Why Advice is Overrated | Rick Rubin & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | being attached to the past might be the worst thing that one could do in terms of being
00:00:08.480 | able to make good decisions in this context, because if we have a kind of a playbook of
00:00:14.540 | what's worked and what hasn't worked, but you actually talk about this, there's a passage
00:00:19.060 | in the book that I'll just read it, to be aware of the assumption that the way you work
00:00:25.740 | is the best way, simply because it's the way you've done it before.
00:00:31.060 | I sat with this page for almost 10 full minutes, which is not something I do very often.
00:00:37.500 | Maybe you could elaborate on this a little bit.
00:00:39.060 | I mean, we want to have mechanisms and routines we can trust.
00:00:44.780 | But this is, I think, an important warning.
00:00:49.660 | When something works, it's easy to be fooled into believing that's the way to do it or
00:00:58.660 | that's the right way.
00:01:01.300 | It's just a way, and it's just a way that happened to work that time.
00:01:06.260 | And this plays into when you get advice from people who have more experience than you.
00:01:17.300 | You explain your situation.
00:01:19.940 | They tell you their advice.
00:01:21.860 | The advice that they're giving you is not based on your life or your experience, it's
00:01:26.940 | based on their life and their experience.
00:01:30.220 | And the stories that they're telling are based on experiences they've had that have very
00:01:37.180 | different data points than yours.
00:01:40.060 | So maybe they're giving you good advice, but maybe they're giving you good advice for them
00:01:46.500 | and not giving you good advice for you.
00:01:49.700 | And it's easy when we try something and have a result, a positive result, thinking everybody
00:02:01.560 | can do this.
00:02:03.620 | The way I was vegan for a long time, 22 years, and then I started eating animal protein,
00:02:14.660 | and then eventually changed my diet a few times to the point where I lost a lot of weight.
00:02:22.140 | The way that I did it worked for me.
00:02:26.940 | Right before that happened, I did something that I was told that everyone else who did
00:02:35.220 | what you did, they all lost weight for whatever reason I didn't.
00:02:39.580 | So the idea that we know what's right for someone else, I think it's hard enough to
00:02:45.660 | even figure out what's right for ourselves.
00:02:48.620 | And if we do somehow crack the code of what's right for us, be happy we have it, and then
00:02:55.500 | still know, I wonder if that's the only way.
00:02:58.860 | Maybe there's an even better way that we're not considering.
00:03:04.500 | Not to get comfortable with thinking we know how it works, just because we get the outcome
00:03:09.580 | we want.
00:03:11.140 | I was raised in science with a principle.
00:03:13.700 | It was literally dictated to me as a principle, almost like a rule of religion, which was
00:03:18.140 | that the brain is plastic, it can change and learn until you're about 25 and then the critical
00:03:22.320 | periods end and that's it.
00:03:24.820 | And this was a rule, essentially it was dictated a Nobel prize, which was very deserved, given
00:03:29.980 | to my scientific great-grandparents, they deserve it.
00:03:35.380 | But I was told there was no changing of brain structure function in any meaningful way after
00:03:41.300 | age 25 or so.
00:03:43.980 | Turns out that's completely wrong.
00:03:47.100 | Sorry, David and Torsten, but they knew it was wrong.
00:03:50.460 | Wow.
00:03:51.460 | That's interesting.
00:03:52.460 | Yeah.
00:03:53.460 | And so the competition was suppressed because of the competitive nature of prizes and discoveries
00:03:57.740 | at that time.
00:03:58.740 | And a guy named Mike Merzenich and his student, Greg Reckin's own, were showing that adult
00:04:04.580 | plasticity exists.
00:04:06.780 | And only now is this really starting to emerge as a theme, right?
00:04:10.900 | Just crazy.
00:04:11.900 | Like there were so many reasons and the textbook said it, we were all told it, and it changed
00:04:17.620 | our behavior.
00:04:19.180 | Now we know this to be completely false.
00:04:21.380 | There's plasticity throughout the lifespan.
00:04:23.500 | There's limits to it here and there, but it's just far and away a different story.
00:04:28.060 | So why would that be the only time that ever happened?
00:04:31.940 | Right, exactly.
00:04:32.940 | But the field was run by a very small cabal of people at that time.
00:04:36.540 | All fields are run by a very small cabal of people who have an investment in things being
00:04:42.220 | the way they are now because they're in charge.
00:04:44.660 | And one of the great things about getting older is that, well, fortunately, everyone
00:04:49.140 | eventually ages, and I hope that, you know, David, unfortunately, passed away.
00:04:53.060 | He was lovely.
00:04:54.060 | Torsten's lovely.
00:04:55.060 | He's still alive.
00:04:56.060 | And they would say, I think Torsten would say, yeah, we should have been a little more
00:04:59.740 | open or kind in allowing these other ideas.
00:05:03.020 | But I think that- But just think about all the years that were
00:05:05.980 | wasted with this misunderstanding.
00:05:09.620 | Absolutely, absolutely.
00:05:13.100 | And it went beyond that.
00:05:14.100 | And there were BBC specials that helped propagate this.
00:05:16.900 | And, you know, one of the goals of the podcast has been to try and shed- shine light on ideas
00:05:22.620 | that at first seem crazy, like, I know you and I are both semi-obsessed with the health
00:05:27.460 | benefits of light.
00:05:28.460 | And you hear about this stuff like negative ion therapy.
00:05:32.540 | Sounds crazy, right?
00:05:33.580 | Sounds like something you would only hear about at Esalen or in Big Sur.
00:05:36.620 | Turns out negative ionization therapy for sleep and mood is based on really amazing
00:05:41.420 | work out of Columbia by a guy named Michael Terman.
00:05:44.500 | The Nobel Prize, I think it was in 1916, was given for phototherapy for the treatment of
00:05:48.940 | lupus.
00:05:50.900 | Like this idea that certain wavelengths of light can help treat medical conditions is
00:05:54.500 | not a new idea.
00:05:56.500 | But somehow we see a red light.
00:05:58.500 | We're not used to seeing red lights except in sunsets and on stoplights.
00:06:02.740 | And somehow it bothers people or it makes them feel like-
00:06:07.500 | Until it undermines a business model that doesn't take red light into consideration.
00:06:15.540 | Right.
00:06:16.700 | Until it does.
00:06:17.700 | And then it was- and then it's co-opted there.
00:06:20.460 | And the place that- what I look to is acupuncture.
00:06:22.900 | You know, for a lot of years people said, well, acupuncture, this is like no mechanism,
00:06:26.980 | no mechanism, no mechanism.
00:06:27.980 | There's a lab at Harvard, a guy named Chufu Ma, who I know reasonably well, whose laboratory
00:06:32.540 | is dedicated to trying to figure out the biological mechanisms of acupuncture.
00:06:35.940 | And they're discovering what everyone has known for thousands of years, which is that
00:06:40.260 | incredible effects on anti-inflammation, the gut microbiome.
00:06:44.640 | So-
00:06:45.640 | I have a friend who was having a terrible back problem.
00:06:50.720 | And I suggested that he see an acupuncturist.
00:06:53.700 | And he went to the acupuncturist that I suggested.
00:06:56.540 | And his back problem completely healed almost instantaneously.
00:07:03.040 | And I asked him, you know, have you been keeping up?
00:07:05.980 | Because he had another flare-up, he's like, no, I can't go back there because acupuncture
00:07:10.360 | doesn't work.
00:07:11.360 | I said, well, you saw it work for you.
00:07:15.200 | He's like, yeah, but there's no science.
00:07:17.960 | Wow.
00:07:18.960 | Yeah.
00:07:19.960 | He's got it.
00:07:20.960 | There is- now there's good science.
00:07:21.960 | And published in premier journals, it- you know, what's interesting is- this is a little
00:07:26.200 | bit of science editorial, but since we like to exchange information about health and things
00:07:29.680 | of that sort.
00:07:30.680 | The editorial staff of a journal dictates what gets published and what doesn't.
00:07:36.040 | And the premier journals have an outsized effect on what the media covers.
00:07:40.400 | And so the beautiful thing is the journal staff now is of the age that they grew up
00:07:47.420 | hearing about acupuncture.
00:07:49.360 | Hypnosis has a powerful clinical effect if it's done right, Yoga Nidra and similar practices.
00:07:56.180 | And so the tides are changing, but I sometimes like to take a step back and think, what are
00:08:01.140 | we confronted with now that seems crazy?
00:08:04.940 | That in 10 years, the kids that will be the- because to me, they're kids- will be journal
00:08:09.420 | editors.
00:08:10.420 | I'm like, oh yeah, absolutely.
00:08:12.500 | You know, I'm making this up, but putting tuning forks against your head or something
00:08:16.300 | like that, like sound wave therapy.
00:08:20.180 | I think when one adopts a stance of like, we have to filter everything through the limitations
00:08:28.660 | of our biology, but also through the sociology of like the way culture goes.
00:08:35.420 | It becomes a different story.
00:08:37.400 | How do you deal with that?
00:08:38.920 | Not just in terms of health, but in terms of thinking about anything.
00:08:44.100 | Sounds like you don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about what people are going
00:08:46.900 | to think is cool or not.
00:08:47.900 | No, I can't.
00:08:48.900 | You're a punk rocker at heart.
00:08:50.580 | Yes.
00:08:51.580 | You still are.
00:08:52.580 | Yes.
00:08:53.580 | I can't.
00:08:54.580 | I just know what I like and what I don't.
00:08:55.960 | I know what works for me and what doesn't.
00:08:58.300 | You know, I try things and I'm constantly looking for new, better solutions to anything.
00:09:05.020 | And wherever they come from, it doesn't matter.
00:09:06.540 | It could come from Stanford or it could come from the guy talking to himself on the street.
00:09:13.980 | If it works, I'm good.
00:09:15.460 | You know, it doesn't really matter to me at all.
00:09:20.780 | I don't hold any of it tightly.
00:09:22.700 | It's just a matter of time.