Entrepreneurship, Philanthropy, and the Power of Integrity with Greig Clark and Mark Latimer

What it's been really interesting to reconnect with some of the people that I've interviewed nine years ago probably the longest followup for for for a podcast that I've ever heard of I was quite surprised but I F I'm actually in in Mexico right now in saita near Puerto varda have you ever been out that way. I've been to Puerto I don't remember I don't recognize the other name you said saita is about an hour and a half nearby just small little Beach town near Puerto viarta so not too far from where you were when were you in Puerto viarta oh a long time ago 15 years maybe oh yeah all right what'll be interesting is contrasting the two questions from 10 years ago because I'm going to ask the same ones so there won't be any any surprises but yeah it's just a real pleasure I know that the last time we met we got to meet face to face preo and in my apartment there so just just an honor to be to be back without further Ado Greg please share who you are and what you do my name is Greg Clark and my quick tour of my history I was in first stage of life was a venture was an entrepreneur at running College Pro and then I was a venture capitalist with Horatio and Horatio Enterprise fund and in the third phase that I'm still in it's a mixture of consultant and philanthropist and the consultant sides for profit I advise companies how to set up boards either governance boards for what those that need an Advisory Board to those adult and I end up you staying on and running a board for them and on the not for-profit side I get re involved in have over the time a number of different charities the first one was first bigger was Chris Resort Center in region Park and the one I'm currently involved with his Trails youth initiative that's why I'm wearing this t-shirt here today that's a Trails t-shirt that's great it's based in stone will yeah I was doing some some reading about Trails sounds like such a wonderful project to be a part of maybe we could talk a little bit about that project and how you got involved and what you can tell people about the work that you're doing there sure the we'll start with how I got involved comes in two parts Mark the first is in 1992 when TRS was founded the founder and and a successful businessman and adman in Toronto named Jim hayhurst who founded heurst owned heurst advertising actually here in Toronto and actually General Foods where I work at the time was one of his clients so we connected that way and when he started up Trails he asked me to come out the board because he knew what my college Pro experience and the first his co-founder was his son Jimmy Yer who was a young man at the time in his 20s and he needed to run this organization he didn't have a ton of managerial experience and thought that I could help out giving all because College Pro wasn't really in the painting business we were in the management development business so I went on the board for three or four years and helped out with that then then I went on with other things and Jim hayers whose nickname is Hurst I'll probably refer to him as Hurst carried out and developed trails to be quite successful it and the concept of trails is it's h line for was it has a big impact on a few rather than a small impact on a lot the program is called four seasons four years four life they take kids 12 to 16 years old from the inner city take them up for one weekend to their near sville one weekend a month and then two weeks in the summer for four years and then has a program afterwards to help them go on to get versies for University and help them get jobs so it's a very longitudinal program as you call it but I I stayed in touch with Hurst I'm a letter writer who see so is he during those years and in March of 2019 he called me up and said Greg we were're Trails is so successful they want to double the size of it from from 80 kids to 160 so we need a strategic plan to do that and can you come up can you help us do that you you like strategic plans so I said sure and I went up and I met the new president a young woman named Melissa milward and I worked with her over the summer March April May June July helping her build the Strategic plan which she sold sold to the board in August and then and then H called me one day in September when I was coming down from the cottage he said can you drop by Trails for a minute I said sure St Ville I dropped by he said great you've done such a good job with Mel of building this plan why you come on the board and help the it and I said HST I said hang on a minute I said writing plans it's easy everything works Revenue beats expenses all I said delivering on a plan is a whole different bag of tricks I I don't know about that but of course by that time Mark I was totally fall in love with the project again with the site with Mel who's a terrific leader so I said sure So I came to the board in October and then in in February Hurst called me up he was with his son Jimmy in his truck driving to Trails I knew he'd had some health problems but he hid them very very well Mark and he called me and said that Greg I I've decided to I've chosen medically assistant in dying for February 29 do might taking over his chair of trails so it was like a huge a huge surprise and two emotions I felt very honored that he would think of me to do that and also scared because he was a very charismatic and effective leader and to step in those shoes obviously I could Step In Those Shoes had to be my own guy but it was quite a thing to do so just so I became at the last board meeting he attended I was elected chairman in February and then in March I had my first own board meeting in March 11th and then on and we had this great plan remember to double trails and then on March 13th Co hit right so you know that great line from that great American intellectual Mike Tyson who says we all have a plan until you get punched in the mouth and our plan we had to go to Virtual and all that kind of stuff so that got thrown out the window but we survived and learned a lot of things and came out of Co in good strength and now we're well on the track to doubling and so that's a long answer to your short question how to get involved but there it is that's great sounds really meaningful work that you're part of and what a fantastic program it is it's very good tell me what do you love the most about your involvement with this organization it's a good follow one for the last question because it's I you know I like quotes and one I've always liked and I've always put the lot of my resume is from kathern Graham on the Washington Post she said to do what you love and be good at it and feel that it matters what could be better and I'm doing what I love and the the mission of trails which is to transform lives totally overlaps with my mission my written Mission which is to help people realize their full human potential so when you get missions overlapping like that it's the best thing could be Plus on Tope of that working with great people like Mel and the board it's it's but the idea of helping people transform their lives is I again I don't know if there's any better than that said yeah just hearing that about seeing these kids over the years develop and become leaders in their own right is really something to be proud of congratulations on aligning yourself with such a great cause going back I know we we did an interview nine years ago these some of these questions might sound familiar always worth hearing the answers what did you learn early in your career that has made the biggest difference I don't know exactly what I said then but I but it was it's just become clear and clearer to me especially at Trails actually and that is the most important thing is to keep your promises and the second most important thing is to always work with people who feel the same way because oh it is so frustrating working with people who don't especially in a volunteer organization so that to me is that's table things right the old do what you say you're going to do yeah I've always likeed the def I think it's Cubby's definition of integrity which is to make sure your words are integrated with your actions right that the two go together it's just when you find people like that hang out them as your friends as your business associates as your teammates and sports that it just it it doesn't mean you always win or you always get what you wanted but at least the process is a lot more fun that's for sure Greg how important have mentors been in your career mentors are key and there's there's lots of them in your life I thought about this question and as always just try to pick out three and for me they're starting off in when I was working at General Foods there was Scott mcder who taught me analysis and getting to the numbers and getting what he called the unshakable facts which is keep your bias sort of things try to get to the other shakable facts and then another huge one for me was Dr Paul wner who helped me at College Pro a professionalized college Pro tiet from a one man entrepreneural shop where there was no at the very beginning it was me with the customer so there's just no layers between me and the customer by the end there was like five layers so they to professionalize that organization and make sure the goals of everyone and the value stay aligned is a tricky thing to do and he helped me a lot with that then of course the last one would be Hurst who just taught me so much he i' said he he taught me things that I know are important but I'm not not say good at them one of his one of his huge things is dreaming big I'm not necessarily good at that what I am good at is if take a dreamer's idea and help make it happen but I tend to to shy away from daming bment you think of what he traded that's just out of out of nowhere with little very little resources it's incredible so I'm hoping to take what he built and help to continue to professionalize it and build into its DNA the factors the strikes would allow it to to carry on and and live long after me and any the other people on the board and one other thing on Hearst that again but this what I do is in My DNA as well which is to the importance a long-term relationships he's built long-term relation with people uh both funders and professionals who at the first of G there's no real tangible going back and forth relationship but years later it kicks in and is of huge value so it's you got to be in the long-term business that's for sure having that long-term Vision makes a big difference right absolutely um how what are you most excited about at this point I always have right back the be I've always loved to see results whether it's a hockey game you want it is great to have a nice play but it's like to have an end of the goal in the business I love the process of business but at the end of the year he didn't make a profit it's not so good I great like doing great sales pitch but if you don't close the sale it's and it but so that's why trails are so rewarding mark because the highlight of the year is the Saturday in June when they the graduating Coro graduate and they graduate from Trails not from high school although I will say one of their huge successes is that 99% of our kids who come from inner city Toronto graduate high school which is well above the average and so that's that to me is a great result where they graduate from Trails it's that there's a ceremony which is very impactful where each kid who's now 16 and has been through four years of trails stands up and says a little something a boat first they're actually introduced by their facilitator the person who usually been with them for four years so the take and just can talk about the change from their age 12 to 16 as they became an adult basically you're very close and then the kid usually has few things to say about what impact Trails headed him in the odd time r or the blue that parent will pop up and say I want to add something and the word they always use is family or second family and you just see the transformation it's it's heartwarming and it makes you feel that all this is worthwhile so results but results on a human scale which are very um impactful the next question is what motivates you but I want to put some context on it how do you think your motivation has changed over the years from when you first started as an entrepreneur to what motivates you now it's a good question I think so simp to the last question because there's both process and outcomes and I would have said in the I guess me to say now this and in the college Pro days if all I had my eyes on was the was the profit at the end of because our our season already R from April to September in April deeply in the red in September hopefully I'm in the black or I can't come back next year but all I was motivated by was getting September you've got to enjoy the parts in between you got to enjoy those times going out with with managers and just see them Land one job and one each guy or gal getting the results he wants I I guess there's a there's two things going on there I you enjoy the process of having each one be successful but there's lots of little victories all the way is say when they land their first job or their first job comes in successfully or they hire the first PID her but the other day you've got to have the the payoff of you got to have the payoff that they he made that that manager made money at the overall company made money so I think it's the I think what's key in there though is probably we talked about in the last question which is I love seeing the transformation of whether it be that Trails youth or that that College Pro manager who remember was an 18yearold at the time all them young males who I'd met in September s behind the years think they can be great business people but don't have the idea and then you see them over the summer as they do all those little things and you meet them at the end of the summer at the manager weekend and they're you know pretty confident sometimes cocky sometimes overly confident a young businessman is on $100,000 business had 10 painters and had 100 customers and got a whole new approach to how they can take our life and I carry out with that I met I met a lot of them since at different things or R of them at conventions or things or where I used to have a profit column they responded some my columns and talk about the impact they had in their life so it's I guess it's like those Trails grads standing up in saying the impact it had and that's I'd say that's extremely satisfying to me yeah developing people into better humans whether it was you know 30 plus years ago or more recently with a younger generation is pretty impressive and worthwhile work from a satisfying for sure absolutely from a managerial perspective you probably have maybe your calendar is not so busy but maybe it is how do you prioritize what's most important it is it is still pretty busy no doubt but but the the good thing that's come on to it since we last sh it is uh grandchildren so that's and that's actually one of the reasons I'm cutting down the the for-profit side of my business in terms of having businesses I consult with I'm just gradually letting go of those because gradually more grandchildren coming into the into the picture but prioritizing your time as as there's two scarce resources in the world there's money and time is the toughest one because you can you can buy money with time but you can't buy time with money there's only so many hours and so many years you got so to me it's the most precious Resorts and as you get a little older you realize you realize it's even more fun one of the last uh Blue Sky assist as that with actually Dr Paul wner and a couple of my college Pro buddies he he put up a flip chart on the wall and divided a whole bunch of squares and he said roughly say you got 10 years left 365 days you got 3,650 squares how you going to kill them all s it becomes finite you go whoa so the the method is the same though you start I start with what my mission is that I revise it every year it's written that what is the Big Goal you want to accomplish so given that and big on that is transforming lives so then what I want to do this year is a number of goals and then each week you just revisit that what I want to get get done this week that moves you towards your mission and towards those annual goals because it's I always love that line that the main thing is to make sure the main Thing Remains the main thing and it is so easy to get off track within a business and your personal life you just coming back to those goals and that works for me you've got a lot of practice at prioritizing I'm sure and congratulations on the the grandkids that's fantastic how many are you are you at now two two that's wild because I  have six kids and two grandchildren and couple my friends have one kid and and six grandchildren so that the law of largest numbers this it doesn't work we have two one two girls Brooks and Sloan and and nicely compared to when when I grew up my grandparents were far far away and there was no FaceTime or anything like that so I maybe saw them once every two years whereas I these kids at least a couple times a month and then on the video screen all the time so it's way different gring experience that my parents had that's great and how old are they two approximately one one turned two Brooks turned two and July and S will turn two in November and just start that we have a just just quickly we had a the very first Christmas so so Brooks would have been six months and slow would have been two we had them over at our house and they're both sitting on the on the couch together and the difference is incredible like they they're quite big quite different now of course they're both two and it's there's no difference at all but how quickly the Gap closes that's great my since we last spoke my parents are also grandparents now my brother had a little girl Kyla and she's four it's been it's been nice getting to know her and you're an uncle I'm an uncle yeah proud Uncle let's talk a little bit about books you got a library behind you probably a whole bunch of uh favorites that you've picked up over the years uh what are books you revisit or go back to or if you're recommending them they're high on the list what what jumps out for you yeah good question there is a big Library behind me I I at my my wife is always wanting me to try to call it down have a big book sale in our church every April and but I'll take a book out and I go I I really like that but I might read it again they're all they've all been read and some of them two times that's a good question which on did you read again um so General answer the things I do love a general umbrella heading would be history and within history I like biography particularly because as kisser said history is biography it's made by people and so tend to read those but the ones I've got back to would have would be there's a great one written by the ERS of The Economist called the fourth Revolution which is talking about the development from of liberalism and liberal Democratic capitalism and that's of course going through all kinds of challenges these days so I've often got back to it as a reference I loved Graham Allison's destined for war which is this he was one of the first authors that to to bring me the about three or four years ago that the rise of China and what was happening there but other favorites with particularly with the situation in Israel I've read a ton of Israeli history but I also like the biographies like benan bean and netu and of course Perez and re they're just always interesting people involved with a very interesting story in the United States of course I love 1776 Hamilton Alexander Hamilton and Washington by reading their biographies you get a quite an understanding of the challenges the United States is facing today it's basically the same issues there facing that so I love the category I love that's great told James sub I've just finished and the flight back for BC in the airport they were selling the Elon Musk biography by ISAC so I picked that up and it was fascinating and it's if you want to talk about role model capitalist in the iron Rand version of capitalism which or or the shuer definition of capitalism was creative destruction not to Lon musk he just he's totally revolutionized five or six Industries he's a a really he'd be a really hard guy to spend any time with but fascinating how he just questions everything and changes everything and and and brings about a whole new concepts of way to do things so that was a fascinating read there's a lot of good books in there and fortunately we've got this being recorded and a note taker going so I'll be able to go through them and pick out some some ones for myself and given a bit of reading time so thank you for that Happ something but you got to give them back all right next time I'm in in Toronto area I'll I'll pick one off the shelf how's that sure this is one of my favorite questions if you could give advice to your 20-year-old self what would you say this sure way it's just the same as last time because it's the core of everything which is your the importance of your values because I often in college for days I used to do what I call the wedding cake which which the base of the wedding cake would be your values on top of which you put your strategic plan at top which you put your one-ear plan your goals but the base that's Rock the rockage r Underneath It All is your values and it's crazy cost about so much in business and you see the values on the wall but for an individual a lot of businesses don't follow them unfortunately but for an individual to try to sort out at age 20 what they are and to do that nothing like paper or digital now write them down to write down what you think they are and just check in on it once once a year because I think you'll find a couple things as I said before keeping your promises Integrity would be a top value for me so so what you'll find in life is as you find people who share those values you'll be able to get along with them better whether in business or a relationship a friendship or a sports team so it's best to know what your own are so you can Suess that whether you're the same or not and also when you find yourself feeling uncomfortable at something when there's something You' done or about to do nine times of 10 you f it's because you're you're breaking one of those values that either came from your parents your grandparents a coach somewhere something you read your religion so just try to write them down sus out at least once a year and try to hang around people that can help you stick to them that's great advice and I don't think enough 20-year-olds hear that so hopefully this message gets out to them and I imagine it's do they lean in on the values thing in Trails quite a bit yeah it's right on the one of the things I love about Trails Mark actually if you ever leave Mexico and get up there I'll take you around it's but Hurst was an advertising man a marketing man which means he's big at communication so all the central concepts of trails are very clear very succinct there's a triangle hangs outside trails in the corner of each one of the values there's physical emotional safety roots and wings and fun and any program we do Mel always goes will was it meet those three criteria and then in the middle he's got the vision for Trails he's got the mission the mission is to work with vulnerable youth at risk areas to help help that help them become contributing members of the community and provide them with the skills and the confidence to use them so I can rattle it off because it's pretty simple and so everything we do we say is that gonna is that going to push towards that so H did a good job of clarifying the values but then communicating them over the values the vision the mission are very clear at trails and that provides us with a very clear Northstar guidance that's that's awesome I really love that a simple question to to wrap things up what are you grateful for that one's pretty easy because I don't know if she can hear me but she's right across the hall from me here that's that' be my wife and my family it's just a joy to wake up every day and know that they're there and have time with them I I try to make a practice of having a little one-on-one time ideally a trip with each one of my kids every year and I I write an annual Christmas letter and when I write that letter the great thing about that is it causes you to do what Sam Johnson said was to reflect and reflect on the year and invariably the things I pick out the Highlight would be those trips at least one of now just speaking of trips I was supposed to be leaving next Friday with my eldest son Cameron to go to Israel but it looked like that it's not well that we can that that's not going to happen right last the last time we planned that was June of 2020 and there was a pandemic so we've been struck by lightning twice it's funny the guys at hockey were say what's the matter with you let a little pandemic a little war stop you from going what's the matter with you so hopefully we'll get after that but that's where that that I'm very grateful to have had the family I came from my parents and six siblings they're very happy to have the family have my wife and six kids it's it's those are UND duplicatable things in your life it's been nine years since we last went through these questions and I'm just so appreciative to to get to reconnect it's it feels like I'm talking to an old friend and we don't know each other that well but it it means a lot that you made some time again to share these ideas with me and the audience listening and I'm grateful for for your time and appreciative of the how generous you've been with your your mentorship and words of advice so thank you thank you Mark if you've got a few minutes just tell you what it is sing to India and go would you learn over there besides wanting to play guitar yeah I was working with a technology company I I'll back up I was doing this podcast and I was I started going down the list of the fastest growing companies in Canada the profit 500 not a bad group of CEOs to know right I started to meet some fantastic people and one of them the his name is VJ Thomas and VJ is originally from India but he has a tech company in Toronto Tonto so this tech company I was I created a few leadership shows for them that they would have guests similar to what I was doing to build relationships and tell stories and this was nine years ago before people were really doing a lot of podcasting so we were a bit ahead at that time and there was I broke up with my girlfriend we were living in Liberty Village and I went to VJ and said hey I'm not sure what my next step is where I'm going to live and I'd been with the company for about year and had in my head that I knew they had an office in India but I'd never really been there and there were about 50 people working out of that office and he said would you like to go to Goa and that decision absolutely changed my life I went to India for a week to assess is this something that I want to do and I went with VJ so we checked at the office we met the team and I was tasked with leading a sales team which in its own right had built a challenges but I was helping out with marketing and just the Western presence in an Indian office it was an incredible experience and very quickly I had a six-month contract to hit some targets and had a lot of fun working hard but at the same time a whole new experience the neighbor to the office that I was in it was the family that the Fernandez family and they own the oldest music store in Goa so it's been around since the 70s and they must have sold instruments and strings to The Beatles when when they were in Goa so much history and after six months you know how Toronto gets quite cold and I know what's there so I kept being drawn to go back to not only work but continue to be immersed with because the cost of living is so low you get this influx of musicians from all over the world who come from Europe and will live in India for a few months at a time and then they'll go back to Europe in the summer to perform and do all this stuff so the community that I surrounded myself with was just these incredible people that were very generous with their time I know you're learning the guitar imagine having just these fantastic teachers to show you things and that's what I was very fortunate to to be in that kind of in that kind of space fast forward I think there was one season that I didn't go for whatever reason a bit of a break is a good thing to reflect and see is that's something that I want to keep doing and I ended up just before lockdown three years ago something like that I went to India I think it was March 10th of 2020 and if you'll remember I think lockdown was announced the 11th or something like that so when 13th because that's when Trails got shut down right yeah so I think my flight was on the the Sunday the 11th or something like that and so by the time I land Ed and arrived uh Canada was closed so had I booked it a day later or what have you very different I ended up being there for close to two and a half years there were opportunities to come back there's things that I missed out on my brother's little daughter and that that that part of her her life but it was a wonderful experience not without its challenges I don't know if much about Goa India but there's six really good months and then it rains for the monsoon for a few months but there was a really good community that fortunately everyone felt very safe and we did have a a beach right there so plenty of sunshine and opportunities to just take care of each other it was I know it's a long time but I'm very grateful for the opportunity to now I've become a bit of a musician and when I was 16 I asked my parents for a guitar and they gave it to me they've always been so generous and but it just wasn't the right time in my life to learn guitar uh I just turned 40 on October 2nd so not long ago and when I was 32 I went to India and that was the first time I had the the space to I didn't have any friends I didn't know anyone so what do you do the guys who own the music shop might as well give it a try and I immediately fell in love with the songwriting aspect of it the I did standup comedy at Humber College for night school class so I really like the I tore my achilles uh like I was playing soccer and a gunshot went off the thing exploded I'm probably eight months out of that injury but what I realized was I could rollerblade so it was different muscle group and I grew up from probably three four years old with the creek in the backyard in Miss Saga learning to skate and then playing double A and trip play hockey played up with the der's in junior for a little bit so just going back to and in India there's you're not rollerblading anywhere the roads are not designed for that so just being back in Toronto for a little while I went to Vancouver also and to be able to skate you you play hockey so you know the feeling of just having that kind of Freedom under your feet and to be immobilized for a little while on crutches and in a cast to to ReDiscover skating again was a real Joy I know it's a bit of a a long-winded answer but that kind of fills in on a little bit of the journey where I've been the company that I started is less than a year old there's no way a million guesses I would have ever thought I'm going to India and I'm standing in front of a green screen in saita in Mexico talking to you yes it's wild the you wred me an expression that my brother Paul uses all the time just got to keep following your nose right follow you know what's right in front of you what makes sense just keep following that and uh and you did you went and met that guy VJ and went went on a trip to of the blue and you took that job but a question I wanted to ask you way back when was sure you talked about a what bringing Western business philosophy to an Indian office what when you what was that like what are the differences in that what what stood out there is a much slower pace of Life there it's not the hustle and bustle of a city everyone's on a bike and it's warm so people are stopping for Chai at the side of the road there's not this kind of urgency of we need to get something done which you learn to appreciate the time that you have and family and friends are really important there and they do have a very good work ethic like it's not uncommon for people to just in the having to work late and have the energy to do that it's it takes a certain type of person to be able to have energy to do that but I found that just the philos around showing up with putting your best foot forward but from a place of compassion and humility and respect and I know there's a lot of parallels between the two but Goa was a Portuguese colony in the 1700s there and everyone speaks English for the most part uh I I did learn a little bit of Hindi and I got a pretty good head nod going but I I did enjoy all the foods I don't know if you like Indian food but had plenty of spicy food and yeah I made a lot of good friends both work colleagues and other Travelers that I met on that trip yeah it's been plenty of memories no shortage of things to be grateful for and in all that time it's not to be painted as completely like a Rosy picture there were many highs and lows along the way as life inevitably throws our way but all in all it's I never regret having made the decision to to go there because in many ways it's shaped who the person I am and I still have a ton to learn but I'm I'm grateful for the opportunity to be where I am and take it one step at a time use the word Grateful a lot which is important because it's in your in your brand name but the other thing that struck me is you're talking we just just because of the latest book I read but you talked about they take it they take things a little more slowly in India Elon Musk would his head would blow up in India he is just I don't know you have you read much about him like he just he he sets dead lives did imp possible then fires people if they can't get it done and and he's and he works 24/7 and sleeps underneath the desk at the office and he's just as as somebody once said to me you find a Driven Man you you what what's at their in core what's driving shees it's a sense of inadequacy or something they have to fulfill that because we often use the word driven man that's something that's good he's a driven CEO but that means that somebody else has got control of the steering wheel I don't think it's necessarily a good thing sorry that there stried me that the Indian approach to that with India and the indigenous people here have another take on things which the West could learn a lot from absolutely and environments are often uh shaping right I put myself in environment with musicians and I learned to play guitar right in Toronto I became a hockey player right like it's your environment can shape you in many different ways now BJ the owner of the business I never met a more driven hardworking entrepreneur but he also lives in Toronto but he grew up in Goa so he went to the did his MBA at the Goa Institute of Management and really bright guy uh his company tangentia actually was won the won the contract to do all of the integration of beer in grocery for all of the LCBO and when they did that change over years ago so the fact that you go to llas and get yourself a sixpack is his company runs billions of dollars of B2B transactions through that that pipeline a nod to him he taught me a lot definitely about work ethic now building this business I'm often up at 5:00 A.M getting things done and my assistant starts at 6 and and then a day full of calls so to have calls like this that uh I get to learn and connect is a really nice break from uh some of the other calls they're all they all have to happen but I particularly am fond of these ones this has been a lot of fun well if you're up at 5:00 a.m. it's been long day for you already oh yeah by 3:00 it feels sometimes like you you almost hit a wall but I'm doing that have you ever tried that intermittent fasting my stepson is big on that he's trying to encourage me to do that to it's go go he goes right till noon but he says if I eat at 7 and can last till 7 the next morning that's pretty good that's 12 hours you're doing this what what you doing this though I'm probably not doing it perfectly but I don't think anyone's perfect so I'll have some coffee during the day and I'll just have a meal at dinner and that'll be enough so it's one meal yeah it's there's as they call them feeding windows and this one is a 2040 so 20 hours of fasting and then four hours of you can have not whatever you want but here in Mexico it's usually tacos I really like the the local Cuisine and actually along the lines of fasting I never fasted before I went to India wasn't even on the radar but you meet people and I met this beautiful girl she looked like an angel and I'm like what are you doing like why does your skin look the way it does is I haven't had any food for five days and I was like excuse me I'm like so she explained fasting and water only fasting and I looked into it and I'm like she looks that good I got to at least Le give it 24 hours and see what I can do so there I go first fast 24 hours and I'm a big proponent of research So after 24 hours as I was getting to that when I could eat again I would start googling what would happen if I go a little bit further like the next 24 hours what does that do to the body how does it recreate your cells and I kept doing that every 24 hours revisiting do I feel like I could go a little bit farther you're not going to believe this but I did I thought I did 10 days but I actually did 11 days with just water uh ginger tea and uh a little bit of cayenne in water and I was running every day I was working out every day and after probably day four the appetite for food did not exist uh and the science behind it is that most of us have enough fat around our belly that could power us for a long time so it wasn't a supervised fast but I had people around me checking in make sure I was fine but my energy was like super high I liken it to uh back in the the days when we were foragers as humans we'd probably have to go long periods along a river or across dangerous train with mostly just water unless we could find something here or there but our bodies are these incredible things that I feel like a a fast doesn't necessarily need to be 11 days or people have done it for much longer but your fat cells are your fuel if you have extra fat a fast is a great way to really cut down but from a spiritual perspective I felt incre extremely in touch with myself and my surroundings and appreciative for that that first bite of food I think it was a strawberry that I had after 11 days was like the greatest thing ever and you said after four days you'd lost your appetite for food but not your taste for it I guess you didn't crave it yeah the the food the food craving stopped something that I would tell myself is to just drown my hunger in water so if there was any just I'd be drinking a lot of water and kind of like just completely refiltered themselves to be brand new cells the guy I was 10 days earlier from a molecular level has probably for the most part completely been transformed so I came out a different person on the other side and I haven't done anything like that since that was a one-off I think the most that I've done is maybe a five-day fast but it is something that I don't know if your your son or was it your son that if he's any if he's done any multi- days but you can tell him you talk to this crazy guy who I will I'm listening I'm gonna talk to him I know you gotta go but what can you just what how did it what was the impact that that had on you both physically and and mentally after that and how and how did you follow up the 11 days did you build that into your regimen in some way the experience of it was was Clarity of mind so I felt that peace I felt I didn't need anything like there was no desire for food that that that hunger that we get is something that our our brain is it's an automatic response after a while that no different than if you normally only eat one meal you're not having those Cravings during the day because that's what you're used to I read enough about it that I was convinced that having this kind of uh experience would really clear me out from a just like a healthy body and I did lose a lot of weight the feedback that I got people did notice like a noticeable difference in my skin and attitude and uh a whole bunch of things I would say the biggest takeaway was peace of mind and knowing that I'm in control of um my my body and my life and yeah this sense of empowerment that it's like the decision to be able to say no to something again and again and that discipline can be can carry over into other things now it wasn't like all I was doing was fasting I was playing guitar I was reading I was working out I was going for runs on the beach and probably not hanging out in too many restaurants but it was incredible experience and something that I all always look back fondly on I on that same Journey at a different time in India I ran a marathon on the beach of Goa and I'd never done a marathon before again it was one of these incremental things where I started running with a football or soccer ball each week and it got to a place where I did three 21k runs in a week and I thought I was ready for a marathon I was not I did it anyways I had a Garmin watch on just to track it but it was just me from 1:30 in the afternoon till I finished it legs could barely move for the first three quarters I was kicking a soccer ball and for the last hour it was like almost pitch black I'm there just trying to finish this this run middle of on the beach walking by restaurants people enjoy having a good time my legs are on fire I can barely walk and I finished it I don't know what it is about these these challenges that push you mentally to be larger than yourself or try to overcome something but they're a destination to work for and I do Big Goal something to work for and whether it's physical or mental or business it's fires me up and gets me up early and motivated to have a good story to tell yeah quick followup question so did 11 days we heard about and what did you what was your regimen after that did you continue to build intermittent fast yes that's a great question so I did start to do intermittent fasting and as far as food I started I believe with some fruits and just soup and kind of things that weren't too heavy and I would also but man that first meal was like unbelievable and yeah I got into a intermittent fasting routine I haven't been always as as disciplined with it I think through Seasons sometimes you you're in the breakfast mood and that's just the season you're in and breakfasts are great you're in an environment where breakfast or the thing but as you experiment with different modalities of how much you want to be eating when I really like having the energy I don't like that crash after lunch I need that afternoon energy and I find so much of uh the battery that human battery is digesting food right so if it's not digesting food hopefully some of that is up here helping me solve some business problems or be more present with someone so pushing it off in uh into the evening a little bit uh should at least my mind uh allow me to digest when it's not as important a time maybe so that's what you try to stick to now is what you call the 24 yeah off then four hours when you got a window you're when you can eat that's what you're just yeah just a little little dinner maybe the occasional dessert I like a cheesecake but it's more about the total calories that you're consuming so if you're not having three meals then it's concentrated on that one dinner so you could still have a big dinner if you want but it's not going to be you're not stacking them up all day it's not had that cumulative effect and I'm not so disciplined with if I was having breakfast maybe I'm not picking out always the healthiest things right so automatically by making that decision that okay there is no breakfast there's no lunch so right away you've cut out maybe some bad choices you might make around foods that maybe aren't serving you but I do love food the the idea of not having food is the ultimate form of delayed gratification and more of a me mental exercise with Incredible health benefits if you haven't tried it before I don't recommend it to everyone definitely talk to your doctor about it but it is a a very purifying experience that everyone should try at least once to see how their body reacts to it and 24 hours is in a long time the real benefits of prolonged fasting come at 72 hours in that kind of three-day window of fasting and that's something that when I set out to do 11 days I did not set out to do 11 days right that happened entirely by accident it was just as a little bit forward a little bit forward a little bit forward and then before you know it you're pretty close to your goal or whatever you were after yeah and hey if I don't think I'll ever fast that long again but I'm glad I did and I feel like especially in if people are overweight there are some real health benefits to intermittent fasting and prolonged water fasting there's a great book I read called the water fasting guide which is it's a short read but it talks about how to approach it how to get started like we need books for just drink water but apparently we do it got me fascinated here I got I got to pay a little more attention to my son when I thought at them next time I can say Jonathan but I'm going to say Jonathan you want to go for 11 days there buddy well well tell you what I'll I'll get you a copy of the the water fasting guides you could give away one of those other books add add a new one to your library all right very good great chatting with you I was pretty sure this second half would be moreing to me than the first half so thank you for hanging in there no this has been this has been a lot of fun and I hope you don't mind if we if we share both parts I think that not a lot of people know uh some of my stories so I appreciate you changing roles and being the interviewer I would think it would have more impact on people than the stuff we talked about it to be quite honest because it's it's it goes right to the core of you what what are the words you use I felt peace of mind and I got more in connect with myself what's more important than that that's pretty good that yeah you're you're right this is why we do these things right we we learn from each other and everyone's at a different stage in their life listening to your advice I probably get a lot more from it than hearing someone else talk about water fasting for me right yeah true because I've the vice versa for me this was you took me down the whole alley I wasn't sure where the conversation would go but I'm pretty sure if when you went you said I went to go on it changed my life said I was pretty sure there's some interesting things in there so we'll just prob away and see what comes up so that was quite quite fascinating I'm sure it'll make for a interesting dinnertime conversation with your son and yeah I'll over email I'll I'll get your address and I'll send a book over and uh let me know what you think of it I will and happy birthday by the way thank you than you many more I know this is a a strange nine-year followup but I hope it's not nine years from now that we will'll connect again before then for sure but uh it'd be nice to do another nine years from now the two of us a little grayer a little older like that sharing some stories all right CG have a wonderful day you too bye okay Cheers [Music] Cheers [Music] grateful AI