Michael Chernow is a Serial Entrepreneur, Restauranteur, Podcast Host and expert in the world of wellness, fitness and nutrition. Most recently, Michael founded and launched Kreatures of Habit, an in-your-face lifestyle and wellness brand, reimagining how you establish healthy habits in your life.

Partnering with his childhood best-friend, Daniel Holzman, THE MEATBALL SHOP opened its doors in February 2010.  Together they have grown THE MEATBALL SHOP to 8 locations in New York, Washington DC and Connecticut, published the highly acclaimed The Meatball Shop Cookbook, and have celebrated brand collabs with VANS, Carhartt, and Champion, to name a few.  

Michael’s affinity for understanding human-motivation and identifying gaps in the marketplace, has quickly secured “Michael Chernow” as a household name especially in entrepreneurial circles.  Additionally, his commitment to openly sharing his experiences, lifestyle, and motivation on social media, speaking panels, and interviews, has solidified his place as a “go-to” resource for aspiring business owners + entrepreneurs.  

Follow Michael @michaelchernow on all social media platforms and www.michaelchernow.com

Key point topics and studies mentioned:

1. Background of how and why he started Kreatures of Habit

2. Michael's sobriety journey and battle against addiction

3. Breathwork and meditation

4. Michael's daily routines for optimal health and fitness

Transcription

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Hi, this is Dr. Latt Mansor, your host on H.V.M.N. Podcast. This episode, we interviewed Michael Chernow, who is a serial entrepreneur and also a renowned figure in the health and fitness industry. In this episode, he talked about his company Kreatures of Habit, his sobriety journey, and how he overcame addiction. He also shared his breathwork practices, his meditation practices, training regime, as well as his diet and nutrition. So, stay tuned and enjoy this episode. Hi Michael, welcome to the H.V.M.N. Podcast. How are you today?

 

Michael Chernow:

I'm great, man. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah. How's the weather there in Upstate New York?

 

Michael Chernow:

Today is unbelievably beautiful. The weather is abnormally warm for early November. It's like in the mid 60s. Yesterday it was over 70 degrees. I don't know what's going on there, but I do know that it's awesome and warm, and I am certainly not mad at it. So yeah, we're living a good life. We get all of the awesome fall and warm weather at the same time.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Before the Arctic vortex hit again.

 

Michael Chernow:

Well, yeah.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah, no, as I was prepping, making my prep notes earlier for this episode, I just found out you actually was one of the founder of the Meatball Shop.

 

Michael Chernow:

Yep.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

In 2009, I'm not sure if you know, but I did my master's in New York in 2008 to 2010. So I actually have been to the Meatball Shop, and I freaking loved it. So this is full circle. It's quite nice to, you sort of look back a decade ago and you're like, "That's a shop that I've been to, and I really loved it and I haven't been there since." And you're one of the founders.

 

Michael Chernow:

Thank you, first of all, but I'll say that if anybody was in New York City in their 20s, 30s, or 40s in 2010 through 2015, the Meatball Shop made it onto their rotation of restaurants. And really, thank God Meatball Shop made it through the pandemic. Still alive. I mean, we're still going through the pandemic. I shouldn't say made it through, but made it through the worst of it so far. Whereas a lot of my friends in the industry, colleagues, have not been as fortunate. Really tough time in the world of restaurants across the board. But, Meatball Shop really gave me a platform. It's now a bit of an iconic New York City spot.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah, for sure. I think the pandemic has hit very hard on the CPG business, on the restaurant business, and some of my favorite restaurants here in San Francisco have closed down for good as well. And it's such a shame because they were doing so well and they've got great food. What's life without great food, right?

 

Michael Chernow:

Mm-hmm.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Which-

 

Michael Chernow:

I can't do more, I mean, my life is built around food.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah. I mean, you've got your background in culinary and all of that. So let's get straight into this episode, and let's start with talking about your company Kreatures of Habit. You've got the cap there talking about Kreatures of Habit. Let's tell our audience a little bit about your background, who you are, what your passions are, and what's Kreatures of Habit.

 

Michael Chernow:

Yeah. I think the best way to do this is kind of go through the story and then finish out with what Kreatures of Habit is and why it is. I think that my personal story will set up the Kreatures of Habit, the why of Kreatures of Habit really nicely. I grew up in New York City, in Manhattan. I spent most of my life between Manhattan and Brooklyn and New York City. From as early as I can remember, I've been an entrepreneurial thinker. I really love making things, creating things, and doing things. I'm a maker, I'm a creator, and I'm a doer. And I've been like that since I was a child. When I was five and six years old, I was selling my toys on the corner of 87th Street and 2nd Avenue with my sister, and created a dog walking business in my neighborhood. By the time I was 11 years old, I was walking 35 dogs. I've always been interested in figuring out ways to optimize. The curiosity that I have as a human being is somewhat dangerous because I'm just never not interested in learning and doing things that I don't know enough about. So anything that I'm interested in, I really do just go at full force. When I was 12 years old, I got a job in a restaurant in New York City, on the Upper East Side of New York City. Ironically, I opened up my first business, the Meatball Shop. The first restaurant job I ever got was in a place called the Candle Cafe, which was vegan. So I worked in this vegan restaurant, and I just fell in love. I fell in love with the ability to connect with human beings at scale. I love connecting with humans. I think people are my passion. I'm 99% convinced that people are my passion, connecting with humans and listening and observing and figuring out ways to make people's environments and experience in life better. I love that. I think I love hosting people at our house. Our house is the house that everybody comes to, all the kids and the families, and I love doing that stuff. And I have for a long time. So I worked in the restaurant business and in the nightlife for many years, from 12 to 28, every single position, front of the house, back of the house, all of them. And then when I was 28, with a best friend from childhood, I opened up the Meatball Shop on February 9th, 2010, so just after 2009. We opened up the Meatball Shop, and it was a home run. It was just like a smash hit. We were cooking meatballs on Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon and Chelsea Handler and Good Morning America, Today Show. It was crazy. It just was like, "Pfft." We had no idea what was coming down the pipe with the Meatball Shop, but we knew that we had done something unique and groundbreaking in New York, which is hard to do in the restaurant world. We paid back our investors very quickly. Before I opened the Meatball Shop, I should mention that I got married when I was 26 to my wife, who's still my wife. We've been together 18 years. She's a partner that has never, ever, ever not supported me in my adventures and my crazy risk-taking strategies of how to walk through life. But we opened up the restaurant, we raised some more money and we opened up five more. And I bring up my wife because all I did was work in that period of my life. From 28 till about 33, I only worked, and it was a tough time. It was awesome and amazing, but I didn't know the difference between what efficient work was and just putting all of my eggs into this work basket and not giving any other time for anything else in my life. And I've now learned that that's-

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

I know how New Yorkers work. New Yorkers, when they work, they work. They have no time to rest. I mean, living in New York for two years really opened my eyes on the competitiveness of New York City. Everyone wants to stand out, everyone wants to be better than the next person next to you. And it's stressful, right?

 

Michael Chernow:

Yeah.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

And it will really tie you out over a period of time. So I definitely get what you mean.

 

Michael Chernow:

Well, there was a moment in time there where it was just, straight up, I'm just going to say, it was unhealthy. Now, do I think I needed to do that in order to get to where I'm sitting today? Probably. Maybe I could have not worked 18 hours a day, maybe I could have worked 12 hours a day and still have had the success, but I was young and I didn't know any better. And that's what I did. And then one night, my wife took me aside and she said, "Look, I love you a lot and I want to keep it that way. And the way things are going right now, this is unsustainable. I don't see you ever, and I want to spend time with you." So that was a big moment for me in my life where I learned how to draw a boundary. And I learned that work is very, very important, but not nearly as important as the love I have for the people in my family. I would sacrifice work all day long, and I don't care who judges me for this, I would sacrifice work all day long in the name of love for my wife and my kids and myself, self-love. So anyway, we crushed, we opened up five more restaurants, and then Daniel wanted to open up in Long Island, in Connecticut, in New Jersey. And I did not. I wanted to open up in Los Angeles and Chicago and South Florida and Miami. I wanted to do the more iconic, I wanted to go where the media was, and he didn't. So we could not come to terms on that. We could not see eye to eye on that. So I said, "Hey." And they actually did a whole TV show to CNBC, did a TV show about this whole entire conversation that I'm delivering right here. So if anybody wants to check it out, actually they could watch it on CNBC. It was called Consumed: The Real Restaurant Business. But I said to Dan, "Look, man, you guys should buy some of my equity, and I will go out and create another restaurant." Because at that moment I felt like I had the confidence, the ability to go out, and do a similar thing than Meatball Shop.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Right.

 

Michael Chernow:

So that's exactly what we did. They bought out a bunch of my equity. I mitigated some of my risk. I took some cash off the table. I went out and launched another restaurant concept called Seamore's, which is a sustainable seafood restaurant that I opened up in 2015, June of 2015. And the exact same thing happened, opened up the restaurant, super successful, New York Magazine, number one restaurant in New York for seven months in a row. It was amazing. And it was super humbling that I was able to pull off two anomalies. And I scaled that one. I ended up taking on a partner who knew that he was going to buy my equity down the road and he was going to scale it from six restaurants to 60, but that we were going to build the foundation of this brand together. And then in 2019, he bought some of my equity and I began the process for Kreatures of Habit. Now, just back up a tiny bit, when I was 23 years old, I had to make a tough decision in my life. I was heading down a really dark path, or I was already down the dark path. I was deep in the dark path. But I was fully addicted to alcohol and drugs. Living in New York, working at night, I was just partaking in all the things that a 23-year-old bartender does at night, and I needed to change. So I made a call and I got sober. I asked for help, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do, get sober. But I knew who to ask. I asked them to help me, and they introduced me to a couple of guys who helped change my life. These guys took me out of the terrible situation that I was in. They introduced me to fitness. They brought me to a martial arts studio, Muay Thai specifically. This is the second day I was committed to this sobriety thing, they said, "Look, this is what we're going to do. We can't do anything for you, but we can help guide you. And the way we see doing this is creating a plan for you, a daily plan that you're just going to do every single day. You're going to get better and better and better, and you're going to ultimately start to love yourself and gain respect back." They said, "You're going to wake up in the morning and you're going to go for a light run. And that run could be a block, that run could be two blocks, that run could be a mile or 10 miles, but you're just going to go and move your body first thing in the morning. When you get back, you're going to eat a big bowl of oatmeal. You need to start putting in healthy things into your body. You're so used to putting in unhealthy things on a regular basis. Let's start with something really, really simple, satiating, and healthy. You start with oatmeal and then you're going to come to this meeting that will meet you at, and then we're going to all go to the gym and we're going to teach you about discipline and commitment and integrity and how to get back up." And I didn't know what that meant until they started kicking my ass literally. And I had to actually stand back up and just continue to take an ass whooping every day. But it made me into the man I am today. So they gave me this fitness plan, they gave me this nutrition plan, and then they ultimately helped walk me towards this sobriety journey, and then eventually they introduced me to mindset stuff, meditation and prayer. So that has been the foundation of my happiness professionally and personally for the last 18 and a half years, or 18 plus years, when I changed from addict to recovered. I've used my passion for fitness and nutrition and mindset to really help me get through all the tough times that I've gone through as an entrepreneur. Everybody gratifies. I mean, everybody sort of glorifies this entrepreneurial life. And yes, there's definitely some amazing components to it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but it's fucking hard. No matter how you look at it, I'm going through it right now, man, even though this is my third business and I've had success, it's fucking hard. It's hard, man. There's hard decisions that need to be made all the time.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah.

 

Michael Chernow:

So when I knew that I was going to create another business, I knew that that next business had to be more aligned with my personal passion for wellness. I knew that I was going to do something in the wellness space. I competed in Muay Thai kickboxing. I'd run marathons. I was a pro body builder.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Which I will ask about later as well because this is a very, very unique combination, I would say.

 

Michael Chernow:

Yeah. Just athletics and competitive athletics for me has become a big part of my life, and I have stuck to that plan of eating oatmeal. Anyway, I was going to open up this thing called Kreatures of Habit. It was going to be a wellness restaurant. I was sitting at the table about to sign a lease in March of 2020 for this amazing space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and grumblings about this weird virus. I said to my investors, "I don't know what's happening here, but we should pause. I'm not going to sign a lease until we really understand what this is." And we all know what happened. It stopped all business, specifically in brick and mortar. So I had to pause, I had to pause, and I didn't know what I was going to do. But the one thing that I did know was that Kreatures of Habit was a way for me to tell my story about change, tell my story about this idea that bad habits almost killed me and great habits have made me the man I am today, so I live a life of habit. I was going to use the restaurant as obviously a revenue center and a marketing hub, and also an incubator for a line of consumer packaged goods. So I was going to use the restaurant as a restaurant, but also make products in the restaurant, put them on the shelf in the restaurant, see what the customers, see what the guests were picking up. And then whatever we saw catching some traction, we were going to invest money in and create for retail and direct-to-consumer CPG. Anyway, when the restaurant idea crashed, I said, I'm going to go right into CPG. I'm going to go right into CPG. This is a perfect time for me to spend a year working on building out a new business model. I'd never done it before. I'm going to go in head first and I'm going to learn. So I took 200,000 bucks when I came up with this idea and I put it in a bank account. The way I came up with the idea for what is currently called The PrOATagonist, which is ultimately getting changed on Monday to Meal One, we're changing the name of the product, and I'll get to that in a minute. But I was on a run at Upstate, I decided to move out of New York City. We moved up to our upstate house. I was on a run, and I was thinking about what I was going to launch this business with CPG wise. What was I going to do? I didn't know the product. What was the product? And then it just came to me. Oatmeal. I've been eating oatmeal every single day. I am the most dedicated creature of habit you've ever seen in your life. I've been eating oatmeal every single day for literally, at that time, 17 years. I don't get sick of it. I love it. I've added so many things to my oatmeal concoction every single morning, that it's way more than oatmeal. It's like an oatmeal supplement mashup that's just delicious and satiating. So I was on this run and I said, "Oh my gosh, this is it." Every morning I have gluten-free oats. I put 30 grams of protein into it. I use chia seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds. I put pinks pink Himalayan salt for electrolytes into it. On the side of that, I've got my probiotic, my digestive enzymes, my vitamin D3 and my omega-3 fatty acids. And that's been my morning forever. It's like nine to 10 different things that I have every single day that I need to have on hand, in my house, in order to accomplish this awesome start to my day. That's just like a mega win for me. And I said, if I can figure out a way to create a pouch that looked like this, get all that stuff, all that stuff that I love in something like this, that people can take with them wherever they want to go, they can make it a bunch of different ways, they can make it hot, they can make it overnight, they can make it into a smoothie, all those awesome ingredients that make me feel really, really good, and know that I'm putting something good into my body every single day, man, I've got a cool business around this. And also allows me to tell my story because this was such a pivotal moment in my life. This was the nutritional win that I needed, to change. I needed to ingest something good that made me feel like I was putting something good into my body because I'd spent so much time putting bad into my body. And that was it. I put 200 grand into a bank account. I started the process. I spent a year working on it, and over 60 different iterations of this thing. And now it's gluten-free oats, 30 grams of plant-based protein, chia seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D3, probiotic, really strong, awesome probiotic for gut health, digestive enzymes that just helps you digest this product and also throughout the rest of the day. It's sweetened with monk fruit. We did use a little organic maple sugar and stevia that we've now removed. So it's a very, very clean product, incredibly delicious. Made overnight. You pour it into a jar. You add some almond milk or some water to it, you mix it up, you throw it in the fridge, you pull it out in the morning, it's just ready to go. And that's Kreatures of Habit. We are-

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

I'm going to try this.

 

Michael Chernow:

I got to get it to you.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah. Yeah, you got to get it to me. I got to try this.

 

Michael Chernow:

I mean, it's such a convenient, really, really healthy, delicious way to start your day.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Although I know that that would probably be the quarter of my carbs of the entire day, but I would definitely open to trying it for sure.

 

Michael Chernow:

Well, it's a meal, man. It's not a snack.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah.

 

Michael Chernow:

You know what I mean? It's a full meal. You eat-

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

How much calories is that?

 

Michael Chernow:

350.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

350, yeah.

 

Michael Chernow:

So you eat this for breakfast, or if you work out in the morning, you eat this after your workout. I mean, you're not hungry for four hours. This is a legit meal. If you tried to eat this as a snack, you wouldn't be hungry for the meal that you're having after the snack. So big people, big dudes that work out a lot, they might have this as a snack and not be hungry for three, four hours. But normal people that are not bodybuilders, that are eating 6,000 calories a day, this is a full meal.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Okay. Well, I'll look forward to it. Well, first of all, congratulations on your sobriety journey. It's really, really inspiring. I have a couple of questions around that and I have a couple of questions around Kreatures of Habit, the meal as well. But before that, I want to really make a comment on when you were saying about how you were working so hard and you are neglecting life in general, self-care, caring for people around you. It is so important for us to remember that. It is so important for us to take a step back, relax, and breathe. Because I've got my bachelor's degree, I've got my master's and then I've got my PhD, and one would think that, "Oh, he must really like studying." I mean, it's not easy. It's still hard work. And not until when I did my PhD that I experienced something similar to you where I had Bell's palsy. Half of my face was paralyzed because I was so stressed out. And that lasted a whole week. I remember cycling, because I was in Oxford then in the UK, and it was cold weather. Oxford is a city where you can cycle everywhere, and all the students cycle. And I had to cycle to the lab on a Saturday morning to do my experiments. And when you cycle in the cold, you would feel numb. Your face would feel numb because of the cold wind. Usually it'll go away after a few minutes when you're indoors. I finished my experiment half an hour later and my face is still numb. I looked at myself in the mirror. It was a scary moment when I'm like, why can't I move half of my face? And I had two days to mull over it, two days to Google search everything under the sun before I can see my doctor on Monday. And I searched, it comes up, all these search results came up from stroke to cancer to all the terminal diseases you can think about. But finally when I went to see the doctor, he said, "It's Bell's palsy. It's easily solvable. It can have long-lasting effect if it's not treated." But they treated me for a week, and it was back to normal. But that was when I had realized, I went to my PhD supervisor, I said, "Hey, look, this lifestyle is not sustainable. This stress is definitely not healthy for me. I need to revisit how I do experiments, how I structure my days so that I can have a balanced and have a healthy, happy life while also achieving what you want me to achieve as your PhD student." It went much better since then. And rest is history. And then I got my degree, and here I am interviewing you. So I think people just need to always remember, just because you're young, just because you are able doesn't mean that you have to push yourself every day without any rest. I think the key is always consistency. The key is always having that goal in mind, having the eyes on the prize, but at the same time you have a whole life to achieve that. Don't compare yourself to other people.

 

Michael Chernow:

I feel like just adding a little bit to that because I agree with you, it's so important. Some would argue that this is irresponsible, I know what's right for my life at this point. I work pretty much from 8:00 AM until 5:30 PM, and I get in my car at 5:30. I most of the time take a work call between driving from my office to my house. And at 5:55 when I pull up in my driveway, I do a little breathing practice to transition from work energy to baseline. And then I go into my house and I do not work after that. Unless it's an absolute emergency and my phone is blowing up, or there's a massive investor thing that I've got to handle, I do not work after 6:00 PM ever. And I don't work on the weekends. And that is because I love my family.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

And that's respectable and that's how it should be. I've grown up in Asia, in Malaysia, I've lived in Europe and UK and Germany. I now live in the US. I did my master's in US as well. So after living in three different continents, I can certainly say that, in America, the system is that if you don't work 25 hours a day, you don't want it hard enough, you don't want it bad enough. They have that mentality where, are you not hungry? If you are hungry, why aren't you working extra hours? Whereas I've seen in Europe, for example, there are so many countries that just have 40-hour week, and that's it, right? And they are as productive, if not happier in life. And that's what I think we should shift towards. It's not that you are not working enough, it's just work efficiently so that you can maximize your time at work or optimize your time at work while optimizing your time with family, your time of self-care, doing stuff that actually is beneficial for you, not just from a monetary point of view, not from a financial point of view. Your health, your mental health, your physical health, your family and your kids, and all of that, I think that's very important that people often forget, especially in a very big hustle and bustle city like New York City.

 

Michael Chernow:

Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. My wife is Danish.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah. In Denmark, I think they introduce a few years ago how many hours a week is a very short hour week.

 

Michael Chernow:

Yeah. I mean, everybody's pretty much home at 4:00.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah.

 

Michael Chernow:

And I also love the fact that most of the people there are just happy to work for the government at some level. It's not this intense race to the Rolls-Royce. It doesn't exist there. I really appreciate that. And as I've gotten older, I've learned to ... I think you can extrapolate the fact that I'm a hard charging person. I never thought that living in Upstate New York would be something that I could easily acclimate to because I need the noise, I need the energy, the stimulation. And the truth is, I surprise myself. I don't, I don't ... I mean, I know that success is very, very important to me. I want to be able to have all the experiences with my family that anybody could ever dream of having. I mean I love creating. I'm a hunter at heart. Discovery, and like I said, curiosity, lifting up rocks, all those things, they make me the guy I am. But really aside from that, I want all of this. I want to be able to experience the coolest shit in the world with my family.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Right, right.

 

Michael Chernow:

So I want us to be able to have whatever we want. I want us to be able to go on trips all the time, eat really good food. And that's what it is for me. So Kreatures of Habit, I've got a big plan and big vision for it, and there's a lot of cool things happening. And to be able to say like, "Hey man, I know you want all these things, Mike ..." And I'll talk to you about my morning practice because I've got a very, very pretty structured morning every day. But I've got this manifestation meditation that I do, and I see exactly what the future looks like and I know exactly what it looks like and it feels like. I believe that I'm going to do be that person sitting in that chair, looking at that mountain view. But I believe that I can do it the way I'm doing it now, where I'm not going to be sitting on my deathbed saying, "God, I wish I spent more time with my family." I'm not going to be that person. I'm not. And I'm not going to be the person that said, "Man, if I only worked a little bit harder, maybe." I'm going to be the person that says, "Hey ..." For years, everybody used to ask the question work-life balance. And then there was five, six years that was like, "There's no such thing as work-life balance. Come on. There's no work-life balance." And now I'm back in this place where like, "No, actually, there is work-life balance. There is." No matter how you look at it, work is stressful. No matter how you look at it, if you're running a company or if you're an executive or a department head or a GM or whatever of a company, it is fucking stressful. It's hard. It is all the time hard. There's always projects that you need to be focused on that run the risk of failing. And if you're afraid of failing, your job is really hard. Luckily for me, I run fast at it. I run fast at the fear because I know that the only thing that's on the other side of fear, when you get through it, is freedom, success.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

It's interesting you mentioned fear and failure, and I want to bring this back to your sobriety journey as well. In that 18 years, have you experienced the fear and the failure? For people who are listening to this who are struggling with addiction, any form of addiction, it doesn't have to be alcohol or drugs or any form of addiction, if they want to fight it, what advice would you give to them to overcome that fear, overcome that fear of the unknown, essentially? They are in their comfort zone, they are in their habit, habitual sort of routine. What advice would you give them? And the second question is, throughout your journey, are there any things that you discovered that you weren't expecting?

 

Michael Chernow:

Yeah, it's a great question, and I have a solution for those people.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Mm-hmm.

 

Michael Chernow:

I can only speak for myself here. I cannot speak for the rest of the world. I can only speak through my experience. I know firsthand that there is a solution for addiction, specifically addiction with drugs, alcohol, sex, food, which all kind of go hand in hand. They all kind of work together. So I wish that I could say that there was a pill that someone could take, that would just make it go away. What I'm going to say is very, very hard, very hard, incredibly, incredibly hard, because trying to tell somebody who hates themselves, specifically most addicted people, are running from their self-hate and trauma, and their trauma most of the time manifests in self-hatred. So what I'm going to say is very hard for someone who hates themselves generally. They've got to start to love themselves. The way I learned how to start loving myself, when I needed to cross over from a person that hid behind rocks to someone who ran directly into the fire, was practicing little small habits every morning to start my day. That made me feel like I've won. That gave me a tiny little of confidence, little poof, like, "Hey man, ooh, that felt good." Like I did something good for myself. That could be as small as just start making your bed every day, to ultimately, ideally eating better and moving your body. I think this is a good time to walk through my morning routine.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah.

 

Michael Chernow:

This is intimidating for most people. I only share this because I want to just paint the picture of like, this could be what your morning routine looks like at some point. For me, and I'll also start by saying this because I do say this often and I think it's really important to know, positive habits are marathons. They are long-term plays. There's an element of instant gratification in some of these habits, but the majority of them take time to play out to their potential in a real way, addicted to super grateful and sober with a family who he loves and loves him back and businesses and all those things. So every morning I wake up at around 4:45, 5:00 AM. I don't have an alarm, I just, I wake up. The first thing I do every single morning is, I throw back my eye mask. I look up at the ceiling and I smile from ear to ear like this. And I start listing out things I'm grateful for immediately, right away, right away, like boom. Because I know that my mind has been subconsciously at rest for the last seven and a half hours, and it's ready to start chewing my ear off as soon as I open my eyes and I become conscious again. So in order to counter that stress, anxiety, where a lot of us wake up with every day, I immediately smile and start saying how awesome my life is and how awesome today's going to be, and force optimism and positivity right away. So I do that for about 15 seconds. Then I spring up. I don't mossy out of bed. I spring up, I take off my eye mask, I hang it on my headboard, and I walk into the bathroom. I have a hygiene routine. I take a piss. I brush my teeth, I floss. I have a whole skincare thing that I do every morning that I love, that I never thought I would be doing, that I couldn't live without now. It's like, I love washing my face and serum and moisturizer and eye cream. I'm 42. I feel fresh and young. And I'm like, "Yes, I'm loving myself, man. This is it."

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

But for those of you who are listening, you don't look this good if you don't put effort in, essentially. You don't just turn on a camera and then suddenly you're glowing. You've got to have to put effort in it.

 

Michael Chernow:

You put effort in. And I do. I do that every day. So I do this whole skincare thing, and then I have a prayer practice that I've been doing for years and years, almost as long as I'm sober. I call it prayers and pushups because I pray, it takes me three to five minutes, and then I go right into moving my body. So I go right into pushups. I do 50 pushups straight. And then after I do my 50 pushups, I do about three minutes of stretching. I do a downward dog, an up dog, I do a child's pose, I do cat cow. And then I throw my bathrobe, and I quietly sneak past my wife who's still sleeping in bed with one of our children next to her most mornings. And then my sauna is preheated. I've got an infrared sauna that I've been using pretty regularly. I walk downstairs, I grab my 22 ounce jar of water with some electrolytes in it, and I walk into the sauna. I sit in the sauna for 35 minutes or so. In the sauna, I read. The first thing I do is typically read, I meditate, and I do breath work. And right after that, and sometimes I've got a couple of lunatics that I'm friends with. This guy, Joe De Sena, who's the founder of Spartan Race, he and I have a three-day a week standing 5:20 AM call that we do. Crazy guys that love the early morning hours to check in. So I do that for 35 minutes, and then I go into my cold plunge and I sit in the cold plunge for five minutes. At which point, I walk back into my kitchen. I've got a kitchen nook, breakfast nook, I light a candle, really nice scented candle. I'm freezing my ass off, but this is my way of warming my body. And I pull out my journal and I journal. And while I'm journaling, I've got some coffee going. My son, my older son Finn, typically wakes up at around 6:15 or so. He walks downstairs and crawls into my arms. And I'm lucky for that. It makes me emotional thinking about it, that I'm able to have that in my life, where I got a kid, a son who loves coming downstairs and hugging his dad in the morning. We just don't even say anything, he just crawls into my arms and we hug for five minutes in quiet. It's amazing. When the candle's gone, I got my coffee, and that's when I go from the self-indulgent, self-love, self-care, morning of absolute fucking win after win to family guy. My family comes down. I don't have breakfast early in the morning. I eat my Meal One after I train, but I hang with the family for a little bit. Sometimes I take my kid to school, sometimes I don't. Three or four days a week, I'll go straight to the office and get to my desk at around 8:00. A few days a week, I will go train CrossFit at around 8:00 and then get to the office around 9:30. And then I have my Meal One post-workout every single day. And after all of that, it's 9:00 AM typically, and I am bulletproof. Bulletproof. Doesn't matter what happens. We can control so little. I lose complete control of my life at around 6:15 every morning when my son comes downstairs. Before 6:15, from 4:45 to 6:15, I have absolute complete unadulterated control. No one is around to impact my decision-making process. So people ask me all the time like, "Oh God, you're one of these guys. You wake up early, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, "Look, if I didn't have to wake up early, trust me, I wouldn't." The truth of the matter is, I love my life, and I know that I have very little control of what happens around me as soon as other people get involved. So in order to do the things that I know I need to do to succeed as a guy in recovery, but also someone who really, really wants to live life to the fullest, I need that hour and a half to two hours every single morning alone to do it. I want to win every day. Not like win the race, not like win the war. I want to feel good. I want to be happy. And that's how I do it. So when you ask me what kind of advice can I give someone who's struggling with addiction and potentially would really love to find a solution, you got to start turning the camera around. Stop caring about making other people really, really happy and people pleasing, and start loving yourself. It starts with tiny little things. Washing your face, brushing your teeth, flossing your teeth, saying a prayer in the morning, asking for guidance, not asking for things, asking for guidance from the universe, "Hey, walk me through how you would want me to walk through. I don't want anything from you, I just want you to guide." That's what I do in the morning in my prayer. I pray for all my friends and family, that they have epic awesome days every day. I pray for all the people that I struggle with, all the people that are difficult for me to deal with. I pray for them to have awesome days every day. Please.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

So what I'm hearing is, the key to success here with regards of addiction of self-love is a lot to do with self-awareness, gratefulness, and really investing effort and time into yourselves.

 

Michael Chernow:

Yeah, and definitely make sure fitness and nutrition are a big part of it.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah. So being aware, as what Michael just said. Really take your thought from a third person point of view and looking back at yourself and being aware what you're doing, being very intentional, as well as being very just conscious about your decisions and the result that comes with it so that you can take that good result and be grateful about it.

 

Michael Chernow:

Yep.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

And then that would propel you further to build good habits. Because we are creatures of habits, so the more you build towards positiveness, the more you will accumulate them. And similarly, if you let yourself go and go towards the negative habits, it will build on top of that.

 

Michael Chernow:

I mean, great decisions made consistently over time make great decisions. They just do.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned about nutrition and fitness as well. So this is something that I wanted to cover because I don't believe there are many people out there who are marathon runners and bodybuilders, right? Just look at the physique of these athletes. Bodybuilders have really full, big muscles, low body fat, and possibly even low glycogen. When they go for competing, they're just very dehydrated. Whereas marathon runners, they are lighter, they are able to run far, run fast. So tell us a little bit about how do you juggle those? How do you switch to those? And what are your training regimes?

 

Michael Chernow:

Well, the truth is that I don't do them together. I don't run marathons and compete in body building. So I ran marathons up until about 2018. I mean, running always will be a part of my training, but endurance, long distance, super long distance running, I pretty much stopped in 2018, was my last marathon. And then I got deep into body building. I really don't know if it's possible to be a competitive, like actually competing in body building and competing in endurance running, but I do think that you could ... There is one guy that I know that does this. His name is Nick Bare. He owns Bare Performance Nutrition. He does this. He competes as a marathoner. He doesn't compete as a bodybuilder, but he does do both of those things. And he competes definitely as a endurance athlete. So for me, I just enjoy the different modalities. I really love seeing how far I could take my body, challenging myself with something new. I'm not one of these guys that's like, "Hey, you need a three-month, a six-month, a nine-month, 12-month plan." But I do like to have a physical goal, a business goal, a family goal, and a mindset goal on my path at all times. So there's always some sort of thing I'm working on physically, working towards physically. There's always a business thing that I'm working towards. And that could be five-year out plan, which is currently what it is. We're shooting from the hip in a lot of ways at Kreatures of Habit right now, but I know what the trajectory needs to look like in order to hit that five-year plan, five-year goal. Family, there's always something I'm working on goal-wise with my family. Now, that could be as simple as a vacation that I'm like, "Hey, I want this vacation to happen and I want it to happen in the best possible way." And that could also be a commitment that I made in April, which is non-negotiable date night every week with my wife, non-negotiable, and kids karate on Tuesday afternoons, non-negotiable. I've definitely faltered a few times here and there, but I'm pretty damn good. But that's a family goal. And then a mindset goal is, for me right now, really diving deep into breath work, understanding breath work, really using breath work to help propel my well-being, whereas I was doing a lot of meditation. It was prayer for a very long time, and then I introduced meditation. Meditation became a big part of my life, and now I'm incorporating all three meditation, prayer, and breath work to see how that changes things up a little bit.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Great. So speaking of mindset, what advice would you have for our listeners? If they're just very mentally exhausted from their day and they don't have that motivation to work out, to realize these goals of theirs, what advice would you give them to overcome that?

 

Michael Chernow:

I mean, look, not everybody has to go to the gym and train or go for five mile runs, right? I definitely advise that because I think that's good for everyone. But what I would suggest is just walk. If you are someone who is on meetings all day and they're virtual Google Meets or Zoom calls or whatever, I promise you that not all of those meetings need you to be there on the visual component. So what I've started doing pretty regularly is scheduling those Zoom calls, just audio for me. And I walk, I try to get 10,000 steps a day. Super important to me. Right after this call I'm going on a walk, right after this podcast. So walking is definitely not only mentally stimulating, but people underestimate the physical, the cardiovascular component to walking. Walking is very, very, very good for cardiovascular health, and also moving the body, just moving the body. I mean, sitting down all day is not what we were designed to do. We were designed to move. Only in the last 150 years have chairs become part of our makeup. Now we're kind of glued to them. We were meant to be on our feet. So I highly recommend walking. One other thing that I would just say, if someone's really mentally, physically exhausted, something that I've been doing for a long time, and now obviously I just mentioned sort of pumping the gas on it, breath work is really powerful. If you need a little bit of a reset, you're feeling stressed, you're feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling overworked, you're just feeling like the walls are kind of caving around you. There's something that I do. There's two different exercises, very, very simple. One is called box breathing, where you breathe for four seconds in through your nose, you hold your breath at the top of that four seconds, you breathe after ... So it's four seconds in, a four-second hold, four seconds out of your mouth, nice and slow, and then a four-second hold at the bottom of the breath. And you do that five times. So five rounds of four in, four holds, four out, four hold, four in, four hold, four out, four hold. It's called box breathing. It is unbelievable way.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Do you have to be seated? Do you have to lie down?

 

Michael Chernow:

Honestly, I mean, it's best to be seated, but you can really do it anywhere. You can do it walking. You can do it really anywhere. It's the action of doing it. I learned about this when I was really stressed out about a health thing that I was dealing with a few years ago with Lyme disease. I was getting my blood pressure, and this doctor was like, "Whoa, your blood pressure's high." And I was like, "It's never really high. You're scaring me." She was like, "Do me a favor, try this. Five rounds of this breath work." I did it, my blood pressure went straight back down, boom, in a minute. I was like, "Oh my gosh." And she was like, "Yep, you should do that. You should do that." I was like, "Oh, I'm going to do that. So I started incorporating that intermittently throughout my days. And then another one that I do which is the breath work that I do before I go from the car to my house every evening is, I do this double inhale, long, slow exhale. And I do that 10 times. So it kind of looks like this: in through my nose like ... And I blow out all of the air and I bring my stomach in towards my spine, so all the air is pushed out. And then I breathe in my nose, right into my belly, I fill my belly with air, and then I do another breath into my chest. I fill my whole entire torso with air and then I just slowly let it out. I do that 10 times, and you'll be beyond surprised. You feel euphoric after doing it 10 times, for real. It brings you really quickly back to baseline and better.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

There you go. That's great advice for people who struggling, had a long day, and just want to have a break. Try this breath work advice. I'm going to try myself. I've done breath work once. We had a breathwork event with H.V.M.N. in LA, so that was definitely an eye-opener on the effects of it, physiologically and mentally as well. So let's finish up by talking a little bit on your meditation practice since you shared your breathwork practice, because I know a lot of people who are not used to meditation, like me included. Before I started meditation, I always thought meditation is just one thing. You just do it, I don't know how. And then I start looking into it. I know there are many types, there are many ways to practice it. There's manifestation, there's loving, caring sort of meditation. So what do you practice?

 

Michael Chernow:

That's a great question. I'm not one of these guys that likes to stick to one thing specifically. I love to bounce around a little bit. So some days I'll do this guided manifestation meditation that I've been doing for a while. Some days I will just be completely silent and I'll count a hundred breaths. Each breath is, in through my nose, out through my mouth is one, in through my nose, out through my mouth is two, nice and slow. So that takes about 10 minutes, and I just really try to pay attention to my breath, breathing nice and easily. I'm not overdoing the breath. I'm not breathing in heavy and breathing out heavy. I'm just totally chill, cross-legged, with my hands flat on my legs. I used to try to do this and it just wasn't comfortable for me, so I just put my hands down on my thighs and I breathe for a hundred breaths. Counting really does help me stay focused on my breath, although I am constantly ... It's so interesting. When I meditate, for some reason I think of an old coat rack, one of those wooden coat racks that it's a wooden post and it's got four different things that you can hang your jackets on, that you would see in an entryway of a house, of someone's house. I think of meditation that way where I'm like the post of this wooden coat rack and my thoughts are, they're kind of the hooks or the things that you hang your jacket on. I think of myself sitting upright. My eyes are closed and I'm breathing, and my thoughts are just like ... And I'm like, "Oh shoot." There's the thought, it's taking me out of my focus. I'm going to grab it, bring it right back to the post. Grab it, bring it right back to the post. It's all good. No judging. It's okay. These are my thoughts. They're happening. I'm cool. I'm acknowledging it. I'm pulling it back in. And that's kind of like some weird, for some reason that's where my head goes when I meditate, especially when my brain starts floating around. And then sometimes I'll check in on Headspace and do a course, a 28-day Headspace course. Yeah, that's kind of like the way I've been doing it, not really focused on anyone specific. I know a lot of people love transcendental meditation, something that I'll definitely try at some point. What I'm slipping on right now.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

So you're slipping on Ketone-IQ. For those listeners who are not watching, Michael just casually pour himself a shot. I took one before our podcast recording, so I'm still working on them. I'm probably going to take another shot before I work out later on. But what you said about meditation, that's pretty much what I practice as well. But instead of imagining myself as the pole, I imagine a river in front of me. So all these thoughts, it could be waves, it could be big waves, it could be ripples. But the more conscious and more aware I am that these are just thoughts, the easier I am to let them go and not attach any emotional attachment to it. And therefore, I'm at peace. And that really helps me in my day-to-day to be able to differentiate what is stressing me out. Does it really stress me out or am I putting that emotion to it? Is this just a neutral event that I should just let go, that I can do whatever I can, but whatever I can't do about it, I should just let it go? Because the stress that is inducing on my well-being is not helpful to this situation, but instead it is actually making me worse in terms of my health. So that really helps me, and I really hope that I can learn even more, develop further, because I'm definitely realizing the cognitive benefits, almost like a leveling up experience that I never knew I could have. I always thought I have all these degrees, I'm a scientist, I know all these things about physiology, but little did I know that meditation has such profound effect on your brain and your consciousness and how you think about your daily experience, really. Most of the time we let things pass by and not think much about it. But then when you're aware, you can be grateful for the things that are good and you can then acknowledge things that are bad and let them pass by without putting a lot of negative emotions into it.

 

Michael Chernow:

Yep. I couldn't agree more.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah. So one last question before we finish this episode that I ask all my guests, what does health and modern nutrition mean to you?

 

Michael Chernow:

Health and modern nutrition.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Just your personal interpretation of that.

 

Michael Chernow:

Well, we are living in a world of nonstop innovation where it's a very unique time in history where innovation is growing at an exponential velocity. And because of that and because of this technological boom that we've been in for the last 50 years, I do believe that human beings have suffered in regards to their health. The cool thing that we're all witnessing, especially those that are really deeply invested in the world of wellness and health, is that there's optimization now happening in the world of health that has never been seen before, Ketone-IQ. I just posted something the other day, I posted a picture of me with my Ketone-IQ, which I love, I'm a massive fan. I said, "My favorite ketone makers." You guys are making ketones. And that's not something that was ever possible before, before you guys came to the arena with it. So similarly in the tech space, there's exponential growth and optimization and innovation. Now we're seeing it in the world of health and wellness for people to be able to attain ways to optimize their happiness through health. I have a product that is all in the name of that as well. I'm trying to give people-

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

I'm looking forward to that by the way.

 

Michael Chernow:

What was that?

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

I'm looking forward to that by the way.

 

Michael Chernow:

Oh, yeah. I can't wait for you to try. But I'm similar to what you guys are doing, I'm trying to figure out ways to give people a more modern approach towards their health in a convenient way that will give them a leg up, give them an edge on not necessarily the competition, but on what the day throws at them. Right? This is an absolute 100% optimization tool. This makes you, in seconds, kickstarts so many different things in your biology. And then this, a product that we've known for so many years, oatmeal, I've just optimized the living shit out of it and made it incredibly convenient for people to get a quick dose of 30 grams of protein, omega-3 fatty acids which are essential, vitamin D3 which is essential, probiotic. All those things, I figured out how to make easily attainable that ultimately only optimize. That's my thought. I don't know if that was too long-winded or if that made sense.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

No, absolutely, it makes sense. I'm glad you mentioned about convenience because people are willing to pay for convenience, but because food industrialization, for the longest time, catered for convenience but unhealthy foods. So now we are moving towards convenience and healthy foods.

 

Michael Chernow:

Yep.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

And I think that's the direction that we should be going anyway. We should have done that way earlier before all these chronic diseases prevalence skyrocket. But now people are starting to realize, "You know what? I'm paying for not only the convenience but also for the health benefits that comes from these food products."

 

Michael Chernow:

For the listeners, I would love for as many people to try this as possible. I want to give a promo code to all the people that are listening in. If they want to use just HVMN15, the number 15, they can get 15% off their first order. You guys have been such supporters of me and Kreatures of Habit for years actually, and I wanted to reciprocate. I also think that your audience will definitely appreciate this product, Meal One. So HVMN-

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Thank you so much.

 

Michael Chernow:

Yeah, of course man. Of course.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

HVMN15, the number. I was about to ask you this last part, which is offering the platform for you to our listeners, where can they find you and all of that?

 

Michael Chernow:

Yeah. You can find us Kreatures of Habit, @KreaturesOfHabit, on social media. It's Kreatures of Habit with a K, Kreatures with a K. Also, KreaturesOfHabit.com, Kreatures with a K. I personally can be found at @MichaelChernow pretty much everywhere, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. And I've got a website, MichaelChernow.com, that totally outdated so don't bother with that. But I'm head down, all focused on Kreatures of Habit. There's also a really cool podcast that we do, the Kreatures of Habit podcast, so you can check that out, which is a great networking community building tool for us. It's the Kreatures of Habit pod.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

Yeah, guys, do follow Michael. I follow him myself even before talking to him, and I find his content very inspiring for sure. It's very human, most of all, and I thank you for that, to really make it relatable to everyone. Everyone struggles with certain issues, problems and all that, and everyone will have good days, bad days, but ultimately, you sharing your journey, you sharing your story and your product definitely make the world a better place. Have some people who actually care. So thank you so much again for your support on H.V.M.N. and Ketone-IQ. Thank you for coming onto the H.V.M.N. Podcast.

 

Michael Chernow:

Thanks for having me, man.

 

Dr. Latt Mansor:

If you have enjoyed the episode, please like, share, and subscribe. And if you have any comments or feedback, please leave it in the comments section. You can find us, @HVMN, on all social media platform, and myself, @LattMansor, on all social media platform as well. The H.V.M.N. Podcast and myself are powered by Ketone-IQ, the most effective way for you to elevate your blood keto levels for optimal cognitive and physical performance, as well as metabolic health. Thanks again for listening. Until next time.

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