like there’s too many ideas rather than too few ideas. I think the challenge would be time, the time to make a video, which I’ve had to grow and learn and adjust the past three years since I started making videos. Where it used to be the sort of thing where, “Let me make a video once in a while when I have time.” Now, it’s very much an integral part of my schedule where I’ve had to cut things, amputate things out of my schedule that were there a couple of years ago, because videos, for me, are certainly one of the priorities. [00:15:00]
Stu
Do you have a team, like a big team or is it just you? I’m intrigued as to what people think you do?
JP
Videowise I have the best team. They’re all the most beautiful people in the world you’ll ever see, and you’re looking at all of them right now.
Stu
[inaudible 00:15:17].
JP
[00:15:30] [00:16:00] With the videos, I am basically a one-man team where I’ve got my camera right here. I’m looking at it, and I do all my own editing. Oftentimes it’s just me and my camera. When my beautiful fiance Amber, when she’s around, sometimes she’ll hit record for me or move the camera. She’ll be in a lot of my videos, or if I have friends around and that’s going to be a creative amplification for the video, I’ll have other people involved. For all intents and purposes, videowise being a one-man show, that’s how I roll, and I find even the editing that I still like having my hands on that steering wheel. With comedy the timing of things, how I edit a video influences the comedic rhythm of it. [00:16:30] [00:17:00] What I do have a team for, I’ve got my executive assistant Karen who runs my schedule, and she does so many things for me so that I can stay more in call it my genius, rather than the busy work that needs to be done, but it’s not the big bang work that really lights me up inside nor produces. I’ve got a manager and agent who takes care of a bunch of the business kind of stuff, and then another team member, a beautiful guy named Tyler Ward. He and I just launched a membership community together, helping people live more meaningful lives through playfulness and purposefulness. I’d say a fantastic team outside of the video work.
Stu
Got it.
Guy
[00:17:30] God, it’d be a lot of work. A question that popped in there as well, JP, was because of the great message that you’re putting out there as well between the self, the ego, and the human experience, and grappling with that constantly, and I’m curious has the, I guess, your popularity and the success of the videos and that, has it affected your life in any way or the way you work with your own ego and self as well?
JP
Guy, could you elaborate for another 45 minutes on how popular I am?
Stu
Yes. We can.
Guy
You’ll be even more popular after this podcast, mate, I promise you. [00:18:00]
JP
[00:18:30] [00:19:00] I bet. I know you guys do wonderful work. I’ve definitely had to check my ego. I’ve had to grow by necessity. When I look at the level of recognition and call it fame, whatever level of fame that I’ve gotten, I’m thinking like, man, this is actually hard sometimes, not to be a pretentious jerk, like, “My life is hard because I’ve got a level of fame.” Just to be real, there’s definitely challenges that come with it. I look at some of the people who have had mega fame from a young age like, say, Justin Bieber. I have, whatever, .1% of that starting when I’m 33, not 13. I look at his life and I’d say I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. No way. When I started to have a level of fame, I’d had call it 14 years of very committed self-work, personal development, healing my heart, getting a sense of self, and even with that pretty solid foundation, man, yeah, it’s still hard sometimes. [00:19:30] [00:20:00] I think what I mean by hard is when I receive a lot of praise, I go out in town and people recognize me, and want to take pictures, tell me how awesome I am, it’s a temptation of my ego to want to start to think that I am who these people think I am. That would be the surest, easiest, most pleasurable way to lose myself. It probably wouldn’t be painful and self-destructive for a few months or years down the road, but that is a slippery slope that I have to watch. I have a saying, pardon my French, that I always remind myself, which is I shit out of my asshole too. When I start to think like, “Yeah, man. How awesome am I?” This past weekend I was just sharing a stage with Tony Robbins, Peter Diamandis, some amazing people speaking at this event. [00:20:30] [00:21:00] I’m not going to BS you and tell you that meant nothing to my ego. My ego it needed to inflate for a couple of days about that. I do my best to check it and be real and just remind myself I shit out of my asshole too. To me it’s like being on a surfboard, I’ve got to keep adjusting my center of gravity. It’s a awesome wave I feel very blessed to be on. I don’t know how long it will last, how big it will get, yet I want to enjoy it while I’m on it. It’s a thrilling one, and I don’t want to lose myself while I’m on it. I don’t want the wave that excites me to drown me. I do my best to keep it real for myself.
Stu
Fantastic.
Guy
Beautiful. Stu.
Stu
You’ve got a book, How to be Ultra Spiritual. I’m intrigued as to what we can expect from this, and also from like, I guess, a positioning perspective. Is this a serious spiritual book or is this a comedic take on being spiritual? Tell me about it. [00:21:30]
JP
[00:22:00] [00:22:30] It’s more important than the Bible. It’s more practical than a phone book. The book, it’s my comedic taking the piss out of the spiritual movement, the New Age culture, some nutrition culture, as that’s part of the New Age. While I take a piss, people can expect a laugh, they can expect to be entertained, and in my opinion there’s also deeper messages embedded there. One of the pervading messages is certainly don’t take yourself so seriously. The path you take to find yourself, you’ll eventually lose yourself on if you don’t let yourself become bigger than the path. The positioning of the book, it’s a comedy book, and in hindsight the idea of let’s sell a million books, it’s like, yeah, you got to sell someone’s pain point. It’s like, yeah, this doesn’t do that. [00:23:00] It was just so fun to write. I think it’s a great entertaining experience with hopefully a beneficial deeper message. Man, I had so much fun with the book. It’s been a great project for me to be involved in, and hopefully it’s a piece of, dare I say it, art that people can appreciate when it vibes with them to check it out.
Guy
Are you still coaching clients one-on-one, or has it gotten too busy now that you’re flitting around?

JP
[00:23:30] [00:24:00] I no longer do one-on-one client coaching. When the comedy videos and then the ensuing projects started coming about a few years, my coaching went from five days a week to four days a week. Open up one day to work on other projects, then it went down to three days a week, then two days a week, and then earlier this year, actually right at the beginning of the year, I decided it’s now time to let go of the client practice. It’s been a great source of nourishment both learning life wisdom, working with people on their minds, hearts, souls, their psyches, and it’s supported me financially. It’s like that juice had been squeezed. It served a great purpose, and it was time to move on. [00:24:30] Actually just about a month ago, something, at the time I didn’t know it, but what’s actually come about to take its place is I launched my community membership program where it’s certainly not one-on-one coaching, yet it’s me taking the sincerity in my heart from all the 16 years of coaching experience and combining that with the comedy that makes lots of people laugh, and providing an offering for people in a community with group coaching.
Guy
Yeah. Fair enough. I’ve got to ask you as well, JP, and I’m curious because what led you into this work in the first place? Has it always been ingrained in you kind of thing, like that curious mind to search, or was there an event that happened? [00:25:00]
JP
[00:25:30] I think part of what led me was my need for healing, my need for growth. Out of my arrogance when I was in my late teens and early 20s, my arrogant mindset is I want to learn about this stuff, I want to learn about health, I want to learn about nutrition, I want to learn about emotional healing so I can help other people. I did the old, cheeky, just project my need onto other people, which was great. It got me in the door, and once I was in the door and start working with very legit teachers and mentors, right away they’re rubbing my face that, “Yeah, you need to do your own work, or else you have zero business doing this work for other people.” It’s like going up to a 200 kilo nutritionist. It’s like that’s you got to be congruent. [00:26:00] [00:26:30] I started doing my own healing of my wounding, my traumas, and learning about, well, I don’t know who I am, so who am I authentically, so taking steps on my journey of finding myself. That got me in the door, and there is also another what I call a gluten free breadcrumb trail set up, where initially I was interested in exercise, and this is when I was 18. It’s like, “Let me do personal training, start learning about that and help people with exercise,” and I’d been exercising, lifting weights since I was 10 or 11, and athlete, so that was sort of a natural thing. [00:27:00] Then that breadcrumb of exercise led me into nutrition, and once I discovered legit nutrition, not just the garbage I would see in bodybuilding magazines back there which is kind of anti-nutrition, it’s, “Wow. Nutrition. I thought exercise was powerful for transforming people, helping them get out of pain, helping them have a great quality of life, look amazing, but nutrition. Wow. That blows exercise out of the water.” It was amazing. Then I inched forward on my journey, and then nutrition led me into understanding stress reduction as it pertains to the hormonal system. I went like, “That’s massive.” Then the generality of stress reduction was a gluten free breadcrumb that got me into much more intimate, heartfelt emotional healing work. [00:27:30] [00:28:00] That was a breadcrumb trail that then got me into integrating comedy into it all. I don’t know what breadcrumb right now I … I integrated it all. Okay, this is just a breadcrumb to probably what’s next. What does this lead me into? I’m stubborn, so I think back when I was 18 or 19 if you held where I’m at in front of me, I’d be like, “That’s stupid.” Life knows I’m stubborn enough that I needed a breadcrumb trail to trick me and entice me to go where I need to go. Guy: [00:28:30] Beautiful. It’s funny because myself and Stu will often have a conversation about us feeling very privileged, because we’ve been podcasting for four and a half years, and we’ve had some amazing people on here, JP, just like yourself. It’s opened up our eyes to things that we probably wouldn’t have considered in the past, and just seeing that information come from a different place, and be able to apply it, and it’s very powerful. It’s very powerful indeed. It does, it checks your beliefs. It checks your ego. It checks where you’re at and how you perceive the world right then. It’s good stuff.
JP
Right on. I’d imagine you guys would have to work really hard to not learn and not grow doing what you guys do.
Guy
Totally. [00:29:00]
Stu
[00:29:30] I think so. Somebody said to us you can’t unlearn what you’ve learnt, and certainly in this sphere sometimes you wish you could, because it opens your eyes to a whole new way of thinking in terms of diet and exercise and mindset and all of the above. We do. Sponge-like, you take it all on and then you need to sit down and try and make sense of it in the end, I think. We’re very privileged. I’m intrigued as to your advice for those people right now that aren’t perhaps in the best place, and I’m talking about they’re maybe depressed, or stressed, or unhappy. Where would you take them given what you currently do?
JP
[00:30:00] [00:30:30] First off I would invite anybody who feels depressed, like first off realize you’re not the only one. Everybody goes through it and some people are right there in a deep place of depression too, so you got to realize you’re not the only one. Then second, I definitely recommend looking at depression as an opportunity. Depression, I think, is a messenger. We can have a very negative view of depression, and that just seems to perpetuate the cycle of depression, but if we start to look at depression like, wow, this is actually a messenger delivering a message. Now, granted, it’s not a pleasant messenger. It’s knocking in a way that’s very abrasive. It doesn’t feel good. When we start to learn from our depression, I think that’s one of the first and second steps to getting out of it. [00:31:00] [00:31:30] I do believe we stay depressed as long as we need to be depressed. The longer it takes us to learn the lessons that the messenger of depression is showing up to learn, then longer we’ll have depression. I like to imagine and I like to ask everybody to imagine what if you had in your car, your GPS system, but this isn’t just any GPS system. Let’s just say you’ve got your destination where it’s very purposeful for you to get to this destination. It’s like it’s your life purpose. There it is, the destination, but what happens if your GPS system was so wise and sophisticated that it would slow down your car if you’re driving in the wrong direction? Let’s say you’re driving 90 degrees from your destination. [00:32:00] [00:32:30] It’s like the car RPMs are slowing down. The accelerators pushed down, but it’s only going 20 kilometers an hour. We wanted it to go 100 kilometers an hour. Then let’s say we turn even further. Let’s say now we’re 180 degrees in the opposite direction of our destination, and now the GPS system actually shuts our car down. In other words, it depresses the acceleration of our car. We could look at that and say, “This is so crappy. This is inconvenient,” but when we realize that GPS system is working in our favor, it’s slowing us down and making the car run sluggish because we’re doing something that’s not in our best interests. I think depression is actually a call for us to really look at our life. What are we doing that we need to let go of, because our GPS system has slowed down our mind-body? We’re not running at high RPMs. [00:33:00] What do I need to let go of? Normally we don’t look at that inventory. We never ask the question, so we never let go of things that are expired. We all know in our digestive tract, if you don’t let go of what you need to let go of, you’ll be constipated. It’ll fill you with toxicity. It won’t be good for you. Think the same thing with roles we play, things we do, sometimes relationships. The other thing that we need to ask ourselves in addition, in my opinion, in addition to what do I need to let go of: what do I need to allow in? When we start contemplating those questions, which there are not easy answers or else we’d already have them, but we can’t get the answers until we embrace the questions. What do I need to let go of? What do I need to allow in? What change do I need to make? What risks do I need to take? [00:33:30] [00:34:00] Once we ask those questions, we begin learning from the messenger of depression. We begin opening ourselves to the message that this gift, honestly, called depression is here to give us. Sure as hell doesn’t feel like a gift while we have it. I get that. I don’t want to disrespect anybody’s depression. It feels like all hell. I’ve been there, yet I don’t want to victimize anybody and just go into the “poor me” status. I want to realize we can empower ourselves from something that feels very disempowering.
Guy
What an answer.
Stu
That’s a great analogy. I really like that.
Guy
[00:34:30] I was going to say do you think that it needs to be the pain is great enough before change comes? We seem to be living in a world where we’re looking at the external for happiness. We never really stop to look within, so to speak. What have you found from your experience of working with people? Is that the case [crosstalk 00:34:32]?
JP
[00:35:00] [00:35:30] I dare say, unfortunately, pain seems to be the best motivator, and certainly for that initial turning of our gaze of how to build a sense of significance, purpose and value in the world. To turn our gaze initially from how we try to do that on the outside: money, status, relationships, build a sense of significance through however we do that, and to turn our gaze inward and try to find all that inside of ourselves, my experience is oftentimes it takes a lot of pain to get us to turn our attention inward. When we’re depressed, we don’t feel good. It becomes a very visceral experience, which is sort of this alarm is going off so we start to pay attention to it, start to bring our gaze inward. I think one of the tricks of life is our eyes point outward, but maybe the mission is to learn to see who’s looking through our eyes, even though they point outward. [00:36:00] [00:36:30] That’s my experience, and I think once we begin our journey of looking inward, whatever that painful motivator was, it could have been the loss of a relationship, it could have been depression, anxiety, for some people it’s a physical illness, but once we do that we can learn quicker next time. As we go along our journey, I think we need pain as a motivator less and less and inspiration can become a motivator where we start to get motivated by what excites us; with a sense of purpose, what excites us. Which is, in other words, our car actually going faster when we’re pointed towards our true north rather than the pain of the car is shut down and it just feels like crap in here, when we’re going away from our true north using pain as a motivator. [00:37:00] I don’t want to be pessimistic, because like, yeah, life is crap. We need pain. It’s like, well, we need pain until we don’t. Then we can use inspiration and excitement to motivate us.
Guy
Yeah. Totally. Like you say, if them experiences happen again once you’ve been through them, you tend to see them with different eyes and respond to them very differently to how you would have maybe five years ago or something. It’s a complete switch.
JP
[00:37:30] For sure. It’s like when you guys are in the gym, you might have 100 kilos on the bar, and you might be lifting that, and it’s like, “That’s a good workout.” Whereas maybe 20 years ago when you guys were just young bucks, and I know 20 years ago I wouldn’t be able to lift 100 kilos, so I’d look at that as like that could actually kill me. If that lays across my chest, that could kill me. Now, the perspective has shifted because you’ve entered that realm of challenge and you’ve mastered it. Five years after initially struggling with a given weight in life, yeah, now it’s like, yeah, this actually energizes me rather than threatens me.
Guy
Yeah. Totally. Great answer.
Stu
Love it. [00:38:00]
Guy
Could I keep asking the questions Stu? No problem there [crosstalk 00:38:04].
Stu
Mate, go for it. I’ll give you your moment of glory today.
Guy
Mate, what I want to know is we touched on nutrition and exercise earlier, you’re in great shape, mate, from what I can see on the videos.
JP
Thank you. I didn’t know you’d noticed, Guy.
Stu
The guns are out.
Guy
[00:38:30] The guns are out. Sun’s out, guns out. What’s your take on nutrition, because obviously we speak a lot about it and many theories.

JP
[00:39:00] [00:39:30] My one dogma about nutrition is to not have any dogma about nutrition, which is dogmatic in itself. I do believe that the only thing we as humans have in common is that we’re all different. From my delusional point of view I believe what serves one person nutritionally may actually disserve someone else. I think when we look at native populations across the Earth, people who live in Nigeria, Africa, near the equator, they have a very different food supply than Eskimos up in Alaska, yet when they eat their native diet, especially the natives who still live off the land, it’s like, wow, they are eating opposite and they’re both really healthy. It’s because they’re different. I love, first off, the idea of a lack of dogma and realizing I have no idea what someone should eat. [00:40:00] Yet, I think the wisdom of their body knows, and I think when they start to eat and pay attention to their mental clarity, their sense of emotional well-being, their physical energy as well as how their body looks, how it feels inside their own skin, I think that’s them listening to the wisest nutritional author who can advise them, which would be their inner wisdom. With that said, I think there’s also some general basics. Okay, I have dogma. Here’s my dogma. I think there’s some general basics that most people can really get enhanced by eating organic, whole foods. I think that’s a rule of generality that can probably benefit just about anybody. [00:40:30]
Stu
[00:41:00] Yeah. I think [inaudible 00:40:32]. I was just going to say it’s a good point. Because of what we do, we get access to lots of great technology and tests and stuff like that as well, and a while back Guy and myself had DNA testing done, and they profile you and tell you what you should be eating for your specific DNA. You get this huge report back. It’s like 80 pages, very technical and a cover sheet which surmises this whole thing. It was intriguing because really the way I should be eating for my DNA was kind of the way I was already eating anyway.
JP
Is that right?
Stu
I’d gravitated to that. Yeah. Totally. A few tweaks here or there.
JP
[00:41:30] I was just talking to people over the weekend, because I’m interested in a DNA test, because I feel pretty good how I eat, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a few things in there that work against me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some other things that I could integrate to really support me. Can I ask what specific test did you guys use, and were you happy with it?
Stu
We had a nutrigenomic DNA test.
JP:
Nutrigenomics.
Guy
I can’t even remember that word. I’m amazed you remembered that word, mate.
JP
[inaudible 00:41:44].
Stu
[00:42:00] [00:42:30] You just ask me. Essentially it was just looking at a whole range of factors in terms of gut health, brain health, cardiovascular system, all the way through and it scored your likeliness of depression based upon the genes that came up to diabetes, and then it was just recommending foods based upon epigenetics, so the ability to turn on and turn off these genes. As it transpired, a lot of the stuff that I was doing was already in place in terms of they recommended, well, you need to eat more sulfurous, cruciferous vegetables, and I was already doing that. I was eating truckloads of it. You gravitate to stuff that makes you feel good.
Guy
There’s a bit of both in there. I found with my exercise came up as well with my DNA. I actually changed the way I exercise slightly after it, and that helped a lot in terms of-
JP
Really? Can I ask, for example, what kind of change did you make [crosstalk 00:42:47]?
Guy
[00:43:00] Yeah. In terms of actually giving myself more recovery, so that everything was to be shorter, heavier, and stay away from the more endurance kind of thing that would stress the … Honestly, so I was spreading that out more, and adjusting that as opposed to crossfit where I was doing, and I definitely feel a huge difference. I’m one to walk lots and then train really hard in a really short space of time, and then just walk lots again, during each other day and stuff like that. That helped a lot. There was definitely some things that were unearthed that you go, “Ah. I kind of thought that, but that’s good reassurance.” [00:43:30]
JP
[00:44:00] I think those kind of tests are fascinating and I won’t speak from a place of wisdom. I haven’t used them, but as I mentioned, I’m very interested in them. I was talking to someone over the weekend and I just imagine maybe in the future these kind of tests will completely disrupt call it the nutrition publishing industry, where a lot of great nutrition books out there. I never want them to go away. I think they can be a great guiding light, and I also think there’s what I would call some predatory nutrition books, that it’s like, okay, let’s make a ton of money, let’s just make a New York Times bestselling nutrition book, and in order to do that we have to try to convince people that everybody needs this book, which kind of says we have maybe a one-size-fits-all approach, lack of a better term. [00:44:30] When we can cut out the middleman and just go straight to, let’s just say, an easy to understand, highly accurate test and be like, “No. Dear book, publishing industry, this test tells me what I need to eat, so I don’t need you anymore.” I just wonder is that where we’re going in the future nutritionally.
Stu
[00:45:00] [00:45:30] Yeah. I think so, and especially if you look at 10 years ago where we didn’t really even coin the phrase microbiome or mitochondria, and hormones, and adrenal fatigue, and all that kind of stuff wasn’t really spoken about. We had a good chat with another guest earlier on this year, and he went through a similar DNA experience where it was unveiled that he was very dogmatic about no dairy, no wheat, no gluten, none of the above. It was found that, well, you actually need some high quality dairy in your diet to do X, which made him feel like superman. He started introducing all this stuff again based upon this newfound knowledge. He said it just supercharged him. I love technology and I love where it’s going, because I think that we’re going to go in a very different way to where we are right now.
Guy
Totally.
JP
I think that’s amazing.
Guy
[00:46:00] The other thing is as well, which makes a great conversation, is nutrition is still only one spoke in the wheel of a healthy life, and sometimes we can get obsessed with it and put it down, and I love, I’m not sure you’re familiar with The Blue Zones at all, JP.
JP
Is that a book?
Guy
Yeah. There is a book called The Blue Zones, and there’s five of them in the world where they looked at where there was the lowest disease population and the highest longevity.
JP
I’m familiar with the term, but not familiar with the wisdom of it. I’d love to hear.
Guy
[00:46:30] There’s some nuggets of wisdom in there. The take-home message for me was live an unprocessed life, really, from it, where everything was just back to the basics and stress, they didn’t even know what stress was, which sadly in the Western society is not quite the case.

JP
[00:47:00] [00:47:30] Yeah. I think that’s so wise, and I think there’s a … Use the word balance again. There’s an interesting balance that I look for and I think a lot of people look for. I wouldn’t be surprised if you guys are the same, where living an unprocessed life absolutely, yet still being able to use technology, live where you need to live, so that you can contribute and live your purpose. I think some people actually violate their purpose and disconnect from it as a way of becoming the monk who just escapes life, live in the monastery. Very unprocessed life, but that might not be everybody’s calling. How do I participate in the processing world while still being unprocessed to the core or have the right ratio? What is it, 80% unprocessed and then 20% go get fried by electromagnetic fields in the big office building, or stress and traffic downtown.
Guy
[00:48:00] 100%. There’s definitely an acceptance, isn’t there, like, hey, we’re living in this world. We can’t alienate ourselves from it and wrap ourselves in a bubble ball or something to get through the day or anything like that.
Stu
That’s right. I’ll time my meditation on my new iPhone X [inaudible 00:48:09].
JP
[00:48:30] [00:49:00] That’s the definition of balance right there. I love it. It’s perfect. Actually, I love that. I have a pet peeve about meditation apps, and my pet peeve is they’re stored on the phone. I think that the phone is one of the most unmeditative forces in our lives, where so much if not everything on the phone is designed to draw our attention outside of us, onto the phone and keep it on the phone, which to me is basically the opposite of meditation. To me meditation is bring your attention into yourself. To me it’s like serving the medicine on poisonous leaves. I don’t know. I’ve got a little pet peeve about the meditation apps, simply because they’re on the phone. There’s probably great techniques a lot of them, great meditation technology, but, man, the problem is they’re on the phone.
Guy
Totally.
Stu
That’s right. These things control our lives. They really do.
Guy
[00:49:30] It’s interesting, because meditation is a big part of my life JP, and I used to use apps and things, and I always used to get the feeling, “Oh, great. I’ve just done my 20 minutes. I’m good to go,” and off I go and actually miss the whole point of the other thing in the first place. Rookie error. That’s all right.
JP
For sure.
Guy
Mate, I got one more question for you. I know time’s getting on a little bit. Exercise, how do you exercise? What do you normally do?
JP
I start my day, I run 50 kilometers and then set world records in the bench press, which is …
Guy
100 kilo. [00:50:00]
JP
[00:50:30] … standard [crosstalk 00:49:58]. My exercise present day is majority of it is with weights and they’re basic movements. A lot of it’s probably be classified as functional training where when I’m at home I have gym equipment just in my garage. I love the convenience and just the solitude of working out at home. No gym bros there mugging in the mirror just inflating their ego and making me angry, because I used to do that. I don’t want to admit it, so I get angry. Anything with a barbell, kettlebells, body weight, pull up bar, squat rack. That’s basically what I’m doing, you know, rings, so pull ups, lots of squats, presses with bars, dumbbells, kettlebell swings to keep it real. [00:51:00] [00:51:30] I do like to also cycle and a fair bit of slow tempo training, so longer eccentrics, three or four seconds on the eccentric just to get a lot of bang for my buck, a lot of time under tension to really squeeze the growth hormone response, just so I get more per minute of gym time. It used to be in maybe my 20s I liked to be in the gym for a long period of time, an hour and a half, sometimes two hours. It was kind of a social thing and I think much like you, Guy, that’s not the best workout for me. I feel better with shorter workouts going pretty hard for about 45 minutes, sometimes less time. That’s my workouts. [00:52:00] My fiance Amber, she’s a great influence. She loves yoga. I love how I feel after I’m done with yoga. I haven’t learned to love the process of it. In a good week I’m getting two or three yoga sessions in as well, which is great for me, and on a bad week I get zero yoga in.
Guy
Fantastic.
Stu
Brilliant. I love it.
Guy
[00:52:30] There’s a good balance, similar to mine, and with the odd surf over here as well though, and that we’ll throw in a couple of times a week. We’ve got a couple of questions we ask everyone on the show, JP, and the first one is what are your non-negotiables to be the best version of yourself each day?
JP
[00:53:00] One of the non-negotiables is sleep. It’s everything in my power for me to get the sleep I need. Man, I wish I could get by on less sleep and I’ve tried, but I’ve just learned sleep for me is an absolute non-negotiable. Water is the other non-negotiable. Being well-hydrated, if I had nothing else, it’s like give me water. I’ll just not eat for the day. I’ll not worry about it, but I need water. That’s an absolute huge non-negotiable. If I could throw-
Stu
Sorry. I’m just going to rudely interrupt, but just on your sleep do you have any personal sleep hacks that you adhere to every night to make it happen? [00:53:30]
JP
I’ll throw a couple of things at you. Generally speaking I keep the room as dark as I can. I’m in hotels a lot. I’m in a Airbnb right now, and when there is a electrical clock in the room that puts out light, I’ll even put a towel over that because I just want the room to be as dark as possible. Maximize the melatonin secretion. Are you guys familiar with, he’s a founder of Bulletproof Coffee, Dave Asprey? [00:54:00]
Stu
Yeah. You’re wearing the glasses or what?
JP
[00:54:30] I was just hanging with him this past weekend, and he gave me his TrueDark glasses and blue light blocking glasses. Yesterday, and I haven’t even read what the TrueDark glasses do that just turn everything red. I need to learn about them but I started using them. I got a good night of sleep last night, but that’s just one night. I think the real verdict, the results are not in yet because I need more to it. I’m playing around with that sleep hack.
Guy
Beautiful. You’ll have to let us know how the glasses go. We had Dave on a few months back and he was talking about them.
JP
He’s just a giant child. He’s very intelligent. I love him. I will say this about the TrueDark glasses, Amber is … She’s not impressed with how I look when I’m wearing them. She just thinks I look like a dork. [00:55:00]

Stu
Well, the proof will be in the pudding, as they say.
JP
Yeah. We shall see. Next time you guys see me, maybe I’ll be 30% more handsome and 50% more muscular and it’ll just be because … Stu: TrueDark. JP: … the sleep hacks are working. TrueDark.
Guy
Job done. Mate, last question. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? [00:55:30]
JP
[00:56:00] [00:56:30] It’s an amazing, amazing question. For me personally, this won’t apply to everybody, but for me personally guy named John McMullen, one of my original mentors. He’s still a mentor of mine in emotional healing. Just like angel inside of a human body. When I think I was 27 years old, maybe 26 actually, not that anybody gives a damn as I’m just fighting this mental battle, “Was it 27, 26? 26! Dammit.” He said, “JP, quit acting so stoic.” It was like, “I needed to hear that.” I was just being emotionally disconnected but expressing it as, “I guess I’m always calm and always centered.” John’s wise. He’s been around the block. He just called me out on it. I got to find a lot of me once I recognized this façade, this mask of stoicism that I was wearing. Quit being stoic, that was wonderful advice for me.
Guy
Beautiful.
Stu
Like it.
Guy
What does the future hold, mate? Have you got any exciting projects coming up?
JP
[00:57:00] [00:57:30] [00:58:00] Yeah. That’s a great question. I do have exciting projects. I appreciate you asking, Guy. Some of the projects here later this month in the US I’ll be doing a comedy tour, and then depending on how that goes from the business logistic perspective, likely do more full-on comedy touring doing comedy shows, stand-up shows next year. I’m itching to write another book. My membership community, nurturing that, growing that is very important for me. Something else about the future that excites me is how my creativity changes and evolves. With regard to my videos, I’m excited to … I don’t know what those will be in six months or a year from now, but I’m excited to find out. Then I think another piece of the future that’s definitely noteworthy is next year, June 2018, Amber and I will be getting married, so that’s a very important rite of passage and commitment, I think, rite of passage and freedom for the both of us. That’s definitely got me excited.
Guy
Amazing mate.
Stu
Brilliant news. Fantastic.
Guy
Where do we send everyone that wants to learn more about you, your book, and your members, and everything you got going, JP?
JP
[00:58:30] I’ll give you a couple of places. All my social media handles are Awaken with JP, and you can also check out my website, awakenwithjp.com. We’ve got membership information there and also other events I’ll be speaking at. If you all care to check me out, I’d love to connect with you online. Of course, if you find me boring or offensive, then Awaken with JP is the best place to ignore.
Stu
Love it. We shall send everyone there. Absolutely.
Guy
Totally. Are we going to see you in Australia anytime soon, mate? [00:59:00]
JP
That’s a good question. I would love for that to happen. Australia, right now, it’s not back on my schedule yet, but it’s really just a matter of time. I think the last time I was in Australia I spoke at a couple of conferences in Sydney and Melbourne. It was a year ago. It was November 2016. I’m itching to get back. I always love Australia.
Guy
Yeah. Beautiful.
Stu
Brilliant.
Guy
We’ll take you surfing when you come, mate. [inaudible 00:59:27]. JP: I’d love it. [00:59:30]
Guy
Good on you JP. Thank you so much for time today. That was fantastic. Really appreciate you coming on the show, mate.
Stu
It was. Brilliant.
JP
For sure, Stu and Guy. Thank you for having me.
Guy
Thanks gentlemen.
Stu
Thank you, buddy. You take care.