Lots of people deal with brain fog and
low energy throughout the day. What's
your advice for combating that?
>> I mean, it's funny. I I'll probably end
up saying this 20 times in today's
conversation, but if I were to really if
I had two minutes with somebody and they
said, "What's the thing I can do for my
health?" I'd say, "Make the first hour
of your day high cortisol and the last
hour hour of your day low cortisol."
High cortisol in the morning sets you up
for elevated mood, focus, and alertness
all day long. Allows you to buffer
stress better. And it makes sure that
your nighttime cortisol is going to be
low. If you don't,
>> you know, spike that morning cortisol
enough in the first one to three hours
of your day, you're going to have a high
flat cortisol curve. Not good.
>> Makes you less resilient to stress,
brain fog, less amendable to learning
and on and on. So then you just say,
well, what can you do? And we can make
this very simple. uh bright light
especially from sunlight or 10,000 lux
artificial light in especially in the
first 30 minutes after waking hydration
caffeine if you like caffeine exercise
in the first three hours of your day if
you can right some people can't and then
roll into your day at night in that
final hour you do everything you can to
reverse that you dim the lights
especially overhead lights dim your
screen you could do the red light thing
or the candle light thing you know limit
caffeine obviously exercise in the final
hour before sleep only if that's the
only time you can do it.
>> Mh.
>> Some people that's the only time. Um,
and actually eating in the first three
hours of your day, even though I'm a fan
of I personally fast in the first three
hours of the day, but that actually can
also spike cortisol. People say, "Why
would eating spike cortisol?" Well, I
mean, basically anything that you do
that's sort of proarousal, that's about
activity is going to spike cortisol. So
bookending your day
>> with things that spike your cortisol at
the beginning and lower your cortisol at
the end is really it it really is the if
there is a cheat code to life. Now why
do I say to life? I mean is it going to
make you completely stress resilient?
No. Is it going to make you a um able to
learn anything you want with ease? No.
But what it does is it sets you up for
the best possible sleep which makes you
more alert the next day of course. It
also it anchors this process that I
haven't talked about before on any
podcast um and frankly that I didn't
touch on directly in the book um which
is so much of life is about balancing
what we call bottom up and top down
influences. Bottomup influences would be
you know um you want the cookie, you're
going to just eat the cookie. You um you
know you shouldn't be scrolling as much
as you're scrolling, you just keep
scrolling. That's those are bottom-up
influences. These are um impulses that
are driven by hypothalamic and other
deep brain structures.
>> Then we have thankfully we have top down
influences. This is your prefrontal
cortex suppressing impulses. Okay. This
is the two marshmallow test in kids
which by the way a lot of people say was
debunked. The debunk was debunked by the
way. Yeah. So um the ability to suppress
action. It's what I taught my bulldog
pit mix strummer. the day I brought him
home and it's the basis of everything.
You put a piece of food in front of him.
He of course wants to take it, right?
His prefrontal cortex isn't even online
yet. And you take it away until he
learns and he learns the first day and
never forgets that he has to wait until
I say, "Okay, what are you doing there?"
It's actually not about making him wait
for a treat. It's about making him
suppress what feels like anxiety and
impulse. And that that wicks out to
every type of waiting. So you say,
"Wait, or like see you later. I'm going
to work." And then you come back and
he's not freaking out. He can just now
he doesn't have to actively suppress the
whole time. But the ability to suppress
impulse so much of life, the ability to
learn and lean into just enough stress
that you trigger learning. The ability
to listen when you want to react. The
ability to force yourself to get up and
work on the book or the thing that you
don't want to do.
So much of that is top-down influences.
And basically being an effective human
is about building up those circuits of
top down. Now do you have to do them in
everything? This is a matter of debate.
I think that
>> people like Andy Stumpf who I have
tremendous respect for.
>> Um it's just awesome. I've learned so
much from him. I actually made some late
latest late stage additions to the book
based on a conversation I had with him.
So he actually made you know very late
in the game. I was like I need to my
editors were like you can't do this
anymore. Like enough is enough. And I'm
like, I want it back or else I'm not
signing off on the final draft to put in
this. You know, Andy has a number of
tools that are that are really useful.
But, you know, he has this philosophy
that he shares which is
>> throughout your day when given the
option between the easier thing and the
harder thing, do the harder thing. That
there's tremendous value in that. It's
the make your bed thing. It's the
replace the toilet paper roll is the
example he gives in his book Drown,
which is an awesome book. I highly
recommend it. He doesn't pay me to say
this. It's just an awesome book. I
recommend it to everybody. But these
little things like there's that piece of
trash on the floor that's this big. Do I
pick it up? Why would you know does is
it about the trash? Does it really make
that much of a difference in your life?
No. But the action of going against that
bottomup influence of just ignoring the
harder thing and going toward ease, more
pleasure, less pain, even just avoiding
subtle pain though there are two ways to
build up these circuits. One is by
forcing yourself to go like as we say
with like writers always say like ass to
chair like you know it's just you're
just going to like sweat blood until you
get those 800 words a day out. The there
advantages to that or doing the hard
workout that you do not want to do.
There's also a building up of the same
circuits those top down suppression of
impulse through the little things all
day long. You probably need to do both.
But I think that many of us nowadays who
are exercising and doing health
protocols, we absorb a lot of energy in
order to get ourselves to those. Some
people more, some people less. And I've
started doing these, you know, stump
type uh smaller things throughout the
day. He does the big things too
obviously, but those little things, what
you find, what I find is that they make
it much easier to overcome the friction
that comes from anything. And so there's
a really just like getting the reps in
like it doesn't what it proves is that
it's the circuit. It's not what you're
doing. You're getting the reps into the
circuit.
>> It's kind of like Pavlo Satsulin, the
strength guy. It's like the grease the
groove thing. Okay, you do two pull-ups
every time you pass through through the
door.
>> And does that mean that you can do 200
pull-ups in a single set? No. But it
actually turns out to be more effective
than doing like three sets of 10 twice a
week.
>> Okay. Then people say, "Well, that's not
true. if you add weight perhaps not but
it's maybe it's just two different roads
to the same place but the top down
bottom up tension this dynamic tension
between those two is so much about what
being non-reactive is about. It's about
what not procrastinating is about. It's
what morality is about. It's about being
calm under pressure. It's about um being
making appropriate decisions in the face
of stress because it's not all about not
feeling stress. It's about making
adaptive decisions. Is there anything
else that you would advise people to do
for training willpower?
>> I mean, I think what Andy talks about in
his book, and obviously he's not the
first person to talk about this, but you
know that that philosophy like how you
do one thing is how you do anything.
That's a little bit vague for me. I like
the way he describes it, which is these
little micro sucks all day long. Like
like it happened to me the other day.
>> Trust Andy to call it micro sucks. He's
a man with a helicopter that's jumped
out of a plane like 50,000.
>> He holds two world records at wing
suiting.
>> Yeah. I think he flew 36,000 feet or
something like that. I mean,
>> yeah. And I mean, there are a lot of
badasses in the world and in the tier
one operator sphere and I know a number
of those guys that there are a lot of
badasses. Obviously, what's impressive
to me is somebody who has the
intelligence and the communication
skills to be able to share the things
that are relevant to everybody in a way
that's relevant to everybody. Um, he's
also from Santa Cruz, which is a cool
town. It's right over the hill from
where I grew up. And like the fact that
somebody like that came from Santa Cruz
is kind of a hometown joke, which is a
pretty There's only two reasons to go to
Santa Cruz. If you're a guy in your
teens or 20s or 30s, you go to the go to
the boardwalk to meet girls or you go to
fight. People in Santa Cruz, it was like
they you'd always see fights and so I
always thought of Santa Cruz as people
think as this hippie town. I always
thought of it as kind of a kind of a
there's a rougher side of Santa Cruz.
And then I hear about you know Andy's
from Santa Cruz. I'm like that makes no
sense whatsoever. But you know, he took
all of that kind of local environment.
Sounds like he had a good upbringing. He
talks fondly about his parents which is
cool and put it to some really
impressive feats and can communicate
what what the exports from that those
experiences are. So you know I mean how
many of us in our daily life need to
like shoot move and communicate you know
like the the macronutrients of you know
operators. I mean some people yes but
most of us no. So to me that's one way.
The other way is obviously to do your
workouts and you know I I'm a big
believer in asking yourself what am I
genuinely curious about learning and
where's the fear point for me? What is
kind of why am I shying away from
learning about something because for
fear of like poor performance and then
that's the thing you should lean into.
You have to be curious about something
unless you're in school where you have
to learn a subject. So that's another
way like pushing yourself to learn
cognitively. And then to me, I think
that a a big other part of this top-
down training is just the way that we
approach life. Like, you know, I think
there are two reasons to do hard things.
Um, Rogan and I were talking about this
yesterday. One reason is because it
makes you better at doing hard things.
The other reason is it allows you to
access more awareness of the beautiful
things in life. I mean, there's so much
dog [ __ ] floating around on the internet
and anger and we you and I talked about
this. There's so many barbedwire drama
things. I mean, if I went around, you
know, posting every opinion that I
reflexively have about some of the like
nonsense antics that I see online or the
crazy documentaries that are coming out
and like when and you know, you get to a
certain point in life and you tend to be
one to six degrees of separation from
pretty much anything you see online. As
much as you would like to not think you
go, "Oh, I know someone who knows
someone who knows that person. I met
that person once in a party. Got a eerie
feeling. I won't say who that's about,
but that was a real experience."
>> You know, you can go down that rabbit
hole. So much of being effective is
going nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. And
I always just take myself back to high
school. There are only really three or
four reasons to actually be in high
school. There's like to learn, right,
from teachers and from your peers and in
class. That's a legitimate reason to go
to school. you know, there were social
reasons. Um, there were all sorts of
observations that I had like one that
was still salient for me. I'll share in
a moment. You can learn a lot about
people in life, human behavior.
>> I have a I have a a friend who's a
professor at Stanford who says he he
unfortunately he calls me Andy. It's
really annoying. And he's
>> You don't like Andy?
>> No, no, no, no, no.
>> I think this guy's just persistent.
>> Yeah. I Well, so what happened was what
happened. I lost a coin flip to another
Andrew like in the third grade. He gets
to be Andrew.
>> He got to be Andrew. It still pisses me
off, you know. So, um, anyway, I
eventually took back Andrew. Um, and you
know, and this the other reason is a lot
there's certain observations that I had
in high school that taught me a lot
about human nature that are still true
across men, women of all ages, all
demographics is really, really helpful.
Actually, I'll just share it right now.
So, as some people may know, in round
14, I got really into the skateboarding
thing. Prior to that, it was like
school, swimming, soccer. Every kid in
my town did those. Got really excited
about skateboarding. Skateboarding was
small then. Um, it wasn't this big
thing. No X games, nothing. I wasn't
very good skateboarder. I was decent
enough to get picked up probably just
out of sheer sympathy by one sponsor.
Um, and people want to check me on this
cuz people always trying to His name my
team manager was Steve Rugie. I rode for
Spitfire. It was out of sympathy. Steve,
I love you. Thank you for putting me on.
I appreciate you also telling me I'd
never be one of the big guys. Boom.
Done. Um, but I remember there was this
phase of skateboarding in the early 90s
and it wasn't a good phase, but where
like the clothes got baggy, the shorts
got baggy, there was some sag
>> and at that time no one did that. No
one. Not in hip-hop, nowhere. Now, it
wasn't really like really extreme sag.
It was just like the shorts went from
like mid thigh to like right above the
knee, maybe a little longer. All right,
so that's what we did. We were
skateboarders. We didn't care what
anyone else did. came to school and just
ridiculed. Ridiculed by the jocks, by
the by everybody. Didn't matter the kids
were like black, white, male or female,
like Mexican, Vietn we were like teased
relentlessly.
>> Everyone knew that Andy was uncool.
>> Teased relentlessly, but we knew we
liked it. It was a little extreme like
you know, we liked it. We The point back
then was to be different, not the same.
Okay. Summer happens. That summer
something happened in the world of
hiphop where somebody starts sagging
their their pants. Next year everybody
and I just realized in that moment I was
like okay this I was like they actually
don't know. They actually don't know
what they like. They really don't.
They're just following. It wasn't
following a trend. They actually haven't
formed taste. And I was like, what I
love about skateboarding, what I loved
about certain forms of music, what I
love about certain podcasters, and what
I love about certain scientists, I can
name certain scientists who just have
the best taste.
>> The in particular, this guy Jonathan
Horton, neuropthmologist, like his
papers are beautiful. They're
articulate. The images are beautiful,
the discoveries are clear, and he's just
a he's a phenom. And but for a lot of
years, you know, his papers kind of
existed in good journals, but didn't
really pop to the biggest ones. Then
they popped. And what I realized was
like
>> whether it's in high school or as
adults, people actually most people
don't develop a sense of taste. Correct.
They confuse what they like and don't
like with what feels socially acceptable
and what feels so different that it's
uncomfortable to them. Now, I don't
believe in doing things just to be
different. That's not taste. That's
doing things just to be different. I
started realizing I was like, there's
certain people in life that have an
exquisite sense of taste. Rick Rubin's
one of them. My friend David Cho is one
of them. I believe you have taste. You
think about how you know the people
don't let the velvet British accent fool
you. Sometimes the British accent can
confuse people into thinking especially
Americans into thinking that somebody's
smarter than they are. I'm not trying to
What do the kids say? I'm not trying to
like puff you up here. Whe they have all
sorts of names for this now, but but
really like not I'm not just trying to
flatter you, but if it flatters you,
fine. like you're my friend, but also
you think right at the boundaries
between conflicting opinions
and then you form a third new opinion
usually that highlights something both
beneficial and deficient about both.
That is a skill. It's a super skill that
most people don't possess. Most
academics don't possess it frankly
because careers are sort of built on
like planting your flag and protecting
it until you absolutely get battered and
then you have to like like relent you
know and then pivot to something new. I
have a beautiful story about that
actually. the but I I realize that taste
is something that many people never
develop right
>> and the worst thing is when people who
have taste think that their taste isn't
taste that it's a misdirection uh
internally or something and they don't
cultivate that and I think that you know
so high school taught me a heck of a lot
it's true the baggies got too baggy the
sag went way too far and we just sort of
laughed as it took off we were like this
is hilarious actually but happened in
skateboarding, too. There were years
later where uh this kid that I grew up
with, I'm friendly with now, but Danny
Way who jumped the Great Wall of China.
Amazing. Jumped out of a helicopter. He
has all these world records, but he was
an aggro kid. He built the first mega
ramps. I mean, he's gnarly. He was
always just like so aggressive
skateboarder,
incredible, incredible athlete. I
remember, you know, years later when he
broke his neck surfing at Newport, he
started working out with Paul Trek. He
started and he built like a strong
physique and I remember skateboarders
being like that's for jocks
skateboarders working out. Now if you
look not all of them but a lot of
skateboarders are into like lifting
weights taking care of their body. Chris
Joselyn Trey flipped the you know El
Toro stairs this year. This was like a
heroic feat. It was like breaking the
4-minute mile more or less is uh for
skateboarding. I mean that dude clearly
works out. He takes care of himself. So
the things within a subculturing
community that make that such a special
community, what eventually happens is
the community defies its own principles.
It that you know the punks turn against
they go that's not punk. Well, you know
they did that to people like Joe Stummer
who brought hiphop acts as openers.
They've done that to friends of mine who
are in the uh like highle band punk
rock. They go they sold out actually no
actually they're doing great and you're
caught up in the eighth grade is what
happened. But it it's not regressive.
It's that taste is the hardest thing for
people to understand because it forces
them to really put a mirror in front of
themselves and go, "What do I actually
like and dislike?"
>> It's a counterveailing force against
both what's popular and the fickless of
blowing in the wind. Like people confuse
something that's popular for something
that's tasteful. And you can also
confuse something which is uh very
tasteful, not popular as something
that's bad. Like you said before, the
difference between liking something and
not liking something. You can like
something which is untasteful. And I
think the difference between taste and
popularity and liking is taste is the
ability to discern between good and not
good. Like is this thing good in and of
itself? And this is one of the problems.
If you run up because everyone's looking
for performance. If you run enough split
tests, you will end up with a porn
website. That's what happens. You run
>> it all regresses to Can you explain this
cuz I you and I have talked about this.
It all regresses to porn eventually. Is
everything is like if you basically if
you want to get the most eyes and clicks
on something, You keep going more more
extreme, more salacious. Correct. And
you end up in the dumpster heap of
online content.
>> Correct. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Going
back to the the brain, what's your best
advice for improving memory and focus?
People understand brain fog is a thing.
I'm struggling with that. I have lols
with energy throughout the day.
>> And now you want me to actually answer
the question?
>> Yeah, that'd be great.
>> Whenever you want.
>> So,
okay. So, brain fog is not a specific
thing. It's an inability to focus. Let's
get a couple of um core principles down.
People with severe clinical grade ADHD
can focus if they're doing something
they really like.
>> Y
>> tells you something. It means the
dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine,
we call these the catakolamine systems
of the brain and body that are involved
in many things but focus among them are
there. They're functional but the
threshold to access them is too high.
Okay. What does that mean? What it means
is that people can learn to focus and
they can get assistance in doing that by
pushing on one of two ends or both. One
is to ramp up the level of those
chemicals. That's what things like
Aderal, Viveance, Rolin and so on do. A
study this last year
>> out of Washington University in St.
Louis, sort of the Harvard of the
Midwest, if you will, although I think
that's unfair to the Midwest and maybe
we call Harvard the the WashU of the
East. um
showed that when you compare the
attention improving effects of rolin to
a great night's sleep, they're they're
effectively equal.
Hm. Some of these stimulants we know
blunt stunt growth, excuse me. They
stunt growth. We we know this, okay?
They limit they limit ultimate height.
They reduce sleep.
>> So, they're circumventing a problem. So
there's a new idea which is that maybe
lower dosages of these these medicines
combined with better sleep would be as
effective a treatment. A lot of parents
are erring that way. A lot of adults are
erring that way too. That said, some of
these medications can be useful in in
extreme cases. If somebody wants to
learn, let's just say if you want to
learn, you want to focus and get rid of
brain fog, you want to learn, it's here
are the key steps. And I review some
more of this in the book, but I'm during
today's conversation and always I'm
going to try and reference the book only
in if people want more information. I'm
just going to try and give people the
information. I if people want the book,
they can they can get it, but I don't
want to like cloak the information.
>> Everyone needs to go and buy the book.
>> Well, thanks. Thanks for your support of
the book. I did. There is a lot of
>> You learn a bled for this thing, dude. I
watched you I watched you basically
>> eight years.
>> You glanced off the bottom of insanity
in order to be able to put this. Then
the original word count was 120,000 and
then you were forced to chop it down.
And
>> it's basically seven short books with
with a long intro which is some story
and context. Um, and I promise you can
just navigate to a particular point in
the book and understand what's going on.
Get the tool and go. You can learn the
science or not. Get the science. You can
take the story and read it or not read
it. But I figure leave it all on the
mat. Look, I'm 51 next this later this
month. Like I don't know if I'll make it
to 52. I feel great. My bio market say
I'm great, but you know, I mean, who
knows? So, I'm I'm not living this life
to try and, you know, soft pedal
anything. I'm just going all in. So,
here are the steps to learning.
You need to focus. Obviously, to learn
to focus, you need to be alert.
To get alert, there are many things you
can do, and I talk about all of them in
the book. There are foundational things
like sleep. All right, that's going to
help you get alert and focused. But
there are also things like exercise. We
all hear that exercise makes our brain
better. It makes us better at learning.
Exercise makes you better at learning
for two reasons. One, it increases the
catakolamines, dopamine, epinephrine,
and norepinephrine. So, in the four to
six hours after exercise,
you are more alert and you can focus
better unless you exercise to
exhaustion. If you have leg day for, you
know, you 10 sets of 10 on the squats
followed by a bunch of hamstring work
and etc. Your brain's not going to be so
good at focusing. But, you know, 45 to
75 minutes of hard training, not taken
to extreme, a bit like what we did this
morning, that was a little bit on the
lighter side. Not just because we didn't
have a whole lot of time,
>> but you're going to come out of that
more alert because you have more
adrenaline in your body, more
norepinephrine being released in your
brain, and more dopamine being released
in your brain. And dopamine is a
critical component for learning. Okay.
Focus then it becomes easier to access.
And in your focus, what are you focusing
on? You need to focus on making
errors through genuine attempts to do
something. Something physical, maybe a
tennis serve or you're learning
billiards, something cognitive, you're
trying to learn a language. The error
between what you currently do and what
you're trying to do. The error is the
signal that the neurons, the nerve cells
need to change. It runs through a
circuit involving the cerebellum and a
bunch of other things. But that gap is
what the brain tries to close. If you
can do something, there's no reason for
your brain to change. And the agitation
you feel from those errors reflects
elevated levels of epinephrine and
norepinephrine in the body and brain
respectively. And those tag literally
chemically tag the synapses. I mean
there's some additional steps but they
tag those synapses so that then at night
when you sleep the synapses rearrange
and you close the gap between your
current ability and the ability you're
striving to achieve. That's how it
works. So
>> a a curiosity and willingness to learn
gets you to the gate of learning.
>> The making of errors through genuine
attempts puts the key in and turns the
key. The agitation is walking through
that gate and then getting some sleep or
maybe even uh you know a day or two
later even if you don't sleep quite as
well as you would like just some time
for the synapses to rearrange. That's
the last piece. There's an additional
piece that can reinforce it all which is
self- testing. If you want to get good
at something and stay good at it and
continue to get better at it, you need
to self- test. Mental self- testing is
the best way to consolidate learning and
learn faster. What do I mean by that? I
don't mean visualization. I mean asking
yourself like for me if I want to make
my memory better generally speaking I
might think okay so that was uh
September 11th 2001 where was I exactly?
What were some of the details? Now that
might be a something I might not want to
think about. But if I were to say okay
I'm going to go back to my um you know
year one neuroscience graduate school
training. Of course I know what a
syninnapse is. I know what neurons are.
I know what aster I know all this stuff.
it's embedded so deeply in me I can
almost do it in my sleep but then I
think yeah that's right like what is the
role of aststerytes and okay because
that's stuff that's relevant to me when
you hit the point where you can't
remember something you go and look it up
boom you've now closed that gap again
and it reinforces those synapses that
were weakening so if you're trying to
learn something new or you want to get
maintain information from way back when
you need to retest this is why we used
to make people retake their driver's
tests where you know physic physicians
need.
>> Yeah. I mean, used to be you had to
retake your driver's test. Not always
behind the wheel. But used to you didn't
used to just give people a license and
turn them loose,
>> right? Because they knew the ebbing
house forgetting curve was going to come
in and smash somebody in the face.
>> That's right. The supplement industry is
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and modern wisdom at checkout. I suppose
one of the advantages at least with
regards to driving practically is that
people are re-triggering that on a
multiple times per day basis.
>> Yeah. or you get a ticket or you get
into an accident. As my I feel like I'm
quoting my dad a lot lately, you know.
Um that's a good sign. Um my as my dad
always says, you know, that the thing
about speeding tickets is um they're
expensive and money hurts. You know,
speeding tickets were were $20. For most
people, that's
>> formative experience.
>> It's not trivial, but it's not enough
money to really like dent your uh your
heavy heavy foot on the pedal. But if
you give someone $300 ticket plus your
insurance goes up, people speed less.
you're going to remember that
>> people speed less. I'm not saying it,
you know, I mean, we could argue about
about speeding laws, but money hurts,
right? So, so that's how you learn. You
have to bring yourself to those points
of agitation. I wish id learned that in
the third grade. I wish they had told me
that. Now, many people find that they
are very disciplined about certain
things. They're getting their sets and
reps and they're pushed past failure.
They love their video games. They love
perhaps mathematics but not literature.
the things that we are not fascile in
that don't come easy to us. There are
two reasons to do some of that learning
at at every stage of life. One is it
enriches us. We often find that the
things that are hardest to learn that we
then learn are the most satisfying. This
is the effort that precedes dopamine is
far more reinforcing than when just
dopamine comes in. You could say, well,
you know, scrolling there's no um uh you
know, there's no effort involved and
that seems very reinforcing. That's more
of a compulsive behavior after a certain
point. Got kind of gets passed into
reflex. But talk to anybody, anyone, and
their life experience if they've had a
life will say something like, "Oh yeah,
everything was going great until this
big thing. Then I overcame that big
thing." And that was really the thing
that taught me that I'm capable of even
bigger things. Right? I mean, no, we
don't really like success stories. We
like um we like underdog often to
success story pitfall come out of that.
The hero's journey is something that we
resonate with in part because it's so
true but in part because for so many
people it's not true. We know it's there
but most most people don't embark on
those things. And I think it's because
we set too lofty an idea of what the
hero's journey is. I mean for a lot of
people it's about learning to do less. I
know a lot of hard driving people it's
about learning how to achieve more
peace. It's about exploring ideas around
spirituality or um fiction if they only
read non-fiction. I mean, we all have to
ask ourselves how much should we push
ourselves to do things that are we're
not just naturally inclined to do. I
think a mixture of what we love to do
and some of the things that we've just
avoided because um they just seem too
hard. I think there's real value in
doing those things. And all the data on
cognitive on maintaining cognitive
abilities say will exercise make you
smarter? No. It's necessary but not
sufficient to make you smarter. You
still have to go learn. And it without
completely joking, I mean this is
evidenced by many guys that spend hours
upon hours in the gym and they're not
brilliant people. They So they're
exercising plenty. Their brain is
clearly not getting bigger. They're not
necessarily getting stupider, but
they're not doing anything to make
themselves smarter. You need to learn
information. So there's that, but then
there's also people say, "Is it cross
word puzzles?" If you love doing
crossword puzzles, guess what, my
friend? you're they're not going to help
keep your brain young. You got to do the
the hard puzzles. You know, if if
they're easy for you, then
>> it's not going to help. You like chess,
play go. You like checkers, learn chess.
So, this is where I think people really
lose out on the understanding that
people who are striving maintain brain
and bodily function for a long period of
time. Their internal state is not
necessarily one of like, oh yeah, I just
love learning and so I just keep
learning. I bet you Andy Stumpf, as calm
and cool and collected as he is, even
though so many of his tier one operator
peers tell me it's really frustrating
because Andy's really good at
everything,
>> I bet you if we looked at his internal
state, his narrative is probably by now
says, you know, you can do this, but is
I doubt it's one of complete calm all
the time. I'm sure there's he's just
managing the external rep like he's not
showing it. Yeah, talking about that, it
seems like one of the things that gets
in the way of a lot of people's lives is
stress.
>> What are your best protocols for
managing stress? And I I realize some
people may have heard this from me like
35,000 times. Morning sunlight. Yes. But
that phys just do a long exhale when
you're stressed. Do a long deliberate
exhale. It slows your heart rate down
through a phenomenon called respiratory
sinus arrhythmia which sounds bad.
People hear arrhythmia, it sounds bad,
but we've all heard of the Vegas nerve.
The vagus nerve collects sensory
information from our visca, which is
nerd speak for your internal organs. So
your stomach, your spleen, your liver,
sending that information up to your
brain. Unconsciously, your brain is
responding to that all the time.
>> The vagus nerve also has a portion of it
that goes from the brain to the heart
and other organs. And there's one
particular pathway that contacts and
communicates with the sinoatrial node of
your heart and it slows your heart rate
down when you exhale. The reason is as
you inhale and exhale the space
available for your heart changes. So
when you at some point your heart is a
little bit smaller, right, during your
breathing and the volume of blood that's
in there moves more quickly. So your
brain sends a signal through this vagus
nerve pathway to slow your heart rate
down. So when you exhale
deliberately, this is the key,
deliberately, I don't think I've ever
described it this way, you slow your
heart rate down significantly. You
offload carbon dioxide and your level of
autonomic arousal, meaning sympathetic
alert versus parasympathetic calm,
balances, it tips more towards
parasympathetic calm immediately. It's
the fastest and most effective way to
calm down fast. Better if you can do two
big inhales first
and then exhale all the way to lungs
empty. That's the so-called
physiological sigh discovered in the
1930s. Not by shamans, not by breath
workers, but by physiologists. You have
a dedicated set of neurons in the
paraphial nucleus of your brain stem
that capture the activity of this veagal
pathway and slow your heart rate down.
But the beauty of this mechanism is it
also increases what's called HRV. The B
most people know I want higher HRV. How
do I do that? Well, I train V2 max. I do
some high-intensity interval training.
Great. I do some long-distance endurance
training. Lower intensity. Great. You
have higher V2 max. What is higher HRV?
Heart rate variability reflects the
number of times throughout the day and
night that this pathway this pathway in
the vagus signals your sinoatrial node
to slow your heart rate down. In fact,
you can increase your HRV pretty
significantly if you just do 10
deliberate exhales throughout your day.
And then at night, look at your HRV. It
will be significantly elevated.
>> This is why I spoke about this last
time. This is why I need to get you one
of those mhealth lamp things for
resonance breathing. We talked about
this previously. So you it's an
algorithm. It's a stone on the top of
this lamp. I think they're about to
launch this month this M.alth. Um you
stone on the top of the lamp. You It
vibrates. You breathe in time with the
stone. It's got a 100 hertz uh sensor in
it. So it's detecting your HIV all the
time. And as it vibrates up and down,
you breathe in time with it. And it
modulates to maximize that arrhythmia.
And if you were to see it, you would be
swinging from 61 to 72
>> to 62 to 70. So like 60 to
And it is so [ __ ] cool. And the the
sensation of doing that, if no one's
ever done resonance breathing before, it
is
>> like after about 3 minutes, it almost
feels like you've had a drink. It almost
feels like you're a little bit drunk.
It's very very when you get it. And the
guy Jay Wilds, who's the main science
dude behind it, he talks about precision
with this because you can get uh a
resonance breathing that's not doing BOF
feedback. The problem with that is it
everyone's resonance pattern is a little
bit different. everyone's resonance
pattern. You you might be 4.9 out, 4.9
in and like 8 out and I might be 4.1 in
and seven out. And that difference to
him, he says makes a big difference. One
final thing on that.
>> He said to go from state change to trait
change with regards to resonance
breathing, you need to do over 12
minutes. He says over 20, it doesn't
start to uh
>> a lot like meditation. Sounds like
>> very similar. Very, very similar. And
what's cool about this, what I love
about this particular thing is you can
grab it and you can hold it while
watching a movie. So like if you're if
you're just doing something else, it's
silent. If you're even if you're with
someone, um you've got the lamp next to
the couch or you've got the lamp next to
the bed, you can't sleep at night. You
grab it, it vibrates. It's pretty much
silent and you can just breathe in time.
You can be doing watching something
else. I haven't been able to read whilst
doing it. That's a bit too cognitively
demanding. But um you can breathe whilst
watching the TV and that I've racked up
hundreds of hours in the last year doing
resonance breathing because I've grabbed
that. All right, I'm going to go buy one
of these. Don't give me one. Don't I
don't I don't want And I don't want M to
gift me one. I actually It's funny. I I
love um still love finding new
technologies, trying new things.
>> New inventions are the best. They're
just harder and harder to find new ones
that people don't know about, which is
why when I find one, I get I like chirp
on about it for ages. Uh because I think
I I think that it's cool.
>> I do the same. I mean, I um it's funny
throughout the book several times I
mention because I talk about behavioral
tools. I would say 80% of behavioral
tools. And then there's a lot of
discussion about pharmarmacology and
supplements about the pros and cons of
everything from nicotine to amphetamines
and and on and on. But multiple times I
mentioned some of the devices that Sauna
Space, a company I'm not affiliated with
at all. Sauna Space makes these uh
indoor red light saunas that are
incandescent. They heat up right away.
>> But I also I travel with a with one of
their red lights. It fills the whole
room. I love those things. Raw optics
has these incredible non-flicker
shortwavelength uh eliminated. They well
actually same bulbs go from daylight to
you can get candle light at night with
with no flicker and it's LED because
incandescent aren't very energy
efficient. And I have no relationship to
raw optics or to sona space. Like I know
the people there now because I've
mentioned them enough times. They've
reached out. But I just enjoy sharing
things that I find useful physiological
size or or you know these particular
lights. Like I just like sharing what I
think might be useful to people and some
people have more disposable income than
others. I think that you know that
nowadays it seems like the are we
overoptimizing becomes a big question
like are we overoptimizing?
>> I did a huge essay about it long ago.
>> No, I listened and I think it's um it's
an important question. I mean to me
optimization is just taking the like
what do you got today? What's on your
plate today? And how do you feel best
and do best in that context? And this
brings me back to something that I
failed to say earlier, which is that top
down versus bottom up dynamic tension.
Pretty much everything that's in the
book, morning cortisol high, nighttime
cortisol low, um physiological size,
etc. They're all of those things put you
in the best position, put these circuits
in the best possible position for you to
have a more adaptive, less reactive,
it's not meant to rhyme, more adaptive,
less reactive life, right? to be more
aware of the goodness in life and less
reactive to the BS that you have no
control over. This kind of thing to be
less prone to impulse and more prone to
focusing on what really motivates you,
the people that you love and doing the
right things in accordance with that.
You know, we all know that a bad night's
sleep cripples this circuit such that
the bottomup influences take over. We
know this, right? People sleep less.
They're more prone to they have less
impulse control across the board and
they become slightly psychotic also,
especially if they don't sleep well for
three or four nights in a row. But when
you have these top down mechanisms
really reinforced by high morning
cortisol, low nighttime cortisol, great
sleep, you're buffering stress well, you
do a learning bout or two. And I do
refer to them as bouts because it should
feel like a bout.
uh that's when your life is actually
headed in the direction you want. Uh it
doesn't matter where you're starting
from.
>> That's when your life starts really
heading in the direction that you want
consistently. And these things don't
take a lot of time. In fact, they save
time because they position you to be at
your best. Show up as your best. That's
not a marketing ploy. It's just true.
And some people, now I'm skipping around
a bit, but I want to make sure I close a
few hatches. Some people might say, "How
alert and focused do you need to be to
learn?" We rarely talk about this. Like
one thing I really emphasize in the book
is like people talk about be present. I
give a tool that explains exactly how to
be present. Okay.
>> Okay. So we'll talk about that. But how
alert do you need to be in order to f
focus and learn? What what's the state
of mind?
>> Alert and calm. What is that? Because
that might mean something different to
you than it means to me. How do you stay
there? Okay. Have you ever played that
game hot hands where you know I put my
hands on top of yours? Wouldn't that be
nice? I put my hands on top of yours.
>> That's what we did all morning. That's
literally that we didn't go to the gym.
We just
>> put my hands on top of yours and we play
a game where you're going to flip your
hands over and you try and smack my
hands. Okay. And I'm going to try and
pull them out of your way. And you're
younger than I am, so you think you have
faster reflexes, but you don't. No, I'm
just kidding. You probably do.
>> You're the person whose hands are on on
top. So, let's say my hands are on top
and you're ready to flip your hands over
and tag me. You're the person with hands
on top and you're in that ready
anticipation of what's going to happen
next. That's the state of mind for
optimal learning.
>> That's the state of mind you want to be
in. So, when you sit down to read
something and you're like, I read that
whole page and I didn't learn anything.
Of course, you didn't because your brain
was you're running four or five
different circuits at once. In order to
really turn on focus, you need to turn
off a bunch of other circuits that are
or you need to lower the activity in
those other circuits. You can't be
thinking about at the same time, okay,
what's the how do my feet feel? How's
what's my heartbeat? What's going on
online? What's my girlfriend thinking?
What is she you? No, you need to be
focused. What is focus? Focus is
obviously in a tunnel, but then how much
alertness? I don't think anyone's ever
described it before, but when you look
at levels of arousal in a game like
Hotands, and believe it or not, there
are some equivalent data on this or data
on the equivalent sort of thing. When
you're waiting for a time trial and
you're waiting for something to happen,
you have to react quickly. That's the
state of mind you want to be in to learn
something that's hard for you but
beneficial for you. Period. End of
story. So hopefully that'll help people
kind of find that mental groove. And
then as you learn, if you find you're
getting too stressed, that doesn't that
brings down reaction time. It actually
you you start making false positives.
You start moving your hands away before
the person even does anything. Okay,
>> so
hopefully that will help people
understand the level of attention and
why it's so tiring after about 90
minutes
>> and you're like, "Okay, I need to take a
break." Somewhere along the way, low
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about presence? How can people be more
present?
>> Okay, so this one really surprised me.
So the final chapter of the book is
about personal development. Okay. Um I
was going to do a chapter about
relationships, but for various reasons I
felt like that wasn't appropriate. Then
I thought about relationship to self. I
thought well that's kind of weird
because what is relationship to self?
it's too squishy uh a theme that like
personal development step back and start
asking questions about
first acknowledge
step back and acknowledge there's a lot
out there about how to get through
trauma but what are the unifying themes
and can I put a structure on those
themes that helps people navigate all of
that what's the business of having a
great life so we talk about that we hear
be present there's this massive study
out of Harvard a few years ago that a
wandering ing mind is an unhappy mind.
I'm sure you're familiar with the data.
You ping people throughout the day. You
ask them what they're doing and how
present they are to it. Turns out
happiness is really about being present,
having your attention what's called
present tethered awareness. You're
focused on what's happening now, even if
it's unpleasant. People report that as
being much happier on average than if
their mind is someplace else.
Daydreaming has its place, but
daydreaming is usually mind wandering to
bad things, things of past, things of
future. We're just not present.
>> Distraction is literally unhappiness.
>> Yes. Yes. And the converse is also true
that focusing on what you're doing is a
great way to build up your mental
health. So then I started asking because
I'm a biologist, not a psychologist,
what the hell is presence? Does it mean
um anchoring my visual attention? What
how do I be present? Because otherwise
it's just a bumper sticker and otherwise
I look I love psychologists they have
these beautiful studies that discover
phenomena but then it's like if you're
going to say like fall asleep what is
falling asleep and we can talk about
that. What is being present? Okay so be
here now I think Ram DS said that great
be here now how turns out that if we
step back and we just say okay what does
the brain do? Don't worry this won't
turn into a whole lecture. What does the
brain do? The brain takes physical
phenomenon in our environment, photons
of light, sound waves, mechanical
pressure, chemicals through the nose and
mouth, translates those from sensation
to perception. Cool. Then we also can
remember things, predict things. It's
basically what the brain does and it can
change itself. So that's neuroscience in
a nutshell.
How do we move our brain from thinking
about the future and the past to what's
happening now? Okay. So that means
perceptions about what's only in our
immediate physical environment. It means
not thinking, not doing, not planning,
but asking questions about the immediate
physical environment. So we can do this
just now. Right now, and you can do this
anytime you want to be more present. And
I want to just preface this by saying
what I'm about to describe is not the
end point. It's the way to get into the
present. But what you do next is
critically important, too. First, you
ask trivial questions about your
immediate environment that can only be
answered accurately by focusing on the
present. So, for instance, uh what does
it smell like in here right now? Like
like I'm not getting much for me, but
okay. Um what is uh like how many cans
are on this table? One, two, three.
There's a couple other vessels. Four
cans find it. Okay. All right. Answering
two or three trivial questions,
seemingly trivial questions about your
present environment. How many people are
in line in front of me? How loud are the
kids screaming in the back seat? Is it
louder or softer than last time? Things
like that
bring our mind toward obviously
perception of the present. Duh. There's
nothing, you know, profound about that.
But it's what they take our mind away
from that's critically important. The
brain, there's a whole section on
thinking. What is thinking? The brain
works in what are called dynamic
attractor states, which as nerds speak
for, if I take a ball bearing and I put
it on a on a plate, it essentially can
move in any direction. There's some
details related to the smoothness of the
bearing and the plate, etc. But if I put
a little groove on that plate and I tilt
the plate slightly, it obviously will go
toward the groove. It'll get into the
groove. And then if I turn that groove
into a I make it more concave and
eventually a trench, the ball bearing
stays there. That's how your brain
works. The more that you see the
thought, the more that you see the
perception, the more that brain circuits
are devoted to things related to that
thought or perception. So when you want
to be present, something that we know
from excellent data,
this large study at Harvard, but
subsequent studies as well, is so
critical for happiness. The way to
practice that is to learn from taking
your mind from thinking and doing and
remembering about things of past and
future to just anchoring your perception
to the present. It doesn't require
meditating. Meditation is one form of
that. What what are we doing when we
meditate? We close our eyes. We focus on
our breathing that's here now and we
focus on quote unquote third eye center
or whatever. But that's actually
interosception. And it's focusing on our
internal bodily state, which is not that
great, frankly, if you look at the data
for being present in a happy way. Most
people who are overly focused on their
internal state in the present
>> are like, "My heart rate is increasing,
my heart rate's too low, I'm sweating,
I'm uncomfortable." You start thinking
about the fact that like your your you
know, your boxers are like pulled up on
one leg. You know, they that's not the
way to get present and calm and aware.
The way to get present, calm, and aware
and be able to move forward from that in
a in the best way is to ask questions
about your immediate physical
environment. Once you do that, remember
that's just the first step. The second
step is to use that heightened level of
awareness to ask yourself, what do I
want to what do I actually want to do
next? What do I want to say next? What
do I want to think about next? This is
the way that you take control of your
thoughts. And I won't go into all the
detail now, but thoughts have this way
they seed each other. So I think we've
done this thing about the cat, right? I
think we did that previously. We say
like, you know, think of a cat. Um,
okay, you know, tell me about it. People
say, well, it has soft, it's this color,
it's this that you're starting to
recruit more and more neural machinery
toward the thought about this trivial
thing that we call a a seed idea, which
is the cat. But if you just let your
brain run like through the tributaries
of its like own choices, you end up in a
pretty unhappy place.
>> So the key to being a high agency happy
person, it turns out, is being able to
control your thinking and bring it back
to the present. But then you don't just
stay there thinking about your
breathing. That's like kind of
sociopathic, right? It's weird. It's
like it's just weird. You ask questions
about your immediate environment and
then you pivot into the person that you
want to be in terms of action and
thinking and speaking or maybe silence
is called for
>> and so none of this is psychology. This
is all 100% neuroscience. I get into the
underlying mechanisms and it fully
supports everything I just described I
should say is fully supported by the
work that shows that people who have
heightened levels of activity in the
so-called default mode network. This is
the network of activity that just takes
place when you're doing essentially
nothing are more depressed.
>> Too much activity in the default mode
network. Yes, some is associated with
creativity, but usually elevated levels
of activity in the default mode network
are what you find in depressed people
because their brain is just kind of all
over the place and they feel
discombobulated.
>> Unless we're in sleep, we need to
organize our internal landscape. The
problem is most people hear you need to
organize your internal landscape and
they think oh you have to get up in the
morning do 10 breaths of meditation get
your and they think about it as
rigidity. I'm talking about now and
throughout the book it's all about the
things that set you up to lean into life
so that you're more reflexively more
effective. You're reflexively happy.
You're reflexively more adaptive. You're
reflexively more present. And I think
this is where the overoptimization
conversation is relevant. None of these
practices are an end in and of
themselves, right? I mean, I think
nowadays because people go to the gym
and they get like the the aesthetic
effect they want. They think like, "Oh,
you go to the gym to do that." I go to
the gym so that I can sprint for the
plane, open the pickle jar, move all the
boxes on moving day, up and down the
stairs, and feel great, tired, but great
at the end of the day. And I like being
strong for life. I like having endurance
so I can go hiking in Yeused. If we go,
let's go tomorrow. We're going and
carrying 80 lb packs. We do it tomorrow.
And yeah, it hurts a little bit, but
like in a good way. And you can sprint
for the plane and not cough up a lung.
You can, you know, there's a section on
mobility, which is, you know, four
trivial mobility exercises. You know,
get your knee behind your glutes once a
day, squat down, do bend and look up at
the ceiling like to a right angle, be
able to look up on both sides, identify
any, you know, kind of mismatches on
either side and work through those.
That's so I can like lean down and grab
things and move so I can reach and grab
things. It's like you threw me the
protein drink out there. I just for the
record I caught it.
>> You did catch it.
>> I I'm not so proud of that. I'm just
pissed at your camera guy. We'll
probably wait until I drop it and then
film that one. So for the They're
running a diabolical scheme here at uh
at Modern Wisdom where they wait for you
to f up and then they film it. But when
you get it right No, I'm just kidding.
No one's capturing. I'm just kidding.
Actually, I I don't care about I'm not
obviously my hand eye coordination is
not something I I'm like really
concerned about, but um nor do I boast
about. But the point being that it's all
about being able to move through life
with confidence and agency and and
awareness and sensitivity to what you
need to be sensitive to and being and
saying to the things that you need to
say to. That's a really good life. It's
not about the tools. It's about what the
tools open up for you.
>> Yeah. I think a lot of people have an
issue with the overoptimization thing
because it feels like more homework.
They're already overwhelmed. They're
already working hard. The sort of people
that read your book and listen to your
podcast and are fans of modern wisdom,
they're already contorting themselves
into a pretzel trying to get more out of
their day. They've already got standards
that are so impossibly high that they
can't meet them. And now when they
sometimes hear people saying you need to
do this and do this and do this and
this, they feel like they're
overwhelmed. And the difference being
you can make yourself fragile if your
entire performance and your whole life
is predicated on this kind of rain dance
ritual that you're only able to do the
stuff if you have had this like weird
two hours of foreplay beforehand. I
understand why that's the case.
>> Two hours of foreplay. Yeah, that's
that's a lot. I knew that would be I
mean what's that?
>> So nothing people might argue it's not
enough.
>> Yeah, that's true.
>> That is true.
>> I guess it depends on how much time you
got.
>> That's true. You you could have a it
could be a Sunday. But I think at least
from my experience periodizing your life
is one of the best ways to think about
this. And a lot of people especially
toward the end of their 20s especially a
lot of guys go through this mano pause.
They go through this period where they
realize that all of the strategies,
tools, habits, routines, modes of
getting recognition and and and and you
know success from the people around
them, they've stopped working and they
want to become something better. It's
kind of like a second adolescence. It's
actually a more important adolescence, I
think, than the one from, you know, 13
to kind of like 17. And that, okay, what
sort of person, what sort of man do I
want to become in this world? I don't
know, maybe women go through it, too,
but but I I I know that I see it in a
lot of guys, especially dudes that are a
little bit more deep thinkers and maybe
they played the game
>> in their 20s. They were successful
perhaps maybe at playing the game.
>> Which game are you referring to?
>> Like the social norms game. I'm going to
like, you know, contort myself or like
chameleon a little bit. I'm not going to
bring up quite what I think or what I
mean or my my
>> Well, that can be adaptive, too. I mean,
especially in the age of camera phones.
I mean, when I grew up, you say
something outrageous at a party,
>> just like, you know, not offensive, but
just outrageous. And it may land, it
might not land, but you don't worry that
it's going to land everywhere.
>> Concretized on the internet for the rest
of time.
>> Yeah. I mean, I I And this is not just
for public facing people. I mean, I feel
like um you're probably a great dancer,
but you know, I think like a lot of
people are are not, right? a lot of men
in particular are not um and
>> you know you'd like to be able to like
go to a wedding and dance and have fun
and not think about how that's going to
show up.
>> Yeah. Is someone going to mock me for
this video? So anyway, you guys get get
to this period and they think what sort
of a person am I going to be? And that
to me and for me and for a lot of my
friends as well, I needed to basically
bundle together quite a lot of locking.
I needed to lock the [ __ ] in. I needed
to lock in for an extended period of
time. And from the outside that might
look like uh an overreiance on protocols
and self-experimentation and optimizing
and doing things like that. But what
they don't see when they look at
somebody that's going through that
period is I was basically paying a debt
that I had slowly accumulated over a
decade and a half of running nightclubs.
Like I will go toe-to-toe with pretty
much anyone for degenerate behavior in
my 20s, right? I ran more parties, did
more of the things that you're not
supposed to do in my 20s than almost
anyone else. I met a million people on
the front door of nightclubs. I attended
a thousand parties.
>> Thousand parties. That's how many we
ran. We had a million were very
different.
>> We had a million we had a million
million lifetime entries. Had a great
time to venues.
>> Um so I'm like I've served my time and
then I needed to I wanted to become
somebody that was a little bit more
well-rounded that understood himself
that had a great con all of those
things. I was like okay. So, if you look
at me from 28 to 32, 33 in isolation, it
actually looks like probably quite a
fragile um highly strong life where I've
got this elaborate morning routine
that's going on for a couple of hours
and I'm like getting up and getting
sunlight my eyes before it's cool and
doing the lateral flow eye movement as
you're ambulating through the thing.
Like, do you putting salt Redmond salt
in water that I had to import from
America because I once read in some
random blog post that it might work.
like all of this [ __ ] before it was kind
of popularized and then journaling and
breath work and meditation and reading a
book and doing space repetition with
Anky flashcards and all of this [ __ ]
Why? Well, because I wanted to like
discover what worked for me and I wanted
to like rip myself out of this hole that
I dug myself into and my thing around
the the optimization like guilt that a
lot of people feel or fear that they
have this kind of push back against the
the fragility that definitely comes
along with it. Like there is such a
thing as like the fear of or the worry
that you have of trying to be optimal
killing you more quickly than your uh
suboptimal behaviors. Like you're so
stressed about this. But there is also a
period I think that you can really use
it to like get the momentum moving.
Okay, I've got a training practice. I
understand how to meditate. I've stopped
going to bed late. I've started getting
up on time. I've started, you know,
those are things that then carry you
forward. And you can either try and
slowly ingrain them over a long period
of time or you can navy seal hell week
it and bundle it together. And that's
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>> I came on this podcast because I was
excited to talk to you and yes, I'm out
on the book thing, but I like learning
from you. So, can I just like take in
what you said for a sec? Um
>> cuz um happy to share what I know, but I
want to I want to think about this
because I always learn with you. So, one
thing that you're so excellent at and
that I'm trying to do more of by way of
example from you is um you are very good
at spotting um contradictions and as I
said earlier trying to you know like
clashes and contradictions and trying to
export something of value like a new
direction from that. So, you know, I
will say and I I acknowledge you in the
book for many reasons, by the way. Um,
just, you know, we get these conflicting
messages inside of any space. Okay? So,
um, you have so much within you. If you
do the right things, you can access
these things. Okay? Um, if you do all
these things, you're actually a weaker
version of yourself because if you don't
do those, not doing the hard thing now
becomes the hard thing. Okay? I mean,
hell week is a week for a reason. It's
not hell year. Although, talking to
people who are instructors and SEAL
training and this kind I mean it it I do
think they are um identifying people
that are that have something different
in them
>> as opposed to building that up. I think
they build it up in those people but I
think it that filter is really unique. I
think for the rest of us um you know I
don't you'd probably make it through but
for the rest of us um
the the real question I think is how do
we resolve all these tools and
contradictions that are out there and
put a structure on them. Forgive me for
going slow here but for once I'm I'm
speaking slow enough. Okay. So years ago
when I was a graduate student uh a guy
who is really a luminary in the field of
neuroendocrinology said to me he said
you know um it's rarely the people who
make like the key discoveries that go on
to be associated with um the great
findings of a field. I go how can that
possibly be? And he said it's almost
always people that are in that field or
educate themselves on that field that
put a structure on it. And he said, 'Th
this is why it's important to publish
research papers, but also regularly
publish reviews. And I always made it a
point for about every three research
papers I published to publish one high
quality review, not some like, you know,
like yellow ribbon journal, you know,
um, review because you can publish a
review anywhere, but like real
compendiums of where the the knowledge
is now. Like I took those very very
seriously, like annual reviews and so
forth very seriously. And why? because
they help you organize your mind around
what's happening and they help other
people do that too because most people
aren't going to take the time to do it
in the health and optimization space.
Now, there's so many tools, right? So,
what we need and what I try and
highlight in the book are principles.
>> Yep.
>> High morning cortisol means low
nighttime cortisol means high nighttime
melatonin means great sleep means better
days and so on and so forth. You're
you're essentially got the gears of the
system linking together with that.
Understand that. And then yes, it's true
bright light is the best way to spo
spike your morning cortisol, but
exercise is pretty effective, too.
Sometimes you don't have access to
either. Sometimes you have access to
both. Sometimes you're on a plane, you
can't but you can start doing other
things to nudge the system or keep the
system online when you have 30 seconds.
You also understand that if you miss a
day or two, you're okay. Y because you
set up the system through good behaviors
going into it. You don't have to
dissolve into a puddle of your own tears
cuz you're on a plane and they don't
have any caffeinated coffee and you
can't do your air squats and like I mean
come on, no one wants to be that.
Exactly. So you're you once you
understand a bit of the principles that
organize the mechanisms, you're in a
great position to be truly strong of
mind and body because you can organize
information. And the same thing is true
like in chapter seven of the book on
personal development. I took a step back
and I said,"What are the unifying
features of all the trauma therapies?
What are the unifying features of how to
have a great life?" Let's just start
with how to have a great life. James
Hollis came on my podcast. He's 84 years
old. Surprised the [ __ ] out of me when
he said, "Here's how you have a great
life. It involves four things. The first
three are shut up." That's the first
one. I go, "Shut up." And he goes,
"Yeah, someone's always got it worse
than you. Nobody wants to hear you
whine. Have gratitude for what you do
have. If you're alive, you got something
to be grateful for.
>> Well, I didn't really expect that from
him. You know, he's like this
85-year-old Yungian analyst. He talks
about the unconscious mind. He goes,
"Shut up. Your day should start with
Huberman. Shut up. Whatever's got you
bothered, shut up. You got it better
than somebody."
>> It's interesting. I wish someone had
said that to you earlier, but that's
okay.
>> Thank you. Um, second,
>> you can keep this in
>> next.
Next, he said, "Chris Williamson, go
[ __ ] yourself."
>> Yeah, that's true.
>> Science.
>> First is shut up. Second is suit up.
What is suit up? Suit up is
>> you have a role to fulfill each day for
other people and for yourself and for
the world. Suit up is get prepared.
Shower, organize your room. We've heard
this stuff from Jordan and from other
people, but get your act together so
that you can then do the third thing
effectively, which is show up. Go find a
role in life and fulfill it. Might not
be the role you fulfill your entire
life, but if it's a summer camp
counselor, if it's a babysitter, if it's
a a nanny, if it's a firefighter, if
it's whatever you you are doing at some
point in your life, you in order to have
confidence and be a healthy, happy
person, you need to fulfill roles for
society, meaning for people in your
life, not just for you. You have to be
in service. Now, some people might
think, well, I want to make as much
money in the world as possible. That's
not me, but a lot of people feel that
way. Great. to do what? Go fulfill that
role. So get dressed properly. Do those
things. It sounds so basic, right? So
shut up is about gratitude. Suit up is
about prepare and practice. Don't show
up, you know, don't for me, I delayed
the publication of the book three times.
Why? Because I want the book to be
something I'm truly proud of and that
people will feel that they were honored
as smart people who deserve quality
information. Period. End of story. And I
was willing to tell the publisher and
everyone else, look, I'm so so sorry,
but I'm going back in again and again
and again. Eat the shame. Because
ultimately, I had a higher value, which
was that the book be of good to extreme
value to anyone that that that read it
>> or even just looked at a chapter for
instance. And then that last one of show
up is actually go do the work. Like chop
wood, carry water. Like no one gives a
[ __ ] that you don't want to do it today.
Just do it. Great confidence comes from
those. But then he said the fourth thing
the pitfall is that when we get too much
into role playing these roles and doing
these things we we don't often enough or
see excuse me many people end up down a
road that they don't really want to be
on and everyone fears that. So he said
the solution to this is very simple once
a day go into your mind and get out of
stimulus response. You either meditate
or just breathe. You draw, you listen to
music, you don't look at your phone, you
don't think about your role in the
world, and all you do is you try and
listen to, and it sounds real squishy,
but when it's next to shut up, suit up,
show up, I feel comfortable saying it,
which is you ask yourself like, what is
my deeper wish, my heart's desire? What
do I need to be focusing on now? Maybe I
have enough career, enough money, enough
uh whatever, you know, colleague
respect, etc. Maybe now it's time to uh
focus more on relationships. Maybe it's
time to focus less on one's role as a
mother or father, not completely, but
focus more on an artistic creative side
that if you don't satisfy, you're not
going to feel like you had a good life.
So personal development, if you look at
those bins, it's not about shut up, suit
up, show up, and do this internal
practice of getting out of stimulus
response. It's that's just one example.
You look out across the landscape of
personal development and almost
everything slots into one or two, but
usually just one of those entire books
are about the first one or just the the
last one or two of the two of the four.
And I go, that's very satisfying to me
because as my colleague said, putting a
structure on things is is very helpful
because it helps us navigate without
feeling like there's all this
information. Wait, I'm supposed to
journal and I'm supposed to do therapy
and maybe psychedelics, maybe not and
I'm supposed to have social connection
and and like pretty soon you're like
when am I supposed to do the morning
sunlight thing? It's a lot. So the idea
is that you you understand the framework
and then when it comes to the trauma
piece for unlearning, right? Like
there's a tremendous amount of
information in the book on how to focus
and learn better. But then also what
about unlearning?
>> All of getting over bad stuff is four
steps. The process is four steps. The
first thing you need to acknowledge the
bad thing. You can't just deny it
anymore. You can't suppress it. What are
you suppressing? You need to acknowledge
this happened. This sucks.
Two, the second step is you need to feel
the feelings completely. There is no
working around this. their entire books
and workshops written around breathing
into, psychedelicing into, talking into,
hugging into, shaking into feeling the
full suck of the horrible thing that
happened or things.
But that's not where it stops. People
often just end there. The next piece is
feeling calmer even slightly and more
peaceful
around the accurate detailed memory of
the thing. You're now uncoupling the
emotion from the thing. You can't just
live in the feel your feelings. We have
an entire generation of people and
collection of people online who are only
there and they wonder why they're still
there
>> at the mercy of their feelings.
>> They're at the mercy of their feelings,
but also they're not effective in the
world. They're not affecting change.
They think they are, but they're not
affecting change. This is actually why I
think they hate one of the many reasons
why successful people are often hated
because they're moving along. They're
like I feel like sometimes online I look
and I'm like you remind me of those kids
when I would go home cuz I left I went
to college then came back and that
scared the [ __ ] out of me cuz I was like
oh my god
>> you guys could write a textbook on how
to become a like a world class loser
>> and some of them weren't like drugging
out or anything. I was just like, "You
guys are still talking about stuff that
well, today I talked about stuff that
happened in high school that was helpful
for me, but
you guys are like stuck." It's like
these people that hang out in the
parking lot of bars for years and years
talking about this thing. I mean, it's
the saddest thing in the world. And men
do it one way, women do it another way.
It's this fixation on the things that
happened that we feel wronged about, and
we all have them, right? And granted,
some people were genuinely wrong. That's
not the point here. It's not whether
they were wronged or not. It's that
they're stuck there. And the third piece
is about the uncoupling. And then the
fourth piece is what we kind of think of
as the magic of life where people take
the hard thing and the experience and
their journey of moving through it and
they transmute it into something of
beauty and goodness for the world.
>> These are the people that go and talk at
bereavement workshops. Talk to people
who've lost a child. Talk to people um
who have experienced horrible things.
talk to maybe they even just plant a
flower and put it in the window sill and
every morning they appreciate not the
pain they went through but the pain they
went through that they no longer
experience and the beauty that's there
representing it a small detail right a
small detail in their life they've
transmuted the pain but you can't just
go oh you know what you had this
horrible thing happen you know plant a
flower
>> put it in the window sill and think
about how beautiful it is you can't take
somebody who's struggling in number one
or two Yep
>> or three and put them there. So for me,
>> go back through those four for me.
>> What's that?
>> Go back through those four.
>> Acknowledge the thing.
>> Yep.
>> Straight on exactly what happened or how
many you know what is the thing that
sucks that hurts so much. Two, you have
to in a safe environment. This is why
there's an interest in clinical trials
on MDMA because it's this impathogen
makes people feel, you know, love and
safe. But you need that's not the only
way. I mean there's therapy, there's
journaling. I talk about this in talk
about all the different approaches to
each of these steps. That's the second
step. You have to feel the feelings
completely of the horrible thing that
happened. The third thing is once you've
done that enough, and we talk about what
enough is, you need to be able to recall
the details and specifics of the
horrible thing that happened with less
emotional load. The emotional load
starts to peel back. And it's a hard
step to get to, but once you get there,
it's a process. It's not like you go in
and you go, "Okay, today I'm going to
remember everything, but it's not going
to bother me at all." Little by little,
you start to uncouple the
>> It's like memory exposure therapy.
>> Some people do EMDR. That's one way.
Some people do hypnosis. Some people do
talk therapy. Pennaker has people
journal four times for 15 minutes each
about the horrible thing that happened.
This takes them through steps two and
three.
15 minutes one day, 15 minutes the next
day, 15 minutes the next day, 15 minutes
the next day. No more, no less. And by
the fourth day, tens of thousands of
data points now, not just individuals,
but many many papers, even if uh you
know, manuscripts, scientific
manuscripts, but even if you tear up the
writing afterward, even if you delete
the file, you find that people move
through steps two and three to a
significant degree. And then the fourth
step is not just letting it hover there
as this thing that you got through but
finding some way or ways it can be many
of transmuting that entire experience
the thing that happened and the way you
moved through it into some point of
beauty or contribution to your own
well-being and to others well-being.
could be yeah a dog and the dog
represents every bit of your ability to
love unconditionally and their ability
to love unconditionally that represents
the unconditional love you didn't get.
Maybe it's a someone who has suffered a
horrible trauma is helping people who
suffered similar traumas. Or maybe it's
some just symbol, right? I mean, you
know, in a very Yungian way, it can just
be a symbol of like maybe you have this
paper weight and that symbol is the the
weight of your your certainty that you
made it through and you just, you know,
that the human mind can assign symbols
to to experiences very easily, good or
bad. So those are the four steps and for
me in thinking about personal
development it was like how do I look
out on the entire landscape of all these
books and all these podcasts and think
and and science and think what's the
best way to move through you acknowledge
that process. Neuroplasticity is alert
focus agitation through genuine errors
to get things right. Reinforce through
sleep and self- testing. Those are the
steps. There's not a fifth step or a
sixth step. There's not jump to step
three and avoid steps one and two. So
these days a lot of my role in in my
public life is to educate about
processes and when and this all comes
from my training in neuroscience. You
don't teach people neurons fire action
potentials. That's the first thing you
teach them. Then you tell them how that
happens. And once they understand how
that happens and you get the action
potential, they have embedded in their
mind an understanding of when a neuron
fires, a neuron fires, they're not
thinking about all the steps, but it's
all there. That's what we call true
understanding. You have a nuanced um
multi-level
understanding of something. And I think
that all too often in the optimization
space, we say, "Hey, this red light's
going to give you better skin. It's
going to improve your mitochondria." And
people of course just want those
effects. But if people are feeling
overwhelmed, they should think, well,
what's better, red light or GHK copper?
I would say, well, what's the best
source of of red light? It's the sun
minus UV. When does that happen? When
the sun is low in the sky, boom, you got
the best red light therapy that you
could ever get minus UV for zero cost.
Congratulations. You want a red light,
too? Cool. Be my guest. I own one. You
might want one, too. But just we're
talking about long wavelength light
minus UV. End of story. So, it's not
complicated. And I think the same is
true in resistance training. Andy Galpin
talks about this or exercise. They're
only like five or six different
adaptations. Better speed, better power,
better, you know, I mean, you've added a
seventh of like like, you know,
forearms, but for the rest of us, there
only six. And you can get that through
CrossFit, you can get that through sets
to failure. You can get more volume with
near failure. Like once you understand
something, you're in a position to make
much better choices around it. And so my
I'm actually wondering when to retire
right now. I'm kind of thinking what's
next and I have some ideas about where
that's going. But I think we in 2026,
right heading into 2027, I think we
pretty well understand the principles of
great mental health, physical health,
and performance. There'll be more
peptides. There'll be more devices. I
think devices and pharmarmacology are
really going to change the game. AI is
going to change the game. But I think
we're there. The fundamental the physics
of the system.
>> Pranayyama breathing or Wimhof
breathing. H how do you want to feel
more alert? Inhale emphasized breathing
passive exhales. You want to feel calm.
How should you do that? Exhale
emphasized breathing. Passive inhales
longer exhale relative to inhale more
calm. Why? We know all the mechanisms.
So the naming this and this probably
scares some of my you know health
colleagues. Hopefully not because no
longer can people name things after
themselves or give something a name that
cloaks what you're trying to achieve.
The reason I went yoga nidra non-sleep
deep rest
>> and I I have great respect for the yoga
culture that developed this thousands of
years ago is non-sleep deep rest is the
goal. What is involved? Exhale emphasize
breathing to slow the heart rate down.
Shifting the mind from thinking, doing
and and planning to pure sensation.
Great. How do you do that? present
tethered awareness, long exhales, eyes
closed. That gets you into a pseudo
sleep that recovers some of your lost
sleep, makes you better at sleeping at
night, lowers cortisol, puts the brain
into micro states of sleep,
>> enhances learning. That's non-sleep deep
rest in a nutshell. Now, why the book
has to be so long given I can just kind
of cut it down to a nutshell, that's a
different story. But principles are what
allow a field to say, you know what, we
got it.
>> Yep. Doesn't mean the stuff isn't
important. Means we got it. We're moving
on. We understand the action potential.
We understand plasticity. We understand
getting over trauma. The tools still
need work, but we understand how to get
to sleep. We understand how to be
focused. We And so people, I think, I'm
hoping will appreciate that we are here
now. I didn't podcast and do all this
for the last six, seven years so that I
could be in the exact same place and
regurgitate the same things. I'm like,
here you go. This is my thesis. This is
my thesis. This is my graduate thesis.
My graduate thesis, like, you know, some
people say there's a little bit of like
pigeon chesting, but I didn't publish
like two papers in some, you know, red
red ribbon journal. We published close
to eight first author papers in awesome
journals, some in apex journals. I could
have graduated way earlier. I did it
because I wanted to close a story in a
field. We didn't get everything, but I
wanted to get to the point where that
field didn't make sense to work on
anymore.
>> Mhm. Mhm.
>> It was like, "We're done. We did it."
Like, like, "What are we doing?" Like,
"I don't want to stay in high school. I
want to You graduate. So, it's now time.
This is my thesis. I'm done. I think
it's I believe it's of real value. I'm
on to the next thing." And if people
want to quibble about the details, I'm
all ears. I'm happy to talk about it.
Um, or even the big things, but it's not
like I'm done. It's not important. It's
like, "We got it. Let's move to the next
level." And I want you to do this, too.
I talked to Lex the other day on the
phone. You know, everyone's like,
"Where's Lex? Haven't heard." Lex is
building up the next big move. I can't
talk about it, but it's awesome. And I'm
like, he's so brave. And I'm like, yes,
you're always on the next thing, you
know? Rick's always on the next thing,
you know? And it's so cool. Like, it's
like, we got to keep going. We can't
stay back there.
>> Mhm.
>> Can't stay back there. That's what
happened in the 1960s and 70s. People
got went down the rabbit holes. They
took too many psychedelics thinking
psychedelics were the answer and a lot
of them lost their minds or they did too
much somatic therapy and they forgot
that the mind that actually you don't
store emotions in the body. I'm sorry
folks, you store them in your brain and
the body represents them. Turns out
we've now moved on. Body and brain are
important. So I think it's time we move
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Is there a good test for microplastics?
And what is the best detox protocol that
you're aware of at the moment for
microplastics?
>> Detox as opposed to limiting the ones
coming in. Um cuz we know where they
are, right? They're pretty much
everywhere. Um uh but glass better than
plastic and so on. Um
>> the data on sweating are decent, right?
They're not going to purge them
completely, but they're but they're
pretty decent.
>> Um so sauna sauna living in Texas
>> running outside. I mean, heat is heat,
right? So, you know, I was kind of
joking this morning on a press call. You
know, if you're standing outside in
Texas in the middle of the day, like
you're getting some deliberate heat
exposure or non-deliberate heat
exposure. It's the same heat as heat.
>> Um,
>> so that definitely helps. You know,
there's this idea that sulforophane,
which is in cruciferous vegetables,
might be able to bind some of it and you
can purge some of it.
>> That uh arterasol, is that what it's
called?
>> I think it's sulforophane. Um, you can
take concentrated sulforophane. You
know, Rhonda broccoli. Yeah, Rhonda's
very bullish on this. I um I don't take
sulforophane. Um I do try and sauna
>> because it has other benefits a few
times a week. Um and I just think more
and more companies that can their
beverages are going to start, you know,
looking a lot of canned beverages do and
a lot of canned beverages don't.
>> Rhonda put me in touch with a company
for Newtonic who uh have a different uh
wrapper on the inside cuz all of these
cans, it's not tin, it's a plastic
liner.
>> Yeah. But there's a a an organic
biodegradable
uh liner that you can get. So we're
looking into that. It's going to take
forever.
>> Yeah. I mean, the stuff is everywhere.
There's um the particulate from tires.
There's the clothing thing in Europe.
Actually,
>> dryer, whether your dryer is venting
inside,
>> you can buy a better trap for some of
the microfers. I'll be honest, I don't I
don't do those things. Um I'm conscious
of trying to not put heated food in
plastic whenever I order.
>> Well, this is limiting input though,
right? Which
>> that's limiting input to the extent that
it's getting things out that we don't
know. I mean, I think also like
anything, some people are going to be
more susceptible to this. I mean, if
people are doing a bunch of other things
to disrupt their endocrine environment,
>> right? They're not sleeping well. They,
you know, they're not doing all the
right things. Um, or they're doing some
things badly wrong, especially if you're
getting a lot of environmental exposure
to toxins because you, you know, a lot
of people work jobs where they work with
paints and solvents. You know,
laboratories, it's kind of wild. You
know, laboratories, you find all sorts
of things that can what we call
intercolate into DNA. That's how you you
run gels and things of DNA. And I mean
without getting into the details of
looking at proteins and different types
of blotss or RNA or DNA in order to
break up proteins or break up DNA in
order to, you know, basically run them
out on these gels,
>> you have to put chemicals in them that
break the bonds, right? That's not good,
right? You don't want that happening to
you. It's good for the experiment. It's
not good for
>> people are dermally disrupting their own
DNA. people who work in laboratories are
exposed to, you know, paraphride
constantly and um if you if you have a
neuroscience lab that where you're
perusing brains, you're fixing brains to
cut them up. You're working with
paraphraldahhide and other fixatives all
the time. You're working with um things
that are mutagens uh sometimes
radioactivity. I mean viruses I mean my
lab for years I mean I'm not running a
lab anymore. last I think last paper
came out in 2023 24 um now just teaching
but the the the lab had adno viruses
sinbis viruses modified rabies viruses I
mean we some stuff you don't want
>> we worked with we had yeah you we did we
had sedatives that are you know
federally controlled you had to keep
them in a locker account for every
microlerit I mean laboratories are full
of dangerous things unless it's a
computational laboratory in which case
we call those carpet labs where they
have carpet and computers
>> when that's real science is just
different science.
>> When it comes to the microplastics
thing, I learned some interesting
insights around the fact that the u like
micron size of microplastics and the
size of your sweat glands can get some
out but not all because microplastics
range in size. This is a conversation
that Ben Greenfield was bringing up.
Another interesting one we're talking on
911. Um a friend told me a story about
this particular firefighter who had gone
into the towers and had been out of the
towers and that was exposed to all of
you know the most particulates probably
in history apart from volcanic eruptions
and um he'd developed like a
parkinsonian tremor and he did nascin
flush with charcoal uh and had a towel
wrapped around him when you do that. So
you get your heart rate up doing
exercise, you get into the sauna, you
take the nascin, then you take the
charcoal, nascin to flush everything
out, and then charcoal to bind it so it
doesn't get reabsorbed again. And
apparently the towel that this guy had
wrapped around him was like verdigree.
It was at all colors of blue and pink
and green.
>> Those firefighters,
I mean, they absorbed so much mental and
physical um damage in those days. I mean
one thing we should say before I want to
talk about 911 and that particular
thing. Um I I do but before we do that I
just want to mention one thing I think
is important because the message got out
based on one publication that we have a
credit card's worth of plastic in us
>> already been there.
>> Okay. So turns out there was a second
publication that went to the same data
and basically found that the the tool
they used in that first study to measure
the number of particles was not a very
good tool. Um, and it turns out we have
far less than that in us.
>> You saw this stuff about the gloves,
right?
>> Uh, not about the gloves, but that but
but what's interesting about this study
is I think that some people say you have
a marbles sized uh amount of plastic in
your brain at this moment. maybe
distributed maybe but the I looked at
both the the data analyzed two different
ways in those papers and unfortunately
the more um the more catchy thing you
have a credit card and was worth of
plastic in you or your brain that's you
know it kind of did the telephone game
of the internet
>> the second paper didn't um didn't get as
much air time
>> yep
>> and so
>> the retraction versus the accusation
>> right and it was a separate group it
wasn't a total retraction but having
spent a lot of years in my lab where you
try and count cells and you're trying to
decide on a computer screen what's a
cell seems trivial to you mean that's a
cell that's a cell sometimes it's very
easy sometimes you see two clumps like
this is that one cell or two cells so
where you set your threshold for what
you define as a cell is very important
and in this study
>> so this was sorry for interrupting
>> no no no
>> this was what I saw so u basically when
people were using nitral and latex
gloves to do the microplastic thing the
way that nitrial gloves actually bend is
because tiny fragments of plastic peel
off basically.
>> Well, this just came out this last year.
>> People measuring microplastics wore
gloves that got plastic on the plastic
detector.
>> That's what happened. So, this is like
>> yeah,
>> one of the biggest
>> look I mean if you talk to
>> there it is a wild microlastics goose
chase based on the glove. Like
>> so we might be overestimating the amount
of these things which would be great.
Let's you know if we to be more worried
and actually be safer is better than to
be less worried and actually in danger,
right? Think about this though. If it's
the case that microplastics are less
prevalent by a factor of a lot, some of
the studies I've seen around this, it's
like uh 100 less 100 times less or maybe
even a thousand times less than we've
got. If that's the case, what that
suggests is the X factor, which is
disrupting endocrine, impacting
testosterone, stuff like that, is even
greater because people have been able to
lay at the feet of microplastics. Like
it's kind of the microplastics of the
gaps of what's going on with endocrine,
why is sperm count going down, etc.,
etc. If we say oh actually we've been
overmeasuring that the X factor begins
to need to fill more of the hole.
>> Yeah we don't know how to match you know
number of particles to biological
relevance. I mean in a you know one
parallel example would be for many years
you know there were new antibodies
coming on becoming available for the
study of the brain and you could label
up like where is the richest
concentration of serotonergic neurons in
the brain and a group identified this
massive serotonin input to the brain
circadian clock massive I mean it
accounts for you know basically half of
the input to the clock you know what
happens if you disrupt that input to the
clock nothing functionally it means
nothing does that mean it's doing
nothing. Excuse me. Functionally, it
means far less than the anatomy would
suggest.
>> In the brain, big strong synapses mean a
lot more than number of synapses. Number
matters, but big and strong matters way
more. And so, we don't really know how
to correlate x number of particles with
this much dysfunction. Also,
>> this is not a study that I um think
about very often, but my colleague Mike
Eisenberg, who you've had on the
podcast, right? Um I mean it does seem
that sperm counts are going down
generation to generation. Um but it see
they have data that do you know about
this that penis size is going up right
and no no pun intended. Um but then you
start asking you know how is this
measured and it's self it's either
self-report and then you get into these
details that I really don't want to
discuss. It's too early in the day. Um
you know like are they measuring from
like the top or the bottom? Like are
they are they uh is it flaccid or is it
erect? Like all these different things.
And you'll talk to Mike and you'll say,
you know, they try and standardize these
studies, but it's one of these things
where the headline is so catchy,
>> right? One or the other headline. But
then you get to, no pun intended, but
then you get to you get to the the
nuance of how these studies are done.
And the answer almost always is, well,
let's just stick to microplastics. We
need more data. I think that the other
>> we need more penises.
>> Um, some people in the on the planet
would argue we need fewer. Um, but
that's a different that's a different
podcast. But um
9/11 um I'd been on the east coast. So
I'm 51 years old. So um I remember this
very clearly. I'd been on the east coast
at a an amazing place on the north shore
of Long Island called Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratories. This is sort of summer
camp for scientists where they go to
learn molecular biology. You take
courses and it actually operates all
year long as one of the premier
laboratories in the world. Are you
telling me there's something on my face?
>> No, no, no. I'm just I'm just grinning
about this [ __ ] summer camp for the
nerds. It's all right.
>> Oh, it was a great time. I was a student
in there at Cold Spring Harbor. I was a
um a TA. I was a a educator and I was a
course director for for many years. Um
and then I passed the course off on to
you know people who are better equipped
to do that at that time. Um but we had
gone to this course and then flown back
right a number of us had flown back and
some people were still in the process of
going back. So I I remember that day
very well. I also remember two years
later because the course was every other
year going back to this course on in
Long Island and there's this day off
where half of the students would just
recover from their hangovers. There was
a lot of drinking back then. Not so much
of these courses anymore, but you and
took the Long Island Railroad into the
city and went to the 911 site. So it was
a memorial/site because it was still
they were still excavating the site.
>> Was this?
>> What day?
>> Date. Oh, this would have been a summer
of Okay, so two years after 911, so it'
be 2003.
>> And they still hadn't finished.
>> Oh, no. No. I mean, this was a giant I
mean, I think it's hard for people to
conceive. Like, you see the towers in
the photos and they're so huge, but the
footprint of these towers was just
enormous, you know, multiple city blocks
long in it, you know, and there was just
all there was was like a, you know, a
wooden gate. You could walk around the
site. There were pictures everywhere
obviously and a lot of inscribings and
some photos and things of that sort. And
there were people working the site, you
know, construction workers working. Many
of them, no masks, you know, and then
you got all these tourists, you know, we
were essentially tourists. Um,
>> reading the the stuff on the wall,
walking around, no doubt, everyone was
inhaling tons of whatever was in in
their jet fuel, particulate, etc. But
the people that got there first, I mean,
I can't even imagine what the
firefighters and others were exposed to.
I did hear an interesting story that one
of the companies that was housed in
those buildings was led by somebody who
had some former military training, do
you know about this? who had been there
for the first bomb bombing of the of the
World Trade Center
>> and had run drills for his entire
company, insisted on drills going into
it and all but I think 11 of the of the
people in for that company got out. So
they were they would run these drills
about how to you know single or double
file out out of the stairways. I don't
know the partic the particulars of this.
Um but it turns out there were people
who were very concerned about this going
in for a number of years.
and that increased survival. Now you
don't I don't know where they were, you
know, which which level etc. But I mean
that was a that was a huge game changer
and yes there were videos online at that
time um so different because there
wasn't social media of people some
places in the world you know quote
unquote celebrating but I would say the
vast majority of media that you saw the
vast majority of what was online was
just people either in shock or um in in
anger and just and surprised a lot of
people in the United States at that time
didn't know where Afghanistan was. They
didn't they didn't know what Afghanistan
was. They didn't know where Pakistan
was. They didn't understand that. I
mean, they knew these places in the
world exist. They probably heard the
names before, but there wasn't a lot of
awareness of that side of the world. It
was like, oh yeah, like a bombing in
Yemen. People would hear these things,
>> but that was the that and the Challenger
explosion were um in my lifetime were
the two where you just went,
oh [ __ ] like this this is a a line in
the sand. like things are are very very
different now.
>> You mentioned nicotine earlier on. I'm
seeing pouches everywhere. What's your
opinion on nicotine and pouches?
>> Same. Look, I consume caffeine every
day. I love caffeine. Nicotine is sort
of similar. Although caffeine is safer,
obviously it can even improve health.
Nicotine will definitely make you feel
alert and calm unlike other stimulants
which is a very unique state that's
great for learning, right? Sets you up
for learning. doesn't let you learn, but
it so excuse me, it doesn't make you
learn, but it lets you learn.
Raises blood pressure. Highly addictive.
And and here's the thing people don't
realize. If you take 3 to six milligram
pouches multiple times per day, it's not
going to have a cognitive enhancing
effect. It's just rescuing the deficit
from nicotine withdrawal.
>> Like, if you don't drink caffeine for
two days, you're not going to feel good.
You drink caffeine, you'll feel good.
It's bringing you back to baseline.
Okay. So, if you want nicotine to be a
performance aid, you use it
occasionally, meaning you know, 3 to six
milligrams once or twice total,
twice per week maximum. But how many
people do you know that are
>> not develop a dependency
>> or just not do it very often and then it
does something? I mean, this is how I
feel about a lot of energy drinks. I
love them, but I'll take them when I
really want to dial in, really want to
like I I slept last night, but not quite
as much as I would have liked. time
shifted and and so on. Um so this
morning I drank one of yours and one of
uh Derek's. Um that's a lot.
>> The old twin turbo. Yeah. Very good.
>> The twin turbo and and that's a lot but
you know I thought we had a pretty good
workout.
>> Yeah. You performed well. Well the
previous uh mode of delivery was smoking
and then we moved on to vaping pretty
quickly and vaping became massive.
>> So talk about the history of this.
Humans have found a way to get their
nicotine. Smoking causes cancer. Okay.
>> Not good. Dipping, snuffing,
not good. Cancers. Okay. Oral nicotine.
Oh, vaping. It turns out it's not good
for us. Really not good. The chemicals
associated with it probably a bit safer
than smoking, but this is really wild.
The behavioral data say because you can
do it anywhere pretty much. People are
doing far more of it. They're taking in
far more nicotine and they're coming now
having issues, lung issues and issues
related to nicotine. smoking was less
healthy and maybe more dangerous per
puff, but because the number of puffs
that you're consuming from vaping,
because you can do it in more places and
it's more tasty and there's less fatigue
from it, means that maybe the healthier
delivery mechanism of vaping versus
smoking is more than offset to the point
where it's more dangerous.
>> Right. Wow.
>> In the same way that, you know, cannabis
you don't say is good or bad. Yes, it
nukes REM sleep, but that's very, very
bad. um it can cause psychosis and
certain males have a predisposition to
psychosis. But you'd say um smoking
cannabis people are able to put
themselves into a plane of high that is
not freaking them out. They can take one
to like bong you know when I was in
college everyone just like did bong reps
like you know and then but you knew if
you could do half a one or one or you
you wouldn't go like four and then wait
and see what happens.
Um, some people did that. That didn't
work out so well. But with an edible,
the problem is people can ingest, you
know, 100 150 milligrams of THC like
that and then they're freaking out. And
some cases it can trigger a psychotic
episode that lasts a long time or
doesn't reverse. And so it's the ease of
ingestion. So that's the vaping thing.
The the oral nicotines,
they're here to stay. Humans have since
the discovery of nicotine have found a
way to get their nicotine. Same with
caffeine. They've just found a way to
they're not going to quit. But a lot of
young people using nicotine, they should
just be aware of how addictive it is and
the fact it raises blood pressure.
>> And I think that, you know, usually you
can scare guys out of it a little bit by
just saying, "Oh, it's vasa
constriction." And, you know, that can
have some sexual side effects. But
nowadays, people are using
pharmarmacology to combat
pharmarmacology, you know, and thanks to
Mike Eisenberg and other people, you
know, like I've said, you know, the the
toad lowd doal for um for prostate
health, but then people go, well, if you
take a little bit more, then it then
it's a, you know, it's like a sex drug
and like that kind of thing. It's, you
know, anyway that it was developed as a
prostate drug, but it's a vasod
diilator. Does it does that combat the
vasoc constriction of nicotine? Yeah, in
theory. Uh but you now you're you're
doing like sort of a pushpull
bad language. You're now doing a
pushpull between you know one one set of
effects and another set of effects. And
you know I would say this is just by
observation um you know people in their
teens 20s 30s even early 40s you really
want to get away with it using as little
pharmarmacology as necessary. This is
why for you know during my manopause
monk mode era I did a thousand what
manopause monk I went monk mode which is
>> manopause. You're too young for
manopause.
>> Manop manopause is end of 20s. Listen uh
I got I told
>> you we got to return to that. Manopause
is
>> manop manopause.
>> Your androgens dropped at the end of
your 20s.
>> It's a colloquial bro science term that
I use to describe when guys stop
behaving the way that they did in their
adult infanties. so many thoughts about
that hat and none of them good. Please
take that off.
>> Um, so,
uh, a lot of the time, like when I when
I was doing my period of personal
development, becoming a a proper human,
I did 1,000 days without alcohol and 500
days without caffeine because I wanted
to prove to myself I don't need to use
any of these things. I don't need to
buttress my life with this. I wanted to
have that in the back of my mind that if
there was ever a period because I I knew
for the rest of my life that I was going
to be like around parties, I was going
to be around like caffeine. That's like
my thing, right? And now I have a
company that does it. Something that's
kind of interesting. So, we've been
doing these, which are these pouches.
And those I think by the end of next
year, we could do more volume in
pouches, more revenue in pouches than in
cans because of how many people want to
dial back their nicotine.
>> So many people feel like I'm not in
control of my nicotine usage and the
delivery mechanism has been locked in
>> and and these are and it's easy to take
and and we'll talk about the canister.
By the way, if you write a 600page book,
uh, what happens is you stare at things
up close, your eyeball lengthens, and
you become myopic near.
>> You've worsened your eyesight because
you wrote the book. You literally
literally damaged your own.
>> But at the end of this year, right after
this book promotion tour is done, I'm
going to spend a lot of time staring at
horizons and hiking in the mountains and
um and I might even go hunting this
year. So yeah, that's why I'm wearing
these. I mean, look at this. Is crazy.
This prescription.
>> You tried to You made me put them on.
No, you're blind. They're like bottle
glasses.
>> Cool. Um, so yeah, when you stare at
things too close, you become
nearsighted. So, kids, adults,
>> be careful.
>> Get some long view vision each day. My
vision at a distance is great, but up up
close is lousy. So, the other thing
about this that um and these canisters
is it's interesting, you know, that um
I'm not trying to diverge topics here,
but you know, like we'll get to
peptides, I'm sure, but you know, the
pens that the GLPs use, the pen with
needle, you know, has basically gotten
people over their needle phobia. It
turns out it was the plunger people were
afraid of. I don't like needles. Do I
have to inject myself? Turns out if you
put the needle at the end of something,
it looks like a pen. Everyone's pinning
themselves. Men, women, people are just
pinning themselves. Um, these canisters
are interesting because they have like a
tactile feel. It's a little bit like
like chips at the casino. But when I was
a kid, um, there was a a jerky.
>> Do you remember this? There was a beef
jerky that came in a canister that
looked like tobacco. and kids. Oh, this
stuff was was horrible. You would take a
pinch of beef jerky and you'd put it in
your lip. We were like 9 years old, 10
years old. And then you'd eat the beef
jerky eventually.
>> He was cosplaying as your dad
>> kids. Uh my dad didn't chew. He did
occasionally smoke a cigar pipe. My
grandfather smoked a pipe. The people
that did.
>> Yeah. So it was like you would So we
were like little kids. We were little
kids walking around lipping beef jerk
beef not licking lip beef jerky. And so
and it was they clearly figured out that
like candy cigarettes and you know and
and so there is something about the p
the candy. There it is. Jerky stuff. No.
No. It's called jerky stuff. That looks
so gross. Oh my god.
>> It looks like uh the fluffer that you
find in your pocket.
>> It's called jerky stuff. Look at this.
Ready? There you go. Jerky stuff.
>> And you would you would stuff your cheek
or you'd stuff your your lip.
>> Wow.
>> Yeah. This was a thing. Yeah. So it was
>> it was kind of like jerky flavored
sawdust.
>> It was and also it had barely any it was
probably like four grams of protein per
>> in the entire
>> and you would pay more for it and it was
because it was you know a good way to
take in something. So these canisters
are also very reinforced. Yeah. It's
really tactile. It's nice and also like
you know it's your back pocket. Guys
love carrying something in their back
pocket. Nobody wants to carry the man
purse
>> you know. I might have brought like a
small zip thing to the gym today.
>> I did see that. I did see that.
>> Yeah. You didn't ask what was in it, but
I'm not going to tell you.
>> What are the spiciest protocols that you
weren't able to put in the book? What
was the stuff that you wish that you
could have got clearance on?
>> Right. So, the book is everything I'm
certain about that we understand the
mechanisms for and that I know work. Not
just because I experienced that, but
because many many people have and we
have great data to support it. Like
everything's substantiated. There's only
one protocol that's a little bit out
there. And I said, "This is kind of out
there. We have a little bit of data, not
a not a ton, but here's here's why I'm
including it, and I think you might want
to try this because it can really help
you fall asleep when you talk about
this. Um, but we know why it ought to
work. Um, I don't talk about
psychedelics, although I do fit them
into a framework along plasticity and
learning and so they make sense of when
they might might be the appropriate
tool. I don't talk about hormone
therapies and I don't talk about
peptides
>> in part because the data are still
coming and also because there'll likely
be a second book although you know if
you write a book like this long with you
know thousands of references and you
know it can damage relationships in your
life people have been super
understanding this book basically acted
as a filter in my in my own life for
like who really loves me right so um but
look it's big but it also operates as a
doors stop
>> a weapon Yeah, I was going to say
>> if you're feeling not quite tall enough
at the table, you can sit on it at
Thanksgiving. And um and as I joke, if
nothing else, it'll cure insomnia.
>> Very nice. Okay. What are some
protocols that you fully believe in, but
you can't scientifically prove?
>> Oo,
that's really good. Um
Okay. Yeah, let's just be blunt here. Um
but these would be things that aren't in
the in the book, right? Okay. because
everything there is substantiated uh by
mechanism and description. Um so
I have had some wild experiences with a
couple of peptides that most people some
people have heard about. Um you know I
don't have shoulder pain. I've never had
shoulder pain but about 3 4 months ago I
made the decision I was like you know I
should start doing some heavy pressing
again. I I do my dips. I do my overhead
presses. So I just started doing some
like I don't like flat benching so I did
some low incline pressing and after
about 3 months 2 3 months I started
getting some shoulder pain so I started
doing some external rotation work doing
I'm like this thing isn't going away
like what is this maybe I need to back
off and it's like you know what like
it's pretty bad I'm going to just put
two injections of BPC in there. So, two
injections of maybe 100 or 200
micrograms. Tiny amounts, right? Um,
gone.
History. Can't find the pain. It's gone.
Now, is it placebo? I don't know. Maybe
it is. I mean, I knew what I was
injecting. A better experiment would
have been somebody, you know, traded out
uh saline and I go, "Oh, my, you know,
that didn't happen." Um, that's pretty
incredible. The animal data are really
impressive. And I know a number of
people with pets, dogs in particular,
who've been injecting their animals with
BPC because their dogs are getting
older. I don't want to name names here
because it's I haven't cleared it with
them, but um
>> they have dogs that either had spinal
strokes or just aged and were limping
and not doing well. And they asked, you
know, does this stuff work in animals?
I'm like, all the data are in animals,
you know. Um, so mouse and rat owners
like your your mice and rats will visit
>> if you rupture the exact because there a
lot of data on that. Um, but I know a
lot of people now um injecting their
dogs, aged dogs, and saying, "Oh my
goodness, this is crazy." Like they're
more mobile, etc. And it's hard to give
the placebo argument there. I mean, you
could say that the owners are doing
other things like they're also massaging
more care. They didn't do the saline
control, you know, but kind of hard to
explain it away.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. So,
>> the other one is pinealon. Um,
pinealon is ironically is a peptide that
doesn't come from the pineal, comes from
brain tissue. Epiallen comes from the
pineal. Who names this stuff? It's like
it's insane. But um I've experimented
with pinealon every third or fourth
night taking about about a you know uh
tenth of an IU.
And um
in those nights those nights I get
anywhere from 2 and 1 half to 3 hours of
REM sleep. That's a lot of REM sleep
inside of 6 to 7 hours. inside of six
hours, you're kind of cheating the
system because like wow I like normally
I'd have to get into my last third of
sleep which for me is seven or eight
hours in order to um total in order to
get that REM enriched phase which always
comes at the end of the night. But
what's what's so wild is that on the
subsequent nights I also experience this
massive REM increase.
>> So it's I've cut that back to doing it
once a week or once every 10 days and
still getting the same effect. The only
downside for me is that the next day I
can feel not foggy, but I feel like it's
harder to become fully alert.
>> I can still focus, but
>> a little bit of sleep inertia maybe.
>> And I know people who are taking it in
the daytime because they like being in
this kind of shallow plane of sleepwake
for cognitive work. That's not me. But
um you know there's talk about I don't
you know well I mean rumors whatever
there's talk about people at tech
companies who are like oh yeah if you're
going to do something for you know 12
hours that's like really laborious maybe
this is good. I don't know.
>> Um so that's been interesting. Um
you know I think there's a lot of
excitement nowadays about growth hormone
secrets things like tessiml and upper
morela and CJC. I'm not a fan. They've
always nuked my REM sleep. They've
always spiked my PSA. I I just for me
they don't they don't tend to work. Um I
am curious about but I I don't think I'm
old enough yet to really embark on a um
sematotrope growth hormone experiment
but the clinical trial exploring lowd
dose growth hormone for people
>> that would be exogenous right
>> that would be exogenous. Yeah. Um that's
intriguing to me but there there are
data right there are data but I feel
like at 51
>> I'm like still in this place where I
feel good. So, so there's no real
science there. The other, sorry, aside
from the growth hormone thing, the other
stuff is there's animal data, not human
data, but my experience has been pretty
impressive. Now, of course, maybe I gave
myself a tumor by injecting the BBC. I
have to acknowledge that. Um, but a
whole body MRI tells me no. So, you
know, um,
>> the things that,
>> well, I've talked about this openly, um,
so I I'm happy to talk about it. Um, you
know, you'll find clinical trials on
MDMA assisted psychotherapy for PTSD.
You'll find clinical trial, beautiful
clinical trial data in my opinion on
psilocybin for depression and PTSD. Um,
you won't find a lot of data combining
them. Um, I've I've experimented in a
clinical setting with combining them,
right? This is done in a legal clinical
setting. So you know that means therapy
going in, therapy during, therapy coming
out. You have to be very thoughtful
about where you do this and who you do
it with. They have to all the adequate
supports have to be there. But uh for me
that was incredible. I have to say that
um psilocybin alone was helpful but
didn't really feel like it resolved
certain things for me. MDMA was helpful
and being feeling feelings etc. But that
first and that kind of first and second
bin acknowledging the thing and really
feeling the feelings bin.
>> But the moving through part um was
really for me was uncoupling the
negative feelings from the from the
negative thing but also replacing the
negative feelings with positive feelings
that really came about through that
combination therapy and and you won't
find a lot of data on that. I mean that
it's unfortunately
um the data on polyfarmarmacology of
different psychedelics isn't there yet
but then again the FDA approval for the
first single treat you know single
ingredient approaches aren't there yet
and so that's why people have to go out
of country to do this um
>> or else it's illegal so I think that the
you know the the data on ibain are
really intriguing we've had
conversations with people that are very
open about the fact that They did it and
it's helped them. I know a number of
people are trying to get us to
>> go down to Mexico and do are we going to
go
>> on a daily basis? I feel like I'm being
peppered by somebody else to go, "Hey,
man, just come down and turn your life
upside down for a week in [ __ ]
Mexico." I didn't know.
>> I have a friend that's there right now.
And um I'm told not to go. Honestly, I'm
sorry, but I I just was like, you don't
he doesn't have a substance abuse issue,
so maybe he has PTSD, but I think
there's this idea also with peptides
that we can just uplevel ourselves. Like
people say, should I use peptides?
what what effect are you looking for?
Better.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, it's sort of like uh you know,
it's sort of like should I invest in
blank? It's like, well, what effect are
you looking for? And they're like more.
They want more money.
>> Um so it's it's understandable. People
want to feel better. If like you feel
seven out of 10,
>> could you feel 10 out of 10? If you feel
10 out of 10, could you change what 10
means
>> and be eight out of a new 10 that's way
better than your current 10 out of 10?
Like that's an intriguing idea, but I'm
not so afraid of the ibane to be honest.
Done in the proper clinic with heart
rate monitoring. The thing I'm afraid of
is the DMT.
>> Yeah, because they have to hit you with
that the day after and then pretty much
straight after as well.
>> I also know a number of people who have
done DMT and they're I mean I know
plenty that have done DMT and they're
okay. I know a lot done DMT and they're
genuinely weird now.
Not all of them, but some of them are
like legit weird.
>> Yeah.
>> And they were not that weird before.
Some are perfectly fine. The other thing
is a guy like DJ, he's talked about
this, right? I love that podcast that
you guys did, by the way. Like DJ is a
solid mind,
you know? So,
>> well, also he's starting from a very low
baseline. If you're sat watching the
sunset with a gun in your mouth, like
you're already like what what what's
going to be worse, you know? Like you've
already considered taking your own life.
Okay, you go smoke the thing, take the
drugs, see how you feel.
>> Yeah. I mean, it seems to have really
helped him and Marcus and some of these
>> helped him enough that he's
trying to be a like matraee for me and
you, but a matraee that sits down at the
table, eats along with what if we go to
sleep one night, not near each other, of
course. Um, and uh,
>> although actually from where we live
actually near each other.
>> So I I I got a a place that turned out
to be really close to Chris.
>> It's going to be like the podcaster
neighborhood if we're not careful. Um,
it's cool, man. We ended up being
neighbors. Good taste. Good taste in
neighborhoods. Um, but what if uh you go
to sleep in your house and I go to sleep
in my house and then we we wake up in in
Mexico in this clinic. I
>> because DJ's done.
>> Somebody did someone did a Maduro.
>> I got [ __ ] Maduro Road by DJ Shipley.
>> Exactly. Uh I've had similar things
happen in totally different contexts
years ago. Uh where I was supposed to
get dropped off after working with this
some friends. I have this awesome band.
Um and they were supposed to drop me off
uh back at my lab in my car. And I I
woke up in Utah. They drove to Utah in
the middle of the night. I woke up. I
was like, "Where are we?" He's like,
"Yuto?" I was like, "You're one of us
now."
>> This is my good friend Elvis Cortez. He
was actually the one that found me,
Costello, and I love Elvis. He's great.
But yeah, they uh technically they
kidnapped me, but it was it was a lot of
fun. That was that was many years ago.
Um
>> I don't know. We'll see. We'll we'll
see.
>> There are other things that that are uh
perhaps a little less of the Mount
Everest of of that stuff, but
>> lower lower risk.
>> But you seem to be in a really good
place now.
>> That's true. But still there's always
the sort of ability to show up uh versus
how much of the four steps have you done
in terms of being able to get over
>> sort of how do you respond when people
say um they go oh my goodness like here
you are looking for this next thing or
the thing you can do and they and they
just say Chris what you really need to
do is just get married and have a couple
kids and that will be the psychedelic
experience.
>> I I agree. I say yes plus plus two
golden retrievers. I agree. And I say
yes. They're not preaching to the choir.
>> Two girls and retrievers.
>> Golden retrievers.
>> Golden retrievers.
>> I mean I that's a Freudian slip from
you.
>> No, it's a from you.
>> I said [ __ ] golden retreat. People
can rewind the tape. Uh I I completely
agree. I completely I completely agree
on that. And um I I've said this before
like I'm the most ardent guy without
kids supporter and ambassador for guys
just starting a [ __ ] family. And it's
not for me to say, "Hey, I want you to
stop your ambition." And the same for
women too. like you stop your
socioeconomic climb and doing all this
stuff just like so many of the things
that I see people doing, you know, young
people and people that are getting into
more middle age are like surrogate
families. It's like the the business
that you're building, the fervor with
which you're going after this political
party or this new sort of social
campaign or this like obsessive
hobby that you've got or, you know,
trying to become wealthy or whatever. A
lot of that to me looks and feels like
this is the energy that you would be
putting into a family especially the
existential energy that you got. And I'm
like um I I think a lot of your I don't
really know what my purpose is. I don't
feel like I'm contributing more largely
to the world all of these questions that
people have like why am I here? It's
like well a lot of this I think has kind
of been solved throughout time which is
like you you do the golden retriever
thing and the family thing like golden
retrievers do come first. That is an
important caveat for me. Interesting
choice of breed.
>> Uh, dude, I just want an animal that
can't There is no danger of it competing
with me cognitively. So, I want
something that's both cuddly and stupid.
Uh, so
>> golden retrievers are not all stupid.
>> I'm going to I'm going to try and find a
breed of golden retriever which is
particularly fluffy and stupid.
>> Just find a dog with a really flat head
in your house.
>> Single digit IQ golden retriever. I
mean, if you think about the mastiff
breeds, they're all very sweet and they
have flat heads and they look at you
like,
>> you know, so the the mastiffs, the
bulldogs, the, you know, the boxers that
they're smart about certain things, but
they're kind of like dog with a flat
head.
>> Okay?
>> You know,
>> are you doing frenology for dogs?
>> I mean, I I went to the
>> This is [ __ ] phronology for dogs.
>> I went to the meet the breeds in New
York and met hundreds of breeds. Second
time I've done this, right? And walked
through and met all the different
breeds. And I can tell you a couple
things. First of all, people look like
they're dogs. Okay, so the otter look a
lot like Strummer.
>> You know, the Thank you. Uh the otter
hounds, like these otter hounds, they're
the owners look like otter hounds. It's
crazy. The bulldogs are kind of goo like
the the demeanor of the people and you
just and it's wild. You have to go. It's
so much fun. It's at the Javit Center
each year. It's awesome. You meet all
the breeds.
>> I walked out of there. I was like, you
know, I I turned to my girlfriend. I go,
getting a bulldog breed. I'm going to
mut because I've I've been around enough
dogs. I've I've experienced them all.
And the the mudded bullies, not the pure
bullies, but the mudded bullies, they're
they're kind. They're vigorous. They're
got a little bit of goofiness.
>> They're very emotional in a good way,
but then they also like get over their
just like a little hedonist sometimes
and
>> and they'll back you like they will they
will fight to the death for you, but if
your life's not on the line, like
they're not doing [ __ ] at all. They're
not reactive. Not reactive. I mean, are
you kidding me? Um, so yeah. Well,
listen, I hope you get a dog. Then the
dogs can hang out in the neighborhood.
Um, and I do think that No, I mean,
family is awesome. I mean, family is
amazing. Uh, so what so what's the
what's the delay? You're
>> Well, it's very difficult to try. Yeah.
First off, I need to get the dog thing.
I always felt guilty cuz my mom and dad
have been so good with dogs. Like they
would they walked them all the time.
They gave them a great life. And I would
feel I I've seen what a good life for a
dog looks like. And I would feel
incredibly guilty not being able to and
I can pay someone, I'm sure, or somebody
I can bring bring them to the office,
bring them on the trip or whatever. I'm
like, I I want I don't want to have a
dog that's flying once a week or you
know that I'm having
>> Do you travel that much?
>> Uh I did what like 100,000 miles and
maybe 80 flights last year. I've done
like 80,000 miles this year. I I don't
want to do that.
>> Also for kids, you want to be present
for your kids.
>> Of course. And that but that is another
thing that I think is it's kind of
beautiful if you frame it this way and
at least maybe this is just cope from me
uh that
if you take the oh my god maybe I have
just been surrogate family building with
this business or with this hobby or with
this body or with whatever this finance
this investing whatever it is that
you've been doing with your time skill
building. But on the flip side of that,
I think if you've really closed a lot of
the different loops of like I really
feel like I like put it all out there on
the table, I do get the sense that there
is an additional level of presence
that's afforded to you because
materially hopefully you're you're
you're pretty well set.
>> I can tell you I mean I don't want to
get into details of my personal life but
100%. I'll also tell you as a hard
driving like in pursuit of knowledge,
skills and resources person which you
are which I am and which our teams are
also I mean very very few things feel as
good as being able to resource the
people around you that you love. Of
course,
>> like that there's like yes, your
presence obviously it's not just about
earning money and giving them things,
but being able to relieve suffering,
however minor or major, being able to uh
resource people to be in their full
expression of what they want to do. Like
I I I think very few things will feel as
satisfying as as that. Especially if you
and I say that based on knowing you, but
also your prior statement. The fact that
you don't want a dog yet
>> because you want the dog to be
>> thoroughly resourced by your by the the
love that you're going to, you know,
provide
>> tells you everything you need to know.
>> David Pell, who does uh how I write and
write a passage, it was when I first
moved to Austin, and he's about similar
age to me, and he said, we're having
coffee. He turned to me one day and he
said, "Uh, you know what, man? I
realized that most of my 20s and 30s
were just spent becoming the dad that I
want my future kids to have. And I
wasn't even bothered about having kids.
And all of the accumulation of skills,
of habits, of you know, closing the
loops of desires that he wanted to
pursuits and adventure and all of this
stuff, he got rid of that and he said,
"I now I sort of I feel like I'm here is
a way that you could say it. It's like I
actually feel like I'm [ __ ] here."
And I think a lot of guys and you see
this with a lot of dads and moms too
like I've got these unrequited dreams
and children sort of imposed on them and
there's this you know low-key perhaps
resentment of oh you know I'm doing this
thing but you don't know what I
sacrificed for you and then there's this
shame around oh my god what sort of a
monster am I to blame my kids that I
chose to have because I didn't fulfill
my dreams beforehand.
>> Yeah really messy. Yeah, I mean I I want
to be thoughtful with my words here
because again I I do like to maintain
some sense of privacy in my life, but I
will say that um it does check off a
sort of a a deep um must what must be a
primitive circuit of like of of
satisfaction like having kids is a
really good feeling like it just feels
like like you fulfilled something of
duty, you know? um that feels really
really good and at the same time it
comes with all sorts of challenges and
complications you know um but yeah I
think that um you know it's become this
uh kind of ongoing debate you know
between me and Lex or like you know you
know like a like you know but I think
that look it sounds like there are going
to be a lot of kids to wrestle and play
>> I can't wait it is a competition between
me you and him for who will have kids
last but we'll we'll we'll see who's
who's the holder
>> I think I'm well I'm going to
out. Um I'm going to keep my mouth shut.
Um but in um because we all never mind.
Um
>> yeah, take this back. Take this back.
>> Okay. It's turning you crazy.
>> So um I've been asking you questions.
This feels good. I didn't tell you that
the last page of the book is where I do
therapy on you. No, I'm just kidding. Uh
no, but can I can I read my
acknowledgement to you?
>> Absolutely.
>> I didn't even I didn't even get to that
bit.
>> Oh, wherever the [ __ ] is I'm going to do
this. I I acknowledge you. Uh here um
here we go. So it's brief because the
acknowledgements are five pages long. I
think there's eight pages long. But I
figure if you're going to do something,
you just do it. So I just put a bunch of
names. Um, I put you uh Chris Williamson
for your friendship and for breathing so
much life into the podcast and what I
refer to as the everyone's sphere
because I don't think you're about the
manosphere. I think you're about the
human sphere, but human sphere sounded
weird. So, I said everyone's sphere. So,
I I I mean it. You breathe so much life
into this thing. Like I remember first
seeing you online and then you on Rogan
and I, you know, and I not a skeptic. I
always want the best. So, I thought,
well, who is this guy with this British
accent? And like, so, you know, and why
are the women in my life asking me if
he's single? Um, and um, and I go, well,
this guy is really smart. He's really
nuanced and he seems like a really cool
guy. And you totally exceeded
expectations on all those things. And
it's awesome to just see what you're
doing. And also, day or night, you're
available for an emergency or or an
adventure call. You'll get to the gym
early on jet lag. feel. Um, and you've
been super honest and vulnerable in your
online and in our in that career and
relationship with your audience, but
also just one-on-one. I you know, there
um for anyone that wonders, Chris is who
he appears to be on the internet, which
is really
>> for better or for worse. Yeah.
>> No, for better, man. For better. For
better. Like, it's a it's an honor to
have you as a friend. You're a great
great friend, and I I feel very blessed.
>> It it is it is really cool. You know, I
I think one of the almost inarguable
great parts of life is becoming
respected and admired by people that you
respect and admire. Like it's one of the
coolest things that you can do. My back
is also hurting so I'm trying to self
massage at the same time. We did neck
training as well.
>> We did a few face pulls.
>> Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
>> Yeah. This is sounding terrible. We Jeff
Cavalier has an exercise called face
>> face.
We did some neck training because uh as
we both know having a the wrong head
placed like a if a neck is too narrow
with wide shoulders it looks what do you
call the coat hanger.
>> Yeah. You look like a coat hanger. Yeah.
Terrifying.
>> But um
>> you don't look like a coat hanger.
>> Thank you. Uh
>> yeah, becoming admired and respected by
people that you admire and respect is
just one of the [ __ ] coolest things.
It really is. Like I like that person. I
think they've got good taste. I think
they're noble. I don't think that
they're spiritually chinless and they
>> spiritually chinless. If
>> ever there was a Chris Williamson ism
spiritually chinless.
>> Spiritually chinless.
>> I'm going to borrow that but I'll give
you attributes.
>> It's Adam Mastriani originally.
Originally originally. So um looking
around.
>> Wait, you didn't make that up?
>> No. Spiritually chinless is from Adam
Mastriani.
>> Oh
>> well. You know that song breaking rocks
in the hot sun. I fought the law in the
cover of a cover of a cover.
>> Okay. But everyone assumes the Clash did
it.
>> It's fine. You're at the end of the
human centipede of spiritually chinless.
Now you're the guy at the very very end.
>> I'm going to just give it to you. You
gave that song to to to the class.
>> I'll take it. Spiritually journalist. So
um you know, you see these people and
you go, "Wow, they're they're they're
cool. I respect them in a way that I
think is really really sort of noble and
aligned." And then if you manage to do
something in that industry or a
different industry and they turn to you
and they say, "Hey, like I like what you
do." Think, "Holy [ __ ] like that's
really cool." And can people take it to
an extreme? Yeah, of course. You can
basically construct your entire life
trying to reverse engineer being liked
by people that you like. And that's the
like charlatan social climber that
doesn't have anything below them. But
assuming that people that you respect
are discerning and one of the reasons
that you respect them is that they are
discerning, you shouldn't be able to
finesse or fugazi them, famoose them
into believing something they don't
believe or you being a person that you
aren't. So yeah, man. Like I I really
hope that everybody that's listening to
this gets to experience what it's like
to sit opposite someone that they were a
fan of and then became a friend of. Like
it's the [ __ ] coolest thing in the
world. It's really really cool.
>> Well, that statement includes my
experience of you, you know, fan of and
then became friends of. I you've got an
awesome life energy. I we don't want to
spiral into a whole other conversation,
but maybe for a future time, but I think
a lot about energy these days, not just
mitochondria, but like some people
genuinely have I'm going to offend some
people with this. Some people just have
more life energy in them. And I think I
like to think that if you're thoughtful,
which you are, and I tried to be, that
you one allocates their life energy
toward career and pursuits and health
and resolve and the and then pivots that
energy, but doesn't decide, you know,
I'm going to shift all my chips to this
and then all my chips to that. You have
a lot of energy to go around. You know,
Rob on my team, my producer of the
podcast is such an engine of
productivity and running and he's got a
family now and it's like you always hear
these things like people have kids and
then they like slow like he's picked up
speed. We're just like whoa. And
>> you know I I think some people just have
that extra gear. Some people don't and
they need to take their whatever they've
been allocated and do maximize with
that. And some people just have a
tremendous amount of life energy. And I
think the goal is to not die at 27 if
you have a lot of that energy, right?
You think about the 27 club, it's almost
like took all the energy of a life and
crammed it into this early existence.
Usually it's drugs and alcohol. Y
>> you know, so but you also don't want a a
like a low slow arc in life that you
never figure out what your peaks are.
>> Put your [ __ ] foot on the gas.
>> Yeah, man. I'm in the third quarter now,
so I figure I'm you know. So, speaking
of engine, I texted you about this last
week. What is happening with the V2 max
versus zone 2 debate? Because when I was
thinking more deeply about like I'm
getting a little bit older, I should pay
pay attention to my cardio respiratory
fitness and stuff like that. Low and
slow was like everything.
>> Send me that Jeffrey Dalmer video.
>> It wasn't a [ __ ] Jeffrey D.
>> He sent me a video of a guy talking
about this. It was a very good video and
my first thought was the guy looks like
Jeffrey Dalmer which is making it a
little hard to listen to watch. So I
just
>> could have just listened and said that
would have been good. What's happening
with V2 max versus zone 2 debate at the
moment in your opinion? Cuz for a long
time it was focus exclusively on low and
slow. Now it seems like the V2 more
highintensity Norwegian 4x4 is
increasingly important.
>> I think the word to delete there is
exclusively. I think my read of the data
is you need some volume of cardio
training uh to get that quote unquote
aerobic base that can be very
beneficial. I mean the the sorts of
adaptations that come from doing 45 to
60 minutes of of long and slow we're not
talking walking but zone 2 threeish. I
don't ever think it was about zone 2.
who I think about upper zone 2, zone
three around there where you just barely
can continue without you know you could
try if you tried to speak you would you
would have to pause a few times as
opposed to just super easy I mean you
are getting build up of more capillary
networks um you know which has a lot of
positive downstream consequences you're
getting all sorts of enrichment of the
mitochondrial system and the and genuine
enrichment of the cardiovascular system
but I think doing that once a week. So,
I make it a point to do a long slow jog.
So, 45 to 60 minutes or so once a week
or a ruck for usually if I hike I'm
going for longer than an hour. Um with
some weight or something like that. It's
often social with somebody. Um and then
once a week I'll do the I feel like I'm
going to die hit workout, which for me
is the aine bike. 20 on, 10 off, eight
rounds. And by the seventh round, you're
just like cursing everybody and
yourself. And you get off that thing,
you feel so good. You probably cough a
few times because you're just like
breathing that hard. And I actually just
I do the crude measurement of heart rate
like 220 minus my age and then figure
out like what my heart rate is a
percentage of that max heart rate,
right? So we get max. So I'll hit like
85 90% of
>> Are you wearing a chest strap for
something?
>> I don't. So I talk about this.
>> You're not [ __ ] fingering your heart
rate, are you?
>> Your choice of language, man. Um, you
with your your your
>> British.
>> Look, I get it. You want two wives and a
golden retriever. You said that. And
you're fingering your heart rate. I just
put my fingers on my neck and record my
pulse. Or I just And I'm looking at a
stopwatch.
>> So absurdly low.
>> And I do that for 30 seconds and then I
double it and I'm probably off by, you
know, plus or or minus, you know, five
beats. But I'm, you know, in the
ballpark. And you're like [ __ ]
Schroinger's podcaster. You're someone
who is both very forward thinking, like
technologically prepared, excited about
AI, and also using like a [ __ ] sun
dial in your fingers to work out what
>> so funny. I I my girlfriend had a
birthday recently and she we we I got
her this like compass sun dial, which is
so cool. I love primitive and very
advanced tools.
>> And I look at you, I do think primitive
primitive and Thank you. I bookend.
Thank you. And not a lot in the middle.
>> You're the barbell. You are the barbell
of a human. Yeah.
>> Thank you. Actually, I I'll take that.
Uh there's a a a great song called
Streetwise Professor that I love. Um it
was referring to somebody else. Um but
uh um yeah, sort of like a barbarian um
intellectual elevated. Yeah, something
like that. Um so
>> the once a week get your heart rate up
near maximum
>> for six to 10 minutes. Maybe do a mild
mild trial. you know, for most people
that'll be somewhere between six and 10,
unless you're really really fast, in
which case it'll be less or slow, in
which case it'll be longer. Um, so jog
two laps. I talk about this in the book.
And then do a mile time once every two
or three week uh two or three months.
Um, you do Norwegian 4x4, you do the
air, the nice thing about the aerodyine
bike, like 20 on, 10 off, you
>> can stop immediately.
>> It's like Yeah. And after six to eight
rounds of that, you're smoked. You hop
in the shower and you go, but you
t it takes so little time.
>> It takes so little time.
>> But you're also using the reason the
Aine is so great or an assault bike, you
know, echo bike, pick your like handles
and handles and feet bike of choice. The
reason that that for me is a superior
form for what we're trying to do, which
is get heart rate as high as possible,
is that you're getting to use your arms
as well. If you try and do that on a
bike, which is a [ __ ] awesome piece
of equipment. If you could give me any
piece of cardio equipment, I'd choose a
bike. It's super comfy. You can speed up
the
>> Your calves won't fit in the room.
>> That's true.
>> Your calves,
>> but not mine.
>> You're only using your legs, which means
that your your legs are going to be
burning like hell. Okay, if I can get a
little bit more I mean, if I was a
better rower or a ski urgger, I imagine
you can probably get to a even higher
higher heart rate.
>> Yes and no. I mean, the rower I mean,
it's not a super skill. It's not brain
surgery, but getting the row formed
proper is not
>> as easy. the aerodyine you as long as
you set the seat height right you you
you can't really screw it up. So go as
hard as you can to get your heart rate
elevated for six to eight rounds but do
it in a way that you're not going to
hurt yourself like the skier thing like
you know it's not you're going to hurt
yourself but like you said it's hard to
get the heart rate way way up. So that
once a week the longer thing once a week
and then in the middle of the week
>> I just do a a 30 minute run that's
somewhere in between or a 30 minute swim
that's somewhere in between. So 5
minutes of warm-up perhaps, you know,
just like jogging and then you do a 25
to 30 minute run where you're in your
zone four, right? You're you're
breathing hard and you know you could go
faster,
>> but you don't.
>> Yeah.
>> Because then you got that HIT workout
later and you know, two days later or a
day later and I talk and then I'm just
interpersing three days of working out
with weights and one day legs somewhere
in the week, one day torso. Oh, today we
did a push. So, it's chest, shoulders,
um, neck. Um, and then another day of
the week you're doing, you know, biceps,
triceps, calves, maybe neck again.
Definitely. I I'm big on abdominal work
these days, core work, not just
abdominals.
>> What are your favorite exercises as
well?
>> Pikes.
>> What the [ __ ] is that?
>> You hang from a bar.
>> So, you're working your grip strength,
too. You do knee ups to 90° slow without
swinging back and forth. You do five of
those. Drop down. Then you see if you
can do knee up, legs out. So ls-sit. Can
you go back? Do five of those. If you
can do five of and you just build this
up. If you can't do the lsit, you just
do what I'll do. Five sets of five of
the of the knee ups. Next time I come
back and try and do at least one or two
lsits. So then you're doing if you can
do five lsits. So you're just bring your
knees up, then straighten straightening
your legs. You're still holding, right?
You're also getting the grip strength
work. Then you lower slowly. If you can
do five of those, then you start. You
could do them one knee at a time. Kick
out. Kick out. Kick out. Drop one. Bring
down one leg at a time. And then over
time, what you're trying to do is bring
your your feet up to your hands on the
bar without just swinging back and forth
using your lower abs. Five sets of five
or even three sets of five on the pikes.
And especially if you're hanging from a
thick bar, so you're really working your
grip.
>> That's a great ab work. And I do back
hyperextensions and so keeps your core
really really strong.
>> Why are you bothered about torso work so
much?
>> You you want strong abs. You want strong
midsection and you want strong lower
back muscles. I mean, I I notice that
basically all injuries for me, little
nagging injuries completely disappear.
Um, even if I'm sitting a lot, I don't
have any pain. Um, if I'm doing I make
sure I get a 100 reps of hyperextensions
per week.
>> Just so I don't care when I put them in.
Sometimes I'll put always at the end of
a workout, but I'll put them at the end
of arm day or leg day or back day or
I'll just mix them. just I have a
commitment to 100 reps and I started
getting strong enough that I can do them
with one leg.
>> So on the 45 degree you just you sort of
like kick up one leg like you're a horse
getting your your shoe clean or
something.
>> The the GHD that would have been insane.
>> No, not on the GHD. I don't do those on
the GHD. And then I just go slow and
controlled. You don't want to be tilting
from one side to the next so you really
discover any imbalances that are there.
You're bracing yourself and you just
I'll do five five reps, switch to the
other leg, back and forth, back and
forth. And now I'm at the place where I
can hold some weight or use a band.
>> And I'll tell you, having a those strong
spinal erector muscles, like my default
posture has suffered in writing this
book, even with a standing desk cuz
you're just looking down some eyesight
and posture.
>> Exactly. But um yeah, there's some
recovery that needs happening. But I did
buy an inversion table. Those are fun. I
love hanging.
>> I've tried I've tried those.
>> Yeah. You have to be careful if you have
eye pressure issues like glaucoma. You
can blow a gasket. You can make glaucoma
worse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. eye pressure
upside down not good. Um
>> I don't have glaucoma so and knock on
wood but having a strong lower back I
noticed leg days are so much stronger
pressing pulling everything just gets
stronger and you don't want any weak
links in the chain and I think Jeff
Cavalier really nails it when he says
you want to do the small things like
face pulls back hyperextensions the
glute medius work to stabilize the
pelvis those little things allow you to
do the big things for much longer.
People say, "Oh, all that stuff is like
namby pami stuff. You need to do just
your squats and deadlifts and uh split
squats." And yeah, the way you do those
things into your 50s, like me with Yeah,
I had this little shoulder thing, but no
biggie. Um is and continue to get
stronger is by doing the little things.
>> And if you do the little things, you
stay strong and healthy. If you don't,
you are the person who's complaining
about your back who can't deadlift or
you're using a deadlift bar with like
elevated handles from plates. You know,
you're, you know, it's not not good.
It's it's it's just you're becoming
weaker through negligence, which is it's
excusable, but it takes three minutes to
do some hyperextensions. For most
educated people as well that are into
their training, they know that what
they're doing is uh trading short-term
gain for long-term fragility because
they've got 5 minutes left at the end of
their session and they're going to go
and do another set of bicep curls
instead of going to go and do some
hyperextensions or whatever, right? Like
it's it's always a trade-off and there's
a level of ignorance where you're
allowed to not do the thing that you
didn't know you were supposed to do. M
totally.
>> But for most people that listen to you
and listen to me, like my brother, you
know that you should be doing lower back
work. You know that you should be doing
some mobility work. You know that you
should be getting your heart rate above
170. You know that you should be going
low and slow. You know you need to be
walking after meals. The 10-minute walk
postprandial thing. Like you know these
things. It's ignorance is no longer an
excuse for you. It's all out there. I
mean especially since and I talk about
mobility in the book. is basically get
your knee behind your each knee behind
your glutes at least once per day
>> like a couch stretch.
>> Well, yeah, like a couch stretch like
Kelly Starret talks about or just a
lunge where you're stretching your hip
flexors out because sitting, walking,
every almost everything is like knee in
front of the glutes, right? Um, you
could skip like Steu McMillan, but then
you have to have the confidence to be a
skipper.
>> Are you uh sitting and holding? Is this
more like a yin yoga type?
>> Yeah, you could do it. I talk about just
getting your knee behind your glutes or
your foot up on a on a chair or stool
and stretching that out if you're at the
airport or something. I'll do, you know,
10 seconds per side, three times per
side. You want to try and squat down
once per day, as I talked about, like
sumo squat. Put elbow on inside uh one
knee and then looking up, being able to
look up from the squatted position,
point directly overhead. Most people
can't do this right away. They have to,
you know, start here and gradually, you
know, over a week or so get to the point
where they can look straight up at their
finger. And then you want to be able to
do it to the other side, too, right? But
what are you doing here? You're getting
stretching through neck, thoracic,
spine, shoulder. It's not Look, they're
great mobility programs, but most people
don't make the time or have the time.
These are the minimum, right? You do the
the squatting thing. So, you do a couple
of those. Then I talk about doing
reverse what in gymnasts would call like
kids would call like the crab pose where
you you're in a reverse tabletop where
you're you know, you push up for
shoulder extension. Mhm.
>> I don't have like excessively good
shoulder extension, but I can get my
shoulders behind me, no problem. You
know, you have horrible shoulder
extension. Okay. So, working on that a
little bit gradually. And then there's
something in there that I didn't
develop, which is called which I um uh
which is really cool called the founders
pose. And I describe it there. It's from
um it looks a little bit like a chair
sit in yoga, but it's actually for the
posterior chain. And I talk about that
um and and that's described there. It's
someone else's creation. I want to be
clear and I credit him. um was really
really cool. And those four things take
you know 5 minutes to do maximum. You
can do them anywhere. You can do them
watching Netflix. You can do them at
your desk. You can do them spread
throughout the day to maintain some
level of mobility. The other thing is
use a full range of motion in your
resistance training.
>> Yeah.
>> Sets.
>> Strength is gained through the range
it's trained.
>> Oh, that's good. I like that. Um full
range of motion and holding tension on
the stretched position. Not, you know,
indefinitely, right? Don't turn it into
an isometric, but you know, really like
on your hamstring curls, making sure
that you're setting the machine such
that on your seated or lying leg curls,
you're really holding tension in the
stretch, not passively stretching. And I
find like my range of motion's pretty
darn good. It's not amazing. Um, you
know, I was real stiff for a bit in my
midback and I did some work to get over
that. You just move better. You'll feel
better. You'll be more comfortable. So
yes, I think that what you're pointing
out that there's really no excuse for
people once they have the knowledge gets
to a deeper psychology. I don't want to
parse this, you know, infinitum, but
there are two things that I think are
worth stating out loud. One is that if
you're somebody who's in pursuit of
taking care of yourself and doing well,
there are going to be people that say
like, you're doing all this stuff all
the time. You're doing all this stuff
all the time. Like what is this? These
were the people that when I would go to
scientific meetings would give me [ __ ]
for not drinking on the first night. I
had a rule. I don't go out the first
night. But you find me on night three of
a five-day meeting. And all day I'm
rocking and like I'm engaged. I'm
learning. I'm not at a meeting to
socialize, but I do some of it. But
>> I'm learning. I'm getting techniques.
I'm there to work. Okay. And they're
talking about their hangover. They look
like garbage. And over the years that
accumulates for them, and it accumulates
for me in a positive way. Yeah. So
people will give you a hard time for
exercising. They'll give you a hard time
for taking good care of yourself. And I
do think that there the other thing is
there is a certain loneliness that comes
with being the person who's really
diligent. It's a different community of
people that I can call at 7 a.m. and go,
"You want to work out?" And it's like,
you might say, "Hey, listen. I was up
way too late." You might say, "Yeah,
let's go." It's a you your friend group
changes. I mean as I have a friend who
used to work with people from like
really troubled backgrounds and he would
say like somebody would occasionally
make it out of that world and just leave
completely. But many times they would
get themselves into all sorts of
financial and social messes because they
would continue to like kind of revert to
this world they grew up in.
>> You've heard me talk about this lonely
chapter thing, right? Like this is the
whole idea behind that that there is a
period where you are so developed that
you don't resonate with your old set of
friends but not yet sufficiently
developed that you built your new one
and you keep looking back and you're
tempted.
>> I think Martha Beck calls this the the
empty elevator.
>> Oh interesting.
>> You're just, you know, between floors.
That's beautiful. Yeah. The empty
elevator. And then you get there and you
realize, wow, there are other people
who've also felt lonely who are now in
this place who are doing cool things.
And it takes a strength of character to
say no, I'm not going to do that and
yes, I'm going to do this and and to
also not be defiant and also still be
able to go to Thanksgiving and still
Yeah. You don't
>> better than you.
>> Exactly. It's not about better or worse.
It's just different. And that I think
that people fear being lonely and I
understand like I get it. You know,
you're drinking buddies or you're you're
eating lousy food buddies. The first
night we land in a city, my team always
likes to go out to dinner. I'm always in
the hotel taking care of myself because
I want to have the full week of vigor
and they do great, but they're younger
than I am.
>> We'll see. We'll see that cuz we're
going to be in New York together next
week. Uh, last time that we spoke, you
were telling me that you were teaching
an octopus to use an iPad.
>> Yeah, she died.
>> But she died because
>> was she electrocuted? No, she she died
because she laid eggs and they die after
they lay eggs. So they live about 2
years. Yeah. No. No. Well, they lay eggs
and then the eggs get fertilized by a
male and then they die. This is the life
cycle of the octopus. So, I didn't know
how old she was when I got her. They
don't tell you. It's hard to to uh to
know. Um and you have some sense. But
yeah, she was in her second year. So,
she she was really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
I thought it was a male, but that was
pure projection, right? Um, and then I
named him Van Gogh cuz he was a starry
night octopus.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. Um,
>> didn't you replace with a new one?
>> That one died, too. Um,
>> maybe you shouldn't have kids.
>> No. No.
>> [ __ ] strum is like looking around all
the time like just waiting.
>> The both of these octopuses were old.
They were old.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah, they were. They were in the
>> Have you given up on the octopus thing
for now?
>> No. Heck no. I have a new tropical tank.
I got the dog. I got the other uh
freshwater tank. Hell no. Um but I need
to get a younger octopus.
>> Okay. Like a purebred newborn and a
puppy octopus.
>> I just need I need either a male octopus
or I need a younger octopus.
>> I can't believe that you weren't able to
discern whether or not you bought a male
or a female. Who the [ __ ] were you
getting this from? Um
>> some bloke on Venice Beach. I swear.
>> No, I get them legally, but um let's
just put it this way. Their fate would
have been far worse if they hadn't come
to me.
>> Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah.
Salvage octopus.
>> So, I have not done that yet, but I will
say that um Van Go was spectacularly
smart and um would sit down in front of
the coral and mimic the coral. It was
awesome. It was It was so cool. Um
they're a little bit sadistic, which is
a little bit troubling. I think we
should probably talk about this so I can
get over it. Um, we're in that like
second phase of the trauma thing. Um, in
all seriousness, like
>> the weird thing about octopuses, they're
a little bit of like drama queens.
>> Um, because they're they play with you.
So, like I I would hand feed Van Go and
she would take the fish and sometimes
she would just eat the fish, you know,
and give it to her on a forceps and
other times she would take it and she'd
stuff it against the glass of the
aquarium and slowly eat the eat the
fish, then take a nap halfway through.
And I was like, "Oh my god, these
octopuses are pretty brutal."
>> Kind of ruthless.
>> Yeah. And then sometimes she would just
like play with it, you know, and that's
rough, you know. Do a dog is a
benevolent creature. They're going to
eat their food. That's it. A cat will
play with its prey.
>> Sephopods are [ __ ]
>> I I like seeopods. I like cuttlefish. I
had those for years. Kept those alive
for a long time, by the way.
>> Congratulations.
>> Thank you. Um, so
it was a little disturbing to see the
octopus um, sadistically play with and
partially eat its food. That's what it
is.
>> Yeah, we don't like to think about the
animal kingdom that way, but if you look
at nature is metal, that account.
>> Yeah, that'll that'll teach you some
stuff pretty quick. Uh, you got to get
on a plane, my brother. I love you to
bits.
>> Did you get on a plane?
>> Yeah, you got to get on a plane. No, I'm
seeing you on Monday. Uh, sorry. On
Tuesday, I'm going to be in New York.
You'll be there. We'll do We'll try and
get Rick and a couple of other people.
>> So, we could do a wrap-up. So, well, I
should just properly say um I should say
thank you for hosting me. Um, grateful
for your friendship. Thanks for
supporting me through this book, for
taking my calls at odd hours of my
sanity. Thanks for supporting my
restoring my sanity. And um I'm so glad
we're neighbors.
>> Me, too.
>> And um fun to work out with you this
morning.
>> Yeah, you're the best. Where should
people go to get the book?
>> Uh protocolsbook.com. We'll put links to
all the places you can buy books and
different the books in different
languages. The audio book is read by me
and my voice. It's 19 hours long. Um,
but you can hop to a particular section,
learn what you want to learn, and then
put it away. Come back to it anytime.
>> Question. Question I like to ask
authors. What is an insight from the
book, either an intervention or an area
or something that you think most people
are going to skip over, but you wish
that they didn't?
>> The wacky eye movement thing to fall
back asleep.
>> Oh, we talked about that last time that
we were together. Yeah. Yeah. I I think
people think it's too crazy, but it's
but it costs nothing and it works and it
will get you back to sleep because it
confuses your body awareness system. You
need to forget where your limbs are.
>> It is really [ __ ] like dizzying when
you do it.
>> It it you need to forget about your body
position in order to fall asleep. That's
a prerequisite to falling asleep. So,
that will help. I think the one that
people will skip over, frankly, is the
personal development
thing around how to finally let go of
the difficult things that are you're
still carrying forward. You know, I I
can say 15 minutes of journaling on the
hard thing one day and then subsequently
on three more days, the data from
Pennaker and others show conclusively
it's a super powerful technique. But
people just don't do it. And we should
ask ourselves why don't they do it? And
I think because the thing is hard and
also nowadays getting people to write
for 15 minutes is tough. I learned a lot
about focus
overcoming procrastination and scruffing
oneself into doing hard things and
writing this book. And I thought I was
pretty good at doing
>> when I when I have to write someone a
card like if it's someone's birthday or
whatever I realize I haven't done this
in so physically writing a thing. I
haven't done this in so long I've
basically forgotten how to do it. But uh
Peterson before he did 12 rules and then
12 more there's 24 there. The original
um answer the original place that that
was born out of was a list of 44 rules
on Quora. Do you remember that place? It
was a website where people get answered
questions and somebody asked Jordan uh
what are your rules for a good life or
something like that. And he just listed
40 that include like pet a cat when you
see it on the street. Don't bother
children when they're skateboarding.
Don't don't let your children do
anything that let that means that you
don't like them etc etc. And one of his
that I remember from that was um uh if
memories still upset you full comma
write them down full stop. And it's like
so much of this stuff is pointing in the
same direction. Dude, you're awesome.
Book's fantastic. I'm glad that you're
not insane, but you are a little bit
shortsighted now. Um I'll see you in New
York next week.
>> Thanks so much, Chris. You're a
gentleman, a scholar, and a beast.
>> All right, big love. Bye-bye, my
beauties.
>> Dude,
>> thank you.
>> Congratulations. You made it to the end
of a podcast episode without dying. Now,
here's another one.
Go on, watch it.