Let Go of Strict Health Protocols & Routines Using These: Neurofeedback, HRV Training, Holosync Binaural Beats, & Other Biohacking Tips

Nick Urban [00:00:07]:
Are you a high performer, obsessed with growth, and looking for an edge? Welcome to MINDBODY Peak Performance. Together, we’ll discover underground secrets to unlocking the full potential of your mind, body, and spirit. We’ll learn from some of the world’s leading minds, from ancient wisdom to cutting edge tools and everything in between. This is your host, Nick Urban. Enjoy the episode. What if the strict routines you rely on for performance are actually the reason you feel off? Cameron Benton spent years fine tuning his schedule, checking all the boxes of peak health, cold plunges, early wake ups, optimized nutrition. But somewhere along the way, it stopped working. In this conversation, he opens up about hitting that wall and what happened when he finally let go of the rigidity from heart coherence to neurofeedback and a different approach to meditation.

Nick Urban [00:01:09]:
Cameron shares how release and control gave him more energy, clarity, and peace than strict optimization ever did. In this episode, we cover the real reason that meditation is worth your time, and, no, it’s not about stopping thoughts. He explains how to filter out outside information and, benefits of trusting your body’s own signals. We explore the power of storytelling, not just the external stories you tell other people, but also the stories you tell yourself about situations and other people. Of course, based on his background, we also touch on the topics of art coherence training and neurofeedback and enhancing your ability to make better decisions under pressure. We also talk about how to find a routine that you enjoy and that works for your lifestyle. Our guest this week is Cameron Edward Benton. He’s a writer, a podcaster, and former biohacker turned bioharmonizer whose work bridges neuroscience, spirituality, kink, and transformation.

Nick Urban [00:02:15]:
Based in Seattle, he hosts Getting to Know You, a podcast exploring truth through personal perspective. His journey spans fine dining in LA to scaling a neuroscience company from 1.5 to $3,500,000. Now he’s writing a book about attending 54 concerts in a year. The resources for everything we discuss will be in the show notes for this episode, which will be at mindbodypeak.com/thenumber200andfive. There, you’ll also find his YouTube channel, some of the other podcasts. We discuss an article I wrote about the top biohacking and health optimization trends of 2025. And if this kind of conversation interests you, you can also go back to episode number 72 and learn about biofeedback in my podcast with doctor Jay Wiles. Alright.

Nick Urban [00:03:05]:
This intro is getting a bit long in the tooth. So without any further ado, ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, and enjoy this conversation with Cameron. Cameron, welcome to the podcast.

Cameron Benton [00:03:16]:
Thanks, Nick. It’s I’m excited to be on. Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:03:19]:
We’ve been chatting for a while. We have some good conversation topics we’re gonna get to that we were just discussing offline. Before we get started today, what are the unusual nonnegotiables you’ve done so far today for your health, your performance, and your bio harmony?

Cameron Benton [00:03:34]:
Yeah. I really love this question because I realized when you kinda prepped me for it earlier that I don’t have any current nonnegotiables. And what I mean by that is that I used to be really, really hardcore about my morning routine. And there still are pieces of it that I mostly maintain every day. Like, I could say some of my non negotiables are, you know, I I take a cold shower or I have my coffee or I sit and meditate or I journal. And I think the biggest thing that I’ve gained through my own biohacking journey or my bioharmonizing journey is the fact that I’m able to let all those things go and still have a great life. And so if there’s anything that I hold onto, it’s the actually the fact that, like, I can let go that none of these things hold me down. They don’t contain whether or not I have a great day or not.

Cameron Benton [00:04:23]:
That’s up to me independent of those things.

Nick Urban [00:04:25]:
Yeah. I love that. It’s a great answer because it’s one of those things that, like, you can have the most perfect routine dialed in over decades of practice, but then if something comes up as life will often throw into your way, then that shouldn’t be the thing that disrupts your entire day or perhaps even weeks simply because you couldn’t get that full twenty five minutes of meditation and ten minutes of neurofeedback and all these different other things that could otherwise fall into that list.

Cameron Benton [00:04:54]:
I I absolutely agree with you. Alex Hermosy talked about the idea of how to identify a scam and basically a scam as he would call it in quotes. And I don’t mean these things are scams literally, but it’s the idea that if you can’t do this if you can’t be successful or do whatever it is you wanna do without this thing, then it actually makes you weaker. Right? And I like that idea because a lot of the times with biohacking or health and wellness, whatever it is, we we you actually said this really well. Right? The diet that gets you healthy isn’t what necessarily keeps you healthy. And a lot of times with meditation, for example, which I think is probably one of the most powerful things I’ve ever done in my entire life, is people become attached to this thing that’s meant to teach you an attachment. Right? And so you wake up and it’s like, I didn’t meditate today. And the rest of your day, you’re freaking out with full of anxiety about your day and you get to the end of your day, oh, my day was so bad because I didn’t meditate.

Cameron Benton [00:05:49]:
And it’s now you’ve become a victim and powerless to this thing that happened when the whole point was to take this into your life and learn how to actually be unattached, how to actually let go and, like, be in the moment, which is utterly ironic and beautiful and all of the things.

Nick Urban [00:06:05]:
Yeah. I first got a taste of that with the Oura ring back in 2017, ’20 ’18. I would check my score first thing after waking. I’d see that it was either great or it was terrible, and I’d let that dictate the rest of my day. And that’s, like, such a common thing I hear about people who are just starting with wearables is that, okay. My HRV was lower today. So now, like, it’s a bad day. I didn’t sleep as well, and now I can’t push myself as hard.

Nick Urban [00:06:30]:
I need more time in relaxation and recovery. I’m a little more on edge because my HRV is lower. And while some of that can be true, it’s also changing the frame through which you live your day. And as I realized I was doing that, I stopped checking first thing in the morning, and now I I just look at it for the overall trends. But I think you’re right. It’s very easy to turn these healthy behaviors into crutches.

Cameron Benton [00:06:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think especially now, in some ways, I think it’s always been true, and I think the current situation is just heightening this reality. But we are inundated with so much information. We are inundated with more information than we’ve ever had and our brains are still the same. So we’re not really any better at sorting through information than we’ve ever been other than the skill sets that we’ve developed. Right? But we’re just we just have all these voices in our heads from so many different people, from so many different devices and things that are designed to help us. Like, it’s not bad.

Cameron Benton [00:07:29]:
But, you know, you can go online and find so much information about what diet is the best diet and a thousand people advocating for this is the right thing to do or how to be or whatever it is. And if you’re not actually paying attention to your own voice, which again, I would kind of go back to meditation with this or, you know, something like, you know, neurofeedback or heart math or these kinds of things that help you tune into your own signals in a lot of ways, like tune into your own body. Because once you start learning how to turn into your your body, how you actually feel, what you’re connected to, what actually feels good to you, then you can actually navigate those things. You can find the signal through the noise. But if you’re not connected to yourself, then you’re just lost. You’re being pulled around by so many different things. And it’s really easy to do right now. It’s, you know, it’s not to shame anybody who’s in that space at all because I’ve totally been there.

Cameron Benton [00:08:22]:
I go back and forth through those things. But you if you’re not able to tune into yourself, you’re not gonna be able to navigate. You have to be able to trust yourself at a deep, deep core level.

Nick Urban [00:08:33]:
Yeah. You’ve mentioned neurofeedback and heart coherence or HRV training several times. How did you get involved in that whole world?

Cameron Benton [00:08:42]:
Where do I wanna start? At the beginning. So I graduated from college. I got into, Princeton BU for grad school, and then I went from there into an acting school instead. And after I graduated from acting, I was like, I gotta learn how to be an entrepreneur. I’ve gotta learn how to have my own business, market myself, develop myself, all of these things. And so that got me into podcasts, which are this burgeoning thing. And two of the podcasts that I that I started off with were Tim Ferriss’ podcast, which I was literally I think he had released his first episode when I first got into podcasting. It was, like, right around that time.

Cameron Benton [00:09:18]:
And also the what was called the Time Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey, which was the, you know, the Bulletproof Biohacking podcast. And it was probably, like, 80 episodes at the time. I mean, I think he’s done probably well over a thousand, if anything, at this point. And I really went into biohacking because I found this stuff worked, whether it was, you know, bulletproof coffee or changing my diet to a more keto based paleo kind of idea. There were so many things in there that that worked for me along with meditation that my therapist got me to do. And so when I started meditating, for example, I remember the first time that I was able to see my own thoughts. And I don’t necessarily mean visually, but being able to watch myself go in this circular argument where I didn’t want to be angry, but at the same time, I could see logically where the reasons for being angry were not accurate. And so I was seeing both of these things at the same time and realizing I was choosing to be angry, going to my therapist, and then being like, hey, I just realized this thing.’ And then pointed that out and we were able to kind of keep working through stuff.

Cameron Benton [00:10:20]:
And I kept realizing how meditation allowed me to actually have control of myself. Like I really don’t think that I was almost alive or awake until I started meditating at all. Because everything was sort of just happening, right? When somebody told me to have personal responsibility over something or to do something differently, like, it was all kind of I was just a series of reactions. And some of those reactions were good, some of those reactions were not. And it wasn’t like I wouldn’t change, but there’s so much internally that I couldn’t really process or navigate. And so meditation really started to change that for me. And then getting into Dave’s stuff, I was introduced to things like holosync, for example, which was a form of, binaural beats that were really, really effective. And allowed me to, at least per their terms, you know, kind of speed up meditation process by activating similar states of meditation.

Cameron Benton [00:11:11]:
So I would play with that. And then I started hearing about, forty years of Zen, for which is Dave Asprey’s, you know, neurofeedback company. And he, you know, in that, I kind of understood this idea of, like, okay. Cool. If you’re measuring the brainwaves of somebody who has achieved basically forty years worth of Zen meditation, right, you can more or less learn to replicate those waves. And if functionally what you’re doing with meditation, right, is you are tuning into your breath on a very basic level. There’s lots of different kinds of meditation. But for a rudimentary, you know, example, you’re following your breath.

Cameron Benton [00:11:49]:
And what happens is people think it’s about sticking with your breath. It’s not. It’s about your awareness coming back to your breath over and over and over again. Right? It’s it’s shortening that gap between distraction and coming back and tuning into yourself. And so you start to do this and you eventually will hit these, like, states of meditation where you are in a sort of flow or you’re able to be what they would kind of call mindless in a in a way where you have awareness without thought. And when I heard about neurofeedback where you could basically get your the brainwaves of a meditator and then compare those with your own in real time and you’re realizing that you’re training your brain super quickly that basically it’s just like meditation with a mirror. Right? So the example that I would often give, this might be an easier example for your artist, is like if you’re putting on makeup every day or you’re doing your hair, your whatever, you’re self grooming but you’ve never seen your face before, right? So you’re just like guessing and other other people are telling you maybe things are good but you don’t really know if you’re grooming yourself correctly. And then somebody gives you a mirror and you’re like, Oh my gosh, I can do it so much faster, I can do it so much better, I can do it so much quicker.

Cameron Benton [00:13:03]:
And learning about neurofeedback, I was like, Oh wow, I can do this thing that I found to be incredibly valuable, the single most powerful thing in my life, building my awareness and my capacity emotionally. And I can do that 10 times, a hundred times faster. Why wouldn’t I wanna do it? And it all, you know, hype theoretically made sense to me. I hadn’t done it a lot at the time. But when I would do things like holosync that helped a lot, it was tremendous for me. And then when I did things like HeartMath, I I still consider HeartMath to be one of those other major game tiers that I recommend to so many people because it’s so affordable and it is highly effective and helps you tune into, like, your nervous system and being able to autonomically be able to shift into a parasympathetic state, think more clearly, tune into your heart. There’s all kinds of things like that. And it just, yeah, it just changed everything for me.

Nick Urban [00:13:54]:
Mhmm. We’ll go into that in a second also. I think it was Scott Carney who I heard say that one of the main functions of meditation is to increase and put a wedge between stimulus and response, and you’re building a bigger and bigger wedge because the biggest benefit I’ve noticed from, I don’t even know, a decade of meditation, more than a decade of meditation every day, is that I make better decisions. And that’s not just like the major life decisions. You can look at every single day as a series of decision making from the smallest things. What am I gonna wear? What am I gonna eat? Am I gonna go to the gym? What am I gonna do with the gym? All these types of things. The quality of those decisions just improved a bit, making everything easier and making so I wasted less energy.

Cameron Benton [00:14:40]:
Yeah. I I a % agree with that sentiment. I think at the easiest level, it is that you are a better decision maker because your life is just full of decisions. Right? Like, what you’re gonna eat that day or you’re gonna wake up for that day, how you respond to somebody freaking out. And it’s, like, in the aggregate. Right? So it’s, like, you’re still gonna have the day where you’re an asshole. Right? Like, you’re gonna wake up and be grumpy and somebody cut you off and you’re gonna freak out and lose your shit. But, like, that moment happens way less frequently.

Cameron Benton [00:15:10]:
And the size of that moment is is drag drastically shorter when it happens, which then makes all of your other choices and decisions better because, you know, everything affects everything else. So the earlier you make a better decision, the better your other ones become.

Nick Urban [00:15:24]:
Yeah. And I noticed that, say, that person cuts me off in traffic, I can feel, like, my my heart rate increasing. I can feel, like, a blood pressure increasing, all these signs of going into sympathetic, like, activation. And I can realize, okay. That caused this internal state in me. Do I want this? Why am I experiencing this? And to me, you can trace it back to a story. Okay. He cut me off because he thinks he’s more important than me or whatever it is.

Nick Urban [00:15:54]:
And those are just complete projections. I have no idea why he cut me off. The cliche example is that he could have someone in the passenger seat that’s going to the hospital. They’re in cardiac arrest or something. And if I had known that fact, I would be more than happy to let him cut me off, and I wouldn’t even blink. But it’s the story that I make that he’s cutting me off because he thinks he’s more important than me or something that all of a sudden makes me reactive.

Cameron Benton [00:16:18]:
I’m a huge, huge believer in being aware of the various stories that we tell ourselves about everything, whether it’s about the guy who cut you off. Even the story he cut me off is a story in and of itself. Right? Like, you came on my podcast. I think the first question I asked you was, you know, who are you? And you talked about labels. And it’s the same thing. Right? A label is a a story and a word. Right? There’s we have all the symbolism packed into these, you know, a single word that demonstrates who I am and I could talk about myself as a raver or a biohacker or a whatever. And all these things are me and they’re not me.

Cameron Benton [00:16:54]:
And but being aware that they are stories is, I think, the most powerful thing that you can do because if somebody does cut you off, if you can fundamentally accept that you don’t know that, it’s not even that you have to make a positive story about it. I think that that’s one of the things that, like, we can get trapped into too is, like, the sense of I need to make a positive story out of it. And it’s like, no. You don’t. You just, like, you can literally just accept you don’t know what happened and that that person’s, like, probably another human being doing their best to go through the world with all the things that they’ve done. And, like, that happened. You got cut off and freaked you out a little bit and got scared, and now you’re on the road. But if you take that with you for the rest of the day, man, like, you’re taking back to your kids or your work and you’re still thinking about this, like, what’s up with that? You that that’s the part that you wanna be examining.

Nick Urban [00:17:43]:
Yeah. With you on that. And you’re right. You don’t need to actually assign any significance to it, positive or negative, just to highlight the contrast between the usual negative story and then what could be a positive, but really, he could just not have seen me there or whatever it was.

Cameron Benton [00:17:59]:
Yeah. Yeah. I I very much agree.

Nick Urban [00:18:01]:
Yeah. Okay. So a lot of these practices also one of the core components of them is building personal resilience. So it’s like you’re becoming more resilient to the changes going on around you. You mentioned heart math and heart coherence and said that was one of your foundational practices or at least it was a very important in your evolution. What is heart math training and why was it impactful for you?

Cameron Benton [00:18:27]:
Well, there’s a whole book called the Heart Math Solution that I read years ago that I would be unqualified to give the scientific details of it. But from what I understand about it is you have HRV, which you probably know far more about than I do, but is, you know, your your heart rate variability the the variability of your heart rate as it moves. And essentially, you want that to sync up with your breath. And so it’s measuring through math this idea of like coherence and coherence is where your heart and your brain are talking to each other coherently, right? So you can imagine that your body is a collection of systems. There’s actually some arguments from people who would say that like our brain or heart, is a brain. It has its own collection of neural clusters and there are some that point out that there are basically neural clusters in each of the areas where there are chakras which is really interesting. And that those neural clusters do not just communicate from top down but from down up. And if you realize that, which I have found from my personal experience to be true, that you can actually listen to your heart by bringing your awareness to that heart part of your body.

Cameron Benton [00:19:40]:
You can also do that with your gut or other parts of your body. Those key chakra points are great places to listen to I would recommend. And if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you. But, you know, I would recommend checking it out and seeing what happens.

Nick Urban [00:19:51]:
When you say listen to those parts of your body, those energy centers, chakras, whatever you wanna call them, how are you actually going about listening to them?

Cameron Benton [00:19:59]:
I go about listening to them by bringing my awareness to that space, which might seem incredibly abstract to somebody if you have never done meditation or yoga or whatever. But the best way that I would describe this is we are all familiar with peripheral vision and I can look at you and bring my focus to the salt lamp that’s to my right and I’m actually paying more attention to that than to your face right now. Right? And so, in the same way that I can feel my body, I can be aware of you or the phone or the carpet under my floor, I can have awareness on the sensations in my heart or or in my chest, right? And so, paying attention to what those sensations are is what I would refer to as listening and when I listen to my heart by doing that or these other parts of my body, I start to pick up on signals which is going back to your earlier question part of what heart math training, heart coherence training really helps you do is you start to become more aware of your heart’s signals, right? And when I’m more aware of my heart signals, I can be aware of the information that it’s wanting to communicate to me. Such as go here, do this, this feels really good, this is scary. And as rudimentary as those things are, I find that a lot of the times we are really disconnected from that stuff in part because of all the information that we have and you know, I just had Doctor. Cynthia Kirshon on my podcast and, you know, she was talking about how we are like basically losing touch with reality because of our prefrontal cortex and how it just kind of, like, can overrun our lives. And it’s this thing that uniquely makes us human. And to piggyback off her point, to go to a different author, I can’t remember the guy’s name right now, but the guy who wrote Sapiens, you know, he talks about the the one thing that really makes us unique and powerful as human beings is our ability to believe in things that are not real.

Cameron Benton [00:22:09]:
So circling back to your our conversation around labels and things. Right? It’s our ability to make up stories and then believe them that allows us to team up to play a basketball game. Like what’s a basketball game? Right? You’re just throwing a ball through a net. But we make up all these rules and all of a sudden it matters, right? Because we’ve said this. People get into fights. People lose money over this game that we’ve made up. You know, money is another example of this. Religion is another example of this.

Cameron Benton [00:22:33]:
And again, it’s not bad. It’s just part of what makes us human and it’s really valuable. But when it’s overtaking us, when we’re losing connections with how my body actually feels, which is much more fine tuned for the world than that prefrontal cortex might be, then I think we lose touch with reality. When we lose touch with reality, we create harm for ourselves and others.

Nick Urban [00:22:55]:
Mhmm. Yeah. I’ve heard that called, like, the ancestral information source. Because if you tune that out, you’re losing an entire channel of really important biological informations coming in. If you learn to actually, assimilate it and process it, you’re open to more possibilities. You see things that other people don’t and they call it chance.

Cameron Benton [00:23:16]:
Yeah. Well, I mean, I remember I had this really weird thing happen to me when I was in Venice, California Years ago where I was out hanging out with a friend. And this guy came by and he was in this, like, crazy SUV, very looked like some very wealthy dude, but some you know, because he could be some really crazy person. But I remember him talking to us and, like, we started having this conversation around leadership and intuition and he was like do you know what intuition is? And I was like not really like but he’s like it’s guessing but it’s getting better at guessing. And the way that you the only way you can get better at your intuition is to keep using it which is to keep guessing over and over again. But like to your point earlier with like the labels and the stories and stuff, like so much of what we’re doing is guessing throughout our life but we don’t accept the fact that it’s guessing or we don’t accept the fact that we’re like making a bunch of mathematical calculations, we’re tuning into our bodies, we’re taking all this information and then we’re like, I think this is the best choice. And then we do that thing and then we find out if it was the best choice or not or it might have just been the best choice at the time and that’s all we could do with the information that we had and life is a series of that, of making choices with imperfect information which again circling back to meditation is that helps you make better choices, which then helps your life get better overall.

Nick Urban [00:24:37]:
Yeah. And it’s interesting that that’s a whole world. It seems like you you’re either born with this or not. And ironically, people who have the more traumatic, tumultuous childhoods have an sometimes an easier ability to take in that nonverbal communication, the things that seem more etheric. It’s energetic. But then also you can certainly train it, and there’s, like, even programs out there. I think the one of the three letter agencies has one to teach remote viewing. I don’t know if it’s c CIA or FBI, one of them.

Nick Urban [00:25:08]:
They have a remote viewing program in which they teach people to remote view, which seems ridiculous from a scientific materialist perspective, but it’s something that is teachable.

Cameron Benton [00:25:17]:
I think almost all things are teachable, and I think that there are things that are not. Right? So I think that, like, in the same way, I might be six foot four and as much as I want, I can’t teach myself to be six foot four. There’s, like, certain gifts or attributes that we have that either limit us or strengthen us in various ways and I think we all have different roles to play within our cosmos which is almost a other whole other conversation that we’d wanna have at some point about, like, evolution and, you know, biological, reductionism and stuff that I think has a lot of problems with it. But, like, I think the point that I wanted to make with, thermal viewing part is, like, you know, for anybody who’s, like, wondering about, okay, yeah, there’s there might be some, like, kind of whatever data. Like, I had met people who professionally their job was to be someone who could help find dead bodies that people couldn’t find, right. Like I have met people who like they were paid by a government or whatever it is to do some of these things, you know. And I’m not gonna give out names or any of this kind of stuff but like I’ve been around people with rare abilities and some people have rare abilities which is you know, my podcast for example is is based on is called getting to know you and interviewing unique people with unique perspectives. And the reason that I do that is because there are always these outliers outside of the data or help us make better sense of the data when you actually listen to actual human beings and and their stories and their connected things.

Cameron Benton [00:26:39]:
Because we can have something where it’s like, hey, this medicine doesn’t work in the aggregate or the data, but you’re like, oh, well, this one person who does, this weird medicine that everybody says doesn’t work or it’s just purely placebo. Well, it’s like, well, this person is, like, alive with a rare medical condition that everybody else dies within two years from. He’s 30 years plus and he’s existing. I think we should probably examine that person and figure out what maybe is going on or where we are wrong about how we’re viewing something.

Nick Urban [00:27:06]:
Yeah. And there’s so much of that too. There’s so many anomalies in really cool ways, and it’d be nice if instead of just dismissing them as an odd chance to actually, like you’re saying, investigate them and figure out what it is that makes them different and unique in that respect.

Cameron Benton [00:27:23]:
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s such a hard part with human beings and data is that we get very, very attached to the stories, tying that back in, of of what we make about data. Right? We have all this information and it’s like, well, overall, x y z thing happens. And then often what we do with that is it’s like, well, we have, like, well, what about, like, you know, a over there? It’s like, well, a, you know, it doesn’t really fit the the narrative. So, like, it and, like, we will literally discount it. And it’s like, well, look. I’m not saying to, like, throw away the narrative we have, but can we factor that piece in that maybe we’re missing part of the puzzle piece versus just saying, like, well, that thing is just bad or is, you know, nonexistent, which and here’s how I would tie this in with, the evolution thing that I mentioned earlier is, like, you know, a lot of times with, like, is it evolutionary psychology in particular, right, it goes back to, like, everything is about procreation functionally. It’s like, hey, all of us are we have to pass along our genes.

Cameron Benton [00:28:24]:
But I also really am curious about that because there’s a lot of things that humans do in particular but I would say other animals do that do not make sense of the whole purpose to pass along our genes. And for example, you know, if we’re going through history like people who have chosen to be eunuchs, obviously. People who have who jump in front of a car to save somebody else’s life who is not part of their immediate family. Like none of these things are make any sense if that’s what we are just purely here built for is just going on and I think that we limit ourselves by not looking at ourselves kind of almost as a greater collective and saying, Like how are these people who maybe choose to not procreate or don’t procreate, how maybe are they collectively contributing to our lives as a whole? The point being is that I think we are often missing pieces of a greater system because we get disconnected from pieces of inconvenient truths that don’t fit our narrative.

Nick Urban [00:29:23]:
Yeah. And there’s so many examples of that throughout history. Like, you can look at the studies, like, the seven countries I think seven countries study where it’s, like, seven countries cherry picked to fit specific hypotheses. And, ultimately, a scientific hypothesis is a story that we’d then try and back up with data. And, unfortunately, a lot of times, that data is picked and, in some cases, discarded to fit the narrative better. But I think it’s a great point about the other lens of looking at things through collectivism versus individualism. Like, it might not all be about the individual passing on the genes, but instead for the greater collective.

Cameron Benton [00:30:03]:
Yeah. I mean, I and I love what you just said about it being a lens because it’s not even necessarily that that collective perspective is the right one. Right? It’s simply that, like, hey, here’s another way we can look at it. Like, I love the phrase, I think it was, was, Albert Einstein who said you can’t solve the problem at the same level of thinking, that was there to create it and I think often we think of that level as being smarter but I literally think it’s like, actually, if you just look at it from a different perspective, right, if you actually just instead of looking at the cube this way and you’re, like, so convinced it’s a square, but if you, like, stepped over here, you’re like, oh, there’s actually these other pieces that’s why the way that I was approaching it doesn’t work. Right? And I think if we can look at doing that more often, then it helps us in every area of our life.

Nick Urban [00:30:49]:
So does heart coherence training fit into this at all?

Cameron Benton [00:30:55]:
Yeah. I mean, heart coherence training, what that does is it it fine tunes you, you know, into your own signal and I think that that’s a really powerful piece of information that you can use to guide yourself. I would say what it what that has done for me is by tuning into my own heart and knowing what that signal feels like when it is a positive signal on a very basic level versus a negative signal that I am able to make better decisions that in the moment may not make sense. And I can trust what I would call a deeper wisdom. And I think you can see this if you want if you’re somebody who looks a little more abstract, they look at a lot of the songs and literature throughout all of history that talk about listening to your heart. And I think that’s a very literal thing. I don’t think it’s, made up. There’s a lot of words in Greek or in other things that refer to body parts.

Cameron Benton [00:31:50]:
Courage actually means ‘kur’ is heart. And if you’ve ever done something that takes courage, you will feel a sense of that heart feeling of this is the right choice and you’re trusting yourself and you’re stepping into that fear.

Nick Urban [00:32:04]:
There’s also a reason it’s called a gut feeling for certain things and you feel butterflies in your stomach. And there’s so many different words and phrases that revolve around associating a feeling with a particular body part.

Cameron Benton [00:32:18]:
Yeah. That’s exactly and I think paying attention to those those signals more literally for you is incredibly valuable. Like noticing if your throat is getting tight or you’re, you know, getting choked up, right? These different types of things. Paying attention to those body signals are key like you talk about remote viewing earlier and I remember there’s a psychological study, I don’t remember what it was exactly, but, where they were there’s two decks of cards and they got a point for drawing a black one and they got a negative point for drawing a red one. And the deck that was more negative, the person’s hands started to sweat like four or five cards in before the person was like aware of the deck being wrong, Right? So, like, your body somehow knew that that deck after, like, one or two cards was like, nah. Not that one. Don’t do that one anymore. But it took that person that much longer to actually listen to it because I think of that disconnection that we have.

Nick Urban [00:33:19]:
Yeah. That’s a concept that I call, biofeedback amnesia, where it’s like a disconnection between what the mind says and what the body says.

Cameron Benton [00:33:28]:
Mhmm.

Nick Urban [00:33:28]:
And also if you could draw parallels, I mean, it might just be the body part, but it could also be working with the conscious mind, which has which holds a very small amount of information, like 10 bits, I think it is. And then the subconscious, which is, like, a million times more powerful in terms of how much information it can process.

Cameron Benton [00:33:47]:
Yeah. And there’s a book, one of the books that I read with biohacking, and the title of the book is called The Body is a Subconscious Mind. So to go into what you’re saying, it’s so funny. I just ran my stomach on this book again today. And I really think that is true. Your body is communicating. I mean, the body keeps a score. There’s a reason that we keep going back to the body and it’s because it’s just full of these signals that you can’t cognitively process.

Cameron Benton [00:34:12]:
It’s happening so much faster than your conscious mind can really untangle, which is why I think if you’re able to pause your conscious mind for a bit of time, you’re able to come up with new insights that are much deeper and richer than you would have otherwise had.

Nick Urban [00:34:27]:
Yeah. And there’s so many examples of people instinctually realizing this. I forget if it’s Einstein or one of the other inventors who used to work for a bit in a block and then go on long walks with no distraction. And during those long walks, since their mind is not focused on any one particular thing, they’re able to take that information, pass it on to the subconscious, and then listen, I say in air quotes, for a response. And that’s where the breakthroughs come. That and, like, the dreaming, sleeping theta state.

Cameron Benton [00:34:58]:
Yeah. Yeah. That was the other one I was thinking about was the the guy who had the the ball bearing. I think was it yeah. You’re familiar with this one. Right? I think it was the guy who came up with the carbon, carbon rings in his in his vision, right, where he saw, like, a series of snakes that were all interconnecting, and he would sleep with a a ball bearing in his hand, and then he would fall asleep and then wake up. It was either him or that was Thomas Edison. I can’t remember that which one it was.

Cameron Benton [00:35:20]:
But

Nick Urban [00:35:21]:
Yeah. There’s so many fascinating depictions of this throughout history of people, like, being more in tune with their body. And I guess so you have meditation, neurofeedback, and HIV biofeedback or heart coherence, whatever you wanna call it. Are there any other practices there that you’ve found helpful to build a stronger connection between the two?

Cameron Benton [00:35:42]:
So many. I would say for your audience, I think one of the best things that they could do, if there’s someone who’s really into biohacking, they probably love neurofeedback, heart math, all this stuff that they’re geeking out already and they want to go back and do more of it. I would actually say go to an improv class. Go take an improv class with whatever improv studio is near you. Take a movement based acting class, take a dance class. Something that really gets you out of your head. I wouldn’t necessarily just do ecstatic dance because a lot of times they can be a little bit too unstructured and I think for people who maybe that’s not their first go to it really helps to have some structure and guidance and that risk detector. But you will start to learn how to tune into your body and listen to your body, listen to your instincts.

Cameron Benton [00:36:33]:
And, you know, I’m I’m fortunate that I had a background as an actor and a creative person, growing up. And so there’s a lot of those instincts. But I I notice them come up when I’m around other people who haven’t had them in the same way where it’s like, oh, yeah. You don’t know how to just jump into a moment and let go because and trust that it’s gonna happen and be okay. And I think giving yourself some of that active practice can be that way, and it can be really, really huge for people.

Nick Urban [00:37:00]:
Yeah. That’s gonna be exposure therapy for a lot of people also. When I Yeah. Took my first dance classes last year, it definitely felt like that to me. I was in the deep end. And at first, I was like, wow, this is scary. This is so different. And then after a couple, I’m like, oh, this is fun.

Nick Urban [00:37:15]:
Like, I get to engage a whole different side of me. And it’s also really good for the brain to have that pattern interrupt and to work on skills of different the you know, most people don’t ever practice unless they already have this integrated into the routine.

Cameron Benton [00:37:30]:
Yeah. And what a great social skill container, right, to really feel those things. What’s it like to, you know, have a sense of structured social relationship? I mean, dancing and courting used to provide that for us, and now a lot of our dancing is very unstructured, which I love unstructured dancing. But, like, you know, there’s there’s a value to protocol. And there’s a great line in one of my favorite books called The Name of the Wind. And he talks about how, you know, his mom used to teach him how to, you know, bow correctly and curtsy and know what what title to say when and all these, like, ridiculous things. He was so frustrated about it. And then he meets this beautiful woman, and he realizes in that moment why those things exist and it’s to help you to have something to say when you have nothing to say.

Cameron Benton [00:38:10]:
Right? And so I think learning those things and stepping into dance, stepping into improv, what that really reminds me of too from the podcast that we did together was the idea of like leaving the cave, right? Like at some point you gotta jump out. You gotta go beyond just the practice which is what it is which is a practice for real life and get yourself into those things. I think one of the greatest things I ever did for my biology and my nervous system and all of the things was I went to 54 concerts in a single year. Right? And I was just like it was after COVID and I went to a ton of music festivals and it was just like this huge, you know, bevy of social experiences that really started to integrate all of the work that I had done previously.

Nick Urban [00:39:00]:
What drew you to the concerts particularly?

Cameron Benton [00:39:04]:
So, a number of things. One one is that I love live music. But I think before that, I was always, you know, younger before I had the money to do that stuff is I was really, really drawn to things like Coachella or Electric Forest. Like, I would see them and be like, oh, that looks so fun. Like, you know, there’s hot girls dancing everywhere. There’s people listening to music. People are crazy. They’re having a fun time.

Cameron Benton [00:39:25]:
It just looks like such a blast and it looks like something that I now I was just drawn to on an internal level, you know, talking about the body or the things that you liked. And I grew up really conservative and religious. So, like, I wasn’t I didn’t really have a lot of those things. I didn’t party when I was growing up really. I never was from partying phase. I didn’t have a lot of that kind of, experience or social upbringing in that way. I was very rigid with a lot of stuff and, you know, there’s other benefits that I got from that, but I didn’t have this other part of my life. And I, you know, had been very successful in my career up at that point.

Cameron Benton [00:39:57]:
And COVID had just happened, which was, you know, very challenging in its own way because out here in Seattle I didn’t have a ton of social connection I just moved here I had like two friends before COVID happened and I remember thinking to myself as like I don’t really know what I love to do for fun I I love health and wellness. I love meditating. I like reading. And I like personal development and growth. But like what do I actually like to do just for fun? And I didn’t know. And I remember being like okay well what are the things I do know I like to do? It was like I like to play video games, I like to go on walks and I really like live music and so I was like okay well I’m gonna go and I think COVID was ending and I was going stir crazy at that point, and there was a music festival. And somebody had posted that they had an extra ticket to go. And I was like, hey.

Cameron Benton [00:40:50]:
I don’t know you, but I can look for friends out here. And can I go? And they’re like, sure. And I went to Base Canyon in 2021 which is a music festival out here at the Gorge Amphitheater and, you know, three days of, you know, psychedelics and amazing music and amazing visuals and by the end of it I was just kinda bawling. And I was like, wow. This is is so profound. The rave community was super transformational for me. And I then had an opportunity to go to EDC Vegas, like, a month or two later. Just I had money saved up for a random adventure, and that lined up with a bunch of other things that were happening.

Cameron Benton [00:41:28]:
And it was super last minute. Like, I made the decision four or five days before going, booked my ticket, booked my shuttle, all the stuff. I took a completely solo adventure out there and finished that. And it was like, I wanna do this. This is what I love more than do this is what I love doing more than anything else in the world. And so I wanna make a year of doing as much of it as I can and just seeing what happens. And so I made it a personal goal of going to 50 concerts in a single year, and I guess the rest is history.

Nick Urban [00:41:57]:
Have you always been so spontaneous?

Cameron Benton [00:42:00]:
That’s a great question. Have I always been so spontaneous? I guess it depends on who you’re talking to. Some people would consider myself spontaneous. I don’t think I saw myself as very spontaneous. Most of the things were very well thought out in my life in one way, shape or form. Although I’ve always been somebody who runs more off of instinct and a sense of like this feels right. My sister used to get frustrated at me because when I was learning guitar and she asked me how to teach her strumming patterns, I would tell her you just like feel it. And so there is a sense of that like paying attention and tuning into things and trusting myself that I’ve kind of had that maybe is more genetically wired or whatever.

Cameron Benton [00:42:47]:
But I I would say I was always drawn to spontaneity, but I was always afraid of it at the same time. Even I’ve had a friend refer to myself as a shy extrovert. I think that’s something I used to consider myself deeply as an introvert. And then do through doing things like meditation, neurofeedback, and putting myself out into places like, you know, these parties and, festivals and stuff, is the learning that I was like, oh, actually, like, not everybody was craving being as gregarious as I am in this setting. It was actually just my kind of deeper desires, were were blocked by fears. Like, I I was afraid of talk being talking and, you know, being taking up too much space or risking being, you know, looking like an asshole or whatever it might be versus, like, allowing myself to just be who I am. Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:43:38]:
Well, of course, I wanna dig deeper on that right there because you you mentioned the transformation before and after. Were there any particular things you did, reframes that let you go from that previous state of being a little more reserved and closed off and shyer to where you are now willing to go on solo trips? Because that’s one thing that a lot of people are afraid of, like, being seen in public by themselves without their friends and that kind of stuff.

Cameron Benton [00:44:04]:
There’s a there’s so many things. I would start off with saying, like, on a fundamental route, it was meditation. I I always go back to, you know if people are really like what’s the one thing that you would ever give to somebody or like you know whatever it would be meditation because it allows you to start having awareness and I don’t care what that meditation is other than some form of actually sitting, or or lying down. Lying down is fine. But, like, I I think movement based meditation where people are like, oh, I go on a walk and that’s meditation or I ride my I ride my bicycle and and it’s very meditative for me. It’s like you that’s not what I’m talking about. You can practice while you’re doing those things and you can gain that ability to do that like even when you and I are talking, I would argue that I’m meditating. There’s a sense of me coming back to awareness or coming back to certain sensations or feelings, right? But really you finding a time to have that, build out that awareness, that was like a key part because that allowed me to start unraveling who I was more and more.

Cameron Benton [00:45:05]:
The other part is that and neurofeedback and you know, heart coherence, all that, like, just amplified that more so.

Nick Urban [00:45:12]:
On that, is that your practice you mentioned earlier of just coming back to your breath or really any anchor? And is there a certain amount of time that you recommend for someone getting started? Because there’s so many different schools of thought out there about what it takes and how to best do it.

Cameron Benton [00:45:28]:
I would go after the one that most interests you. That would be my actual answer. I can give you one of, like, do you know, I would also look at it from the Atomic Habits perspective of, like, do the easiest thing, and then cut that in half and then do that. Do whatever you can stick with. Right? You and I talked about diet on on my episode. Right? And I think, again, doing the thing that is going to work for you is the most important thing. So if that is just thirty seconds or a minute or just, you know, hey. Sit down on a cushion every day.

Cameron Benton [00:45:58]:
Just do that every day for, like, a period of time. You know, from from me, what I like, is I like using the HeartMath device, and I like using that for fifteen minutes in the morning, and then ideally two other, like, five minute sessions throughout the day.

Nick Urban [00:46:11]:
That would be a good way to

Cameron Benton [00:46:12]:
work for me. The HeartMath device. Yeah. So you you clip it to your ear, and, then it has a good thing that you clip to your shirt. And it’s measuring your heart rate through the air. You have it on your app on your phone and you just breathe with it. And there’s different like levels of it so you can have it on level one, two, three, or four depending on the difficulty. So you start off at one and then move up as you go.

Cameron Benton [00:46:32]:
And you breathe with it and then it’s basically red when you’re in a a low coherent state. It will go to blue when you’re in a medium coherent state and you’ll go to green when you’re in a high coherent state. And so, you breathe with that and you just the goal is to get it into a high coherent state for that period of time. There’s little bits of coaching on that. So like again, where you bring your awareness to when you’re breathing. It goes into, you know, focusing on positive feelings or memories or sensations, on relaxed calm feelings, etcetera. So that’s what you’ll do, and you’ll that’s what you’ll do for fifteen minutes or so.

Nick Urban [00:47:05]:
And the way that’s working is that it’s measuring your brainwaves and your heart rate variability at the same time to

Cameron Benton [00:47:11]:
It doesn’t measure your brainwaves. That one doesn’t measure your brainwaves. That one specifically does your heart rate variability. So but they but they have a math thing that I think is hidden behind pay not paywalls, but, like, you know, their science or whatever. Yeah. Algorithm thing that measures coherence. They basically can tell once your heart rate variability is hitting some sort of number system that they want to consistently over a period of time that your heart is likely in a coherent state. Right? So that’s which is connected to your brain, but it’s not measuring your brainwaves at the same time.

Nick Urban [00:47:43]:
Okay. And I think there’s also there’s a metric called heart oh, what was it, resonant frequency breath rate, which is the number of inhalations and exhalations per minute that for most people will balance their brain waves and their heart coherence. And I think for most people, it falls between four and a half to six and a half now, per minute. So if you guys don’t have a heart heart math device or any device like that, shooting for that band somewhere and noticing how you feel at, say, four and a half and then changing it down the line and trying at six and a half and just noticing where you feel best because that’s probably gonna be your sweet spot.

Cameron Benton [00:48:24]:
Yeah. And I would say if you wanna do a similar type of breath without the device is it’s I don’t know what they call it anymore, but it’s, basically a four seven breath. So where you inhale for four seconds and exhale for seven seconds. No real pause on either side of that. So it’s different than box breathing which is also very valuable in its own right. It’s really, you know, relax the nervous system. But four inhale, seven exhale will increase your HRV and put you into a more parasympathetic state. The biggest thing though is that your exhale needs to be longer than your inhale.

Cameron Benton [00:49:01]:
That’s the most part. The rest of it is actually individually variable but four seven seems to be accurate for the vast majority of people but play around with those numbers. The other one thing I wanted to say going back to your question because I didn’t say like do whatever you’re doing most drawn to which is true and I would also say I think it’s very valuable for me to do one that is guided especially early on Because having a good guide, allows you to realize when you’ve drifted off faster, and helps get yourself through some of the, I don’t know what I’m doing. What am I doing here? Like, it just having a coach on some level is really, really helpful. And, basically, having a guided meditation provides that. There used to at least be something called insightla.org, which is where I got started. So my therapist turned me on to, and there’s a bunch of audio recordings on there, and it they were really valuable. There’s also, Sam Harris’ app that waking up, I think, is what it’s called.

Cameron Benton [00:50:00]:
That can be valuable for them. I think for me, he talks a little bit too much, in that it’s not the type of coaching that I really like, but a lot of people really, really like it. So that could be another avenue as well.

Nick Urban [00:50:10]:
Yeah. There’s another app that I used to use back in the day called Insight Timer, and that one’s also free. And there’s a lot of tracks on there as

Cameron Benton [00:50:18]:
well. Yeah. Insight Timer is great. Really, really great resource for sure.

Nick Urban [00:50:22]:
Okay. Well, we’ve covered a lot about the neurofeedback and, I mean, as these all fall under the category of biofeedback. You’ve worked in a neurofeedback clinic. What have you seen be the most impactful for people out of all the different modalities and technologies? Anything in particular stand out?

Cameron Benton [00:50:40]:
Within neurofeedback specifically?

Nick Urban [00:50:42]:
Within all the devices that you were using.

Cameron Benton [00:50:46]:
Yeah. I would say it’s not really about the devices. I would say that that it’s really about how the person shows up and what they really, like, want from it and how open minded they’re going to be to it. You know, the more that you are willing to come in with an open mind and relax and surrender to whatever process that you’re choosing to be in because nobody else is choosing having you be there. Like, you’re up there of your own volition. Right? Nobody’s forcing and tying you down, but people can show up to a neurofeedback of any kind and then show up in a way where they’re like, hey. And then they are really resistant and active. It’s like, well, why are you you’re here.

Cameron Benton [00:51:22]:
So, like, trust us to go through that process and see what’s going to happen on the other side. And I find the people who trust more get more out of it because they spend less time fighting with the system while it’s being active versus getting the benefit while it’s there. It’s like if went to the gym and you’re like, you’re gonna be in the gym for two hours. And instead of spending those two hours working out, you spent two hours, like, with your arms crossed, like, I don’t wanna do that and then and you spent that you still spent the same two hours, but you shouldn’t get as much out of it because you weren’t willing to just, like, go and do the work and let your monkey mind go for a little bit.

Nick Urban [00:52:00]:
Yeah. I mean, that really applies to everything too. It’s, like, the attitude and the mindset with which you approach the intervention, whatever it is. Even if you’re in the gym, you’re working out, but at the same time, you’re telling yourself, oh, this is too much. I’m gonna be, like, destroying my stress hormones. You’re gonna skyrocket them, and then you’re not gonna be you’re not gonna have nearly as good results as the person who’s like, I’m nourishing my body right now. Like, I’m gonna be bigger, faster, stronger, all these things from the session.

Cameron Benton [00:52:27]:
Yeah. And and tuning back to kind of your earlier question around, like, what is, you know, what’s the the best one to do or best thing for, like, all these devices or whatever is, like, there is no right path. There is not a best one. There is I genuinely believe this. Like, there is the best one for you in following your path. You know, when I did work at that neurofeedback clinic, you know, we would tell people when they would get done, you know, we don’t let you sign up for another round right at the end of your session. Because we we don’t know that this is going to be the best thing for you moving forward. This takes, you know, we did it as an intensive and so it can take three to six months for all of these results to really hit in.

Cameron Benton [00:53:09]:
And your life might change. You might realize that a different path is for you. Maybe you need to go study tantra somewhere. Maybe you need to go to a bunch of shows and have that experience. Or maybe you need to do breath work or take Ayahuasca. But, like, follow your path because there isn’t just one one way. There’s so many people. Like, look at the world and how many people are successful and happy and how many people are miserable.

Cameron Benton [00:53:31]:
And you can see so many people do the same things. It’s not about the thing. It’s about, is that thing right for you?

Nick Urban [00:53:36]:
Yeah. I’m with you on that. And it’s a little paradoxical because it’s like everyone wants to see the person who’s crushing it in whatever respect that is and breaking down their habits, their minds of different things. But it’s so individualized. You can’t just necessarily adopt what they have because you’re only adopting a small part of their overall framework, their perspective, their life view, all these things. And unless you’re them, it’s not guaranteed to work for you. And in fact, it might backfire.

Cameron Benton [00:54:07]:
I I a % agree. I mean, you know, going back to, like, that’s the reason that I started my podcast was because I found that there’s so much life advice out there, so much data that’s often disconnected from somebody’s story. Right? And I think the most valuable thing that you can really tune into is somebody’s story to understand why they have a particular piece of wisdom or data and why that was right for them in that moment. So then you can turn that and see, oh, does this apply to me in my situation? Is there a truth that I can adapt? And, also, maybe I shouldn’t be comparing myself to this person who had 50,000 in the bank account when they were 26 years old and graduated from a, Ivy League school and compare that to my situation where I have three kids and, you know, all these other things and listen to that person tell me to take risks. Right? There’s a different level of responsibility you have based on your situation. You can’t just take cookie cutter advice from one thing and apply it to yours. There might be principles that you can take, but, like, you cannot just take somebody else’s situation and plop it on your own. It’s terrible advice to do that.

Nick Urban [00:55:11]:
So what is your approach here then? You hear the story, obviously. That’s a big part of when you’re, like, saying say you wanna improve at something or you wanna take on a new skill, develop a new skill. What’s your process to go from an idea to implementation and ideally successful implementation, of course?

Cameron Benton [00:55:31]:
So I don’t have a formal process, so I will say that out first. I will listen to the story and connect that and look for the deeper wisdom or principle that I think is true. And maybe I might ask for myself, like, how is this true for me? Or does this apply to me? Is this right? And again, I will tune in to my body, especially my heart. My heart and my gut are the two ones I I will pay attention to the most, but I will pay attention to the other parts of my body as well, including my mind. I just don’t think I want the mind running the show. That can be dangerous. But the but I want all of that pieces of information to come in so then I will make a decision about whether or not to apply or how to apply that. And sometimes that information or that advice, even if I disagree and argue with it, can be really revealing for me about what I actually think or what I reveal.

Cameron Benton [00:56:20]:
I just heard somebody say recently that, like, how grateful they are. It was Alan Watts. He was talking about how grateful he is when people argue with him. Because when you argue with me, I start to clarify my own ideas more. Right? Even some of these questions that you you ask me where I I almost, like I’m, like, well, I don’t necessarily, like, I almost reject the premise of the question in some ways. Right? But, like, it allows me to clarify my ideas more, and that’s such a gift because I’m, like, oh, cool. Here’s what I actually mean and what I think and what I say. I’ve never thought about my process before, but now as I’m talking about it, I’m able to clarify it.

Cameron Benton [00:56:49]:
So that’s that would be my process.

Nick Urban [00:56:51]:
Mhmm. That’s the Feynman principle to Richard Feynman. He used that same thing where he would learn something and then immediately he would turn around and teach it. Because when you teach it, then it solidifies your own understanding. Students ask questions and you realize, oh, I thought I really understood this theory well, but then three students asked me questions, and I didn’t have answers to them. So then you study, you fill in the gaps. And by doing that enough times, you really solidify your understanding. You understand the different perspectives out there, and you can you just refine your own beliefs and your own understanding.

Cameron Benton [00:57:22]:
Yeah. I I love that because it’s so funny that I’m you know, universe works in synchronistic ways. And I just had this whole conversation with somebody about teaching and how, you know, depending on do I have enough information to be teaching about something? And do I have enough experience or credibility? And, like, you know, we look for people with degrees or all these things. And those are all valuable. I don’t wanna poo poo poo people who’ve been through those experiences because it where it’s basically saying, hey, this person has been through this series of events and they therefore, they probably had a level of expertise. Right? And there is value in teaching in and of itself for you and the other person because because you haven’t been through the same process as a quote unquote master or expert or genius level person, you might actually be able to speak to their experience more specifically. In the same way that, like, somebody with brilliant advice who went to the Ivy League school and it talks about courage and whatever, if you do talk to that, you know, that dad who’s also struggling similar to you but has, like, made progress and they talk about taking risks, oh my gosh. That person’s perspective and and information is so valuable to you.

Cameron Benton [00:58:25]:
But that person might not feel comfortable even sharing it because they’re like, oh, well, I haven’t really done I did. No. But you’ve made a step. And, like, I think that’s one of the things we don’t do enough is we don’t listen enough to the people who are, like, one step ahead of us or or moving alongside us, where we kinda get obsessed with which totally makes sense. This is not a criticism because there’s such value in listening to the masters and the experts. But there’s also the wisdom that you have, right? And the wisdom that I have and the wisdom that my sister and my brother has. Like I should totally, when I be wanna become a parent, listen to my sister and my brother-in-law for parenting advice. And my brother, just so he doesn’t get forgotten about if he listens to this episode.

Cameron Benton [00:59:02]:
Yeah. And and his and his wife, you know, and talk with them about parenting. Because they’ve been parents way longer than I have. Right? And so, like, for me to just be have a bunch of hypotheses and ideas and listen to parenting, I invested one thing. But, like, hey. They’ve been through it. And they have my genes too, you know, some of them. So they might have better insights about how my kids are gonna be and how to deal with the realities of certain things that, like, the people with the best advice in the world and the best datasets in the world will never have.

Nick Urban [00:59:27]:
I love that. I first came across that idea. There is a guitar school, and the teacher was also learning. He was just a little bit ahead of the students, and his students were much more motivated. And they ended up doing a lot better than the students of one of the guitar masters because he was 10% ahead of them, let’s just say. They wanted to catch up and surpass him, so they would actually practice versus the other students. They would not practice because they’re like, oh, whatever. What difference does it make? I’m never gonna get here.

Nick Urban [00:59:59]:
And so it’s that 10% edge, just being 10% of head ahead of other people and being able to share not only the the highlight tapes of everything that’s worked out well, but also, hey. I tried this, didn’t work. Here’s what was your experience? And then going through there and iterating together.

Cameron Benton [01:00:16]:
Yeah. I I had this beautiful example of this given to me by Jessica DeRose, who she’s a great, business coach. Highly recommend her. And she talks about how, you know, if you have been to a city once in your life for three days and you went there and you ate at a couple of restaurants, you tried some things, you got lost a little bit, you came back, and then the next time you go there, you’re with a group of friends and they’re like, hey, where should we go? Right? You’re you’re not like, oh, I don’t know. I have no sense of information or wisdom. No. You’re like, oh, no. I know a couple of restaurants.

Cameron Benton [01:00:49]:
I know a couple of things. And as long as you’re not, like, lying to yourself, you’re like, I know this city better than anyone in the world. No. But you probably can still guide people. Right? And I think it’s one of the things that, like, a lot of the heart of my podcast or my my work that I really am doing is hopefully showing people they have such incredible wisdom out there that is so lost because we’re comparing ourselves to people who are so much further, you know, know, ahead of us even though we’re not even playing the same game. Right? And it’s like, oh, well, do you even want that? There’s some wants. It’s a whole other rabbit hole to go down. But, like, if you just realized how much wisdom you had in your life, in your perspective by just telling your story to somebody else, by sharing the insights that you have gotten, not only does it clarify it for you, but I promise you there’s something in in what you have that would change somebody else’s life if you just speak up about it.

Nick Urban [01:01:38]:
On that note and also based on the story you mentioned a minute ago about your family having good parental advice, one of the most humbling practices that I do every once in a while is I will just talk to random people. It can be, like, the homeless people on the streets of Austin and try and glean some wisdom from them. And I find that everyone I talk to, if I go deep enough with them, I’m able to learn something that is, like, transformational whether or not they recognize it it’s having that impact on me.

Cameron Benton [01:02:09]:
%. That is the again, that’s the whole reason I started the podcast is I I’m sitting in the back seat of my friend’s car in Alaska, and this guy had just told us about how at 16 years old, he had left the Mormon church in Utah completely away from his family as a single person with his truck, drove all the way to Alaska from Utah and then started a life here and is now married to a woman who was originally brought over as a mail order bride who divorced from a psychopath. And this guy is driving me from, like, a hiking trip I was on back to their home. And I ask him something. He’s just like, oh, you know, I’m just like a normal boring person. And I was just like, what? Like, slow sir, slow yourself down. Like, what are you talking about? That is the wildest story I have ever heard. And you just referred to yourself as a boring person.

Cameron Benton [01:02:59]:
Another example I would give this is I was at a festival, and this guy is talking, and he’s talking about this, like, crazy rare disease that he has and, like, all of this stuff. And I was like, well, what happened like the day before this all happened? Because he just woke up and he was like paralyzed and couldn’t do anything. And I was like, what happened the day before? And he’s just like, oh, you know, it was normal every day. And I remember like my seeing my brain be like, oh, it was normal every wait a second. What the heck does that mean? And so I asked him. I was like, what is what is normal every day for you? He was like, oh, well, I worked in a chemical plant and and I was like, bro, you got chemical poisoning. This is not a magical rare disease. Like, you ought to get, like, a lawyer and figure some of this stuff out because, like, this was probably something that happened because of the chemical plant.

Cameron Benton [01:03:42]:
But, like, a normal everyday person in my life doesn’t work in a chemical plant. So I never would have thought of that ever. But for him, that was his normal. Right? And so to your point, like, asking that deeper question about that person’s life because what is normal for us, our everyday is so different for somebody else. And there’s so much insight and wisdom in that.

Nick Urban [01:04:02]:
Well, Cameron or Cam, I just learned previously that Cam is an acceptable thing to call you. So

Cameron Benton [01:04:07]:
It’s more than acceptable.

Nick Urban [01:04:09]:
If people want to check out your podcast, getting to know you, or to follow you online, where do you wanna send them? Yeah.

Cameron Benton [01:04:16]:
So they can go to Cam Edward Benton is my handle on Instagram, on YouTube. You can also type in getting to know you podcast in YouTube and you’ll find it that way. I also have a small sub stack of startup. If you go to my Instagram, you’ll find everything. And, YouTube is the the best place to follow me. There’s we do I do my podcast every other week and then there’s short snippets in between, and I’ll be coming out with more personalized content, in the near future. So yeah.

Nick Urban [01:04:40]:
And if there was a worldwide burning of the books and all knowledge is lost, you get to save the works of three teachers. Who would you choose and why? Or you can just share your some of the top books that influenced

Cameron Benton [01:04:54]:
you. So books I would say, Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity. I would say, Seneca on the Shortness of Life. I think it’s a beautiful one. And the third one is my theology professor’s book, The God Who Trusts. And this is almost more of a shout out to him and his teachings and what he did for me is I found that what I learned in his class was to have an open mind and consider all things without necessarily believing them. And I think that that belief in his presence, and I have an interview with him if anybody wants to check it out, was so profound for me. It began so much of my my my questioning and and opening up and being able to see things and and trust my own sense of intuition and thought process.

Cameron Benton [01:05:42]:
So those three things I would I would say would be if I could leave three pieces of wisdom or teachings that are there, it would be those things.

Nick Urban [01:05:50]:
Beautiful. Well, Kim, thank you so much for joining me in the podcast today. It’s been a pleasure chatting, and

Cameron Benton [01:05:56]:
I look forward

Nick Urban [01:05:56]:
to staying in touch. And until next time.

Cameron Benton [01:05:59]:
Alright. See you soon.

Nick Urban [01:06:01]:
Thank you for tuning in to this episode. Head over to Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave a rating. Every review helps me bring you thought provoking guests. As always, you can find the show notes for this one at mindbodypeak.comslash, and then the number of the episode. There, you can also chat with other peak performers or connect with me directly. The information depicted in this podcast is for information purposes only. Please consult your primary health care professional before making any lifestyle changes.