Andrew Huberman: Relationships, Drama, Betrayal, Sex, and Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #393

listen when it comes to romantic relationships if it's not a hundred percent in you it ain't happening and I've never seen a violation of that statement where it's like it yeah it's mostly good and they're this is like the negotiations well already you're you're it's doomed and that doesn't mean someone has to be perfect the relationship has to be perfect but it's got to feel 100 inside like yes yes and yes the following is a conversation with my dear friend Andrew huberman his fourth time on this podcast it's my birthday so this is a special birthday episode of sorts Andrew flew down to Austin just to wish me happy birthday and we decided to do a podcast last second we literally talked for hours beforehand in a long time after late into the night he's one of my favorite human beings brilliant scientists incredible teacher and a loyal friend I'm grateful for Andrew I'm grateful for good friends for all the support and love I've gotten over the past few years I'm truly grateful for this life for the years the days the minutes the seconds I've gotten to live on this beautiful Earth of ours I really don't want to leave just yet I think I'd really like to stick around I love you all this is the last treatment podcast and now dear friends here's Andrew huberman trying to uh run a little bit more are you losing weight I'm not trying to lose weight but I always do the same Fitness routine after like 30 years basically uh lift three days a week run three days a week um but one of the runs is the long run one of them's medium one of them's a Sprint type thing so um what I've decided to do this year was just extend the duration of the long run and um I like being a mobile I I never want to be um so heavy that I can't move like like I want to be able to go out and run 10 miles if I have to so sometimes I do um and I want to be able to Sprint if I have to so sometimes I do and um lifting in objects is feels good it feels good to train like a lazy bear and just lift heavy objects but I've also started training with lighter weights and higher repetitions and um for three month cycles and it gives your joints a rest and um yeah so probably you know it I think it also is interesting to see how training differently changes your cognition that's probably hormone related you know hormones Downstream of training heavy versus hormones Downstream of training a little bit lighter um I think my cognition is better when I'm doing more cardio and when the repetition ranges are a little bit higher which is not to say that people who lift heavy are dumb but there is a because there's real value in lifting heavy there's a lot of angry people listening to this right now no no no but lifting heavy and then taking three to five minutes rest is Far and Away a different challenge than running hard for 90 minutes that's a tough thing just like getting in an ice bath people say oh well how is that any different than working out um well there are a lot of differences but one of them is that it's very acute stress within one second you're stressed so I I think subjecting the body to a bunch of different types of stressors in space and time is really valuable so yeah I've been playing with the variables in a pretty systematic way well I like long and slow for like you said the impact it has on my cognition yeah it it uh the wordlessness of it um the way it puts you in in a the way it seems to um clean out the Clutter yeah you know um it can take away that hyper focus and put you more in a relaxed Focus for sure well for me it brings the Clutter to the surface at first like all these thoughts come in there and then they dissipate you know I've been uh because I got knee barred pretty hard that's when somebody tries to break here they try and break your knee yeah because you tap so they yeah yeah yeah so it's you know hyper extend they need that direction the guy knee barred pretty hard so um in ways I don't understand it kind of hurts to run I don't understand what's happening behind there I need to investigate this it basically this the hamstring Flex like curling your leg hurts a little bit okay and that results in this weird doll but sometimes extremely sharp pain in the back of the knee so I'm I'm working I'm I'm working through this anyway but walking doesn't hurt so I've been playing around with walking recently like for two hours and thinking because I know a lot of like smart people throughout history have walked and thought you have to like you know play with things that have worked for others not just to exercise but to like integrate this very light kind of prolonged exercise into a productive life so they do all their thinking while they walk it's like a meditative type of walking it's it's really interesting it really works yeah the um the practice I've been doing a lot more of lately as I walk while reading a book in the yard I'll just Pace back and forth or walk in a circle audiobook are you talking no hard copy where you just holding I holding the book and I'm walking and I'm reading yeah and I usually have a pen and I'm underlining I have this whole system like underlining Stars exclamation points goes back to University of what things I'll go back to um which things I export to notes and that kind of thing um but from the beginning when I opened my lab at that time in San Diego before I moved back to Stanford um I would have meetings with my students or postdocs by just walking in the field behind the lab um you know and I'd bring my Bulldog Costello yeah Bulldog Mastiff at the time and he was a slow Walker so these were slow walks but I can think much more clearly that way there's a Nobel prize-winning uh professor at Columbia University School of Medicine Richard Axel who won the Nobel Prize co1 Nobel Prize with Linda Buck for the discovery of the molecular basis of olfaction and um he walks in voice dictates his papers and now with rev or these other maybe there are better ones um than rev where you can convert audio files into text very quickly and then edit from there so I I will often voice dictate um first drafts and things like that and um I totally agree on the long runs the walks the integrating that with cognitive work harder to do with Sprints um and then the gym you know are you do you weight train you just seem naturally strong and like thicker jointed it's true yeah it's true I when we did the one very beginner because I'm a very beginner of Jiu Jitsu class together and um yeah as I mentioned then uh but if people missed it uh Alexis freakishly strong I think I was born genetically to hug people oh like Costello yeah exactly you guys have a certain similarity he had wrists like you know it's like you and Jocko and Costello have these like wrists and and elbows that are super thick you know and then when you look around you see tremendous variation you know some people have like the the um wrist uh width of a whippet or Woody Allen and then other people like you or Jocko or you know there's this one uh Jocko video or thing on GQ or something Have you seen the comments on Jocko these are the best um the comments I love the comments on YouTube because occasionally they're funny um the best is uh when shock was born the doctor looked at his uh parents and said it's a man it's like Chuck Norris type comments yeah yeah those are great um that's what I miss about Rogan being on YouTube with the full-length episodes oh that comments so this is technically a birthday podcast uh what do you love most about getting older it's like a it the confirmation that comes from getting more and more data which basically says yeah the first time you thought that thing it was actually right because the second third and fourth and fifth time um it turned out the exact same way in other words um there have been a few times in my life where I did not feel easy about something I did I felt a signal for my body this is not good um and I didn't trust it early on but I knew it was there and then two or three bad experiences later I'm able to say ah every single time there was a signal from the body informing my mind this is not good now the reverse has also been true that there have been a number of instances in which I feel sort of immediate delight and there's this kind of almost astonishingly simple experience of feeling comfortable with somebody or at peace with something or delighted at an experience and it turns out all literally all of those experiences and people turned out to be experiences in people that are still in my life and that I um still Delight in every day in other words what's great about getting older is that you stop questioning the signals that come from the I think deeper recesses of your nervous system to say hey this is not good or hey this is great more of this whereas I think in my teens my 20s my 30s I'm 40 almost 48 I'll be 48 next month um I I didn't trust I didn't listen I actually put a lot of work into overriding those signals and learning to fight through them thinking that somehow that was making me tougher or somehow that was making me um smarter when in fact in the end those people that you meet that are you know difficult or you know there are other names for it you know it's like in here like in the end you're like you're not a person's piece of you know or um this person is amazing and they're really wonderful and I felt that from go so you've learned to trust your gut versus like the the influences of other people's opinions um I've learned to trust my gut versus the uh the forebrain over analysis overriding the gut other people often in my life have had great Optics right I've I've benefited tremendously from an early age of being in a large community of well it's been mostly guys by some close female friends and always have as well who will tell me that's a bad decision where this person not so good or be careful or they're great or that's great so oftentimes my community and the people around me have been more aligned with the correct Choice than not really yes really when you were younger like like transparents and so on I don't recall ever really listening to my parents that much you know I grew up in a you know we don't have to go back to my childhood thing but my sense thank you I learned that recently in a psilocybin Journey um my first my first high-dose psilocybin Journey which was um welcome back done with a clinician thank you very much thank you I was worried there for a second at one point in my not coming back but in in any event um yeah I grew up with some wild kids you know I would say about a third of my friends from childhood or dead or in jail um about a third have gone on to do tremendously impressive things start companies excellent athletes academics um scientists and um and clinicians and and then about a third are living their lives has become more typical I just mean um that they are happy family people uh with jobs that they mainly um serve the function to make money they're not sort of career into their career for career's sake but um so some of my friends early on gave me some bad ideas um but most of the time my bad ideas came from um overriding the signals that I knew that my body and I would say my body and brain were telling me uh to obey and no I say body and brain is that there's this brain region the insula which um that does many things but it represents our sense of internal uh sensation in terreception and I was talking to Paul Conti about this you know as who as you know um I trim respect tremendously I think he's one of the smartest people I've ever met um I think for different reasons he and Mark Andreessen are some of the like smartest people I've ever met but Paul's level of insight into the human psyche is is absolutely astounding and um and um he says the opposite of what most people say about the brain which is most people say oh the supercomputer of the brain is the forebrain it's like a monkey brain with a extra real estate put on there and the forebrain is what makes us human um and gives us our our superpowers Paul has said um and he's done a whole series on Mental Health that's coming out from our uh podcast in September so this is not an attempt to plug that but he'll elaborate wait you're doing a thing with fall we already did yeah so Paul oh nice yeah so Paul Conte shot up uh we did it he and I sat down he did a four episode series on Mental Health this is not mental illness mental health about how to explore one's own subconscious explore the self build and cultivate um the generative Drive you'll learn more about what that is from him he's far more eloquent um and and clearer than I am um and he provides essentially a a set of steps to explore the self that does not require that you work with a therapist this is self-exploration that that is rooted in Psychiatry it's rooted in neuroscience and I don't think this information exists anywhere else I'm not aware that it exists anywhere else and um he essentially distills it all down to one uh eight and a half by eleven sheet which we provide for people and um he says there I don't want to give too much away because it I would detract from what he does so beautifully but if I tried and I want to accomplish it anyway um but he said and I believe that the subconscious is the super computer of the brain all the stuff working underneath our conscious awareness that's driving our feelings and our what we think are the decisions that we've thought through so carefully and that only by exploring the subconscious and understanding it a little bit um can we actually uh improve ourselves over time and I agree I think that so that the mistake is to think that thinking can override at all it's a certain style of introspection and thinking that um allows us to read the signals from our body read the signals from our brain integrate the the knowledge that we're collecting about ourselves and and to use all that in ways that are really adaptive and generative for us what do you think is there in that subconscious well what do you think of the younging as Shadow is what what's there you know there's this idea you're familiar with too I'm sure that this jungian idea that there we all have all things inside of us that all of us have the capacity to be evil to be good Etc but that some people Express one or the other to a greater extent but he also mentioned that there's a unique category of people maybe two to five percent of people that don't just have all things inside of them but they actually spend a lot of time exploring a lot of those things the darker recesses the Shadows their own Shadows um you know I'm somebody who's drawn to goodness and to light into joy and all those things like anybody else but I think um maybe it's part of how I grew up maybe it was the crowd I was with um um maybe but then again you know even when I started spending more time with academics and scientists I mean um you see shadows in other ways right you see pure ambition with no passion I I recall a colleague um in San Diego who it was very clear to me did not actually care about understanding the brain but understanding the brain was just his Avenue to exercise ambition and if you give him something else to work on he'd work on that in fact he did he left and he worked on something else I realized he has no passion for understanding the brain like all the I assumed all scientists do certainly why I went into it but some people it's just raw ambition it's about winning it doesn't even matter what they win to which to me is crazy but I think that's a shadow that some people explore not when I've explored um I think the shadow parts of us are very important to come to understand and look better to understand them and know that they're there and work with them then to not acknowledge their presence and have them surface in the form of addictions or behaviors that um that damage Us in other people so one of the processes for achieving mental health is to bring those things to the surface so fish the subconscious mind yes and um and you know he Paul describes 10 cupboards that one can look into for exploring the self there's the structure of self and the function of self again this will all be spelled out in the series in a lot of detail also in terms of its relational aspect between people how to pick good partners and good relationship gets really into this from a very different perspective um yeah fascinating stuff I was just sitting there just I will say this that that four episode series with Paul is at least to date the most important work I've ever been involved in in all of my career because it's very clear that we are not taught how to explore our subconscious yeah and that very few people actually understand how to do that even most psychiatrists he has a uh he mentioned something about psychiatrists you know if you're a cardiothoracic surgeon or something like that and 50 of your patients die you're considered a bad cardiothoracic surgeon but with no disrespect to psychiatrists there are there are some excellent psychiatrists out there they're also a lot of terrible psychiatrists out there because unless all of those all of their patients commit suicide or half commit suicide they can treat for a long time without it becoming visible that they're not so good at their craft now he's superb at his craft and um I think he would say that yes exploring some Shadows but also just understanding the self like what what you know really under understanding like like who am I and and what's important what are my ambitions what are my striving again I'm lifting from some of the things that that he'll describe exactly how to do this people do not spend enough time addressing those questions and as a consequence they discover what resides in their subconscious through the sometimes bad hopefully all also good but um manifestations of their actions they're we are driven by this huge ninety percent of our real estate that is not visible to our conscious awareness and we we need to understand that you know I've talked about this before I've done therapy twice a week since I was a kid I had to as a condition of being let back in school um I continue I found a way to either through insurance or even when I didn't have insurance I took an extra job writing for Thrasher magazine when I was a postdoc so I could pay for therapy at a discount because I didn't make much money as a postdoc I mean I think for me it's as important as going to the gym and people think it's just you know ruminating on problems or getting somewhere no no if you work with somebody really good they're forcing you to ask questions about who you really are what you really want um it's not just about support but there should be support there should be Rapport but then it's also there should be Insight right most people who get therapy they're getting support there's rapport but Insight is not easy to arrive at and a really good psychologist or psychiatrist can help you arrive at Deep insights that transform your entire life well sometimes when I look inside and I do this often you know exploring who you truly are you come to this question do I accept once you see parts do I accept this or do I fix this is this a is this who you are fundamentally and it will always be this way or is this a problem to be fixed like for example one of the things especially recently but in general over time I've discovered about myself probably has roots in childhood probably has roots and a lot of things as I deeply value loyalty maybe more than the average person and so when there's disloyalty it can be painful to me and so this is who I am and so do I have to relax a bit do I have to fix this part or is this who you are and there's a million that's one like little I think loyalty is a good thing to cling to provided that when loyalty is broken that it doesn't um disrupt too many other areas of your life but it depends also on who's disrupting that loyalty if it's a co-worker versus a romantic partner versus your exclusive romantic partner depending on the structure of your romantic partner life you know I mean I have always experienced extreme um joy and feelings of safety and Trust in my friendships again mostly male friendships what female friendships do which is only to say that they were mostly male friendships the female friendships have also been very loyal um let you know so getting backstabbed is not something I'm familiar with um and yeah I love being crewed up you know yeah no for sure and I'm with you and you know you and I are very much have the same values on this but you know that's one little thing and then there's many other things like I'm extremely self-critical and you look at my you know I look at myself as I'm regularly very self-critical there's a self-critical engine in my brain and I talked to actually Paul about this I think on the podcast quite a bit and he's saying this is a really bad thing like you need to fix this you need to be able to be regularly very uh positive about yourself and I kept disagreeing with them no this is like who I am like you and it seems to work don't mess with the thing that seems to be working it's fine like I oscillate between being really grateful and really self-critical but then you have to like figure out what is it maybe is there's a deeper root thing there's maybe there's an insecurity in there somewhere that has to do with childhood and are you trying to prove something to somebody from your childhood this kind of thing well a couple things that I think are hopefully valuable for people here one is um one way to destroy your life is to spend time trying to control your or somebody else's past um so much of our destructive Behavior and thinking comes from wanting something that we saw or did or heard to not be true rather than really working with that and getting close to what it really was and you know sometimes those things are even traumatic and we need to really get close to them and and re for them to move through us and and that you know there are a bunch of different ways to do that with support from others and hopefully but sometimes on our own as well I don't think we can rewire our deep preferences and what we find Despicable or joyful I do think that it's really a question of what allows us peace like can you be at peace with the fact that you're very self-critical and enjoy that get some distance from it have a sense of humor about it or is it driving you in a way that's keeping you awake at night and yeah um and forcing you back to the table to do work in a way that feels self-flagellating and doesn't feel good um you know can you get that humility and awareness of how you're you know of your one's flaws and I think that that can create you know this word space sounds very new age you like get space from it you know you can have a sense of humor about how how neurotic we can all be I mean you know neurotic isn't actually a bad term in the classic sense of the psychologists and psychiatrists the freudians said that you know the best case is to be neurotic to actually see one's own issues and work with them whereas psychotic is the other is the other way to be uh which is obviously not good so I think um the question whether or not to work on something or to um just accept it as part of ourselves I think really depends if we feel like it's holding us back or not and I I think you're asking perhaps the most profound question about being a human which is you know what what do you do with your body what do you do with your mind I mean if you it's also a question we started off talking about Fitness a little bit we just for whatever reason um you know do I need to run an Ultra you Marathon no I don't feel like I need to um David Goggins does and and does a whole lot more than that so that for him that's important for me it's not important to do that I don't think he does it just so he can run the Ultras um there's clearly something else in there for him and guys like Kim Haynes and and uh tremendous respect for for what they do and how they do it um does one need to make their body more muscular stronger more endurance more flexibility do you need to read harder books do you need to I think doing hard things feels good um I think it I know it feels good I know that the worse I feel the worst way to feel is when I'm procrastinating and I don't do something and then whenever I do something and I complete it and I break through that point where it was hard and then I'm doing it at the end I actually feel like I was infused with some sort of um super chemical and who knows if it's probably a cocktail of endogenously made chemicals but I think it is good to do hard things but you have to be careful not to destroy your body your mind in the process and I think it's about whether or not you can achieve peace can you sleep well at night stress isn't bad if you can sleep well at night you can be stressed all day go go go go go go go go and it'll optimize your focus but can you fall asleep and stay deeply sleep at night um being in a hard relationship some people say you know that that's not good other people like it can you be at peace in that and I think uh we all you know I have different RPM that you know we all kind of idle at different RPM and um some people are big mellow costellos and others are kind of like you know need more friction in order to to feel at peace but I think ultimately what we want is to feel at peace I have um been through some really low points over the past couple years and I think the reason could be boiled out to the fact that I haven't been able to find a place of peace a a place or people or moments that give deep inner peace I yeah I you know and I think you put it really beautifully it's uh you have to figure out given Who You Are the various um characteristics of your mind all the things all the contents of the cupboards uh how to how to get space from it and ultimately one good representation of that is to be able to laugh at all of it whatever whatever's going on inside your mind to be able to step back and just kind of chuckle at the at the beauty and the absurdity of the whole thing yeah and keep going there's this beautiful uh as I mentioned seems like every podcast lately um I'm a huge rancid fan mostly because I just think Tim Armstrong's writing is is pure poetry and whether or not you like the music or not um you know and he's written on music for a lot of other people too he's not doesn't advertise that much because he's humble but I end up by the way I went to a show of theirs like 20 years ago yeah I'm going to see them in Boston in September 18th I'm literally flying there for for um uh or I'll take the train up from New York I'm gonna meet a friend of mine named Jim thibo who's a big guy who owns a lot of companies in skateboard industry um we're meeting there like a couple little kids to go see them play amazing amazing people amazing music music very intense very intense and but embodies all the different emotions that's why I love it right they have some love songs they have some hate songs they have some and um but you know there's a going back to what you said I think there's a there's a Psalm the first song on the Indestructible album I think it there's a um it's sort of he's just talking about like shock and disbelief of discovering things about people that were close to you and you know it's um I won't I won't sing it but you know nor I wouldn't dare but um but there's this one lyric where that's really stuck in my mind for for ever since that album came out in 2003 which is um you know that nothing's what it seems so I just sit here laughing I'm gonna keep going on I can't get distracted there is this piece of like you got to learn how to push out the disturbing stuff sometimes and go forward and I mean I remember hearing that lyric and and then writing it down and you know that was a time where my undergraduate advisor who was like a a mentor and a father to me you know blew his head off in the bathtub like three weeks before and then my graduate advisor who I was working for at that time who I loved and adored was really like a mother to me I knew her when she was pregnant with her two kids died at 50. breast cancer and then my postdoc advisor you know first day of work at Stanford as a faculty member sitting across the table like this from him had a heart attack right in front of me died of pancreatic cancer at the end of 2017. I remember just thinking like you know going back to that song lyric over and over like and where people would um you know I haven't had many betrayals in life I've had a few but just thinking like we're seeing something or learning something about something you just like you can't believe it and I I I mentioned that that lyric off that first song Indestructible on that album because it's this the emo like just the raw emotion of like I can't believe this what I just saw is so disturbing but I have to just keep going forward there are certain things that we really do need to push not just into our periphery but often to The Gutter and keep going and that's a hard thing to learn how to do but if you're going to be functional in life you have to and actually just to get at this issue of do I change or do I embrace this aspect of self um about six months it was April um of this last year I did some intense work around some things that were really challenging to me and I did it alone and it may have involved some medicine and I expected to get peace through this I was like I'm gonna let go of that and I spent 11 hours just getting more and more frustrated and angry about this thing that I was trying to resolve and I was so unbelievably disappointed that I couldn't get that relief and I was like what is this like this is not how this is supposed to work I'm supposed to be feel peace the clouds are supposed to lift and so a week went by and then another half week went by and then someone who I whose opinion I trust very much I explained this to them because I was getting a little concerned like what's going on this is worse not better and they said this is very simple you have a giant blind spot which is your sense of justice Andrew and your sense of anger are linked like an iron rod and you need to relax it and as they said that I felt the anger dissipate and so there was something that I think is it is true I have a very strong sense of justice and my sense of anger then at least uh was very strongly linked to it so it's great to have a sense of justice right I hate to see people wrong I absolutely do and I'm human I'm sure I've wronged people in my life I know I have they've told me I've tried to apologize and reconcile where possible still have a lot of work to do um but where I see Injustice it draws in my sense of anger in a way that I think is just eating me up and but it was only in hearing that link that I wasn't aware of before it was in my subconscious obviously um did I feel the relaxation it wasn't there's no amount of plant medicine or MDMA or any kind of you know chemical you can take that's naturally just going to dissipate what's hard for oneself it needs if one Embraces that or if one chooses to do it through just talk therapy or journaling or friends or introspection or all of the above there needs to be an awareness of the things that we're just not aware of so I think the answer to your question do you Embrace or do you fight these aspects of self is um I think you get in your subconscious through good work with somebody skilled or and sometimes that involves the tools I just mentioned in various combinations and you figure it out you figure out if it's serving you obviously it was not bringing me peace it was undermining my my sense of justice was undermining my sense of peace and so in understanding this link be now I would say that the in understanding this link between Justice and anger now I think it's a little bit more of like uh you know it's not like a Twizzler stick bendy but it's at least it's not like an iron Rod like you know when I see somebody wronged I mean it used to just like like immediately but you're able to step back now that's like to me the ultimate place to reach is laughter I just sit here laughing exactly that's that's the lyric I like I can't believe it so I just sit here laughing like can't get distracted just you just at some point but the but the problem I think in just laughing at something like that gives you distance but the question is does do you stop engaging with it at that point like I experienced this I mean recently I got to see how sometimes I'll see something that's just like what like this is crazy so I just laugh but then I continue to engage in it and it's taking me off of course and so there is a place where you know I mean I get realize this is probably a kids show too so I want to keep it you know G-rated but it at some point for certain things it makes sense to go that but also laugh at yourself for saying that yeah and then move on so the question is are you you get stuck or do you move on sure right sure but like there's a lightness of being that comes with laughter I mean I've gotten sure like as you know I spent the day with Elon today he just gave me this burnt hair do you know what this is I have no idea I'm sure there's actually this it should be a human lab episode on this it's a cologne that's burnt hair and it's like supposedly a really intense smell and it is to please it's not gonna leave you or no that's okay well that's okay I'll take a whiff it as if you have a chemical spray it on yourself because I don't know if you can so I'm reading an amazing book yeah called an immense World by Ed young he won a Pulitzer for uh we contain multitudes or something like that I think it's the title of the other book um and the first chapter is all battle faction and the incredible power that olfaction has that smells terrible I mean it doesn't leave you ah for those listening it doesn't quite smell terrible it's just intense and it stays with you this this to me represents like just laughing at the absurdity of it all so I have to ask so you were rolling Jiu Jitsu yeah so is that fight between um Elon and and azak actually going to happen I think Elon is a huge believer of this idea of uh the most entertaining outcome is the most likely and he almost like there's almost the sense that there's not a free will and the universe has a kind of deterministic gravitational field pulling towards the most fun and he's just a player in that game so from that perspective I think it seems like something like that is inevitable like like a little scrap in the parking lot of Facebook or something like exactly sorry meta yeah but it looks like they're they're training for real and Zuck has competed right Jiu Jitsu so um I think he is approaching it as a sport yeah Elon is approaching it as a spectacle and I mean the way he talks about it he's a huge fan of History he talks about all the Warriors that have fought throughout history if you look he wants to really do it at the Coliseum and you know the Coliseum is for 400 years I was there's so many so much great writing about this um I think over 400 000 people have died in the Coliseum Gladiators so this is this historic place that sheds so much blood so much fear so much anticipation of battle all of this so he loves this kind of spectacle and also the uh the meme of it a hilarious absurdity of it the two Tech CEOs are battling it out on sand in a place where Gladiators fought to the death and then Bears and Lions eight prisoners as part of the execution process what's also going to be an instance where Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk has changed bodily fluids they bleed this one thing's about fighting you know I think it was in um that book it's great book a Fighter's heart where he talks about you know sort of the intimacy of of sparring I have I only rolled Jiu Jitsu with you once but there was a period of time where I boxed and um which I don't recommend um I got hit I hit some guys and I definitely got hit back um I'd Spar on Wednesday nights when I lived on San Diego um and um you know when you spar with somebody even if they hurt you especially if they hurt you you know you see that person afterwards and there's there's an intimacy right you're it was it was in that book Fire's heart where he explains you know you're exchanging bodily fluids with a stranger right and CR there's a you're in your primitive mind and so there's an intimacy there that that persists so you go together through a process of fear anxiety like yeah when they get you you nod I mean you watch somebody like catch somebody if you know not so much in professional fighting but if people are sparring that they catch you you acknowledge that they caught you like you got me there and on the flip side of that so we trained and then after that we played Diablo 4. I don't know what that is I don't play video games sorry but it's a video game so it's like it's a um you know pretty intense combat in the video you're fighting like demons okay last video game played was Mike Tyson's punch out there you go that's pretty I met him recently went on his podcast you want you want wait it hasn't come out yet oh it hasn't come yeah okay yeah I asked um Mike um his kids are great they came in they're super smart kids goodness gracious they ask great questions um asked Mike what he did with the piece of evander's ear that that he bit off did you remember yeah he's like get back to him here you go sorry about that he sells Edibles that are in the shape of ears with a little bite out of it um yeah that his his life has been incredible he's um uh and I met yeah he he his family you get the sense that they're really a great family they're really um Mike Tyson that's a heck of a journey right there of a man yeah my now friend Tim Armstrong like I said leads to hearing from ranty he put it best he said you know that Mike Tyson's life is you know Shakespearean and you know down up down up and just that the arcs of his life are just like sort of an only in America kind of tale too right so speaking of Shakespeare I've recently gotten to know Neri oxman who's this incredible uh scientist that works at the intersection of Nature and engineering and she uh reminded me of this uh Anna ahmat of a line This is this great Soviet poet that I really love from uh over a century ago that each of Our Lives is a Shakespearean drama raised to the Thousand degree so I have to ask why do you think humans are attracted to this kind of Shakespearean drama is there some aspect we've been talking about the subconscious mind that that pulls us towards the drama even though the place of mental health is peace yes and yes do you have some of that draw towards drama yeah if you look at the empirical data yes I mean right if I look at the empirical data I mean I think about who I chose to work for as an undergraduate right I was a you know barely finished high school finally get to College barely I think this is really embarrassing and not something to Aspire to you know I was um you know thrown out of the dorms for fighting um I barely passed my classes you know the girlfriend and I split up I mean I was living in a squad got into a big fight it was getting in trouble with the law I eventually got my act together go back to school start working for somebody who do I choose to work for a guy who's an ex-navy guy who smokes cigarettes in the fume Hood drinks coffee and we're injecting rats with MDMA yeah and you know I was drawn to like the personality his energy but I also he was a great he was a great scientist worked out a lot on a thermal regulation in the brain and um and more um you know go to graduate school I'm working for somebody and decide that yeah doing working in her laboratory wasn't quite right for me so I'm literally sneaking into the laboratory next door and working for the woman next door because I like the relationships that she had to a certain set of questions and she was a kind of a quirky person and you know so drawn to drama but drawn to I like characters I like people that have texture yeah and I'm not drawn to Raw ambition I'm drawing people that seem to have a real passion for what they do and a uniqueness to them that I I you know you can kind of not kind of I'll just say how it is I can feel their heart for what they do and I'm I'm drawn to that like um and that can be good the same reason I went to work for Ben Barris as a postdoc it wasn't because he was the first transgender Man member of the National Academy of Sciences that was just a feature of who he was I loved how he loved glea he would talk about these cells like they were the most enchanting things that he'd ever seen in his life and I was like this is like the biggest nerd I've ever met and I love him I think we're Dr I'm drawn to that um this is another thing that Conti makes uh elaborates on quite a bit more in the series on Mental Health coming out but there are different drives within us there's this there are aggressive drives not always for fighting but for intense interaction I mean look at Twitter look at some of look at people clearly have an aggressive Drive there's also a pleasure Drive some people also have a strong pleasure Drive they want to experience pleasure through food through sex through friendship through Adventure you know but I think the Shakespearean drama is the drama of the different drives in different ratios in different people I I know somebody and she's incredibly kind has an extremely high pleasure Drive loves taking great care of herself and people around her through food and through Retreats and through all these things and makes spaces beautiful everywhere she goes and is gifts these things that are just so unbelievably feminine and incredible these gifts to people and the kind and thoughtful about what they like and then um but I would say very little aggressive Drive um from my read and then I know other people who are just have a ton of aggressive drive and very low pleasure drive and I think so there's this alchemy that exists where people have these things in different ratios and then you blend in um you know the differences in the chromosomes and differences in hormones and differences in personal history and what you end up with is a species that creates incredible recipes of drama but also peace also relief from drama contentment I mean I realize this isn't the exact topic of the question but um someone I know very dearly actually an ex-girlfriend of mine long-term partner mine um sent me something recently I think it hit the nail on the head which is that ideally for a man they eventually settle where they find and feel peace or they feel peaceful where they can be themselves and feel peaceful now I'm sure there's a equivalent or mirror image of that for women but this particular post that she sent was about men and I totally agree and so um it isn't always that we're seeking friction but for periods of our life we see friction drama Adventure excitement fights um you know and doing hard hard things and then I think at some point I'm certainly coming to this point now where it's like yeah that's all great and checked a lot of boxes but had a lot of close calls flew really close to the Sun on a lot of things with life and limb and and part and spirit and some of you know people close to us didn't make it and sometimes not making it means their the career they wanted went off a cliff or the the their health went off a cliff or their life went off a cliff but I think that um there's also the Shakespearean drama of the characters that exit the play and are living their lives happily in the backdrop it just doesn't make for as much entertainment that's one other thing that's a benefit you could say is the benefit of getting older is uh um finding the Shakespearean drama less appealing or finding the joy in the peace yeah definitely I mean I think that um I think there's real peace with age I think the other thing is this notion of checking boxes is a real thing I for me anyway I I have a morning meditation that I do um well I wake up now I get my sunlight I hydrate I use the bathroom I do all the things that I talk about um I've started to practice a prayer in the last year which is new ish for me which is we could talk about in the morning yeah can you talk about it a little bit sure yeah and I and then I have a meditation that I do that actually is where I think through with the different roles that I play so I like I start very basic um I say okay I'm an animal like we are we are like biologically animals right human you know I'm a man I'm a scientist I'm a teacher I'm a friend I'm a brother I'm a son you know I go through this I have this list and I think about the different roles that I have and the roles that I still want in my life going forward that I haven't yet fulfilled it just takes me it's sort of an inventory of where I've been where I'm at and where I'm going as they say um and I don't know why I do it but I started doing it this last year I think because um it helps me understand just how many different uh contexts I have to exist in and and remind myself that there's still more that I haven't done that I'm excited about So within each of those contexts there's like things that you want to kind of accomplish to Define that yeah and I'm ambitious so I think you know I'm a brother I have an older sister and I love her tremendously and I think I want to be the best brother I can be to her which means maybe a call maybe just um you know we do an annual trip together for our birthdays our birthdays are close together we always go to New York for our birthdays if we've gone for last three four years like really like reminding myself of that role not because I'll forget but because I have all these other roles I'll get pulled into I say the first one I'm an animal because I have to remember that I have a body that needs care like any of us I need sleep I need food I need hydration I need that I'm human that that the brain of a human is is marvelously complex but also um marvelously uh self-defeating at times and so I've been thinking about these things in the context of the different roles and the whole thing takes about four or five minutes and I just find it brings me a certain amount of clarity that then allows me to ratchet into the day the prayer piece um yeah I think I've been reluctant to talk about um until now um because I don't believe in pushing religion on people and um and I think that um and I'm not um it's a highly individual thing and I do believe that one can be an atheist and still pray um or agnostic and still pray but uh for me it really came about through understanding that there are certain aspects of myself that I just couldn't resolve on my own and no matter how much therapy no matter how much and I haven't done a lot of it but no matter how much plant medicine or other sorts of medicine or exercise or um podcasting or science or friendship or any of that I was just not going to resolve and so um I started this because uh someone close to me um said a male friend said you know prayer is powerful and I said well how and I said I don't know how but if you if you can get it can allow you to Get outside yourself get let you give up control and at the same time take control I don't even like saying take control but the whole notion is that again forgive me but there's no other way to say it the whole notion is that you know like God works through US whatever God is to you he he him her whatever the life force nature whatever it is to you right that it works through us and so I do a prayer I'll just describe it where I I ask um I make an ask to help remove my defects my Character defects I I pray to God to help remove my Character defects so that I can show up um better in all the roles of my life and do good work like to which for me is learning and teaching learning and teaching and and so you might say well how is that different than a meditation well it I'm acknowledging that there is something that bigger than me bigger than nature as I understand it that I cannot understand or control nor do I want to and I'm just giving over to that and does that make me less of a scientist I I sure tell hope not I certainly know I there's the head of our neurosciences at Stanford until recently um I you should talk to him directly about it Bill Newsom has talked about his religious life um for me it's really a way of getting outside myself and then understanding how I fit into this bigger picture and it's and the Character defects part is real right I'm a human I have defects like I got a lot of flaws in me like anybody but um and trying to acknowledge them and asking for help in removing them not magically but through right action through my right action so I do that every morning and um I have to say that it's helped it's helped a lot it's helped me be better to myself be better at other people um I still make mistakes um but it's a it's becoming a bigger bigger part of my life and I never thought I'd talk like this um but I think it's clear to me that if we don't believe in something again doesn't have to be traditional standardized religion but if we don't believe in something bigger than ourselves we uh at some level will self-destruct I really I really think so it's power and it's powerful in a way that all the other stuff meditation and all the tools is is not because it's really operating at a much deeper and bigger level and um you know if yeah I think I think that's all I can talk about it um mostly because I'm still working out you know the scientists in me wants to understand how it works and I want to understand and the point is to just go you know there's some there's you know for lack of a better language for it there's higher power than me and what I can control I'm giving up control on certain things and somehow that restores a sense of agency for for right action better action I think perhaps a part of that is just the humility that comes with acknowledging there's something bigger and more powerful than you and then you can't control everything yeah it's I mean that you go through life as a hard driving person you know forward Center of mass I remember being that way since I was little it's like a new LEGOs I'm like all the Lego so it's like on the weekends you know learning about medieval weapons and giving lectures about it in class when I was five or six years old we're learning about tropical fish and you know cataloging all of them at the store and then organizing it and making my you know my dad drive me or my mom drive me to some fish store and then spending all my time there until they throw me out you know all of that but I also remember my entire life I would secretly pray when things were good and things weren't good but mostly when things weren't good because it's important to pray for me it's important to pray each morning regardless but when things weren't right I couldn't get make sense of them I would secretly pray but I felt kind of ashamed of that for whatever reason and then it was once in college I distinctly remember I I was having a hard time with a number of things um and I took a run down to Sans Beach it was UC Santa Barbara and I remember I just I was like I don't know if I even have the right to to do this but I'm just praying I just prayed for uh the ability to be as brutally honest with myself and with other people as I possibly could be about a particular situation I was in at that time I mean I I think now it's probably safe to say I'd gone off to college because of a high school girlfriend we'd she essentially she was my family more frankly more than my biological family was at a certain stage of life and we'd reached a point where we were diverging and it was it was incredibly painful it was like losing everything I had and I was like what do I do how do I manage this do I you know I was ready to quit and join the Fire Service just to support us so we could move forward and and um and you know it's just but praying just saying I can't figure this out on my own it's sort of like I can't think of this out on my own and how frustrating that is no number of friends could tell me or and inner wisdom couldn't tell me and eventually led me to the right answers and she and I are friendly friends to this day she's happily married with a child and um we're on good terms but I think you know it's it's a it's a scary thing but it's the best thing when you I can't control all this and asking for help I think is also the piece you're not asking for some magic hand to come down and take care of it you're asking for the help to come through you right so that your body is used to do these right works right action isn't it interesting that this secret thing that you're almost embarrassed by that you did it as a child is something you oh man it's another thing you do as you get older is you realize like those things are part of you and it's actually a beautiful thing yeah a lot of the content of the podcast is you know deep epic content and we talk about everything from you know uh Eating Disorders to bipolar disorder to depression you know a lot of different topics but the tools are the protocols as we say right the sunlight viewing all the rest um you know a lot of that stuff is just stuff I wish I had known when I was in graduate school if I'd known to go outside every once in a while and get some sunlight not just stay in the lab I would have you know I might not have hit a like a really tough round of depression when I was a postdoc and working twice as hard and you know when my body would break down or I'd get sick a lot I don't get sick Much Anymore occasionally about once every 18 months to two years I get I'll get something but um learn you know I used to break my foot skateboarding all the time I couldn't understand what's wrong with my body I'm getting injured I can't do what everyone else can now I developed more slowly at a long Arc of puberty um but I so that was part of it I was still developing but you know how to get your body stronger how to build endurance that no one told me the information wasn't there so a lot of what I put out there is the information that I wish I had had because once I had it I was like wow like a this stuff really works B it's grounded in something real you know some place sometimes certain Protocols are a combination of you know animal human and animal and human studies sometimes clinical trials sometimes there's some mechanistic conjecture for some not all I always make clear which but in the end like figuring out how things work so that we can be happier healthier more productive suffer less like reduce the suffering of the world um and I think that well I'll just say thank you and um for asking about the prayer piece um again I'm not pushing or even encouraging it on anyone I've just found it to be tremendously useful for me you know I mean about prayer in general you said information and uh figuring out how to get stronger healthier smarter all those kinds of things a part of me believes that deeply you know you can gain a lot of knowledge and wisdom through learning but a part of me believes that all the wisdom I need was all was there when I was 11 and 12 years old and then it got cluttered over well listen I can't wait for you and Conti to talk again because when he gets going about the subconscious and the amount of this that sits below the surface like an iceberg and and I and the fact that when we're kids we're not obscuring a lot of that subconscious as much and and sometimes that can look a little more primitive I mean I mean a kid that's disappointed will let you know a kid that's excited will let you know and you feel that raw exuberance or that raw dismail and I think that um as we grow older we learn to cover that stuff up we we wear masks and we have to to be functional right I don't think we all want to go around just being completely um raw but as you said as you get older you also you get to this point where you're gonna go you know what what are we really trying to protect anyway I mean I have this theory that you know certainly my experience has taught me that a lot of people but I'll talk about men because that's what I know best whether or not they show up strong or not that they're really afraid of being weak like they're just afraid like sometimes the strength is even a way to try and not be weak right which is different than being strong for its own sake I'm not just talking about physical strength I'm talking about intellectual strength I'm talking about money I'm talking about um expressing Drive I've been watching this um series a little bit of uh chimp Empire oh yeah so chimp Empire is amazing right they have the head champ he's not the head chimp but the the the alpha in the group yeah and he's getting older and so what does he do every once in a while he goes on these Vigor displays he goes and he grabs Branch he starts breaking him he starts thrashing him and he's incredibly strong and they're all kind of like watching I mean yeah I immediately think of people like they're dead lifting on Instagram and I just think the displays a Vigor this is just the primate sewing that displays the figure now what's interesting is that he's doing that specifically to say hey I still have what it takes to lead this troop okay then they're the the ones that are subordinate to him but not so not so far behind it seems to be that there's a very clear like numerical ranking there is like it's it's clear who's the number two number three yeah I mean who gets to mate first who gets to eat first this exists in other animal societies too but uh Bob sapolski would be a great person to talk about this with because he knows obviously tremendous amount about it and I I know just the top Contour but um yeah so number two three and four males are aware that he's doing these Vigor displays but they're also aware because in primary Evolution they got some extra forebrain too not as much as us but they got some and they're aware that the Vigor displays are displays that because they've done them as well in a different context might not just be displays of vigor but might also be an insurance policy against people seeing weakness okay so now they start using that prefrontal cortex to do some interesting things so in in primate world if a male is friendly with another man wants to affiliate with him and say hey I'm backing you they'll go over and they'll they'll pick off the little um parasites and eat them and so the grooming is extremely important in fact if they want to ostracize or kill one of the members of their um troop they will just leave it alone no one will groom it and then there's actually a really disturbing sequence in that show of then the parasites start to eat away on their skin they get infections they have issues no one will mate with them no one they have other issues as well and can potentially die so the interesting thing is is number two and three start to line up a strategy to groom this guy but they are actually thinking about over taking the entire troop setting in a new Alpha but the current Alpha did that to get where he is so he knows that they're doing this grooming thing but they're not might not be sincere about the grooming so what does he do he takes the whole troop on a raid to another troop and sees who will fight for him and who won't this is advanced Contracting of behavior for a species that normally we don't think of as as sophisticated as us so it's very interesting and it gets to something that I hope will have an opportunity to talk about because it's something that I'm obsessed with lately is this notion of overt versus covert contracts right there are overt contracts where you exchange work for money or you exchange any number of things in an overt way but then there are covert contracts um and those take on a very different form and always lead to uh in my belief bad things well how much of human and chimp relationships are over versus covert well here's one thing that we know is true dogs and humans the dog to human relationship is 100 overt they don't manipulate you now you could say they do in the sense that they learn that if they look a certain way or roll on their back they get food but there's no um there's no banking of that behavior for a future date where then they are going to undermine you and take your position okay so in that sense dogs can be a little bit manipulative in some sense but um now okay so overt contract would be we both want to do some work together we're going to make some money you get X percentage I get X percentage it's overt covert contract which is in my opinion bad always bad would be we're gonna do some work together you're gonna get a percentage of money I'm gonna get a percentage of money could look just like the overt contract but secretly I'm resentful that I got the percentage I got so what I start doing is covertly taking something else what do I take maybe I take the opportunity to jab you verbally every once in a while maybe I take the opportunity to show up late maybe I take the opportunity to get to know one of your co-workers so that I might start a business with them that's covert Contracting and you see this sometimes in romantic relationships one person we won't set the male or female in any direction here and just say it's I'll make you feel powerful if you make me feel desired okay great there's nothing explicitly wrong about that contract if they both know and they both agree but what if it's I'll do that but I'll have kids with you so you feel powerful you'll have kids with me so I feel desired but secretly I don't want to do that or they one person says I don't want to do that or both don't so what they end up doing is saying okay so I expect something else I expect you to do certain things for me or I expect you to pay for certain things for me covert contracts are the signature of everything bad overt contracts are the signature of all things good yeah and I think about this a lot because I've seen a lot of examples of this I've like anyone we participate in these things whether or not we want to or not and the thing that gets transacted the most is well I should say the things that get transacted the most are the overt things you'll see money um time sex um property whatever happens to be information but what ends up happening is that when people I believe don't feel safe they feel threatened in some way like it's they don't feel safe in a certain interaction what they do is they start taking something else while still engaging in in the exchange and I'll tell you if there's one thing about human nature that's bad it's that feature why that feature or is it a bug or a feature as you Engineers like to say um I think it's because we were allocated a certain extra amount of prefrontal Cortex that makes us more sophisticated than a dog more sophisticated than a chimpanzee but they do it too and it's because it's often harder to deal with in the short term to deal with the real sense of this is scary this feels threatening than it is to play out all the iterations it takes a lot of brain work you're playing chess and go simultaneously trying to figure out where things are going to end up and we just don't know so it's a way I think of creating a false sense of certainty but I'll tell you covert contracts the only certainty is that it's going to end badly the question is how badly conversely overt contracts always end well always the problem with overt contracts is that you can't be certain that the other person is not engaging in a covert contract you can only take responsibility for your own Contracting well one of the challenges of being human is looking at another human being and figuring out the way their way of being their behavior which of the two types of contracts it represents because they look awfully the same on the surface and it's one of the one of the challenges of being human is the decision we all make is are you somebody that takes a leap of trust and trusts other humans that are willing to take the hurt are you going to be cynical and skeptical and avoid most interactions until they're uh they over a long period of time prove your trust yeah I never liked the phrase history repeats itself um when it comes to humans because it doesn't apply if the people or the person is actively working to resolve their own flaws I do think that if people are willing to do dedicated introspective work go into their subconscious do the hard work have hard conversations and get better at hard conversations something that I'm constantly trying to get better at I think people can change but they have to want to change it does seem like deep down we all can kind of tell the difference between over and covert like we have a good sense I think one of the benefits of having this characteristical mind where I value loyalty I've been extremely uh fortunate to spend most of my life in overt relationships and I think that creates a really fulfilling life but there's also this thing that maybe we're in this uh portion of the podcast now but um this is late at night we're talking that's right certainly late for me but I'm two hours I came in today on uh I'm still in California we should also say that you came here to wish me a happy birthday I did I did I and the podcast is just like a a fun last minute thing I suggested yeah some um close friends of yours have arranged a dinner that I'm really looking forward to I won't say which night but it's the next couple of nights um you know your circadian clock um is one of the most robust features of your biology I know you can be nocturnal or you can be diurnal we know you're mostly nocturnal um at certain times of the year relaxed but um but they're very very few people can get away with no sleep very few people can get away with a chaotic sleep wake schedule so you have to obey a 24-hour AKA circadian uh Rhythm um if you want to remain healthy of Mind and Body we also have to acknowledge that it's aging is in linear right so um what do you mean well I mean you the the degree of change between years 35 and 40 is not going to be the degree of change between 40 and 45 but I will say this I'm 48 and I feel better in every aspect of my psychology and biology now than I did when I was in my 20s yeah sort of quality of of thought um time spent um physically I can do what I did then which is probably says more about what I could do then than what I can do now but if you keep training you can continue to get better the key is to not get injured and I I've never trained super hard I've trained hard but I've been cautious to not for instance weight train more than two days in a row I do a split which basically three days a week and the other day is a run take one full day off take a week off every 12 to 16 weeks I've not been the guy hurling the heaviest weights or running the furthest distance but I have been the guy who's continuing to do it when a lot of my friends are talking about knee injuries hey hey hey but of course with sport you can't account for everything the same way you can with Fitness and and I have to acknowledge that you know um unless one is power lifting you know weight lifting and running you can get hurt but it's not like skateboarding where if you if you're going for you're gonna get hurt that's just you're landing on concrete and um it with Jiu Jitsu like people are trying to hurt you so that you say stop um so with a sport it's different um and these days I don't really do a sport any longer um I work out um to stay fit I I used to um continue to do sports but I kept getting hurt and frankly now like a rolled ankle um I may put out a little small skateboard part in 2024 because people have been saying we want to see the kickflip you want to say well I'll do a heel flip instead but okay um uh I might put out a little part because some of the guys that work on our podcast are from DC I think by now I I I should at least do it just to show like I'm not making it up um and I probably will but I think that doing a sport is different that's how you get hurt overuse and doing it an actual sport and so you know hat tip to those do an actual sport and that's a difficult decision like I a lot of people have to make I have to make with Jiu Jitsu for example like if you just look empirically I've trained really hard from all my life and grappling Sports and fighting Sports and all this kind of stuff and I've avoided injury for the most part and I would say I would attribute that to um training a lot sounds counterintuitive but training well and safely and correctly keeping good form saying no and I need to say no but training a lot and taking it seriously now when this training is kind of a side really a side thing I find that the injury is uh becomes a higher and higher probability when you're just doing it every once in a while every once in a while yeah that I think you said something really important that the um saying no I mean the times I have gotten hurt training is when someone's like hey let's hop on this workout together and it becomes uh let's challenge each other to do something outrageous um sometimes that can be fun though I went up to cam haines's gym and he does these very high repetition weight workouts that are in circuit form I was sore for two weeks but um I learned a lot and didn't get injured and um and yes we ate bow hunted elk afterwards nice but the the injury has been a really difficult psychological thing for me because um so I've injured my uh my finger pinky fingered my knee yeah your kitchen is filled with splints splints I'm trying to figure I'm trying to figure out it's like if you look at Lex's kitchen there's there's some really good snacks I had some right before um he's very good about keeping cold drinks in the fridge um and all the water has element in it which is great I love that um but then there there's a whole like Hospital's worth of splints yeah I'm trying I'm trying to figure out so here's the thing you uh I think like pop out like this right uh pinky finger I'm trying to figure out how do I splint in such a way that I can still program still play guitar but protect this kind of torque motion that creates a huge amount of pain and that's a bit of a jiu jitsu injury Jiu-Jitsu but it's a it's not the kind of it's probably more like a skateboarding style injury which is it's unexpected in a silly in a silly thing that happens in a second I didn't break my foot doing anything important Yeah I broke my fifth minute stepping off a curb so it's that's why they're called accidents yeah if you get hurt doing something awesome that's a trophy yeah that you have to work through it's part of your payment to the universe if you get hurt stepping off a curb or you know doing something stupid called a stupid accent since we brought up chimp Empire let me ask you about relationships I think we talked about relationships yeah I only date Homo sapiens uh the morning meditation the night is still young you are human no but you are also animal don't sell yourself short no I always say listen any discussion on the human Lab podcast about sexual health or anything I always be the the critical Force consensual age-appropriate context appropriate species appropriate species appropriate well can I just tell you about sexual selection um I've been watching Life in Color with David Attenborough because I've been watching a lot of nation documentaries talking about inner peace it brings me so much peace to watch nature and it's worse than at its best so Life in Color is a series on Netflix where it presents some of the most colorful animals on Earth and kind of tells their story of how they got there through natural selection so you know you have the peacock with the feathers and it's just such incredible colors like the peacock has these uh tail feathers uh the male that are like gigantic and they're super colorful and they're these eyes on on it it's not eyes it's like I like areas and and they wiggle their ass like to show the Tails they wiggle the tails the eye spots the eye spots yes thank you you know this probably way better than me I'm just quoting it no David at least continue but it was it's just I'm watching this and then the female is as boring looking as pot like she has no colors or nothing but she's standing there bored just seeing this entire display and I'm just wondering like the entirety of life on Earth or not the entirety post-bacteria is like in at least in part maybe in a large part can be described through this process of natural selection of sexual selection so dudes fighting and then women selecting it seems like it's just the the entirety of that series shows some incredible birds and insects and shrimp they're all beautiful and colorful and just a shrimp Manta shrimp they're just they're incredible and it's all about getting laid it's fascinating like I just um and there's nothing like watching that and Champa Empire to make you realize we humans that's the same thing that's all we're doing and all the beautiful variety all the bridges in the buildings and the rockets and the internet all of that is this kind is is at least in part this kind of uh a product of this kind of showing off for each other and all the wars and all this anyway uh well there's that I'm asking oh relationships well right um before you ask about relationship I think what's um clear is that every species it seems animal species wants to make more of itself and protect its young with the protect this young is non-obvious so not destroy enough um of itself uh that it can't get more to reproductive competent age I mean I think that you know we have a natural I mean healthy people have a natural reflex to protect children well I don't know and those that can't wait a minute wait wait wait wait a minute I've seen enough animals that are murdering the children sure some other sure there's even simplicide they're like first of all I just want to say that I I was um delighted in your Delight around Animal Kingdom stuff because this is a favorite uh theme of mine as well but there's for instance some fascinating uh data on for instance uh for those that grew up on farms they'll be familiar with free Martins you know about free Martins this is they're cows that have multiple um calves inside them and there's a situation in which the calves will secrete if there's more than one inside will secrete chemicals that will um hormonally castrate the cap next to them so they can't reproduce so already in the womb they are fighting for future resources that's how early this stuff can start so it's chemical warfare in the womb Against The Sibling sometimes there's outright sibilicide siblings are born they kill one another um this also becomes biblical stories right um there are instances of cuttlefish beautiful cephalopods like octopuses um and that is the plural as we yeah um the internet oh yeah that became a meme or a little discussion yeah pretty quick oh yeah and now we just resurfaced it that's great the dismay in your voice is so amusing um in any event that the male cuttlefish will disguise themselves by as female cuttlefish infiltrate the female cuttlefish uh um group and then mate with them you know um all sorts of um you know types of covert uh operations so I think that combat it's like a drinking game where every time we say covert in a contract in this uh episode you have to take a a shot of espresso please don't do that you'd be dead by the end um so it actually is just a small tangent it does make me wonder how much intelligence covert contracts require it seems like not much if they if we could if you can do it in the animal kingdom there's some kind of instinctual it is based perhaps in like fear yeah it could be um simple algorithm if if you know if there's some ambiguity about numbers and I'm not with these guys and you know then flip to the alternate strategy I actually have a story about this that I think is relevant I used to have cuttlefish in my lab in San Diego uh we went and got them from a guy out in the desert we put them in the lab is amazing and they I had a postdoc who was studying prey capturing cuttlefish they have a very ballistic extremely rapid strike and grab of the shrimp and they um we were using high speed cameras uh to to characterize all this looking at binocular they normally have their eyes on the side of their head when they see something they want to eat the eyes translocate to the front which allows them stereopsis depth perception allows them to strike we were doing some unilateral eye removals they would miss Etc okay this has to do with eye spots this was during a government shutdown period where the ghost shrimp that they normally um feed on that we would ship in from the Gulf down here weren't available to us so we had to get different shrimp and what we noticed was the the Cuttlefish normally would just sneak up on the shrimp we learned this by data collection and if the shrimp was facing them they would do this thing with their tentacles of kind of enchanting the cuddle the the shrimp and if the shrimp wasn't facing them they wouldn't do it and they would ballistically grab it and and eat them well when we got these new shrimp the new shrimp had eye spots on their tails and then the Cuttlefish would do this kind of attempt to enchant regardless of the position of the ghost shrimp so what does that mean okay well it means that there's some sort of algorithm in the cuttlefish's mind that says okay if you see two spots move your tentacles so it can be as you pointed out it can be a fairly simple operation but it looks diabolical it looks cunning but all it is is strategy B yeah but it's still somehow emerged I mean I I I don't think that it's like calling it an algorithm doesn't I feel like well there's a circuit there that gets implemented in a certain context but that circuit had to evolve you do realize it super intelligent AI will look at us humans and we'll say the exact thing there's a circuit in there that evolved to do this the algorithm a and algorithm B and it's trivial and to us humans it's fancy and beautiful where I poetry about it but it's because so we don't understand the subconscious because they want that AI algorithm cannot see into what it can't see it doesn't understand the underworkings of what allows all of this conversation stuff to manifest and we can't even see it how could AI see it maybe it will maybe maybe AI will solve and give us access to our subconscious maybe your AI friend or coach like I think Andreessen and others are are arguing is going to happen at some point it's going to say Hey you know Lex you're making decisions lately that are not good for you but it's because of this algorithm that you picked up in childhood that if you don't State your explicit needs up front you're not going to get what you want so why do it from now on you need to actually make a list of every absolutely outrageous thing that you want no matter how outrageous and communicate that immediately and that will work we're talking about coefficient sexual selection and then we went into some uh where do we go well and you said you were excited I was I was I was excited well you were just saying what about these these covert contracts and animals do them I think it's simple contextual engagement of a neural circuit which is not just nerd speak for saying they do a different strategy saying that there has to be a circuit there hardwired circuit maybe learned but probably hardwired that can be engaged right you can't build neural Machinery out of in a moment um you need to build that circuit over time what is building it over time you select for it the the Cuttlefish that did not have that alternate context driven circuit didn't survive when there was a uh when all the shrimp that they normally disappear here in the ice spotted shrimp showed up and there were a couple that had some miswiring this is why mutation right X-Men type stuff is real um they had a mutation they had some alternate wiring and that wiring got selected before it became a mutation that was adaptive as opposed to male adaptive this is something people don't often understand about genetics is that it only takes a few generations to devolve a trait make it worse but it takes a long time to evolve an Adaptive trait there are exceptions to that but most often that's true so a species needs a lot of generations we are hopefully still evolving as a species and it takes a long time but uh to evolve more adaptive traits but doesn't take long to to devolve adaptive traits so that you're getting sicker or you're not functioning as well so choose your mate wisely and that's perhaps a good segue into sexual selection humans I could tell you you're good at this uh who said well why did I bring up sexual selection it's good relationship so um it's extra selection in humans even I I don't think you've done an episode on relationships no I did um an episode on attachment right um but not on relationships the the series with Conti includes one episode of the four that's all about relational understanding and how to select a mate based on um matching of drives and all the the the the the Demons Inside the subconscious how to match demons and they dance well together or what and how generative two people are what does that mean means that um how the way he explains it is how devoted to creating growth within the context of the family the relationship with work well let me ask you about mating rituals and uh how to find such a relationship I mean you're really big on friendships on the value of friendships I am um and that I think extends itself into a one of the deepest kinds of friendships you can have which is a romantic relationship what uh What uh uh mistakes successes and wisdom can you impart well I've certainly made some mistakes I've also made some good choices in this realm um first of all we have to Define what sort of relationship we're talking about if if one is looking for a life partner you know potentially somebody to establish family with with or without kids with or without pets right families can take different forms um I mean I certainly experience being a family in a prior relationship where it was the two of us and our two dogs and it was like it was family like we had our little family um I think based on my experience and based on input from friends who themselves have very successful relationships I must say I've got friends who um are in long-term monogamous very happy uh relationships where there seems to be um a lot of love a lot of laughter a loud Challenge and a lot of growth and both people it seems really want to be there and enjoy being there it's just a pause on that one thing to do I think by way of advice is listen to people who are in long-term successful relationships that's like uh it seems dumb but like like we both know and are friends with Joe Rogan who's been in a long-term really great relationship and he's been an inspiration to me so you take advice from that guy definitely and several members of my podcast team are in excellent relationships I I think um one of the things that Rings true over and over again in the advice and in my experience is you know find someone who's really a great friend like build a really great friendship with that person now obviously not just a friend if we're talking romantic relationship but um and of course sex is super important but it should be a part of that particular relationship alongside or meshed with the Friendship uh can it be a majority of the the positive exchange I suppose it could but I think the Friendship piece is extremely important because what's required in a successful relationship clearly is joy in being together Trust a desire to share experience both you know mundane and and More Adventurous support each other acceptance a real maybe even admiration but certainly Delight in being with the person you know earlier we were talking about peace and I think that that sense of Peace comes from knowing that the person you're in friendship with or that you're in romantic relationship or ideally both because let's assume healthy relation the best romantic relationship includes a friendship component with that person it's like you just freely Delight in their presence even if it's a quiet presence um and you Delight in seeing them Delight in things right um that's clear uh the trust piece is huge um you know and and that's where people start I you know we don't want to focus on what works not what doesn't work but that's where I think people start engaging these covert contracts they're afraid of being betrayed so they betray they're afraid of giving up too much vulnerability so they hide their vulnerability or in the worst cases they feign vulnerability um again that's a covert contract that just simply undermines everything it becomes one equals two minus one to Infinity conversely I think if people can have really hard conversations this is something I've had to work really hard on in recent years that I'm still working hard on but the Friendship piece seems to be the thing that rises to the top when I talk to friends who are in these great relationships it's like they they have so much respect and love and joy in being with their friend is the person that they want to spend as much of their non-working non uh platonic friendship time with and the person they want to experience things with and share things with and um and it sounds so kind of canned and cliche nowadays but I think if you step back and examine how most people go about finding a relationship so I'm like oh like am I attracted of course physical attraction is important in other forms of Attraction too and they sort of enter through that portal which makes sense that's that's the mating dance right that's the peacock situation that's hopefully not the Cuttlefish situation um but but I think that um there seems to be a history of people close to me getting into great relationships where they were friends for a while first or maybe didn't sleep together right away yeah that they actually intentionally deferred on that um this has not been my habit or my experience you know I've gone to more um I think typical like oh there's an attraction like this person there's an interest you kind of explore all dimensions of relationship really quickly except perhaps the moving in part and having kids part um which ideally because it's a bigger step harder to undo without more severe consequences but I think the whole take it slow thing um I don't think is about getting to know someone slowly I think it's about that physical piece because that does change the nature of the relationship and I think it's because it gets right into the more hardwired primitive circuitry around our feelings of of safety vulnerability um you know there's something about uh romantic and sexual interactions where it's almost like it's like assets and liabilities right where people are trying to figure out how much to engage their time and their energy and multiple people I'm talking about from both sides you know male female or whatever it decides but where it's like assets and liabilities and and that that's where it starts getting I um into those complicated contracts early on I think and so maybe that's why if a really great friendship and admiration is is established first even if people are romantically and sexually attracted to one another then that piece can be added in a little bit later in a way that really kind of just seals up the whole thing and then who knows maybe they spend 90 of their time having sex I don't know um that that's not for me to say or or decide obviously but there's something there about staying out of a certain amount of um uh risk of having to engage covert contract in order to protect oneself but I I do think like uh love at first sight this kind of idea is uh in part realizing very quickly that you are great friends like I've had that interesting experience a friendship recently just it's not really friendship but like oh you get each other with humans not I'm not in a romantic setting right friendship yeah just friendship dare I say I felt that way about you when we met right but we also this dude's cool and he's smart and he's funny and he's driven and he's giving and he um and he's got an edge and um like I want to want to learn from want to hang out with them like that I mean that was the beginning of our friendship was essentially you know that set of of internal realization I'm going just keep going that good keep going shark dresser yeah yeah it just looks great shirtless on Horseback yes no no no listen I mean it's despite what some people might say on the Internet it's a purely platonic um friendship somebody said uh somebody asked if Andrew cooperman has a girlfriend and somebody says I think so and the the third comment was this really like uh breaks my heart like that uh Alex and Andrew are not a not an item we are not we are great friends but we are not an item that's true it's official the um uh I hear over and over again from friends that have made great choices and awesome partners and have these fantastic relationships for long periods of time that can seem to continue to thrive at least that's what they tell me and that's what I've observed establish the Friendship first and give it a bit of time before sex and so you know I think that's the feeling that's the feeling and and these are we're talking micro features and macro features we're talking you know and this isn't about perfection it's actually about the imperfections which is kind of cool I like quirky people I like characters I'll tell you where I've gone badly wrong where I see other people going badly wrong if there is no rule that says that you have to be attracted to all Attractive people by any means it's very important to develop a sense of taste in romantic attractions I believe what you really like in terms of a certain style you know a certain way of being and of course that includes um sexuality um and sex itself the verb but it I think it also includes there's just general way of being you know and when you really adore somebody you like the way they answer the phone and when they don't answer the phone that way you know something's off and you want to know and so I think that [Music] um the more you can tune up your powers of observation not looking for things that you like and the more that stuff just kind of washes over you the more likely you are to quote unquote fall in love as a mutual friend of ours uh said to me you know listen when it comes to romantic relationships if it's not a hundred percent in you it ain't happening and I've never seen a violation of that statement where it's like it yeah it's mostly good and they're this is like the negotiations well already you're you're you're it's doomed and that doesn't mean someone has to be perfect the relationship has to be perfect but it's got to feel 100 inside like yes yes and yes I think diceroth when he was on here uh your podcast um mentioned something that you know like I think the words were you or maybe it was in his book I don't recall but that you know love is one of these things that we story into with somebody we create this idea of ourselves in the future and we look at our past time together and then you story into it I mean the very few things like that I can't story into you know building flying cars I I have to actually go do something I mean um yeah and love is also retroactively constructed I mean anyone who's gone through a breakup understands the grief of knowing ah like this is something I really shouldn't be in for whatever reason if because it only takes one if the other person doesn't want to be it then you shouldn't be in it but then missing so many things and that's just the attachment Machinery really at work I have to ask you a question that uh somebody in our amazing team wanted to ask he's happily married another like you mentioned incredible relationship are they good friends are there Amazing Friends there you go but okay I'm not saying who it is so I can say some stuff which is they it started out as a great uh sexual connection oh well there you go but then became very close friends after that listen there you go uh So speaking of sex he was uh he has a wonderful son and he's wanting to have a second kid and he wanted to ask the great Andrew huberman is there uh like sexual positions or any kind of thing that can help maximize the chance that they have a girl versus a boy because they're that wonderful boy they want a girl is there is there a way to control the gender this has been debated for a long time and I did a uh four and a half hour episode on fertility and the reason I did a four and a half hour episode of fertility is that first of all I find that the reproductive biology be fascinating and I wanted a resource for people that um were thinking about or struggling with having kids uh for whatever reason um and it felt important to me to combine the male and female components in the same episode it's all time stamped so you don't have to listen to the whole thing I'm gonna talk about IVF and virtual fertilization we talk about natural pregnancy okay the data on position is very interesting but let me just say a few things there are a few clinics now in particular some out of the United States that are spinning down sperm and finding that they can separate out fractions as they're called you know that can spin the sperm down at a given speed and they'll separate out at different um sort of depths within the test tube that allow them to pull out the sperm on top or below and bias the probability towards male or female births it's not perfect it's not 100 it's a very costly procedure it's still very controversial um now with in vitro fertilization it can extract eggs you can do introduce a sperm directly by pipette it's a process called ixy or you can set up a sperm race in a dish and if you get a number of different embryos um meaning the eggs get fertilized to duplicate and for start to form a blastocyst which is a ball of cells early embryo then you can do karyotyping so you can do look for XX or XY select the XY which then would give rise to a male offspring and then plant that one so there is that kind of sex selection um with respect to position there's a lot of lore that you know if um the woman is on top or the woman's on the bottom or whether or not the penetration is from behind whether or not it's going to be male or female Offspring and frankly the data are not great as you can imagine because those those would be interesting studies to run perhaps um there is studies there is paper there are some there are they're not I guess yeah there's more lore than science and there's a lot of and there are a lot of other variables that are hard to control so for instance if it if it's um ejaculation during intermission during during sex penetration Etc um then you can't measure for instance sperm volume as opposed to when it's IVF and they can actually measure how many milliliters how many forward motile sperm it's hard to control for for certain things and um this can vary between individuals and even from one ejaculation the next and okay so there's too many variables however the position thing is interesting in the following way um and then I'll answer whether or not you can bias towards a female um as long as we're as long as we're trying I have other questions about sex but as long as we're talking about sexual position all right there are data that support the idea that in order to increase the probability of successful fertilization that indeed the woman should not stand upright after sex and should right after right after the man is ejaculated inside her and should adjust her pelvis say 15 degrees upwards I mean you know some of the fertility experts MDS will say that's crazy you know but others that I sought out and not specifically for this answer but for researching that episode said that yeah you know what you're talking about is trying to get the maximum number of sperm and it's contained in semen and yes the semen can leak out and so keeping um the pelvis tilted for about at 15 degrees for about 15 minutes obviously tilted in the direction that would have things running Upstream not Downstream so to speak would gravity it's real um you know um so so for maximizing uh fertilization you know that the doctors I spoke to just said look given that if people are trying to get pregnant what is spending 15 minutes on their back um you know this sort of thing okay so then with respect to there to female getting a female Offspring or XX female Offspring um selectively there is the idea that as fathers get older they're more likely to have daughters as opposed to Sons that's a from the papers I've read is a significant but still mildly significant result so at with each passing year um this person increases the probability they're gonna have a daughter not a son look um so that's interesting but the probability differences are probably tiniest I mean it's it's not you know it's a signif it's not trivial it's not a trivial difference um but if they want to ensure having a daughter then they should do IVF and select an xxm um embryo and um when you go through IVF they genetically screen them for karyotype which is xxxy um and they look at mutations genotypic mutations for things like you know trisomies and the employees all the stuff you don't want but there is a lot of lore if you look on the internet sure different foods uh so a lot of variables there's a lot of area but there haven't been systematic studies so um I think probably the best thing to do unless they're going to do IVF is just you know roll the dice and um you know and I think uh with each passing year they increase the probability of getting a female Offspring um and with but of course with each passing year the egg and sperm quality degrade so you know get after it soon so uh I went down a rabbit hole there's like sexology there's there's journals oh yeah on sex sure okay so I and some of them some of them not all quite reputable um yeah and some of them really pioneering in the sense that um they've taken on topics that are you know considered you know outside the main frame of what people talk about they're very important um we have episodes coming out soon with for instance the head of um male Urology sexual health and reproductive Health at Stanford Michael Eisenberg but also um you know one with a female urologist Sexual Health reproductive Health uh Dr Rena Malik who's on has a quite active YouTube presence she does these really um like dry um present like scientific presentation but very nice she has a lovely voice and she but she'll be talking about you know erections or squirting or like oh is it like she does like very kind of Internet type content um but she's a legitimate urologist reproductive health expert and in the podcast we we did talk about um both male and female orgasm we talked a lot about sexual function dysfunction we talked a lot about pelvic floor one interesting factoid is that only three only three percent of sexual dysfunction is foreign in nature it's more often related to some pelvic floor or vasculature blood flow related or other issue and then when Eisenberg came on the podcast he said that far less sexual dysfunction is psychogenic in origin then people believe that far more of it is pelvic floor neuro and Vascular so you know there's there are the myths of um I mean it's not saying that it's that psychogenic dysfunction doesn't exist but that a lot of the sexual dysfunction that people assume is related to hormones or that is related to psychogenic issues are related to vascular or neural issues and the good news is that there are great remedies for those and um and so those both those episodes detail some of the um more Salient points about what those remedies are and could be I mean one of the kind of again factoids but it's interesting that you know a lot of people have pelvic floor issues and they think that their pelvic floors are um quote unquote messed up so they go on the internet they learn about kegels kegels that you know and it turns out that some people need Giggles they need to strengthen their pelvic floor guess what a huge number of people with sexual and neurologic dysfunction have pelvic floors that are too tight and kegels are going to make them far worse and they actually need to learn to relax their pelvic floor instead of seeing a pelvic floor specialist is important I think in the next five ten years we're going to see a dramatic shift towards more discussion about sexual and reproductive Health in a way that acknowledges that yeah the clitoris is comes from the same origin tissue as the the penis and in many ways that the neural innervation of the two while clearly different has some overlapping features that um you know that there's going to be discussion around kind of anatomy and hormones and pelvic floors and um in a way that's gonna you know um erode some of the the kind of like cloaking of these topics because they've been cloaked for a long time and there's a lot of like but let's just call what it is there's a lot of out there about what's what um and now the hormonal issues by the way just to clarify can impact desire so a lot of people who have lack of desire as opposed to lack of anatomical function this could be male or female that that can originate with either things like ssris or hormonal issues and so we talk about that as well so it's a pretty vast topic okay you've uh you're one of the most productive people I know uh what what's the secret to your productivity how do you uh maximize the number of productive hours in a day your scientist your teacher you're a very prolific educator well thanks for the kind words I struggle like everybody else but I um I'm pretty Relentless about meeting deadlines oh I miss them sometimes but sometimes that means cramming sometimes that means starting early but has that been hard sorry to interrupt with the podcast you uh there's certain episodes I mean you're like taking just incredibly difficult topics and you know they're going to be there's going to be a lot of really good scientists listening to those with a very skeptical and careful eye like how hard do you struggle meeting that deadline sometimes yeah so we've pushed out episodes because I want more time with them I also I haven't advertised this um but I have another uh fully tenured professor that's started um checking my my um podcasts and helping me um find papers he's a close friend of mine he's an incredible expert in neuroplasticity and that's been helpful but I research all my all I do all the primary research for the episodes myself although my niece has been doing a summer internship with me and finding amazing papers she did last summer as well she's really good at it um just sick that kid on the internet and she gets great stuff um just going on tangents here what's the hardest finding the papers or understanding what a paper is saying or finding finding the best papers yeah because you have to you know you read a bunch of reviews figure out who's getting cited call people in a field make sure that this is the stuff I mean you know I did this episode recently on ketamine about ketamine I wasn't on ketamine and um and you know there's this whole debate about s versus arcade I mean Sr Academy and I called two clinical experts at Stanford I had a researcher at UCLA help me even then you know a few people had gripes about it I don't think they understood a section that I was perhaps could have been clearer about um but yeah you you're always concerned that people won't either won't get it or I won't be clear so that the researching is mainly about finding the best papers and then I'm looking for papers that establish thoroughness of understanding um that are interesting obviously it's fun to get occasionally look at some of the odd or more Progressive papers that are you know what's new in a field and then where there are actionable takeaways to to Really um export those with with a lot of thoughtfulness I mean I think that um going back to the productivity thing um you know I I do I get up I look at the sun I I don't stare at the Sun but I get my sunshine I it all starts with a really good night's sleep I think that's really important to understand so much so that if I wake up and I don't feel rested enough I'll often do a non-sleep depressed Yoga Nidra or go back to sleep for a little bit get up really prioritize one you know the big block of work for the thing that I'm researching I think a little bit of anxiety and a little bit of concern about deadline helps um turning the phone off helps um realizing that those peak hours whenever they are for you you you do not allow those hours to be invaded unless there's a you know a nuclear bomb goes off um and and nuclear bomb is just a you know a phraseology for um you know it could be family crisis would be and you know would be a good justification if there's an emergency obviously but um it's all about Focus it's all about focus in the moment it's not even so much about um how many hours you log it's really about focusing about how much total focus can you give to something and then I like to take walks and think about things um and sometimes talk about them in my voice recorder so I'm just always churning on it all the time and um and then of course learning to turn it off and engage with people socially and you know not not be podcasting 24 hours a day in your head is key but I think I love learning and researching and finding that those papers and the information and I love teaching it and these days I use a whiteboard before I start I don't have any notes no teleprompter then the white board that I use beforehand is to really sculpt out the different elements and and the flow get the flow right and move things around the the Whiteboard is such a valuable tool then take a couple pictures of that when I'm happy with it put it down on the desk and these are just bullet points and then just churn through and just turn through and nothing feels better than you know researching and sharing information and and I and as you did you know grew up writing papers and it it's hard and I like the friction of like uh can't you know I want to get up I want to use the bathroom when I was in College I was trying to make up deficiencies from my lack of attendance in high school so much so that I I would set a timer I wouldn't let myself get up to use the bathroom even never had an accident but I was you know I mean it's like I listened to music classical music rancid a few other things some Bob Dylan maybe thrown in there um and just study and just and it felt and then you know hit the two hour mark and you're in pain and then you get up yeah like use the bathroom like that felt so good there's something about the human brain that likes these kind of friction points and working through them and you just have to work through them so yeah I'm productive and and my life has arranged around it and you know that's been a bit of a barrier to personal life at times but my life's been arranged around it I've set up everything so that I can learn more teach more um including you know some of my home life and um but I do you know still watch chimp Empire still got time to watch Jim Bob look the great Joe Strummer all right Clash or my favorite mescaleros he said you know this famous drummer quote no input no output so you need you need experience you need outside things in order to Foster the the process but uh yeah just nose to the grindstone man I don't know I don't I don't know and that's what and that's what I'm happy to do with my life I don't think anyone should do that just because but this is how I'm showing up and you know if you don't like me then Scrolls whether they say swipe left so whatever I I don't know I'm not on the apps the dating apps so that's the other thing I keep waiting for when um listens to like Freeman podcast is a check box on like hinge or Bumble or whatever it is but I don't even know are those that are field is I don't know what the what are the apps now I've never used an app and I I I those file Troublesome how little information is provided on apps well they're the ones that are like a stocked Lake like like Raya you know it's like that they like they sort of like companies will actually fill them with people that look a certain way and well soon it'll be filled with AI oh yeah that's the way you said oh yeah that's a hard break within that well I you know I'm guilty of liking real human interaction that have you tried AI interaction no but I have a feeling you're gonna convince me to one day um yeah I've I've also struggled finishing projects that are new there are some something new like for example some one of the things that really struggled finishing is something that's in Russian that requires translation and overdub and all that kind of stuff the other project I've been working on for like over at least a year and off and on but trying to finish is something we've talked about in the past is I'm still on it uh project on Hitler in World War II I've written so much about it and I just don't know why I can't finish it I have trouble like really um I think I'm terrified being in front of the camera like this like this or so well actually no no no solo well if you want to do solo and seriously because we've done this before right our our clandestine uh study missions I'll I'm happy to sit in the corner and work on my book or do something if you want to if it feels good it's just just for the feeling of somebody else definitely what do you I mean how do you you don't seem to you seem to have been Fearless to just sit in front of the camera by yourself to do the episode yeah it was weird I mean the first year of the podcast it just spilled out of me it was just I had all that stuff I was so excited about I've been talking to everyone and who would listen and anyone uh anyone who they run away I'd keep talking you know before there was ever a camera wasn't on social media in 2019 I posted a little bit 2020 as you know I started going on podcast but yeah I had so I just I just the zest and Delight in this stuff it's like circadian rhythms I'm going to tell you about this stuff I just felt like here's the opportunity and just let it burst and then as we've gotten into topics that are a little bit further away from my my um home knowledge you know it the it's like I still get super excited about it it's music in the Brain Episode I've been researching for a while and I'm just so hyped like about it it's so so interesting there's so many facets singing versus improvation improvisational excuse me music versus I'm listening to music versus um learning music I mean it just goes on and on there's just so much that's so interesting I just can't get enough and and I think oh you put a camera in front of me I sort of forget about it uh and I'm just trying to just teach yes that's the difference that's interesting I mean I forget the camera maybe I need to find that joy as well but like for me a lot of the joys in the in the writing and uh the the camera there's something well the best lecturers as you know and you're in a phenomenal lecturer so you embody this as well but the when I teach at Stanford I was directing this course in neuroanatomy and Neuroscience and for medical students and I noticed that the best lecturers would come in and they're teaching the material from a place of deep understanding but they're also experiencing it as a first-time learner as at the same time so it's just sort of embodying the Delight of it but also the authority over them not Authority but the the sort of Mastery of the material and it's really the Delight in it that the students are linking on to and of course they need and deserve the best accurate material so they have to know what they're talking about but um yeah just tap into that energy of learning and loving it and people were along for the ride or you know I get accused of being long-winded but you know things get taken out of context that leads to Greater misunderstanding and also I look at listen I come from a lineage of three debt advisors three all three so I don't know when the reaper is coming for me I'm doing my best to stay alive a long time but whether or not it's a bullet or a bus or cancer or whatever or just old age I mean I'm trying to get it all out there as best I can and if it means you have to hit pause and come back a day or two later like that seems like a reasonable compromise to me I'm not gonna go um go longer than I need to and I'm trying to shorten them up but uh again that's just kind of how I show up it's like Tim Armstrong would say about writing songs I asked him do you write how often you write every day every day was Rick ever stop creating no is Joe ever stop preparing for comedy are you ever stopping to think about world issues and and technology and who you can talk to I mean it seems to me you've always got a plan the inside the the thing I love about your podcast the most to be honest these days is the surprise of like I don't know who the hell is going to be there it's almost like like I get a little nervously excited about when a new episode comes out because I have no idea no idea and you know I mean I have some guesses based on what you told me during the break I mean yeah you've got someone people where it's just like whoa Lexus went there awesome can't wait click you know there you know I think that's really cool like you're constantly surprising people so you're doing it so well like it's such a high level and I think it's also important for people to understand that what you're doing relax there's no precedent for it sure there have been interviews before there have been podcasts before their discussions before but it's not like how many of your peers can you look to to find out how best to do the content like yours zero there's one peer you and so you know that should give you great peace and great excitement because you're you're a Pioneer you're the you're literally the tip of the spear I I don't want to take an unnecessary tangent but I think this might thread together two of the things that we've been talking about which are I think of pretty key importance one is romantic relationships and the other is creative process and work and this again is something I learned from Rick but that he and I have gone back and forth on and that um I think is worth elaborating on which is earlier we're saying you know the best relationship is going to be one where you where it brings you peace I think peace also can be translated to among other things lack of distraction so when you're with your partner can you really focus on them and the relationship can you not be distracted by things that you're upset about from their past or from your past with them or their and of course the same is true for them right they ideally will feel that way towards you too they can really focus also when you're not with them can you focus on your work can you not be worried about whether or not they're okay because you trust that they're an adult and they can handle things or they will reach out if they need things um they're going to communicate their needs like an adult you know not creating message just to get attention and things like that or or disappearing you know for that matter so peace and focus are intimately related and distraction is the enemy of peace and focus so there's something there I believe um because with people that have a strong generative drive and want to you know be productive in their home life in the sense have a rich family life um or partner life whatever that is and in their work life you know the ability to really drop into the work and like okay you might have that sense like I hope they're okay or you know need to check my phone or something but just know like we're good yeah so so peace and focus I think and present being present are so key and it's key at every level of romantic relationship from um you know certainly presence and focus you know everything from sex to listening to um to you know raising a family to tending to the house um and in work it's absolutely critical so I think that those things are kind of mirror images of the same thing and they're both important reflections of the other and when you start to just you know when work is not going well then the relationship the focus on relationship can suffer and vice versa so and it's crazy how important that is oh how incredibly um uh wonderful it could be to have a person in your life that kind of uh enables that creative Focus yeah and you supply the the peace and focus for their Endeavors whatever those might be I mean that that symmetry there um because clearly people have different needs and the need to just really trust you know like when Lex is working he's in his generative mode and and and I know he's good and so then they they feel sure they've contributed to that but then also what you're doing is supporting them in whatever way it happens to be and I think that sometimes you'll see that people will pair up along creative creative or Musical musical or um computer scientists but I think again going back to this Conti episode on on relationships is that the superficial labels are less important it seems than just the desire to create that kind of home life in a relationship together and as a consequence the the work mode and for some people there both people aren't working and sometimes they are but I think that's I think that's the good stuff you know and and I think that's the big learning in all of it is that the further along I go with each birthday I guarantee you're gonna be like what I want is simpler and simpler and harder and harder to to uh create but oh so worth it the inner and the outer piece it's uh been over two years I think uh since Costello passed away it still tears me up uh I cried about him today I cried about him today huh it's it's it's it's proportional to the love but yeah I'll cry about it right now if I think but it wasn't putting him down it wasn't the act of him dying any of that actually that was a beautiful experience um I didn't expect it to be but it was in my place when I was living in Topanga during the pandemic where we launched the podcast and I did it at home and he hated the Vats I did at home and it was he gave out this huge right at the end and I could just tell he had been in just not a lot of pain fortunately but he had just been working so hard just to move at all and the craziest thing happened like it was unbelief I've never had an experience like this I expected my heart to break and I felt a broken heart before I felt it frankly one of my parents split I felt it when Harry shot himself I heard I felt it when Barbara died I even felt it when you know when Ben went um so as well and so many friends like way too many friends I mean the end of 2017 my friend Aaron King John Johnny Farrer John eichelberry stomach cancer suicide fentanyl it's like whoa all in a freaking week and I just remember thinking like what the but when cust like and it's just heartbreaking you just carry that and it's like uh but and that's just a short list you know and I don't say that for SOB stories just for a guy that wasn't in the military or didn't grow up in the inner city like it's an unusual number of like deaths like close people um when Costello went the craziest thing happened my heart warmed up it like heated up and I wasn't on MDMA and I wasn't I I was just it just the moment he went he just went and I was like what the hell is this and it was just it was like a supernatural experience to me I just never had that I'd put my grandfather on the ground I was a pallbearer at the funeral I've like done that more times than I'd like to to have ever done it and you just heat it up with costume I thought what the is this and it was almost like and you can make up these we make up these stories about what it is but it was almost like he was like all right I have to be careful because I will cry here um and I don't want to um it was almost like he was like all that effort because I've been putting so much effort into him it was like all right you get that back it was like the giant freaking thank you and it was it was incredible you know and I'm not embarrassed to shed a tear or two about it if I have to like I was like holy like that's how close I was to that animal where do you think where do you think you can find that kind of love again man I don't know I mean when um excuse me for for welling up but it was just I mean it's a freaking dog right I get it but for me it was um the first real home I ever had um but when Costello went it was like we'd have this home in Topanga we'd set it up and we're like and he was just so happy there and I think it just um I don't know it was it was like this weird like Victory slash massive loss like like we didn't 11 years freaking did everything everything to make him as comfortable as possible and he was super loyal beautiful animal but also just funny and fun and and I was like I did it like like you know I gave as much of myself to this being as a human I felt I could without making it you know like you know detract detracting from the rest of my life and he Lo and so I don't know um when I think about Barbara especially um I well up and I and it's hard for me but I mean I talked to her before she died and that was a brutal conversation saying goodbye to someone especially with kids and um that was hard um I think that really um flipped a switch in me where I'm like I I always knew I wanted kids I say I want kids I want a lot of kids that flip to switching me I was like I want kids I want my own kids you might be able to find that kind of love yeah I I think because it was the caretaking it wasn't about what he gave me all that time and the more I could take care of him and see him happy the better I felt it was crazy and I I'm I don't know so the miss them every day every day every day you're uh you got a heart that's so full of love I can't wait uh for you to have kids uh for you to be a father yeah I can't wait I'm ready for it when uh you know uh when when God decides I'm ready I'll I'll have them and then I will still beat you to it as I told you many times before I think you should um absolutely have kids I mean look at the people in our life because because we're kind of the if you in case you haven't realized it already like we're the the younger of the podcasters but you know like Joe and Peter and Segura and you know I'm you know and the rest right there they're the like the they're like the tribal Elders right and um and we're you know we're not the the youngest in the crew but we're we're if you look at all those guys they all have kids they all adore their kids and their kids bring tremendous meaning to their life like we we'd be morons if you know if you didn't go off and start a family I didn't start off yeah to start a family um and yeah I think that's that's the goal I mean I think the kids of the goals that's one of them the kids not only make them uh their life more joyful and brings love to their life it's also makes them more productive makes them better people all that it's like oh it's it's it's uh it's kind of obvious yeah I think that's what Costello wanted I think I have this story in my head that he was just like okay like take this I can yeah and don't forget Lord knows don't this up Andrew I love you brother this is incredible love you too thank you I appreciate you uh let's as we will talk often on each other's podcast for many years to come yes many many years to come thank you thanks for for having me on here and um there are no words for how much I appreciate your example and your friendship so love you brother love you too thanks for listening to this conversation with Andrew huberman to support this podcast please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with some words from Albert Camus in the midst of winter I found that was within me an invincible summer and that makes me happy for it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me within me there's something stronger something better pushing right back thank you for listening and hope to see you next time