Andrew Huberman: Focus, Stress, Relationships, and Friendship

00:00:00.000 | If you get into the sauna the way I just described,

00:00:02.640 | not the two hours a day, but 30 minutes,

00:00:05.240 | twice a week or three times per week,

00:00:07.460 | you reduce the likelihood of dying

00:00:09.460 | of a cardiovascular event by 27%.

00:00:12.440 | If you do it four or more times per week,

00:00:14.720 | you reduce the probability of dying by 50%.

00:00:17.960 | - Is there any scientific evidence

00:00:19.840 | that being naked is beneficial in the sauna?

00:00:22.460 | - Well, in certain contexts, it leads to childbirth.

00:00:25.640 | - Okay, well, I'll have to read up on that.

00:00:27.580 | I think Dorothy Parker said,

00:00:30.160 | "The cure for boredom is curiosity.

00:00:32.520 | There's no cure for curiosity."

00:00:34.500 | - The following is a conversation with Andrew Huberman,

00:00:39.360 | his third time on this podcast.

00:00:41.800 | He's a brilliant neuroscientist at Stanford University

00:00:45.240 | and the host of one of the best,

00:00:48.200 | the best, if you ask me,

00:00:51.240 | health and science podcast in the world

00:00:53.240 | called Huberman Lab Podcast.

00:00:55.600 | Check him out on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

00:00:58.820 | Most importantly, Andrew is a great human being

00:01:01.900 | and has quickly become a great friend.

00:01:05.300 | This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.

00:01:07.380 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:09.540 | in the description.

00:01:10.820 | And now, dear friends, here's Andrew Huberman.

00:01:14.780 | We meet again, my friend.

00:01:17.580 | We should talk on each other's podcast once a year.

00:01:19.740 | I think we should make a deal.

00:01:21.520 | I was just talking to the guys.

00:01:23.020 | There's a show called "Louie."

00:01:24.340 | I don't know if you know it.

00:01:25.580 | - Louis C.K.?

00:01:26.420 | - Yeah, with Louis C.K.

00:01:27.720 | And there's this thing called "Bang Bang,"

00:01:30.340 | which people that are probably watching

00:01:31.660 | know exactly what I'm talking about.

00:01:33.540 | It's this worst possible thing you can do

00:01:35.540 | in terms of meals, which is you go to a restaurant,

00:01:38.980 | do a full meal, and then you go to another restaurant

00:01:42.500 | and do a full meal.

00:01:43.340 | And you-- - Ugh.

00:01:44.260 | - You-- (laughs)

00:01:45.660 | - Sounds brutal.

00:01:46.500 | - So they go Mexican, Italian, sushi, pizza, barbecue,

00:01:51.060 | IHOP, that one is disgusting.

00:01:52.980 | This kind of thing reminds me of the joy of food.

00:01:57.860 | - Last time we were hanging out,

00:01:59.740 | we went to see Joe do comedy,

00:02:01.920 | and then we went to eat Russian food.

00:02:04.300 | - Yeah.

00:02:05.140 | - And it was a particularly fun experience

00:02:08.500 | to go to a Russian restaurant.

00:02:10.860 | I was the only person there that didn't speak Russian.

00:02:13.940 | - Yeah.

00:02:14.780 | - And eat Russian food with you.

00:02:16.260 | And 'cause I felt walking in, they trusted you.

00:02:20.460 | They didn't trust me.

00:02:21.820 | - Yeah, the funny thing about the people there,

00:02:24.780 | they were talking to you in Russian,

00:02:26.660 | and then they refused to sort of switch to English,

00:02:29.140 | even though they understood you speak no Russian.

00:02:31.280 | This is Russian House in Austin, by the way.

00:02:34.060 | Anyway, by way of question, what's the worst,

00:02:37.180 | or the best, depending on your perspective, cheap meal?

00:02:40.180 | Let's call it a pigging out meal.

00:02:41.540 | But it could be a cheap meal that you've ever had,

00:02:45.220 | or you want to have that's on the bucket list,

00:02:48.660 | or something that's in the past.

00:02:50.100 | Where you did the, something like a bang bang,

00:02:52.340 | which is like, you're talking about

00:02:54.140 | multiple thousands of calories

00:02:56.820 | that you just feel horrible about yourself,

00:02:59.100 | but you still keep eating 'cause it's delicious,

00:03:01.560 | but also great company.

00:03:03.940 | Something about the atmosphere is just right.

00:03:07.300 | Screw the diet, screw all the things you know,

00:03:09.700 | or just like you should be doing,

00:03:12.460 | but just throw it all out the window.

00:03:14.500 | - I've done that.

00:03:15.340 | - Multiple times. - Several times.

00:03:16.940 | Yeah, I don't do this anymore,

00:03:18.140 | but the entire time I was a postdoc, so five years,

00:03:21.260 | and the entire time I was a pre-tenured professor,

00:03:23.620 | so five years, so I basically followed

00:03:27.420 | the Tim Ferriss slow carb diet,

00:03:29.640 | which is, you know, people can look it up,

00:03:31.420 | but it worked really well.

00:03:32.940 | It was basically some, you know, like good animal proteins,

00:03:37.180 | you know, fish and meat and things like that.

00:03:38.580 | - Why slow carb?

00:03:39.420 | - Because slow carb is like low glycemic stuff,

00:03:41.600 | is mostly lentils and beans and things and vegetables.

00:03:44.460 | No dairy, no, anyway.

00:03:47.900 | But then one day- - Is pasta in there?

00:03:49.020 | Sorry to interrupt. - No, no pasta.

00:03:51.200 | So it wasn't low carb, but it was low glycemic carb,

00:03:53.580 | and I did that and it worked terrifically well

00:03:55.260 | just for energy levels,

00:03:56.300 | 'cause I wanna be able to train and work,

00:03:57.420 | and then one day a week,

00:03:58.900 | you're supposed to go full cheat day,

00:04:02.780 | and so I would do what used to be 12 hours,

00:04:05.400 | but then it became 24, you know,

00:04:07.220 | you start to redefine what the day is,

00:04:09.820 | and I would, and that was when Costello was pretty young,

00:04:13.820 | and we would do it together.

00:04:14.940 | So I would get pizzas and croissants and donuts,

00:04:18.100 | and I would just do the full thing,

00:04:20.060 | and by the end of the day,

00:04:21.660 | you don't wanna look at an item of food.

00:04:24.020 | You're just repulsed by food.

00:04:25.540 | The only modification I made was the next day,

00:04:27.900 | I would fast completely,

00:04:29.360 | just to avoid the gastric distress of eating anything.

00:04:32.340 | And so I would do them on Sundays,

00:04:34.220 | and then Mondays I'd fast all day,

00:04:35.520 | and then by Tuesday, I felt pretty good again.

00:04:37.580 | But Sunday and Monday,

00:04:38.740 | or you just feel like you're sliding down the slope

00:04:42.680 | of just blood sugar disaster.

00:04:44.900 | - Terrible idea or a good idea?

00:04:45.980 | - You know, at the time, I enjoyed it.

00:04:48.180 | I love donuts, croissants, all that kind of stuff.

00:04:50.300 | What's interesting is after stopping that whole protocol,

00:04:53.420 | now I just try and eat well each day.

00:04:54.740 | - Protocol. (laughs)

00:04:55.700 | - It's really a protocol.

00:04:56.540 | Now I basically, I do a pseudo-intermittent fasting.

00:04:59.660 | I'm not really strict, but I'll start eating around 11,

00:05:02.200 | eat my first meal around 11.

00:05:03.300 | I usually train in the morning.

00:05:04.380 | Eat my last bite of food somewhere around eight or nine,

00:05:06.520 | and I'm not super strict.

00:05:07.620 | I might have some berries or something late at night.

00:05:09.420 | - Three meals, two meals?

00:05:11.140 | - Two meals, and then maybe a little bit of snacking

00:05:14.760 | on some nuts or something in the middle.

00:05:16.160 | - Ever fast, 24 hours?

00:05:17.760 | - Never done a long fast,

00:05:18.880 | except when I was doing the cheat days.

00:05:20.920 | And actually, there are a couple of different ways

00:05:24.520 | to do cheat days that were fun.

00:05:25.800 | Like if you were in a new city,

00:05:26.920 | you could try all the restaurants that you wanted.

00:05:30.520 | Yeah, and I think Tim and our mutual friend,

00:05:33.040 | John Romaniello did a,

00:05:34.440 | I think it was like a cheat day marathon where they did,

00:05:36.760 | you know, marathons 26.3 miles.

00:05:38.360 | They went to 26.3 different locations in New York.

00:05:41.700 | They put it on a map, and I never took it to that extreme,

00:05:44.820 | but- - Wait, wait, wait.

00:05:46.380 | Over how many days?

00:05:47.500 | - One day, that was their cheat day.

00:05:49.820 | Just 'cause they were, you know-

00:05:50.980 | - Just a little bit of something at each place?

00:05:53.020 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:05:54.300 | I mean, there are things that guys do in their 30s

00:05:56.420 | that you just shouldn't do in your 40s.

00:05:58.040 | I can say that 'cause I'm in my 40s.

00:05:59.580 | And now I just try and eat well most days.

00:06:01.980 | And what's interesting is about 12 to 14 months ago,

00:06:05.220 | I completely lost all appetite for sweets.

00:06:08.140 | I don't know what happened.

00:06:08.980 | I still love savory foods, so meat and butter and cheese.

00:06:12.320 | And I love vegetables too.

00:06:14.200 | I love fruit also, but lost all appetite.

00:06:16.880 | So if you put a donut in front of me

00:06:18.220 | or ice cream or something, I just,

00:06:20.280 | it's almost aversive to me,

00:06:22.120 | and I don't know what happened.

00:06:23.320 | I don't know what changed.

00:06:24.200 | - It's probably a scientific explanation.

00:06:25.760 | - Sure.

00:06:26.600 | - It says to do maybe- - Neuron loss, dementia.

00:06:28.600 | (both laugh)

00:06:29.880 | - The sugar, the desire for that rush maybe is gone

00:06:34.880 | from your soul.

00:06:37.440 | What was the most delicious thing?

00:06:38.800 | Is it croissant, donuts?

00:06:40.600 | Is there a thing that-

00:06:42.220 | - There's a place in Portland,

00:06:44.760 | I don't know if it's still open,

00:06:45.760 | called Little T's Bakery.

00:06:47.800 | And they have croissants

00:06:49.360 | that easily rival the croissants in Paris.

00:06:52.200 | People make a lot of the pastry in Paris,

00:06:54.680 | but it's really the bread in Paris that's amazing.

00:06:57.040 | We lived there when I was a kid

00:06:58.480 | and we did a sabbatical there.

00:06:59.800 | And there they do the baguette morning bake

00:07:01.760 | and afternoon bake.

00:07:02.920 | And there's nothing like the bread in Paris

00:07:06.240 | or the people.

00:07:07.140 | But if you're in the Pacific Northwest,

00:07:10.920 | you can find amazing croissants there.

00:07:13.000 | - What do you do with the croissant?

00:07:14.040 | What do you do with the bread?

00:07:15.280 | Butter or is it just-

00:07:16.480 | - I actually used to, I don't eat them anymore.

00:07:18.380 | I don't have much of an appetite for them

00:07:19.760 | even though they're not a sweet food,

00:07:20.840 | but I'm always putting butter on the croissant.

00:07:24.000 | Butter on the butter croissant.

00:07:25.380 | No jam.

00:07:26.220 | I would never adulterate my croissant.

00:07:28.480 | - I have to actually be honest about this

00:07:30.360 | 'cause people talk about steak

00:07:31.580 | and they talk about bread with the butter.

00:07:34.440 | I feel like butter is cheating.

00:07:35.820 | I feel like you're disrespecting the fundamental food

00:07:40.080 | by adding butter.

00:07:41.320 | 'Cause butter, it's like a elite version of ketchup.

00:07:46.320 | - There we diverge because for me,

00:07:49.520 | bread is just a vehicle for butter.

00:07:52.100 | A cracker is just a vehicle for cheese.

00:07:56.760 | - Oh, so that's just the cracker

00:07:58.400 | and the bread is just texture.

00:07:59.920 | - It's just that people look at you funny

00:08:01.160 | if you just eat the butter straight,

00:08:03.240 | which occasionally I do.

00:08:04.360 | - I got it.

00:08:05.200 | - So I put a little piece of bread underneath it,

00:08:07.880 | not because I'm low carb, strictly low carb,

00:08:10.240 | but just because otherwise you get some funny looks.

00:08:13.000 | - That's like pasta is a vehicle for pasta sauce.

00:08:17.140 | It's interesting, but like Indian non-bread,

00:08:20.640 | you have the bread.

00:08:23.400 | I've had a lot of soul searching

00:08:25.440 | on which part of Indian brings me so much joy.

00:08:28.760 | Is it the bread or is it all the sauces

00:08:30.800 | that come with the bread?

00:08:31.680 | - Well, there we diverge again

00:08:32.820 | because for whatever reason, no disrespect to anyone,

00:08:36.920 | but Indian food doesn't appeal to me.

00:08:39.120 | - Well, you're a lucky man

00:08:40.320 | because the number of calories in that food,

00:08:43.160 | it sneaks like non-bread.

00:08:44.800 | I don't know how non-bread is made,

00:08:46.120 | but I think it's just soaked in oil

00:08:49.320 | and it just very intensely,

00:08:51.800 | like the density of calories is very, very high.

00:08:55.360 | For me, barbecue, I would say is probably the--

00:08:58.720 | - That's good.

00:08:59.560 | - The main time I'm in Austin,

00:09:00.520 | I start thinking about barbecue.

00:09:02.940 | I do love meat.

00:09:04.380 | My dad's Argentine.

00:09:05.260 | I mean, I love steak.

00:09:06.220 | I love meat.

00:09:07.060 | I mean, Argentina chorizo sausage

00:09:09.420 | is an appetizer before you have steak.

00:09:11.740 | - It's meat on top of meat.

00:09:13.700 | - And it's not just the men, right?

00:09:15.980 | You see women, sometimes very petite women

00:09:18.380 | eating steaks that are bigger than their skull size.

00:09:22.540 | Slowly, they eat very slowly there

00:09:24.340 | and they all eat dessert too, which is interesting.

00:09:26.260 | And they generally do this sort of one meal per day.

00:09:28.860 | They do that kind of real flexibly.

00:09:30.520 | - That's how I think about it

00:09:31.720 | 'cause I often eat one meal a day,

00:09:32.920 | especially when I'm traveling.

00:09:34.200 | It feels like a cheap meal

00:09:35.920 | because it gives you a bit of more freedom

00:09:38.800 | to just lose yourself in the quantity of the food.

00:09:42.480 | I did the three-day fast and I ate chicken breast,

00:09:46.160 | like literally chicken breast with nothing else,

00:09:47.960 | just grilled, and it was the most delicious piece of meat

00:09:50.380 | I've ever eaten.

00:09:51.240 | The problem is when you fast for three days,

00:09:55.440 | you really can't pig out.

00:09:56.440 | You really shouldn't.

00:09:57.280 | - Well, your stomach will shrink in size already.

00:09:59.500 | Your gut microbiome is almost completely depleted by fasting.

00:10:02.840 | A lot of people think,

00:10:03.680 | "Oh, cleanses and fasts are great for the microbiome."

00:10:05.780 | They quash your microbiome.

00:10:07.660 | However, when you start eating again,

00:10:09.660 | the microbiome comes back better

00:10:11.660 | than it was before your fast.

00:10:13.100 | - For people who don't know,

00:10:14.000 | Sergey and Todd are on the call.

00:10:15.400 | They're kind of pulling stuff up.

00:10:16.960 | They just pulled up- - There's Phelps.

00:10:18.500 | - Phelps with, I forget how many calories he's eating,

00:10:21.020 | 10,000?

00:10:21.860 | - You know what's interesting?

00:10:22.680 | There's some cool physiology around this.

00:10:24.800 | The reason he needed to eat so much

00:10:26.780 | is not that he was burning that many calories

00:10:30.060 | in pure movement.

00:10:31.320 | It's that when you do exercise in water,

00:10:33.340 | even if it's warm water,

00:10:34.680 | the heat transfer in water is greater.

00:10:36.520 | So you burn far more calories.

00:10:38.220 | And again, here I'm admittedly lifting that

00:10:40.540 | from knowledge that was passed on to me by Tim Ferriss.

00:10:44.260 | But I checked it out and it's absolutely true.

00:10:46.100 | So if you exercise in water,

00:10:47.980 | even if it's not really cold water,

00:10:49.580 | your caloric needs go way up,

00:10:50.660 | which is why you get out of the pool

00:10:52.260 | and you're often really hungry.

00:10:53.620 | - And for fans of the Human Lab podcast,

00:10:56.020 | and if you're not a fan,

00:10:57.380 | what are you doing with your life?

00:10:59.140 | You would probably chuckle at the fact

00:11:02.100 | that Andrew just cited his sources,

00:11:04.740 | even on that statement.

00:11:05.860 | 'Cause you're so good at,

00:11:08.120 | I don't know how your memory works,

00:11:09.380 | but the only person whose memory

00:11:12.380 | is better than Joe Rogan's is yours.

00:11:14.540 | - But my colleagues joke,

00:11:15.780 | PubMed sort of scrolls through my mind.

00:11:20.860 | Also in science, as you know,

00:11:22.580 | attribution is so baked into what we do.

00:11:25.580 | And I think that it's interesting

00:11:27.540 | 'cause now spending a lot of time on social media,

00:11:29.860 | attribution is not as common.

00:11:31.660 | But in academia, you learn really early on

00:11:34.960 | that if you give a talk about your data

00:11:37.260 | and you cite all these amazing sources,

00:11:39.340 | all it does is make you look better.

00:11:42.380 | Whereas in social media and elsewhere in the business sector,

00:11:45.620 | it's almost like citing other people,

00:11:47.020 | people feel as if it's gonna take away some of the credit.

00:11:49.340 | All it does is place you in the company of people

00:11:51.340 | that do really nice work.

00:11:52.500 | So I have, and I have genuine

00:11:54.060 | and tremendous respect for Tim.

00:11:55.700 | He's been about 10 years ahead

00:11:56.980 | on a huge number of health-related things and other things,

00:12:00.020 | an extremely kind person, very thoughtful person.

00:12:02.320 | So it's also just a pleasure

00:12:03.980 | to shine light on other people.

00:12:05.740 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:12:06.580 | Well, I actually, to push back,

00:12:07.900 | I know there's a culture of if you write a paper,

00:12:11.960 | standing on the shoulders of giants is a powerful thing,

00:12:15.100 | but there's also a culture of not giving credit

00:12:18.340 | to the strongest idea in your paper

00:12:21.320 | and instead say it's kind of,

00:12:22.860 | or imply that it's original.

00:12:24.860 | There is a culture of kind of not celebrating others.

00:12:28.500 | I think people get most competitive in all walks of life,

00:12:33.140 | but especially in science,

00:12:34.620 | when they're, the closer they get

00:12:36.700 | in the exact thing they work on.

00:12:39.020 | And so there's this dance,

00:12:41.060 | you know, there's a few researchers

00:12:43.020 | in each of the individual little things that you work on.

00:12:46.180 | If you're studying a particular kind of ant,

00:12:47.980 | you know that other asshole

00:12:50.120 | that also is studying that particular ant,

00:12:52.580 | and then you're not going to often give credit

00:12:56.100 | for the brilliant ideas that that other researcher is doing.

00:12:59.700 | And I think one of the things you've discovered

00:13:01.900 | and just as part of your nature,

00:13:04.300 | which is why it's really great

00:13:06.460 | that you have an audience

00:13:08.500 | and you inspire others to do the same,

00:13:09.820 | is you celebrate that other ant studier.

00:13:12.660 | It's great, and everybody wins.

00:13:14.740 | It raises all boats.

00:13:16.780 | But that initial instinct to be like,

00:13:19.820 | what is it in Borat?

00:13:21.100 | Like my neighbor gets a toaster,

00:13:24.820 | I get a bigger toaster.

00:13:27.020 | - Yeah, that mindset to,

00:13:28.140 | you know, it's not that I'm not competitive

00:13:30.380 | in certain domains,

00:13:31.300 | but yeah, I get great pleasure

00:13:33.760 | from sharing things that I find.

00:13:37.160 | And I think that, you know, at the end of the day,

00:13:40.940 | you're as strong as your community,

00:13:43.660 | and you can build a wonderful community

00:13:45.900 | just by pointing out things that you love.

00:13:48.740 | Like these are all just loves.

00:13:49.860 | I see a paper and I love it.

00:13:51.580 | Only rarely do I think,

00:13:52.900 | oh, I wish we had done that.

00:13:54.080 | I usually think, fantastic,

00:13:55.300 | now I can just focus on something else

00:13:56.700 | 'cause they checked off that box.

00:13:58.340 | - And by the way, you mentioned PubMed and barbecue.

00:14:01.980 | I should mention that I got a chance

00:14:03.660 | to hang out with Rick Rubin, thanks to you.

00:14:06.100 | He's a friend of yours and you made the connection.

00:14:07.940 | That was a huge gift to my spirit, I guess.

00:14:11.140 | He's a truly, truly special human being.

00:14:13.140 | And there's a lot I could say

00:14:15.540 | about why he's a special human being.

00:14:17.440 | I'd love to learn how you met him.

00:14:19.660 | But I should also just mention on the PubMed thing,

00:14:22.360 | it was so interesting talking to him about music,

00:14:26.040 | and both on the podcast and privately,

00:14:31.000 | and just listening to music together.

00:14:32.780 | Because when you mention a song,

00:14:36.060 | he does this thing where he like closes his eyes

00:14:39.940 | and he finds that song in the album

00:14:42.460 | that we're talking about.

00:14:44.140 | And he steps through the album.

00:14:45.900 | You could see the brain like stepping

00:14:47.840 | through individual songs to find that song in the album.

00:14:51.220 | And there's that kind of lookup process.

00:14:53.140 | And then he puts himself mentally in that space of like,

00:14:56.380 | okay, this is, you know, whatever the album is.

00:14:59.820 | And not just the ones he produced,

00:15:01.520 | but all of these in encyclopedia of music.

00:15:04.940 | And it's so interesting.

00:15:06.460 | It also, the thing I really love about him

00:15:10.140 | is something like a calmness that radiates from him.

00:15:13.500 | That it's okay to close your eyes and place yourself

00:15:16.660 | in the place where that album was recorded,

00:15:19.660 | in the feeling of that album, and like that silence.

00:15:24.540 | Let's go there.

00:15:25.380 | Let's go there together.

00:15:26.620 | It's like Alice in Wonderland, and we'll go there together.

00:15:28.700 | - You do a good Rick Rubin, minus the beard.

00:15:31.140 | - Minus the beard.

00:15:31.980 | - His beard is epic, right?

00:15:33.720 | You can't fake a beard like that, you know?

00:15:35.900 | - How'd you guys meet?

00:15:37.260 | - Yeah, well, Rick, I'm very blessed

00:15:39.540 | to consider a close friend.

00:15:42.940 | Rick and I got introduced through a common friend

00:15:45.860 | during the pandemic,

00:15:47.300 | and we started doing some FaceTime together

00:15:49.660 | and just talking about things related to science and health.

00:15:51.980 | And I'm not a musician.

00:15:53.860 | I have no musical ability or talent.

00:15:56.020 | I have a good ability to memorize lyrics,

00:15:58.200 | and I love lyrics, and I love poetry.

00:16:00.300 | So I asked him a lot of questions about musicians

00:16:02.740 | that I happen to love that he's worked with and knows.

00:16:05.420 | And so he would give me stories about musicians,

00:16:07.820 | and I would talk to him about health.

00:16:10.140 | And then eventually we formed a friendship

00:16:12.020 | where we would talk about any number

00:16:13.340 | of different topics in life.

00:16:15.580 | And then we started spending time together in person

00:16:18.980 | when he was in town or nearby.

00:16:21.100 | And as you now know, you know, Rick,

00:16:25.300 | in addition to all his incredible accomplishments,

00:16:28.520 | has an incredible understanding

00:16:31.260 | of how to get the brain and body into state, right?

00:16:36.260 | And as you pointed out,

00:16:38.100 | he's willing to do the things

00:16:40.780 | that allow him to help these incredible artists

00:16:43.540 | get into the best state to do their craft.

00:16:46.940 | And so if he needs to sit there and be quiet

00:16:49.660 | with his eyes closed for a minute or two or more,

00:16:53.580 | he'll do that.

00:16:54.860 | He has routines to allow himself to get into state.

00:16:57.980 | And it's really inspired me to think about states of mind

00:17:01.180 | as something that, you know, we'd all love

00:17:02.660 | to just flip the switch and say,

00:17:04.140 | we're focused or we're creative,

00:17:05.640 | but to actually ratchet through the challenging steps

00:17:09.960 | in order to do that and to figure out what one needs to do

00:17:12.740 | on a regular basis to get into a proper state.

00:17:16.420 | It's not just gonna come from a cup of coffee,

00:17:19.660 | you know, a lamp of a particular wavelength or something.

00:17:22.660 | It's gonna be those things,

00:17:23.620 | but it's also going to be really teaching oneself

00:17:26.700 | how to get into proper state.

00:17:28.500 | - Yeah, you did an episode on hypnosis.

00:17:30.140 | Do you think it's a kind of self-hypnosis?

00:17:32.620 | - Yes, I do.

00:17:33.940 | Because hypnosis is a, you limit the context,

00:17:38.160 | you're very alert and you're very calm.

00:17:41.380 | And he has a number of these different practices.

00:17:44.360 | And so we would talk about those.

00:17:45.640 | And then we also have enjoyed a lot of discussions

00:17:48.460 | about deep neuroscience.

00:17:50.220 | In fact, I introduced Rick to a friend of mine

00:17:52.740 | who's a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist,

00:17:54.900 | and they've become friendly.

00:17:56.320 | You know, Rick is one of these people

00:17:57.500 | that he sort of defies definition, incredibly kind,

00:18:00.660 | incredibly private person too.

00:18:02.140 | So, you know, I'm being respectful of that.

00:18:03.980 | But, and then of course, he's a fan of your podcast.

00:18:07.520 | And so when I learned that,

00:18:09.040 | I just made natural sense to introduce you.

00:18:11.900 | And I know he really enjoyed meeting you.

00:18:13.780 | And we talk about you a lot.

00:18:15.440 | And of course, in a positive light, you know,

00:18:17.600 | I think his dedication to getting into these states of mind

00:18:21.880 | and his willingness to do that

00:18:22.900 | has completely transformed my routines around life.

00:18:26.400 | Like for instance,

00:18:27.240 | before doing a very long podcast recording,

00:18:29.360 | the solo ones, which often take me several hours

00:18:31.880 | or more, six hours to record,

00:18:33.820 | sometimes more, sometimes less.

00:18:35.300 | I realized that there's a certain brain state

00:18:37.440 | associated with that.

00:18:38.340 | So I have to really limit the kind of interactions I have

00:18:41.040 | for the two hours before.

00:18:42.520 | I actually walk and talk out loud through my neighborhood.

00:18:45.700 | People think I'm crazy,

00:18:46.960 | but I live in a neighborhood

00:18:47.940 | where there are a lot of crazy creatives anyway.

00:18:50.880 | - Are you saying you're not crazy?

00:18:52.920 | - Well, at least not institutionally defined as crazy yet.

00:18:57.920 | But, you know, getting into state of mind

00:19:00.760 | is something that we'd all,

00:19:01.640 | just imagine we flip the switch,

00:19:02.840 | but Rick really convinced me,

00:19:04.040 | you have to do the work to do the work.

00:19:06.660 | - Can you maybe linger on that, elucidate a little bit more

00:19:10.460 | of your process of how you get in that space?

00:19:12.900 | That's really interesting.

00:19:14.040 | 'Cause I have to admit,

00:19:16.600 | I do everything last minute before a podcast.

00:19:19.220 | I don't know, like there's a lot of anxiety

00:19:22.880 | because like whatever, if I have to pack,

00:19:25.460 | if I have to set up stuff,

00:19:27.120 | you were luckily a few minutes,

00:19:29.040 | you showed up a few minutes later.

00:19:30.500 | - Which for an academic is right on time.

00:19:32.020 | - Right on time.

00:19:33.260 | But the stress is immense.

00:19:36.040 | And on top of that, you look at like a situation

00:19:39.920 | with Rick Rubin, I had to set up microphones

00:19:43.560 | in front of him.

00:19:44.760 | And just that stress, the anxiety.

00:19:47.000 | - He knows a lot about microphones.

00:19:48.320 | - What did he say, which I really loved?

00:19:50.180 | He's like, "How close do you like the microphone to be?"

00:19:55.180 | It's like--

00:19:56.840 | - That's a very Rick Rubin kind of thing, right?

00:19:59.120 | That the details really matter.

00:20:01.620 | The details really matter right down

00:20:04.380 | to your relationship to the microphone, right?

00:20:07.600 | Distance and whether or not it brings out

00:20:09.220 | the timbre in your voice.

00:20:10.060 | But of course, this is what he does, he produces music.

00:20:12.240 | - But he also said like, he is the professional.

00:20:15.860 | He said, "How close do you like it to be?"

00:20:20.320 | And he said it with a gentleness

00:20:22.420 | where I had like an existential crisis

00:20:24.820 | where I don't know.

00:20:26.440 | He gave me so much like, wow,

00:20:30.120 | like he made me feel like an artist.

00:20:31.980 | Like that the microphone distance

00:20:35.040 | is a decision you're supposed to make.

00:20:37.340 | - Well, I have to say, and this has actually come up

00:20:39.400 | in some of our conversations about you.

00:20:41.420 | I mean, you are an artist.

00:20:42.940 | And actually Joe Rogan, once I heard him talking

00:20:46.140 | about podcasting and the fact that he's always trying

00:20:48.260 | to get better at it, you know,

00:20:49.180 | and he described podcasting at one moment as an art, right?

00:20:52.500 | And it is, it's a certain medium of communication

00:20:55.600 | and there's a cadence and a rhythm that when it's working,

00:20:59.420 | it really can facilitate the transfer of information.

00:21:01.940 | When it's not, it doesn't.

00:21:03.220 | I mean, obviously Joe just being himself

00:21:05.740 | has tapped into that cadence that allows,

00:21:08.820 | and it's made so many people excited to hear him talk.

00:21:11.860 | - Well, in his case and in general,

00:21:13.220 | I think part of the art is refusing the world

00:21:17.880 | as you get a bigger audience, change who you are.

00:21:21.120 | - There's one quote that I've seen out there

00:21:22.660 | where he says, you know, I'm like the,

00:21:24.380 | talking about himself, he says, you know,

00:21:25.780 | "I'm like the fish that got through the net."

00:21:27.540 | There's no stage version of me, right?

00:21:29.740 | How he is in person is how he is, you know,

00:21:33.220 | out in the world.

00:21:34.060 | And of course there's nuance to his life, right?

00:21:36.460 | And his different relationships, of course, but it's true.

00:21:40.180 | I mean, we've had the, you know,

00:21:41.740 | the great fortune of spending time with him

00:21:43.700 | out away from the microphones, so to speak.

00:21:46.860 | Joe is Joe.

00:21:48.140 | - So can you speak to your, that process?

00:21:50.720 | You mentioned the walking and the talking to yourself,

00:21:52.700 | 'cause that's fascinating.

00:21:53.540 | - Yeah, I try and do a couple of things.

00:21:57.620 | First of all, when I was a kid,

00:21:59.100 | I had a little bit of a grunting tick.

00:22:01.360 | When I was five or six,

00:22:03.220 | I would feel this buildup of tension in my throat

00:22:06.700 | and I would do this grunting tick.

00:22:07.700 | If I get very tired, I start to do it still.

00:22:10.300 | We actually know that this is related

00:22:11.820 | to these basal ganglia circuits for go, no go.

00:22:14.100 | You've got an accelerator and a brake basically

00:22:16.160 | in your neural circuitry.

00:22:17.500 | And kids with Tourette's and OCD,

00:22:21.220 | the brake doesn't work quite as well.

00:22:23.340 | And so one thing that happens is if I wake up

00:22:25.060 | in the morning and I'm, especially if I'm well-rested,

00:22:27.860 | well, if I'm not well-rested, I do a hypnosis

00:22:30.100 | or yoga nidra in order to recover my sleep.

00:22:32.240 | That works really well.

00:22:33.080 | But then once I'm into the process of preparing the podcast,

00:22:36.780 | I've already gone through my notes.

00:22:37.940 | I know what I want to say more or less

00:22:39.460 | in a kind of general contour.

00:22:40.820 | And then I take a walk and I try to,

00:22:44.460 | so no phone with me, and I try to assess

00:22:47.560 | whether or not my energy is too high

00:22:49.900 | or too low for podcasting.

00:22:52.140 | Because when you podcast, as you know,

00:22:54.160 | you have to punch out a lot of material,

00:22:55.920 | but then there's times when you really need to slow down

00:22:57.660 | and emphasize and articulate.

00:22:59.600 | And so what I do, this is, I don't,

00:23:02.700 | I've never revealed this.

00:23:04.180 | What I do actually is I will recite the lyrics of songs

00:23:07.980 | for about 10 minutes, songs I love,

00:23:11.020 | while I walk out loud.

00:23:12.480 | - It calms you and focuses you?

00:23:13.860 | What does it do for you?

00:23:14.700 | - I think it gets my vocal cords warmed up.

00:23:18.580 | And it also-

00:23:19.740 | - Do you sing or speak them?

00:23:21.100 | - I often sing them.

00:23:23.200 | And unfortunately nobody hears.

00:23:25.600 | And as I do this, I start to evaluate

00:23:28.880 | whether or not I'm straining to get the words out

00:23:30.920 | or whether or not I'm straining to make them slow enough

00:23:34.960 | so that I can articulate them.

00:23:37.240 | So there are days when I have so much energy

00:23:39.820 | that I'm trying to speak faster than I should

00:23:44.480 | in order to articulate properly.

00:23:46.100 | There are other days when I'm tired

00:23:47.380 | and I can't sort of keep up with my thoughts.

00:23:49.540 | And so what I try and do is assess that

00:23:51.500 | and then adjust the transmission, the RPM, so to speak.

00:23:55.260 | For instance, I can speak very quickly

00:23:56.540 | and then I can slow down.

00:23:57.860 | So I can change the cadence of my voice.

00:23:59.680 | And when you teach in the classroom,

00:24:01.520 | you learn as you know, 'cause you're an excellent teacher,

00:24:03.920 | I've watched your lectures in the classroom.

00:24:05.800 | As you teach in the classroom, when you want to slow down,

00:24:09.500 | every teacher knows you turn to the whiteboard

00:24:11.300 | or chalkboard and you start writing, right?

00:24:13.020 | It gives you a break.

00:24:14.260 | And then you turn around and you fire back

00:24:16.220 | the kind of machine gun fire of information.

00:24:19.040 | And then you slow down or you underline something.

00:24:20.900 | When you podcast, you don't have that opportunity, right?

00:24:24.600 | There are no visuals in my podcast.

00:24:26.340 | So what I try and do is always get my voice warmed up

00:24:31.340 | and make sure that I'm thinking and speaking

00:24:33.740 | at approximately the same rate.

00:24:36.020 | And then I also do this thing of,

00:24:37.580 | I put my vision into panoramic vision when I walk,

00:24:40.780 | which is very calming.

00:24:42.660 | And then I actually start to remind myself

00:24:46.040 | of the purpose of podcasting.

00:24:47.540 | This sounds very mission statement-y,

00:24:49.460 | but you asked what I do.

00:24:51.460 | I remind myself first and foremost

00:24:54.820 | that what I want to communicate,

00:24:56.140 | what I want to come through

00:24:57.260 | is the beauty and utility of biology.

00:25:00.160 | And I only feel comfortable saying the word beauty

00:25:02.980 | publicly now about science things thanks to you,

00:25:06.380 | because I think- - Love and beauty.

00:25:09.020 | - Yeah, love and beauty. - Dr. Andrew Humerman.

00:25:11.820 | - Love and beauty, but also darkness and hatred.

00:25:14.780 | And if you're talking about the Lex Friedman podcast,

00:25:17.180 | you have to address the shadow also, the shadow side.

00:25:21.100 | But I think about the,

00:25:22.380 | I want to communicate the beauty and utility of biology.

00:25:26.380 | And then I check my emotional state.

00:25:29.960 | I want to make sure that I'm not angry about anything.

00:25:32.760 | And certainly if I am,

00:25:34.740 | that I'm going to set it aside for the podcast,

00:25:36.340 | 'cause that's not a place

00:25:37.260 | for whatever I might be dealing with.

00:25:40.260 | I also really start to feel into the parts of the research

00:25:43.460 | and the papers I found that I really love,

00:25:45.620 | because that's the part of me that I like the most,

00:25:50.340 | frankly.

00:25:51.160 | And on the podcast, if there's a paper,

00:25:54.780 | like for instance, we have a paper, excuse me,

00:25:56.740 | a podcast coming out soon about heat as a tool,

00:26:00.780 | you know, sauna, but some other things.

00:26:02.320 | And in researching this,

00:26:03.680 | I learned so much about these heat shock proteins

00:26:07.460 | and the use of sauna in Finland for increasing growth hormone

00:26:11.100 | but also for the treatment of mental illness.

00:26:12.940 | And I realized I fell in love with this literature.

00:26:15.180 | It's just a beautiful literature.

00:26:16.980 | These people are true pioneers for doing this work.

00:26:19.020 | Now everyone's into sauna, but this was 20 years ago.

00:26:21.740 | The way the experiments were done were amazing

00:26:23.820 | with all these Finnish people with thermocouples

00:26:26.100 | up their rectum to measure temperature,

00:26:28.300 | swimming in pools.

00:26:29.260 | It's hilarious and great.

00:26:30.700 | And so I start to think about it and I think,

00:26:33.620 | you know, I just start to really access my love of the work.

00:26:36.660 | And then when we finally sit down,

00:26:39.180 | meaning my producer Rob and I and record,

00:26:42.460 | I just sort of want to just bask in sharing it.

00:26:46.220 | Just like the little version of me when I was six or seven,

00:26:48.740 | I used to spend all weekend reading the encyclopedia,

00:26:51.140 | Guinness Book of World Records,

00:26:53.020 | making my mother drive me places to introduce me to,

00:26:55.980 | I had this obsession with trapping animals

00:26:57.720 | when I was a kid, meet these people.

00:26:58.900 | And then on Monday, I would insist on giving a lecture

00:27:02.100 | in class, just as a little kid.

00:27:03.660 | So that's basically what it is.

00:27:04.700 | I just try and access that childlike energy.

00:27:07.920 | And so I want to be clear.

00:27:09.820 | The goal is always to make the information interesting,

00:27:13.140 | clear and actionable.

00:27:15.620 | And if it's also surprising, then that's a bonus.

00:27:18.740 | But that's basically the process.

00:27:19.940 | But yeah, I'm singing and talking and getting into state.

00:27:24.660 | And I used to feel very sheepish about sharing any of this.

00:27:27.940 | It's the first time I've ever shared it out loud,

00:27:29.780 | but Rick was the one who encouraged me

00:27:31.980 | to find a process that works

00:27:34.620 | and continue to develop that process

00:27:36.900 | and not let anything get near that process.

00:27:39.580 | People in my personal life know this.

00:27:41.660 | And when it's time, it's like,

00:27:43.020 | I don't care what else is going on.

00:27:44.980 | I'm moving into that brain state.

00:27:47.260 | - And there's probably a process like that

00:27:48.620 | for anything that you do in life that you take seriously.

00:27:51.900 | So the people that have perfected this is athletes.

00:27:55.120 | Like if Olympic level athletes,

00:27:56.620 | they have to have a process like this.

00:27:58.380 | - No, and I think Tiger Woods actually

00:27:59.740 | was taught self-hypnosis quite young

00:28:02.300 | and used self-hypnosis often during his tournaments,

00:28:07.780 | sometimes to great success and other times less so.

00:28:11.420 | - Is there other places in life that you use

00:28:15.220 | kind of a protocol, like a mental protocol to get ready?

00:28:20.460 | - Many of the best areas of life

00:28:22.460 | are their own form of hypnosis, right?

00:28:25.220 | - Sure.

00:28:26.060 | - You know that you're in hypnosis if, for instance,

00:28:27.700 | you're in a movie and something happens

00:28:29.220 | and you feel the emotional lift

00:28:30.580 | without being self-conscious about it.

00:28:34.980 | - Yes, I think that one thing that we've tried to do

00:28:38.420 | in our house is around meal times to try and set a state

00:28:42.820 | that food isn't just something

00:28:44.020 | that we just throw down on our throats.

00:28:46.440 | And I'm fortunate that my partner cooks really well.

00:28:49.300 | And so I try and give her the space to do that.

00:28:52.420 | And that's a whole thing of her getting into state.

00:28:55.420 | And then-

00:28:56.260 | - For the cooking, the preparation of all that.

00:28:58.220 | - I can just see it.

00:28:59.100 | I just see the way she approaches the whole thing

00:29:01.260 | and the pleasure in serving it.

00:29:02.980 | And I'm an eater, not a cooker.

00:29:04.760 | But-

00:29:06.660 | - Both are important roles.

00:29:07.980 | You could be a very good eater.

00:29:09.540 | Like there's something about,

00:29:11.220 | is there anything better in this world than that feeling,

00:29:14.660 | especially if it's a family, getting around a table,

00:29:18.560 | just the warmth of that.

00:29:20.500 | I don't know.

00:29:21.900 | It's like the cold outside of the cruel world

00:29:26.900 | cannot touch you in this place that you've returned to.

00:29:29.860 | And if, I mean-

00:29:32.460 | - Did you grow up eating meals as a family?

00:29:34.620 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:29:35.460 | - You just sit down, no television.

00:29:37.880 | - No, well, I didn't really have television period

00:29:40.500 | outside of meals.

00:29:43.300 | So most of my time was spent,

00:29:46.140 | like a stray cat outdoors, just running around,

00:29:53.060 | playing soccer.

00:29:53.900 | - I imagine you in this like dirt or concrete lot

00:29:56.940 | between two very high rise buildings playing soccer

00:29:59.940 | in like athletic gear that you only see in Eastern Europe.

00:30:04.500 | You know how like you come to the States

00:30:05.820 | and people wear their athletic gear.

00:30:07.220 | You go to Europe and you see, maybe it's the soccer culture,

00:30:10.900 | but you see athletic gear

00:30:12.260 | that you just don't see anywhere else.

00:30:14.140 | - That's interesting.

00:30:14.980 | I mean, I grew up pretty poor.

00:30:17.000 | So first of all, I was always wearing my brother's,

00:30:20.780 | who's an older brother, brother's clothes.

00:30:23.580 | And they were like old,

00:30:28.580 | my favorite things were American things

00:30:30.540 | that I didn't understand.

00:30:31.940 | It would be like a Pepsi shirt or something.

00:30:34.260 | And it was just, that was the gear.

00:30:36.540 | And it was like too large for me,

00:30:38.020 | but I thought I was the coolest person ever

00:30:40.180 | just wearing this fancy, like Kanye type of fashion.

00:30:44.780 | - Yeah, there's something about,

00:30:45.620 | I feel like in Eastern Europe,

00:30:47.680 | they wear athletic gear where like the guys

00:30:49.500 | like zip up their collars.

00:30:50.500 | - No, that's like fancy stuff.

00:30:52.060 | That's if you like, those are the cool kids.

00:30:54.460 | - I see.

00:30:55.300 | (laughing)

00:30:56.140 | - Like the cool soccer players, football players

00:30:58.660 | that like they were in a league of some kind.

00:31:02.420 | So they would get uniforms or like,

00:31:04.740 | or they somehow, I always thought anyone

00:31:08.180 | who had anything nice had to do something really bad

00:31:12.500 | to get it.

00:31:13.340 | That was my way, view of the world.

00:31:15.680 | Because like, I guess I didn't understand

00:31:20.380 | how it's possible to be rich.

00:31:22.380 | 'Cause most of us were surrounded by people who are poor

00:31:25.300 | and that life was beautiful and simple.

00:31:26.780 | And it's like, why do you escape that life?

00:31:28.820 | But you still admire the cool,

00:31:30.980 | like when we got McDonald's, it was like,

00:31:34.800 | what kind of world does this place come from?

00:31:39.980 | Like who invented this?

00:31:42.940 | It's a fascinating view from a child's perspective

00:31:45.500 | of like of capitalism.

00:31:47.700 | - Yeah, but the fact that you ate dinner together

00:31:49.940 | is really interesting.

00:31:51.400 | My parents divorced when I was an adolescent.

00:31:53.540 | So then there was a total fracture of any family structure.

00:31:56.580 | But prior to that, we ate dinner together every night.

00:31:58.860 | I was expected to know how to use my knife and fork.

00:32:00.900 | And it was like a very structured thing.

00:32:05.900 | I don't know if kids do that now.

00:32:07.540 | If I ever have kids, they're gonna do that.

00:32:11.180 | And certainly, actually on the way over here,

00:32:13.660 | I was thinking, I was like,

00:32:15.460 | I really want a lot of kids.

00:32:16.720 | I want like a whole litter.

00:32:18.340 | And I was thinking, if Lex has kids and I have kids,

00:32:21.260 | then we can pit them against each other with jujitsu.

00:32:25.220 | This is my chance at redemption.

00:32:26.820 | - It's the law of game.

00:32:30.420 | - They'll all want to be engineers or physicists.

00:32:33.140 | They won't want to be biologists.

00:32:34.800 | But in all seriousness, I look forward to the day

00:32:38.380 | that our kids play together.

00:32:41.380 | - Yeah, I think there's something,

00:32:43.500 | so the family dinner, the ritual of the family dinner,

00:32:47.220 | but also the special occasion dinners,

00:32:49.260 | like where there's a little bit more preparation,

00:32:52.020 | a little bit more cooking,

00:32:53.860 | whether it's on the weekend or for some holiday.

00:32:57.060 | In Russia, it was a thing that actually I find

00:33:00.020 | completely missing for the most part.

00:33:02.860 | In America is there was neighbors.

00:33:04.940 | You broke the walls between families much more commonly.

00:33:11.140 | Like there would be kind of regular characters,

00:33:13.860 | like a sitcom almost.

00:33:14.940 | You know, if you watch a sitcom,

00:33:16.380 | it's never just the family.

00:33:17.620 | There's always like other characters.

00:33:19.060 | - Just bursting in the door.

00:33:20.140 | - Bursting in the door.

00:33:21.060 | - I'm gonna start doing that here,

00:33:22.140 | just to make you feel at home.

00:33:22.980 | - Just throw it.

00:33:23.820 | - Just start showing up at your studio.

00:33:24.740 | I know where you live.

00:33:25.660 | - I think people want to respect,

00:33:27.540 | like Michael Malice lives next door to me.

00:33:30.740 | And I think people want to respect each other's privacy

00:33:33.780 | or something like that.

00:33:34.620 | And I think we all get super busy.

00:33:37.540 | It's kind of work to do this dinner together.

00:33:46.100 | Or if you see it as a thing that needs to be scheduled,

00:33:49.780 | it's work, we get busy, there's a lot of stuff going on.

00:33:52.180 | But if it's part of a ritual or part of the culture,

00:33:55.540 | that all of those walls get broken down.

00:33:58.580 | And then you realize like that's like later looking back,

00:34:01.660 | those are the things you miss.

00:34:03.140 | It's like, that's what life is about.

00:34:04.900 | Like all the stupid stuff you're doing

00:34:06.380 | in terms of career or whatever, all the busy thing,

00:34:09.300 | those don't matter.

00:34:10.140 | What matters is the people.

00:34:12.300 | - Yeah, in academia,

00:34:14.420 | this changed in the last few years, of course.

00:34:17.140 | But one of the great joys was professors will stop by

00:34:20.860 | your office or your lab.

00:34:21.700 | Nobody set up an appointment.

00:34:23.580 | There was a guy when I was a professor in San Diego,

00:34:25.500 | a guy named Harvey Cartney,

00:34:26.420 | he's a member of the National Academy.

00:34:27.660 | He's the truly the world's expert

00:34:30.260 | in the evolution of vision and evolution of brains generally.

00:34:33.740 | And he would show up in my lab

00:34:35.340 | and he would just start talking to the students in postdocs.

00:34:37.940 | And I mean, in a pure encyclopedia.

00:34:41.780 | And then at some point you'd say,

00:34:43.820 | "Hey, Harvey, I got to go."

00:34:45.100 | And you'd kick him out, right?

00:34:46.700 | Or this guy, he's a physicist, David Kleinfeld,

00:34:49.620 | who's same way.

00:34:50.980 | Actually, David Kleinfeld is interesting one.

00:34:53.100 | A student of his went on to create

00:34:55.820 | the Beavis and Butthead cartoon.

00:34:57.460 | And one of them is David.

00:34:58.460 | He's a physics professor.

00:34:59.380 | Now people can look him up.

00:35:01.020 | And David's one of those guys

00:35:02.380 | who just walk into your office.

00:35:03.340 | He'd just sit down and he'd just start talking to you.

00:35:05.420 | And so there's a kind of a family feel.

00:35:07.340 | It's like Cheers or Seinfeld,

00:35:08.700 | or one of those shows where somebody just walks in.

00:35:10.900 | Yeah, I think you and I both share a love

00:35:13.700 | of the community around things.

00:35:14.980 | And podcasting is a little bit more isolated.

00:35:17.740 | I should say for the guest episodes,

00:35:19.620 | the preparation is completely different

00:35:21.340 | because it's more conversational.

00:35:22.980 | And so there, I don't do any of this business

00:35:24.580 | of putting myself into state.

00:35:26.260 | I just try and make sure that the guest is taken care of.

00:35:30.060 | And I do list out the questions I'm gonna ask before,

00:35:32.920 | but those, I actually really like the interview episodes

00:35:35.460 | far more than I like doing the solo ones.

00:35:37.940 | - Just psychologically, you mean?

00:35:39.180 | - I just like learning from someone directly

00:35:41.540 | because you asking an expert about something,

00:35:44.120 | like sitting here with you when we recorded the podcast

00:35:46.700 | where you were a guest on the Huberman Lab podcast

00:35:48.620 | and for the first time, and finally,

00:35:51.500 | someone was explaining to me the difference

00:35:53.220 | between machine learning, artificial intelligence,

00:35:55.180 | and all these other things.

00:35:56.460 | You know, and I've finally forgiven you

00:35:58.060 | for making me cry about Costello on camera,

00:36:02.420 | 'cause it helped me move through it.

00:36:04.340 | But in all seriousness,

00:36:05.340 | the interview ones are a sheer pleasure.

00:36:08.580 | The solo ones I really enjoy, but they're work.

00:36:12.580 | Sometimes I think like I'm gonna sweat a little blood

00:36:14.660 | prepping for them.

00:36:16.100 | - Well, it's interesting 'cause I do think

00:36:17.940 | prepping for interviews, having a similar process

00:36:21.180 | might be also very valuable.

00:36:22.980 | Like I have to think about that 'cause

00:36:26.620 | I think when you do a conversation for several hours,

00:36:33.260 | especially when it's a high stakes one,

00:36:35.020 | so it's not like you and I know,

00:36:36.740 | it's more like it's just chatting and so on.

00:36:38.580 | - The world order isn't gonna shift according to it.

00:36:40.740 | Although you never know.

00:36:42.380 | Knowing you, we'll probably be into

00:36:43.660 | some pretty controversial topics in a few minutes.

00:36:45.980 | You like to ride the edge more than I do.

00:36:48.100 | There are a number of topics that I just completely avoid.

00:36:50.380 | And my response to those is always that

00:36:52.580 | I have a lot of opinions about that, but not a lot to say.

00:36:55.820 | But whereas you've become far braver

00:37:00.820 | in terms of the topics you'll encounter

00:37:02.820 | and some of your guests have been a bit controversial.

00:37:06.260 | Some of them are people that a lot of people don't like.

00:37:11.140 | And you've been willing to just sit down

00:37:13.820 | and maybe it's the jujitsu thing.

00:37:16.300 | - I don't know, it is tricky.

00:37:18.140 | One of my goals for this year is to talk to people

00:37:20.900 | that a lot of people really don't like.

00:37:24.580 | - Are you gonna share with us?

00:37:26.260 | And here I am.

00:37:27.100 | (laughing)

00:37:28.860 | - But people that are in prison, major political leaders,

00:37:34.300 | I've been thinking a lot about how to talk

00:37:37.020 | to really difficult, controversial figures,

00:37:41.340 | but find together something with them

00:37:45.220 | that's deeply honest about their nature,

00:37:47.700 | about the ideas they have about the world,

00:37:52.700 | like reveal something real.

00:37:56.660 | And some people, you have to be very careful.

00:37:59.500 | Some people are very good at hiding the real inside them,

00:38:03.620 | even from themselves.

00:38:05.260 | That's something I think about a lot.

00:38:06.620 | I think about dictators of the past

00:38:08.300 | and I put myself in the mindset,

00:38:09.940 | well, how do you reveal something real

00:38:12.700 | about this person to themselves?

00:38:14.700 | I think that to me, and you kind of spoke to that,

00:38:17.660 | but a great conversation is one

00:38:22.660 | where both of you discover something new.

00:38:27.380 | Like it's not just, so I love that too.

00:38:31.260 | That's my favorite thing, what you mentioned,

00:38:32.840 | which is allowing your curiosity

00:38:34.540 | and ask all kinds of questions

00:38:35.700 | and get excited to learn from an expert,

00:38:38.140 | but also to push them to discover something

00:38:41.420 | about themselves, about their ideas together.

00:38:45.140 | And then that discovery, and sometimes it's like,

00:38:49.580 | we don't see it in the moment, but the audience hears it.

00:38:55.420 | It's weird to say, like I would compare it

00:38:58.060 | to when you're a musician

00:38:59.060 | and you're playing with other musicians,

00:39:00.780 | you lose yourself in the moment.

00:39:02.020 | Yeah, it's all, it's like, it's working right.

00:39:04.320 | It's working, but you don't really see the big picture

00:39:09.320 | impact of what it's working right actually feels like.

00:39:13.820 | And that's where the audience can see that.

00:39:17.380 | Like if you talk to somebody evil,

00:39:19.340 | for me as an interviewer,

00:39:24.860 | I have to empathize with that person.

00:39:27.620 | If I want to understand,

00:39:29.140 | I have to put myself in that mind space

00:39:30.780 | and to put yourself in that mindset,

00:39:32.980 | you really have to become that,

00:39:34.420 | you have to understand the evil inside of you.

00:39:37.680 | Like you can't just think if somebody is in power

00:39:41.420 | and has used that power to abuse others,

00:39:45.300 | you can't just be, I personally,

00:39:48.260 | a person who seeks to understand,

00:39:50.060 | you can't just be a journalist asking generic questions.

00:39:53.020 | You have to put yourself in a place

00:39:55.940 | where you're somebody who's given a lot of power

00:39:58.580 | and slowly you start to abuse that power.

00:40:01.420 | And what does that person become?

00:40:03.420 | Who are you?

00:40:04.580 | I have to plug myself into those moments in my life

00:40:07.260 | in the past where I've been angry at something

00:40:09.720 | and where I've been cruel because I was angry

00:40:14.640 | in little ways, but then you magnify them at scale

00:40:17.620 | and I have to go there and that's very human.

00:40:21.180 | And then I have to look at another person

00:40:23.060 | from across the table for me

00:40:24.740 | and understand, well, you're there too.

00:40:26.860 | And then you had more opportunity to do truly cruel things.

00:40:31.380 | And then where I have to plug myself into places

00:40:36.380 | where I've been, I can imagine I can go

00:40:39.660 | where I was cruel to others and was unaware of it.

00:40:42.460 | So I was in a mind space where I was thinking

00:40:45.780 | that I'm doing good and I was doing not good.

00:40:48.260 | Again, I've never gotten the opportunity

00:40:50.380 | to do any of those things at a large scale,

00:40:52.540 | but all of us have done it at a small scale.

00:40:54.900 | And I plug myself into that and then we're here.

00:40:58.820 | We're too, if it's somebody who's in prison,

00:41:01.540 | if it's somebody who's a dictator,

00:41:03.460 | we're in that space where evil is,

00:41:07.060 | all of us have the capacity to do that evil.

00:41:09.620 | And I have to imagine myself being able to do that evil.

00:41:13.500 | And then we're here together in that dark, dark place.

00:41:17.940 | And then if it's just right,

00:41:19.980 | something real can actually come.

00:41:21.820 | Something from that person's childhood,

00:41:23.940 | maybe awakening to a realization

00:41:27.620 | that I thought it was a good person and I'm not.

00:41:30.820 | And that only happens when you truly empathize.

00:41:34.900 | Those moments of discovery are beautiful,

00:41:36.980 | but they also happen in science.

00:41:38.740 | When you just have a conversation and you realize,

00:41:42.380 | I feel like talking to Stephen Wolfram,

00:41:44.020 | I feel like we constantly realize beautiful things together.

00:41:48.060 | - On this element of evil and sociopathy,

00:41:52.220 | that Jung had this notion that we have all things inside us

00:41:57.220 | and that we all have the capacity

00:41:59.540 | to be good or evil, et cetera.

00:42:01.480 | But I have the good fortune of working with somebody

00:42:06.140 | who has deep understanding of psychiatry,

00:42:08.700 | but also psychoanalysis and Jungian theory.

00:42:11.700 | And he said to me recently, he said,

00:42:15.020 | whether or not all people have all things inside them

00:42:17.960 | is still debated in the psychology community

00:42:20.420 | and in the neuroscience community

00:42:22.860 | and as a matter of philosophy.

00:42:24.420 | But there are certain people, not many,

00:42:28.260 | but there are certain people

00:42:29.980 | for whom they've actually lived out

00:42:32.180 | many versions of their possible selves in the first person.

00:42:37.020 | And so those are unique individuals.

00:42:38.740 | Then even if they tapped into these things,

00:42:41.260 | as you mentioned, at a more minor level,

00:42:44.420 | as opposed to impacting people negatively at scale.

00:42:48.980 | So being able to access those different parts of oneself

00:42:51.420 | is key and you've been willing to step into that.

00:42:54.100 | My podcast is not one in which we get down to those matters.

00:42:57.420 | - Yet, yet.

00:42:59.060 | - You never know, we might do an episode

00:43:00.540 | on narcissism and sociopathy.

00:43:02.800 | The other thing that I took away from a conversation

00:43:04.900 | with a friend who did a lot of years in special operations

00:43:08.460 | in the intelligence community, he said,

00:43:10.780 | "If you look at somebody's past,

00:43:13.220 | "at some point you will come to understand

00:43:16.180 | "some pretty good reasons

00:43:17.340 | "as to why they became who they are.

00:43:19.500 | "But you have to draw the," his words,

00:43:21.660 | "the red line someplace."

00:43:23.340 | And what he was referring to was the fact

00:43:25.060 | that certain people, at least in the eyes

00:43:26.940 | of certain communities, deserve to be eliminated

00:43:30.280 | as a consequence of their actions, right?

00:43:33.220 | Regardless of what drove them to those actions.

00:43:35.180 | So it gets right down to the line between nature,

00:43:38.540 | nurture, neuroscience, and the law and justice.

00:43:43.540 | Complicated, complicated themes.

00:43:45.740 | - I can think of a number of people

00:43:47.060 | that I would love to hear you interview.

00:43:49.260 | And here I'm not revealing the reasons why,

00:43:51.940 | but except for the fact that I think

00:43:53.540 | you would be uniquely suited to bring out

00:43:56.060 | the important components of the conversation

00:43:58.500 | that other people have not been able to do.

00:44:02.620 | Which, for instance, Liz Holmes.

00:44:04.860 | This is one of the most mysterious

00:44:08.540 | and yet disliked people on the planet.

00:44:13.660 | She's sort of synonymous with deception.

00:44:15.660 | I don't know if there've been any real interviews

00:44:20.180 | of her since the whole thing.

00:44:22.900 | I haven't followed that case.

00:44:23.900 | I listened to the book and I followed it a little bit

00:44:27.260 | because it was happening in my hometown, right?

00:44:29.420 | Theranos was right up the road.

00:44:30.980 | The building's still there.

00:44:32.260 | It's interesting, it's some of the most

00:44:33.700 | premier real estate in Silicon Valley, but nobody wants it.

00:44:36.900 | It's sort of like, it's very hard to sell a home

00:44:38.500 | where somebody committed suicide or committed a murder,

00:44:41.060 | even if it's a beautiful home.

00:44:42.560 | It's sort of feel like the Theranos building

00:44:43.940 | is that building.

00:44:44.780 | So that would be a really interesting interview.

00:44:48.540 | I would love to hear that interview.

00:44:50.580 | - One of the most interesting dark human beings in science.

00:44:55.580 | - Yeah, and then there'll even be people that say,

00:44:57.580 | you know, was it even science, right?

00:44:59.740 | It might've all been deception.

00:45:01.100 | It might've been one part deception,

00:45:02.340 | one part goal setting mixed in with.

00:45:05.540 | Clearly that there were so many factors

00:45:08.580 | impacting what happened.

00:45:10.780 | I think the big difference between Theranos and that story

00:45:15.000 | and some of the other stories about Silicon Valley

00:45:17.520 | where people promised a lot more than they could deliver

00:45:19.900 | is they were promising things that were directly related

00:45:22.720 | to health and healthcare.

00:45:23.720 | People were taking blood tests with the understanding

00:45:26.960 | that the data they were getting was important information

00:45:29.760 | about sexually transmitted diseases and other diseases

00:45:31.920 | and making real world decisions on the basis of that.

00:45:34.480 | Whereas if you remember when the iPhone first came out

00:45:37.240 | and Steve Jobs was still alive

00:45:38.760 | and the phones were dropping calls,

00:45:40.600 | if you held it in a particular way,

00:45:41.940 | and his response was a little flip.

00:45:43.480 | He said, "Hey folks, it's a phone."

00:45:45.920 | As if like, don't get so worked up.

00:45:47.720 | But people held him understandably to a very high standard.

00:45:50.860 | You know, she would sort of, it seemed,

00:45:53.340 | and I don't know, 'cause I certainly wasn't there,

00:45:55.360 | seemed like she sort of adopted this idea

00:45:57.820 | that you could get it wrong a bunch of times

00:45:59.360 | before you get it right, except if the allegations are true.

00:46:02.720 | And I think she was found guilty, I believe,

00:46:05.760 | on a number of counts.

00:46:07.080 | That a number of the things that they were doing

00:46:09.040 | were impacting real world decision-making.

00:46:11.880 | So Steve's point about the phone, it's just a phone.

00:46:14.560 | Well, it depends on the call.

00:46:15.400 | If you're calling 911, then it's not just a phone, right?

00:46:18.440 | But in the case of blood tests and disease,

00:46:21.600 | you know, that's serious.

00:46:22.880 | I think that the Theranos case was super interesting to me

00:46:24.960 | because of the number of people from major universities

00:46:27.600 | and from government that both trusted her

00:46:31.400 | and the number of people who did not trust her

00:46:34.360 | and yet either didn't speak up or no one listened to them.

00:46:37.320 | It was only in the forensic version of it

00:46:39.680 | that everyone said, "Oh yeah, I knew that she was lying,"

00:46:42.440 | et cetera, et cetera, they were lying.

00:46:44.320 | There were multiple people involved

00:46:45.320 | in those lies, apparently.

00:46:46.680 | But I have a deep interest in the neuroscience

00:46:49.120 | of narcissism, sociopathy,

00:46:51.500 | and some of the darker aspects of the mind.

00:46:54.000 | So yeah, maybe someday.

00:46:55.480 | Maybe we'll do a podcast together.

00:46:56.880 | It can be like in the kind of early '90s version

00:46:59.840 | of talk shows where we darken the lights

00:47:01.360 | and we do it together.

00:47:02.660 | You can use your voice

00:47:03.520 | 'cause your voice is much more sinister sounding than mine.

00:47:06.840 | - Good cop, bad cop.

00:47:07.960 | Well, it'd be interesting from a scientific perspective

00:47:11.440 | of somebody who is a sociopath or a psychopath

00:47:15.640 | how to reveal something real about them.

00:47:20.200 | I think that requires not just,

00:47:24.480 | well, I don't know what that requires.

00:47:26.520 | That requires the same skill

00:47:27.920 | that it takes to be a good therapist.

00:47:31.600 | - Right, and some therapists won't work with sociopaths

00:47:35.160 | because they don't feel any progress can be made.

00:47:38.440 | Some therapists will work with sociopaths

00:47:40.400 | because for the wealthy ones,

00:47:41.960 | they often, they want their money.

00:47:44.920 | I think most therapists are good and benevolent,

00:47:47.380 | but there's some that will do it just the same way

00:47:49.200 | lawyers will work with criminals

00:47:50.480 | knowing they're criminals, right?

00:47:52.120 | Oftentimes because they're criminals.

00:47:55.320 | There are certain domains of psychiatry

00:47:57.000 | that are more tractable than others, right?

00:47:59.760 | Borderlines are interesting, actually, just to mention

00:48:01.400 | because they have this phenomenon of splitting.

00:48:03.840 | So in the world of psychology,

00:48:05.720 | the idea is that being neurotic is actually the goal.

00:48:09.960 | The idea that you could be, you know, feel something

00:48:13.360 | and then work a lot to overcome it

00:48:15.080 | or have some sort of defense mechanism in place,

00:48:18.760 | but that's not destructive.

00:48:20.340 | That's actually a pretty healthy state to be in

00:48:23.320 | provided it's not destructive.

00:48:25.380 | Psychotic is truly delusional thinking about reality.

00:48:29.800 | And the idea is that borderlines split,

00:48:33.120 | intermittently split between psychotic and neurotic.

00:48:37.340 | That's why it was called,

00:48:38.180 | there's beautiful work by Melanie Klein that describes this,

00:48:40.840 | which I'm just now kind of delving into.

00:48:42.960 | But, you know, so the borderline is the person who is like,

00:48:46.000 | I love you, I love you, I love you.

00:48:47.520 | And then truly feels as if they hate you

00:48:49.720 | and you become the bad object.

00:48:51.320 | Borderlines are challenging for psychologists

00:48:54.600 | because of the splitting, right?

00:48:56.480 | Schizophrenics are challenging

00:48:58.760 | because of the detachment from reality.

00:49:02.920 | And narcissists are challenging

00:49:05.120 | because they're often so charming

00:49:07.640 | that even the therapists are charmed.

00:49:10.080 | - I believe you mentioned Karl Deisseroth.

00:49:12.280 | We'll talk about him.

00:49:13.120 | - He was definitely not a narcissist.

00:49:14.480 | He's one of the more humble people, but he is brilliant.

00:49:16.400 | - Thanks again to you.

00:49:17.880 | You've connected us.

00:49:19.420 | I had the pleasure of having a conversation with him.

00:49:22.840 | You had a conversation with him.

00:49:23.920 | I really enjoyed it on the podcast.

00:49:25.680 | You guys come from the same science, from the same place,

00:49:29.760 | maybe different journeys, fascinating journeys.

00:49:31.480 | - Well, and levels.

00:49:32.360 | We were postdocs together.

00:49:33.960 | Karl is truly the Michael Jordan, the Wayne Gretzky,

00:49:37.880 | five children, amazing marriage to also an amazing scientist.

00:49:41.960 | His wife, Michelle Monge is in our neurology department

00:49:44.040 | at Stanford, incredible thinker, writer,

00:49:47.680 | very kind person, humble.

00:49:50.540 | Speaking of getting into state,

00:49:52.720 | sorry, Karl, I'm gonna out you on this,

00:49:54.280 | but Karl, despite being at the highest levels

00:49:58.320 | of science and engineering and a practicing psychiatrist,

00:50:02.260 | his office is literally a coat closet

00:50:06.160 | with a small table lamp.

00:50:07.880 | When you meet with Karl, if you manage to meet with him,

00:50:10.200 | 'cause he's very hard to get to,

00:50:12.240 | you walk in, you sit down as if you're going

00:50:14.560 | through some interrogation and some spy novel,

00:50:18.040 | and he'll ask you, "What are you most excited about lately?"

00:50:22.040 | And I've got 11 minutes or something.

00:50:23.960 | And that's a meeting with Karl 'cause he's that busy,

00:50:27.000 | but he doesn't have the office with the pictures of the kids

00:50:29.280 | and the thing and all that.

00:50:30.760 | All that is kept elsewhere.

00:50:32.500 | So in order to get, I asked him,

00:50:34.300 | "Why do you work in this office?"

00:50:35.980 | You work on light and channels of light,

00:50:38.040 | things related to light of all things.

00:50:39.780 | Here you are in this dark room.

00:50:40.700 | And he said, "Well, this is what gets me

00:50:41.860 | "into the state of mind to be able to do what I wanna do."

00:50:44.260 | Very Rick Rubin-ish, not at all the same person,

00:50:48.860 | but very similar in that he's figured out

00:50:50.600 | the physical space he needs in order to get

00:50:52.380 | into the optimal state to do the work

00:50:54.020 | that he needs to do in this lifetime.

00:50:55.460 | And it's very unusual.

00:50:57.460 | If I don't have a window, I kind of freak out.

00:50:59.340 | I can do it here for a while.

00:51:00.540 | We're in this black cube here, floating in space, of course.

00:51:03.960 | But I find that amazing that these people

00:51:08.880 | that are operating at this super high level

00:51:10.820 | are willing to actually deprive themselves

00:51:12.560 | of a lot of conditions.

00:51:14.040 | They're not sitting there with the secretary coming in,

00:51:16.580 | offering them espresso every five minutes and things like,

00:51:19.080 | no, no, no, that's New York neuroscience.

00:51:21.920 | The New York neuroscience mafia is kind of famous

00:51:24.000 | for having all the tickets to the opera and this and that,

00:51:28.160 | and they enjoy lifestyle a lot.

00:51:30.180 | The New York neuroscience mafia.

00:51:31.460 | - Oh, there is one.

00:51:32.300 | There definitely is one.

00:51:33.120 | They know who they are.

00:51:34.380 | They know who they are.

00:51:35.220 | - For people who don't know,

00:51:36.960 | Andrew Huberman is from the West Coast,

00:51:38.940 | and now he's just starting wars

00:51:40.420 | with the neuroscience mafia.

00:51:41.620 | - Well, they do amazing science.

00:51:42.660 | They think, they love their lifestyle,

00:51:44.780 | and that's wonderful, but the culture is very different.

00:51:48.380 | Carl, and I think Silicon Valley in general,

00:51:50.540 | kind of prides itself on this kind of monk-like asceticism.

00:51:55.540 | - But at the individual scale,

00:51:57.820 | be deliberate about controlling the environment.

00:51:59.700 | I think about that with the conversations too.

00:52:01.900 | I haven't been deliberate about that either

00:52:04.180 | in terms of controlling the space you're in.

00:52:07.500 | Visually, yes, black curtains, all those kinds of things.

00:52:10.700 | - There is nothing like the Lex Friedman podcast studio.

00:52:13.860 | First of all, when you do them remotely,

00:52:17.180 | I always feel like I'm in a witness relocation program.

00:52:20.620 | You only get the coordinates at the last moment,

00:52:23.140 | and you always get the sense

00:52:25.420 | that there are people behind the walls

00:52:27.180 | that are recording things.

00:52:30.140 | - Well, there's something about creating a feeling.

00:52:32.620 | I have a sense that there's a robot over there,

00:52:34.460 | there's several throughout this place,

00:52:36.700 | and I think part of that,

00:52:41.500 | part of creating a feeling would be

00:52:44.620 | having the robots constantly moving around

00:52:47.620 | and having a mind of their own,

00:52:49.960 | because that would most closely put guests

00:52:54.660 | and other humans that they interact with

00:52:56.700 | into a place that's closest to my mind,

00:53:01.460 | because it's such an engineering mind,

00:53:03.940 | and one where when things come to life,

00:53:06.500 | it's a beautiful place to be.

00:53:08.460 | And whatever that is, that could be art,

00:53:10.700 | but to me, robots are art.

00:53:12.780 | And so I'm thinking about that both for me and for guests.

00:53:17.780 | And I'm also thinking about the difficult guests,

00:53:19.900 | just to return to, you said Elizabeth Holmes,

00:53:22.540 | the one person, maybe a couple of things I wanna say.

00:53:26.220 | So one person I think I would like to talk to

00:53:30.980 | is Ghislaine Maxwell.

00:53:34.300 | - I always get afraid right before you reveal

00:53:36.380 | these kinds of things, and now I know why I get afraid.

00:53:39.020 | Yeah, I mean, again, assuming that she did the things

00:53:42.220 | that people claim she did, they're despicable, right?

00:53:45.900 | I mean, these were underage children, right?

00:53:48.020 | There's just no version of the story

00:53:50.480 | where she did the things she was accused of doing

00:53:54.580 | and is still a quote unquote good person.

00:53:56.580 | There's just, in my mind, right?

00:53:58.380 | And yet I think there is tremendous interest

00:54:01.780 | in understanding what led her to do all that,

00:54:06.340 | at least for some people.

00:54:07.180 | - Let me say a couple of things.

00:54:08.180 | So one is at a high level, let me say that she believes,

00:54:13.180 | or her current story is, is that she's the victim.

00:54:18.900 | - Of who?

00:54:19.980 | - Of Jeffrey Epstein.

00:54:21.020 | - Oh my.

00:54:21.860 | - I think I'll just leave that there as is.

00:54:26.780 | So these are ideas that you're facing.

00:54:29.920 | The nature of truth and the nature of the human mind

00:54:34.700 | is what it is, and this is, imagine, folks,

00:54:38.900 | if you went into a room with a person that says that,

00:54:43.080 | what do you do next?

00:54:45.200 | Let me also say that I never, or rarely,

00:54:50.200 | let me say not say never, I rarely mention names

00:54:54.480 | that I'm interested in talking to

00:54:57.200 | without having made significant progress

00:55:00.840 | in already securing that interview.

00:55:03.140 | So people sometimes ask me about Vladimir Zelensky

00:55:07.600 | and Vladimir Putin.

00:55:09.660 | I do not bring them up lightly in terms of,

00:55:14.160 | in terms of there being a path to an actual conversation.

00:55:17.200 | That said, something I regret, but I'm not sure I know

00:55:22.200 | what to do with it, but in the case of all the people

00:55:25.800 | I just mentioned, I haven't been preparing

00:55:28.720 | for those conversations.

00:55:30.520 | I only start really preparing seriously when it's confirmed

00:55:35.520 | because it's such a heavy burden.

00:55:40.320 | And one of the things I regret in having mentioned

00:55:44.280 | a conversation with Vladimir Putin

00:55:47.240 | before the war in Ukraine broke out in the past few years

00:55:51.200 | is that I would mention it very loosely, very casually,

00:55:55.760 | and without having really deeply put myself into a place

00:56:00.760 | that I'm ready to talk to him.

00:56:03.080 | And that's a tricky thing because then the internet,

00:56:08.480 | the audience in general, and just me,

00:56:11.640 | when I listen back to my dumb self,

00:56:14.360 | think, well, why are you speaking so lightly

00:56:16.280 | about these topics?

00:56:17.760 | - Well, I know you've had a longstanding interest

00:56:19.520 | in talking to him.

00:56:21.600 | I think now, you know, well, I don't understand

00:56:25.840 | how I would sit down and have a conversation

00:56:31.200 | with somebody like that, but that's not in the range

00:56:34.560 | of my skillsets, right?

00:56:36.400 | Or like maybe not in the range of things

00:56:39.960 | that you're drawn to somehow.

00:56:42.000 | - Not so much.

00:56:42.840 | I mean, I would watch that episode with great interest.

00:56:46.260 | Well, you did an episode recently with this guy

00:56:49.720 | who was a former cyber criminal turned stateside, right?

00:56:53.960 | I think he works for the government now.

00:56:55.240 | And there was a segment in there, remind me his name?

00:56:58.200 | - Brett Johnson. - Brett Johnson.

00:56:59.720 | There was a segment in there where he talked

00:57:01.320 | about stealing a lifetime's worth of collected coins

00:57:06.120 | from some elderly woman, and this was everything she had.

00:57:10.200 | And then he openly admitted that he felt no remorse,

00:57:15.200 | which is the way he described it is purely sociopathic.

00:57:18.560 | And then of course we learned that he grew up in a family

00:57:20.680 | where criminal behavior was very common.

00:57:23.160 | It was kind of embedded into his notions

00:57:25.840 | of what typical behaviors were.

00:57:27.680 | And I found myself somewhat conflicted,

00:57:30.600 | but also hung up on this idea that, you know,

00:57:33.560 | I mean, he had behaved as a sociopath

00:57:37.480 | or in a sociopathic way.

00:57:39.960 | And it created an internal conflict

00:57:42.600 | because he's quite charming guest

00:57:44.020 | and his stories are terrific.

00:57:45.860 | Especially I really enjoyed his discussions

00:57:49.200 | about how he would go out and do all these things

00:57:52.720 | out of a desire to please his girlfriend.

00:57:56.160 | You know, so he was in service to other people

00:57:58.280 | despite being a sociopath.

00:57:59.360 | He could say he was in service to them as a way to extract.

00:58:01.760 | It gets very complicated.

00:58:03.240 | I think is the reason I went into science

00:58:05.120 | is that at some level,

00:58:07.320 | it's more about facts than it is opinions and judgments.

00:58:10.480 | And I don't know that I have the ability

00:58:12.080 | to suspend judgment over the,

00:58:14.080 | away from the kind of top level contours

00:58:17.560 | of my initial reaction to like,

00:58:19.460 | if it's true, like the Galeen Maxwell's

00:58:22.400 | and the Liz Holmes and the other sociopaths

00:58:25.320 | is one of just kind of revulsion and repulsion.

00:58:28.240 | But that could also reflect the fact that I'm not as,

00:58:30.720 | you know, neurologically sophisticated

00:58:33.640 | as somebody that can spin all the plates of empathy,

00:58:38.640 | forgiveness, but also holding people accountable

00:58:44.120 | at the same time.

00:58:44.960 | That's work.

00:58:45.780 | That takes, if you think about it,

00:58:46.840 | that's three, four brain circuits

00:58:48.360 | having to work in parallel.

00:58:50.700 | That's the difference between chess or a game of Go

00:58:52.720 | and a game of checkers.

00:58:53.560 | I guess I'm playing checkers and you're playing chess.

00:58:56.000 | - No, so one is actually holding in your mind

00:58:58.480 | and two is the raw skill of conversation.

00:59:01.160 | You're very, just having listened to your interviews,

00:59:04.000 | you're very good at conversation.

00:59:05.640 | But the skill of conversation is really tricky.

00:59:08.960 | I'm not being self-deprecating.

00:59:10.280 | I'm being just objective.

00:59:12.040 | I'm not good at conversation.

00:59:15.560 | I'm working very hard at getting better at it.

00:59:18.760 | I'm speaking not about just podcasting.

00:59:22.840 | I'm speaking just normal life.

00:59:26.160 | I have anxiety from social interaction.

00:59:30.000 | - Do you really?

00:59:31.800 | - A huge amount, yeah.

00:59:33.040 | - So this is interesting

00:59:33.880 | because I never detect that in you, ever.

00:59:37.880 | And I think there are people that we both know

00:59:40.640 | that have said to me that they too feel anxious

00:59:45.200 | and yet your voice is steady.

00:59:49.520 | I don't see any perspiration.

00:59:51.480 | You appear incredibly calm.

00:59:55.360 | - I was scared shitless with Rick Rubin.

00:59:57.520 | - Rick Rubin is, when you first meet him,

01:00:00.960 | is intimidatingly calm.

01:00:03.280 | But as you get to know him a bit,

01:00:04.560 | you realize that the kindness and the generosity

01:00:08.300 | that you sense is real.

01:00:09.740 | But yeah, I would never in a million years

01:00:14.640 | have guessed that you get anxious in conversation.

01:00:16.720 | - Can I just make another quick comment?

01:00:19.080 | This may come off entertaining to you, Andrew.

01:00:22.360 | Maybe you've already gotten the same.

01:00:24.240 | But having mentioned Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Zelensky,

01:00:30.320 | Galee Maxwell, there's a natural question.

01:00:37.140 | How does Lex have access to these people?

01:00:42.940 | Who does he work for?

01:00:45.240 | Like how does he--

01:00:48.200 | - Or who works for him.

01:00:49.840 | - Who works for him.

01:00:51.080 | What does he have on others?

01:00:52.820 | I ask myself, when I look in the mirror,

01:00:57.800 | just somebody who kind of enjoys conspiracy theories,

01:01:02.000 | I wanna ask the same question.

01:01:03.800 | Well, I usually ask in the following way,

01:01:05.720 | how the fuck am I so lucky?

01:01:07.320 | Am I a robot being controlled by somebody else?

01:01:12.720 | How is this my life right now?

01:01:16.340 | What is happening?

01:01:17.180 | It really does feel like a simulation.

01:01:18.760 | So let me just speak to several things.

01:01:22.040 | First of all, I have no boss.

01:01:25.280 | I know of nor am I controlled

01:01:29.160 | by any intelligence agencies of any nation.

01:01:32.440 | - We're gonna get you a dog, Lex.

01:01:34.040 | - So that I can talk to.

01:01:35.920 | I'm scared of getting a dog 'cause I would fall in love

01:01:39.320 | so deeply, I think, that--

01:01:41.560 | - Next time I'm bringing a puppy.

01:01:43.680 | I'm just gonna bring a puppy and I'm gonna leave it here.

01:01:46.880 | - And then you'll never see me again.

01:01:48.520 | I mean, I love dogs so much.

01:01:50.440 | I was also surprised and maybe,

01:01:54.400 | I have never talked to an intelligence agency,

01:02:00.520 | which is very interesting to me.

01:02:02.160 | - That you're aware of.

01:02:05.060 | 'Cause they're very good at communicating with people.

01:02:08.240 | - But I've been very suspicious on this exact point.

01:02:10.960 | That's the downside of kind of being an introvert,

01:02:15.520 | having anxiety about social interaction,

01:02:17.440 | but then having so much love thrown your way

01:02:20.200 | because connect over podcast.

01:02:21.880 | Podcasts have a powerful way of connecting people.

01:02:24.560 | So people come with you with love that I really love,

01:02:28.200 | I appreciate, but I wonder exactly this question.

01:02:32.360 | Why is this person with a Russian accent talking to me

01:02:37.400 | and showing me so much love?

01:02:39.200 | - Well, because, sorry to interrupt you again,

01:02:41.120 | but it's what we do.

01:02:42.820 | And it's a sign of interest, by the way.

01:02:46.360 | Sometimes, yeah, I have a colleague at Stanford

01:02:49.040 | and she said, "Interruption, 75% of the time

01:02:53.240 | "is a sign of real interest in what the person is saying,

01:02:55.700 | "if nothing else."

01:02:57.560 | Well, you're very lovable.

01:03:00.180 | I mean, I learned about Hedgehog in the Fog from you.

01:03:04.520 | When I learned, you're very lovable.

01:03:08.000 | People love you because you're lovable.

01:03:09.760 | - I love love, okay, so 100%.

01:03:12.480 | And I mean, especially here in Austin, Texas,

01:03:14.800 | people are so amazing.

01:03:17.080 | I go just hugs and just, I love people.

01:03:19.800 | - Do you want a family?

01:03:20.800 | Are you eventually? - 100%.

01:03:22.280 | No, I mean, I take what you said as a challenge

01:03:25.240 | in terms of having a family with kids

01:03:28.900 | and they do jujitsu and obviously defeat you

01:03:32.280 | and make you miserable for your failures as a father

01:03:37.280 | because you couldn't--

01:03:38.280 | - But you're gonna be a great dad.

01:03:40.960 | - Build up an army of good jujitsu people.

01:03:43.120 | But yes, I would love a family.

01:03:44.880 | I would love to have children.

01:03:47.120 | But I just wanna finish that point

01:03:49.600 | 'cause I'm nervous about it.

01:03:50.600 | I'm nervous about the way people perceive,

01:03:52.800 | what you're seeing is a Forrest Gump type character.

01:03:54.960 | Like who I am, I seem to be,

01:03:58.120 | and this is how the world seems to work,

01:04:00.720 | is you just try to be yourself,

01:04:03.440 | like you try to find yourself,

01:04:05.560 | that's maybe the better way to say it,

01:04:07.240 | and just be that.

01:04:09.400 | Be kind to people.

01:04:12.640 | Work your ass off and say F you to anybody

01:04:17.640 | that wants to control you or to tell you what to do.

01:04:21.480 | Just be free and then put love out there in the world

01:04:24.520 | and doors open.

01:04:25.400 | This karma thing seems to work.

01:04:27.700 | How the hell, my friends as you know,

01:04:32.840 | how the hell did I get a chance to eat barbecue

01:04:35.640 | with Rick Rubin, right?

01:04:37.080 | Like doors-- - You guys had barbecue.

01:04:39.000 | - He had barbecue.

01:04:40.160 | Right, of course I had barbecue.

01:04:42.480 | He's from New York.

01:04:43.320 | Any New Yorker that I know has very high standards for food

01:04:46.880 | 'cause bad restaurants don't last long in New York.

01:04:49.280 | - And barbecue counts as-- - Oh yeah.

01:04:51.360 | - Oh yeah, Texas barbecue.

01:04:52.840 | - Well, I would also add that whether or not

01:04:57.120 | you realize or not, you took tremendous risk.

01:04:59.440 | I mean, we come from the same original community,

01:05:01.200 | which is academic science, right?

01:05:03.180 | And to be at MIT and to start posting lectures online

01:05:07.600 | is risky, right?

01:05:09.400 | To, you know, I was third or fourth man in

01:05:12.680 | in terms of podcasting as an academic

01:05:14.640 | 'cause you had gone on Brogan many times,

01:05:17.000 | David Sinclair had gone on there.

01:05:18.680 | Especially before the pandemic,

01:05:22.560 | you just didn't see many academics and scientists talking

01:05:24.960 | in a public facing way.

01:05:26.880 | So you took tremendous risk, right?

01:05:29.040 | You took tremendous risk,

01:05:30.180 | always wearing that jacket and tie, right?

01:05:33.400 | The only time I haven't seen you in that truly

01:05:35.040 | is when we rolled jujitsu, which is,

01:05:36.820 | and I hear I'm being generous to myself

01:05:38.200 | saying I rolled jujitsu,

01:05:39.320 | basically you choked me out in front of hundreds of,

01:05:41.200 | - That was really risky.

01:05:42.040 | - It was great fun and I--

01:05:45.800 | - Thank you for doing that.

01:05:46.720 | To have a beginner's mind is a beautiful thing.

01:05:48.520 | - Well, I have admittedly, I have not been taking the classes

01:05:51.280 | but I'm going to, I truly am.

01:05:53.300 | Especially there's a small chance I might find myself

01:05:56.660 | in Austin a bit more often in the near future.

01:05:59.480 | But the--

01:06:00.440 | - Well, if you're out in San Francisco,

01:06:01.640 | you should train with Mark Zuckerberg.

01:06:02.920 | He just started, so.

01:06:04.120 | - Oh yeah?

01:06:05.000 | - You guys could-- - Interesting.

01:06:06.480 | (laughing)

01:06:07.960 | - Sure.

01:06:08.800 | - I mean, he's actually,

01:06:10.120 | so many people listen to an episode,

01:06:12.400 | perhaps he's a fascinating human being too.

01:06:14.120 | - I listened to it, it was great.

01:06:15.820 | You took tremendous risk as an academic to do what you did.

01:06:19.740 | So I do believe that when one takes intelligent risk,

01:06:24.120 | 'cause you can die, you can crash your career,

01:06:26.300 | you can do all sorts of self-destructive

01:06:28.840 | or destructive things when taking risks.

01:06:31.200 | You took risks and they paid off, right?

01:06:33.560 | And you take different risks at different stages,

01:06:35.200 | but I don't throw around the word admiration lightly.

01:06:38.960 | I mean, I admire that you were in this classroom at MIT,

01:06:41.560 | like I'm gonna film this and put it online.

01:06:44.480 | One of your early interviews is with Ido Portal,

01:06:47.040 | who's very hard to get to.

01:06:49.120 | I've communicated with Ido a few times.

01:06:50.880 | - You should definitely talk to him.

01:06:51.760 | - I can't wait to talk to him, I'm dying to talk to him.

01:06:54.200 | I was supposed to do some course teaching with him

01:06:57.480 | right before the pandemic hit,

01:06:58.760 | and then it got canceled 'cause he couldn't travel.

01:07:00.720 | But getting to him is exceedingly challenging.

01:07:03.000 | So you do have this incredible ability to get to people

01:07:06.360 | and for them to trust you and know you.

01:07:09.880 | And I think it's through your authenticity.

01:07:12.360 | And I think it's the fact that you're willing to go places

01:07:15.080 | where people haven't been before.

01:07:16.800 | You know, this is, what's the saying about pioneers?

01:07:19.560 | How do you spot the pioneers?

01:07:20.860 | They're the people with the arrows in their backs.

01:07:23.040 | You know, so that's the, you know, yeah.

01:07:26.280 | And that's actually a quote that I lifted

01:07:28.200 | from Terry Signalsky, who's a-

01:07:30.080 | - There you go.

01:07:30.920 | Exciting sources again.

01:07:33.040 | - Terry's, you should talk to Terry.

01:07:34.320 | He's a computational neuroscientist

01:07:37.560 | down at the Salk Institute,

01:07:39.440 | Howard Hughes investigator, et cetera.

01:07:40.760 | But so, you know, taking risks

01:07:43.400 | that other people have not taken is, that's a real thing.

01:07:48.280 | And to do it with integrity and rigor, that's a real thing.

01:07:53.160 | And so, yeah, I'm complimenting you

01:07:55.160 | and I hope it lands and lands deeply.

01:07:57.960 | But I also hope that people will hear that

01:07:59.400 | and understand that it's one thing

01:08:01.680 | to do what other people are already doing boldly.

01:08:06.400 | It's a whole other thing to launch an entire art form

01:08:10.540 | or venue, and you did that.

01:08:12.860 | And you didn't write a book, hopefully you will someday,

01:08:15.560 | but you didn't go write a book.

01:08:16.560 | A lot of academics have written books.

01:08:18.440 | You went online.

01:08:19.960 | Jordan Peterson, another controversial character,

01:08:22.040 | he did it too, all those lectures that he filmed.

01:08:24.400 | And then it's led to this other thing.

01:08:26.060 | So, you know, there's karma,

01:08:30.180 | and then there's also having the spine

01:08:32.780 | to just put it all on the line and do something

01:08:35.380 | for which there is no prior example to hold onto

01:08:40.380 | while you go through those headwinds.

01:08:43.020 | - The really fascinating thing,

01:08:44.140 | and actually a lot of people tell me about you,

01:08:46.500 | Andrew Kuberman, like the reach of a podcast

01:08:51.500 | is really fascinating.

01:08:53.020 | It's not the numbers of people that listen.

01:08:56.100 | I don't know if that's important at all.

01:08:58.620 | What's important is the depth of connection

01:09:02.420 | you have with certain people.

01:09:04.180 | It really moves them.

01:09:05.220 | And they really get you.

01:09:08.520 | So there's a lot of big Andrew Kuberman fans

01:09:11.180 | that really get you.

01:09:12.600 | It's not just the science.

01:09:13.900 | It's the stuff between the lines.

01:09:15.840 | It's Costello.

01:09:16.860 | It's the whole picture of a scientist

01:09:18.940 | that finds beauty in biology and reveals it.

01:09:22.060 | And they love you for it.

01:09:23.300 | You know, because it was on television at the time,

01:09:28.220 | I followed that Amanda Knox story pretty carefully.

01:09:31.700 | And I don't watch television,

01:09:33.260 | but whenever I would travel,

01:09:34.740 | if there was a TV in the airplane,

01:09:37.140 | I would find myself getting wrapped into things

01:09:39.380 | like locked up abroad.

01:09:40.840 | And these things where they,

01:09:43.140 | which make you terrified to travel anywhere,

01:09:45.140 | let alone commit a crime overseas.

01:09:46.840 | The scenes of some of these prisons are so dramatic.

01:09:50.580 | And, you know, I mean, her case got a ton of interest.

01:09:52.500 | And then, you know, she went and then was a student

01:09:55.620 | at the University of Washington

01:09:57.220 | and has talked quite openly about, you know,

01:09:59.660 | how she was treated and how people assume guilt.

01:10:02.620 | And, you know, and eventually, you know,

01:10:04.140 | she was exonerated and, you know,

01:10:05.940 | we can only go by what we know, what the law determined.

01:10:08.440 | But, you know, these are people

01:10:10.240 | that the world is fascinated by.

01:10:13.540 | I would, I'm guessing about a third of people

01:10:15.540 | have already decided this person is despicable.

01:10:18.220 | Why would you ever give them an audience?

01:10:20.440 | About a third of people I think are open to,

01:10:24.140 | or at least interested in learning more about them.

01:10:27.100 | And then I think the remaining third,

01:10:29.140 | kind of the third that,

01:10:30.960 | the category that I put myself in,

01:10:32.820 | which is what can I learn about people and myself,

01:10:37.820 | even in my revulsion, right?

01:10:41.080 | What can I learn? - About myself.

01:10:42.540 | - Yeah, what can I learn about myself

01:10:44.180 | from listening to this conversation with somebody

01:10:46.180 | that I like to think, I'm not talking about Amanda here,

01:10:49.300 | I'm talking about the other people

01:10:50.140 | that you're talking about, that I don't,

01:10:52.400 | I can't relate to, right?

01:10:53.940 | Talking, hearing conversations with and about people

01:10:57.300 | that you cannot relate to is informative.

01:10:59.740 | Otherwise, your whole mind literally becomes insular, right?

01:11:03.680 | - Well, there's an interesting thing I also had to,

01:11:06.220 | ever since the war in Ukraine broke out,

01:11:09.620 | one of the questions I was asking myself,

01:11:12.060 | and this is not to be dramatic,

01:11:15.180 | it's just a very simple, honest question,

01:11:17.740 | that I think a lot of journalists

01:11:19.180 | that operate in the war zone,

01:11:21.060 | or documentary filmmakers

01:11:22.780 | that I've recently got a chance to meet,

01:11:24.740 | have to be honest with themselves.

01:11:27.320 | Are you willing to put at risk your life for things you do?

01:11:32.320 | - What are you willing to die for?

01:11:36.020 | - Yeah, what are you willing to die for?

01:11:37.460 | It sounds very dramatic.

01:11:38.780 | But whenever risk goes up,

01:11:44.140 | I mean, I don't know, you asked that

01:11:46.060 | if you wanna take a trip out to space

01:11:48.740 | on a commercial space flight.

01:11:51.300 | Do you have to, are you willing to die for this journey?

01:11:56.220 | Now, the odds there are really small.

01:11:58.020 | - I just watched Apollo 13 again.

01:12:00.180 | Great movie. - Yeah, great movie.

01:12:01.300 | - I'm not going to space.

01:12:02.580 | (laughing)

01:12:04.260 | I'm not going to space.

01:12:05.700 | - Afraid of heights?

01:12:06.580 | - No, I'm not afraid of heights.

01:12:08.860 | It feels like a terrible place to die.

01:12:12.120 | - Yeah.

01:12:13.820 | Well, first of all, death anywhere is not great.

01:12:17.040 | - Yeah, although, I have a song teed up in my phone.

01:12:21.540 | If the plane starts to go down,

01:12:24.260 | I'm gonna spend the last few.

01:12:25.560 | It's a rare song, nobody knows it.

01:12:27.020 | It's a song off a beat track of my favorite band,

01:12:29.800 | which is Rancid, it's called "The Sentence."

01:12:32.060 | And nobody, and I love it,

01:12:34.060 | and I listen to it almost every day.

01:12:36.340 | - Rancid, "The Sentence," it's called "The Sentence."

01:12:38.220 | - The band is called Rancid, they're a famous band.

01:12:40.660 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, Rancid. - Relatively.

01:12:41.700 | Love those guys, love their music.

01:12:43.260 | And the song is "The Sentence."

01:12:44.740 | You can only find it on a B-side or outtake.

01:12:46.940 | And if you don't know how to decipher Tim Armstrong's voice,

01:12:50.940 | then you probably won't understand the lyrics,

01:12:52.500 | but because it's sung very, very fast.

01:12:55.380 | But if the plane ever goes, anytime there's turbulence,

01:12:57.420 | I put that thing in, I put the headphones in,

01:12:59.060 | I'm like, well, if it's time, it's time.

01:13:01.100 | I'm gonna go out like this.

01:13:02.380 | I don't want to drift off into the galaxy,

01:13:04.200 | just slowly asphyxiating and freezing to death.

01:13:06.460 | That sounds horrible.

01:13:08.080 | Just like I wouldn't want to drown or burn.

01:13:09.580 | - But on a plane is okay?

01:13:10.880 | - Well, on a plane, I mean,

01:13:11.720 | like if the thing starts going down

01:13:13.200 | and there's truly nothing you can do,

01:13:15.160 | you might as well at least listen to your favorite song.

01:13:17.240 | - Yeah, true, true.

01:13:18.200 | I'll probably go with the Pixies' "Where's My Mind?"

01:13:20.040 | like from Fight Club.

01:13:21.560 | And just the calmness, just sit back,

01:13:23.640 | like the musicians playing at the Titanic.

01:13:26.400 | - I didn't know you were a Pixies fan.

01:13:27.480 | I'm gonna have to--

01:13:28.320 | - Not so much a Pixies fan.

01:13:29.800 | Actually, I should say that I just,

01:13:32.700 | that was the "Where's My Mind?"

01:13:34.840 | It was the chosen song for Fight Club

01:13:37.400 | at the end when the buildings are coming down

01:13:40.760 | or something like that.

01:13:41.960 | So there's certain songs that just fit just right

01:13:46.880 | for the collapse of human civilization.

01:13:49.200 | And you're calmly appreciating like that's just it.

01:13:54.200 | This is how absurd this life is.

01:13:57.120 | At any moment, it can end and this is it.

01:13:58.800 | This is--

01:13:59.640 | - I love how we both have "Death and Demise" soundtracks.

01:14:05.520 | - It's just a question,

01:14:07.000 | when you're an academic, doesn't come up often.

01:14:10.520 | - Right, well-- - That's all.

01:14:11.920 | - Yeah, there are some academics that are bold and brave.

01:14:15.880 | It's not a phenotype.

01:14:17.920 | Being bold and brave in the physical world

01:14:19.680 | is not a common phenotype of academics.

01:14:22.040 | I mean, the great neurologist, one of my,

01:14:24.240 | I don't have many heroes, but Oliver Sacks is a true hero.

01:14:27.720 | I mean, people think of him as a writer,

01:14:30.280 | but he was foremost a neurologist

01:14:32.120 | and he took tremendous pushback from the neurology community

01:14:36.640 | for doing his books and his articles.

01:14:39.000 | He has a great biography called "On the Move."

01:14:40.920 | There's a wonderful documentary

01:14:42.080 | that just came out about him.

01:14:43.000 | He died in 2015.

01:14:44.640 | I'm actually kind of a collector of his things,

01:14:49.200 | but he had tremendous,

01:14:51.400 | but he was accused of horrible things

01:14:53.880 | until the movie "Awakenings" came out

01:14:56.280 | with De Niro and Robin Williams.

01:14:58.000 | - Amazing movie, by the way.

01:14:59.240 | People don't, they seem to not say great things

01:15:01.760 | about the movie.

01:15:02.600 | I love that movie.

01:15:03.440 | - It was amazing.

01:15:04.280 | And it was only once he became famous from that movie

01:15:08.440 | that his more academic work started

01:15:11.280 | to receive any kind of attention.

01:15:12.960 | And he was invited back to Columbia and NYU.

01:15:15.400 | You know, the New York neuroscience mafia is a real thing.

01:15:18.160 | And yes, you know who you are.

01:15:20.160 | And some of them are actually coming on the podcast.

01:15:22.600 | They are-

01:15:24.440 | - You know, I think we talked offline about this.

01:15:26.920 | We should start a mafia to fight off

01:15:30.080 | whatever's going on in the East Coast.

01:15:31.640 | Although I'm still at MIT, so I don't know how that works,

01:15:34.000 | but Boston is different than New York.

01:15:36.040 | - Yeah, so I have tremendous respect

01:15:37.440 | for science done in New York.

01:15:38.760 | Don't get me wrong.

01:15:39.600 | They are excellent scientists.

01:15:41.200 | It's just a very different culture than on the West Coast.

01:15:44.480 | And the personalities-

01:15:46.040 | - Tremendous respect for the mob.

01:15:48.880 | - Well, and the personalities are a bit more grandiose.

01:15:53.700 | However, because of some of the shift

01:15:56.240 | in science culture in the last few years,

01:15:59.320 | things around scandals and things of that sort,

01:16:03.580 | they've been forced to tamp down some of their personality

01:16:07.160 | or at least their outspoken personality.

01:16:09.400 | And I actually think it's revealed something

01:16:11.160 | really important and useful in science, which is,

01:16:13.560 | you know, it used to be the case

01:16:15.240 | you could really inject your personality into what you do.

01:16:18.440 | You know, Richard Feynman's a good example.

01:16:21.960 | If he did today what he did then,

01:16:25.120 | bongo drumming on the roof of Caltech naked,

01:16:28.700 | working out theorems in strip clubs and things like that,

01:16:31.680 | he would have lost his job in moments, right?

01:16:35.520 | So that kind of behavior isn't celebrated anymore.

01:16:37.740 | It's actually punished.

01:16:39.480 | And I'm only half kidding

01:16:40.560 | about this New York neuroscience mafia,

01:16:42.280 | but because I now exist in multiple realms,

01:16:44.160 | I can say these sorts of things.

01:16:45.200 | And I, again, admiration and respect,

01:16:47.320 | but I will say that I think it's important

01:16:50.440 | that people in science and kids that are curious

01:16:53.400 | about science understand that you can have any personality

01:16:58.080 | provided that you're ethical and respectful in science

01:17:01.220 | and do well, right?

01:17:03.040 | There are true bench scientists

01:17:05.520 | that just want to be at the bench.

01:17:07.060 | There are people that just want to be in their office.

01:17:08.580 | There are people that really enjoy public speaking.

01:17:11.520 | And there are people that love meetings

01:17:12.960 | and there are people that hate crowds.

01:17:14.360 | And so there's a place for everybody,

01:17:16.160 | truly a place for everybody in science.

01:17:19.020 | I would like to be able to shine light

01:17:21.280 | on the fact that there are,

01:17:23.200 | you can have a shy personality, an outgoing personality,

01:17:27.560 | and you can, all of those can be,

01:17:30.760 | have excellent careers in science,

01:17:32.400 | but you have to find the community in place

01:17:34.140 | that's right for you.

01:17:34.980 | One reason I like Stanford is that Stanford

01:17:37.680 | is very much about the future.

01:17:39.620 | We have Nobel prize winners,

01:17:40.960 | we have field medal winners and all that stuff,

01:17:43.020 | and their names are on walls

01:17:44.240 | and we acknowledge their great works.

01:17:46.080 | But most of what you hear about in the halls of Stanford

01:17:49.040 | is about what's happening now and what could happen next.

01:17:52.400 | It's really about the future.

01:17:53.960 | Whereas when I've spent time at other institutions

01:17:55.920 | not to be named, you hear that,

01:17:58.320 | but there's a lot of kind of recycling

01:18:00.800 | and regurgitation of how wonderful people are

01:18:03.600 | based on things they did previously.

01:18:05.800 | And the students at Stanford, because of Silicon Valley,

01:18:09.240 | sure, they have respect for Nobel prizes,

01:18:10.940 | they're delighted to be learning from

01:18:12.120 | and surrounded by all these great minds,

01:18:14.120 | but they're mostly interested in what they're gonna create.

01:18:17.600 | And so I kind of, not kind of,

01:18:19.960 | I really like the shift toward possibility

01:18:23.240 | as opposed to things that are steeped in tradition.

01:18:26.400 | You know, I've never been to high table dinner at Oxford.

01:18:28.640 | I'm sure it's a wonderful experience.

01:18:30.540 | I'm also not sure what purpose it serves for the world,

01:18:35.120 | but I've never been,

01:18:36.240 | and so I don't know what the conversations are,

01:18:37.720 | and so maybe I'm, you know, speaking out of line here.

01:18:40.920 | And now I'm definitely not getting invited.

01:18:43.040 | - No, you're definitely getting invited.

01:18:44.840 | But yeah, I'm with you.

01:18:45.760 | The culture's picked the right ones for you.

01:18:48.160 | That's why I like MIT, the spirit of it.

01:18:50.880 | To me, it's not about the past or the future.

01:18:55.140 | It's about just tinkering and having fun,

01:18:58.160 | building cool stuff.

01:18:59.480 | Like the big ambitious projects, it's there.

01:19:03.520 | I mean, maybe more in the biology and the health side,

01:19:06.640 | but like the engineering side,

01:19:08.720 | it doesn't matter if this has any impact.

01:19:10.760 | Let us build the coolest thing the world has ever built.

01:19:13.760 | - Well, there, whenever I'm in Kendall Square,

01:19:16.600 | I've seen, they have those buildings there

01:19:18.760 | that actually tilt toward the ground.

01:19:20.360 | These are these, the architecture of MIT

01:19:22.480 | is also really impressive.

01:19:24.080 | - Yeah, this, he pulled up,

01:19:25.480 | Sergey just pulled up Elon Musk's tweet.

01:19:27.360 | I'm inspired by curiosity.

01:19:28.800 | That is what drives me.

01:19:30.200 | So let us expand the scope and scale of consciousness

01:19:33.000 | so that we may aspire to understand the universe.

01:19:35.720 | Those are like three tweets in one, but curiosity, yeah,

01:19:38.800 | curiosity for its own sake.

01:19:41.720 | - What's that saying?

01:19:42.760 | I think Dorothy Parker said,

01:19:45.340 | "The cure for boredom is curiosity.

01:19:48.560 | "There's no cure for curiosity."

01:19:50.480 | - And you need to celebrate.

01:19:52.600 | So let me just briefly mention

01:19:56.080 | to my lovely friends at MIT

01:20:00.600 | to celebrate different weirdness,

01:20:03.200 | to celebrate the weird characters.

01:20:05.840 | I sometimes get loving pressure

01:20:10.800 | from my lovely friends at MIT

01:20:15.040 | to tone down the weirdness a bit.

01:20:18.600 | - Really?

01:20:19.440 | Even from MIT?

01:20:20.460 | - I'm very fortunate to have a lot of leverage

01:20:25.000 | to where I have completely resist the pressure,

01:20:29.160 | but I'm very sure that there's young faculty

01:20:32.520 | that with that subtle pressure would--

01:20:35.920 | - Dissolve them into a puddle of tears.

01:20:39.880 | - Not, no, no.

01:20:40.720 | - Are they from Boston?

01:20:41.560 | Excuse me. - From Boston, that's right.

01:20:42.880 | - They're tougher than that.

01:20:43.720 | - That's right, but it's a slight nudging

01:20:45.800 | towards conformity that I think ultimately destroys

01:20:51.320 | or at least lessens the power of the kind of science

01:20:56.320 | that you can do when you encourage diversity,

01:21:00.240 | diversity in all of its forms,

01:21:02.440 | including the weirdness of ideas,

01:21:04.200 | the out-of-the-box thinkers,

01:21:05.840 | including the flamboyant behavior online,

01:21:08.860 | how you choose to educate, how you choose to inspire.

01:21:13.680 | You know, people talk about freedom of speech,

01:21:15.260 | but it's not just like freedom of speech

01:21:17.800 | to say controversial things.

01:21:20.320 | It's also freedom of speech to be weird.

01:21:22.560 | Like if you're for some reason fascinated in,

01:21:25.940 | like you look at Elon Musk, he talks about sex a lot.

01:21:29.640 | Let the guy put sex memes up, who cares?

01:21:33.080 | - I mean, I feel like Elon can do basically

01:21:35.360 | whatever he wants.

01:21:36.400 | - Right, there's no pressure,

01:21:37.640 | but there's a bunch of Elons in the academic world,

01:21:40.360 | there's a bunch of Elo--

01:21:41.520 | No, actually, sorry, let me backtrack

01:21:44.720 | 'cause the man deserves props.

01:21:47.080 | - Right, he's unparalleled.

01:21:48.800 | He's a CEO of major companies.

01:21:50.480 | You better believe there's pressure

01:21:53.240 | to behave more like a CEO as opposed to a giggling schoolboy

01:21:57.640 | who's posting memes throughout the night.

01:22:00.120 | But that is him.

01:22:02.060 | And that freedom, that's what freedom looks like.

01:22:06.080 | I talked to a lot of CEOs,

01:22:08.080 | and a lot of them feel like caged birds

01:22:13.080 | who have long ago forgotten how to sing, quite honestly.

01:22:17.720 | Like there's like shareholders,

01:22:20.720 | and they come up with excuses for themselves.

01:22:22.640 | Here's why I have to be this way, you have to understand.

01:22:25.640 | So on, there's PR, there's marketing people,

01:22:27.840 | there's lawyers, there's all that kind of stuff.

01:22:30.280 | But the final result is the authenticity suffocated.

01:22:35.080 | The beautiful weirdness of a CEO,

01:22:38.440 | of a leader, of a creator, of a scientist, all that,

01:22:41.640 | that's all gone.

01:22:45.040 | - Well, Steve Jobs wouldn't have kept his job

01:22:49.080 | and acting the way he did in his 20s and 30s

01:22:52.080 | in today's climate,

01:22:53.520 | but he probably would have updated his protocols,

01:22:57.200 | so to speak. - A little bit, but maybe.

01:22:59.720 | - You know, he's screaming at employees.

01:23:01.080 | I mean, these are anecdotes, right?

01:23:02.920 | I call them anic-data because people treat them as data,

01:23:05.800 | but they're really just anecdotes.

01:23:07.160 | We don't know, I wasn't there.

01:23:08.660 | But I like the idea of authenticity without oversharing.

01:23:15.680 | You're very authentic, but there are aspects to your life

01:23:19.640 | that I'm aware of that your audiences will never be aware of

01:23:22.360 | and there are aspects of your life

01:23:23.280 | that I'll never be aware of.

01:23:24.360 | And so you're still authentic.

01:23:26.320 | - Yeah, wait, which ones are you aware of?

01:23:29.520 | People are gonna wonder, like,

01:23:30.640 | what is this, you have a sex dungeon?

01:23:32.880 | What is this? - No, no, no.

01:23:35.380 | But interesting choice of examples.

01:23:37.700 | No, but I think that people lose careers

01:23:44.400 | on the basis of the movement of their thumbs, right?

01:23:47.480 | I mean, the chair of psychiatry at Columbia

01:23:50.360 | recently lost his position based on a response to a tweet.

01:23:55.360 | People can look that up.

01:23:56.480 | This is one of the most famous

01:23:57.360 | psychiatry departments in the world.

01:23:59.240 | And he put something out there

01:24:01.000 | that was very insensitive, frankly.

01:24:03.040 | And everyone that I talked to about it was like,

01:24:06.280 | gosh, that was very, very insensitive, not thoughtful at all

01:24:10.080 | and he lost his job, right?

01:24:11.920 | Or at least had to step down, I don't know the specifics.

01:24:14.240 | So, you know, I think I read someplace

01:24:18.680 | that more than half of the job loss due to online behavior

01:24:22.720 | is because people were trying to be funny, right?

01:24:25.920 | I mean, not everyone can pull off what Tim Dillon,

01:24:29.760 | oh, and by the way, congratulations.

01:24:31.000 | I heard that you and Tim just got married.

01:24:32.520 | Yeah, I saw that. - No, no,

01:24:33.360 | we didn't just get married.

01:24:34.360 | He proposed. - Engaged.

01:24:35.560 | Got it, got it, got it.

01:24:36.400 | - And I said, yes. - Right.

01:24:38.160 | So some people can get away, oh yeah.

01:24:40.640 | - Thank you, thank you, Sergey.

01:24:41.960 | Has that ready to go. - See those 13.3 thousand likes?

01:24:46.160 | One of those is mine.

01:24:48.160 | - So for people who are not aware,

01:24:49.800 | one of the days in April tweeted

01:24:52.240 | that Tim Dillon asked me to get married and I said yes.

01:24:55.240 | I think Tim said, "The wedding will be on 6th Street

01:24:59.360 | "in Austin, bring all of your weapons,"

01:25:01.320 | which of course is totally inappropriate.

01:25:03.360 | This is, I was funny. - He's a comedian.

01:25:06.640 | - I was like PG funny and he's goes rated R funny

01:25:11.680 | right away, but that said, I mean, if there's anyone

01:25:16.280 | I would like to get married with, it's that guy.

01:25:20.080 | And we would do it in Austin and it would be epic.

01:25:24.440 | It would be like the wedding from November Rain.

01:25:28.240 | - Mr. and Mrs.

01:25:32.520 | - Oh wow. - Oh, Mr. and Mr.

01:25:33.720 | I apologize. - Wow, yeah,

01:25:34.720 | and you broke tradition with the jacket color.

01:25:38.800 | So it sounds to me that you are a free speech absolutist.

01:25:42.760 | - I think freedom is really important

01:25:44.560 | and that includes letting people who are hateful,

01:25:48.440 | letting people who are controversial

01:25:51.200 | have a voice on platforms, but it becomes,

01:25:55.240 | I'm not sure what exactly to think because

01:25:57.640 | I also treasure the quiet voices in the back of the room

01:26:05.560 | and sometimes the assholes silence those voices,

01:26:10.560 | meaning by being loud and obnoxious and so on,

01:26:14.280 | it pushes away the thoughtful people.

01:26:16.440 | So I'm also a fan of creating communities.

01:26:19.340 | Like you should be able to let people kind of

01:26:23.200 | build a community that's positive, that's loving,

01:26:27.600 | or that's constantly trolling, or that's super hateful.

01:26:33.920 | All those communities should have a place in the world,

01:26:37.080 | but the thing I've noticed is that hate can destroy,

01:26:42.080 | a community full of hate can destroy a community

01:26:45.720 | full of love easier than a community full of love

01:26:49.520 | can overtake one with hate.

01:26:51.000 | And so you have to kind of, I don't know exactly how,

01:26:54.000 | but create digital mechanisms that discourage

01:26:58.740 | the collision of these communities.

01:27:00.320 | They should all have a platform and ability to speak

01:27:03.480 | and to a large audience, but I just,

01:27:06.160 | you have to be careful to protect that like little flame

01:27:08.760 | of connection that people have.

01:27:12.320 | - Yeah, that's good, the goodness, it sounds like.

01:27:14.440 | I mean, yeah, I think in any great city, like New York,

01:27:19.440 | which I love, by the way,

01:27:21.480 | you want to have a symphony in an opera house

01:27:24.740 | and you want some punk rock shows happening

01:27:26.400 | on the Lower East Side.

01:27:27.400 | You want all of that.

01:27:29.520 | You just don't necessarily want them to overlap.

01:27:32.160 | In terms of social media,

01:27:33.840 | and then podcasts and engagement,

01:27:36.040 | one thing that I decided very early on

01:27:38.600 | is was to encourage comments and feedback, et cetera.

01:27:41.260 | But I have in my mind what I call classroom rules.

01:27:44.980 | You've taught in the university

01:27:46.180 | and then you teach in the university

01:27:48.040 | and you establish a certain etiquette within the classroom

01:27:51.600 | of the kinds of questions that you'll tolerate, right?

01:27:54.120 | So there's always the student that's gonna ask a question,

01:27:56.320 | which is basically a 10 minute monologue

01:27:58.320 | about their experience that really isn't a question

01:28:00.120 | that pertains to a lot of people.

01:28:01.540 | So you politely discourage that kind of question

01:28:04.600 | and you encourage the kinds of questions

01:28:05.800 | that are likely to be in the minds of many other students.

01:28:08.180 | It's just more efficient that way.

01:28:09.520 | - Or not politely, which is much better.

01:28:12.440 | - You know, I try and respond to comments

01:28:14.100 | and I try and respond,

01:28:15.160 | but also, you know,

01:28:16.000 | there's this also this really interesting question.

01:28:17.840 | Now, if you block people or restrict people,

01:28:20.640 | people think that you're somehow afraid

01:28:22.080 | of the information that they're posting,

01:28:23.800 | but that's often not the case.

01:28:25.600 | I'm not in the habit of blocking

01:28:26.760 | or restricting too many people.

01:28:27.840 | Occasionally we've had to do it

01:28:29.400 | only because of how other people

01:28:30.760 | are being treated in the comment section.

01:28:32.900 | What I can take and what I think other people deserve to take

01:28:35.300 | are two completely different things.

01:28:37.100 | David Goggins, right, who we both know well,

01:28:40.020 | I don't know if he still does this,

01:28:40.920 | but a few years ago he posted something like,

01:28:42.960 | if people ask him, "When do you sleep?"

01:28:45.900 | He would just block them.

01:28:48.060 | Because it wasn't consistent with what he was trying to say.

01:28:49.940 | Of course he sleeps,

01:28:50.780 | but it's, you know,

01:28:51.640 | he's trying to get a particular message out.

01:28:53.300 | I think people should just understand

01:28:54.600 | that everybody's page is their own to moderate, right?

01:28:59.500 | Just like in a classroom,

01:29:00.540 | there are certain rules, of course, of institution,

01:29:03.280 | but then you establish the etiquette

01:29:05.160 | within the context of the kind of class.

01:29:06.680 | You know, a class about personality psychology

01:29:09.160 | or the psychology of love,

01:29:11.380 | you're going to have a very different range of conversations

01:29:14.920 | than a class on membrane physiology.

01:29:19.200 | So I think social media is a great place for conversation,

01:29:25.160 | but it's not necessarily a great place

01:29:26.880 | for every kind of conversation.

01:29:28.460 | - Yeah, and I also should say

01:29:29.580 | that people that do get blocked,

01:29:31.560 | I never, this is something I do very deliberately,

01:29:35.260 | blocked or ignored, I never think poorly of them.

01:29:38.960 | I actually explicitly think,

01:29:41.980 | if there's somebody that's saying hateful things

01:29:44.760 | about me or whatever, I always think positive thoughts.

01:29:47.540 | It's not some kind of weird guru thing,

01:29:49.680 | but I just actually found that as a hack.

01:29:52.160 | I think well of them,

01:29:53.720 | and that allows me to never think of them again.

01:29:56.680 | Like I send them my love,

01:29:58.200 | and I think this is a fascinating human being

01:30:01.200 | with a fascinating story.

01:30:02.800 | I would love to have time to actually learn

01:30:04.600 | about their story,

01:30:05.440 | but there's not enough time in the world,

01:30:07.160 | and I just think well of them,

01:30:08.600 | and then I move on and enjoy a delicious meal

01:30:11.880 | with people that are close to me and I love and so on,

01:30:14.600 | and just move on.

01:30:16.660 | And never adding to the negativity of like,

01:30:19.320 | just even in the privacy of my own mind,

01:30:21.520 | thinking a hateful thought towards them.

01:30:23.680 | It serves no purpose whatsoever.

01:30:25.480 | - Yeah, I love that about you,

01:30:27.080 | and I know that what you just said to be true.

01:30:29.540 | One of the, I think more toxic things in life

01:30:33.920 | is what's called, you know, evacutive projection.

01:30:37.760 | When people feel something and they try and evacuate it

01:30:40.260 | and project it onto somebody else.

01:30:41.520 | Projection is fascinating, right?

01:30:43.240 | What you essentially just said

01:30:44.400 | is that you don't accept projections.

01:30:46.700 | In fact, you transmute them,

01:30:49.000 | to put in the language of the Buddhists, you know.

01:30:51.320 | You transmute it into positivity,

01:30:53.280 | and in that way you truly neutralize it.

01:30:56.700 | And transmute it.

01:30:58.540 | I think that if people were better understood

01:31:02.900 | when they were experiencing

01:31:04.340 | or observing evacutive projection,

01:31:06.500 | the world would be a much healthier and happier place.

01:31:11.580 | But it requires a certain stable internal rudder.

01:31:14.780 | And, you know, when we're tired or sick or angry,

01:31:18.300 | you know, we're hungry, excessively hungry,

01:31:21.460 | all of us are less good at it.

01:31:23.460 | I've been positively struck

01:31:24.980 | by the nature of most of the interactions.

01:31:27.760 | Not just feedback, but my favorite thing,

01:31:30.940 | as an educator in the classroom,

01:31:32.340 | but also on social media,

01:31:33.420 | my absolute favorite thing is when the comments

01:31:36.340 | about other people's comments are positively reinforcing.

01:31:39.700 | So you see people having conversations

01:31:41.580 | within the comments.

01:31:42.940 | And you realize, this is like if you,

01:31:44.340 | as an educator, again, you know,

01:31:46.220 | it's fun to teach and it's fun to talk to the students,

01:31:48.540 | but the real pleasure is in walking by

01:31:50.900 | a small group of students on campus

01:31:53.180 | and hearing them talking about the material.

01:31:55.920 | That just fills me with joy.

01:31:58.380 | And because what it means is that

01:32:01.100 | the ideas are reverberating in their nervous systems

01:32:03.840 | and will eventually wick out to others.

01:32:06.260 | So it's not just about feedback,

01:32:07.700 | it's about a venue for parsing information.

01:32:11.140 | - So you actually posted that we're gonna talk on Instagram

01:32:13.700 | and I collected a bunch of the questions,

01:32:15.460 | which reminds me of,

01:32:16.700 | I have to mention Mike Jones

01:32:21.040 | and a question he asked,

01:32:22.840 | but also a gift he gave quite a while ago, if it's okay.

01:32:26.840 | But first, a quick bathroom break.

01:32:29.160 | - Yes.

01:32:30.440 | - We're looking at Instagram page of Mike Jones,

01:32:33.200 | knife and tool, you should check it out.

01:32:35.220 | Andrew gave me a gift from him

01:32:39.480 | that is a badass butcher knife.

01:32:44.200 | "Yours is the earth, dot, dot, dot."

01:32:46.680 | It's from "If" by Eric Scherr, Kipling.

01:32:48.840 | - Yeah, the story of this knife is kind of interesting,

01:32:52.040 | perhaps to people where,

01:32:53.740 | I was coming out here to Austin to meet with Lex

01:32:56.120 | and it was his birthday.

01:32:57.920 | I wanna get him a gift, but I didn't know what to get him.

01:33:00.160 | And I contacted this guy, Mike Jones,

01:33:02.480 | that I learned about through Joe Rogan.

01:33:04.480 | 'Cause the first, remember in the old days of Joe Rogan,

01:33:08.380 | when you go on the episode afterwards,

01:33:09.920 | you'd take a picture with an object.

01:33:11.680 | So it was like Elon with a flamethrower,

01:33:13.840 | people would have the ax.

01:33:14.760 | I picked up this bushwhacker hatchet thing.

01:33:18.560 | - Nice.

01:33:19.400 | - And I was like, I love this thing.

01:33:21.080 | And Joe said, "Oh yeah,

01:33:22.000 | you should check out Mike Jones's work.

01:33:24.280 | He does these beautiful knives."

01:33:25.520 | And so then I heard your episode with Joe

01:33:29.200 | and you recited a poem at the end.

01:33:31.160 | It was right after your grandmother died.

01:33:33.320 | And there's a line in that poem from "If"

01:33:36.880 | that Mike engraved on that knife for you.

01:33:39.520 | So he makes these by hand.

01:33:41.760 | I love, there it is, the old days of Joe Rogan.

01:33:45.080 | [both laughing]

01:33:46.400 | Before the podcast and all that.

01:33:47.760 | - That's his first appearance.

01:33:48.800 | - That was the first time on there.

01:33:50.600 | And it was a lot of fun.

01:33:52.880 | In the old studio in Los Angeles.

01:33:55.360 | And yeah, Mike makes these beautiful knives.

01:33:59.160 | And I have this,

01:34:00.480 | I just have a great admiration for crafts people.

01:34:04.520 | So yeah.

01:34:05.720 | Do you use it?

01:34:06.560 | Do you cut your one meal a day steaks with it?

01:34:08.520 | - I feel.

01:34:10.160 | - Are you taking it with you on your travels?

01:34:11.640 | - Exactly.

01:34:12.840 | I actually used to keep it on the table,

01:34:15.280 | but I thought it really intimidates guests.

01:34:18.320 | - A little bit.

01:34:19.160 | You can put it on their side.

01:34:20.920 | - Yeah.

01:34:21.760 | - Right.

01:34:22.600 | - It's like, oops.

01:34:23.440 | - It's trust, right?

01:34:25.000 | - What's the story?

01:34:26.320 | I mean, yeah.

01:34:27.480 | But it's 'cause it's not,

01:34:28.920 | it's quite badass if I may say.

01:34:33.600 | So the craftsmanship is obvious,

01:34:35.520 | but also it is a knife.

01:34:37.880 | - It's got some like Dexter-like qualities to it.

01:34:40.120 | - Yeah.

01:34:40.960 | - It looks like it's designed to cleave through a limb.

01:34:43.640 | - If I had like a family or something where people,

01:34:46.040 | there's nothing about this place that softens your

01:34:49.560 | kind of sense that this person might not murder me.

01:34:54.560 | - Let's put it differently.

01:34:56.760 | This place could use a woman's touch.

01:34:58.880 | (laughing)

01:34:59.720 | - That's one way to put it.

01:35:00.800 | If it's okay, let me, because it is a poem I

01:35:03.760 | go to often, actually.

01:35:08.280 | You mentioned reciting some lyrics,

01:35:10.760 | and I'm actually gonna go back to that at some point

01:35:13.240 | to get a few songs that touch you.

01:35:15.560 | But this is one of the things I go to often.

01:35:20.120 | I'll read it to remind myself.

01:35:23.200 | It's advice from a father to son,

01:35:27.960 | and it's a kind of mantra that it's just nice to live by.

01:35:31.120 | So if it's okay, let me just use this opportunity

01:35:33.600 | one more time, read "If" by Roger Kipling.

01:35:36.520 | If you can keep your head when all about you

01:35:38.800 | are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

01:35:41.520 | if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

01:35:44.280 | but make allowance for their doubting too,

01:35:47.000 | if you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

01:35:49.920 | or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

01:35:53.000 | or being hated, don't give way to hating,

01:35:55.920 | and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise.

01:35:59.720 | If you can dream and not make dreams your master,

01:36:02.720 | if you can think and not make thoughts your aim,

01:36:05.880 | if you can meet with triumph and disaster

01:36:08.320 | and treat those two imposters just the same,

01:36:11.440 | if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken,

01:36:14.200 | twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

01:36:17.040 | or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

01:36:20.720 | and stoop and build them up with worn out tools,

01:36:24.440 | if you can make one heap of all your winnings

01:36:27.000 | and risk it all on one turn of pitch and toss,

01:36:30.760 | and lose and start again at your beginnings,

01:36:34.200 | and never breathe a word about your loss,

01:36:37.200 | if you can force your heart to nerve and sinew

01:36:40.000 | to serve your turn long after they're gone,

01:36:43.040 | and so hold on when there's nothing in you

01:36:46.200 | except the will which says to them, hold on.

01:36:49.280 | If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

01:36:53.240 | I like this one, and walk with kings

01:36:55.680 | nor lose the common touch,

01:36:57.640 | if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

01:37:00.680 | if all men count with you, but none too much,

01:37:05.560 | if you can fill the unforgiving minute

01:37:07.960 | with 60 seconds worth of distance run,

01:37:10.600 | yours is the earth and everything that's in it,

01:37:15.680 | and which is more, you'll be a man, my son.

01:37:19.080 | Thank you, Andrew, thank you, thank you, Mike, for the knife.

01:37:22.760 | I don't know.

01:37:23.600 | It's an important poem.

01:37:24.880 | - And engraved in it, yeah, it's yours.

01:37:28.040 | - Yours is the earth and everything that's in it.

01:37:31.320 | - We toiled over what to engrave,

01:37:34.120 | and then finally I just said,

01:37:35.960 | Mike, just pick something that speaks to you.

01:37:38.840 | You're the craftsman, and so he selected that.

01:37:41.080 | - There's certain ways to pull yourself in that book.

01:37:42.920 | Actually, Carl Dyseroth, he wrote the book "Projections."

01:37:47.920 | One of my favorite, first of all, just as you said,

01:37:51.520 | incredible writer, just, I mean,

01:37:55.600 | if you wrote fiction, if you wrote those kinds of things,

01:37:58.960 | I'm curious to see where he goes with his writing.

01:38:01.600 | It's very interesting.

01:38:02.440 | - I think that book took him 10 years to write,

01:38:04.860 | which is vindication for me and for you,

01:38:06.520 | 'cause we're both supposed to write books,

01:38:07.840 | and we haven't done it.

01:38:09.040 | (laughing)

01:38:10.680 | - Yeah, I mean, in some sense,

01:38:13.600 | your first book will have decades in it, right?

01:38:18.600 | Even if you just take half a year to write it.

01:38:23.620 | It's like the first book, like the first album for a musician,

01:38:27.280 | I mean, it's a journey.

01:38:30.420 | But he uses poems and quotes in there really well.

01:38:35.140 | - It's a beautiful book.

01:38:36.020 | It's a dreamy book.

01:38:36.860 | I think when people hear that it's a book about neuroscience,

01:38:39.540 | they think they're gonna get a textbook

01:38:41.240 | or a protocols book or something.

01:38:42.940 | It's nothing like that, but it really is a deep dive

01:38:45.800 | into the mind of the psychiatrist and the researcher,

01:38:48.140 | and so much feeling and compassion.

01:38:50.600 | I love that you love poetry.

01:38:51.860 | I mean, I didn't know that

01:38:52.780 | until I saw you on "Rogan Read If,"

01:38:55.740 | and I'm not a very rabid consumer of poetry,

01:39:00.740 | but I'm a big Wendell Berry fan,

01:39:03.180 | and I try and read a poem once every few days.

01:39:10.640 | Also, I think if is a tough act to follow.

01:39:13.440 | - Oh yeah, oh yeah.

01:39:14.800 | - I mean, it's the richness,

01:39:17.080 | and I mean, you said every third line in there

01:39:21.120 | is something that you'd consider your life well-lived

01:39:25.480 | if you said that, right?

01:39:27.780 | - What about the preparation for the solo podcast?

01:39:31.480 | You said you listen to certain songs,

01:39:33.200 | you sing or recite the lyrics to certain songs.

01:39:37.220 | Is there ones that kind of come to mind

01:39:39.360 | that are interesting?

01:39:40.420 | - Yeah, I've always been very lyrics-driven,

01:39:43.660 | and I don't understand music.

01:39:45.440 | I've talked to Rick about this.

01:39:46.640 | I think I've talked to you about this a little bit.

01:39:47.760 | I don't really understand.

01:39:49.200 | I mean, I can hear music and like it,

01:39:53.960 | but I don't really understand the structure of it,

01:39:56.600 | but lyrics make a lot of sense to me.

01:39:57.440 | - But does it touch your soul, music, or is it the lyrics?

01:40:00.400 | - It's the lyrics, it's not the instrumentals.

01:40:02.300 | So I'm a huge Joe Strummer fan,

01:40:04.120 | and I'm gonna lose punk points for saying this,

01:40:05.920 | but I'm not a Clash fan.

01:40:07.360 | - Oh, okay.

01:40:08.320 | - So he obviously is best known for the Clash.

01:40:10.240 | Most Clash songs start off great,

01:40:12.640 | and then after about 30 seconds,

01:40:14.600 | at least in my mind,

01:40:15.500 | just kind of disintegrate into a bunch of mush,

01:40:17.840 | whereas Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros,

01:40:21.100 | which is what he did as an adult,

01:40:23.320 | as a, you know, later,

01:40:24.840 | and some of his solo work.

01:40:25.880 | He actually, Rick produced some work

01:40:28.000 | that he did with Johnny Cash.

01:40:29.800 | You know, Rick pulled Johnny Cash out of,

01:40:31.920 | essentially out of retirement

01:40:33.080 | and had him do his albums before he died.

01:40:35.920 | And so anything that Strummer did,

01:40:38.360 | there's a favorite song of mine by Strummer.

01:40:40.920 | It's called "Burning Lights."

01:40:43.000 | You can find it,

01:40:43.840 | there is an album now where you can find it,

01:40:45.400 | or "Tennessee Rain,"

01:40:46.360 | or some of these things that he did,

01:40:47.280 | which are a little bit more folky,

01:40:48.560 | so not really punk.

01:40:49.900 | So I love that song.

01:40:52.120 | Bunch of songs by Rancid that I love.

01:40:54.400 | - Yeah, Rancid is great.

01:40:55.240 | - You know, and then if I listen to instrumentals,

01:40:57.880 | I do, I'll listen to classical piano.

01:41:01.760 | - Some dreams are made for children.

01:41:04.360 | - But it's not gonna sound good as a poem.

01:41:06.100 | They can play the, people can play the song.

01:41:07.720 | - Play the song, okay.

01:41:08.760 | - Yeah, so I'll, I mean, 'cause it has to be sung,

01:41:12.880 | Joe's voice is what makes the song.

01:41:14.880 | - Got it.

01:41:15.880 | - Joe's voice is what makes the song.

01:41:17.120 | But yeah, that song "Burning Lights"

01:41:18.760 | from "I Hired a Contract Killer."

01:41:21.800 | - I don't know, the lyrics are pretty good.

01:41:23.080 | - They're pretty good.

01:41:23.920 | I mean, Joe is an amazing writer, right?

01:41:25.480 | I'm a, you know, I'm also a big Bob Dylan fan.

01:41:27.920 | Glenn Gould for classical piano.

01:41:30.040 | He was at Asperger's, you know,

01:41:31.920 | and actually I think you can hear him grunting.

01:41:34.400 | He had a Tourette's-like tick.

01:41:35.880 | And I learned about Glenn Gould from Oliver Sacks.

01:41:40.640 | So I'll listen to any number of things.

01:41:42.080 | It depends on my mood.

01:41:43.060 | If I'm feeling a little more tired

01:41:44.180 | and I need to be amped up,

01:41:45.680 | I'll listen to something that's a little louder and faster.

01:41:48.040 | If I'm feeling kind of keyed up

01:41:49.560 | and I need to bring the cadence down a little bit,

01:41:52.060 | then I'll listen to something a little mellower, poppier.

01:41:55.880 | I love bands like, yeah,

01:41:59.280 | I'm a big fan of this British pop band called James.

01:42:02.880 | There's like 20 bands named James, but this one, you know,

01:42:05.880 | and again, I lose punk points for saying that,

01:42:07.680 | but they're amazing.

01:42:09.320 | And Best Live- - I think you've accumulated

01:42:10.720 | enough points where you can afford to lose a few.

01:42:13.760 | - Yeah.

01:42:15.120 | But in any case, yeah, music and poetry are,

01:42:18.800 | they're the subconscious, right?

01:42:21.840 | I mean, if you think about a Bob Dylan song

01:42:23.560 | or a really good strummer song or a poem

01:42:25.920 | that the words don't mean anything when read linearly,

01:42:29.040 | but they make you feel something,

01:42:30.640 | they're tapping into the subconscious.

01:42:32.840 | That's really what they're doing.

01:42:34.080 | They're pulling on neural threads of emotion

01:42:38.400 | based on either timbre or cadence

01:42:41.240 | or something that's independent of the word structure.

01:42:45.440 | And that to me is the beauty of music and poetry.

01:42:48.600 | - I often say Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt,"

01:42:51.680 | that I say would be my favorite song ever.

01:42:55.000 | - Well, he did a Nine Inch Nails song.

01:42:56.640 | - He did, he covered- - I think Rick produced that.

01:42:58.480 | - He produced- - Pretty sure he produced that.

01:42:59.320 | - Yeah, he produced it.

01:43:01.040 | I mean, he did, like Rick produced the,

01:43:04.080 | he pulled Johnny Cash out from a dark place

01:43:07.960 | to produce something that, I mean,

01:43:11.000 | when you look back, is one of the great things ever in music,

01:43:15.400 | which are these like haunting covers

01:43:19.320 | of certain songs and originals.

01:43:21.920 | - Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer did a version

01:43:25.120 | of "Redemption Song" together that Rick produced,

01:43:30.000 | which is on loop in my house sometimes,

01:43:33.760 | for hours and hours.

01:43:35.520 | - That song is fascinating.

01:43:36.960 | Bob Marley's song.

01:43:38.680 | - Sung by Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer.

01:43:40.800 | Sometimes I think what it would be to be a fly on the wall

01:43:44.720 | when these guys were doing this stuff.

01:43:46.080 | - These songs of freedom.

01:43:47.760 | There's certain songs where you're like,

01:43:51.120 | elicit an emotion that's unlike anything else.

01:43:58.600 | I mean, I was trying to figure that out with Rick too.

01:44:01.960 | Like there's certain songs that make you wanna pull out

01:44:04.560 | over to the side of the road and just weep

01:44:07.280 | or just get inspired to just get shit done

01:44:11.640 | or all of those kinds of things.

01:44:13.200 | Remember your family, the people you've lost,

01:44:16.600 | all that kind of stuff.

01:44:17.440 | And you hurt.

01:44:18.280 | I hurt myself today to see if I still feel.

01:44:22.920 | - There's certain songs that I've loved so much

01:44:26.080 | that I actually won't play them during a relationship

01:44:29.360 | until the relationship passes a certain duration.

01:44:32.640 | Because if you start sharing in those experiences

01:44:35.560 | with somebody in the room

01:44:36.680 | and it starts to become associated with the relationship,

01:44:39.320 | you braiding it in with the dopamine of love

01:44:42.680 | and that relationship ends, the song is forever tainted.

01:44:45.480 | There are certain songs that I will never play

01:44:47.200 | in the company of anybody else.

01:44:49.260 | They're mine.

01:44:50.100 | It's too risky to give those up.

01:44:55.000 | - There's like levels.

01:45:00.720 | - There are levels, right.

01:45:02.800 | Exactly.

01:45:04.040 | We'll leave it at that.

01:45:05.840 | - Yeah, and the interesting thing about

01:45:09.560 | this kind of preparing for the solo episode,

01:45:12.860 | just interacting with Rick about that process

01:45:17.120 | of preparation and,

01:45:18.600 | 'cause you mentioned with interviews,

01:45:23.400 | by the way, are you do solo, solo?

01:45:25.120 | Are you the only one in the room or not?

01:45:27.960 | - Well, it used to be Rob, my producer,

01:45:30.160 | who I should say, he's really the person behind the podcast.

01:45:35.160 | I mean, first of all, we're equal partners in everything.

01:45:37.520 | - You're just a pretty face.

01:45:39.760 | - We're just, and I'm aging, man.

01:45:41.920 | Not to, I actually really, I like aging.

01:45:45.520 | It's weird.

01:45:46.360 | A lot of people, like friends with David Sinclair

01:45:47.880 | and it's all about not aging.

01:45:49.520 | I don't want to live past 90, 95.

01:45:52.520 | I'm just trying to get as much done as I can

01:45:54.320 | in this short life and do it right

01:45:56.000 | and with integrity and heart and accuracy.

01:45:59.520 | - And you like the stages.

01:46:02.440 | - Oh yeah.

01:46:03.260 | If you read Erickson's "Stages of Development,"

01:46:05.340 | you realize that every stage of life

01:46:08.620 | is a set of neural circuits trying to resolve a problem.

01:46:12.120 | And if you're going to try and avoid that progression,

01:46:16.140 | sure, you might live longer,

01:46:18.320 | but it's sort of like saying,

01:46:21.160 | do you want to go win the high school jujitsu championship?

01:46:25.400 | No, you graduated high school a long time ago, right?

01:46:28.540 | So I actually look forward to the future,

01:46:32.160 | even if it means that I'm starting to shift.

01:46:34.960 | I think that my biology will shift.

01:46:37.080 | I'll fight that, I try and take good care of myself,

01:46:39.140 | but I don't want to get sick.

01:46:41.140 | I don't want to suffer, who does?

01:46:43.060 | But I'm embracing this whole developmental arc.

01:46:46.580 | I mean, we're not children and then adults.

01:46:49.780 | Our entire life is one long developmental arc.

01:46:52.820 | And if you fail to embrace that,

01:46:54.780 | you fail to extract the richness

01:46:56.420 | of what it is to be a human being.

01:46:58.620 | So in any event, I record, Rob is in the room.

01:47:05.780 | I'll sometimes stop and ask him for feedback

01:47:08.080 | if I feel like something's not landing right.

01:47:09.720 | So he gives, if it's clear, he'll let me know.

01:47:11.600 | If it's not clear, he'll let me know, excuse me.

01:47:13.360 | And then Costello used to be in the room,

01:47:15.600 | the early days of the podcast, which weren't that long ago.

01:47:19.320 | He's snoring at my feet and farting and smelling up the room

01:47:23.160 | and we're all just kind of like gasping for air.

01:47:24.960 | He's a bulldog, that's what they do.

01:47:26.840 | With him gone, it changed, the whole thing changed.

01:47:30.200 | There will be another dog soon.

01:47:32.680 | And as you know, I've been moving through that grief process

01:47:36.540 | but having him there gave me a levity that I miss.

01:47:41.540 | But in my mind, he's still there.

01:47:43.180 | - Yeah, he's still there.

01:47:44.020 | - Yeah, he's still there.

01:47:44.900 | So, and in time there'll be another dog and who knows,

01:47:48.940 | maybe there'll be a dog and a couple infants running around,

01:47:51.320 | but that would be more distracting.

01:47:53.120 | But there's no podcast that exists

01:47:58.060 | just because of the podcaster.

01:47:59.580 | This is true for Joe, this is true for your podcast for me.

01:48:02.500 | There's, it's not just a staff of people to post stuff.

01:48:05.260 | That's just the top level contour.

01:48:07.080 | There's the constant feedback and iteration

01:48:09.240 | of what you want it to become

01:48:11.640 | and trying to hold on to something

01:48:14.560 | that's essential along the way.

01:48:16.560 | 'Cause everything has to evolve,

01:48:17.660 | but you can't lose the essence of something.

01:48:20.480 | Anytime a company or brand or a course

01:48:24.120 | or a scientist has done that, it just ends up terrible.

01:48:27.840 | It just is a, you know,

01:48:28.880 | it becomes like a cenotaur version of itself.

01:48:31.420 | - So to Rick is very,

01:48:33.600 | the power of the people in the room is great

01:48:36.920 | to inspire and to destroy.

01:48:39.720 | So you have to be extremely careful

01:48:42.120 | with the selection of people that are in the room.

01:48:44.480 | To me, I never really thought of it that way.

01:48:47.380 | I thought only positive things can happen.

01:48:50.960 | - Oh, by adding people in the room.

01:48:51.800 | - By adding people in the room.

01:48:52.720 | - Oh, I think if there were an audience in the room,

01:48:55.320 | well, you know what?

01:48:56.160 | Someday I'd love to do a live podcast with you.

01:48:59.000 | We're doing--

01:48:59.840 | - I think you're doing like a couple of live things,

01:49:02.000 | which is great that you're paving the way there to--

01:49:04.380 | - Well, we did one.

01:49:05.320 | I went up to University of British Columbia

01:49:07.420 | and did a lecture on a college campus.

01:49:11.700 | And one of the more gratifying things that happens,

01:49:13.860 | this kid, he's in his early 20s, I think,

01:49:16.060 | stood up and said, "You know,

01:49:17.540 | I've never been on a college campus.

01:49:19.740 | I didn't think I could go onto a college campus."

01:49:22.140 | And that still rings in my mind.

01:49:23.500 | Whoever you are out there, that meant so much to me.

01:49:25.340 | 'Cause I was like, yes.

01:49:26.600 | There was something about that to me.

01:49:27.740 | I was like, okay, it made sense to come all the way up here

01:49:30.580 | and do this in person.

01:49:31.620 | 'Cause you can get out to a lot more people online.

01:49:34.700 | Public speaking events,

01:49:35.660 | it's not like it's that lucrative or anything.

01:49:37.580 | I mean, unless you're, whatever,

01:49:39.320 | you're a famous celebrity or politician or something.

01:49:41.780 | I'm sure there are people that do well with it,

01:49:43.100 | but that's not what it's about for us.

01:49:44.700 | It's really about being able to connect with people

01:49:47.240 | in a different venue and for interactions like that.

01:49:50.440 | I don't know how many of them we will do,

01:49:52.700 | but I'm curious to see how it goes.

01:49:55.500 | But I'd love to do a podcast with you.

01:49:57.940 | - Is it energizing?

01:49:59.020 | My fear is the fear of the introvert,

01:50:03.780 | is that I don't know if I can handle so much love

01:50:08.020 | and fascinating people all around.

01:50:11.940 | It's like, I don't know.

01:50:14.100 | - Well, we'll invite a few haters too.

01:50:16.180 | - Well, yes.

01:50:17.740 | But I love the haters too.

01:50:18.700 | But I don't know, it makes me nervous.

01:50:20.880 | 'Cause Jordan Peterson's currently on tour.

01:50:23.140 | I got a chance to hang out with him when he was here.

01:50:25.300 | - He does a lot of live speaking.

01:50:28.180 | - Yeah, he's now on tour where he does every other day.

01:50:31.880 | - But he doesn't have any small kids at home anymore.

01:50:35.460 | So you can do that.

01:50:36.580 | So yeah, you should do it before you have a family.

01:50:37.420 | - It's also exhausting.

01:50:39.020 | I mean, I'm just speaking from an athlete perspective.

01:50:42.500 | If you're Mick Jagger with the Rolling Stones,

01:50:45.980 | it's just physically, I mean,

01:50:49.900 | you have to speak potentially for two hours,

01:50:53.300 | then off stage, like hanging out with people.

01:50:57.100 | - It's a lot.

01:50:57.940 | - It's a lot of hours.

01:50:58.980 | It's a lot of hours to stay focused,

01:51:01.060 | to keep finding your place of like calmness and excitement.

01:51:05.020 | - Well, and you're staying in hotels,

01:51:06.260 | your circadian rhythm's disrupted.

01:51:08.100 | You're not getting your like cold and sauna

01:51:09.980 | and your workout every day, your food isn't optimal.

01:51:13.340 | I think done in patches, I could enjoy it.

01:51:16.180 | 'Cause it's fun to meet people from different places.

01:51:17.780 | I'm doing a public lecture in Copenhagen

01:51:20.460 | for the Lundbeck Foundation in June, June 3rd.

01:51:23.380 | And that one is particularly gratifying for me

01:51:25.540 | because the Lundbeck Foundation is an academic foundation.

01:51:28.100 | So the fact that, and then so when they invited,

01:51:30.020 | I asked, do you want me to talk about what my lab does?

01:51:32.220 | Or do you want me to talk about the stuff on the podcast?

01:51:34.100 | They're like, no, no, not your lab.

01:51:35.980 | We want to hear about this like health stuff

01:51:37.980 | and the stuff that we cover on the podcast.

01:51:39.900 | So that was amusing to me and tells me

01:51:41.860 | that things are changing now.

01:51:44.340 | I think 2020 and 2021 revealed a lot of things

01:51:47.700 | about people to ourselves.

01:51:50.080 | But one thing that it made very clear

01:51:52.020 | is that there's an enormous appetite for tools

01:51:55.700 | for mental and physical health,

01:51:56.740 | but also understanding about science

01:51:58.100 | and how science is done.

01:51:59.580 | So thanks to you, again, I'm not saying this to flatter you.

01:52:02.380 | It's true gratitude.

01:52:03.740 | There's now a runway for scientists to talk to people.

01:52:07.300 | I mean, you had the, I always forget this guy's name,

01:52:09.060 | the virus guy from Columbia.

01:52:10.940 | - Vincent Racaniello.

01:52:12.140 | - Yeah, amazing, right?

01:52:13.340 | I mean, forgetting the controversy around all the stuff

01:52:16.460 | of 2020, 2021, I mean, he is an encyclopedia

01:52:19.420 | of all things virology.

01:52:21.880 | - Yeah, people should listen to his podcast

01:52:24.480 | this week in virology.

01:52:25.680 | He's also an incredible lecturer and educator.

01:52:28.120 | It's fascinating.

01:52:30.320 | It's fascinating when people take, again,

01:52:32.560 | that leap of putting all that education online.

01:52:36.080 | That's non-controversial at all.

01:52:39.240 | It's like everybody, people should go listen to him

01:52:43.280 | for the most part in terms of, at his best, at least.

01:52:47.560 | There's no politics in it.

01:52:48.800 | There's none of that.

01:52:50.160 | - No, he's a virus jockey.

01:52:51.680 | He likes playing around with bacteria and viruses

01:52:55.480 | and molecular biology.

01:52:57.820 | - We all say stuff carelessly all the time.

01:53:00.480 | So he gets in a bit of trouble on some of the things

01:53:02.700 | he's said about dismissing lab leak theory.

01:53:07.320 | There's no way.

01:53:08.160 | - He dismisses that.

01:53:08.980 | - Yeah, but he's not making, folks,

01:53:14.320 | there's a difference when you say stuff off the cuff

01:53:19.040 | and when you say stuff that's core to your principles

01:53:22.400 | and you've thought about it for a very long time.

01:53:25.080 | You're talking for hundreds of hours

01:53:28.400 | and you can just say stuff.

01:53:29.680 | You can just say your opinions.

01:53:31.420 | Will Smith slapped--

01:53:34.840 | - I was wondering, okay, wait.

01:53:36.080 | How long have we been recording?

01:53:37.200 | I was wondering how long it was gonna take us

01:53:38.600 | before someone brought up--

01:53:39.440 | - We talked about Ukraine.

01:53:40.320 | - No, no, Will Smith.

01:53:41.360 | I was wondering whether or not we'd make it the,

01:53:43.240 | I had it planned.

01:53:45.040 | I was literally in the back of my mind.

01:53:46.920 | I had it planned that at the end,

01:53:48.400 | if we didn't talk about the Will Smith, Chris Rock thing,

01:53:50.840 | that I was gonna say, it's amazing.

01:53:52.920 | This is the first conversation to happen

01:53:54.600 | in a long time where it wasn't mentioned.

01:53:58.040 | Oh, no.

01:53:58.880 | (laughing)

01:53:59.720 | - No, not pulling, no, we don't need to see.

01:54:01.840 | We don't need to see.

01:54:02.680 | - Here we go.

01:54:03.500 | It revealed some interesting things

01:54:04.340 | about human beings, impulse control and lack thereof.

01:54:08.900 | But, you know, oh my goodness.

01:54:11.760 | Chris Rock has material for the rest of his career.

01:54:13.960 | - Yeah, I think he's not short on material.

01:54:16.640 | But I do, see, if I knew what I wanted to tweet,

01:54:21.160 | if I knew you're allowed to just slap comedians,

01:54:23.640 | my conversation with Tim Dillon

01:54:25.000 | would have gone very differently.

01:54:27.160 | People just being humans.

01:54:29.240 | There's so much fascinating human nature on display there.

01:54:32.460 | It's also, in terms of it becoming a topic

01:54:37.440 | that a lot of people are talking about

01:54:39.360 | versus the war in Ukraine, for example,

01:54:41.000 | is also fascinating to watch,

01:54:42.280 | like just these kind of news cycles moving through.

01:54:46.040 | - Well, I think, if I may, I'm sorry to interrupt,

01:54:48.120 | but, you know, anytime we observe something very limbic,

01:54:53.000 | very emotional, you know,

01:54:55.240 | we generally can empathize somewhat, right?

01:54:59.640 | We all know what it's like to feel angry.

01:55:00.960 | We all know what it's like to feel ashamed.

01:55:02.240 | We all know what it's like to feel shocked.

01:55:04.480 | Images of war are, for most people, very hard to relate to.

01:55:09.360 | We see it, it's, you know, they're these images

01:55:12.480 | and they're very traumatic and challenging

01:55:15.260 | to look at at times, and yet most people have no idea

01:55:17.480 | what it feels like to be shot at

01:55:19.780 | or what it feels like to have your home destroyed

01:55:21.660 | or what it feels like to be an aggressor in that way.

01:55:26.260 | So it's very, so I think that people naturally orient

01:55:29.180 | towards things that feel familiar to them,

01:55:31.760 | even though the circumstances are different.

01:55:33.560 | - And people also forget, they look at these celebrities,

01:55:37.800 | it's just like looking at criticism of Will Smith,

01:55:39.920 | you forget that they're human too.

01:55:43.200 | That's one of the most surprising things for me,

01:55:45.560 | having done this podcast and met celebrities

01:55:48.300 | and stuff like that.

01:55:50.040 | They're human, they're all human.

01:55:52.040 | And that's inspiring to me, like some of these great folks

01:55:54.440 | that have won Nobel prizes and built some cool things,

01:55:57.480 | they're just human, like the rest of us.

01:55:59.460 | - Well, and if you look at actors and actresses,

01:56:01.400 | I mean, there's some amazing ones, right?

01:56:03.040 | And who also do well in the outside life,

01:56:05.260 | but their careers were built on the business

01:56:09.760 | of pretending to be other people.

01:56:12.920 | And that's got to distort maybe positively,

01:56:16.480 | but also just let's be honest,

01:56:19.000 | what it is that the neuroplasticity there,

01:56:21.020 | the changes in the areas of the brain

01:56:22.880 | that represent personality have to be quite different

01:56:25.400 | for somebody who pretends to be lots

01:56:26.960 | of different personalities and gets paid for it.

01:56:28.920 | You're working the reward system

01:56:30.800 | into the system of self-identity.

01:56:33.240 | And you have to imagine that that can really

01:56:37.240 | contort somebody's neurology in ways

01:56:41.700 | that maybe they are not as,

01:56:43.760 | maybe they are not in touch with reality

01:56:45.840 | in the same way that we are.

01:56:47.040 | Remember earlier we're talking about

01:56:47.960 | neurotic versus psychotic.

01:56:49.440 | They may be more borderline in their kind of ground state

01:56:54.640 | than we think.

01:56:56.100 | And so I'm actually impressed anytime there's a celebrity

01:56:58.240 | who doesn't have a messed up life.

01:57:00.520 | I'm like, oh, wow, finally somebody who's managed

01:57:02.840 | to maintain some semblance,

01:57:05.800 | at least from the outside, of normalcy.

01:57:08.240 | - So first of all, I can empathize

01:57:11.280 | with the actions that Will Smith did, right?

01:57:14.120 | They're not, I think they're kind of,

01:57:16.480 | not kind of, they're just shitty.

01:57:18.480 | You should probably talk privately, man to man.

01:57:21.520 | Not, 'cause otherwise it's like a dramatic display.

01:57:24.640 | It's almost like you are a fake, you're acting.

01:57:27.960 | - Well, there are all these questions, right?

01:57:29.680 | I mean, obviously it was aggressive at some level.

01:57:33.120 | There's this question of whether or not it was impulsive.

01:57:36.160 | I think most people feel yes.

01:57:37.360 | There's a question, there was the protective nature of it

01:57:39.520 | because he was doing it to, you know,

01:57:42.240 | apparently in defense.

01:57:43.920 | But then there's also the context.

01:57:47.160 | He lost touch with the context, right?

01:57:49.460 | Whereas Chris Rock basically gets,

01:57:52.720 | there's the possible critique that he went too far.

01:57:56.720 | That's gonna be in the eye of the beholder.

01:57:59.120 | But then, and depending on how you view comedy and jokes,

01:58:01.560 | but then there's also the fact that he took that slap

01:58:04.040 | and then just snapped right back,

01:58:05.160 | so much so that people thought maybe it was faked.

01:58:07.440 | He also waited with his hands behind his back.

01:58:09.960 | - That's just natural.

01:58:10.800 | He likes to stand like that.

01:58:12.200 | I mean, I gotta tell a little bit of a story here

01:58:17.200 | to connect to what Chris Rock did.

01:58:22.680 | Like I wish, what Chris Rock did

01:58:26.680 | in terms of just taking a slap and keep going,

01:58:28.480 | first of all, just props for somebody

01:58:30.680 | that's able to maintain cool in that situation

01:58:33.720 | for the most part.

01:58:35.200 | I think I'd like watched it once.

01:58:36.880 | - You only have to be alive on this planet

01:58:38.840 | to see it. - Yeah, I know.

01:58:39.680 | It's hard to have a watch. - You can't avoid seeing it.

01:58:42.040 | - I wish at that afterwards,

01:58:45.720 | he would sort of say something loving and kind

01:58:49.480 | to Will Smith and his wife and then hit him real hard.

01:58:54.000 | Lean into the joke.

01:58:56.720 | But I think in hockey, they call it taking a number.

01:59:00.080 | I have a friend who plays hockey,

01:59:01.120 | and there's this idea that if someone checks you

01:59:02.760 | really badly in one game, you don't go and check them again.

01:59:06.240 | You don't get into a fight.

01:59:07.240 | But three games later, you blade them in the shin.

01:59:11.120 | The ability to defer and to handle it

01:59:18.240 | in whatever fashion one feels is appropriate.

01:59:20.240 | - They're probably also friends

01:59:21.420 | and all those kinds of things that they respect each other,

01:59:24.160 | so he probably didn't.

01:59:25.920 | But there's a comedian instinct.

01:59:27.560 | I saw this, I was in an open mic here in Texas.

01:59:32.560 | I won't say where.

01:59:34.120 | There's many open mics.

01:59:35.200 | - We've gone to a few of these.

01:59:36.440 | These are pretty fun. - Yeah, we've gone.

01:59:37.480 | No, so there is more sort of rougher kind of--

01:59:42.480 | - Yeah, you've been hanging out in like West Texas lately.

01:59:46.920 | - Exactly. - Austin's too tame for Lex,

01:59:48.920 | so he's like head to West Texas.

01:59:50.560 | - Exactly.

01:59:51.800 | I put on a cowboy hat, and instantly I became a cowboy.

01:59:54.720 | I've been talking like a cowboy.

01:59:56.560 | I mean, I belong out there in the desert.

01:59:58.920 | - He's gone from eating meat and athletic greens

02:00:02.160 | to rattlesnakes.

02:00:03.240 | Rattlesnake jerks. - Rattlesnakes, exactly.

02:00:04.920 | No, there was a open mic.

02:00:06.640 | It was late at night,

02:00:08.440 | and I was one of the only people in the audience.

02:00:11.040 | There's a couple of drunk folks, a few drunk folks.

02:00:15.280 | One of them was a couple, like bikers,

02:00:20.280 | like with helmets and so on, a guy and a girl.

02:00:23.640 | And then the comedian, the open mic comedian,

02:00:27.540 | did a joke about people who wear helmets.

02:00:31.720 | I don't know if it was on purpose or not,

02:00:33.320 | but he did the joke.

02:00:34.760 | And then the guy about women who wear helmets,

02:00:38.960 | and the guy, it's this exact same situation.

02:00:41.740 | The guy stood up, walked up to him.

02:00:44.160 | There was no slap.

02:00:45.000 | It's so interesting 'cause this happened

02:00:46.360 | before the Will Smith thing.

02:00:47.880 | So he walked up to the comedian

02:00:52.000 | and said, I think he pointed his finger down

02:00:57.000 | and told him to stop or something like that,

02:01:01.400 | and then sat down.

02:01:02.920 | This is an audience of like six people.

02:01:05.080 | At midnight around then, there's nobody,

02:01:09.160 | no security, nothing.

02:01:10.480 | - In Texas. - In Texas.

02:01:11.920 | - Which implies-- - And then this guy

02:01:14.200 | was the energy, drunk but also a biker,

02:01:18.520 | and what he felt, his lady was now attacked

02:01:23.520 | by the comedian with his words.

02:01:26.560 | And the comedian was a kind of out of shape, small guy.

02:01:32.920 | So he's not threatening at all and probably in trouble.

02:01:37.160 | And the comedian, after he sat down,

02:01:39.240 | he looked a little bit scared.

02:01:41.360 | He paced back and forth, and then he did the joke again.

02:01:47.600 | - Wow.

02:01:48.640 | - And I was sitting, and I started,

02:01:50.800 | I leaned back and I just did this like.

02:01:53.260 | Because that is comedy.

02:01:57.120 | And the guy was getting angrier and angrier,

02:02:00.640 | and he just sat there.

02:02:02.920 | And the comedian went on for a couple more minutes

02:02:06.080 | and then did another bad joke,

02:02:09.280 | but another joke about him.

02:02:10.680 | It's just like he leaned into it.

02:02:12.680 | - If you go to a small comedy club,

02:02:14.120 | open mic or otherwise, you're in the shooting gallery.

02:02:17.200 | Like you're basically there teed up as a pin to get it.

02:02:21.880 | We went and saw Andrew Scholls in San Francisco.

02:02:24.320 | - In San Francisco?

02:02:25.160 | - Yeah, it was hilarious.

02:02:26.360 | It was amazing.

02:02:27.200 | I mean, he's just masterful in his ability

02:02:30.000 | to command an audience.

02:02:32.440 | But I felt for the people up front,

02:02:34.360 | but no sympathy either because you buy tickets

02:02:37.400 | to sit up front at a Scholls show, you're gonna get it.

02:02:41.440 | But he was very loving.

02:02:43.120 | - Yeah, and funny, first of all, funny.

02:02:46.080 | The funniness really helps you,

02:02:48.280 | but the ethic of the comedian is that fearlessness.

02:02:52.800 | What I really liked is the danger,

02:02:57.520 | there's risk to comedy, and there's also consequences.

02:03:00.720 | - Have you watched that show,

02:03:02.280 | what is it, "The Marvelous Miss Maisel Show"?

02:03:04.560 | It's really good.

02:03:05.800 | I watched a few of them, "Guilty Pleasure" there.

02:03:09.120 | She plays a comic in the, I think it's the mid-1960s

02:03:13.040 | in New York, and there's a character

02:03:16.560 | that somewhat resembles Lenny Bruce.

02:03:18.960 | It's sort of meant to be Lenny Bruce.

02:03:21.240 | And they're always getting arrested and this kind of thing.

02:03:24.240 | I think I learned about it from Joe.

02:03:25.640 | Anyway, the writing's great, it's very funny.

02:03:27.940 | But yeah, comedy is designed to push boundaries, right?

02:03:32.480 | And to say the thing that other people aren't,

02:03:36.960 | feel they can't say.

02:03:38.200 | Not something in science, right?

02:03:39.480 | Science, you're supposed to,

02:03:40.480 | etiquette is a big part of how you communicate ideas.

02:03:43.360 | It's about constraining communication.

02:03:46.320 | This is something, I mean, I confess on the podcast,

02:03:48.440 | in the goals of making it clear,

02:03:50.680 | interesting, surprising, and actionable,

02:03:54.520 | you have to constrain the amount

02:03:57.080 | and the style of information.

02:03:58.440 | Otherwise it becomes something else altogether, right?

02:04:01.240 | - I saw Sander Parchai, Google CEO,

02:04:05.480 | said that he likes the thing you mentioned.

02:04:08.680 | Not the Yoga Ninja, but the NSDR,

02:04:12.000 | non-sleep deep rest podcast over meditation.

02:04:15.040 | I don't know if you saw that.

02:04:17.000 | - I saw that, yeah.

02:04:18.000 | - Why, what do you think the difference is?

02:04:22.520 | - Yeah, so non-sleep deep rest, NSDR,

02:04:24.640 | is an acronym that I coined

02:04:26.480 | because it encompasses a lot of practices

02:04:28.480 | that are not meditation per se,

02:04:31.220 | but that bring the brain and body

02:04:32.840 | into a state of relaxation and focus.

02:04:35.000 | So hypnosis is one variant of NSDR.

02:04:37.120 | There are other variants of NSDR.

02:04:38.600 | You can just look these up and you'll find them.

02:04:40.640 | And I think that they've caught on

02:04:42.480 | and that the CEO of Google is an avid practitioner of NSDR

02:04:47.480 | because it has this amazing ability

02:04:51.600 | to reset your energy levels and focus.

02:04:54.000 | Whereas with meditation, many people find meditation hard.

02:04:57.480 | And part of the reason they find it hard

02:04:58.920 | is that it requires focus.

02:05:01.000 | NSDR is a state which is very calm and relaxing.

02:05:04.400 | You don't have to work too hard.

02:05:05.620 | You're just listening to a script.

02:05:06.880 | Whereas most forms of meditation, not all,

02:05:09.040 | but most forms of meditation involve cranking up

02:05:11.920 | the activity in your prefrontal cortex

02:05:14.240 | and trying to see your thoughts

02:05:16.680 | as opposed to thinking your thoughts,

02:05:18.080 | or focus on your breath,

02:05:20.240 | but then third-personing yourself in some respect.

02:05:23.360 | And that's work.

02:05:24.200 | And so many people who meditate quite intensely

02:05:26.600 | feel more exhausted.

02:05:28.240 | Now that doesn't mean that meditation

02:05:30.200 | doesn't have any utility,

02:05:31.620 | but it's distinctly different than NSDR.

02:05:33.960 | And I think that people are working,

02:05:35.480 | certainly the CEO of Google, I have to imagine,

02:05:37.280 | is working very hard and using his forebrain.

02:05:39.480 | If he's going to have 20 or 30 minutes to take a break,

02:05:42.280 | he should, and I think this is what he's doing,

02:05:44.400 | he should go out for a jog and not listen to anything

02:05:46.960 | and just kind of let his mind wander,

02:05:48.760 | or sit there in a chair and just zone out, or do NSDR.

02:05:52.360 | The problem is people are not that good at shifting states.

02:05:57.360 | We are all actually pretty good at,

02:05:59.280 | even people with severe ADHD,

02:06:01.820 | we had an episode about this,

02:06:03.440 | can become hyper-focused on things that they actually enjoy

02:06:07.240 | because dope and most of the drugs designed to treat ADHD

02:06:10.460 | are drugs that increase the levels of dopamine.

02:06:12.640 | So when you like something,

02:06:13.480 | there's dopamine release and you can focus.

02:06:15.280 | It's when you don't like something that's hard to focus,

02:06:17.120 | shifting states is hard.

02:06:18.840 | I'm sure you've experienced this

02:06:19.880 | if you've ever been in deep research

02:06:21.440 | or podcasting, podcasting,

02:06:22.680 | and then all of a sudden you go for a run,

02:06:24.560 | you probably spend the first third of that run thinking.

02:06:27.160 | And then in the middle third,

02:06:28.400 | you're kind of, that thinking is fractured a bit.

02:06:30.920 | And then in the final third

02:06:32.080 | is where you finally get to relax

02:06:34.280 | because the brain doesn't shift states very quickly.

02:06:37.100 | We can go from sleep to wakefulness quickly.

02:06:39.120 | We can go from wakefulness to sleep quickly,

02:06:41.680 | but we don't shift between different states of consciousness

02:06:45.020 | like a step function, except in rare cases, right?

02:06:49.400 | Fear is one.

02:06:50.440 | All of a sudden we hear an explosion right now,

02:06:51.960 | it's a step function.

02:06:52.880 | We're in fear or we're in alertness, right?

02:06:55.640 | A heightened state of alertness.

02:06:57.960 | But NSDR is terrific at allowing people

02:07:01.000 | to learn to shift their state.

02:07:03.040 | And I actually would venture to argue

02:07:05.160 | that part of the value of meditation and exercise

02:07:09.920 | is the actual state that you get into

02:07:11.460 | in deep meditation or exercise.

02:07:13.400 | But just as valuable is the transition

02:07:16.160 | that you have to take yourself through

02:07:17.720 | from one state of mind to the other and then back again.

02:07:20.960 | When I look, David Goggins, he always seems to come up,

02:07:23.520 | but he, 'cause he represents so many important things,

02:07:25.980 | drive, determination, override of emotional state,

02:07:29.640 | going from being a 300 pound plus person

02:07:31.600 | to a fit person through,

02:07:32.800 | he's never revealed anything substantial

02:07:35.600 | about what he ate or what he didn't eat.

02:07:36.800 | He's basically says like, listen, run a lot, eat less.

02:07:39.160 | Right? - Yeah.

02:07:40.000 | - But what's remarkable is so much of what he says

02:07:44.080 | is about those transitions,

02:07:46.280 | about taking oneself from a state of, I don't want to,

02:07:49.000 | to scruffing oneself and like, you're gonna do it anyway.

02:07:52.360 | And then being able to carry that

02:07:53.600 | into regular life, so to speak.

02:07:56.440 | So I think that NSDR is immensely powerful.

02:08:00.160 | It's zero cost.

02:08:01.280 | And one of the reasons I'm such a fan of people doing it

02:08:04.680 | is that most people don't stick to a meditation practice.

02:08:08.240 | There are also been a few cases,

02:08:09.400 | you might find this interesting.

02:08:10.320 | There's a book by Scott Carney.

02:08:11.960 | I forget what it's called.

02:08:13.120 | I think it's called "The Transcendence Trap" or something.

02:08:15.280 | I'm gonna have that title wrong.

02:08:16.240 | But there have been a fair number of cases of people

02:08:20.120 | that go and do very extensive meditation,

02:08:22.600 | silent meditation retreats,

02:08:24.520 | who then return to normal life

02:08:26.160 | and end up killing themselves.

02:08:28.080 | There are states of mind inside of extended meditations

02:08:31.360 | or silent meditations that are very beneficial.

02:08:34.040 | And I'm certainly not suggesting people don't meditate.

02:08:37.020 | But I know at least one person who came back

02:08:39.040 | from one of these long extended meditation retreats

02:08:41.120 | and wasn't able to shift their state back

02:08:43.720 | into one that was functional in regular life.

02:08:45.680 | And that book includes a very dramatic story.

02:08:47.640 | I don't want to give it away in case people

02:08:50.280 | check out the book.

02:08:51.120 | But Scott told the story to me directly once

02:08:53.520 | where someone feels they've reached enlightenment

02:08:58.120 | and then commits suicide.

02:09:00.480 | So these very unusual brain states are potentially hazardous

02:09:04.840 | if people can't return from them.

02:09:07.240 | - So it's nice to focus not on those brains states,

02:09:11.040 | but instead on the shifting.

02:09:12.560 | - Right.

02:09:13.400 | I do, this morning I woke up a little bit earlier

02:09:15.240 | than I would have liked.

02:09:16.080 | I use this Reverie app that's research-backed,

02:09:18.840 | reveri.com.

02:09:20.600 | There's a free version of it and,

02:09:22.320 | or you can try it for free.

02:09:23.360 | So I feel comfortable.

02:09:24.200 | - That's for hypnosis?

02:09:25.020 | - For hypnosis.

02:09:25.860 | And I do a self-hypnosis to put me back into sleep.

02:09:29.160 | And if I can't sleep,

02:09:29.980 | just put me into a state of deep relaxation.

02:09:31.520 | I would put hypnosis under the category of NSDR,

02:09:35.280 | yoga nidra under the category of NSDR.

02:09:37.200 | There are now some NSDR scripts online.

02:09:39.480 | If you just go to YouTube that are,

02:09:40.720 | you can just listen to and.

02:09:42.080 | - Do you like those?

02:09:43.120 | - I do.

02:09:43.960 | Yeah, I think the one from Made For is quite good.

02:09:45.340 | I have an affiliation with them, but it's free.

02:09:46.860 | So I feel comfortable mentioning it.

02:09:48.520 | I do, I really like the Reverie app.

02:09:51.920 | I can very, and as the more you do them,

02:09:53.720 | the more quickly you can shift your brain

02:09:55.000 | into a state of deep relaxation.

02:09:56.720 | I will sometimes stop mid podcast.

02:09:59.760 | If it's, sometimes our recordings go seven, eight hours

02:10:02.440 | and I'll stop and I'll do a one minute hypnosis.

02:10:04.640 | They have one minute hypnosis inside Reverie.

02:10:06.560 | You're only going to,

02:10:08.120 | you're only going to find that one minute hypnosis

02:10:10.220 | is effective if you are routinely doing 10

02:10:13.520 | and 15 minute hypnosis in addition to that.

02:10:16.960 | Meaning I do it every other day or so, a 10 or 15.

02:10:19.440 | - So there's a, is there a YouTube one minute hypnosis

02:10:22.960 | or is this for the Reverie?

02:10:23.800 | - There are, but inside of Reverie as well.

02:10:25.480 | You can find them online.

02:10:26.600 | A really good--

02:10:27.440 | - Pull it up so I can get it please.

02:10:28.600 | - Yeah, so Reverie is good.

02:10:29.600 | And then Michael Sealy, S-E-A-L-E-Y.

02:10:32.960 | He has some long hypnosis scripts,

02:10:34.600 | but again, these are all free.

02:10:36.320 | And you know, there's a lot of good research now

02:10:39.240 | on the neural networks and it shifts

02:10:41.080 | your so-called default network, the default mode network.

02:10:43.800 | It shifts how much of your forebrain you're using.

02:10:46.880 | And it also is very, very good.

02:10:48.700 | If you, I get so many questions about,

02:10:51.920 | hey, I'm really upset.

02:10:53.080 | I found out about my girlfriend's sexual past,

02:10:55.880 | or hey, I'm so upset.

02:10:57.120 | I found out that my boyfriend was cheating,

02:10:58.420 | or oh, so-and-so died.

02:10:59.940 | How do I get over these emotions?

02:11:01.300 | How do I deal with them?

02:11:02.380 | And hypnosis has shown to be very useful

02:11:04.640 | for people to learn to bring themselves

02:11:06.760 | into a state of deep relaxation,

02:11:08.600 | to literally project in their mind's eye

02:11:12.080 | these very intense things that they don't like.

02:11:15.400 | And then for people to associate with other emotions

02:11:19.600 | in their body, to learn to be calm

02:11:21.440 | while feeling your feelings,

02:11:23.660 | to dissociate the mind-body communication to some extent.

02:11:26.900 | - Just observe the feelings.

02:11:28.500 | - Observe them and start to associate them

02:11:30.340 | with positive experiences.

02:11:31.840 | You're an Android guy,

02:11:32.800 | so soon it should be available on Android.

02:11:35.100 | - Well, then it doesn't exist for me.

02:11:36.700 | - Yeah, I know.

02:11:37.540 | - It's only, you know, I don't get--

02:11:38.860 | - Android is the device of the people,

02:11:40.820 | all you elitist people with your iPhones.

02:11:43.060 | - Okay, but tell me this about Android.

02:11:44.500 | Now you want to, this is the one thing that gets me.

02:11:47.780 | - Yeah.

02:11:48.620 | - 'Cause I'm very close to someone

02:11:49.460 | who uses an Android phone.

02:11:50.780 | I feel like that--

02:11:51.780 | - So you have great people in your life,

02:11:53.980 | that's good to know.

02:11:54.820 | - No, their messages always look green to me,

02:11:56.780 | but I answer yours, not despite that.

02:11:59.340 | But they, I feel like the Android phones

02:12:02.300 | are very trigger happy.

02:12:03.500 | Like anything I touch does something,

02:12:05.380 | whereas the Apple phone is kind of built

02:12:07.260 | for like a macaque monkey to be able to operate,

02:12:10.100 | which is great for me because I'm more of a macaque monkey

02:12:12.500 | and you're a more sophisticated ape.

02:12:14.180 | - Oh, I see, I see.

02:12:15.860 | - I think like you have to be quite a bit--

02:12:16.700 | - They're more sensitive.

02:12:17.660 | - Yeah, you have to have, you know,

02:12:18.700 | I mean, I've got fat fingers, you know,

02:12:20.260 | I've got clumsy fingers.

02:12:21.700 | - And the Android is too, well,

02:12:24.260 | maybe you need to soften your touch.

02:12:26.500 | - What I would do is go into the most,

02:12:27.900 | sort by most popular,

02:12:29.480 | 'cause there's some older ones that I really like

02:12:32.180 | and it generally scales with that.

02:12:33.420 | So I'll do the, this one,

02:12:35.500 | the hypnosis for clearing subconscious negativity.

02:12:38.900 | That's an hour long one, the sleep and anxiety one,

02:12:41.240 | 40 minutes, but those you listen to as you fall asleep.

02:12:44.100 | - As you fall asleep.

02:12:44.940 | Oh, we're gonna do this now?

02:12:45.780 | - Yeah, yeah, listen to it.

02:12:47.180 | - And I have created this hypnosis recording for you

02:12:52.100 | to help you--

02:12:52.940 | - And this is the voice.

02:12:53.940 | How often does the voice pop up?

02:12:55.900 | - And at the same time--

02:12:57.140 | - You don't watch it, you just listen to it.

02:12:59.140 | - Your anxiety.

02:13:00.300 | Now, one of the most important things to remember

02:13:06.060 | at the outset of any self hypnosis experience

02:13:10.300 | is to know and understand that hypnosis--

02:13:13.300 | People really should know that stage hypnosis

02:13:16.900 | is about the hypnotist getting you to do things

02:13:19.140 | you wouldn't normally do.

02:13:20.380 | Self hypnosis, which is what we're talking about here,

02:13:23.380 | reverie in this, is about you getting your brain

02:13:26.480 | into the state that you want.

02:13:28.520 | And again, I mean, there's a ton of neuroimaging data

02:13:32.060 | and work on trauma and pain relief.

02:13:34.300 | And our labs are working on this with David Spiegel's lab.

02:13:36.940 | I really encourage people to explore NSDR.

02:13:39.340 | And if this feels a little too wacky and out there,

02:13:41.560 | then I would just put in NSDR into YouTube

02:13:44.640 | and there's some good NSDR scripts.

02:13:46.500 | - Yeah, by the way, Sander is a fan of your podcast.

02:13:49.740 | No, it's okay, we don't need to play.

02:13:50.900 | - Yeah, so I don't know him,

02:13:52.340 | but I get a lot of media outlets picked up

02:13:56.700 | on his love of NSDR.

02:13:58.860 | And I have to imagine running Google involves a lot of,

02:14:01.660 | juggling a lot of--

02:14:02.860 | - He's one of the great CEOs because everybody loves him.

02:14:05.540 | Everybody loves him.

02:14:06.500 | - Have you interviewed him?

02:14:07.500 | - No, but we'll do the interview eventually.

02:14:10.300 | So it's this annoying thing about me being a stickler

02:14:13.680 | for three hours, CEOs don't seem to understand,

02:14:17.440 | like, not understand, but it's scheduling.

02:14:20.360 | So what happens is Sander said,

02:14:22.360 | "Yes, definitely, let's do it.

02:14:23.520 | "I'm a fan of the podcast, as a fan of yours."

02:14:26.020 | And then he goes to his executive assistant like,

02:14:30.040 | "Oh, let's find a slot."

02:14:32.100 | And then they immediately think,

02:14:33.600 | "All right, well, one hour is good."

02:14:35.360 | - 45 minutes.

02:14:36.360 | - 90 minutes.

02:14:37.200 | - By Zoom.

02:14:38.020 | - 90 minutes.

02:14:38.860 | - Yeah, right, well, no, they know in person,

02:14:40.900 | I'm a stickler on that.

02:14:42.140 | But it's like, no, we need more.

02:14:45.140 | And it's so hard to--

02:14:47.500 | - Do you still travel to do your podcast or generally?

02:14:49.580 | - No, most people come down here, most people.

02:14:52.300 | But for certain situations, obviously,

02:14:56.020 | like if you're in prison.

02:14:57.700 | - Right.

02:14:58.540 | (laughing)

02:14:59.360 | - Or you're ahead of--

02:15:00.200 | - Imagine if you get out on work for a little,

02:15:01.780 | the people have anklets so that they can go

02:15:03.780 | to an Alex Friedman podcast.

02:15:04.900 | It'll probably happen.

02:15:05.780 | Have you ever been in a prison?

02:15:08.500 | - No.

02:15:09.340 | Either a visitation or on the inside.

02:15:13.140 | - From my hike, I can see San Quentin.

02:15:15.420 | It's really weird that San Quentin and Alcatraz,

02:15:17.340 | Bay Area, beautiful, everyone thinks,

02:15:19.020 | like there's the Bay and there's Alcatraz

02:15:21.220 | and San Quentin sitting right there.

02:15:22.060 | - How does that make you feel?

02:15:23.500 | - It's amazing how easy it is to overlook

02:15:27.100 | that they're there and forget that they're there.

02:15:28.480 | But when I drive by San Quentin, I think about it.

02:15:31.720 | I also think about the people who are in there

02:15:33.060 | who might be innocent.

02:15:34.740 | I've seen some of those episodes on Rogan and elsewhere.

02:15:38.140 | Amanda Knox talks a lot about this, right?

02:15:40.140 | Whether or not you believe her story or not,

02:15:42.580 | I happen to believe her story personally

02:15:44.820 | based on what I know.

02:15:45.860 | I'm sure there are people who disagree with me.

02:15:48.820 | I think to myself, what it must be like to be in a cell

02:15:52.760 | and know in your heart's heart you didn't do it.

02:15:55.300 | I mean, I can't think of many things worse.

02:16:01.100 | I can't think of many things worse.

02:16:02.780 | - That's so clearly unjust,

02:16:05.180 | but life is full of unjust things like this.

02:16:09.460 | Cruel things happen all the time.

02:16:12.480 | You lose a loved one for no good reason.

02:16:16.580 | You lose your job.

02:16:17.840 | You lose your home.

02:16:21.640 | Yeah, I've been talking to a lot of refugees now,

02:16:24.500 | and the war in Ukraine has really focused my mind

02:16:26.980 | to how much suffering there is in the world.

02:16:29.340 | And so just cruel things happen all the time.

02:16:32.140 | And people kind of, there's this suffering,

02:16:36.420 | and you kind of go on.

02:16:38.740 | You stick to the people really close to you.

02:16:41.180 | There's still love all around you.

02:16:44.420 | Traumatic events kind of focus your mind

02:16:46.780 | on the very practical, like, okay,

02:16:50.780 | how do we solve the problem?

02:16:51.860 | How do we escape?

02:16:52.740 | Let's solve, like, survival, food, shelter, focus.

02:16:56.860 | - Remember that book, "All's Quiet on the Western Front"

02:17:00.220 | by World War I?

02:17:01.060 | There's this line in there.

02:17:01.880 | I forget what it is, about how war

02:17:04.020 | is like the smell of a skunk.

02:17:06.100 | Like a little bit is actually a little bit is slightly,

02:17:09.820 | there's something slightly delicious of it,

02:17:12.740 | is what it says in the book.

02:17:14.860 | I happen to like the smell of like ferrets

02:17:16.860 | and skunks and things.

02:17:17.700 | I had a pet ferret when I was a kid.

02:17:19.420 | And I like that musky scent.

02:17:21.620 | People, most people, just it's repulsive to them.

02:17:23.740 | It's actually a gene, believe it or not.

02:17:25.580 | Some people have the gene that makes

02:17:26.960 | that the musky scent repulsive.

02:17:29.360 | Some people love it.

02:17:31.200 | Let me ask you this.

02:17:32.740 | There's another gene.

02:17:33.580 | This is a fun one.

02:17:34.860 | Microwave popcorn smells good, neutral, or disgusting to you?

02:17:38.220 | - Good, very good.

02:17:39.280 | - There are people who have a gene

02:17:40.460 | that leads them to the perception

02:17:43.060 | that the smell of microwave popcorn that you find is good.

02:17:46.120 | It smells like putrid vomit to them.

02:17:48.340 | It's a particular gene variant.

02:17:51.120 | And they can smell certain elements

02:17:52.520 | within the microwave popcorn.

02:17:54.560 | It's pretty, it's prominent in France, this gene.

02:17:59.800 | And so in laboratories where you have a lot of French people

02:18:04.320 | it's often said like you're not allowed

02:18:05.600 | to make microwave popcorn.

02:18:06.600 | It smells putrid, disgusting.

02:18:08.560 | So a lot of it's in the perception of the beholder.

02:18:12.220 | - But okay, before I leave the NSDR, focus in general.

02:18:19.440 | As you said, it's for shifting mind states.

02:18:23.600 | Is there advice you have for how to achieve focus on a task?

02:18:29.520 | - Yes.

02:18:31.200 | First of all, we have to distinguish

02:18:32.520 | between modulators and mediators.

02:18:34.760 | And I'll do this very briefly.

02:18:36.700 | There are a lot of things that will modulate

02:18:38.340 | your state of focus,

02:18:39.200 | but they don't directly mediate your sense of focus.

02:18:42.140 | So for instance, if right now a fire alarm went off

02:18:44.960 | in this building, it would modulate our attention.

02:18:48.060 | We would get up and leave.

02:18:49.000 | It would be very hard to do what we're doing

02:18:50.440 | with that banging in the background, at least at first.

02:18:53.220 | So it's modulating focus,

02:18:55.800 | but it's not really involved in the mechanisms of focus.

02:18:59.800 | In the same way, being well-rested when you sleep,

02:19:04.440 | your autonomic nervous system that adjusts states

02:19:06.560 | of alertness and focus and calm works better

02:19:09.120 | than when you're sleep deprived.

02:19:10.560 | So if you're sleeping better, you're going to focus better.

02:19:12.560 | So I always answer this way to a question like this,

02:19:15.760 | because the best thing that anyone can do

02:19:18.440 | for their mental health, physical health, and performance

02:19:20.640 | in athletic or cognitive endeavors or creative endeavors

02:19:23.360 | is to make sure that you're getting

02:19:24.920 | enough quality sleep, enough of the time for you.

02:19:28.360 | And that's going to differ.

02:19:29.200 | We could talk about what that means.

02:19:30.380 | Now, in terms of things that mediate focus

02:19:33.360 | without getting into the description of mechanisms,

02:19:35.120 | 'cause we have podcasts about that,

02:19:36.880 | it's very clear that mental focus follows visual focus,

02:19:42.040 | provided that you're a sighted person.

02:19:43.960 | Much of the training that's being done now in China

02:19:47.660 | to teach kids to focus better,

02:19:49.560 | literally has them stare at a target,

02:19:52.980 | blinking every so often, but really training themselves

02:19:55.720 | to breathe calmly and maintain a tight visual aperture.

02:19:59.480 | When you read, you have to maintain a tight visual aperture.

02:20:03.220 | You're literally scrolling like a highlighter

02:20:04.940 | in your mind's eye, right?

02:20:06.580 | It's kind of obvious once you hear it.

02:20:08.140 | So for people that have problems focusing sleep well,

02:20:10.900 | learn to dilate and contract your visual field consciously.

02:20:17.020 | This can be done if you practice it a little bit.

02:20:19.660 | And then, as I said before,

02:20:21.420 | it is very hard to get into a state of focus

02:20:23.340 | like a step function immediately, like snapping your fingers.

02:20:26.020 | What you can do is you can pick any object,

02:20:28.260 | but ideally an object at roughly the same distance,

02:20:31.540 | placed at roughly the same distance

02:20:32.920 | to which you're going to do that work,

02:20:34.620 | and stare at it.

02:20:35.820 | You're allowed to blink.

02:20:37.100 | And as your mind starts to drift every once in a while

02:20:39.460 | to understand that's normal,

02:20:40.940 | but try and narrow your visual aperture

02:20:43.380 | and bring that into your visual field

02:20:45.980 | so that that's the most prominent thing,

02:20:47.420 | kind of like portrait mode in your phone.

02:20:49.300 | This would look very different in portrait mode

02:20:51.000 | than it would in just a standard photograph mode.

02:20:53.540 | And then after doing that for 30 to 60 seconds,

02:20:57.140 | moving into the work that you're about to do

02:20:58.860 | and really encourage yourself to do that.

02:21:01.260 | If you're somebody who's low vision or no vision,

02:21:03.500 | you're going to use your ears to do this.

02:21:05.140 | Braille readers have trouble focusing sometimes

02:21:08.380 | 'cause they feel other stuff and they hear other stuff.

02:21:11.660 | So you learn to adjust that aperture consciously.

02:21:15.180 | And then of course, the pharmacologic tools,

02:21:17.460 | just enough caffeine, but not too much, right?

02:21:20.780 | We've talked about white noise, brown noise,

02:21:22.440 | music or no music, really varies.

02:21:24.720 | But it's very clear that binaural beats of 40 Hertz

02:21:28.840 | can shift the brain into a heightened state

02:21:31.320 | of focus and cognition.

02:21:32.600 | So if you're going to use binaural beats,

02:21:34.040 | which should definitely be used with headphones,

02:21:37.080 | and there are a number of free apps out there and sources,

02:21:40.000 | 40 Hertz seems to be the frequency

02:21:43.220 | that best supports the brain shifting

02:21:45.760 | into a particular mode of focus.

02:21:46.600 | - So can you give us some binaural beats?

02:21:49.600 | - Yeah, so you're going to look for,

02:21:51.060 | you'd want to find an app that offers 40 Hertz.

02:21:54.920 | I think Brainwave allows you to slide bar

02:21:59.920 | up to the particular frequency that you want.

02:22:02.480 | And I should say that there are other frequencies

02:22:05.220 | that are interesting, but 40 Hertz binaural beat

02:22:07.960 | seems to be the one that there's the most

02:22:10.080 | quality research on.

02:22:11.480 | - It's like a beat.

02:22:12.680 | - Yeah.

02:22:13.520 | - But you're saying there's a lot of mixed science

02:22:16.300 | on the white noise and brown noise.

02:22:19.360 | - You really should be doing this with headphones

02:22:21.520 | because binaural beats are best accomplished

02:22:23.160 | by feeding two different frequencies to the two ears.

02:22:26.200 | And then you have what's called this brainstem area

02:22:28.200 | that reads out what are called interaural time differences.

02:22:30.280 | And then it extracts the delta essentially.

02:22:33.160 | - Turn it up.

02:22:34.000 | - And then in other things that can enhance focus.

02:22:41.280 | So, you know, the pharmacology around this

02:22:43.320 | is pretty interesting.

02:22:44.160 | Things that tickle the dopamine pathway

02:22:45.640 | and the acetylcholine pathway, they work.

02:22:47.800 | - Yeah.

02:22:48.720 | - There's your Ritalin, your Adderalls, your modafinils,

02:22:50.880 | which are prescription.

02:22:51.840 | And there's a lot of non-prescription use

02:22:54.120 | of those prescription drugs.

02:22:55.680 | Not so much in my generation, but in people 35 and younger.

02:22:59.880 | You know, I hear all the time from day traders

02:23:02.420 | and programmers and stuff and kids that play video games,

02:23:04.720 | a lot of Ritalin Adderall use.

02:23:07.000 | I think that unless it's prescribed by a doctor

02:23:08.920 | for a specific purpose of ADHD,

02:23:10.820 | I don't think people should go that route, frankly.

02:23:12.960 | Hits the dopamine system way too hard.

02:23:15.000 | Also has a number of negative effects on sexual side effects,

02:23:19.600 | all sorts of things that you just wouldn't want.

02:23:21.520 | There are a few compounds like alpha GPC,

02:23:25.000 | 300 milligrams to 600 milligrams of alpha GPC

02:23:27.760 | with a cup of espresso.

02:23:28.960 | If you're well-rested, you're like a laser for 90 minutes,

02:23:32.720 | maybe two hours, but then it's gonna taper off

02:23:35.240 | and you have to just recognize that.

02:23:37.360 | And then there's this whole world of nootropics now

02:23:39.800 | and people trying to figure out the racetams, paracetams

02:23:43.240 | and phenylethylamine combined with this.

02:23:45.560 | And, you know, it's not quite in the place

02:23:47.200 | where you'd like it to be.

02:23:48.360 | There are a few companies that are doing this

02:23:49.600 | better than others.

02:23:50.480 | We talk about some of these on the podcast,

02:23:51.960 | but I would always start with behavioral tools

02:23:55.240 | and then consider pharmacology.

02:23:57.400 | And then I suppose the other thing for focus is,

02:24:01.880 | this is a little more esoteric,

02:24:03.120 | but we cover this in an episode on workplace optimization.

02:24:07.100 | Where you place your screen is important.

02:24:09.960 | Staring down at a screen is not going to be as effective

02:24:12.840 | as placing it at eye level or above you.

02:24:15.120 | When the eyes are up, literally,

02:24:16.600 | or when your eyes are directed forward or up,

02:24:18.640 | the brainstem centers for alertness are activated.

02:24:21.040 | When your eyes are down, it's actually,

02:24:23.320 | you're sort of, it's like being pulled underwater

02:24:25.320 | a little bit in the autonomic arousal sense.

02:24:27.760 | It's, you're closing your eyes is one,

02:24:32.480 | it reflects the brainstem centers

02:24:34.440 | that are active becoming less, or for alertness,

02:24:37.840 | excuse me, becoming less active.

02:24:39.840 | But there's a really cool effect

02:24:41.020 | that's active in this room right now,

02:24:42.560 | which is that there've been some really interesting studies

02:24:45.280 | that when people work in small compact spaces

02:24:48.160 | or wear a hoodie or a hat,

02:24:49.760 | that can also improve focus like blinders on a horse

02:24:53.320 | for obvious reasons now, based on what I said before.

02:24:55.640 | But also analytic work or the kind of work

02:24:59.640 | where there's a correct answer that you're seeking

02:25:02.240 | is best supported by these kind of low ceiling environments.

02:25:05.460 | Whereas there's something called the cathedral effect,

02:25:07.920 | which is when you work in an outdoor environment

02:25:09.800 | or a high ceiling environment,

02:25:11.140 | it lends itself to kind of pun intended,

02:25:14.660 | kind of loftier ideas and more creativity.

02:25:17.640 | And that probably has to do with the fact

02:25:19.180 | that there's a natural tendency, a reflex

02:25:21.280 | to expand your visual field

02:25:23.220 | in these high ceiling environments.

02:25:25.160 | Expansion of the visual field

02:25:28.480 | changes the way the brain works in the time domain.

02:25:31.800 | Your engineering and biology oriented listeners

02:25:35.100 | will understand this for the, and music.

02:25:37.700 | For those that don't, the best way to think about it

02:25:39.940 | is when you have a narrow focus portrait mode on your phone

02:25:42.800 | or you're very alert, you are fine slicing life in time.

02:25:47.540 | It's like a, think of it as a high frame rate,

02:25:50.680 | like you're shooting in slow motion.

02:25:52.760 | When you have a, when you dilate your view,

02:25:56.000 | you're taking bigger time bins.

02:25:58.040 | And that one way to just let this hopefully land home

02:26:01.000 | is that if you've ever had a really exciting day

02:26:04.540 | or podcast interview or experience of any kind,

02:26:08.260 | your system is flooded with dopamine and norepinephrine,

02:26:11.500 | alertness and motivation, all this excitement.

02:26:13.800 | It seems like it goes by very, very fast.

02:26:16.000 | And yet when you think back to that,

02:26:17.540 | it seems like a lot happened.

02:26:19.820 | This happened and that happened.

02:26:20.860 | Now think about waiting in the doctor's office

02:26:23.160 | in a blank waiting room

02:26:24.440 | with no interesting art on the walls.

02:26:26.720 | It feels like it goes by very, very slow.

02:26:29.040 | Dopamine and norepinephrine are at all time low.

02:26:31.840 | And yet when you think back on that experience,

02:26:33.920 | it's as if nothing happened

02:26:35.380 | because you were parsing time differently.

02:26:39.220 | So those are the roughly the tools

02:26:41.220 | and the neurochemicals around time perception

02:26:43.740 | and the time domain.

02:26:44.900 | There's a wonderful book, I'm forgetting the title.

02:26:46.740 | So wonderful I forget the title,

02:26:48.220 | by Dean Buodomano from UCLA.

02:26:50.940 | But I think it's called "The Brain is a Time Machine"

02:26:53.460 | that talks about this expansion and contraction

02:26:56.140 | of the time domain and what you can do

02:26:58.260 | to leverage it for work and creativity focus and so on.

02:27:01.060 | - Yeah, it's fascinating that I think one way

02:27:03.740 | to define focus for me is the experience,

02:27:07.720 | the feeling of focus is losing track of time.

02:27:11.520 | Is getting to a place where you're no longer

02:27:13.880 | operating in time.

02:27:17.960 | - Well, and you mentioned being,

02:27:19.440 | kind of cramming for something,

02:27:21.960 | where you'll release a lot of adrenaline.

02:27:24.120 | And it is true, you can get a lot done under pressure

02:27:27.660 | because of the way that you're slicing time.

02:27:30.080 | You don't actually have more time.

02:27:32.040 | It's that you're finally in a brain state

02:27:34.020 | that lends itself well to parsing information

02:27:36.860 | really quickly.

02:27:37.700 | Now, if we ramp up your level of stress enough,

02:27:40.100 | it's definitely, it's a more or less normal distribution.

02:27:44.380 | We get you stressed enough, it's hard to remember anything,

02:27:46.500 | you're not parsing time well.

02:27:47.580 | But in that middle range, almost every study shows

02:27:50.180 | that the higher levels of autonomic arousal,

02:27:51.860 | meaning norepinephrine, adrenaline in your system,

02:27:54.700 | the more effective you are at things.

02:27:57.540 | And we always hear stress and adrenaline,

02:27:59.700 | it's just bad, bad, bad.

02:28:00.760 | But my colleague, Ali Crum at Stanford

02:28:02.540 | has done these beautiful studies where,

02:28:04.220 | if you just educate people on how adrenaline

02:28:07.180 | makes them sharper thinkers, they become sharper thinkers.

02:28:11.420 | If you educate them on the fact that stress

02:28:13.260 | makes your cognition worse, their cognition gets worse.

02:28:16.680 | This is why I don't wear a sleep tracker.

02:28:18.300 | If you tell people they slept poorly,

02:28:19.740 | your recovery score sucks,

02:28:21.360 | they naturally perform less well the next day

02:28:23.860 | than if you tell them your recovery score is high.

02:28:26.820 | And so I don't have anything against those companies,

02:28:28.740 | but I, in fact, we use some of their technology,

02:28:31.460 | can be very useful in certain contexts.

02:28:33.000 | But you want to determine your mindset around these things.

02:28:37.760 | And if you tell yourself, hey, deadlines make me sharp,

02:28:40.660 | pressure makes me sharp, you will perform better.

02:28:43.380 | - So stress and anxiety, what is that?

02:28:48.380 | And can it be leveraged for good?

02:28:51.180 | - Absolutely, stress and anxiety,

02:28:52.620 | look, whether or not you get into a cold ice bath

02:28:55.020 | or a hot sauna so hot you wanna get out,

02:28:58.060 | or you get hit square in the face with something over text

02:29:02.620 | that you really didn't wanna hear or see,

02:29:04.660 | it's adrenaline, it's just adrenaline.

02:29:07.780 | And so your subjective readout of that

02:29:09.660 | and what it means is really important.

02:29:11.580 | - And you can just channel that.

02:29:13.040 | - Well, you can.

02:29:14.060 | If you agree with the following statement, which I do,

02:29:17.900 | and many people do 'cause the data support it,

02:29:20.060 | which is Ali Crum's statement, not mine,

02:29:22.340 | which is she directs the MindBodyLab at Stanford.

02:29:24.740 | She's brilliant, by the way, brilliant,

02:29:26.740 | Harvard trained, Yale trained,

02:29:28.580 | trained licensed clinical psychologist,

02:29:30.300 | also tenured professor at Stanford.

02:29:31.500 | She's a Olympian, no, excuse me,

02:29:34.940 | a division one athlete in gymnastics and martial arts.

02:29:39.500 | And her dad is a long-time martial arts trainer,

02:29:42.340 | he's done work with special forces.

02:29:43.580 | And he's an amazing human being and very humble,

02:29:45.660 | very kind, lovely woman and professor, scientist.

02:29:50.300 | She says, "Anything that you do and experience,

02:29:53.260 | "but especially stress is the consequence of that thing

02:29:58.260 | "and what you believe about that thing."

02:30:01.060 | And so if you consume a lot of information

02:30:04.180 | about the powers of stressful states

02:30:06.620 | to bring out your best, you will perform better.

02:30:09.180 | If you consume a lot of information

02:30:10.660 | about the power of stress to cripple you,

02:30:13.160 | you will perform worse.

02:30:15.260 | There's absolutely no question, the data are striking.

02:30:18.500 | And this is not growth mindset.

02:30:20.540 | This is just simply what sorts of,

02:30:22.580 | what do you believe about stress

02:30:24.140 | based on the dominant knowledge

02:30:27.800 | that you're consuming about it?

02:30:28.920 | So that's why it's fun to watch David Goggins,

02:30:31.660 | here we go again, David, or Jocko or Joe,

02:30:34.380 | or someone put, or Cam Haines,

02:30:36.100 | you know, put out this information about,

02:30:37.680 | or Ryan Hall who ran for Stanford

02:30:39.580 | and then now is like into the powerlifting thing and running.

02:30:42.340 | You know, and there are others too, of course.

02:30:45.020 | When you start to consume a lot of that information,

02:30:48.300 | it's not just inspiring,

02:30:49.580 | it actually changes your perception

02:30:51.580 | of what your own stressful states mean.

02:30:53.740 | You can actually get better from stress

02:30:56.900 | if you're in the ocean of knowledge that stress grows you.

02:31:00.980 | If you're in the ocean of,

02:31:02.060 | living in the ocean of knowledge,

02:31:03.780 | I was seeing like a pool in the summer,

02:31:05.540 | you got the kiddie pool,

02:31:06.580 | the kids all peeing in it, presumably.

02:31:08.820 | You got the diving thing,

02:31:09.660 | you got the high dive and all that.

02:31:10.620 | If you believe that the experience

02:31:13.100 | of belly flopping off the high dive

02:31:14.740 | is gonna make you a better diver,

02:31:17.060 | in some sense, at least in this analogy, it will.

02:31:20.640 | Whereas if you feel that it's just

02:31:21.980 | the most embarrassing thing ever,

02:31:23.640 | and it's gonna cripple your ability

02:31:25.500 | to get out in the dive in front of anybody ever again,

02:31:28.780 | well, you're right about that too.

02:31:31.180 | - Yeah, we actually talked with Carl about depression,

02:31:34.220 | all those kinds of things that there could be these,

02:31:38.840 | what are commonly seen as negative journeys,

02:31:41.600 | that could be, when reframed, can be used.

02:31:46.040 | - You know, one of the reasons I enjoy our friendship

02:31:47.780 | so much is that you bring this Russian thing,

02:31:50.180 | you know, which I don't really understand it

02:31:52.180 | at a deep level, how could I, I'm not Russian,

02:31:53.940 | but this mindset like that there's pain in life.

02:31:58.660 | When I watched that "Hedgehog in the Fog" cartoon,

02:32:02.220 | I thought, no wonder Russians go the way they do.

02:32:05.100 | This is the most, it's so sad,

02:32:06.820 | it's beautiful and sad, but it's so sad.

02:32:08.780 | Whereas out here, it's like Sesame Street.

02:32:11.100 | And my mother would not let me watch Sesame Street

02:32:13.940 | when I was a kid.

02:32:15.000 | She thought it was too chaotic.

02:32:17.060 | - Too chaotic. - Too chaotic.

02:32:18.320 | She was like, "It's too chaotic."

02:32:19.580 | - Too many things going on.

02:32:20.540 | - Captain Kangaroo, we were allowed,

02:32:22.180 | and then Mr. Rogers, we were allowed.

02:32:24.260 | I never really liked shows.

02:32:25.420 | I liked doing things outside in the yard.

02:32:28.340 | I was trying to trap all the animals.

02:32:30.700 | I didn't want to watch stuff on TV.

02:32:32.100 | But, you know, "Hedgehog in the Fog" is enough

02:32:34.560 | to turn any kid into a thinker and a philosopher and a poet.

02:32:38.880 | Here we go.

02:32:40.260 | I fell in love with this when you showed,

02:32:42.260 | look, it even walks with its arms behind its back.

02:32:44.540 | - So for people who don't know,

02:32:45.780 | and we're watching little clips here to get into,

02:32:48.820 | and it's a hedgehog that is wandering about

02:32:53.820 | in this fog at night.

02:32:56.580 | - Can't even see a lamp.

02:32:59.340 | The fog is so dense.

02:33:00.900 | - There's a feeling of searching.

02:33:03.500 | And then there's a horse that speaks from a distance,

02:33:08.140 | words of wisdom.

02:33:09.080 | Some people actually told me that they believe that's God.

02:33:12.580 | That's supposed to represent God.

02:33:15.020 | I always thought it was a motherly voice or a voice.

02:33:18.840 | A voice of conformity that wants you to return to safety.

02:33:23.160 | And here's the hedgehog is searching

02:33:27.120 | for something that's in him for the unknown,

02:33:31.000 | to explore the unknown.

02:33:32.800 | And ultimately, as the cartoon unrolls,

02:33:37.800 | he discovers a friend in a bear.

02:33:43.440 | And he also discovers a lifetime passion

02:33:46.120 | for looking up at the stars

02:33:47.800 | and the curiosity of exploring what is up there.

02:33:50.760 | And I see that as science, as exploring the mystery.

02:33:55.440 | And also I see that as brave to explore the mystery

02:33:59.040 | given all the uncertainty all around you.

02:34:01.840 | But there is a melancholy, the whole sound of it,

02:34:04.480 | the feel of it, the look of it.

02:34:06.060 | It just captures both the melancholy

02:34:12.080 | and the wonder of childhood,

02:34:14.620 | which is like there's a loneliness to it.

02:34:17.680 | Like nobody understands me.

02:34:19.720 | That's there that children can feel

02:34:25.720 | 'cause you're trying to figure out--

02:34:27.120 | - That's my favorite character right there.

02:34:28.560 | I love the owl.

02:34:29.560 | I love the owl.

02:34:30.960 | The owl shows up every once in a while.

02:34:32.240 | I love the owl.

02:34:33.080 | Sorry, I interrupted you.

02:34:35.160 | Again.

02:34:36.000 | - There's non-sequitur.

02:34:37.040 | It means you're interested 70% of the time.

02:34:39.520 | The other 30%, you're just an asshole.

02:34:41.720 | So you have to figure out which--

02:34:43.120 | - So I'm told.

02:34:44.040 | - There's non-sequitur parts in this cartoon.

02:34:47.240 | It's voted as one of the greatest cartoons of all time.

02:34:49.920 | Short little films, documentary filmmakers.

02:34:52.640 | It is, in the Soviet Union,

02:34:56.400 | in a lot of sort of authoritarian regimes,

02:35:01.200 | there's channels to communicate difficult ideas to people

02:35:07.080 | and you figure out those channels.

02:35:08.440 | And in the Soviet Union,

02:35:09.840 | one of those channels was children's cartoons.

02:35:13.440 | So you're actually there very much for adults.

02:35:16.320 | - Yeah, I like that in some countries,

02:35:19.600 | not so much in the US,

02:35:21.000 | children are treated with more respect

02:35:24.400 | for their intelligence,

02:35:25.960 | and not constantly getting this drivel

02:35:29.840 | of just kind of moronic explosions and whistles and bells

02:35:34.040 | and the voices that just kind of,

02:35:37.280 | children, obviously, are children and need to be,

02:35:39.680 | their brains are young and plastic

02:35:41.200 | and need to be treated and nurtured as such.

02:35:45.240 | But they have an intelligence.

02:35:48.600 | And I think that you treat them like morons

02:35:51.600 | and they're gonna behave like morons.

02:35:53.840 | You treat them as people who can consume information

02:35:58.560 | and make sense of it in their own way.

02:36:00.680 | And that's what they're gonna do.

02:36:02.560 | - They have a seriousness of looking at the world.

02:36:05.280 | I love people that talk with children like they're adults.

02:36:09.440 | Here's if you're talking to a mini Einstein,

02:36:13.640 | because you're like really,

02:36:15.960 | they're asking some big questions.

02:36:17.880 | And I think, I mean, people sometimes

02:36:19.880 | speak of me in this way,

02:36:23.240 | like how dumb is this childlike person?

02:36:26.200 | But like, no, there's intelligence

02:36:28.280 | in these dumb, simple questions,

02:36:30.280 | in like that a child asks.

02:36:32.320 | And I always loved those questions,

02:36:34.280 | the simplicity, but also the depth of those questions.

02:36:39.280 | - The reason I started watching your podcast

02:36:41.920 | was you did an episode early on with Ray Dalio.

02:36:45.400 | And the first, maybe the first,

02:36:47.880 | but a question that you definitely asked him

02:36:50.000 | was you just said, what is money?

02:36:53.320 | And his answer was fantastic.

02:36:54.720 | It's a superb question and he gave a superb answer.

02:36:58.800 | And I never would have thought to ask that question.

02:37:02.480 | But it's the question.

02:37:04.160 | And it was the question to tee things off with.

02:37:06.520 | So simple questions that get right

02:37:10.840 | to the heart of the matter.

02:37:12.960 | And kids aren't often putting the same cultural filters.

02:37:17.160 | Kids generally aren't concerned

02:37:21.440 | about getting canceled either.

02:37:23.680 | So they'll ask the question

02:37:25.160 | that no one else is willing to ask.

02:37:26.400 | - And they're not concerned

02:37:27.240 | about how dumb the question sounds.

02:37:30.640 | I find the most fascinating questions

02:37:32.160 | is just really, really simple.

02:37:33.920 | And it is a bit embarrassing

02:37:36.200 | to ask those simple questions of what is anything.

02:37:40.480 | You're asking them for all of us, so please ask them.

02:37:43.800 | I think that question, what is money, is crucial.

02:37:46.800 | And I think the simple questions

02:37:48.880 | are obviously the most interesting.

02:37:51.120 | - I'd ask you about, you had awesome podcasts.

02:37:53.520 | I mean, I can ask you questions

02:37:54.600 | about basically all your podcasts.

02:37:55.840 | People should definitely listen to "The Human Lab,"

02:37:57.480 | but with Andy Gap and the conversation,

02:38:00.960 | you talked about strength and muscle building

02:38:02.680 | and all that kind of stuff.

02:38:03.600 | - He's an encyclopedia.

02:38:05.400 | And he also works with a lot of UFC fighters.

02:38:08.440 | And he has a lab that includes a gym.

02:38:11.720 | And so he works on endurance and powerlifting

02:38:14.520 | and also hypertrophy training, et cetera.

02:38:16.360 | But he also does muscle biopsy.

02:38:19.120 | So he runs the full spectrum.

02:38:21.320 | And he's a full tenured professor.

02:38:23.800 | And he does all this stuff.

02:38:25.680 | So he's a really unique person

02:38:29.080 | in this whole fitness landscape.

02:38:31.120 | 'Cause there are a lot of PTs out there.

02:38:33.000 | There are a lot of kinesiologists.

02:38:34.480 | There are a lot of people studying nutrition

02:38:36.640 | and sports training.

02:38:37.480 | And I think he has the, among the people out there,

02:38:40.280 | he's at least in the top five,

02:38:42.720 | probably within the top three of people

02:38:45.160 | that really have their arms around the full extent

02:38:47.880 | of what's possible with training.

02:38:50.600 | And he works with the UFC Performance Center.

02:38:53.440 | - Well, I mean, he's just at a very systematic way

02:38:55.640 | of describing things that was really nice.

02:38:57.760 | Skill, speed, power, strength, hypertrophy.

02:39:03.080 | So muscle mass, right?

02:39:05.400 | Endurance, all kinds of.

02:39:06.640 | And then the philosophical of like adaptation,

02:39:08.920 | of how to overload stuff, all that very,

02:39:11.000 | is there stuff, I'll ask you about Ace Bath and sauna,

02:39:14.640 | which was surprising to me there.

02:39:16.640 | Is there stuff you took away from that conversation,

02:39:20.220 | like principles about how to get strong,

02:39:25.920 | how to build muscle mass,

02:39:28.040 | that like broadened and deepened your understanding

02:39:31.280 | of that task?

02:39:32.360 | - Definitely.

02:39:33.200 | And I'll do these in bullet points.

02:39:34.280 | 'Cause if people want the logic behind them

02:39:36.120 | and the mechanism, they can listen to that episode.

02:39:37.960 | - It's a really good episode.

02:39:39.200 | - I'll start with heat and cold really quickly

02:39:40.800 | and just say that avoid cold immersion.

02:39:44.040 | So ice baths and being in cold water up to the neck,

02:39:47.800 | uncomfortably cold, within the four hours

02:39:50.180 | after a training session that's designed

02:39:53.800 | to evoke an adaptation, either endurance,

02:39:56.280 | hypertrophy or strength.

02:39:57.500 | Because the inflammation that you experience

02:39:59.920 | from a hard endurance workout, or from a hard strength

02:40:02.400 | or a hard hypertrophy workout,

02:40:04.200 | is the stimulus that you're going to adapt to.

02:40:07.200 | The cold water immersion reduces inflammation

02:40:10.120 | and can short circuit some of that.

02:40:12.880 | After four hours, you're probably okay,

02:40:14.560 | but if you can do it a different day

02:40:16.240 | or you can do it before those sessions, that's better.

02:40:18.800 | Heat, however, can be done immediately after training.

02:40:21.880 | And it's probably beneficial because of the way

02:40:23.520 | that it dilates the vascular system

02:40:25.240 | and delivers, perfuses the muscles and ligaments, et cetera,

02:40:28.800 | with more nutrients.

02:40:29.760 | - And I should just mention,

02:40:30.960 | that was a crucial piece of information.

02:40:33.480 | It's a little bit surprising.

02:40:34.840 | Was it surprising to you?

02:40:36.040 | - Absolutely.

02:40:36.880 | 'Cause I actually, the way I posed the question to him

02:40:39.060 | about cold was, I hear that getting into an ice bath

02:40:41.680 | or a cold water immersion after training

02:40:43.240 | can reduce hypertrophy,

02:40:44.160 | but I'm guessing it's not that big of a deal.

02:40:45.680 | And he said, no, it is a big deal.

02:40:47.080 | It will short circuit your progress.

02:40:48.860 | Now, for people that are only interested in performance,

02:40:51.400 | who are doing a lot of workouts and trying to recover,

02:40:53.200 | but not trying to grow muscle, get stronger

02:40:54.720 | or build endurance, then it makes sense to do cold.

02:40:57.640 | - Like skill development or something.

02:40:58.760 | - Skill development, or you're an athlete in season.

02:41:01.920 | So you have to, what's so great about Andy

02:41:04.040 | is he really points out the specific ways to train

02:41:06.840 | given your specific goals.

02:41:08.080 | - So for getting swole,

02:41:09.440 | stay out of the ice bath after a workout.

02:41:12.040 | There you go.

02:41:12.880 | - Lex is always making fun of the meatheads.

02:41:14.560 | I love it.

02:41:15.620 | I put myself in the meathead category

02:41:17.000 | only because I don't do a real sport now.

02:41:19.320 | I work out and I run, which is-

02:41:21.440 | - I'm an aspiring meathead, okay, so.

02:41:24.000 | - One of these days, I'm gonna get back to Jiu-Jitsu,

02:41:25.680 | or I'm gonna get to Jiu-Jitsu.

02:41:27.160 | Now, in terms of training,

02:41:28.320 | he has this beautiful three by five concept for strength.

02:41:31.680 | Pick three exercises, compound exercises,

02:41:33.960 | multi-joint movements, do them for,

02:41:37.640 | do three to five exercises

02:41:40.440 | for three to five repetitions per set,

02:41:45.240 | rest three to five minutes,

02:41:46.980 | and do that three to five times per week.

02:41:48.980 | And for details, you can, again, look to the episode.

02:41:51.040 | It's timestamped.

02:41:51.860 | But what's interesting about this is three to five times

02:41:54.040 | a week is a lot for a muscle group.

02:41:55.360 | Squatting five times a week for five reps,

02:41:58.040 | meaning you're working pretty heavy,

02:42:00.240 | meaning you're close to failure,

02:42:01.480 | but not failure for strength generally.

02:42:03.620 | What Andy taught me is that people who are training

02:42:08.740 | mostly for strength can do these low rep type regimens

02:42:13.280 | frequently because most of the adaptation is neural.

02:42:16.640 | And because you're not pushing to failure in most cases,

02:42:20.440 | you don't get that sore.

02:42:21.800 | And so it's the motor neurons getting the muscle fibers

02:42:25.820 | to contract more intensely or with more efficiency

02:42:29.840 | in other ways that's leading to these strength gains.

02:42:32.320 | And this is why power lifters can train every day

02:42:34.600 | or five days a week or four days a week.

02:42:37.280 | For hypertrophy, I learned from Andy

02:42:41.000 | that the repetition range can be pretty broad.

02:42:44.240 | You're thinking anywhere from six to 30 repetitions.

02:42:47.820 | You should do 10 sets per muscle group per week,

02:42:52.280 | maybe even a bit more.

02:42:53.600 | - So high volume.

02:42:54.480 | - High volume, but you have to go to failure or beyond

02:42:59.820 | in order to stimulate growth.

02:43:01.380 | Why does it work at such a great range of repetitions?

02:43:03.760 | Well, there apparently are three ways

02:43:06.240 | that you stimulate hypertrophy and maybe more.

02:43:08.480 | One is tissue micro damage to the tissue.

02:43:11.380 | The other is through some sort of tension based changes

02:43:14.640 | in the molecular gene programs of cells

02:43:17.400 | that lead to protein synthesis

02:43:19.080 | that are distinct from damage.

02:43:21.040 | And the other are metabolic effects

02:43:22.560 | of like high repetition work of superfusion

02:43:24.960 | of the muscle with blood.

02:43:26.020 | We know that third category exists

02:43:27.700 | because people are now doing this blood restriction training

02:43:29.960 | where they cuff off a muscle

02:43:31.160 | and they'll use a really lightweight.

02:43:32.640 | I've done these before.

02:43:33.480 | You can use a five pound weight and do curls with this

02:43:35.500 | and you are in pain

02:43:37.220 | and the muscles are swelling up with blood.

02:43:38.600 | It does lead to hypertrophy,

02:43:40.360 | but in general, you're not sore.

02:43:42.940 | You're not doing tissue damage.

02:43:44.680 | And by the way, don't just turn the kid off a muscle

02:43:46.680 | 'cause you have to use the proper cuffs

02:43:48.780 | because you need the blood still to flow in one direction.

02:43:50.760 | You can't just cinch it off

02:43:51.980 | or you'll potentially kill yourself if you get a clot

02:43:55.320 | or you do it wrong.

02:43:56.840 | So get the appropriate cuffs, they're out there.

02:43:59.480 | And then for endurance, I learned something really cool.

02:44:01.620 | So I work out basically,

02:44:02.920 | I go to the gym every other day on average,

02:44:06.320 | three or four days a week I do that,

02:44:07.520 | but generally not two days in a row.

02:44:09.200 | It's workout, next day I'll do cardio, next day.

02:44:11.200 | And the cardio for me is always a 30 to 45 minute jog,

02:44:14.200 | kind of zone two cardio.

02:44:15.540 | Andy informed me that to build endurance

02:44:18.800 | while building strength and maintaining some muscle size

02:44:22.200 | or even building muscle size,

02:44:24.520 | I would be wise to take one day a week

02:44:27.000 | and add to that all out max heart rate work

02:44:32.000 | for 90 seconds at least.

02:44:34.560 | So do 90 seconds, then rest,

02:44:36.120 | and then maybe do another 90 second all out sprint.

02:44:38.760 | I almost missed my flight going from Los Angeles to Austin.

02:44:41.480 | I did that all out sprint in the airport yesterday.

02:44:44.780 | So I actually think it's done for me.

02:44:47.600 | - So there was a sprinting Dr. Huberman throw-

02:44:51.760 | - With three backs.

02:44:52.840 | - That's awesome.

02:44:53.680 | - I'll travel, generally I'll travel with too much stuff.

02:44:57.760 | - I love how you were probably running late for a flight

02:45:00.160 | and used that as an opportunity to explain.

02:45:02.040 | - Well, as I was doing it, I was thinking to myself,

02:45:03.720 | okay, Andy, that's a 90 second sprint.

02:45:05.880 | 'Cause I got to the security line, I finally got TSC-

02:45:08.560 | - But that's for better, that's for extending endurance?

02:45:11.360 | - That's for, yeah, it actually has some carryover effects

02:45:14.560 | on endurance if you're doing the other stuff.

02:45:16.100 | And then he also said one day a week to do this workout

02:45:18.280 | and I haven't done it yet.

02:45:19.120 | Maybe we do it tomorrow, it'd be fun.

02:45:20.600 | Which is you run a mile, you ask yourself,

02:45:25.600 | how long did that take?

02:45:26.520 | Let's say it took eight minutes,

02:45:28.440 | then you walk or rest for eight minutes,

02:45:30.680 | then you run another mile as fast as you can,

02:45:33.400 | and then you rest for the equivalent period.

02:45:34.880 | And you do that one to three times once per week.

02:45:37.740 | And so as an all-around fitness program,

02:45:42.180 | you could collapse this into something where you say,

02:45:44.120 | okay, you're gonna work out with the weights

02:45:45.680 | for about an hour every other day,

02:45:48.000 | maybe take two days off every once in a while, maybe not.

02:45:49.920 | You're going to do six to 15 repetitions.

02:45:53.480 | You're gonna push to failure on some of those, not all,

02:45:56.040 | because some of those are designed to build more strength.

02:45:58.700 | You're not going to failure and heavier.

02:46:00.160 | Some are designed for hypertrophy, higher rep,

02:46:02.360 | and going to failure.

02:46:03.840 | And then on off days,

02:46:04.880 | you're gonna jog for 30 to 45 minutes.

02:46:07.380 | But for two days a week,

02:46:09.180 | you're either at the end of your jog or whatever,

02:46:12.600 | you're gonna do some all-out sprints for 90 seconds

02:46:15.480 | and then rest and repeat.

02:46:17.600 | And for another day, you're going to do these mile repeats.

02:46:21.900 | That's a pretty large chunk of exercise movement.

02:46:27.120 | But if you kind of thread through the middle of all that,

02:46:30.120 | what you end up with is

02:46:31.160 | some decent strength building protocols,

02:46:33.420 | some decent hypertrophy, some cardiovascular training

02:46:36.700 | that establishes the so-called A base or a so-called base.

02:46:40.060 | So you're not gonna get really good at anything.

02:46:42.040 | You're not gonna become a marathoner this way,

02:46:44.040 | an optimizing marathon.

02:46:45.680 | You're not gonna optimize powerlifting.

02:46:47.120 | You're not gonna optimize hypertrophy.

02:46:48.720 | But for the typical person, 75% of people, 75% of the time,

02:46:52.520 | they want some muscle, they want some strength,

02:46:53.960 | they want some endurance,

02:46:54.960 | and they want the capacity to sprint to the security gate

02:46:58.280 | without leaving a lung in the terminal.

02:47:01.320 | - So it's like functional stuff,

02:47:03.140 | like your life going up the stairs is easier,

02:47:05.800 | moving about, all that kind of, just regular life.

02:47:07.880 | - Yeah, and I should mention that cold showers

02:47:10.080 | after training don't seem to short circuit

02:47:14.000 | the training effect to the same extent

02:47:17.880 | that immersion in cold water does.

02:47:19.560 | And that really speaks to the fact that cold showers,

02:47:21.640 | even though they can provide some of the adrenaline

02:47:23.640 | for the mental effects of like,

02:47:25.040 | oh, I have a lot of adrenaline in my system

02:47:26.460 | from a cold shower and I can remain calm,

02:47:28.220 | there's utility to that.

02:47:30.080 | It's not going to have the same metabolic effects

02:47:32.840 | or other positive effects that cold water exposure

02:47:35.080 | has been shown to have.

02:47:36.560 | And that's unfortunate

02:47:38.300 | because most people have access to cold showers.

02:47:40.120 | Not everyone has access to a cold dunk or an ice dunk.

02:47:42.880 | But here in Austin, you have this place,

02:47:45.920 | and no, they don't pay me to say this,

02:47:47.060 | but I always like going to this place

02:47:48.560 | whenever I'm in town, this place, Kuya.

02:47:50.200 | And they've got a sauna and a couple of ice baths.

02:47:52.600 | And they even have those salt tanks

02:47:53.980 | that you can float on the surface.

02:47:54.820 | - They have ice baths there?

02:47:55.960 | - They have cold water immersion.

02:47:58.080 | It's pretty cold.

02:47:59.280 | - Still haven't done an ice bath.

02:48:00.640 | - Really? - I need to, yeah.

02:48:01.480 | I need to.

02:48:02.320 | - You're rushing, you'll probably get in

02:48:03.500 | and you won't even know.

02:48:04.340 | - Yeah, what is this?

02:48:05.160 | What's the big deal here?

02:48:06.000 | - Exactly, or people pay for this.

02:48:07.480 | (laughing)

02:48:08.480 | I did a post, right, of you as a baby.

02:48:10.280 | - Yeah.

02:48:11.360 | - I had to go deep to get that photo of Lex

02:48:14.520 | in a bassinet in the snow.

02:48:16.680 | Because in Russia, they actually did this for a long time.

02:48:20.760 | They thought that it would,

02:48:21.640 | and indeed it does build the immune system

02:48:23.580 | to expose babies to the cold.

02:48:25.800 | - I still don't know where you got that photo.

02:48:27.760 | I knew you were able to find exactly the right,

02:48:29.840 | it was great.

02:48:31.560 | It was great research.

02:48:32.400 | - You didn't have a tie-on,

02:48:33.220 | but you had all the look and seriousness that you do now.

02:48:36.260 | So it's clearly nature nurture,

02:48:37.840 | clearly you were born with that.

02:48:39.240 | - What about sauna?

02:48:40.280 | He does say that it's good to do heat.

02:48:42.520 | - So there are three ways you can do sauna

02:48:44.000 | that I can just toss out as brief things.

02:48:46.040 | If you wanna get a really big growth hormone release

02:48:48.760 | for sake of metabolism, fat loss,

02:48:50.760 | you're training really, really hard in jujitsu

02:48:52.680 | and you wanna recover,

02:48:54.260 | you don't wanna sauna too often.

02:48:56.380 | Because the study that identified

02:48:58.680 | this massive 16-fold increase in growth hormone,

02:49:02.360 | they had people do this, it's crazy.

02:49:04.560 | They got into, okay,

02:49:05.800 | temperatures are 80 to 100 degrees centigrade.

02:49:09.480 | So that's 176 degrees Fahrenheit to 212 degrees Fahrenheit

02:49:13.560 | for five to 30 minutes is the typical ranges

02:49:16.960 | that people work in in these research studies.

02:49:19.260 | For maximum growth hormone release,

02:49:22.780 | don't do sauna more than once a week,

02:49:24.960 | but get into the sauna for 30 minutes,

02:49:27.980 | as hot as you can safely tolerate.

02:49:29.980 | So probably for you, that'll be 210,

02:49:31.600 | 'cause I suspect you'll be on the high end of things.

02:49:34.920 | Then get out for five to 10 minutes, no cold exposure,

02:49:38.560 | get back in the sauna for 30 minutes.

02:49:40.440 | Then they had them do it again,

02:49:41.880 | out for five minutes, back for 30 minutes,

02:49:44.240 | out for five minutes, back for three minutes.

02:49:45.700 | They had them do two hours of sauna exposure

02:49:48.640 | to get that growth hormone release.

02:49:51.240 | Now for the reduction in likelihood

02:49:54.040 | of dying of a cardiovascular event, stroke or otherwise,

02:49:57.060 | the more often you do sauna, the better.

02:49:59.240 | So if you look at all-cause mortality

02:50:01.880 | or death due to cardiovascular events,

02:50:03.920 | and you look at sauna use frequencies

02:50:06.160 | using the same parameters, 80 to 100 degrees centigrade,

02:50:09.240 | one to seven times per week,

02:50:10.880 | basically the more often you get into the sauna

02:50:12.800 | for 30 minutes across the week,

02:50:15.240 | so 30 minutes a day is better than four times a week.

02:50:17.920 | Four times a week is better than two times a week,

02:50:19.740 | and two times a week is better than one.

02:50:21.400 | And the reductions in mortality are really impressive.

02:50:25.200 | 27, if you get into a sauna the way I just described,

02:50:29.180 | not the two hours a day, but 30 minutes,

02:50:31.760 | twice a week or three times per week,

02:50:33.980 | you reduce the likelihood of dying

02:50:36.000 | of a cardiovascular event by 27%.

02:50:38.960 | If you do it four or more times per week,

02:50:41.240 | you reduce the probability of dying

02:50:42.920 | by 50% of a cardiovascular event.

02:50:46.160 | And in these studies,

02:50:47.000 | they rule out other things that people are doing, smoking.

02:50:50.320 | They even ask them, do you live in an apartment?

02:50:52.480 | Are you in a happy relationship?

02:50:53.840 | Like they evaluate other potentially confounding variables.

02:50:57.080 | Now, for people that don't have access to a sauna,

02:50:59.200 | a hot water bath or hot tub is gonna be your next best bet.

02:51:03.020 | And if you don't have access to that,

02:51:04.240 | do like the wrestlers do,

02:51:05.680 | which is put on two sets of sweats and a hoodie

02:51:09.480 | and a stocking cap and wrap yourself in plastics

02:51:12.760 | underneath all that and go for a run.

02:51:14.480 | But don't, please, nobody die of hyperthermia.

02:51:16.800 | I mean, you can die of warming up too much.

02:51:18.760 | - Is this experience pleasant or stressful in the way,

02:51:23.760 | so is it as stressful as an ice bath, for example?

02:51:27.200 | - Okay, great question.

02:51:28.960 | People always ask how cold to make the ice bath

02:51:31.320 | or the cold water or the shower.

02:51:33.160 | You want it to be uncomfortably cold,

02:51:35.480 | meaning you want to feel like I really wanna get out,

02:51:38.200 | but you can safely stay in.

02:51:39.320 | And that's gonna vary by person and experience with it.

02:51:42.360 | - Experience, yeah.

02:51:43.520 | - With the sauna, it's the same thing.

02:51:45.660 | How hot to make it?

02:51:47.600 | Well, don't kill yourself, obviously.

02:51:50.200 | Be smart.

02:51:51.040 | If you're pregnant, you shouldn't be doing this anyway.

02:51:53.960 | But it's very clear that what you need

02:51:56.300 | is the release of something called dynorphin.

02:51:58.560 | We have endorphin, which makes us feel good.

02:52:00.740 | It binds to these mu opioid receptors in the body.

02:52:04.280 | You have dynorphin, which is the terrible feeling

02:52:07.120 | that you get when you're in really hot temperatures.

02:52:09.420 | It's also the terrible effect that alcoholics feel

02:52:12.320 | when they are in withdrawal.

02:52:14.160 | You feel agitated, you wanna get out, it's really unpleasant.

02:52:16.700 | It's dynorphin binding to the so-called

02:52:18.480 | kappa opioid receptor.

02:52:20.840 | That's what you're trying to trigger.

02:52:22.300 | When you do that, a number of things happen.

02:52:24.240 | You set off heat shock proteins that go repair

02:52:27.040 | broken proteins and misfolded proteins.

02:52:29.640 | It also makes it so that later endorphin

02:52:32.620 | binds its receptor more strongly.

02:52:34.540 | So when you have this uncomfortable experience in the heat,

02:52:38.180 | you literally feel better in real life

02:52:40.460 | when pleasurable events come on,

02:52:42.900 | when you experience them.

02:52:44.340 | In the same way, I like to say this,

02:52:45.860 | that when you get into a cold ice bath or cold shower,

02:52:48.660 | the increase in epinephrine and dopamine is two to 300%.

02:52:53.660 | These are huge increases and they last many hours.

02:52:57.140 | This is shown 'cause lately I've been getting

02:53:00.040 | a little bit of pushback on Twitter,

02:53:02.720 | which is an interesting place.

02:53:04.880 | People say, "Well, that's just in mice."

02:53:07.440 | No, all the studies I just referred to

02:53:08.960 | are all done in humans, men and women,

02:53:11.320 | fairly broad age ranges.

02:53:12.920 | So you want to be uncomfortable in the cold.

02:53:15.280 | You wanna be uncomfortable in the heat.

02:53:17.120 | This is why I'm not a big fan of infrared saunas

02:53:19.440 | 'cause they only go up to about 160, 170 degrees.

02:53:22.840 | Infrared light and far red light of all kinds

02:53:26.040 | has been shown to be beneficial for wound healing,

02:53:27.980 | acne, skin, eyes.

02:53:29.780 | There are even guys now putting on their testicles

02:53:31.500 | 'cause it can increase testosterone and sperm production.

02:53:34.820 | - Yeah, hormone release.

02:53:36.060 | - Hormone release.

02:53:37.100 | But in terms of the sauna,

02:53:39.020 | you want that strong heat stimulus.

02:53:41.540 | - Yeah, and that's when you crawl up to the 200 mark

02:53:44.900 | and so on.

02:53:45.740 | - Whenever I'm in New York,

02:53:46.560 | and there's also one in San Francisco,

02:53:47.740 | although the one in San Francisco is clothing optional,

02:53:49.980 | just to warn people.

02:53:50.820 | There's a place called Archimedes Banya.

02:53:52.940 | - Is there any scientific evidence

02:53:54.840 | that being naked is beneficial in the sauna?

02:53:57.460 | - Well, in certain contexts, it leads to childbirth.

02:54:01.060 | - Okay, well, I'll have to read up on that.

02:54:03.020 | I read that somewhere.

02:54:03.860 | - But I suppose it's not required for childbirth.

02:54:07.580 | But in all seriousness, in New York,

02:54:10.620 | I'll go to a place called Spa 88,

02:54:12.340 | and actually, Khabib's picture is on the wall.

02:54:14.600 | He goes there.

02:54:15.440 | And that one, it's clothing, they require clothing.

02:54:19.180 | I only just say that

02:54:20.020 | 'cause it can be a little bit of a shock to people sometimes

02:54:21.900 | if they kind of walk in there, a bunch of naked people,

02:54:23.700 | the one in San Francisco.

02:54:25.380 | If I go, I'm clothed, mostly because I run into coworkers

02:54:28.720 | or things like that.

02:54:29.560 | I'm sort of more old-fashioned in that way, I suppose.

02:54:33.560 | - Do you like to wear clothes around coworkers?

02:54:36.440 | Yes, very old-fashioned. - Yeah, in general.

02:54:38.500 | To me, it just seems like, just be aware.

02:54:40.920 | But nonetheless, the banyas have very hot saunas

02:54:44.400 | because they're Russian-owned.

02:54:46.160 | And in New York, there's one on the Lower East Side,

02:54:48.040 | but the Spa 88 place, they have some saunas

02:54:51.240 | that the moment I get into those,

02:54:53.940 | I have a hard time catching a full breath.

02:54:55.580 | It burns.

02:54:56.720 | They've got a cold dunk that's like a shock.

02:54:59.340 | And then they've got a sauna, a wet sauna steam room

02:55:01.460 | that's a little mellower.

02:55:02.700 | So the nice thing about a banya

02:55:03.940 | is you can kind of find your place.

02:55:05.780 | And then they do the plaza

02:55:06.840 | where they take the eucalyptus leaves

02:55:08.900 | and you can pay someone.

02:55:10.460 | And you basically, you cover your groin

02:55:12.200 | and then they beat you with the leaves.

02:55:15.700 | And it's supposed to bring the vasculature to the surface.

02:55:17.660 | I've only done it once.

02:55:18.880 | And frankly, I found it to be a little bit unnerving.

02:55:22.400 | I didn't really like the experience,

02:55:24.140 | but I'll try and get into a sauna as often

02:55:26.600 | as I possibly can, which is once or three times per week.

02:55:30.400 | And I try and do the cold exposure shower or immersion,

02:55:34.880 | but early in the day, 'cause it really wakes you up.

02:55:37.800 | - One of my favorite things I've listened to,

02:55:40.320 | I wish there was a video,

02:55:42.080 | is listening to a bunch of stuff with Rick Rubin.

02:55:45.120 | And he did a thing with Tim Ferriss,

02:55:47.760 | the Tim Ferriss podcast.

02:55:49.080 | I don't know if you've ever heard it,

02:55:50.540 | but he forced him to do, they did the podcast in a sauna.

02:55:55.540 | And I don't think at the time Tim Ferriss was adapted.

02:56:00.840 | - Yeah, if you're not heat adapted,

02:56:02.000 | it can be pretty stressful.

02:56:03.200 | - And I mean, obviously the whole experience is stressful

02:56:05.720 | as somebody with microphones, like what is happening?

02:56:09.340 | But I just love that Tim was vulnerable enough

02:56:12.940 | to kind of give themself over

02:56:15.540 | to whatever the hell this experience is.

02:56:17.260 | And I'm just so happy that Rick pushed that kind of idea

02:56:22.260 | and just let's do it.

02:56:25.740 | - That's a very Rick Rubin kind of thing to do.

02:56:27.760 | - And we must, we must do this.

02:56:30.600 | This has to be done.

02:56:31.640 | - A podcast that was done from a sauna continuously

02:56:34.760 | would be really interesting.

02:56:35.680 | Like you could call it the pressure cooker or something.

02:56:37.680 | - Oh, you mean like a regular podcast?

02:56:38.920 | - Yeah, like you have to sit with your guests in the sauna

02:56:42.160 | or they have to sit in the sauna.

02:56:43.680 | - That was one of the interesting things is,

02:56:46.640 | it was a sad thing because I believe

02:56:48.220 | there's no video of that podcast,

02:56:50.240 | but you could tell there was a kind of,

02:56:53.760 | there was suffering, especially on Tim's part.

02:56:56.720 | It was like a degradation.

02:56:58.360 | He started over time not being able

02:57:01.380 | to put words together correctly, which he's very eloquent.

02:57:05.600 | And so you could see there's like, there's a struggle.

02:57:10.600 | - Heat and cold pull you down from the inside.

02:57:12.780 | You have to, I mean, there's a reason why

02:57:14.160 | the screening process for make, you know, seal,

02:57:17.960 | they call it seal training,

02:57:18.840 | but it's really screening and training involves cold water

02:57:21.320 | is 'cause, you know, if you're in the heat too long,

02:57:23.320 | you'll die or damage tissue.

02:57:25.080 | In cold, you can do it quite extensively

02:57:27.160 | before you die or damage tissue, but it is stressful.

02:57:30.220 | I was gonna say one thing that I sometimes enjoy

02:57:33.320 | seeing these social media posts

02:57:35.080 | where people will get into the ice bath

02:57:36.800 | and they'll look really stoic, like they're really tough,

02:57:40.400 | but actually that's the wimpy way to go through it.

02:57:43.960 | When you get into cold water, if you stay very still,

02:57:47.360 | you develop a thermal sheath around you

02:57:51.400 | that you're warming yourself.

02:57:53.280 | The really bold way is to get in

02:57:55.760 | and continue to sift your arms and legs

02:57:57.760 | and it ends up feeling miserably colder.

02:58:00.960 | - There's no sheath.

02:58:02.000 | - 'Cause you're breaking up that thermal layer.

02:58:04.600 | And then when you get out,

02:58:05.840 | you'll notice a lot of people huddle

02:58:07.640 | or they'll put or they'll grab the towel.

02:58:09.640 | In general, that's me.

02:58:10.520 | I'll get back, I'll get into the sauna.

02:58:12.560 | But if you really wanna stimulate

02:58:14.380 | the big increases in metabolism,

02:58:16.280 | you stand out there and you dry off

02:58:18.080 | with arms extended in open air.

02:58:20.760 | And as that water evaporates off you, it is really cold,

02:58:23.680 | but your body is forced to activate a number

02:58:25.840 | of the warming programs related to metabolism.

02:58:28.480 | This is the beautiful work of a woman named Susanna Soberg,

02:58:31.120 | who's Scandinavian.

02:58:32.420 | She published this paper last year in Cell Reports Medicine.

02:58:35.000 | And so I call this the Soberg principle,

02:58:36.800 | which is if you're doing ice and heat for whatever reason,

02:58:40.280 | doesn't matter if you end on heat or cold,

02:58:41.920 | but if you're using cold specifically

02:58:44.160 | to stimulate an increase in metabolism, end with cold.

02:58:47.840 | That's the Soberg principle.

02:58:49.960 | - And with cold, if you're alternating,

02:58:52.320 | and then if you wanna do it the tough way,

02:58:55.400 | you let the shivering,

02:58:56.680 | so you just stand out and let the water evaporate.

02:58:59.200 | - Yeah, I mean, if you ever waded into a cold ocean,

02:59:01.600 | everybody's kind of like holding themselves.

02:59:04.120 | If you really just, if you let yourself extend your limbs

02:59:06.880 | and move them around a bit,

02:59:07.760 | so you break up that thermal layer,

02:59:11.080 | that's the tough way to do it.

02:59:12.000 | So when I see people on social media getting in

02:59:13.560 | and they're like really tough and trying to look hard.

02:59:16.360 | - Yeah, you wanna be moving around.

02:59:17.800 | - Yeah, smiling, talking, moving around is way, way colder.

02:59:22.600 | - Are you able to talk?

02:59:23.800 | So you suggest a podcast in the sauna.

02:59:27.840 | - How about this?

02:59:28.680 | I proposed this since I got choked.

02:59:29.680 | - You wanna do the next podcast?

02:59:31.240 | - I'll get two.

02:59:32.120 | So the folks from The Plunge,

02:59:33.960 | maybe you could bring Lex a plunge.

02:59:35.760 | He certainly deserves one.

02:59:37.720 | And we can go side-by-side coffin style,

02:59:40.200 | or we can face one another and we can do it.

02:59:42.160 | - Well, we said we should do each other's podcast.

02:59:44.040 | I mean, maybe next human lab podcast.

02:59:44.880 | - Oh, I can't wait to have you back on.

02:59:46.280 | I mean, we only scratched the surface.

02:59:47.480 | - Well, let's do at least part of the next

02:59:49.080 | human lab podcast either.

02:59:51.380 | - I have a sauna and a cold plunge, so we could do.

02:59:53.240 | - Yeah. - Yeah, we could do.

02:59:55.040 | We do a sauna and a cold plunge version.

02:59:57.120 | - I wonder how the recording works.

02:59:59.560 | If they record-- - A bit of an echo

03:00:00.920 | in the sauna, but I'm sure we can take out the reverb.

03:00:04.040 | - So Sergey wants to ask you about sex performance.

03:00:09.800 | Very journalistic, very hardcore hitting questions

03:00:12.360 | that we have here in The Plunge.

03:00:13.200 | - Generally or a specific experience?

03:00:15.120 | - No, he has a certain problem he needs help with, no.

03:00:18.260 | Generally, you haven't done an episode on sex.

03:00:21.560 | - Well, we did an episode early on on sexual development.

03:00:24.920 | - Yes. - We've done them

03:00:25.760 | on optimizing testosterone and estrogen.

03:00:27.680 | We touched a little bit on libido

03:00:31.280 | and somewhat on sex performance, but not much.

03:00:34.900 | We did an episode on relationships, love, and desire,

03:00:38.400 | where we touched on libido specifically.

03:00:40.740 | So just as a quick mention of something,

03:00:43.080 | a lot of people take SSRIs or antidepressants

03:00:46.040 | that can disrupt sexual function.

03:00:47.880 | There are a few compounds like maka root and tonga ali

03:00:51.720 | and things like that, that at least in a few studies

03:00:53.680 | in humans have been shown to offset

03:00:55.200 | some of the sexual side effects.

03:00:57.260 | Now, in terms of sexual, and then, sorry,

03:01:01.280 | the episode on sexual development was about

03:01:03.400 | how the brain and body become organized in certain ways,

03:01:06.340 | how the brain becomes organized if you have X chromosomes

03:01:09.380 | or Y chromosomes or et cetera.

03:01:11.060 | - So early, early development.

03:01:12.100 | - Early development mainly,

03:01:13.220 | and the effects of hormones later on that template.

03:01:16.540 | We will be doing a, I'm actually putting together

03:01:20.160 | a series on sexual health,

03:01:22.940 | everything from the menstrual cycle,

03:01:26.040 | which both men and women should understand, of course,

03:01:28.980 | understanding arousal, understanding, for instance,

03:01:32.080 | a lot of people don't realize this,

03:01:33.180 | but that orgasm is actually the consequence of activity

03:01:37.020 | in the sympathetic, meaning the stress arm

03:01:40.260 | of the autonomic nervous system,

03:01:42.620 | whereas arousal is the consequence of the activity

03:01:46.700 | of the parasympathetic, the calming aspect

03:01:49.220 | of the autonomic nervous system.

03:01:51.340 | - That's counterintuitive, right?

03:01:52.740 | - It's counterintuitive, and it kind of works like a seesaw.

03:01:55.060 | I mean, there's arousal, then there's relaxation,

03:01:56.860 | then there's arousal, but the,

03:01:58.820 | and then immediately after orgasm

03:02:01.620 | and in male's ejaculation, what ends up happening

03:02:03.540 | is there's a rebounding

03:02:05.020 | of the parasympathetic nervous system,

03:02:07.020 | which it leads to oftentimes people feeling very relaxed

03:02:09.900 | or falling asleep.

03:02:11.380 | So I'm going to do a short series on sexual health

03:02:15.100 | that will be, that will include stuff

03:02:16.980 | about sexual performance, but also some,

03:02:21.860 | I'm working on getting an expert guest

03:02:24.060 | who can talk about some of the neurologic changes

03:02:26.840 | that happen as a consequence of sexual activity.

03:02:30.380 | And we did an episode with a guy from UT Austin here,

03:02:33.920 | David Buss, who's an evolutionary psychologist,

03:02:36.300 | talking about, we went pretty deep into some of the typical

03:02:41.260 | and unusual dynamics of mating relation,

03:02:44.900 | whether or not people have kids or not,

03:02:46.220 | and what impacts that.

03:02:47.040 | But we're going to do an episode on menopause, andropause.

03:02:49.620 | What's very surprising is I get a lot of questions

03:02:52.500 | about sexual health from the young male audience,

03:02:55.460 | which tells me that, well, here's what I think it reflects.

03:03:00.260 | I think that women, because of their menstrual cycles,

03:03:03.460 | early on start to talk to one another

03:03:05.660 | about changes in physiology and psychology

03:03:08.000 | as a function of this 28 day cycle

03:03:09.640 | that they all experience sooner or later.

03:03:11.800 | Males, there's less of a conversation,

03:03:14.120 | and it usually arrives in code.

03:03:15.700 | People will say, "Hey, what should I take

03:03:16.860 | "to increase my testosterone?"

03:03:18.340 | And I'll say, "Well, maybe nothing.

03:03:20.260 | "What are you specifically concerned about?"

03:03:23.620 | And then over time, if you pull on those threads

03:03:25.340 | a little bit, you get your answer.

03:03:28.220 | Sometimes I'll just get a direct question.

03:03:30.740 | But I think that the psychology of all this,

03:03:33.540 | and in terms of jealousy, and in terms of notions

03:03:36.860 | of roles and relationships is very dynamic right now,

03:03:40.500 | and I'm fascinated by this.

03:03:41.660 | So we're going to do a four episode series.

03:03:43.740 | - What about sexual fantasy?

03:03:45.180 | What, to get Freudian for a second,

03:03:48.860 | what role does sexual fantasy have in the human condition?

03:03:52.820 | - There's a book called "The Erotic Imagination."

03:03:56.100 | It's a very psychoanalytic book

03:03:57.300 | written by a psychoanalyst that talks about how,

03:04:01.220 | well, here's the uncomfortable reality.

03:04:03.180 | Freud was at least right about one thing,

03:04:05.260 | which is that the brain circuitry that you used

03:04:09.020 | to develop attachments to your caregivers,

03:04:11.180 | mother and father or other caregivers,

03:04:13.320 | do not disappear when you hit puberty.

03:04:16.700 | They are repurposed for romantic and sexual relations.

03:04:20.380 | And so this is why the whole notion of anxious attached

03:04:23.780 | and secure attached stems from childhood attachment patterns,

03:04:27.220 | but it carries over to romantic relationships.

03:04:29.820 | - So that the relationship with your mother has--

03:04:32.580 | - And father.

03:04:33.420 | - And father has a, and probably other close people to you

03:04:36.980 | in your young age, has a secondary, tertiary,

03:04:41.340 | some kind of ripple effect on how your sexuality developed,

03:04:44.420 | like what fantasies you might have, all that.

03:04:46.180 | - Oh, without question.

03:04:47.180 | And of course, early experiences too,

03:04:48.980 | and traumatic or positive or neutral.

03:04:51.760 | The thing that's really important to remember though

03:04:53.540 | in this transfer of circuitry from one role to another

03:04:57.140 | is that, and it's certainly consistent with psychoanalysis,

03:05:00.820 | that gender is interchangeable, sex is interchangeable.

03:05:04.800 | So for instance, let's say you had a wonderful relationship.

03:05:07.620 | Let's say this, let's take a hypothetical person, okay?

03:05:10.820 | I'm truly not referring to myself.

03:05:12.180 | Let's take a young woman who has a wonderful relationship

03:05:15.660 | to her father and a just absolutely terrible,

03:05:18.660 | abusive relationship to her mother, just for sake of example.

03:05:21.660 | She then goes into adulthood and she is drawn

03:05:26.420 | to very abusive men, not always,

03:05:29.500 | but let's just use in this example.

03:05:31.260 | And the dynamic is exactly the same

03:05:34.260 | as the dynamic she had with her mother.

03:05:36.100 | That's actually a common occurrence,

03:05:37.900 | even though in this context, she's heterosexual,

03:05:40.580 | she's romantically attracted to men.

03:05:41.980 | What is seen over and over again is that the dynamic

03:05:44.660 | with one parent can be transferred onto a romantic dynamic,

03:05:47.620 | but it doesn't have to be, you know,

03:05:49.580 | that if it was with the mother,

03:05:51.100 | then it only has to do with relationships to women.

03:05:53.400 | So gender is interchangeable because these circuitries

03:05:56.800 | are pre-sexual, they're laid down in our brain

03:06:00.020 | before the brain has any concept of sexual interactions.

03:06:04.200 | It's pre-verbal, excuse me.

03:06:06.600 | And so there are a lot of interesting examples

03:06:09.860 | and data to support this.

03:06:11.120 | The book "Attached" is a pretty interesting book

03:06:14.720 | by two psychologists.

03:06:16.240 | One I think is at Columbia University

03:06:18.120 | that talks about how childhood dynamics

03:06:22.080 | carry over to adult romantic attachment.

03:06:25.640 | So as you can tell, I get pretty alert

03:06:27.840 | in response to these questions.

03:06:29.160 | I get a lot of them relate in this domain.

03:06:32.120 | - They have a lot of impact on people

03:06:33.640 | and they're wondering about, they wanna learn.

03:06:35.400 | - And no one knows what other people are doing

03:06:37.080 | or what's normal.

03:06:37.920 | We kind of know deviancy, we know perversion,

03:06:40.120 | we know the extremes, we know the rules.

03:06:43.120 | Hopefully people know the rules, but you know,

03:06:46.720 | let's just be, there are a lot of people

03:06:49.440 | in the academic community,

03:06:51.680 | in particular at certain East Coast schools

03:06:53.680 | not to be named that are in open relationships.

03:06:57.580 | This is more common now.

03:06:58.880 | It's not very common, but it's more common.

03:07:03.340 | And, you know, obviously that's a way of bypassing

03:07:06.920 | some of these more primitive emotions

03:07:08.540 | about jealousy, et cetera,

03:07:10.200 | and leveraging them towards

03:07:12.320 | maybe even ongoing relationships.

03:07:13.920 | I'm not passing judgment one way or the other.

03:07:16.080 | I always say four conditions have to be met

03:07:18.420 | for any discussion about sex and sexuality or sexual health.

03:07:22.000 | Age appropriate, context appropriate,

03:07:25.040 | consensual, and species appropriate.

03:07:27.340 | - Well, that's weird because the thing

03:07:30.760 | I'm trying to figure out is why my sexual fantasy

03:07:34.160 | is to go to furry orgies and have sex

03:07:37.800 | with others dressed as squirrels and me, other animals.

03:07:42.800 | So that could be, I'll see a therapist about that one.

03:07:48.660 | - I'm not gonna respond to that except to say

03:07:51.060 | that as long as those four conditions are met,

03:07:54.940 | consensual, age appropriate, context appropriate,

03:07:56.900 | species appropriate.

03:07:57.860 | - So there's a bunch of questions on Instagram.

03:08:00.860 | One of them on this topic, on relationships,

03:08:05.260 | somebody suggested to do a part three of why Lex is single.

03:08:08.540 | There's a running joke about this.

03:08:10.700 | - But I can answer it in part, right?

03:08:14.580 | Because, well, partially because you're very busy,

03:08:17.340 | partially because you've decided that until it's time,

03:08:22.340 | you're gonna wait until it's time, it's time, right?

03:08:26.660 | I mean, until it's time, you're waiting.

03:08:28.140 | And then, I mean, not saving yourself for marriage,

03:08:31.060 | I don't think, but in some sense, yeah,

03:08:34.660 | your future wife is out there.

03:08:37.700 | - Oh, yeah, yeah, she's being programmed.

03:08:39.820 | No, I mean, I definitely believe that.

03:08:43.060 | I mean, first of all, I just love people

03:08:45.140 | and I fall in love very easily with people

03:08:47.060 | with objects, with things, with life, with every moment.

03:08:50.180 | - And that way you're like Oliver Sacks,

03:08:51.420 | he would fall in love with minerals

03:08:53.580 | and concepts and things like that.

03:08:56.540 | - And so, like to me, this kind of,

03:08:58.740 | so relationship is more like a commitment

03:09:04.020 | to one particular kind of object of your love.

03:09:09.020 | Like it's almost like a,

03:09:12.780 | it's like a journey that you take on together

03:09:14.940 | because also the interesting thing about humans

03:09:18.020 | is they're moment by moment a different person,

03:09:20.900 | day by day, week by week, month by month,

03:09:23.260 | they change, they evolve.

03:09:24.820 | There's an ups and downs and stuff like that.

03:09:26.700 | So what you're doing is you're saying,

03:09:29.140 | well, I'm going to explore all the ways

03:09:31.380 | that this human gets morphed and changed

03:09:34.460 | and what makes them cry, what makes them excited,

03:09:38.500 | what makes them lonely, like the habits,

03:09:44.500 | like when they form certain habits,

03:09:47.180 | how they feel when those habits are broken,

03:09:49.260 | like the stupid minute things that make everyday life,

03:09:52.740 | you're going to be on that journey together,

03:09:54.900 | figuring that out, just the way we're trying

03:09:56.580 | to figure ourselves out when we're like optimizing

03:09:59.500 | these things about diet and health and so on,

03:10:01.460 | you're kind of doing this computation together

03:10:04.380 | because neither person really understands themselves

03:10:06.980 | at all and you're together both confused about each other

03:10:11.260 | and you get to almost like a relationship

03:10:14.780 | is a chance to understand yourself

03:10:18.340 | and to understand another person,

03:10:22.580 | like together, that process is some call it,

03:10:24.420 | it's some iterative.

03:10:25.860 | - You know the dynamics, right?

03:10:27.180 | I mean, you're merging two nervous systems.

03:10:29.300 | This was once described to me very well

03:10:30.720 | by an ex-girlfriend who's truly brilliant.

03:10:34.300 | She's really brilliant.

03:10:35.420 | She said, you know, there's four arrows.

03:10:39.500 | This is maybe to an engineer or like a,

03:10:41.900 | so it makes sense.

03:10:42.980 | There's how you feel towards the other person.

03:10:45.340 | There's how they feel towards you.

03:10:47.420 | But then there's an arrow that comes back to you,

03:10:51.020 | which is how you feel about how they feel.

03:10:54.940 | And then they have an arrow of how they feel

03:10:56.700 | about how you feel, right?

03:10:57.940 | This is why if someone else is moody

03:10:59.460 | or somebody else is upset,

03:11:00.760 | there's one version of ourselves where we respond to that

03:11:05.020 | or they respond to us.

03:11:06.340 | But there's another version where we respond to that,

03:11:09.600 | but it's also, there's a processing of what it means for us

03:11:12.660 | that they're behaving that way or feeling that way.

03:11:15.460 | And this again, leads us back

03:11:17.780 | to that early attachment circuitry

03:11:19.300 | because if a parent was stressed,

03:11:22.900 | the child's role is not to soothe the parent.

03:11:25.860 | In fact, healthy models of parenting say

03:11:27.500 | that children shouldn't actually know

03:11:29.180 | how their parents feel

03:11:30.840 | for like the first eight years of their life.

03:11:32.860 | They're not supposed to be in that mindset

03:11:34.420 | of empathizing for the parent.

03:11:35.920 | This is often not the case,

03:11:37.780 | but maybe the cutoff isn't exactly eight,

03:11:40.080 | but you get the idea.

03:11:41.240 | So the dynamics of a relationship are where the learning is

03:11:44.060 | because we learn how we react to other people reacting.

03:11:46.660 | It's not just a two arrow system.

03:11:49.060 | It's at least this four arrow thing.

03:11:51.140 | But there's also the element of nurturing, right?

03:11:54.900 | I mean, I think that going through life with somebody

03:11:57.860 | is so much better than going through it alone.

03:12:00.140 | And I never thought I'd make that statement.

03:12:02.680 | - So it wasn't always obvious to you.

03:12:05.860 | - No, it wasn't always obvious to me.

03:12:07.340 | I mean, I've really enjoyed wonderful relationships

03:12:10.360 | and some have been hard

03:12:12.520 | and there's certainly been a lot of growth.

03:12:14.500 | I'm on good terms with almost all my former girlfriends

03:12:18.560 | and close with some enough that I know their spouses

03:12:21.960 | and I'm close with their families.

03:12:23.660 | But no, it wasn't.

03:12:25.740 | And I think that when people say relationship is hard,

03:12:29.680 | the only really hard part of a good relationship

03:12:32.960 | is just dealing with oneself

03:12:34.340 | and making sure that you're staying in that mode

03:12:36.900 | of caretaking.

03:12:37.980 | 'Cause I do believe that if one is mainly focused

03:12:40.800 | on taking good care of the other person,

03:12:42.700 | provided they're also focused on taking good care of you,

03:12:46.400 | to some extent, and we're good at taking care of ourselves,

03:12:49.040 | everybody flourishes, everything gets better.

03:12:51.040 | But no, I don't think I experienced that

03:12:52.940 | until fairly recently.

03:12:54.860 | - What do you think is the secret

03:12:58.380 | to a successful relationship?

03:13:02.900 | - There isn't just one, but at least in the top five

03:13:07.380 | is master or at least be good at autonomic self-regulation.

03:13:12.380 | Know how to calm yourself down.

03:13:18.700 | Don't expect the, like looking to anything external

03:13:21.700 | to soothe yourself, it puts you in a terrible position

03:13:24.500 | to be a caretaker of yourself and other people, right?

03:13:27.700 | So learn how to self-soothe, right?

03:13:29.200 | Learn how to calm your mind, steady your actions,

03:13:32.460 | steady your voice.

03:13:33.500 | There are tools to do that.

03:13:34.420 | We talk about on the podcast, but elsewhere,

03:13:35.900 | have that in place.

03:13:36.900 | I also think that if your main focus is on,

03:13:41.900 | you wanna have good boundaries, et cetera,

03:13:43.860 | but on tending to the relationship,

03:13:46.420 | doing a little bit more than you think you ought to do,

03:13:48.540 | if everyone does that, it goes great.

03:13:50.740 | I mean, I'm sometimes so positively struck

03:13:52.880 | by how supported I feel,

03:13:55.100 | because for many years I was just kind of doing

03:13:58.500 | everything on my own.

03:13:59.620 | So any little thing, I'm like, oh my goodness,

03:14:01.180 | this feels huge.

03:14:02.780 | And also I think the dynamics have to be right.

03:14:04.720 | Let's be really honest.

03:14:05.860 | This is a little bit of a tricky topic,

03:14:07.500 | but there is a power dynamic in relationships.

03:14:12.500 | Sometimes, not all, but in some relationships,

03:14:16.400 | it works much better if one person leads

03:14:18.500 | and the other person follows.

03:14:21.100 | In other relationships, it's more mutuality, works best.

03:14:24.820 | People need to know what they need.

03:14:26.880 | And so knowing what you need and what you crave

03:14:29.380 | is really important.

03:14:30.260 | And then once you do that, you can create

03:14:32.400 | the relationship you want.

03:14:33.400 | I've seen that over and over again, and people are different.

03:14:36.400 | But I think that ultimately, I mean, right,

03:14:42.220 | there's the dopamine phase of a relationship,

03:14:44.740 | and then there's the serotonin phase,

03:14:46.140 | the kind of more mutuality, coziness, and sweetness.

03:14:49.020 | There's a great book about how to make sure

03:14:52.220 | that the dopamine component and the serotonin component,

03:14:56.460 | so to speak, go on forever.

03:14:58.540 | And it has to do with, you know,

03:14:59.820 | when you first meet someone and you're attracted to them,

03:15:01.420 | you're essentially objectifying them,

03:15:04.500 | meaning, but not in the way people might think,

03:15:07.120 | you are not dependent on them

03:15:09.500 | for emotional stability or survival.

03:15:11.680 | As you get close to somebody,

03:15:12.880 | you really come to depend on them,

03:15:14.820 | and then you tend to objectify them less.

03:15:16.500 | And so this book, the book is, the name is kind of corny,

03:15:18.820 | but it's written by an analyst, again.

03:15:20.280 | It's called "Can Love Last?"

03:15:21.620 | And it's a book about how really good, strong relationships

03:15:26.260 | are the consequence of people constantly moving

03:15:28.580 | through this dependency objectification dynamic.

03:15:33.280 | And I use those words in the true,

03:15:35.860 | in the psychological sense,

03:15:37.060 | not in the way they're typically thrown around nowadays.

03:15:39.100 | So the idea, you know, in some cultures,

03:15:41.940 | men and women will only touch

03:15:45.020 | for two weeks out of the month.

03:15:46.900 | And then for the other two weeks,

03:15:48.560 | the excitement and the sensuality and all,

03:15:52.540 | and the sexuality is very heightened.

03:15:54.660 | And then they go back to this kind of distancing.

03:15:56.460 | Now, I don't think that's feasible for most people,

03:15:58.660 | but if you look statistically,

03:16:00.220 | those relationships tend to last a very long time

03:16:02.900 | with at least reported mutual feelings

03:16:05.940 | of intense attraction for many, many, many decades.

03:16:10.500 | So human beings need to learn how to at least understand

03:16:14.660 | and control these dynamics.

03:16:16.060 | And there's a lot of divorce, there's a lot of cheating,

03:16:17.860 | there's a lot of stuff out there.

03:16:18.860 | It'd be great if people could resolve some of this stuff

03:16:20.900 | inside of the relationship, in my opinion.

03:16:24.280 | - Yeah, and this kind of intense attraction,

03:16:26.900 | there's actually one of the poems

03:16:32.900 | that Karl Deisseroth introduced me to,

03:16:36.020 | I think it's Two English Poems is the name.

03:16:38.340 | But one of the things I find myself,

03:16:41.940 | for prolonged periods, being attracted to,

03:16:45.900 | is like you notice some kind of magic,

03:16:50.660 | and you keep wanting to dig to the depths.

03:16:53.660 | Like of that magic, I'm trying to figure it out.

03:16:56.740 | - You need to really know that person.

03:16:57.820 | - To really know a person deeply, yeah.

03:17:00.380 | You notice something early on.

03:17:03.420 | I don't know what that is,

03:17:04.500 | but you just notice something special,

03:17:06.660 | and you wanna keep pulling at that thread,

03:17:09.100 | and you never really do.

03:17:10.640 | - Well, you also have to be careful.

03:17:12.020 | I get a lot of questions from guys.

03:17:13.620 | You have to be careful of the questions you ask

03:17:15.060 | in a relationship too.

03:17:16.420 | You have to make sure you really want that information.

03:17:18.420 | And it's not just about people's past, right?

03:17:20.100 | If you ask somebody how they really feel

03:17:21.780 | about something about you, and they tell you,

03:17:24.660 | that may be soothing, it may be intensely stressful.

03:17:27.900 | You have to be, here's one thing I know for sure.

03:17:31.220 | For a relationship to work, you have to be brave.

03:17:34.000 | You can't go in there fully protected,

03:17:37.480 | and yet you also can't go in there with no boundaries

03:17:39.660 | because you'll end up beat up.

03:17:42.240 | What's that quote?

03:17:43.260 | If you wanna be a warrior, prepare to get hurt.

03:17:45.160 | If you wanna be an explorer, prepare to get lost.

03:17:47.260 | And if you wanna be both, you know,

03:17:49.420 | and if you become a lover, prepare to be both or something.

03:17:52.100 | Something like that.

03:17:52.920 | I forget what, this is one of these Instagram type things

03:17:55.100 | that you see passing by and you go, oh, that's pretty true.

03:17:56.900 | Love is scary because it takes us back

03:17:59.940 | to that primitive circuitry that is as primitive and basic

03:18:03.560 | as hunger, thirst, the desire for heat when we're cold,

03:18:06.340 | the desire for cold when we're overly warm.

03:18:10.060 | It's a, it's dynorphin.

03:18:11.940 | I mean, when somebody leaves, like the, you know,

03:18:14.620 | when somebody you are attached to leaves by death

03:18:17.860 | or by decision or you're forced apart,

03:18:20.700 | the dynorphin release is massive.

03:18:23.180 | It is true discomfort.

03:18:24.500 | People feel anxiety and discomfort.

03:18:27.740 | And moving through that is a hell of a process.

03:18:30.220 | I mean, if I knew how to best break up

03:18:32.820 | at a neurological level, or if you could just plug yourself

03:18:35.500 | into a wall and reset, I mean, I'd do that episode tomorrow,

03:18:39.400 | but we don't have that knowledge.

03:18:41.180 | - Nah, come on.

03:18:42.020 | The, I think we've covered this before,

03:18:44.100 | and it's even been memefied.

03:18:45.820 | I think losing love is part of the magic of love.

03:18:49.580 | It means you've felt something.

03:18:51.500 | - I agree, but at some point,

03:18:52.860 | like if you've done it enough times, you know,

03:18:55.920 | life is finite, you know?

03:18:57.460 | It is beautiful to see these couples

03:18:59.820 | that seem very much in love despite many years,

03:19:04.820 | despite having been together many years.

03:19:06.660 | - Yeah, the way they look at each other.

03:19:08.380 | - Yeah, they'll say- - They still see the magic.

03:19:10.220 | - Yeah, and they'll say, "We got lucky,"

03:19:11.940 | or it was, "It's been hard," or this and that.

03:19:14.140 | I think external conditions being a little tougher

03:19:18.540 | is helpful for a couple.

03:19:20.660 | - Hardship.

03:19:21.500 | - I do, I do, because I think that you rally, you know?

03:19:24.740 | And you bond with people, you know, being,

03:19:26.580 | obviously you want to survive those conditions,

03:19:29.180 | but yeah, I do.

03:19:31.860 | I think that it- - Bonnie and Clyde.

03:19:33.780 | So any- - Well, they were a little-

03:19:35.740 | - A little too much.

03:19:37.460 | Well, a little too much.

03:19:38.820 | - They were sociopaths, but the,

03:19:41.100 | well, when two sociopaths find one-

03:19:41.940 | - Love can make you do crazy things.

03:19:44.100 | - Normally, it's interesting,

03:19:45.060 | normally sociopaths don't team up

03:19:47.540 | because they manipulate each other.

03:19:50.060 | Sociopaths, sadly, are usually only interested

03:19:53.500 | in manipulating the highly pliable or unsuspecting,

03:19:56.920 | but when romantic attraction is woven in,

03:20:01.860 | then it gets really diabolical.

03:20:05.420 | - Any advice on finding the love of your life, of my life?

03:20:09.460 | This is why Lex is single response.

03:20:12.620 | Any advice?

03:20:14.020 | (Lex sighs)

03:20:15.460 | - Yeah, actually, this comes from a friend of mine

03:20:17.340 | who's in a really excellent marriage

03:20:19.660 | with great kids and family and high demand life.

03:20:23.900 | It's a decision.

03:20:25.620 | Like at some point you just prioritize it as,

03:20:28.580 | okay, I'm going to make this happen one way or another.

03:20:33.340 | And you don't force the discovery of that person,

03:20:36.580 | but I mean, I've occasionally said,

03:20:38.780 | hey, I think you should meet this person or that person.

03:20:41.020 | And well, it wasn't, maybe my judgment might've been off,

03:20:45.180 | but the timing wasn't right or something.

03:20:47.160 | But I think that, yeah, it's a decision.

03:20:49.960 | And it also has to do with life structure.

03:20:52.140 | I mean, there were years,

03:20:52.980 | so when I was in graduate school,

03:20:54.900 | I didn't want a girlfriend.

03:20:56.380 | I just wanted to be in lab.

03:20:57.580 | And sure, I had romantic dating interests,

03:21:00.620 | but I wasn't going to meet them through a committed,

03:21:02.500 | you know, live together situation.

03:21:04.420 | It wasn't where I was at.

03:21:05.700 | And as a postdoc, things are a little different,

03:21:07.340 | et cetera, et cetera.

03:21:08.220 | But at some point, it's sort of like,

03:21:09.900 | what do I want my daily routine to look like?

03:21:12.460 | Because ultimately a relationship,

03:21:15.220 | however one structures it,

03:21:16.260 | is going to be part of your daily routine.

03:21:18.120 | So at the point where you're like, you know,

03:21:19.380 | I'd really love to wake up next to somebody

03:21:21.740 | and do blank and blank together.

03:21:23.940 | And then I'd love to work.

03:21:26.340 | And then we meet for dinner and then we, you know,

03:21:28.340 | take the dog for a walk or take kids out

03:21:30.060 | or whatever it happens to be, take a trip or do it.

03:21:32.940 | You have to be, one has to be in the mindset

03:21:35.700 | of wanting to do couple like things.

03:21:38.780 | And a lot of people don't think about it that way.

03:21:40.500 | They either fall into something

03:21:43.220 | or they don't see the benefits of coupling up.

03:21:48.220 | I think that the pandemic tuned people's awareness

03:21:52.220 | to the fact that some things are indeed easier on your own.

03:21:56.980 | It depends on finances, et cetera, et cetera.

03:21:59.680 | But a lot of things are made better done with other people.

03:22:04.680 | - 100%.

03:22:06.700 | But I also, so I was very deliberately,

03:22:10.560 | it's an interesting way to put it,

03:22:13.300 | but what do you want your day to look like?

03:22:15.420 | I think what do you want your day to look like?

03:22:17.220 | What do you want your life to be?

03:22:18.700 | I was very deliberately always, first of all,

03:22:23.020 | happy to be alone, like a conscious thinking.

03:22:27.300 | I know a lot of friends were just unable to be alone.

03:22:31.180 | I'm able to be alone,

03:22:32.820 | but I'm much happier with another person.

03:22:35.740 | Like I'm able to share joy with other humans.

03:22:39.580 | - I look forward to the day

03:22:40.900 | that our kids are rolling jujitsu

03:22:43.460 | and my kids are hanging out with your kids.

03:22:47.060 | And if that notion sounds even remotely interesting

03:22:52.060 | and fun, then it's sort of like you kind of backpedal

03:22:56.140 | from that and you go, "Well, what has to happen?"

03:22:57.700 | - How do you get there?

03:22:58.540 | - How do you get there?

03:22:59.380 | - Reverse engineer and think from first principles

03:23:02.680 | about love.

03:23:03.900 | - Andrew, thank you for being my friend.

03:23:06.940 | Thank you for being an amazing human being

03:23:08.500 | who's so inspiring to so many people for constantly.

03:23:11.620 | I told this to Carl,

03:23:12.820 | one of the things that was really refreshing about you

03:23:17.420 | is that when I tell you an idea

03:23:22.980 | and I tell you a thought, when I tell you something,

03:23:25.580 | you don't shut it down as a first step.

03:23:29.100 | I was saying that that's common in scientific community,

03:23:31.300 | that's common in people around you.

03:23:32.900 | You're seeing what's the goal there.

03:23:34.700 | You get excited, you get excited together.

03:23:37.060 | And that's how you can really have a great friendship

03:23:40.460 | and create great stuff together.

03:23:43.500 | So I'm deeply grateful for that.

03:23:45.300 | And just for connecting so many interesting people together.

03:23:50.180 | You're doing an amazing job, man.

03:23:51.780 | And thank you for existing.

03:23:53.700 | Thank you for being you.

03:23:54.900 | Thank you for talking today.

03:23:56.260 | And next time I'll see you in the sauna.

03:23:58.620 | - Yeah, yeah.

03:23:59.460 | - As Beth.

03:24:00.280 | - Well, I wanna say several things.

03:24:01.180 | First of all, thank you for having me on again.

03:24:03.060 | It's an honor and a pleasure.

03:24:04.540 | And I don't say that formally, I really truly mean it.

03:24:07.660 | I only, the Huberman Lab podcast, as I always say,

03:24:10.140 | only exists 'cause you gave me the suggestion.

03:24:12.660 | And I'm so grateful that you did.

03:24:14.940 | So thank you.

03:24:15.980 | And for doing what you do.

03:24:17.900 | Like you are brave and you're a first man in

03:24:20.780 | and you're just continue to do it.

03:24:22.060 | Just what, as my postdoc advisor used to say,

03:24:24.740 | whatever you're doing, just keep going.

03:24:27.460 | And then in terms of our friendship,

03:24:28.900 | I mean, I think you know, and if you don't,

03:24:32.980 | I'm gonna just keep telling you anyway,

03:24:34.300 | by texting in person, you're an amazing friend.

03:24:37.260 | There's deep trust, there's immense respect.

03:24:40.540 | And I love you, brother.

03:24:42.900 | - I love you too, man.

03:24:44.480 | We did it.

03:24:46.060 | Thanks for listening to this conversation

03:24:47.460 | with Andrew Huberman.

03:24:48.720 | To support this podcast,

03:24:50.020 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

03:24:52.580 | And now let me leave you with some words

03:24:54.380 | from Ralph Waldo Emerson.

03:24:56.980 | It is one of the blessings of old friends.

03:24:59.600 | You can afford to be stupid with them.

03:25:02.460 | I look forward to doing just that in the many years to come

03:25:06.620 | of friendship and fun conversations with Andrew.

03:25:09.660 | Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

03:25:12.820 | (upbeat music)

03:25:15.400 | (upbeat music)

03:25:17.980 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Andrew Huberman: Focus, Stress, Relationships, and Friendship | Lex Fridman Podcast #277

Chapters