Discipline Is Freedom: Reclaiming Your Energy, Health, and Joy

0:03Darin Olien:Welcome to Super Life with me, Darin Olien, a podcast where we explore, discover, and share solutions that promote a healthier life and a better world. Together, we'll ignite possibilities, inspire change, and build sovereignty, creating a roadmap towards a super life for you and for all. Get ready to start living your super life.

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2:03I'm your host today. Happy New Year. It is kind of my favorite. It's my favorite holiday. It's not really a holiday. It's just a marking of a new year, new chapter. and even though it can be set up to where you feel like you want to have these huge goals, it really is built on discipline and getting clear on the small steps. This episode is on the basics are the power, the foundational practices. Discipline, food, exercise, stillness, silence, meditation, sleep, hydration, heart-centered relationships. These things are the things that create the meaning, the contentment, the lasting joy and happiness.

2:55And this is why I'm doubling down on these basics today. Because we so want to have the thing that's going to create everything for us. When we get this thing that everything else will fall into place and work out. That's not how it works. Discipline and the basics are your foundation. And that is what we're going to work on today. That's what Super Life's about. The first thing I want to talk about is discipline. The foundation of your sovereignty. The foundation of your principles of freedom. You know, we often make the mistake that discipline is a restriction, but real discipline around your values, around what you want, is the container to which you create your reality.

3:46You create freedom. Sometimes you suspend the acute joy now for the extension of the dream later. you discipline yourself around time, your health, you invest in your health now so that you can reap the rewards of tomorrow, of the next moment, and around an aligning discipline with clarity. So I'm going to give you a little framework in each one of these things today. Pick one high leveraged habit. So pick one. If it's exercise, sleep, daily walk, and I'm going to set this around a one to two week principle or daily routine. And then you can, you know, it's always good when you can create compounding wins, even if you get a buddy.

4:46If it's exercise, get someone that will go walk with you. If it's exercise, get someone that will go train with you. Recruit someone in your dream. And then if it's around a job or wanting, get clarity around that. Get clarity about what you want and just make a phone call. Reach out to someone. Do some research. All of these things are repetition creates the neural pathways. And it's very simple. Do simple things, get small rewards, and keep doing that. That creates new behavior around sleeping. If it's sleep that you want to work on to do better, then make your window of sleep something that you can always align on, or most often.

5:44I go to sleep around 8.30 to 9.30 every night, and that's my ritual. And then you sleep better. Your patterns become reliant. And then I wake up, so my night becomes my morning, meaning I get up early and then it moves me into that daily routine that's so powerful. The habits of my meditation, my journaling, my trajectory towards what I want. The next one is food. So yes, you want to enjoy food, but fresh, whole food that is close to the source as possible tastes better. So you want to celebrate that, minimally processed, plant-forward, of course, whole foods. Think Mediterranean style, the most researched, long-term, longevity style of eating is the Mediterranean style.

6:43Mostly vegetables, mostly fruits, whole grains, legumes, healthy fats, nuts, seeds, some olive oil, that kind of thing. And minimally processed foods. And some of the things you want to think about in terms of food, think of things like, don't make it a big deal. One meal or two bowls per week of Mediterranean style of eating. Maybe it's kimchi, legumes, ancient grain with some soy sauce or some sautéed veggies, tempeh, tofu, all of that stuff. Make a couple of those. Plan that out during the week. And then that's where you can at least have a win. You don't have to create this massive, I need to change everything tomorrow.

7:38You just need to create the habits that are going to allow you to change. And then with that change, you're going to getting more fiber and diversification. So allow that fiber to help your digestion. And some of that stuff takes a little time. So instead of jumping all the way in, if you haven't been eating so great, this is a way to slowly fuel your body and feed the fiber and feed the rich diversity of food. and keep snacks simple. You know, midday snack, almond butter and a date is better than any snicker bar. You know what I mean? Like super easy. A handful of baruca nuts and goji berries.

8:23Incredible. Easy. You know, or raisins. It doesn't have to be complicated. Whole food, okay? So make quick micro practice. If you're, you know, doing some fasting 12 to 16 hour, whatever it is, then just make sure you're planning on, okay, what am I going to eat for my first meal? For me, I eat mostly fruit, sometimes oatmeal, but mostly fruit, nuts and seeds, and Shakeology, and if you really press me, I'm eating spirulina, chlorella, all of these other things. But my second meal is usually a big salad, and I've Got kimchi, I've got nuts, I've got tofu, tempeh, you know, these kind of things.

9:10Wrap that in a burrito too and there you go. Next thing you want to think about is movement throughout the day. The biggest thing for all of this stuff, I just want to say this now, is when I start my day, I know I have a plan of what I'm doing in terms of what I'm eating, in terms of how much water I'm drinking, what I'm consuming, when I'm going to exercise, what kind of exercise I'm going to do. I relatively have that plan, but I've been working that for since I was essentially 16 years old and then better eating in my 20s and everything else. So this is so ingrained in me, but I still every day it goes through my normal checklist.

9:54So exercise is something like it doesn't have to be complicated. Go outside and go for a walk. You know, go outside and move. Even if it's do 20 squats, push-ups, sit-ups, and that's it. It could be five minutes. It could be 10 minutes. It could be a start if that's where you're at. If you want to crank it up, if you have other goals and you're going to a gym or you want to crank it up, so then therefore you add what you need to add. and some of you are already exercising regularly or you're optimizing. So think of things that you can optimize. Build your patterns. Because clearly physical activity, there is no pill that can change the effect that, or there's no pill that can be better than what exercise can do.

10:46Both improves your mood, improves your brain, improves your sleep. there is just nothing better so maybe some ideas walk 20 or 30 minutes daily enough to breathe a little heavier try to nose breathe only and then maybe it's just one or two strength sessions per week three sets of different body parts 8 to 12 reps could be body weight, could be bands. You can buy bands for$25 and you can do your full body resistance training. These things are powerful.

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13:28Darin Olien:35 % all site-wide products through January 12th. So head over to fromourplace.com forward slash Darren and see why over a million people have made the switch to Our Place Kitchenware. And with their 100-day risk-free trial, free returns, and free shipping, you can shop with confidence. So Our Place Holiday Sale is going on right now with no discount code necessary. Silence and stillness, which I want to touch on. This we need to work into our modern day world. This is the missing vital force, silence and stillness. We have to create intentional stillness into our life. For me, the easiest time is the morning.

14:25Because I'm already kind of coming out of that sleep state and I roll into meditation and everything else. So if you can find windows of time in the morning, I highly suggest that. Before you go into bed, I actually do both. I've been doing self-guided meditations both in the morning and at night. And at night, I am falling in love with it. I've broken the cycle of just flipping on the TV and watching a show, even though I like doing that sometimes. I really, really am craving the stillness of at night. So some of those things are literally just watch your breath. Maybe do box breathing in the nose for five, hold for five, out for five, hold at the bottom for five and repeat.

15:13Just watch your breath. Do it a couple minutes. Do it five minutes and then sit. And then if you watch your brain, your brain's going to go all over the place. You're never going to create full stillness. but listening to you. What I like to do is scan my body. So I'll do breathing first. I do four rounds, three to four rounds of 40 breaths in the nose, out the mouth. And then at the very end, I scan my body from my toes to my ankles, to my shins, to my thighs, to my core, to my stomach, to my chest, to my arms, to my neck, to my head and out my head. So I get in touch with my body And that creates stillness, relaxes me, parasympathetic, stress response.

15:58The mindfulness around that is powerful, reduces anxiety, depression. And then, you know, I'm going to go into this on my paid Patreon when I take people through guided meditations of some of the stuff that I do. But, you know, three minutes a day of breath work, powerful. Or you can go into a journal, three minutes a day of breath work, stillness, 10 to 15 minutes of journaling, meditation, do it while you walk, mindfulness, listen to the sounds, all of those things. There's so much that can be done. Sleep, non-negotiable repair cycle. Sleep is repair. We can't just stimulate without repair. We know that by the response I did from Andrew Huberman and Dr.

16:49Picard's work on mitochondria, we know that life cannot be balanced if we're just stimulating and not repairing. We need to repair. The mitochondria need that repair. So sleep is the best repair. So seven to nine hours of sleep, that's your mode, that's your bucket, that's what you want to. improves your metabolism, improves cardiovascular, improves cognition. These things are non-negotiable, improves your brain, improves your mood. So prioritize consistent bedtime and wake times. Wind down. These things are incredible. Just even if it's shifting from, you know, five to ten minutes before you consciously go to sleep, Do a little breathing routine.

17:40Do some guided. If you're with your partner, maybe hold each other's hands and do a little meditation together. These things are incredible. Plus, you're connecting with your loved one. You know, these things are great. You know, shifting instead of screens, do reading. Avoid screens as much as possible. I've really found this to be, and I wasn't doing this out myself for so long. And now I've just got addicted to the silence and the stillness and going into myself and doing these cool guided meditations. I love this stuff. So prioritize your sleep. Hydration. These are small habits with massive effect.

18:20Hydration improves brain health, mood, all level of all performance. Even mild dehydration can worsen your mood. so make sure that you're starting your day I vortex my water I add my lemon I make it a little warm actually I really love that because it helps digestive it helps the traditional Chinese medicine the fire, it keeps the fire of the digestion strong so I'm not minimizing or blunting any of the energy that the body would need to warm up water So I do not like cold water almost in any circumstance other than a cold shower. So these things are great. Filter your tap water. Add electrolytes back into it.

19:15Add, you know, I cut up cucumbers sometimes and let it soak. Or I'll add lemon so you're getting the structure and the minerals of those things. as well as sometimes I still add a pinch of Himalayan crystal salt or Redmond salt or something like that. And then I put it in my Super Life blue bottle, which you can now get. Incredible. And this is the way I start my day. And then about a half an hour before meals, I drink some more water. After a workout, I drink more water. And then I start to minimize the water intake. I don't drink any more water after I eat my last meal just so I don't wake up and pee all night.

20:02So these things are very powerful. The other thing that I want to stress for this year with you is your heart. I've been focused on this all year. Literally my heart. Not from a cardiovascular perspective because my heart's pretty strong in a good way. But it's the human connection, connection to my heart and healing of that and the pain and the trauma that I experienced growing up and everything else. So there was a lot of healing this year. My heart is massive and open and loving and gotten a great, amazing new relationship. And it mirrored my life. I did the deep, deep work of healing, and then someone shows up completely different than any other relationship I have had in my life.

20:54So it's unbelievable when we focus on our connection to ourselves, and we work on honest, strong connections with the people in our lives. And when we work on ourselves, other people may shift and change or they come into your life or they leave your life and that happens. But working on stronger social relationships, I have built my life around. I work out with guys every day that I love. I have a men's group. I have strong relationships. Even though business is not necessarily a replacement. I have a lot of friends that I do a lot of business stuff with. So, and I love what I do. I love all of the things that I do.

21:44Not all things of what you do are fun because it's a lot of work. Doing podcasts, doing research takes a lot of work, a lot of time, all of that stuff. But ultimately, when I'm doing this with you, I love doing it. So, schedule meaningful interactions with yourself, i.e. meditation, stillness, but with other people. Call someone every day. Text someone every morning. Good morning. Have the best day ever. Good evening. I hope your day was great. That's the bare minimum. You can use the technology, then text and do that. But call someone. I've been talking to my girlfriend because we live in different places.

22:21Every night. Every night. And meaningful, deep connections are the lifeblood of life, I think. And having those meaningful relationships or connections and daily interactions and then going to sleep with that is just so nurturing instead of staring at a television telling me a vision. You know what I'm saying? So anyway, practice relational hygiene. Ask open questions. Be curious about who you're talking to. Don't just babble about your shit. Listen to someone and be there for someone. This is real connections. So practice real connections, real conversations with great people in your life rather than scrolling.

23:06Send one short, genuine message to someone who matters to you every day. No agenda, just warmth, just kindness, just reaching out. Cultivate happiness. Not being fed algorithms and then replace your fatal conveniences. Happiness isn't coming from your algorithms. That's dopamine. positive psychological interactions of gratitude, acts of kindness. Support your acts of kindness this year. Practice them. Go out of your comfort zone and be kind to someone. Be gracious to someone. Compliment a stranger and fill your mornings full of gratitude. Fill your mornings full of everything that you are grateful for, at least the top five, right?

23:55So slow down on the social tech and the algorithms. Optimize engagement, real engagement. Look into the eyes of someone. Be in their biofield. You want to interact with people. You want to hold their hand. You want to look into their eyes. You want to care about what they're saying. Interact with people is so freaking powerful. Fatal conveniences, small changes that you can make away from some of the modern world stuff is like change your cooking pans. I love Our Place. You know, making sure that your food is not, you know, wrapped in PFAS and wrapped in plastic. And you've changed out the fragrances in your shampoos and your conditioners and your deodorants.

24:46And you've changed your toothpaste into maybe bite toothpaste instead of a toothpaste tube and fluoride and all this crap, you can change those things out. Be grateful. Be kind. Do a media fast. So even though I'm recording this now and it's the new year, I'm going into, so right after this, I'm going into, going to Sedona for the holidays and I, for a week, I'm not checking social media. My team is, So we're still posting things, but I'm not looking at it. I'm not looking at it once. I'm doing a full week detox from this shit because I do not like this stuff. I am not going to go on social media during the holidays.

25:29So happy holidays, everyone. Happy New Year. But you're not going to hear from me on social media, at least me personally. So the basics aren't boring. They're powerful. They're the most powerful. discipline opens up the aperture of freedom simple food choices fuel performance movement sleep hydration silence of yourself minimize that relationships build powerful relationships build resiliency for yourself so when life throws things at you you can respond powerfully deliberate happiness practices. Resist algorithmic consumption. Protect your life. Protect your energy. Protect your inner life. Pick one item from today's episode and just move on it.

26:26Adapt how you need to adapt it. If it's exercise, if it's sleep, if it's hydration, if it's happiness cultivation, just being in that, what would it take to be in joy, contentment, and happiness in my life? What would that be like? What would that look like for me? Happy New Year, everyone. I really, really want for you to go after everything you want in your life. That's why I created my Super Life Patreon. It's only$7.49 a month. We're giving away one thing every month for the next year for anyone on my paid Patreon. It's already worth it. And we have an app that you can take a picture of virtually any ingredient panel and have it tell you if it's good or bad and tell you the fatal conveniences.

27:20We have an ability to scrape all the research and tell you the top research every day. There's so much we're giving on the Superlife Patreon, and it's really built for you to come into this community so that we can build the life that we want so that the other becomes obsolete, okay? So have the best year ever, and let's build that together every day, all day, and create the life that we truly want, a super life. Happy New Year.