Why Training for Resilience Could Save Your Life

As soon as you think you have it all figured out, absolutely everything can change in an instant. 

What do you do when out of nowhere, life hands you a serious injury or diagnosis? 

In this episode, I'll be sharing hard‑won insights from recovery after being sidelined in a serious high speed hit‑and‑run wreck.

We'll explore: 

• Why it's best to train for resilience before you take the hit
• How to turn hardships into gifts by refusing to settle for "poor me" thinking
• Specific practices to bounce back to 110%
• A surprising warning in the age of deepfakes and rampant AI slop
• And much more...

Just before the car wreck, I played a couple live music shows in Las Vegas, at Nos Vegas as well as the BSN Golf Championships during the Bitcoin Conference.

As a special bonus, stay till the end of today's episode to hear a full set from one of the shows in Las Vegas featuring all original music, lots of improvisation and special guests.

During the performance, people all around the world tuned in, tipped the musicians in Bitcoin and commented in real time on the livestream. It's an innovative way to support musicians and connect with each other, and I hope to see you on the next livestream. You can connect with me on NOSTR Here.

Big thanks to Mike from Tunestr and Jim and Julie Costello of Phantom Power Music for recording, producing, livestreaming and putting together these shows.

Enjoy.

Please take a moment to make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to podcasts, and to stay up-to-date, sign up for my newsletter at AbelJames.com.

You can also join Substack as a free or paid member for ad-free episodes of this show, to comment on each episode, and to hit me up in the DM’s. Join at abeljames.substack.com. And if you’re feeling generous, write a quick review for the Abel James Show on Apple or Spotify. You rock.

This episode is brought to you by:
Troscriptions - Go to troscriptions.com/WILD or enter WILD at checkout for 10% off your first order.
Nature's Sunshine - Go to NaturesSunshine.com and use code WILD for free shipping and 20% off your first order.

Episode Transcript

Abel James (00:00):
Hey, folks. This is Abel James, and thanks so much for joining us on the show. In the age of deep fakes and rampant AI slop, how do you know if what you're seeing is real? In the past couple of weeks, I've been getting messages from some old friends who've been saying that they've been seeing my face pop up all over the place in video ads on social media feeds. And I said, that's interesting because I don't do any video ads and I never have. I don't do any social media advertising. So whatever is out there isn't actually me or it's not from me, and I'm certainly not getting paid for it. They don't have my permission. So this is actually a little bit of a crazy situation. I'm not too worried, and it's actually not that new, but it definitely has been ramping up lately. So apparently, there are some scammers pulling from some of my podcasts

(00:47):
and podcasts
appearances to sell who knows what. Carbon monoxide detectors,
the supplements,
food products, technologies,
worse, I'm sure too. But if you ever see that, so just double check, verify first that it's me because it's probably not, especially if it's selling something.
So just to be clear, very selectively, I work with a few partners on the podcast where you'll hear,

(01:13):
me do ad reads
for companies that I believe in and I use myself, generally,
food products and that sort of thing. A lot of you know that I also make small investments in startup companies like Primal Kitchen, Thrive Market,
Element,
Oura Ring, and a few others. That's that's something different. Sponsorships

(01:33):
are just ad reads on the podcast.
So anyway, I wanna be clear and transparent about whatever my biases are or conflict of interest and that sort of thing. But just know that if I'm out there selling something on anything other than the audio version of my podcast
or mentions of brands on my newsletter, then it is not me and they don't have my permission. So if you could

(01:55):
try to message the real me and let me know about those posts and we'll flag them and try to get them down. We've already gotten a few of them down so far. But I just want to make sure that you have this on your radar, not only for our situation, but also knowing that if it could happen to me, it could also happen to, just regular folks with families without any sort of public influence.

(02:16):
We already have the technology
to be able to spoof people, and there are all sorts of wacky scams that are starting to happen with
impersonating people's voices,
name, and likeness
to achieve all sorts of
malevolent ends. So be careful out there.
And if you do want to follow the real me, then make sure to go to my actual website at abeljames.com.

(02:39):
It's abeljames.com,
and sign up for the newsletter there. And you can also sign up for my substack
at ablejames, abeljames.substack.com.
Follow me there and message me with DMs and that sort of thing. On social media, I do have accounts on most of the different networks, but there are so many fake accounts. It's hard to know which one is me. But

(03:02):
those of you who are in touch with the real me know it, and I look forward to, I say all of this also to to just say, we're gonna be doing a lot more in person events because I think that really is the future.
This time of you using the Internet to collect
information instead of connecting everybody
in the way that it was supposed to democratize

(03:23):
information
instead of, you know,
generate endless AI slob. It it feels like a lot of the promises of the Internet
in many ways have been dashed, at least for now. I think it can get a lot better, and I'm optimistic that it will. But in the meantime, we're gonna be throwing a lot more in person events and also
introducing you to our new online
community club, which is gonna be called Club Wild, which is almost ready for you. We're gonna be making a lot of announcements about it soon.

(03:50):
So and and we're really excited. This is gonna be some of the best work that we've done in years, especially around my new book about longevity that's coming out. I'm gonna be talking about that more in this episode, but please to follow us and to stay up to date to eventually join in the in person events that we're doing, the retreats, as well as our online membership club. Check out abeljames.com,

(04:10):
abeljames.com.
Sign up for the newsletter,
and we'll be sure to keep you up to date on all the exciting things that are coming down the road. Alright. So about this episode, this is kind of a fun one where I just sit down and talk about all the experiments,
that I've been running on myself as I've been recovering from this hit and run
freak accident that messed up my spine with multiple herniations,

(04:33):
an annular tear,
messed up my shoulder, and and some other things like that made it impossible to really do the same exercises that I've been doing for many years as well as the same sports or even play guitar. And then if you hang on until the end of this episode, I also am going to just put on the entire live show. Much of it was improvised of my original tunes that I played in Vegas, one of the shows from there. So make sure to hang on for that. And a a couple of the other things that we'll be digging into

(21:15):
in in terms of ideas or why it's best to train for resilience,
before you actually take the hit. For so many of us, we wait, myself included, for something horrific to happen in our lives. Some freak accidents, some diagnosis,
or something that makes it impossible
to ignore some of the underlying issues. So we talk about why it's best to build that resilience in your own lifestyle

(21:38):
so that you have this adaptive reserve
that you can pull from during that time of recovery from injury.
Also, how to turn setbacks into gifts by refusing
to sell for the poor me thinking, which definitely I was spiraling down for a little bit there.
Specific therapies, foods, and supplements to bring you back to a 110%

(21:58):
recovery instead of just a 100%.
I'll explain why that's something that I reach for. And I'll also talk about the interesting results from a couple of other experiments that I've been running in terms of training differently and focusing on the things that I can do instead of the things that I can't, some lessons for you. And then another quick reminder, right before the accident, I was out playing a bunch of music shows. I play guitar and sing. I play piano too. Stay tuned for some holiday tunes that'll be coming out pretty soon. But anyway, this is an entire,

(22:26):
show from Las Vegas, a Noster event that we threw in Vegas just a few months ago this summer. So I hope you enjoy some of these original tunes and the special guests that are coming at the end of the episode too. Alright. Let's get to the show. Hope you enjoy.

(25:04):
As soon as you think you have it all figured out, absolutely everything can change in an instant.
What do you do when out of nowhere, life hands you a serious injury or diagnosis?
Today, I'll be walking you through my latest experiments and lessons learned from recovery
after getting knocked out of commission a few months ago in a hit and run car wreck, including multiple herniated discs in my spine, torn ligaments in my neck, and a serious concussion and traumatic brain injury amongst other things.

(25:33):
Since these injuries made my normal training, sports, activities, and work next to impossible or actually impossible, I've had to make some adjustments
and also start some experiments
by tweaking things that I hope can help you, also change and and make some life improving tweaks
in the face of life handing you a setback, which it always does. You don't know when they're coming. It's unpredictable.

(25:56):
Sometimes it's our fault. Oftentimes it's not. But we do have to respond,
and that's really what matters. In the face of a serious illness,
injury, or other setback, we have to take action, especially once we've healed out of the acute stage. So that's one of the things I'm gonna be talking about today. Now that I'm about four, four and a half months

(26:17):
out from the accident, I'm out of the most serious acute phase and transitioning into another phase, but I'm still not be able to get back to the things that I would normally do, the way that I would normally train the exercises, that sort of thing. So this actually, in some ways, simulates what it would be like to be older in my eighties, nineties plus with a compromised spine

(26:40):
balance, vestibular system,
and other systems. So anyway, we'll be digging into that a little bit later in today's solo episode. Before we get too deep into that, here's a quick plug. Please make sure that you're subscribed to the Abel James Show wherever you get your podcast. And if you dig it, please share this episode or another one with a friend who you think might appreciate it. Also, if you'd like to stay up to date on our next live events, retreats in exotic locations,

(27:06):
or the exciting community club that we're building right now, make sure that you sign up for my newsletter at abeljames.com.
That's abeljames.com.
And you can also sign up for my Substack for ad free versions of this show behind the scenes episodes and much more. That's at ablejames.substack.com.
Look forward to seeing you there. This episode is going to be a bit of a soliloquy, but a lot of you have been writing in asking questions

(27:31):
about, the accident, the recovery, lots of other things. So I think this is a really good chance for me, an opportunity for me to share some of the biggest things that I've learned that could help you,
if you ever experienced some similar diagnosis injury or life setback. Now this certainly surprised me, and it might surprise some of you as well. Over the course of the average American's lifetime,

(27:53):
the numbers don't always align on this, but it's somewhere around this. The average American will experience three or four
different car accidents, and many of them will result in serious injury. Not all, of course, but many will. Another way of looking at it or another stat that I came across is that seventy five to seventy seven percent of Americans, driving Americans especially,

(28:13):
will be in at least one serious car wreck over the course of their lives. And once again, this isn't always your fault. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere. As in my case, I had driven hundreds and hundreds of thousands of miles literally in multiple cars
without
any accidents, without even getting a speeding ticket ever, literally. I got a warning once or twice, but after losing a close friend and my cousin in a serious car accident, when I was a teenager,

(28:41):
when someone else was speeding, I decided that I would basically never do that again, not in my own life. It is simply not worth the risk. And I hope that you can hear that as well, whether you're just 16 years old and listening to this and you just got your license or you're a seasoned driver, when it comes to going fast,
that's when most of the horrible things happen as did for me. So just a quick recap of of what happened, in my accident. It was a Sunday afternoon. I was actually going out to get, like, a local paper that has some of the listings for what's going on, for different bands to see and things like that here in Austin. And my my wife's birthday was coming up, and so I was just running some errands on a Sunday afternoon driving in our little Mini Cooper convertible

(29:24):
on a road that's just five or ten minutes down the street from where we live in South Austin.
Speed limit's 35. It's right next to a school with a park on the other side. So I'm just kinda minding my own business in slow lane, and,
this car comes up behind me.
And it must be going, you know, I'm going around thirty, thirty five. The speed limit is 35. In this car, I had

(29:47):
AI estimate based upon all the damage and things that happened afterwards, how fast he must have been gone. But this
kind of jives with what I saw in the rear view mirror in a in a quick blur before I got hit.
Seems like he was going about eighty, eighty five miles an hour in a 35
mile an hour zone. So when you get rear ended at that kind of speed with that sort of differential in weight as well because the car that he was driving was much much larger and heavier than the tiny little mini Cooper I was driving

(30:15):
the
impact
ripped my back wheel off tore off the axle, which was just left behind the car like a 100 feet as I was dragged down the street. It ruptured the gas tank, so gasoline was just gushing everywhere,
and it knocked me out. So
I didn't have full control over what was happening or where the car was going for

(30:38):
amount of time that I'm not really sure of, but it was really just a a brief moment. But thankfully, I was able to somehow, instead of being pulled into two lanes of oncoming traffic,
negotiate the car to the side of of the road,
where I wasn't going to be,
impeding active traffic going the other way. I I still was from the direction behind me. But, essentially, my memory of of the incident itself is somewhat compromised as well. There's a there's a gap in time, and my understanding of time also kind of changed

(31:08):
during that when you go through a life or death type experience or or when your adrenaline is firing like that. We've all experienced
time slowing down, but also when you have a concussion on top of that,
the reimagining of the memory and trying to piece everything back together
sometimes is difficult. But over the the past few weeks and months, more and more has come back, so I have a better idea of what happened. But firstly, I just wanna say thank you to the higher power

(31:36):
for that. I'm still here. There are many versions of this where it could have gone another way. So I take that very seriously, and you long time listeners know I'm a very spiritually connected person. So I take this very seriously. And one of the things I've tried to do, taking an unexpected,
unprecedented,
negative event in my life that really disrupted so many things in my life, trying to take that negative energy and transmute it into something better has been a serious exercise that I've been undertaking over the past few months. But I'm happy to say that I'm in a far better place than I was a few months ago after the accident and and certainly even a few weeks ago.

(32:13):
But let's dig into some of the things that I think could could really help you.
Aside from
the instance and the risk of most everyone, even if you're just a passenger
of being on the road, this is something that we need to acknowledge a bit more.
We drive pretty much every day, most of us, but that doesn't make it any less

(32:33):
unsafe.
Essentially, driving on the road at speeds 65 plus or even less than that, for most of us, is the most dangerous thing that that we ever do or the most dangerous thing that we regularly do, certainly.
And especially if you add on speeding or just kind of like racing around and and driving in a way that's irresponsible, which can be fun. Trust me. I've I've been there too. Whether it's you or someone else doing that, that adds to the chaos and confusion. And then we have everyone scrolling on their phones as they're driving down the road. I'm sure all of you have seen this where you just look over and someone's kinda swerving or you can tell they're not paying attention. And you can see that they're watching YouTube videos on their phone or they're scrolling Facebook or Instagram or whatever. And this doesn't necessarily give me or I'm sure you more confidence in in your safety on the road. And it shouldn't. We all need to take this very seriously. So I've heard this from a number of people who have helped me heal, the doctors, the physical therapists, and all the rest of that. They said, you know, you were really in it, and you got injured hardcore. But if you hadn't been in good shape to begin

(33:37):
with, your recovery wouldn't look like it did. My recovery and my prognosis has been, you know, from the most of the people who are treating me, they've been quite optimistic, especially after the first couple of weeks. Because they could see I was starting out already in very good shape.
I had been
doing some experiments in the way that I had been training leading up to the accident.

(33:57):
I was basically trying to get as strong as I'd ever been, specifically in dead lifts, heavy dead lifts, and heavy squats.
And I got there. Over the course of many, many years of training, I just progressively
overloaded my nervous system, got stronger and stronger to the point where I was lifting
pretty absurd amounts of weight, at least for me. Like, I'm not competing or anything like that. I can't compete with the actual lifters out there. But for me, recreationally, as an athlete, just working out of home in a gym sometimes, and my friends can vouch that I get after it when I'm working out. This is something that I was pretty proud of getting to the point where, you know, even though at I'm now 41. At the time I was 40, being in the best shape of your life or at least being in the best strength of your life at 40 years old is something I was pretty psyched about. I wasn't as fast as I've been in the past, but I was still pretty fast because in April, I ran an off road five k,

(34:54):
the run for Hal, which was so much fun just in, just North of Austin. And I was actually the musician there too, so I I ran the five k in the morning, and I promised myself that I wouldn't
expend too much energy because, you know, now I'm in my forties. I'm I'm not racing regularly. And I've gotta play this, like, hour, hour and a half show after the race, in front of a crowd and and get through all of that, which takes a lot of energy, especially when you're playing outside in the sun and that sort of thing. So I promised myself I wouldn't get after it too hard. But out of the gates, of course,

(35:26):
I'm going
faster than I probably should. And the guy behind me was trying to catch me pretty much the whole five k. And
my pride got in the way, and I wouldn't let him do it. And so I actually
finished the five k in first place for that particular race, which I was pretty stoked about. And then carrying that momentum forward, played the live show at the Run for Hal, which is so much fun. And then a few weeks later, as you long time listeners know, I went out to Las Vegas and played a few shows, sang a few shows that went really, really well. Get back home to Austin and just like, oh, a week or two later, I'm laid out, knocked out a commission, my body and my mind for months and months and months on end. So that was a difficult thing to stomach, not just at the time, but when you're preparing to

(36:13):
do these sorts of events, whether you're trying to be as strong as ever and working on progressive overload, it can take many months or even many years to build up your strength and to get to that level of shape. As soon as you stop doing that, as soon as you're in the hospital or you're just in your bed for a while not working out,
so much of that progress

(36:33):
completely evaporates
within just a week or two.
When you go into bed rest, especially as an older person, not so bad for someone who's, like, middle aged like I am in my forties, but especially as you get to your fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties, bed rest is one of the worst things that could possibly happen to you. You become deconditioned
very, very quickly. And so this happened to me in terms of my strength, which

(36:58):
very quickly I I lost because I became deconditioned, but also because of the structural damage
to my spine, the herniations, the torn ligaments, and that sort of thing that also stole some strength
and added some jacked up nature
to how I'm moving, sitting, sleeping,
holding my head, and all the rest of that. So that becomes difficult to work through but certainly worth it. Just before the accident, I was even in the studio recording new guitar tracks. So I was really riding high, but I had some wiggle room in my life. Right? And I was using it. So I what I mean by that is I could take more rest days than, I probably should because I'm more on that maintenance phase of getting in good shape, good in good strength, and and kind of reaching the lifestyle,

(37:44):
where I think I'm alright. And then using that wiggle room. So I was certainly not drinking every night, but I was drinking alcohol.
I was taking more rest days. I was probably
eating some things that
were exercising a little bit more wiggle room than I would normally. So
in situations like this where you're compromised and you're going to be in a downward spiral unless you do something about it, you know, some sort of injury or diagnosis, like I said, It's really important to help give yourself that healthy momentum again. And so after the accident, I met with, the neurologist

(38:19):
and a bunch of different doctors,
and
this is kind of what I was looking at. They said,
I would need vestibular
therapy because during the accident,
my brain went one way, and my head went another way, when I was knocked out for the traumatic brain injury. So that compromised the part of my brain,
or at least added a lot of inflammation in the part of my brain

(38:42):
that is usually responsible for telling you which way up is. And if your brain doesn't know which way up is, then you get
nauseous, you get vertigo, and
just existing on earth is a very uncomfortable experience and kind of impossible
to do anything. So after the accident, I was very out of it. My, spine was in torsion according to the spine doctor I talked to. It was cutting off blood flow to my brain.

(39:09):
And after getting MRIs and and x rays and that sort of thing, thankfully, the injuries
were serious, but not, like, going to end my life or completely change my life as long as
I stop using that wiggle room and use that energy instead for recovery. So,
I met with a neurologist, vestibular therapists, physical therapists, chiropractors

(39:30):
for decompression and decompressing spine,
pain management doctors,
and then a lot of doctors and and practitioners in the alternative space as well, and really made this my full time job for the past few months. Of course, taking a little bit of time off from working and more time,
than I would like to from writing my new book about longevity,

(39:51):
But it's also given that book and this work a lot more meaning and and different kinds of meaning than it had before.
I now feel much more empathetic to those
who are in a state of having a compromised
system of balance or a compromised spine, spine injuries, that sort of thing, traumatic brain injuries. And as I said before, a lot of these things,

(40:12):
just by virtue of being on Earth for longer and experiencing more accidents and and things like that and the natural aging process.
A lot of people in their seventies and eighties and nineties have a hard time relating to young fit people who are talking down at them, who have always been in shape, and they were athletic, and they're gifted with these wonderful bodies and that sort of thing. And sometimes this happens with doctors who they're listening to as well, where the doctor hasn't necessarily

(40:38):
been through the thing on the other side of of the table,
so to speak. Whereas,
at this point, long time listeners know that I've been through a few things over the course of my life, but many of them have been traumatic brain injuries, including when I was in just elementary, middle school. My first traumatic brain injury was in a serious bike accident,

(40:59):
where I met a tree head first. It broke my helmet, and that recovery took a bit. Some other concussions playing football,
of course,
in 2019,
being poisoned by carbon monoxide and and almost dying, that's similar to a traumatic brain injury. It's an,
you know, insult to the nervous system. And once the nervous system is damaged, you need to really work

(41:23):
to get it back into shape. And so one of the things that happens with these various types of accidents and assaults and and and traumas over the course of time is that I liken it to kind of like a water in the ear type situation, where
if you have a little bit of water in your ear, sometimes if it's just like a tiny amount, it can be really hard to get it out. And so you get some more water in there, and so it's irrefutable. You've got a ton of water in your ear. You have to get that out. And and oftentimes,

(41:50):
that meets up with a tiny little bit of water and you get the whole thing out. This is kind of what happened
with me
with recovery
in the sense that I had that wiggle room, but I also had a little bit of, past trauma that had been and and past injuries that were unresolved that I needed to work through. And layering this massive injury

(42:11):
from the accident on top of that made it something irrefutable, where now I absolutely need to work on, my nervous system to make sure that I'm not firing in maladaptive ways. Because often what happens
is people go through an accident like this,
they assume that they're going to be okay and don't do the physical therapy exercises.

(42:32):
I'll tell you what, I was excellent. I got an a plus in doing those. I hated it. It was very painful,
and I probably went to forty, fifty, 60 different appointments of various kinds over the course of months, because I had to retrain my vestibular system, and my eyes, and the rest of my body to know what up is. And so I would reach the point of being nauseous and dizzy on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times a day to try to desensitize that.

(42:58):
Then taking a good look at the maladaptive
patterns that I have in the way that I think, where my motivation comes from, It can be very especially for type a's and recovering type a's. It can be very tempting to use
the,
the pain of stress and the energy of cortisol
to fuel pretty much all of your ambitions in life. And that might work for a while. It certainly has for me in in some cases,

(43:21):
but you'll burn out. You'll run out of energy, or when life hands you a setback like this, it
maintaining that sort
of output just becomes absolutely
impossible and damaging to you if you keep trying. There are some things that you cannot fix by working harder and harder, and that can be a very tough pill for a lot of us type a's to swallow.

(43:43):
But working with the neurologist, one thing that he said to me is that and and also the physical therapist. He said, if you weren't in excellent shape and eating really well, low inflammation before this accident happened, there's a very good chance that you'd be experiencing
permanent damage to your brain and to your body and your nervous system. Whereas,
if you're in shape and you do the exercises and you believe that you can get better, that last part is so important.

(44:08):
If you believe that you can get better, you actually do. You have to put in the work and believe it though. And when I had these conversations with the brain specialist, the spine specialist, vestibular specialist, all the rest of this, I'm like, well, what happens
normally when people go through something like this? And they said, well, normally people don't come back to a 100%. And I'm like,

(44:29):
that doesn't sound good to me. I I don't like the sound of that one bit. I'm the type of person who, when life hands me a setback,
I make it my objective to get back to a 110%.
I wanna be better than I was before. Because as I said, I was using that wiggle room, maybe a little bit complacent.
It happens to all of us.
And once you realign with your purpose in life,

(44:51):
you can start to see some of these setbacks as gifts.
So one of the biggest learnings from talking to all of these doctors and specialists over the past few months, and I ask endless questions is
what differentiates the people who get better from the ones who don't? And
one of the biggest takeaways that I can give to you all is that you do have to believe

(45:14):
that you can get better and you will. If you don't believe that that you can get better, or if you believe that these injuries will become permanent, whether it's something like a herniation or or or torn ligament or or what have you,
Some of these things can become psychosomatic
over time
if there's a maladaptive
reaction during your recovery process.

(45:37):
The nervous system can also be frozen trying to,
respond to some of these different traumas. So I've gone deeply into Peter Levine's work, looking into some of the frozen or immobilized
nervous system responses that can play out in negative ways, and then kinda be baked into our habits. So these are all things that you need to work through, but

(45:58):
long story short, my point is,
no matter how bad things seem,
if you believe that you can get better, you will. And not everything needs to get better. Pain isn't something where it ever really just
goes away. It more just moves to the next spot that's a little bit painful. Kind of like worry. You may fix the source of the worry,

(46:19):
but, as soon as you do, you start looking a little bit over here instead, and then you worry about that. And so
if you can work on your responses
to these traumas and to these injuries and make sure that you're not baking in a maladaptive
response,
that's extraordinarily
important. So when I sat down with my neurologist, he basically said, Abel, you've been through

(46:41):
some tough stuff and your brain is not fully recovered yet. I went through speech therapy, vestibular therapy, physical therapy, and all the rest of this stuff, pain management,
multiple infusions, and injections, and procedures,
and I'm still going through some of that. I'm I'm still in pain. But he said, if you can spend the rest of the year not drinking alcohol, that's going to do you a a big favor over the long term. And I'm like, okay. And

(47:07):
even though the accident happened in June and, you know, I enjoy a good glass or bottle of wine as much as the next person,
and Scotch too and and the rest of it. This is something that made it extraordinarily easy for me because
I do not wanna have brain damage, especially not permanent brain damage. I work very, very hard on my my body and mind and nervous system to make sure that I can operate

(47:30):
at peak capacity.
So if that's threatened,
good God, I'm gonna do everything
that I can to make sure that that I'm gonna be following the trajectory that that makes this better.
So adopting that mindset in the face of tragedy is something that is extraordinarily important
if you want to get better.
So faced with this decision, I could, you know, I could have very easily just sat down and said, oh, poor me. So it could have gone like this, and this is how it often goes for people, at least according to the doctors who I've talked to. A serious injury happens.

(48:04):
People are reluctant to see the doctor and my myself included, I try to stay away from that system as best as possible. In a situation like an acute injury though, very important to see doctors and specialists to make sure that you're getting take taken care of. But if you don't take this seriously and you just kind of wait, your body starts to
make
these compensations

(48:24):
and muscles and ligaments and bones
start moving in ways that will keep you going cause your body cares about you surviving, but it doesn't care about you thriving forever or entering into the later years of your life,
very, very healthy intact and and thriving that sort of thing. It cares about getting you through
acute moments and surviving,

(48:45):
but after that,
the improvement and the healing, that all goes to you. And so if you don't take this seriously, some of these compensations
can set in. Your spine can make these adjustments, and and the way that your biomechanics
stacks up, the way that your bones and and,
muscles and tendons all move can change,

(49:06):
permanently if you don't address it. So I'm doing everything that I can to make sure that I'm working and to keep strong the areas that have been weakened and also not add to the layers of injury that are that are already there.
So for me, this has been very difficult because, as you all know, I've been working out, for many, many years and have a particular

(49:28):
style of working out that's very, very,
you know, it's it's based on cross training. So I'm doing all sorts of different stuff. But primarily, my strength is coming from heavy dead lifts, heavy squats,
you know, burpees and jumps,
sprinting.
Every single one of those things, I am not able to do right now, and I have not been able to do for the past four, four and a half months. When I've tried to do some things that approximate that,

(49:55):
I have been severely punished in the form of pain,
like, spine pain for days after that. And I don't wanna set myself back. So that means that I've had to completely reinvent the way,
that I work out and the way that I try to stay in shape, and also suck it up and accept that I'm deconditioned
playing guitar because I couldn't really play guitar holding it on my back and and neck and spine has become difficult. Thankfully, I've been able to still play piano, and and play some other instruments and sing and that sort of thing which keeps me going. But,

(50:27):
you know, no guitar, no sprinting, no running, no heavy lifts. Man, how am I supposed to stay in shape? Well, the good news is that even when you are injured, there are lots of things that you can do
generally to work on your core mobility. So things like planks,
pull ups is something that I

(50:48):
added in a little bit later, but it started with with planks and just simple core movements
as well as doing Qigong sets or Tai Chi movements that focus on bending over without any added weight and then popping back up in a nice easy controlled manner aligned with the breath. So this is something that I've been doing for gosh almost fifteen years now. But once again with a wiggle room, was I doing it every day? No. I wasn't. I I wasn't doing my mobility every day. I knew that I probably should. Was I doing my breath work every day? Nope. I wasn't. I wasn't doing a lot of things that I probably should every single day. Now I was doing them pretty often, but I wasn't

(51:29):
completely optimized. I was optimizing
for
having a good time in the present in some ways, more so than optimizing for the future. That flipped hard after the accident, where doing the right thing in the present becomes painful, uncomfortable,
you know, something that I just didn't enjoy, and finding pleasure in life once again when you're not able to do the things that often bring you pleasure and keep you in shape and keep you conditioned as a musician or an athlete or whatever else you do. Boy, that can be a huge bummer. So I had this

(52:01):
this talk with a few of the doctors where they're just like, yeah, I mean, you could just say, oh,
poor me,
sit down and and drink beers, drink your sorrows away, or you could
double down on healing for the next few months and make sure that you come out of this better than you were before the accident. And so that means that I have, given up booze entirely for the rest of the year. I've focused on eating a lot better. I'm fasting less. I'm not doing any heavy lifts. I'm not doing sprinting. I'm not doing jumping. I'm not doing any sort of, like, loaded lifts aside from some light, kettlebells.

(52:38):
Lots and lots of walking has replaced the running.
And,
you know, a challenge that I gave myself, I I asked my spine specialist,
hey, man. Can I do pull ups at least, you know, because that's not loading the spine? Hopefully, it's gonna help, lengthen it and decompress over time. He's just like,
yes, but you have to do them perfectly with perfect form.

(53:01):
And so as I got back into doing this and my body healed enough to to be able to pull off some some pull ups,
I started doing pull ups
pretty much every day. Whether it's pull ups or push ups, one of those and usually it's pull ups. And over the course of a few months, I'm happy to report that
though I have lost some muscle, I've certainly lost some fat too. So I've slimmed down. I've reduced my body fat percentage, which actually feels great. Like, I was stronger than ever, but I was also heavier than ever in certain ways. I was I was very top heavy with

(53:34):
more muscle than I needed to do most of the things that I do,
which is just, you know, kind of been building and building over time for no apparent reason aside from me wanting to be strong and and kind of take that as a challenge. So I flipped that challenge and since I can't do that anymore, I'm just like, well, what if I tried to,
do the most
pull ups I've ever done before? Hit a personal best in pull ups. Pull ups have always been one of my favorite exercises,

(54:01):
not while I'm doing them but to keep in the routine because the payoff to what it does for your body and
in terms terms of your overall strength, mobility,
and ability to move your body through space especially upward climbing that sort of thing. I think it's very very historically
important to humans but most of us have lost sight of that. So as I've become

(54:23):
deconditioned from doing the heaviest lifts
and the sprints and and the running, I'm not gonna be as fast as I was before.
I've been able to reach the personal best in something else. And so this is kind of a really important thing to take away that I've tried to apply
in my life in past setbacks.
When you do experience an injury or you're not able to play a sport anymore or do something that you love,

(54:47):
you have to focus on the things that you're still able to do and give yourself some other thing to go after, some other challenge. And even if it's not quite as sexy as the challenge you were going after before,
it's something that will move you forward. And hopefully,
when you look back,
it'll be something that adds to your skill set over the course of time. Because the truth is, the longer that we do the same exercises and then just get stronger and stronger doing those,

(55:13):
the more likely we are to build up some level of imbalance or get
too strong in a certain way that that really isn't functional anymore.
And so,
I'm really happy to say that I'm feeling
much better,
especially in my forties.
Being lighter, standing a little bit straighter, focusing more on the pulling movements, the pull ups specifically, push ups as well, that sort of thing. But the body weight movements, the core, the mobility,

(55:39):
daily,
Qigong and breath work
combined with daily core
workouts, which before I turned them into core workouts, which are just a a few minutes usually, just a couple minutes a day or even five minutes a day tops.
Before that, I was doing much harder cord heavy lifts,
usually at least once a week, sometimes more than that. And it would take me, you know, twenty five, thirty minutes, that sort of thing. But then I would have to recover over the course of many, many days. And I was kinda

(56:08):
like heavy,
sore, puffy,
inflamed.
And now that I've swamped that for much quicker, easier, more core based and and body weight based,
workouts with much lower weights. I don't need that recovery time like I did before. I don't need those rest days in the same way, at least not resting from activity. And I'm really enjoying

(56:28):
being more mobile.
And now that I've been doing
daily Tai Chi, Qigong
mobility for just a few minutes once more,
every day is about eight to ten minutes in the morning. This is something that I'm actively feeling so much better. And, you know, I I'm coming from a place where I wasn't really able to bend over. My back and spine were so messed up. Certainly not able to bend over and pick anything up, which meant I couldn't really do housework or or or help out or do a lot of the things that I really love and and need to do.

(56:59):
Doing this unweighted body weight only, starting small, everyday type physical therapy activity
is something that has brought me back to a level that's once again better than I was before in terms of mobility. Now not as strong as I was before doing the heaviest deadlifts, but who needs to be? Like, who am I kidding? I'm in my forties now. I don't need that. And I think carrying a bit of of less weight,

(57:22):
especially if you're able to be more mobile,
less stiff, and move in a way that's more appropriate for our our bodies historically and ancestrally speaking. This is a huge win and a takeaway that you can also apply to your own life. So
look at the way that you're training right now and whether it's for a sport,
a personal best, or for longevity,

(57:44):
ask yourself why are you training and is there a way that you can make it point a little bit, closer toward aging well as opposed to just, you know, being performative or getting good at something or getting
strong in some arbitrary way. Like,
what if you instead applied all of that energy to making sure that you move in the best way possible? That is a critical difference. Anyone who's looking to move in a more natural primal way, I would encourage you to check out the work of Erwan LeCour. He's been on the show a number of times. He's the founder of MoveNat,

(58:17):
and also Breath Hold Work.
Erwan LeCour,
fantastic. So make sure to look up the Abel James show type in Erwan
l e
c o r r e
and, you'll find some of Erwan's work. But
moving like a natural human is one of the greatest gifts that you can experience and honestly, that doesn't usually come from going in the gym and just lifting heavy. As great as that can be for your metabolism and metabolic health,

(58:44):
you're gonna feel a lot better when you start moving better. So just to recap,
no running your sprints for me, no heavy lifting, no housework or bending over, walking over running,
less fasting in the morning. I was doing an OMAD or one meal a day for many years as as many of you know. I've been a big fan of of sixteen eight type intermittent fasting.

(59:06):
But because my body has been under a lot more stress and pain and that sort of thing,
engaging in less fasting for the past few months has oddly, I think, helped me slim down and helped my metabolism rev up a bit. We've also been doing the,
the doctor Davis's l reuteri
yogurt that I've talked about a few times on this show, and that's something that can help rehab your microbiome.

(59:31):
If you're experiencing
an injury or you're compromised in some way or even if you're unhappy
over the course of time, your microbiome
changes and
for the good
gut bugs to stay there,
you also need to stay in a good frame of mind and and what I mean by that is, if you're in a state of excessive worry,

(59:52):
pain, negative states,
it kills off your good gut bugs in your microbiome and in your hollow biome.
And so in order to
get that back up to snuff, there are a few different tools that you can use like eating clean, detoxifying,
and making sure that you're nurturing
the good bugs in your microbiome. But the best one that I found has been aside from, you know, daily or pretty much with every meat meal, we're also eating fermented veg.

(01:00:22):
So some sort of sauerkraut or kimchi, the unpasteurized variety,
which feeds your gut bugs, which will help you to digest the meat and the other plants and and nuts and that sort of thing that you're going to be eating over the course of that day. So being very specific about the kimchi and that sort of thing, the fermented foods every day, eating nose to tail and getting lots of nutrients

(01:00:45):
from organ meats has been another strategy.
But the reuteri, the the eating the
yogurt which is fermented differently. Most of the people who are buying yogurt out there in the grocery store don't know that,
that type of product contains a very very small amount of probiotic
bacteria that's actually going to help you and your microbiome heal.

(01:01:06):
What you need to do if you want the most super concentrated
stuff is ferment at home. And so the way that we make this yogurt, once again from doctor William Davis, he's the one who originally put this on my radar, and now we've been doing this for years on and off anyway,
is you want it to ferment for thirty six hours at about a 100 degrees, so similar to body temperature. And when you're fermenting for thirty six hours as opposed to four hours or eight hours or or less,

(01:01:33):
which is the case for most commercial yogurts that you can buy. When you're doing it for thirty six plus hours, you get many many more doublings
of the good bacteria
in that yogurt. So it tastes different, it feels different, and for me and my wife, we we tend to get like a little bit of a head buzz after eating the reuteri yogurt. It's one of my favorite things to add into,

(01:01:55):
you know, the daily mix of of things that we do. So instead of fasting in the mornings, I've been, generally eating a little bit of that yogurt. You know, I'm still having
some protein powder, but not as much as I did before
in favor of instead eating oysters, sardines,
salmon. A lot of that has been canned just because we don't have access to a lot of

(01:02:17):
fantastic
seafood here, and the seafood that that we do have is extraordinarily
expensive.
So typically, we've we've been eating,
beef,
rice,
organ meats.
Bone broth is another big piece as you recover. If
you have tendon damage, ligament damage, and that sort of thing as I have, it's really important to make sure that you get a dietary source of collagen

(01:02:41):
going as well. And so having bone broth multiple times a week has been an important part of that. Collagen supplements can also be somewhat helpful, but real food is always going to be better.
Also, eating a bit earlier in the day, you know, since I haven't been skipping breakfast as often or doing the sixteen eight fast or the omad fast where I would just eat dinner,

(01:03:02):
I've
instead
been putting most of my calories earlier in the day and then eating less at night, and that's another reason why I think I'm feeling better, sleeping better,
and,
just feeling like I'm running a little bit cleaner. Because one of the things that you can
fall into, as I have many times, is if you're doing the sixteen eight or the OMAD one meal a day style of eating, then you can tend to push things a little bit too far in the sense

(01:03:30):
that you're still at a caloric deficit, but it's eight, 08:30,
nine, 09:30PM.
And so you're just, like, hitting the peanut butter and eating it by the scoop, or you're eating something else that you shouldn't be, even though you're just
you should be getting ready to go to bed. And so if you wanna sleep better, which has been, an important part of my recovery

(01:03:52):
at after the accident, I was sleeping thirteen, fourteen hours a night for,
for a few nights because of my brain injury. That was awful. So as soon as I got out of that acute phase,
I made sure that I would go to bed as early as reasonable after sundown and then wake up to see the sunrise
every single day. And now at first, that probably sounds like a chore, like waking up early would be a drag, But this became my favorite part of the day.

(01:04:19):
Waking up, you know, about an hour before sunrise
for all the color changes. And this was in the middle of the summer too. So oftentimes, I'd wake up early. I'd go to the lake here in Austin, and one of the coffee shops and watch the sunrise.
Even though I was in, you know, a tremendous amount of of pain even just like sitting there standing there whatever

(01:04:40):
because of my neck and my bobble head and my neck's not strong enough to hold my head up anymore at least it wasn't then. It was one of those things where
I got used
to waking up,
doing my qigong exercises,
getting nice and hydrated,
getting red light in front of the the panels that I have here at home,
getting some more red light directly on the spine to help with some of the inflammation

(01:05:04):
and then getting right to work on my book my new book so that's another piece of all this you know
shortly before the accident happened I had already been working on my new book about longevity.
But having this
experience, this this injury and recovery in the middle of it
has really given me a whole lot of more perspective and hopefully insight into how how other people can heal

(01:05:29):
because it's not so much about finding the perfect system or the perfect way of living that you just,
stick to forever.
That could get you health, but that's not how life works. How life works is you think everything is figured out and going great until
some setback happens
and then because of that curveball,

(01:05:50):
you fall out of the pattern of those good habits and you start to do some maladaptive ones, or you build in a little bit more wiggle room because you've earned it, or you want to
enjoy life a bit more.
But in fact, if you can take these times
when you experience that setback to double down
on your longevity,
on the practices that will support your longevity,

(01:06:12):
which
are very similar to the ones that will support your day to day vitality and metabolic health. When you can align that, when you can align your long term goals
to sacrifice
what may be, you know, that that hedonic pleasure that you would otherwise
experience from drinking
every day at happy hour, you don't have to give up the pleasure. You just have to delay it a little bit. Here's another thing that's really helped. Instead of saying, oh, well, I'm not drinking alcohol, so I can't have happy hour.

(01:06:44):
And, my wife Allison also doesn't really drink anymore,
out of choice. And she,
you know, and I have over the course of the past few weeks and also visiting my folks a few weeks ago, we've been having happy hour pretty much every night. We just don't put alcohol
in the drinks. I've been making mocktails, some of them with a buzz using kava kava,

(01:07:05):
kratom in small amounts. You wanna be careful with all of these
substances
that
have potential for habitual use or addiction,
but certainly kicking alcohol out of the equation for a bit has given me a lot more appreciation for how much of it of,
you know, alcohol is a drug. We don't tend to think about it that way because it's so normalized, and it's available almost everywhere from coffee shops to bars to weddings and funerals like booze is everywhere.

(01:07:35):
But if you just
take away that option for yourself to go alcohol
free for, even a few weeks or thirty days or especially longer, you start to see that these people who are drinking alcohol are doing drugs in public. Like, alcohol is
not less intense
than a drug. It, in fact, is a drug and is more intense and more damaging

(01:07:58):
than most of the drugs out there, to be honest.
So that's been a very powerful thing
to remove from my life which I've done, you know,
people who have been listening to the show or or who are familiar with our work know that we often take breaks from alcohol.
But this one has probably been the most necessary
and the most,

(01:08:18):
valuable
ever since. So if any of you are out there and you want to get a handle on,
your health and your longevity
and feel more vitality,
get away from the negative habits, get away from the alcohol and the booze and that sort of thing, and replace it with something that's more fun and and replace it with community and socializing in a way that's actually helpful instead of just avoidant

(01:08:41):
as with, you know, a lot of the times when we're just going out and and drinking our sorrows away.
We might be able to help you. Right now, we're working on building,
a new community project,
a new club that we're gonna be announcing soon. The best way to stay up to date about all this once more is go to my website ablejames.com
and sign up for the newsletter

(01:09:03):
abeljames.com
And the newsletter is something where if you just want to reply to me that the the emails that you get,
I read those. So if you have a question or you'd like to join up with an in person community or in person events, retreats, that sort of thing, get in touch with us. We're gonna be building out our community and doubling down on that a lot in the year to come. So I'm sincere when I say I want I wanna help you move forward in the best way you possibly can. And after, you know, fifteen or so years almost of doing this podcast and and writing about all this and doing all this work there's a lot to share that'll be coming out in my new book but since I still have a lot of writing to do as far as that goes you're going to be getting a lot of these learnings

(01:09:47):
early if you join up with one of our communities. So once more, just go to ablejames.com.
Sign up for the newsletter, and we'll let you know when that's coming up as well as some of our live events and retreats that are coming soon. We're really excited about this. Okay. So a couple more things in in the few minutes that we have left.
One thing that's been really helpful for many years that I kind of fell out of was,

(01:10:08):
getting glutathione
supplements
and shots specifically. They call them boosters. Don't love that word, but,
you can also get infusions of glutathione. And glutathione is a, you know, master antioxidant
that is one of the very few things that you can feel when you take it. And for me, based upon my genetics, I have

(01:10:29):
a hard time detoxifying.
And so glutathione,
when I get a bit of it in there,
I don't feel so much the liposomal, although I take that pretty often as well. But the I think the booster shots are generally four hundred milligrams, and sometimes it can be quadruple that if you're getting a full infusion.
If you feel like you're running ragged and you've never had, glutathione,

(01:10:50):
in in a booster shot or infusion, that is certainly something to to add into the mix. Massages can be really helpful for detoxifying.
Sauna has been something I've been doing, in the sauna blanket and and going to sauna as soon as my brain could tolerate it again because I I had exercise intolerance and
a lot of other issues that that prevented me from using the sauna for a few months after the accident. But as soon as I was able to, that's been another big piece. Doing the cold plunges,

(01:11:18):
I am not as devout cold plunger as many other people,
but I do enjoy a good cold plunge from time to time. When there's one around, I'll use it, but oftentimes,
I'm getting cold exposure through the air. So when I go for a morning walk with the pup, if it's colder outside, usually, I'll just wear a t shirt and shorts
and feel those goosebumps and let my body kind of adapt to that. But you do want to when you're getting everything back in order,

(01:11:45):
you want to align your circadian rhythm, and that is so important. So front loading some of the calories and the physical activity and the light with the sunrise earlier in the day has been very helpful in that regard and that's something that you could carry,
forward from this. Also,
methylene blue after the,
brain injury. I assume. I I don't know because I can't compare to a control or something like that, but I assume that that was very helpful

(01:12:10):
as well as it has been in the past for protecting the brain and protecting the metabolism
from outside assaults and then finally I just want to share that as I do all of this research and try to take this
negative experience and transmute it into learnings that are coming out in a new book about longevity.
Mentally speaking, one of the most important things to do is in the face of life setbacks is try to find a way,

(01:12:34):
to come out of it as a victor, as as a way where you're better off for this experience, even if it was something shady or gnarly or or backwards, whatever. If you're able to come out of this better than you were before, you're gonna be okay. You're get you're going to do well in life. And I hope that listening to this and and kind of following along for some of the experiences that I've had when I've been poisoned or run over by a truck or whatever it is. Like, all these things can help you realize that you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to stay perfect. It's really all about

(01:13:07):
adapting
and changing your lifestyle and optimizing,
when you're faced with life setbacks that that you start to get the real progress. So where am I now? Well, I'm certainly not fully recovered but doing a lot better than I was. I'm out of the acute phase of injury,
and I'm thankful that I'm able to do
things where I'm moving around. I'm walking again. I'm getting outside.

(01:13:31):
I'm able to do some work, even some housework again. And I I really missed
being useful. I didn't miss doing housework, but I missed being useful.
So those of you who have your health right now, who are fully intact and all of that are generally uninjured.
Take a moment to practice some gratitude as well because you don't know how wonderful it is to to be useful and to walk upon this earth,

(01:13:56):
unimpeded
until that's taken away from you.
And for for a while there and even now, you know, like driving around in the truck, I'm seeing the people out running and and sprinting and I'm like envious. Right? I'm just like, oh, man. I remember when I used to go out there and run and sprint just a few months ago. And and knowing that I can't do that for a while it makes me really miss it, but appreciate the things that I'm still able to do and the things that I'll be able to do in the future. So,

(01:14:22):
yes, life is tough sometimes but we'll all get through this together. So one more reminder
to please join up with with us
and,
check out some of the new projects that are coming soon. I would love to meet you in person or online, and we're starting up Club Wild. My new book will be coming out, in this coming year. And we have a lot of other projects, in person events, retreats, and more. So one last time, make sure that you sign up for my newsletter to stay up to date. That's at abeljames.com,

(01:14:51):
abeljames.com.
And if you'd like add free versions of the show, some bonus episodes, and other ways to, like, DM me and get in touch and get in touch with the community, check out my Substack as well at ablejames.substack.com.
Look forward to seeing you there. Thank you so much for listening to this episode, and I look forward to being in touch. We'll see you next

(01:15:15):
week.
Hey, y'all. This is Abel, and thanks so much for hanging out until the end of this episode. As promised, here's an entire,
largely improvised
live show of some of my original tunes with some guest artists,
my friend Mike, my new friend Mike, I should say, as well as Ainsley Costello at the end of the set. I just wanna give a special thanks to Mike from Toonster,

(01:15:38):
as well as Jim and Julie Costello from Phantom Power Music, and all the other people on the team, Steven behind the scenes, and others who helped make this show and livestream possible. You'll see certain things pop up on the screen. That's because during the live show,
we were live streaming out internationally, and people were able to donate microtransactions
in Satoshis or small fractions of Bitcoin kind of as tips or as encouragement to the musicians. And I was just one of them who played at at multiple of these shows. So that's kind of a fun interactive element,

(01:16:09):
that you saw during that show that I played at Antones in Austin a few months ago, as well as in in these shows too. So check out Tunster and Phantom Power Music and Nostr as well, because this show was largely a celebration of Nostr, which is an open source protocol that allows you to do a lot of the things that happen on social media
without this centralized

(01:16:30):
intermediary,
like
Meta, Instagram, Facebook, Google, Amazon,
those sorts of things. We can actually do this from the bottom up in a decentralized way too.
But otherwise, you don't have to know or care about any of that either. You can just enjoy the show. So I'm just gonna, shut up now and let you listen to the music. I I hope you enjoy
this show called Las Vegas. Let's go.

(01:16:53):
Hello, Las Vegas.
My name is Abel James. Thanks so much for joining us tonight. We got our buddy Mike on the pots and pans too. This is gonna be a fun jam with some special surprises indeed.
We're gonna start off with one of my tunes called Headline.

(01:18:12):
When you
got
a
headline,
when you got a headline.
She got

(01:21:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you so very much.
All you out there on the interwebs, thank you for joining us. Thank you for the boosts and the zaps.
We're so happy that you're joining us in the Nosterverse.
Mike, what's your name? Is it Mike b Drummond? Mike b Drummond. Make sure to check out our bar our boy, Mike,

(01:21:28):
at Mike b Drummond on Noster. I'm Abel James, a v e
l
James.
Alright. This next one
is a true story.
It's called damn particular man.

(01:26:04):
Thank you so very much.
How you guys doing out there? It is hot up here.
Dude, you crushed it.
So good.
Everyone, give it up for Martin Grooms.

(01:26:26):
He killed it.
And our boy Bobby.
Yeah. Jesse Lark. We got Sarah Jade coming up. Maybe even a special guest or two.
It's gonna be
a really wonderful night.
Orange and purple, baby.

(01:26:52):
Steven, did I lose
guitar volume a little bit?
Okay. We're good.

(01:27:37):
This next tune is a little bit creepy.
It's called Vulture. Also based upon a true story, but it's not about me. It is not autobiography
at all.
Sometimes artists have to take a little bit of artistic license.
Oh, you know
I never

(01:30:58):
Yeah. Yeah.
Gonna be doing a lot of originals here tonight.
Now this one
Now this one actually is a little bit autobiographical. It's the story of how I quit my job
in the corporate life,
was happily broke for the first time,

(01:31:21):
packed up everything I had into a tiny little '8 1985
Mercedes diesel that I converted
to run on biodiesel. So it was running on vegetable oil driving around the country.
And everyone told me I was crazy,
but I was having the time of my life.
A little crazy is good. Right?

(01:31:44):
So this one's called live while I'm alive.

(01:35:02):
I said, ain't nobody
ever
gonna change my mind.

(01:35:26):
Whoo. Thank you so very much. Thank you for the dancers up front too.

(01:35:49):
Hey. It works.
Man, you're crushing it on those pads. It's
ridiculous.
Are they? Good.

(01:36:18):
Alright. I'm sweating like a pig, so I'm gonna dial it back a notch.
The song is brand new.
It's called doing fine, but

(01:37:02):
If now the time's been passing, I'm doing fine. But thanks for asking. Guess I never knew the years rolled by so fast.
With all those checks that I've been casting along the line, I must've lost the passion. Guess what times they always meant to last.

(01:38:11):
For each and every day.

(01:38:34):
I could give him a call, but he's not here. He was feeling so fast that he couldn't steer.
When you're young, don't you never think you could cry.
So thank us of old friends who called dear. Get back in touch and grab him a beer. And one of us leave this rock in a flat.

(01:40:36):
For each and every day.
Thank you very much.

(01:41:02):
Alright. Let's do, voodoo free next.
This next tune is on my Swamp Thing album. It's called Voodoo Queen.

(01:42:55):
But now I do believe.

(01:44:27):
Now I do.
Now I do believe.
Now I

(01:45:17):
Let's go.
Hey. Look at all those booths.
Thanks to all of you up there, over there, and out there.
You are the best.
It's become quite a beautiful night here in Vegas.
It was a punishing afternoon, though. Good god. Sound check got a little sweaty.

(01:45:51):
Sweet. Thank you.

(01:48:55):
Dog.

(01:50:15):
Just alone
and down.

(01:50:40):
That song is old.
I wrote it at the grizzled age of 15,
backwoods in New Hampshire where I came from.
What? We got to New Hampshireites out there? What do they got? You're kidding me. Which part?

(01:51:15):
It's a small world in the Nostrapper's
Bitcoin economy here.
We're doing our best to make it a little bit bigger. We gotta get more people to this party, more people on Nasr, more people
in the Bitcoin music because this is really a magical thing. But we got a couple more minutes here.
Ainsley, are you out there? Do you wanna come out and do a song?

(01:51:37):
Everybody, we've got a special guest here tonight. It's the one and only Ainsley Costello.
She's gonna grab a guitar, so let's burn some time here a little bit. If you want, I can just do a quick one.
Alright.
I'll do a quick one and then we'll pull Ainsley up here.

(01:52:05):
We're gonna do one of Ainsley's original tunes.
In fact, it might even be the first song ever to a million Satoshis.
Let's make it 10,000,000 tonight.

(01:53:07):
Alright. She gets her guitar ready. I'm gonna do a quick little love song I wrote for my wife.

(01:53:55):
One true love was real.
Waters for fairy tales and TV show.
Pop always
told

(01:54:39):
Now I've been told
not lie
if I sleep.
Must be dreaming
a you, wondering
how the hell you felt for me.
I found a woman

(01:55:00):
who flows
through my veins,

(01:56:06):
Thank you so very much.
Anthony, what do you think? You ready for this? Why not? Let's go.
Steven, you want me to cheat over here a little bit?
Yeah.

(01:56:42):
Check one, two. There she is. Hi, everybody. How are we feeling tonight, you guys?
Yeah.

Ainsley Costello (01:56:47):
Yeah. Oh my gosh. You guys, I know it's the second day of the Bitcoin conference, and we're all tired. But how are we feeling tonight? Give me more than that.

Abel James (01:56:56):
Oh, no. Mister Abel Jim's driving it out for you.

Ainsley Costello (01:57:01):
Man, I feel like Abel like, we've done a couple of shows together this morning. I feel like we're already, like, old friends. I've noticed. I love how it works. It does feel like that. It does. Well,
so I I was just talking inside with, two of my good friends, Open Mike and Sammy and from Blake Lake, and we were kinda talking about what Mike refers to as my Genesis story. And, you know, I'll I'll spare you the more details. You can find it somewhere on the Internet. But, this is kind of the the song that started it all for me.

(01:57:31):
Apparently, this is a fact that still baffles me. This is the first song that ever hit a million sass in the value verse. And so,

(02:01:51):
Almost fell over on my heels. My

Abel James (02:01:53):
god. How are we doing on time, Steven? Is that it? Should we turn over? Alright. Everybody, thank you so much. This is Ainsley Costello. Give it up one more time.
My name is Abel James. Next up, we have Sarah Jade. Make sure you stick around. Mike, you stick right up here. He's playing with everybody tonight. Talented man behind us. Thanks to you all.

(02:02:19):
Hey. Abel here one more time. And if you believe in our mission to create a world where health is the norm, not sickness, here are a few things you can do to help keep this show coming your way. Click like, subscribe, and leave a quick review wherever you listen to or watch your podcasts.
You can also subscribe to my new Substack channel for an ad free version of this show in video and audio. That's at ablejames.substack.com.

(02:02:45):
You can also find me on Twitter or x, YouTube, as well as fountain f m, where you can leave a little crypto in the tip jar. And if you can think of someone you care about who might learn from or enjoy this show, please take a quick moment to share it with them. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.