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Friday, March 29, 2024

10 Things Tony Gonzalez Can't Live Without

Credit: GQ
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10 Things Tony Gonzalez Can't Live Without
10 Things Tony Gonzalez Can't Live Without

There are a few things NFL Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez can't live without when he hits the road.

From his journal to his grounding mat, these are the former Kansas City Chiefs star's travel essentials.

- Once you get on that path,to me, you can never go back.Life will be boring if you back.You'll feel like, "I'm stillbelievin' in Santa Clause."To my kids, Santa does exist.Just wanna let you know, it's was a joke.[upbeat music]Hey what's up GQ Sports?I'm Tony Gonzalez, NFL Hall of Famer.And these are my essentials.Everything begins with sleep.The research I've done, it'spretty much a no brainer to me.What's more important than your nutrition?What's more important than workin' out?It begins with gettin'a good night's sleep.And gettin' the bestquality sleep you can.And so these essentialitems that I have hereare what helps me get the best sleep.I'll start with this one.It's basically white noise,but good white noise.Me and my wife, we can'tsleep without this now.I bring it on the road with me to hotels.And it kinda creates thatsame environment too,when you're in a hotel, nowyou feel like you're back homebecause of the noise machine.I love a sleep mask,havin' total darkness isessential for good sleep,you know, cuttin' thatlight out of your eyes.I have an app on my phonethat will track my sleepand tell me how good I slept,how many times I woke up,how many times I was movin' around.And the Oura Ring too, also measures that.All this stuff is designedto get you to wake upand feel great.The Perfect Pushup device,and so it moves like that.And the reason I use these,some people are like,"Why don't you just use your hands?"You can push up without anything,"but for me, I have stiff wrists.And this moves so it's just a little biteasier on your joints.And along with my other workout,I'll get 30 to 40 pushups per morning.It's kinda the first thing I do.It gets the blood moving.I do a quick stretch, andthen I hit my pushups.You would be amazed, if youjust do 40 pushups a day.You look up and you're like,"Man, I'm in great shape."People are like, "Man,are you workin' out?"Yeah, for about a minute a day, that's it.The reason I'm sittin'here is because of reading.It changed my life.My second year in the league, real quick,led the NFL and dropped passes,went through a depression.My brother recommended,he actually gave mea book of quotes by Vince Lombardi.Off of that, I went outand bought his book.I never bought a book beforethat and ever since that,I've just developed thispassion for reading.I don't care what you read,as long as you're reading something'cause when you read somethin',you're learning somethin'.And with your five hours of time,you're getting somebody's expertise,who spent a lifetime tryingto be the best athlete,or the best coach.They poured all theirinformation into a bookand now I get to read it.Then when I do read it,it's, I have my pen in here.It's underlying everything.And I'll go back and not reread this book,but I'll go back and look through it.And that way it becomes part of youbecause I don't believe,you read it one time,you learn it for like a couple of weeks,and then you're back to your old self.But if you keep reiterating it,put it somewhere that you'reactually gonna sit down and look it,I'd recommend the bathroom [laughing]when you go in there andtake care of your business,just have this book sittin' right thereand just go through insteadof gettin' on your phoneand playin' video gamesor lookin' up your social media account,just get in there and get better.You've got everything out,and then you brought some stuff in,so it's a good scenarioas far as I'm concerned.The other side to it is journaling.After you start reading,if you wanna take yourreading one step further,then the stuff that youreally loved in the bookyou can start writing down.And then you start writing downyour own personal thoughts, okay?What did I think about that chapter?Or you know what, this is away that I can write it now,notes to myself, you writeyour own little playbookto tell you what to do, sowhen you get on the field,you can have success, it'sthe same thing for life.I have about six of 'emnow that I've filled upand I just keep goin'.I can look back at thenotes that I wrote to myselfand see how I've evolved,see how I've gotten better.I would have stayed the same.Once you get on that path,to me, you can never go back.Life will be boring if you go back.You'll feel like, I'm stillbelievin' in Santa Claus.It's you just keep evolving.You know what, actually tomy kids, Santa does exist.Just wanted to let youknow, it was a joke.Okay, this right here,now stay with me now.It's a little weird anda lot of people out thereare gonna say, "Whatthe hell, hippy stuff,"but this is a grounding mat.In today's day and age, wehave shoes, synthetic soles.And we're always cutoff from the Earth.The Earth is electric, okay?Science proved it, your body's electric.You put off an electrical impulse.This is all proven stuff.And so, we evolved as human beings.We've never been disconnected.We were always walkin'around, you have barefoot,or you have natural soles on your shoesthat doesn't cut you off fromthe Earth's electrical pulse.When you go out into thewoods, or you get dirty down,you see little kids alwaysplaying in dirt, and soil,and all that stuff, that'swhen you feel your best.That's when you feel connected.But if you don't havetime to go to the park,you can actually just sitthere and read a book,or watch TV, or whatever itis, get on your computer.And you put this down, youplug this into an outlet,a grounded outlet, which isusually the ones with the,you look at the plugin.- [Interviewer] It's the third prong.- It's the third prong,you plug it in there,'cause that means it's grounded, I guess.So yeah, it grounds youand you just sit there.Just have your feet,barefoot, and you watch TV.And I did this last night.I had my highest sleep scorethat I've had in a long time.These are headphones.Very colorful ones too, it'sthe only color they had left.But I figured it made sense,being a Falcon and a Chief so,it was good.First of all, I travel alot, so when I'm on a plane,I wanna listen to mymusic, listen to podcast.I'm a big podcast guy,I have my own podcast called "Wide Open."I like to play it back,hear how I sounded.Hear from the guests 'causewhen you're doin' the interview,a lot of the times, you'reabsolutely listenin',and I'm tryin' to stayas present as I can.But at the same time,I'm doin' an interview.So I gotta think about my questions.But when you can play it back,I can just listen to itso it gives me a good timejust to listen to it fully andengage what I just learned.I will sit on my little grounding mat,put my headphones on, listento some guided meditations,listen to some podcast, andthis is an absolute essential.So I travel a lot.This is obviously a suitcase.This is a Briggs andRiley, amazing suitcase.And this is a great one because,first of all you can get it up.It has this contractable component.That's as high as it goes,so it gives you a deep,so if you gotta, you know,three or four nights this is great for.But then for the one-nighters,you can just [crunching]compress it down like that.I feel like an infomercial.And then it rolls.It's got this technology, whatever it is.This is not a cheap bag, either.I mean, but it's worth every penny.Well, I have this underneath,you guys couldn't see this,it was there the whole time.But I make this little mix every day.And I put tumeric in it.I'll put macha, I'll put cocoa powder.I'll do all these different,just like little concoctions.I'll put cinnamon in thereand I make my own littlemix in a little baggie.I bring it with me whenI travel on the road.I have to make enough forlike three or four days.It's kinda like my morningcoffee, along with coffee too.I put a little coffeein there, I put lime.Mushrooms are great,like reishi mushrooms,cordyceps, lion's mane,turkey tail, all that stuff.There's blended mixes out there.You can just put it on thereso you don't have to do all,you know, least amountof work as possible.If I'm lookin' for aquick brain, you know,amplifier to get me goin',maybe before a show I'lltake a little of this,what's called Brain Juice, this is great.This is CBD oil.On top of how you eat,and how you workout,and how you meditate,and how you take careof yourself spiritually,mind, body, and spirit,this is kind of the circle.Kind of another part ofthe circle of health,as far as I'm concerned.Keep ya goin' and optimum.

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