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Dave Asprey

Hacking Your Bacon IQ: The Bacon Centerfold

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Being a Bulletproof® Executive and all, I’m not one to read “Ladies Home Journal,”or “Men’s Journal” for that matter, where one can see all sorts of strangely groomed and waxed men primping with their expensive watches.  I’m more of a  Scientific American Mind kind of guy.

One morning, at the Hyatt Hotel in Denver, I sat down to a healthy, high-fat breakfast of poached eggs and avocado.  I selected these goods to fuel my brain before I went on stage in front of a few hundred people.  There, I spied a copy of Men’s Journal on a nearby table that was opened up to what can only be called a bacon centerfold containing glorious pictures of naked, gourmet bacon from some of the top bacon pimps in the country.

It’s a great review.  If you want to pick up some awesome bacon, this is a good place to start, but don’t forget Applegate Farms bacon, available at Whole Foods.  They were kind enough to reply to one of my earlier posts on bacon.

I wrote that real men (and women) cure their own bacon.  By that definition, I’m not a real man, but I plan to be one soon, thanks to this piece from Lifehacker.

The human body runs best on high-octane fuel, and the highest-octane food we have contains plenty of fat (refer to the Bulletproof Food section for a detailed explanation).  It also explains why I eat moderate amounts of bacon, yet have HDL (good) cholesterol levels of 86, which is higher than is theoretically possible for males on normal blood work charts.

Unburned bacon, from healthy animals, will NOT raise your cholesterol, or harm you in other ways.  If you burn it, however, you will create nitrosamines that are a corollary cause of cancer and migraines.  Overcooked bacon is also a dietary source of harmful, denatured protein.  Here’s the research to back that up.

Being a biohacker, I know that if you sprinkle even a small amount of an antioxidant (like vitamin C powder) on your bacon before you cook it, you block the formation of nitrosamines and small amounts won’t change the flavor.  The bacon in this picture is slightly blackened around the edges, which can mean that the bacon artist who made this used too much dextrose (sugars brown easily) or that the bacon is slightly burned.  Scared of nitrates or nitrite preservatives?  Vegetables like lettuce contain far more, on average, than bacon!

Only a bite of this juicy piece of bacon will satisfy my lust…for knowledge of course.  I must have some! 🙂

These high-end, bacon centerfold celebreties are beautiful and shapely, but I don’t think they can keep up with Jim, a bacon hacker who smokes the best bacon only 2 miles from my house.  It is with much regret that I will have to try them all to make sure.  To pursue the perfect bulletproof bacon, I will pair each sampling with my quest to brew the perfect cup of butter-enriched Bulletproof® coffee.  (Seriously.  I have a 6 pack and haven’t worked out in far too long…this is awesome!)

Direct links to the lovely bacon:

Applegate Farms
surryfarms.com
vanderosefarms.com 
smokehouse.com
lobels.com 
ncsmokehouse.com 
blackpigmeatco.com 
nodinessmokehouse.com

Special thanks to Herb Kim, founder of the Thinking Digital Conference, who recently coined the term “Bacon IQ.”  He’s also the guy who came up with the name “Bulletproof® Executive” several years ago on a flight from SFO to Heathrow as we sat across from each other in the Virgin Atlantic Upper Class section.

Dave Asprey’s “The Upgraded Self: Top 6 Biohacks”

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This video is from the talk I gave at the BIL 2011 Conference in Long Beach aboard the Queen Mary a few years ago. If you’ve ever wondered how I do what I do, this talk distils 15 years of experimenting into a half hour, then maps out how to do a lot of this stuff for yourself.

This presentation talks about real-world techniques I’ve assembled in my biohacking practice – things I used to increase my IQ, lose 100 lbs., radically reduce sleep, fit 40 years of Zen meditation into one very long week, and maintain an above-average career growth at the same time.

Here’s just some of the information I cover:

  • Some of my knowledge from years of nonprofit work with leading anti-aging physicians and researchers like Aubrey de Grey, Dr. Phillip Miller, Gary Taubes, along with extensive research (1300 references) completed for The Better Baby Book, the book I wrote with my wife Dr. Lana about how to have a healthy pregnancy and a smarter baby.
  • I introduce the exposome, explain why it’s bigger than your genome, and why it’s infinitely easier to biohack at any age than your genome.
  • We’ll cover the top 6 things you can do to upgrade yourself, ranging from bio and neurofeedback to upgrading immune function.

In this video, I talk about MCT oil, but this was before we really perfected Brain Octane, which isn’t just coconut oil or MCT oil, but made with C8 MCTs only, which metabolize into ketone energy more efficiently than other MCTs. Your body simply cannot store ketones from Brain Octane as fat; instead, it is excreted through your lungs (breath), or kidneys (urine). Pretty cool. I also mention high-quality grass-fed collagen.

If you’re curious about the Bulletproof Diet in its entirety, start here.

This is the most concise and prioritized summary of tricks in my massive biohacker’s toolbox.  If it’s not worth a half hour of your time, I don’t know how to make anything else that would be!

As always, it’s your comments and questions that keep me blogging.  Please ask questions or make comments on this page so we can share the knowledge with others.

Mistakes of Napoleon Hill, the O.G. Bulletproof Executive

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via naphill.org

Napoleon Hill is the author of “Think and Grow Rich,” one of the top-selling and most influential books on executive performance ever written. The book was commissioned years ago by Andrew Carnegie who employed Napoleon Hill to spend years discovering what makes people highly successful and wealthy.  He wanted to know best practices, techniques, anything that moved the needle.

Legend has it that twenty years after the first copy of “Think and Grow Rich” was published, a reporter surveyed millionaires and asked what they single most influential factor was in their success.  More than half of new millionaires named the book.

I became a “Think and Grow Rich” fanboy more than 20 years ago when I was 16.  I wrote a goal down on a torn-out piece of notebook paper and taped it to my mirror.  I wrote, “I will be a millionaire when I turn 23.”  Friends laughed when they saw it, and for good reason.  After all, I didn’t meet that goal until I was 26, but I wouldn’t have met it at all without some of the techniques in “Think and Grow Rich.”

“The Secret” is a new age interpretation of a more than 50 year old book.

I was so pleased when Andrew Jeffs, one of my readers blessed with two first names, sent me a newsletter from the Napoleon Hill World Learning Center at Purdue University because I didn’t know anyone was actively promoting Mr. Hill’s work anymore.

Experience has taught me that to get your brain and motivation in order, you simply have to optimize your underlying health and fitness, or your brain won’t do what it’s meant to do.  You don’t need to spend very much time keeping your “infrastructure” running well , but you *must* do the right things.  “Think and Grow Rich” techniques work better on a high-octane, well-tuned brain in a body that won’t collapse when it’s pushed.

Napoleon Hill agrees, breaking these domains into physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, and spiritual.  More modern influences, including my professor Stew Friedman from Wharton and author of “Total Leadership,” use similar categories to this day.

That’s why I was saddened to see completely backwards advice in the Napoleon Hill 21-day challenge.  In the physical domain, they recommend swapping junk food for a zero-fat bag of sugar called “fruit” and exercising with a walk for 15 minutes a day.

Outcome-driven Napoleon Hill would be turning over in his grave if he saw this.  The fact is that in 21 days, you can transform your physical infrastructure – like gaining 10 lbs of muscle and losing 10 lbs of fat, or making your cells 7 times more efficient at making energy – but you can’t do it by eating empty fruit calories or going for a stroll.  You CAN do it with healthy high octane foods like grass-fed steak, eggs, butter, avocado, and nuts, and with, at most, three 10-minute high intensity workouts per week.

Tim Ferriss does it, I have done it for 15 years, often without any exercise required, John Durant does it,  Cross-fit people get it. Paleo people get it, and some of the best executives I know are paleo, Cross-fit, meditating unstoppable balls of fire.

Add Napoleon Hill’s advice to a foundation like that, and you can’t help but shine at what you do.

Tofu Helps Decide if You’ll Be Rich or Poor

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When you have more energy, look and feel better, you will be a better entrepreneur.  More energy means more work gets done while you maintain your quality of life, and people who look healthy and attractive actually get paid more.  12% more to be exact. The Federal Reserve did a study that also found attractive people, a within normal weight range, consistently make more.

I spent last week at a large conference with high-performing, senior executives from some very large companies, and almost every meal at the conference had soy in it because it’s cheap and people believe it makes them healthier.  The trends are changing, but the dominant belief is still that soy will make you thin and healthy even when its real effects are the opposite.  It’s astounding that these intelligent, success-driven people actually eat soy, given how soy  sabotages your health and success:

  • Soy contains estrogen, which weakens men, reduces motivation, and libido  In women, soy produces irregular menstruation and mood swings.
  • In men, soy causes erectile dysfunction, gives you “man-breasts,”  decreases body hair, and lowers sperm count.
  • Soy increases risk for some kinds of cancers, lowers risks for others.  It is not anti-cancer.
  • Soy suppresses thyroid function, leading to insomnia, weight gain, anxiety, mood swings, etc.
  • Soy contains aluminum, linked to Alzheimer’s and brain problems
  • GMO soy contains Roundup pesticide which destroys fertility for men and women.  In animal studies with GMO soy feed, by the third generation, most animals can’t reproduce anymore.

If you’ll take my word for it, great! If not, read Dr. Mercola’s longer piece on soy here (which inspired me to write this post now instead of later – thanks, Dr. M.)

The bottom line: you’ll perform better (at work and in the bedroom), look better, make more money, be nicer to your employees, and loved ones, have healthier kids, have more energy, and live longer when you choose to eat a thick, grass-fed,  juicy ribeye steak over a wobbly slab of gray Tofurkey.  Eat like a caveman and follow the simple Bulletproof® Diet.  It’s an easy choice to make when you have the facts.  It’s also better for the environment, but that’s a topic for another post.

Lessons Learned from being an Entrepreneur in Residence

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Part of being highly successful is having the energy, drive, and basic intelligence you need to win. You also need the right experience and the right network of people to support you.  From reading this blog, you have probably gathered that I “cheat” at the first one – part of my energy, drive, and intelligence is artificially induced through biohacking techniques I’ve honed over the years.  Here’s a quick write-up of my experience as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Trinity Ventures last year for those readers who are interested in the rare Entrepreneur in Residence opportunity in Silicon Valley.

I’m writing this because GigaOm just published an article by Zack Urlocker, the CEO of MySQL, who sold his company for $1 billion in cash.  Zack’s article is about his time as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Scale Venture Partners, a major Silicon Valley VC.  He’s an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur.  I don’t know if he’s a biohacker, but a surprising number of executives are – they’re the ones who figure out what gets them up and keeps them doing.

I do know that a surprising number of entrepreneurs I meet are fellow biohackers in one way or another.  Most cut back on sleep but perform well.  Many use exercise to keep their brains sharp – but they use it like a drug.  A smaller, but still significant, percentage use breathing and meditation to keep themselves sharp, and many of them take supplements to support their mental function and health.

Zack does a good job explaining what an EIR does, but here’s my quick definition: being and Entrepreneur in Residence is a dream job.  You get access to unlimited start-ups, very senior people, VC business cards network, and your expenses covered.  Often, you even get a small paycheck.  Your job is to meet as many entrepreneurs as you can and to come up with your own idea to start or join a company.  It’s a privilege to be an EIR; a vote of confidence from a venture capital firm that they think you have what it takes.

Here’s the email I wrote as I transitioned out of the EIR program at Trinity to work for a start-up (two actually) and then a large security company.  It sums up what I learned about entrepreneurs, about VCs, and about my industry segment (cloud computing, security, and virtualization).

________________________________________________________________

To: Everyone

I’ve had a great time as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Trinity over the last few months and now the EIR program is coming to its planned end date. I am fortunate to have met an amazing number of smart and motivated entrepreneurs, to have learned about some really compelling startups, and to get to experience first-hand the mysterious inner workings of the venture capital decision process.

You’re receiving this message because I recently used my Trinity Ventures email address to communicate with you, and I’d like you to be able to reach me. My personal email is xxxxxxxxx, my phone doesn’t change (xxxxxxx), and I’m always at www.linkedin.com/in/asprey.  

For the next 4-6 weeks l will do some advisory work and strategy consulting, help a few startups navigate the funding process, and focus in on my next senior role in cloud computing, virtualization, and SaaS, either in the Bay Area or Canada. My time is about half booked for the coming month and I have capacity to do a couple more projects for companies where I can have a big impact. In addition, my nonprofit is bringing in NY Times best-selling health author Gary Taubes to speak in Palo Alto May 20th. Please attend if you’d like! (ed note: See? Had to work in a biohacking angle!)

The big things I’ve observed as an EIR:

About entrepreneurs

1.       If you can’t say it in less than 15 slides, you need to do more work. (Read “Presenting to Win” as a start…)

2.       It’s better to say you don’t know than to answer some other question instead.

3.       Technology is cool but you’ll get a lot more attention if you have some idea of who will buy it.

About VCs

1.       Experienced VCs are like great poker players – some can read an entire room in 5 minutes and accurately predict the outcome of the pitch. How you tell your story can signal more than your story itself. (Read “Honest Signals” to find out why …)

2.       Counter to common beliefs, VCs do not typically have forked tongues or tails. (those are usually found on corpdev guys…)

3.       The most common objections to funding a company are, in order from most to least common (team, market, valuation, product)

About cloud computing and virtualization

1.     IaaS doesn’t compete with PaaS; IaaS will slowly BECOME PaaS via slow creeping automation of devops functions. Few IaaS apps will be recoded to run on PaaS. Instead, devops functions will dissolve into a variety of cloud services.  

2.     Virtual desktops are here to stay, but the TCO still isn’t very good. It’s getting better. The requirements for virtual desktops are substantially different from server virtualization. 

3.     Cloud services dealing with large data volumes should focus on data that’s already in the cloud when possible. If your plan makes customers suck an elephant’s worth of data through a soda straw of branch office bandwidth, change your target market.

 

Sleep Hacking: Ending Insomnia with an “Electrosleep” Machine

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Thanks to Ben Rubin, former CTO of Zeo, for pointing me to the Fisher Wallace Stimulator – a cerebral-electric stimulator, aka “electrosleep” machine similar to the Neurotrek CES unit I recently used to get a full night’s sleep in 2.5 hours. (I have no relationship with any of these companies).

The attached video from Fisher Wallace shows how far CES technology has come.  The FDA would like you to get a prescription for this device (even though your doctor has probably never heard of it) simply because the drug companies selling sleep drugs don’t like simple, non-refillable, superior, 50 year old competition that is easy to manufacture.  Fisher Wallace even goes so far as to help customers learn how to hack their doctors visit so they can get a prescription.

Video via fisherwallace.com:

On the other hand, there are other devices you can order, costing from $500 to $1000, without asking for a permission slip from anyone in a white lab coat.  Apologies to my doctor subscribers: I’m married one of you who looks *very* sexy in a white coat.  Some of you are my most trusted friends, but it’s not okay to use regulations to force people to pay you $150 for permission to buy something they already want.  You’re supposed to be making money by telling us what will make us better, not being a gatekeeper to it.

The Fisher Wallace looks like a good device with lots of research including this PDF from Harvard Neuroscientist Felipe Fregni. Most of all, I am looking forward to hearing Ben’s results from using his.  As the former CTO of the world’s leading sleep hacking company, he’s got to have something interesting to say!  I am pleased that my Neurotrek lets me choose my own protocols by combining frequency, carrier wave, duty cycle, and power.  It’s simpler than it sounds, and the default settings are fine, but it lets you tweak it for your own brain.

Check out part 3 of my sleep hacking series for more information on how to end insomnia and get more quality sleep in less time – everything you can do from hacking your environment, to using supplements, to using only one drug in extreme cases (not Ambien), and of course biohacking that lets you monitor how you’re doing.  I’ll cover the hardest part too – silencing the racing thoughts that interfere with sleep onset, using breathing, meditation, and biohacking techniques.

Nothing like this upcoming summary has ever been written in my 15 years of experience.  It’s the CliffNotes to years of research and testing.  Fixing insomnia is just the beginning of what’s possible!

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