CKTH FOUNDING MEMBER & CONTRIBUTOR: Born in Africa, raised in Canada and living in Maine: Rob Cushman is an alumnus of Dartmouth College and the Kaizen school of self-reflection and continual improvement. After receiving a Masters Degree in Agriculture, Food, and Environment from Tufts University, Rob now finds himself either working helping small farms process animals, working on an oyster farm, or back in education as a dorm parent/mentor to international high-school students.
When do you wake up?
6AM roughly or first light with seasonal variation. Big fan of direct light on eyes early in the day. See Matt Maruca’s Light Diet.
What’s your most consistent Motivation?
Regenerative meat and seafood. Using cold to shock the system. Building community. Sport and exercise. Reading, new ideas and a good conversation.
What’s your typical morning routine?
In roughly this order: I start by hydrating with foraged spring water with Redmond sea salt then seek out direct sunlight or red light (EMR-TEK).
If I can, I then do some Wim Hof breath-work in a SaunaSpace followed by a cold shower. If it’s summer, then I take a cold plunge in my modified chest freezer. All this is followed by a somewhat experimental coffee recipe and meditation, journaling and reading.
How do you caffeinate?
Apologies for the self-shine here but I was an early adopter of ASSpray’s Bulletproof recipe of butter and c-8 mct back in 2012. Since then I’ve used all kinds of odd variations on that fatty coffee theme — with different permutations of ingredients like:
Goat ghee, lard, duck egg yolks, cream, beef gelatin, chaga, lion’s mane, psilocybin etc.
Paul Chek was the OG of raw butter/espresso, Ben Greenfield shotguns tons of adaptogens with his, and Mark Sisson promoted egg coffee. Credit is due all over the ancestral health space and to Tibetans, of course.
Black coffee is in order when proper fasting now and then.
I always enjoy a clean caffeine/l-theanine hum via good Japanese Sencha or Matcha. I also love strong raw Puers on occasion with the Gaiwan and ritual.
I’m tinkering with the right application of Yaupon, North America’s only native caffeine plant. It’s like Yerba Mate but never gets bitter and can sit in the French press for a good stretch.
Guilt pleasure you want to own?
Samina Bed for health and BMW 3 Series for speed.
Both products embody solid German engineering.
Do you meditate?
Yes. I use the Sam Harris Waking Up App.
I’m still looking for the mutherfucker who’s looking…with the concept of ”no head.”
Ideal fitness routine?
Pavel Tsatsouline’s kettlebell programs: Simple and Sinister or Quick and the Dead for conditioning and power.
X3 Bar for convenient and safe compound heavy lifting.
Lately, Kettlebell Partner Passing (kppass.com).
Your spirit animal?
One third each, a combination of a Bear, a Goshawk (inset) and a Pelican.
Project you're most devoted to right now?
Becoming a responsible man and not a 40-year old child. That mostly means better all around commitment and avoiding distraction.
New skill you want to learn or class you want to take?
Hunting with dogs … and Latin.
One snack and one drink you'd pick from a convenience store?
If I’m lucky, maybe some local grass-fed jerky — or biltong if it’s around — and a hard Kombucha.
Something with zero seed oils, zero sugar, zero glyphosate. Good luck, obviously, 99.9% of the items out there contain at least one of those life sucking ingredients.
If it a bougie place, maybe some local grass-fed jerky or a Gerolsteiner. If it’s a food desert, I use the bathroom and GTFO.
If you had a "last supper" what would be on the menu?
Mongolian Khorkhog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khorkhog
If you had to listen to one album for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Bach’s Brandenberg Concertos or some of ATB’s Movin’ Melodies.
Books that you'd read a second time?
The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein or Die Nadel by Ken Follet.
Movie that you could watch once a week?
Most memorable concert you've been to?
Phosphorescent at The Middle East in Cambridge, MA (fall 2008) and Phish (even though I hated Phish) in Hartford, CT (summer 2000).
When and where was your all-time best vacation?
Africa with my family in 1996. We visited my parents friends in Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Botswana.
Favorite superhero, and why?
I’d like to see a blend of my favorite as a kid, the incredible Hulk (Crita-ma-Hawk) with my favorite as an adult, Batman.
Most stylish athlete of all time?
For women it’s Flo Jo. For men, it’s a toss-up between Lanny McDonald’s red mustache and Boris Becker’s Billy Bud vibe.
Historic figures you;d invite to dinner and then go spring breaking with?
Shackleton, Catherine the Great, Ajax, Louis Riel, Seneca, MLK Jr., Albert Hoffmann, Nietzsche and Maurice Richard.