[0:00] Pick the choice as often as possible
[0:02] that is slightly more difficult. To me,
[0:04] it's the small stuff that nobody sees
[0:06] that makes the biggest difference in the
[0:08] world. Everybody knows the harder choice
[0:11] versus the easier choice.
[0:13] Everybody,
[0:15] to include myself,
[0:16] will look externally and say, "What do I
[0:19] need to do?"
[0:21] I know what I need to do, and so do
[0:22] they. They need to do the thing
[0:25] that even if it's microscopic, that they
[0:28] want to do less more often than they do
[0:30] the thing that they want to do more.
[0:31] Over time
[0:33] is the juice.
[0:34] >> Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
[0:36] where we discuss science [music]
[0:37] and science-based tools for everyday
[0:39] life.
[0:43] I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor
[0:45] of neurobiology and ophthalmology at
[0:47] Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
[0:50] today is Andy Stumpf, a retired Navy
[0:52] SEAL and subsequently a member of the
[0:54] Red Bull High-Performance Team, where he
[0:56] was a wingsuiter, where they literally
[0:58] get into what some people call squirrel
[0:59] suits and fly. He set two world records
[1:02] wingsuiting, but today's discussion is
[1:04] not really prompted by his career in the
[1:06] military, nor his wingsuiting, although
[1:08] it does impact the discussion. Today's
[1:10] discussion was prompted by my reading of
[1:11] Andy's recent book called Drownproof.
[1:14] Now, there are a lot of books out there
[1:15] by former Navy SEALs, but upon reading
[1:17] it, I realized that this was a special
[1:19] book, and that Andy's experience and the
[1:21] lessons he shares, and most importantly
[1:22] the tools he shares, are both unique and
[1:25] indeed important for everyone to hear.
[1:27] For instance, he describes a tool in
[1:29] there that I now use every single week,
[1:31] which has allowed me and many other
[1:33] people, and I'm certain you, to separate
[1:35] out issues of concern versus issues of
[1:38] impact, meaning to allow you to actually
[1:40] be able to impact, perhaps not control,
[1:43] but certainly have an impact on certain
[1:45] things while ignoring the issues in life
[1:47] that distract you, that pull you into
[1:49] drama, and that can numb you out, and
[1:51] that essentially waste your life. Today,
[1:54] you'll learn what that exercise is and
[1:55] how to implement it in your life. You'll
[1:57] also learn a lot of other simple tools
[1:59] about how to take the slightly harder
[2:01] road in certain moments versus the
[2:03] easier road. You'll also learn from Andy
[2:05] about the most difficult things that he
[2:08] encountered in life and how he navigated
[2:10] them. And no, those weren't in the
[2:12] military nor wing suiting. It actually
[2:14] comes from his personal life, which he
[2:15] shares very candidly.
[2:17] And finally, we have a very serious and
[2:19] in many ways somewhat emotional
[2:21] discussion about suicide and mental
[2:23] health more generally. I do hope that
[2:25] that discussion will benefit all of you.
[2:27] I'm certainly we are certainly, I should
[2:29] say, very open to your input. That
[2:31] discussion, of course, raises more
[2:33] questions than it provides answers, but
[2:35] I think we can all agree that this is an
[2:37] extremely important and timely topic.
[2:39] The frequency of suicide is increasing
[2:41] significantly in all communities. So,
[2:44] for reasons related to the range and the
[2:46] nature of the specific topics that we
[2:48] discussed today, you're in for a very
[2:50] special episode. Thank you, Andy Stumpf.
[2:53] Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize
[2:55] podcast is separate from my teaching and
[2:57] research roles at Stanford. It is,
[2:58] however, part of my desire and effort to
[3:00] bring zero cost to consumer information
[3:02] about science and science-related tools
[3:04] to the general public. In keeping with
[3:06] that theme, today's episode does include
[3:08] sponsors. All right, my book is finally
[3:10] ready for release.
[3:12] Protocols, an operating manual for the
[3:14] human body, is coming out in 3 months.
[3:16] It's my first book and I've been working
[3:18] on it for many years now and it's really
[3:21] a reflection of decades of research and
[3:23] experience that came even prior to
[3:24] starting the book. My goal for this book
[3:26] is that it serves as an easy-to-use
[3:28] manual for dealing with any number of
[3:30] different pain points or performance
[3:31] goals that you might have in terms of
[3:33] mental health, physical health, and
[3:35] performance. It covers the science and
[3:37] most effective protocols for sleep,
[3:38] nutrition, exercise, focus learning and
[3:41] neuroplasticity, stress management, and
[3:43] much more. I'm super excited to share it
[3:45] with all of you. The launch date is
[3:47] September 15th. You can learn more about
[3:49] it or pre-order by going to
[3:50] protocolsbook.com.
[3:52] It's also available on amazon.com and
[3:55] I'm super excited that protocols is
[3:58] finally ready for release. And as
[4:00] always, thank you for your interest in
[4:02] science. And now for my discussion with
[4:04] Andy Stumpf. Andy Stumpf, welcome.
[4:07] >> Thank you for having me.
[4:09] >> I read your book, "Drownproof",
[4:11] recently.
[4:12] >> me nervous, by the way. Telling you that
[4:13] before we started. I've read it.
[4:15] >> [laughter]
[4:16] >> A lot of books including a lot of the
[4:18] quote-unquote seal books. It's awesome.
[4:20] I'll mention a few of the reasons why
[4:22] it's awesome, but I'll let people read
[4:23] it for themselves, but just to really
[4:26] get right to it, one of the practices
[4:29] that you describe in the book is
[4:31] something that I decided to do right
[4:33] away and I've been doing every week
[4:34] since I listened to it. Now granted, I
[4:35] just listened to the book a few weeks
[4:37] ago, so that means twice, but I found it
[4:39] to be tremendously useful not just
[4:41] during the exercise, but in the days
[4:43] that follow and it's really
[4:45] remapped a lot of what I would call my
[4:48] unhealthy tendencies and given me much
[4:52] more sense of agency and my days are are
[4:54] just going so much better. In fact, I
[4:56] was on time today for the first time in
[4:57] my life.
[4:58] >> Influence versus concern?
[4:59] >> Yes. So, could you describe this simple
[5:01] exercise because I'll tell you having
[5:04] having done it, it is immensely
[5:06] powerful. I only wish I had learned
[5:07] about it like in junior high school.
[5:10] >> Story of my life.
[5:12] >> Yeah. So, first off, not my creation.
[5:15] This is something I don't remember and I
[5:17] think I said this multiple times in the
[5:19] book because I want to be very clear
[5:20] that of basically taking ownership over
[5:23] nothing in that book because they're not
[5:24] my unique ideas. They were things that
[5:26] were taught to me
[5:27] that I'm trying to pass forward. So, I
[5:29] don't remember exactly where I first saw
[5:31] this, but the way it was first
[5:34] positioned to me was your circle or
[5:37] sphere of
[5:39] influence, which is very small, and your
[5:42] sphere of concern, which for most people
[5:44] to include myself is very large. So, if
[5:46] it was the size of this table, that
[5:48] would be your concern,
[5:50] the influence would be the size of a pin
[5:51] drop on the table. And the exercise is
[5:53] actually really simple. Take a standard
[5:55] piece of paper, draw a line down the
[5:56] middle,
[5:57] concern on one side, influence on the
[5:59] other, and you just take the time to
[6:00] write down the things that are occupying
[6:03] your waking hours. So, I don't know if
[6:04] you're anything like me,
[6:06] I try not to set an alarm unless I have
[6:08] something really pressing that day, but
[6:10] if I do wake up and my brain does
[6:11] revolution, I have to get out of bed
[6:13] because otherwise I'm staring at the
[6:14] ceiling in the bedroom.
[6:16] And
[6:18] if I have really sticky things in the
[6:20] morning, I'll I'll usually do this about
[6:22] once a month or once every 6 months now,
[6:24] but almost every time that thought will
[6:27] be on the left-hand side of the column.
[6:28] It's just a concern. But why is it
[6:30] preventing me from going back to sleep?
[6:32] Why can't I let go of it? And it's
[6:34] social media, the world that we all live
[6:36] in. It's things you can't control. It's
[6:38] just all the stuff that you spend your
[6:41] energy and effort focusing on. And then
[6:43] you go to the other side of that paper,
[6:45] and I'm still yet to find more than one
[6:48] thing that you can write down,
[6:50] and that's the direct influence that you
[6:51] have. And all you really can write on
[6:53] that is yourself. Now, you can you can
[6:55] trunch that out and say your thought
[6:56] process, the way you speak to yourself,
[6:58] the way you plan your day, the way you
[7:00] manage your time,
[7:01] but all that goes back into things you
[7:03] can actually directly control,
[7:05] which leads you
[7:07] to the realization or leads me to the
[7:09] realization that I have no control over
[7:12] what happens to me in my life, but I
[7:13] have absolute and complete and total
[7:15] control over how I respond to it. And I
[7:17] think that speaks to the agency piece.
[7:19] And it helps me, especially when I have
[7:21] those sticky thoughts,
[7:23] it helps me at least take a step back.
[7:25] I'm not going to say I'm perfect and I
[7:26] can put down a lot of the things that
[7:27] I'm concerned with, but it will identify
[7:29] for me a healthy or an unhealthy
[7:31] attachment to those things, and it does
[7:33] help me cross back over to
[7:35] okay, I understand that this is
[7:38] scary or concerning, but being scared or
[7:41] concerned about it doesn't impact
[7:42] outcome. Everything on the right-hand
[7:44] side of the paper does. So, that's what
[7:45] it does for me.
[7:47] Man, you want to talk about developing
[7:49] some more efficiencies? It's a great
[7:51] tool.
[7:51] It's startling how much is going to be
[7:53] on the left and how little is going to
[7:54] be on the right.
[7:55] >> Yeah, it's been a game-changer for me
[7:57] because and maybe I misinterpreted the
[8:00] exercise a little bit because on the
[8:02] right-hand side of the
[8:03] page, I've been listing out the things
[8:07] that I can control and the things that I
[8:08] can do with my time.
[8:10] >> Listen, it goes back to you controlling
[8:11] the management of your time. That's
[8:12] totally fine. And with all these tools,
[8:15] I don't think there is a wrong answer.
[8:16] If it has the impact that you're looking
[8:18] for, again, you could titrate all that
[8:20] back up to you controlling yourself and
[8:22] what you do with your time. I think it's
[8:23] perfect.
[8:24] >> Yeah, again, just an awesome exercise. I
[8:26] really encourage everyone to do it. For
[8:29] me, once a week has been very helpful.
[8:31] And it just pops to mind anytime I'm
[8:34] thinking like I saw something in the
[8:35] news yesterday and and you start going
[8:37] down these rabbit holes and you're like,
[8:38] "Wait, what am I doing?"
[8:39] >> Yeah.
[8:39] >> They're like, "What am I doing?" And and
[8:40] we can blame the algorithms, we can
[8:42] blame the world, but ultimately, yeah,
[8:44] you know, it's you know, once you
[8:46] realize that you're being manipulated, I
[8:48] think the obligation is to not follow
[8:50] that that path.
[8:51] >> is real. I don't know what it means.
[8:52] I've listened to people argue about it
[8:54] ad nauseam, but I have the choice as to
[8:56] whether or not I interface with the
[8:57] algorithm. And that's where the power
[8:59] That's what I think the algorithm is
[9:01] trying to do is figure out a way to take
[9:02] that power away from you and put it back
[9:05] into their hands, but it's optional.
[9:07] >> You learned this some years ago.
[9:09] >> Yes.
[9:10] >> In the teens.
[9:10] >> Yes.
[9:11] >> But you still do it now about once a
[9:12] month.
[9:13] >> Mhm.
[9:14] Yeah. [clears throat]
[9:14] >> it around with you?
[9:15] >> If you're anything like me, I spend a
[9:16] lot of time on airplanes. It's a really
[9:18] good time to occupy yourself with
[9:19] something that is, for me at least,
[9:21] productive as opposed to just tuning out
[9:22] and watching YouTube videos of sovereign
[9:24] citizens get arrested, which is one of
[9:26] my favorite pastimes.
[9:27] I highly recommend people get into it.
[9:29] >> These are the people that that say you
[9:31] can't arrest me, I'm a sovereign
[9:33] citizen.
[9:33] >> travel.
[9:34] >> Right to travel.
[9:35] >> the right, which they do have the right
[9:36] to travel, but you can't
[9:37] >> right to drive without a driver's
[9:38] license in all 50 states.
[9:40] >> Are they out there testing the law or
[9:42] are they hoping that they'll get, you
[9:44] know, flagged and and there'll be a
[9:46] video so they can promote the sovereign
[9:48] citizen thing or they or they just
[9:49] really into being sovereign citizens and
[9:51] living their lives?
[9:53] >> I think some of them fall into the first
[9:54] category and I think some of them
[9:56] actually just legitimately believe.
[9:58] >> Okay.
[9:59] >> And they
[10:00] There's amazing things on the internet.
[10:02] You shouldn't believe all of them.
[10:04] >> Right.
[10:05] >> [laughter]
[10:06] >> Maybe even most of them.
[10:07] >> That's a fair point, actually. The vast
[10:09] majority of things you should take, I
[10:10] think, with a large dose of scrutiny on
[10:12] the internet.
[10:13] >> We're about the same age. So, late 40s
[10:16] for you, 50 for me. I was thinking about
[10:18] this in light of this concern versus
[10:20] influence exercise, which is, you know,
[10:23] that they created these like 10 and 20
[10:25] and 30-year high school reunion things.
[10:27] I think for the reason that you have the
[10:29] choice to go back and learn about what
[10:32] people are doing and
[10:33] who's
[10:34] still married, who's still alive, who's
[10:36] thriving or what whatever. Whatever the
[10:38] reason is, we have these things called
[10:40] reunions. But with social media,
[10:43] there's this opportunity to be
[10:44] constantly aware of everybody you grew
[10:46] up with, them of you, people you knew 5
[10:48] years ago in a job that you no longer
[10:50] think about. So,
[10:52] I feel like that left column now has
[10:53] grown tremendously, regardless of
[10:55] somebody's age, the opportunity to be
[10:57] aware of so many more things, not just
[11:00] distant in other countries and other
[11:03] other issues entirely, but like our past
[11:05] lives are very much like anchored to us
[11:08] now, unless we really
[11:10] literally draw that line and and sever
[11:12] from all that stuff. Cuz like, as much
[11:14] as I wish the best for all my classmates
[11:16] and all these people in graduate school
[11:17] and like, it it really a lot of it
[11:21] should not occupy one's mind.
[11:23] >> Do you ever wonder whether social media
[11:25] itself is making it harder to do this
[11:26] exercise?
[11:27] >> I think it could be. Do you know who
[11:29] Chad Wright is?
[11:30] >> Yes. I know of him and we've
[11:31] corresponded a little bit.
[11:33] >> He is
[11:35] hilarious.
[11:35] >> You want to we should probably describe
[11:37] a He does the same type of stuff that
[11:38] Goggins does. He's an endurance athlete,
[11:41] long red beard. I call him the Forrest
[11:43] Gump of the SEAL Teams, to his face, so
[11:44] I'm comfortable saying it. He's amazing.
[11:46] I've had him on the show a couple times.
[11:48] Knew him when we were in the Teams
[11:49] together.
[11:50] And he came on the show on my show in
[11:52] November.
[11:54] And I don't know how [clears throat] we
[11:54] started talking about it, but it was
[11:55] this conversation around screen time.
[11:58] It's like, all right, bud,
[11:59] >> [clears throat]
[11:59] >> let's pull the phones out. Let's see
[12:00] what we got.
[12:02] It's not awesome. I think it was 4 and
[12:03] 1/2 hours.
[12:05] So, we decided that in January of this
[12:07] year we're going to try to drive our
[12:08] screen time per day to under an hour for
[12:10] total phone usage. I think phone calls
[12:13] we were able to strip out of that.
[12:14] >> [gasps]
[12:15] >> I think the closest he got was about 90
[12:17] minutes. And then the last week of
[12:18] January for me I got mine down to 30
[12:20] minutes. Now, for clarity, I was still
[12:22] doing a lot of the stuff that I was
[12:24] doing on my phone, but I forced it over
[12:25] to my laptop, which was a really
[12:27] interesting experience because it's way
[12:29] less sticky on that platform. So,
[12:32] Instagram on your laptop sucks. [snorts]
[12:35] It It's not intuitive. The things that
[12:37] you would normally just do with your
[12:38] thumb, they don't exist, so you end up
[12:39] closing your laptop up. So, I'd get on
[12:41] there, post what I wanted to, and then
[12:42] just leave.
[12:44] My mental health was better in January
[12:46] than it had been in a long time.
[12:48] So, I 100% think that social media is
[12:52] not only designed to suck up as much as
[12:55] that left-hand
[12:57] portion of the your list as possible,
[12:59] but again, it it's it's it's optional. I
[13:02] mean,
[13:03] you create content, you have a massive
[13:05] platform. I create content, we can
[13:07] easily tell ourselves we have to exist
[13:10] on these platforms, which to a degree we
[13:11] do. The question I ask myself is, is the
[13:14] platform working for me, or am I working
[13:16] for it? And that's the healthy
[13:18] relationship. And I think actually that
[13:19] goes right back to that exercise. Am I
[13:21] targeting what I do with my time and
[13:23] being efficient with it, and then moving
[13:24] on, or am I just getting stuck into this
[13:27] thumb scroll of death, which is right
[13:28] before bed. I've heard you say it's the
[13:29] best time to have electronic device
[13:31] light.
[13:32] Yeah, [laughter] real bright in a dark
[13:34] room.
[13:34] >> Right before bed, right?
[13:35] >> really want to maximize, make sure you
[13:37] do it first thing in the morning, too,
[13:38] and don't get outside and look at the
[13:40] sun. Yeah. But it's so sticky. I'm
[13:43] telling you when I hopped over to my
[13:44] laptop, at first I couldn't even figure
[13:47] out how to post a picture. And it's so
[13:50] clunky and so not intuitive that you
[13:52] don't want to play with it.
[13:53] >> Are you still there now?
[13:55] >> Oh no, I went right back to using my
[13:56] thumb.
[13:57] >> What's Chad doing now with his social
[13:59] media? Is he still
[14:00] >> He's probably doubled it.
[14:01] >> He said the same thing, too, by the way.
[14:03] Man, this is amazing.
[14:05] >> We should do this more often.
[14:06] >> And just right back to being on your
[14:07] thumb again by probably March.
[14:09] >> So what's mind-boggling about this is,
[14:11] and you'll tell me no, we're just
[14:13] ordinary people who were trained to do
[14:14] extraordinary things, but you know, SEAL
[14:16] SEAL selection, you know, pairs down,
[14:18] you know, for every 100 guys, you know,
[14:20] maybe 15 get through, maybe 10, you
[14:22] know, consistently, right? Discipline is
[14:25] certainly a piece of that. Resilience,
[14:26] mental toughness, you know, what
[14:27] whatever language you want to throw at
[14:29] it. You have that, Chad has that. You
[14:31] guys were weaned in that, you were
[14:32] forged in that. Then you do high-risk,
[14:34] high-consequence work, right? And on
[14:37] minimal sleep, et cetera, et cetera, and
[14:39] here are two guys challenging each other
[14:41] to spend less time on social media,
[14:45] accomplish it by virtue of competition.
[14:47] Okay, cool. And then you say revert.
[14:49] What does that say, not about SEALs,
[14:52] >> [laughter]
[14:52] >> what does that say about the platforms?
[14:53] Cuz I mean, think about the rest of the
[14:55] world.
[14:55] >> says everything you need to know about
[14:57] the platform. The fact that you can like
[14:59] you just said, you can recognize all of
[15:01] those things. You can both text each
[15:03] other back and forth in your limited
[15:04] phone usage for the day. Man, this is
[15:06] awesome. And 60 days later you're back
[15:08] to the same behavior that led you to the
[15:11] November-December conversation.
[15:13] That's all you need to know about the
[15:14] platforms.
[15:15] >> Okay, I I have to drill into this. This
[15:17] is not where I thought we would
[15:18] >> [laughter]
[15:18] >> we would go first, but but it gets right
[15:20] to the heart of discipline and
[15:21] self-control versus influence and time
[15:23] and and time is everything. When you are
[15:25] on a social media platform and you're
[15:26] scrolling away, are you aware of the
[15:28] time that's drifting away from you?
[15:30] >> Yes.
[15:31] >> Are you thinking, "Why am I doing this,
[15:34] but I feel compelled to do it?"
[15:35] >> Almost always.
[15:36] >> oblivious? Is it like being drunk, where
[15:37] you don't you you're not thinking about
[15:39] the the the fact that you shouldn't be
[15:41] doing it until you sober up?
[15:42] >> I'm aware. I am aware that it's not
[15:44] healthy, and I will actually sometimes
[15:47] I don't know if you're like this. I talk
[15:48] to myself out loud. I Somebody from the
[15:50] outside would probably think I'm a
[15:51] psychopath. But uh I would I will say to
[15:53] myself, "Why why are you doing this?
[15:55] This doesn't feel good."
[15:57] And just
[15:58] for hours.
[15:59] >> Not for an hour. An hour. 4 to 5
[16:01] minutes.
[16:01] >> go that far. I I would I would feel as
[16:03] if I needed to take a shower if I went
[16:05] that far. But if I have 15 minutes,
[16:08] >> Mhm.
[16:08] >> man, it's it's enticing.
[16:10] >> Mhm.
[16:11] >> And I don't know what it is about it. I
[16:13] mean, I don't feel joyful after doing
[16:15] it. I try not to compare myself to other
[16:17] people. Good luck being on the internet
[16:18] and doing that.
[16:20] I try not to get caught in the the
[16:22] negativity aspect of it because I can I
[16:24] recognize the negativity bias in myself,
[16:26] where you'll get 99 like, "This is
[16:29] amazing." and one guy's like, "You kind
[16:30] of suck." and you're just like, "You
[16:31] mother
[16:32] That's [laughter and clears throat] the
[16:33] only comment you pay attention to.
[16:34] >> the brain is is uh wired for to identify
[16:38] those outliers.
[16:39] >> So, I refuse to be mean on social media.
[16:40] I won't make negative comments. Um what
[16:43] Don't get me wrong. You can insult
[16:44] people by not being mean.
[16:45] Just have to work your way around it,
[16:47] and it takes a little bit longer. But uh
[16:49] I know it's not healthy. I know I could
[16:51] do
[16:53] anything other than that time and be
[16:55] more productive and maybe move my life
[16:57] just a little bit in the direction I
[16:58] want to,
[16:59] but I don't.
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[20:11] >> I've got a theory that I'm just going to
[20:12] share
[20:13] >> Please.
[20:13] >> that I've been thinking about a lot
[20:14] lately
[20:15] having just spent some time with let's
[20:17] just say one of the major providers of
[20:20] online content. It's not a social media
[20:22] platform.
[20:23] So, I have this theory that unlike being
[20:26] drunk
[20:27] or doing
[20:29] drugs of any kind, opioids or or or
[20:32] amphetamines or something where people
[20:33] exit the state of of intoxication and
[20:36] and they realize like, "Oh my god, like
[20:37] that was a huge waste of my time, my
[20:39] life. I made these mistakes, etc."
[20:42] Being on social media is different
[20:44] because
[20:45] there's this awareness that we're on
[20:47] there and we probably could or should be
[20:49] doing something else often.
[20:51] And I have this theory that it's the
[20:53] perfect addiction
[20:55] because
[20:57] it's what I would call low resolution
[20:59] enough that it doesn't occupy all of
[21:02] your mind. Like when people are really
[21:03] intoxicated, they're not thinking about
[21:04] the fact that they shouldn't be
[21:05] intoxicated. That's the state they're
[21:06] trying to achieve. This is a state that
[21:08] people come out of and report. There are
[21:10] data on this. They go, "Yeah, it didn't
[21:11] feel good being on there for the last 45
[21:13] minutes or 30 minutes or I feel like I
[21:15] wasted a lot of time." So, they're aware
[21:17] of that even while they're doing it.
[21:18] Very unusual for addictions, right? Most
[21:21] addictions fall into the category of
[21:22] trying to erase the sense of time, lose
[21:25] themselves in the activity, forget the
[21:27] trauma if you think it's trauma related
[21:28] just forget everything else and just be
[21:30] in this moment. Gamblers will say this,
[21:32] right? It's that zone they they crave so
[21:34] much. This is different. Doesn't feel
[21:36] really good. You're aware that you're
[21:37] not supposed to be doing it quite like
[21:39] that or that much.
[21:41] So, I actually think it's it's the
[21:42] quote-unquote ultimate addiction because
[21:45] it's low-resolution enough that your
[21:47] brain circuits can get attached to it
[21:49] and keep doing it while you're
[21:50] monitoring yourself.
[21:52] And yet you can run these two tracks at
[21:55] the same time. So, you're not getting
[21:57] absorbed and coming out of it and going,
[21:58] "Oh my god, I didn't study for my final
[22:00] exam. Oh my goodness, I didn't pick up
[22:02] the kids from school." It's just
[22:04] low-resolution enough that you can still
[22:06] kind of tend to the the kids, kind of be
[22:08] in a conversation, sort of be on the
[22:10] Zoom, sort of like and
[22:12] >> Kind of still be driving your car.
[22:13] >> your life doesn't totally fall apart.
[22:15] Exactly. And so, in some ways because
[22:17] it's not so extreme, I think that's
[22:19] actually one of the problems. The other
[22:21] problem is of course our brains can but
[22:24] are not really designed to be split into
[22:25] these, you know, two different
[22:26] activities for for terribly long. It's
[22:29] not just an inability to multitask. I
[22:30] actually think that low-resolution thing
[22:32] is to you can kind of do it while you're
[22:33] doing other things.
[22:34] >> Yeah.
[22:35] >> So, I'm just this is something that I
[22:36] actually want some laboratories to look
[22:38] at.
[22:38] >> Where does that lead if left unchecked?
[22:40] >> Well, for you and for me, the
[22:42] consequences are different and
[22:45] probably less immediate because we've
[22:46] already built our careers. There's the
[22:49] social detriment, you know,
[22:50] relationships to family and stuff that
[22:52] undoubtedly suffer somewhat, right? But
[22:54] they're doing it, too, right? So,
[22:55] there's that. I do worry now I really
[22:57] sound like I'm in my 50s like about the
[22:59] younger generation because
[23:01] I don't know whether I would have been
[23:03] able to escape this tunnel
[23:05] >> Yeah.
[23:06] >> had these devices been around. So, I
[23:08] think that otherwise incredible
[23:10] accomplishments and human beings and
[23:12] careers and families and everything in
[23:14] between, art and music is literally not
[23:17] going to be made. I fear this much more
[23:20] than I fear AI, to be honest.
[23:22] Yeah, I much, much more.
[23:24] >> Yeah.
[23:24] >> In terms of taking away jobs and taking
[23:26] away careers, I think that because it's
[23:29] it's I'll tell you this, I am confident
[23:31] that it is way, way
[23:33] worse than the than the quote-unquote
[23:35] opioid crisis, which was already
[23:37] terrible.
[23:38] >> I think we're going to be okay. So, I
[23:39] have three data points, which happen to
[23:41] be my children.
[23:42] >> Mhm.
[23:42] >> So, almost 18, almost 21, almost 23. My
[23:46] middle son has got it dialed.
[23:48] He's going to college in Bozeman. I
[23:50] think he's getting ready to start his
[23:51] junior year in mechanical engineering.
[23:52] He's doing an internship at a quantum
[23:55] computing laboratory.
[23:56] I don't know what that means. He tries
[23:58] to tell me, I'm like, he just talk to my
[24:01] wife.
[24:01] >> It's super cool stuff.
[24:02] >> He made a robotic hand. Of course, the
[24:04] first way he tested it was a middle
[24:05] finger, which I deeply, deeply
[24:07] appreciate.
[24:08] >> He is your son.
[24:09] >> 100%. He
[24:11] exists on social media.
[24:12] He downloads the app once per week,
[24:15] spends an hour on it,
[24:17] erases it.
[24:18] Because
[24:20] it's the pendulum going the other
[24:21] direction for him.
[24:22] >> Mhm.
[24:23] >> My oldest keeps it on his phone, but
[24:26] uses it very sporadically, and it's
[24:28] almost at least
[24:29] uh the middle one is going to be 21, the
[24:30] other one's going to be 23.
[24:32] My oldest now is almost at the point,
[24:34] and I think his peer group is almost at
[24:35] the point a little bit of mocking people
[24:38] who spend You know what I mean? It's
[24:40] almost now it's almost almost on the
[24:41] other side like, "Oh,
[24:43] you're one of those." Even though they
[24:44] were raised with electronic devices in
[24:46] their hand. My daughter, on the other
[24:47] hand,
[24:48] surgically connected to her hand
[24:51] and is constantly consuming. So, I I she
[24:55] will get there as well, too, because
[24:57] when I can kind of pull her out of that
[24:58] digital world or we go places that have
[25:01] less than optimal cell coverage
[25:02] intentionally and somehow the Wi-Fi
[25:05] doesn't show up cuz dad unplugs the
[25:07] router but like, "Oh, there's no Wi-Fi
[25:08] at the house. That sucks."
[25:10] She can see the light, but my other two
[25:11] as they've gotten a little bit older,
[25:13] they have they have seen it and found it
[25:15] on their own. And I I think we're going
[25:17] to be okay because I think that
[25:19] generation now is really
[25:22] viewing these platforms with a little
[25:23] bit more of a wary eye.
[25:25] >> Mhm.
[25:25] >> And I don't know why. But my middle son
[25:27] was the first one he just was like,
[25:29] "Nope, this is what I do. I'm on there
[25:30] for an hour. It's 100% for memes for
[25:33] him." And then he just deletes the
[25:35] thing. Great.
[25:36] >> No, I'm I'm I'm very reassured by by
[25:38] what you just said.
[25:39] >> That's at that a point of three though.
[25:40] So
[25:41] >> Well, it's interesting because that the
[25:42] data on for instance um smoking in
[25:45] teens, like when we were growing up a
[25:47] lot of people smoked, young people
[25:48] smoked you know that
[25:49] >> That'd be your first act of rebellion.
[25:51] >> There were all these campaigns to try
[25:52] and get young people to quit smoking and
[25:54] they did not work. It's going to give
[25:55] you lung cancers. This is your lungs
[25:57] after smoke None of that worked. What
[25:59] worked was the ad campaign that had
[26:01] these old white dudes
[26:04] cackling and talking about all the money
[26:06] they were going to make on these young
[26:08] kids smoking. So the rebellion of youth
[26:10] if you leverage it against the big
[26:11] industry platforms,
[26:13] no one likes to be manipulated. But when
[26:15] kids realize and teens realize that
[26:18] they're being manipulated, they'll push
[26:20] back in a way that can be really good
[26:22] for them, which is a little bit of what
[26:24] what we're hearing here. So So you know
[26:26] >> As a parent I can tell you they push
[26:27] back in ways
[26:28] super hard. Maybe almost pendulum the
[26:30] other way. I tell you what they're also
[26:32] pushing back on in my all three of their
[26:34] generation, alcohol consumption.
[26:37] Damn. Don't get me wrong.
[26:40] They
[26:41] there's a time and place for everything.
[26:43] We go to a yearly jiu-jitsu retreat in
[26:45] Costa Rica.
[26:47] The drinking age is 18.
[26:49] One of my sons is in college like I
[26:51] said. It's an interesting watching those
[26:52] two.
[26:54] That might be the only singular time
[26:56] they drink in an entire year. That was
[26:59] the opposite of me growing up and the
[27:01] the culture of the first community I
[27:03] went into.
[27:04] It is wild
[27:05] to see the push in the other direction.
[27:08] And now I talk peptides or
[27:11] it's my middle son. I told him I was
[27:13] coming here. He was just like, "Oh, I'll
[27:14] ask him what I need to be doing for
[27:15] sleep optimization." I'm like, "Oh my
[27:16] [laughter] god." Happy to send it to
[27:18] him. That's his generation.
[27:19] >> Mhm.
[27:20] >> I was not I think I started looking at
[27:22] sleep optimization about last Thursday.
[27:25] You know, it just wasn't the thing that
[27:26] we were looking at. So, I actually
[27:29] as much as my children, I truly believe
[27:31] children are just designed to sharpen
[27:32] their teeth on the parents' bones. I
[27:34] also have a lot of faith on the next
[27:36] wave coming through.
[27:38] >> This is not a question I ever thought I
[27:39] would ask on this podcast as somebody
[27:40] who did an episode on alcohol that got
[27:43] some reach and got people rethinking
[27:45] whether or not they wanted to drink. And
[27:47] I should just quickly say
[27:48] the major response to that was one of
[27:51] three different um types. One was, "I
[27:53] don't like drinking and now I can
[27:55] justify not drinking." There were a lot
[27:56] of people who felt that they had to
[27:57] drink and now they had a justification
[27:59] not to. Other people who said, "Wow, I
[28:01] didn't realize that, you know, it can
[28:03] increase breast cancer risk or, you
[28:04] know, we have cancers in our family and
[28:06] that's a real thing." It's, you know,
[28:07] class one carcinogen, etc. And then the
[28:09] third category like, "You know, I wish
[28:11] you hadn't told me this information. I
[28:12] really enjoyed drinking and now my
[28:13] friends don't want to drink with me."
[28:14] Fair and I don't tell people what to do
[28:16] and I, you know, etc. But
[28:19] I have to ask do you think that your
[28:21] kids and their generation are possibly
[28:23] missing out by virtue of, you know, not
[28:28] drinking at all?
[28:29] >> That's a fantastic question. I mean, it
[28:31] is a social lubricant
[28:32] >> Mhm.
[28:33] >> for a degree. I was probably
[28:35] and still am antisocial in large crowds.
[28:38] Is there an aspect of that where it
[28:40] legitimately helped me not necessarily
[28:42] feel more comfortable, but maybe get out
[28:44] of my own way when I was younger?
[28:46] Yes.
[28:47] Did it lead to some bad decisions along
[28:50] the way?
[28:51] Yes. Did bad decisions and those
[28:54] consequences shape the human being that
[28:56] I would become along the way?
[28:59] Yes.
[29:00] I don't know where it it where it lands.
[29:03] I do think that there is a chance
[29:06] that yes, they are missing out on I'm
[29:08] not maybe not formative life
[29:10] experiences, but important life
[29:13] experiences.
[29:14] >> I think that the camera phones are a big
[29:16] concern with drinking now because people
[29:18] are so worried about becoming
[29:20] less inhibited and
[29:22] maybe not even saying or doing the wrong
[29:23] thing, but even things as trivial as
[29:25] like not everyone is an awesome dancer.
[29:27] They can get filmed, it can get posted,
[29:29] they can get teased, there's social
[29:30] shame. The other problem is that
[29:33] many, many people are awesome at certain
[29:35] things and those are the things that
[29:36] tend to be high amplitude also, and so
[29:38] people feel like they, you know, if
[29:40] they're going to be seen online, they
[29:41] have to be in some in impressive form.
[29:44] So, I don't really know. I I do worry
[29:47] about the cannabis thing because I'm not
[29:48] anti-cannabis, but I do think given a
[29:51] couple drinks a week versus smoking weed
[29:55] in terms of like the the overall
[29:57] risk-benefit,
[29:58] >> Yeah.
[29:58] >> alcohol seems less risky to me, but the
[30:00] the can Yeah, I think so. I mean, look,
[30:02] there are high high performers and
[30:04] people who can use cannabis and they're
[30:06] like not a problem.
[30:07] Young males in particular who have a
[30:09] predisposition to psychosis or bipolar
[30:12] disorder,
[30:13] >> Yeah.
[30:13] >> some of them smoke high potency weed or
[30:16] even low potency weed and they never
[30:18] come back from the psychotic episode. I
[30:20] know a lot of examples of that and
[30:23] that's in the data now. So,
[30:26] alcohol, yeah, you can drive off a
[30:27] cliff, you can run somebody over, you
[30:29] can say or do something really, really
[30:30] stupid, but assuming those things don't
[30:31] happen, the the immediate risks and
[30:35] long-term consequences of like
[30:37] having a having a couple beers or a
[30:39] couple drinks or maybe even a few more,
[30:42] try to get home safe. You don't say or
[30:44] do anything stupid like
[30:45] >> Yeah.
[30:45] >> You're not going to make yourself
[30:46] psychotic.
[30:47] >> I'm kind of in the same boat that you
[30:48] are. I'm not here to tell people how to
[30:49] live their life. I do think that they
[30:51] should pay attention to the risk versus
[30:52] reward. You know, live your life how you
[30:54] want. Your choices are going to have
[30:56] potential consequences and some of those
[30:57] can be pretty big.
[30:58] There's some things I deeply regret
[31:00] about my expressions of being a human
[31:02] being when I was drinking when I was
[31:04] younger.
[31:05] And there are some things
[31:07] that I feel like my life would be
[31:09] completely different without and that I
[31:10] would never want to give those
[31:11] experiences back.
[31:12] >> Mhm.
[31:13] >> I don't know how you table that though.
[31:16] This is a fascinating conver-
[31:18] >> Didn't know we were going to go here.
[31:19] >> It's I mean I
[31:21] In my own life, I wouldn't give up those
[31:24] experiences.
[31:25] >> Mhm.
[31:26] >> But I also don't feel comfortable saying
[31:28] you have to drink to have them.
[31:30] >> Mhm.
[31:31] >> I don't know what the difference looks
[31:32] like though. Maybe later on as you grow
[31:35] into your I mean, I'm a more confident
[31:36] person now absent alcohol than I was a
[31:39] more confident person younger absent
[31:41] alcohol. So maybe time will help you get
[31:43] to this places where you could take
[31:44] those actions where you needed that
[31:46] social lubricant. But maybe not. I don't
[31:48] know man.
[31:49] >> Well, it's like sleep is super important
[31:50] and I think it's great for everyone,
[31:52] especially young people to understand
[31:53] just how great they can feel and
[31:55] mentally and physically perform when
[31:57] they're well rested. I think it's also
[31:59] an important, not just right of passage,
[32:01] but experience to know just how terrible
[32:02] you can feel after a night of no sleep
[32:05] and still go take a midterm exam or go
[32:08] for the run you were supposed to go for.
[32:09] Not because it's quote unquote the best
[32:11] thing for you, but just because how do
[32:13] you explore the outer margins of your
[32:15] capacity unless you know
[32:17] how feeling really great feels and how
[32:21] let's just say not lousy, but how like
[32:24] minimally good you can feel and still
[32:26] complete something while you're
[32:27] completely crushed. Like I mean, like
[32:30] after a breakup, after two or three
[32:32] nights of poor sleep, in a very
[32:33] stressful time, not having eaten
[32:35] perfectly. Like
[32:36] it's good to understand what a workout
[32:38] or what going to class and forcing
[32:39] yourself to stay awake or having a hard
[32:41] conversation with your significant other
[32:43] feels like when it's like the the last
[32:45] thing your body wants you to do. I think
[32:47] there's utility there. You know, it's
[32:49] kind of like the ice bath of of mental
[32:50] experiences right?
[32:52] >> Are you a fan of the ice bath?
[32:53] >> I am and
[32:55] >> What temperature?
[32:56] >> Cold. I It's on
[32:57] >> 34?
[32:58] >> It's on Rogan I said, you know, low 50s
[33:00] and he he like he was shocked and
[33:02] dismayed. He looked He seemed It was
[33:04] like an older brother or guy you respect
[33:07] looking at you like, "Oh man, should we
[33:08] even continue this podcast?" I was like
[33:10] >> I thought I knew you.
[33:11] >> And I quickly went to Yeah, but I go
[33:13] into the sauna at 220° F, you know,
[33:15] which I do. I'm very heat tolerant, not
[33:16] as cold tolerant. I like to do cold
[33:19] shower, cold plunge or or whatever.
[33:21] Like, you know, low 40s now.
[33:23] >> All right.
[33:23] >> To me there's nothing as reliable and
[33:27] provided you don't like jump into an ice
[33:28] hole or something stupid like that or
[33:29] do, you know, hyperventilation breathing
[33:31] and then jump into cold water which has
[33:33] killed people.
[33:34] >> Yeah.
[33:34] >> don't do that, I I don't know of
[33:36] anything that is both safe and reliably
[33:38] can give you that adrenaline spike in a
[33:40] way that you can start to learn to work
[33:42] with what it's like to be in a highly
[33:44] adrenalized state. I think there's just
[33:46] value in having your but body flooded
[33:49] with adrenaline somewhat against your
[33:51] will but you're controlling some of it
[33:53] and learning I think it's a great space
[33:55] to explore
[33:57] Okay, do I distract myself? Do I lean
[33:59] into it? Like you can you can explore a
[34:01] lot of your own consciousness in these
[34:03] high arousal states and I do think
[34:05] there's carryover. And yes, there's a
[34:07] nice long wave of dopamine that lasts
[34:09] many hours, that's known. There's a nice
[34:10] long wave of adrenaline. But
[34:13] yeah, I think it's a great training
[34:14] tool. If you don't want to do it
[34:16] immediately after resistance training
[34:17] cuz it can
[34:19] it can reduce some of the the the quote
[34:20] unquote gains you would get because it
[34:22] it it vasoconstricts. You want blood
[34:24] flow. You want to perfuse the muscles in
[34:25] order to you know, get get the strength
[34:28] and hypertrophy
[34:29] benefits from in training but it
[34:30] provided you do it before or on off days
[34:34] or 6 hours after you resistance train, I
[34:35] think it's a really valuable tool.
[34:38] >> What protocol would you use? I like to
[34:39] have my cold plunge at about 80. What
[34:42] would you do? Like 10 in, five out,
[34:43] couple times?
[34:44] >> 80° Fahrenheit. It's great.
[34:46] >> I can bump it to 85 if you think that's
[34:48] a little too low.
[34:50] >> You know, team guys have this advantage
[34:51] that they did all that so they can be
[34:53] like, I did it, I don't want to do it,
[34:54] right? That's kind of like I went
[34:55] through that.
[34:57] >> It's like the people who are sleep
[34:57] deprived in medical school. They're
[34:59] like, yeah, I don't do that anymore. I
[35:00] get it. Like you guys suffered enough.
[35:02] When I went down to Jocko's, he he
[35:04] specifically had me do a heat cold
[35:06] protocol because I like to do three
[35:08] rounds of each.
[35:09] >> Okay.
[35:09] >> You know, heat at somewhere about, you
[35:11] know, 210, 215, maybe as high as 220. It
[35:13] was just hot, but I'm pretty heat
[35:14] tolerant.
[35:15] >> For how long?
[35:15] >> That'll be 20 minutes and then go into
[35:17] the You don't want to start right off
[35:19] with that, right? And then go into the
[35:20] cold. And so
[35:22] they packed the sauna, they cranked that
[35:24] thing up, and they kept resetting the
[35:26] clock.
[35:27] And literally, he'll tell you, I was
[35:29] down on the
[35:30] >> floor where it's you know, not cool, but
[35:32] it's still
[35:32] >> colder. Heat rises, obviously. And his
[35:34] daughters, they were laughing, his
[35:36] family, and then so everyone in there,
[35:38] young and old, male and female, was just
[35:40] laughing at me. So, he has what he calls
[35:42] the factory reset protocol, which is
[35:44] where you don't know how hot or how long
[35:45] you're going to be in there, and you
[35:46] don't know how cold or how long you're
[35:47] going to be in there. And that We'll
[35:49] talk about this a little bit about time,
[35:51] but I don't know. If you don't like the
[35:52] cold, you don't have to do it, but I do
[35:54] think most people can really benefit
[35:55] from it.
[35:56] >> I'm saying
[35:58] I'll develop a protocol for 80.
[36:00] The sauna will be at
[36:02] 97.
[36:04] Easy transition back and forth.
[36:06] Who knows?
[36:07] >> All right. Um speaking of the guy who
[36:09] jumps out of or off of mountains in a in
[36:12] a squirrel suit. Let's talk about the
[36:13] squirrel suit.
[36:13] >> Sure.
[36:14] >> And why in the world anyone who values
[36:16] their life, seriously though,
[36:17] >> Yeah, I know. I get it.
[36:18] >> would do this. And is there an off-ramp?
[36:21] Is there a parachute? And when you learn
[36:23] how to do this?
[36:24] >> Yeah.
[36:25] >> How hard is it to learn? And what's the
[36:27] juice there?
[36:28] >> Okay, a lot of questions there. Okay,
[36:29] it's funny a lot of people call them
[36:31] squirrel suits. It's just a wing suit.
[36:33] Squirrel is actually a manufacturer of
[36:35] one of the suits, fantastic branding.
[36:37] They happen to be the suit that I jump.
[36:39] So essentially it is
[36:42] a human body turning into a nylon wing.
[36:45] That's really all it is. It's nylon,
[36:46] it's some neoprene around the wrists so
[36:48] you have a little bit of flexibility in
[36:49] the wrist. They're really actually
[36:51] advancing the leading edge technology
[36:53] with the fabric. It's just I mean it's
[36:55] crazy to look I don't know the name of
[36:57] the program but you're looking at all of
[36:58] these
[36:59] images from the side of wind angles and
[37:02] how the suits they're looking to reduce
[37:04] drag. Um and it's more than just the
[37:06] rigidity of your body. So at least the
[37:08] suits that I jump are modern suits.
[37:11] They are ram air inflated. So there is
[37:14] an outer layer on both sides an upper
[37:16] layer let's say for the your back and an
[37:17] under layer for your belly. In between
[37:20] it's much like a canopy. There's ribbed
[37:22] fabric with port holes and on the front
[37:25] and back of the wing
[37:27] as you
[37:28] give it air speed either exiting an
[37:30] airplane that's already in flight. It's
[37:32] most skydiving airplanes are probably
[37:33] doing 80 to 120
[37:35] miles an hour or in the base jumping
[37:37] world and this is where it can get spicy
[37:39] as you have no air flow for about the
[37:41] first 4 seconds.
[37:42] >> Base jumping for those that don't know
[37:43] is
[37:44] >> Fixed up. Call it a fixed object.
[37:45] Building antenna span or earth is what
[37:47] the acronym stands for. You're probably
[37:49] not going to do it off of buildings cuz
[37:50] it's it you need time to get the suit
[37:52] actually flying.
[37:54] But it's a different experience because
[37:56] if you jump out of an airplane those ram
[37:57] air inlets fill up your suit is it's
[37:59] pressurized. You can feel it and you can
[38:01] already fly your suit. You can flip
[38:03] over. You can actually I've gotten above
[38:04] aircraft many time. You can basically
[38:06] translate that horizontal lift into
[38:09] power and go above them. Surely you're
[38:10] going to come back down
[38:12] um otherwise you'll stall the suit and
[38:13] it starts waffling down.
[38:15] But in the base jumping world it's a
[38:16] zero air speed exit. So for the first
[38:18] about zero to 4 seconds
[38:21] you don't have any air filling up the
[38:23] ram air inlets. So, if you don't go off
[38:25] in the right body position or if you go
[38:27] head low and are scorpioning or head
[38:30] high and then you pitch through that and
[38:32] there is terrain below you, that's how a
[38:34] lot of people die. But, the suit itself
[38:36] is is basically that. It's uh there's
[38:38] wings there's a large wing between your
[38:39] leg, a wing underneath your arm on both
[38:42] the left and right-hand side and they
[38:43] come in a variety of sizes. So, learning
[38:45] it
[38:46] is
[38:47] >> [gasps]
[38:49] >> it's simple, not easy. First off,
[38:51] skydive before you throw a wingsuit on
[38:53] in the skydiving world. I think I had
[38:54] 3,000 jumps before I put a wingsuit on
[38:56] the first time.
[38:57] >> Is it important that people do different
[38:59] types of skydiving? Uh by the way, I'm
[39:00] not versed in skydiving. So, what what's
[39:03] the most basic type of I I assume a
[39:05] tandem jump and you start doing
[39:06] individual jumps.
[39:07] >> Some people go I like I went right to
[39:09] the first time I did a skydive, I had an
[39:11] instructor holding on to me from for
[39:12] both sides until my parachute deployed.
[39:14] It's a very structured
[39:16] program that most modern drop zones will
[39:18] have. A lot of people will do a tandem
[39:20] first, which I recommend. If you're un-
[39:22] if you've never done it and you're
[39:23] uncertain about whether or not you would
[39:24] like it, I I think there's two really
[39:26] good options.
[39:27] One is a tandem.
[39:29] But, if even that idea makes you a
[39:31] little bit uncertain, there's now enough
[39:32] wind tunnels around, commercial wind
[39:34] tunnels. There's down There's Oceanside
[39:36] wind tunnel. There's one in LA. There's
[39:37] one in San Diego. They're all over the
[39:39] place. I was just in Virginia Beach.
[39:41] There's one in Virginia Beach. So, it
[39:43] simulates
[39:44] the sensation of falling through the air
[39:46] in an environment where you don't have
[39:47] to wear a parachute, you don't have to
[39:48] ride an airplane. You literally hop in
[39:50] there. They can hold on to you and it
[39:52] feels like skydive.
[39:54] >> Sounds like fun.
[39:54] >> It's leveled up what people can do in
[39:57] the air cuz it's this contained
[39:59] environment where you can see if you're
[40:00] moving a millimeter.
[40:01] The number of jumps I have had where you
[40:03] get out you jump out into the air where
[40:05] your only reference is another person
[40:06] that's moving around and you get you are
[40:09] sliding all over the place. Like, [ __ ]
[40:10] you. You were sliding all over the
[40:11] place. Neither of you know cuz your
[40:13] reference is the earth just flying
[40:14] around. And then you get in the wind
[40:15] tunnel and you're both up against the
[40:16] glass, and you're like, "Oh, we both
[40:17] suck." So,
[40:18] makes it a little bit more difficult.
[40:20] The most basic type of skydive would be
[40:22] just exiting the plane in flight,
[40:24] falling with your belly to the oriented
[40:27] towards the ground, and deploying your
[40:28] parachute on time. Skydiving is two
[40:29] parachutes, main parachute and reserve.
[40:31] Reserve is packed by an FAA rigger.
[40:34] And I believe it's For one period of
[40:36] time, it was 90 days in between pack
[40:37] jobs. I think it's 6 months in between
[40:39] pack jobs now. But, full they open it
[40:41] up, the reserve. They open the parachute
[40:43] up, they inspect it, they make sure that
[40:45] the canopy is good, the lines are good.
[40:47] Um the automatic activation devices,
[40:49] which are computers,
[40:51] sensing uh fall rate, barometric
[40:53] pressure, with a firing criteria, which
[40:55] will fire your reserve for you if you do
[40:57] nothing, which has hundreds of
[40:59] documented saves, by the way.
[41:01] Um for an unconscious jumper, or
[41:03] whatever it may be, or somebody is crazy
[41:05] as it is to say,
[41:07] somebody falling through the air
[41:09] forgetting to look at their altimeter
[41:10] cuz they're having so much fun.
[41:13] It happens.
[41:15] So,
[41:15] Cypresses or uh Vigils or just AADs,
[41:18] automatic activation devices, have saved
[41:20] hundreds of lives.
[41:22] So, that reserve parachute is packed by
[41:23] a rigger. Most civilian jumpers will
[41:25] pack their own main parachute. It takes
[41:28] 5 minutes for an experienced jumper,
[41:29] maybe 20 minutes for somebody who is
[41:31] learning.
[41:32] And you can go do
[41:34] I think the most jumps I've ever done in
[41:35] a day was probably 30.
[41:37] That was at at a at a an event called a
[41:39] boogie, where it's just as fast as you
[41:41] can go. And you're just jumping,
[41:42] jumping, jumping. An average day for me
[41:43] when I lived in San Diego would be six
[41:45] to eight jumps.
[41:47] >> I'd like to take a quick break and
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[43:05] >> For somebody's first uh non-tandem jump,
[43:08] how high is the plane off the ground?
[43:10] >> 13,000 is about average. 13 AGL. So, if
[43:14] you're learning in Colorado or another
[43:17] Rocky Mountain state,
[43:18] you might only get
[43:20] 12 AGL because you might be up to the 16
[43:22] to 18,000 ft. But, there's
[43:24] [clears throat] flying with your belly
[43:26] oriented to the earth. There's people
[43:27] who like to do it vertically, either
[43:29] feet down or head down.
[43:31] People who fly on their back. There are
[43:33] formation jumps where they'll get a
[43:34] bunch of people together. I think the
[43:36] world record is
[43:37] hundreds of people linked up in
[43:39] freefall. You can watch it from the
[43:40] ground. It's crazy to see. They'll have
[43:43] eight air cra- aircraft and you just see
[43:45] these just people bombing out of the
[43:47] back. And they'll make these snowflake
[43:49] configurations and people just sitting
[43:50] there on the ground watching with their
[43:51] naked eye or with uh
[43:53] with binoculars. And then they break off
[43:54] altitude, everybody's tracking away, and
[43:56] then all these canopies open up, and
[43:58] then on landing it gets a little bit
[43:59] wild. So, it can get as much as you
[44:01] want, and then um wingsuiting is just a
[44:03] part of that. But, you can jump a a
[44:06] smaller wingsuit. So, if the suits I
[44:08] ended up jumping had a lot of fabric
[44:10] because I wanted to have a nice glide
[44:13] ratio and I wanted to be able to extend
[44:15] the amount of time in the air. You can
[44:17] get suits with a smaller wing, which
[44:18] give you more maneuverability.
[44:20] And you learn in those and then get a
[44:21] little bit bigger,
[44:23] a little bit bigger and bigger and
[44:24] bigger. So,
[44:25] as safely as possible, graduating your
[44:28] way towards those larger suits that can
[44:30] have more consequence.
[44:32] Uh you can end up on your back in the
[44:33] wingsuits in flat spins. And I've seen
[44:35] people
[44:36] they can you can get out of it. You need
[44:38] to get out of it quickly, but we're
[44:39] talking fully blown uh red eyes when
[44:41] they get to the ground from centrifugal
[44:43] force.
[44:44] And pretty quick, too. That's the
[44:47] skydiving world.
[44:48] Two parachutes. The BASE jumping world
[44:50] is you're now down to one parachute that
[44:53] is packed very similar to a reserve, but
[44:55] it's packed now by the jumper who is
[44:57] doing the BASE jumping.
[44:59] And the reason for that is you are
[45:00] generally very close to the ground at an
[45:02] altitude where a reserve isn't going to
[45:04] save you because it does take a couple
[45:05] hundred feet for a reserve to open up.
[45:07] And um
[45:10] in the US, there's one place to legally
[45:11] do it 24/7 365. It's the Perrine Bridge
[45:15] up in Twin Falls,
[45:17] which is where I learned. It's, you
[45:18] know, the legality aspect is if people
[45:21] pursue to go that they want to go that
[45:23] way, um do your research because there's
[45:25] some cities that had some problems with
[45:27] it. So, they made it a felony, which
[45:29] will change your life if you want to
[45:30] test gravity off of a building. I don't
[45:32] know if the capital F is necessarily
[45:33] worth it. Vegas and New York are two
[45:35] good examples of that.
[45:37] Um
[45:38] most people start off at that bridge. Uh
[45:41] and then an antenna is of course exactly
[45:43] that, radio antennas. And there are
[45:44] other countries in the world where that
[45:46] is legal to do. And a lot of times
[45:47] people will travel.
[45:49] >> [gasps]
[45:49] >> Uh buildings, you can get permission uh
[45:51] depending um I know one of your guys
[45:53] worked with Red Bull, not for Red Bull.
[45:55] He clarified for us. Shockingly enough,
[45:57] if you write a large check, things that
[45:59] were once illegal
[46:01] can become legal for short periods of
[46:03] So, they will get permission to go off
[46:05] of buildings or you can go to Dubai
[46:07] where for I think it was a year they had
[46:09] this huge just it was fully just set up
[46:12] for legal base jumping off one of the
[46:13] top floors of one of those skyscrapers,
[46:15] which is unbelievable.
[46:17] And then Earth, which is obviously that
[46:18] and
[46:19] cliffs um my first
[46:22] uh base jump off of a
[46:24] uh
[46:25] actually it was from the bridge. I have
[46:28] actually I've done an antenna
[46:30] buildings
[46:31] not many bitty building not many
[46:33] buildings, but my first jump uh off the
[46:35] Earth was Monte Brento in Italy.
[46:38] Which
[46:39] you jump, open your canopy, land, walk
[46:42] across the street, and there's an
[46:43] Italian espresso just waiting for you.
[46:45] Perfect. It's basically heaven.
[46:47] And then we stayed there for 2 and 1/2
[46:48] weeks and went into Lauterbrunnen in
[46:50] Switzerland.
[46:51] But I had been skydiving
[46:54] and
[46:55] flying a wingsuit, then I had to learn
[46:56] how to base jump, and then at some point
[46:58] you have to combine those two. So, one
[47:00] day you have to go from never having
[47:03] pushed off of a cliff in a wingsuit
[47:06] and having time flying it in the air
[47:09] to kind of bridging that gap where now
[47:10] you have this first 4 seconds that you
[47:12] have to deal with where the suit the
[47:13] suit feels really sloppy, it doesn't
[47:15] feel rigid, and you can't really do
[47:17] anything until it powers up
[47:20] and you can pull away.
[47:21] So, that's kind of the activities. The
[47:23] why I can't answer for anybody other
[47:26] than myself.
[47:27] But the why for me actually had nothing
[47:30] to do with the activity itself. And it
[47:32] is dangerous. There are some people who
[47:34] try to romanticize the danger of that
[47:36] and
[47:37] if people want to par- participate in
[47:38] things
[47:40] because they're dangerous and that's how
[47:41] they want to define themselves, I leave
[47:43] that to you. Um just, you know, be aware
[47:45] of the potential consequences you might
[47:46] get yourself into.
[47:48] For me, I got into that about 3 years
[47:50] after I got out of the Navy and I didn't
[47:52] realize what it was I enjoyed so much.
[47:55] But it was the mental reset associated
[47:57] with that.
[47:59] Um
[48:00] At about 1 minute out on a helicopter
[48:02] for me and I can only speak for me.
[48:05] Your entire you know we're talking about
[48:07] time.
[48:08] Your entire
[48:10] circle of
[48:12] concern
[48:13] goes away.
[48:15] Completely gone.
[48:16] And there are very few times in my life
[48:19] where I've ever been able to get into
[48:20] that headspace.
[48:22] But it might be the most powerful
[48:23] headspace I've ever been able to arrive
[48:25] into and my ability to find my way there
[48:28] lasted for months afterwards. Because
[48:30] overseas
[48:32] yeah, they ask you to do some some
[48:34] bizarre stuff. But you also likely at
[48:37] some point in your in your career will
[48:38] have [clears throat] a family.
[48:40] Maybe your first house, whatever it is
[48:41] and
[48:42] like talking the washing machine just
[48:43] broke and you're dealing with real life
[48:45] stuff. Did I did I write enough checks
[48:46] before I left the before the digital age
[48:48] did I write enough checks before I left
[48:50] to make sure that the rent was already
[48:52] paid. Now these are the things you're
[48:53] thinking about. Just normal everyday
[48:54] life. An argument with your spouse, your
[48:56] kids, the holidays you may have missed,
[48:57] all that stuff.
[48:59] Get on a helicopter and you start
[49:00] heading towards an objective
[49:02] and all that stuff starts to go away.
[49:04] And in about for me about the 1 minute
[49:06] and in until it lands or you're stepping
[49:09] off it becomes this focus on the next 3
[49:13] seconds of your life.
[49:15] Is the only thing I was capable of
[49:17] thinking about.
[49:18] And that is such a beautiful place. God,
[49:21] you want to talk about
[49:22] the ability
[49:24] to perform
[49:26] and not feel like you're necessarily
[49:28] you're not trying to force it. You're
[49:30] just there's books been written about
[49:32] the flow state for lack of a better
[49:33] term. Incredibly impactful.
[49:35] And I didn't realize how much I needed
[49:38] that.
[49:39] And I didn't realize how much that job
[49:41] was providing for me until it was gone.
[49:44] And then the static of everyday life
[49:46] just is overwhelming. Skydiving
[49:50] I guess you could get that or maybe I
[49:51] got that when I first started, but after
[49:53] a few thousand jumps
[49:55] about everything that's going to go
[49:57] wrong, you're going to have your first
[49:58] cutaway, you're going to have a mal, you
[50:00] know what I mean? You're going to deal
[50:00] with your gear, your reserve is going to
[50:02] open. And so that that really narrowed
[50:05] focus it actually starts opening back
[50:07] up.
[50:09] The BASE jumping world, I remember the
[50:10] first time I was with the guy who taught
[50:12] me, he's like, "All right, let's climb
[50:14] over the edge of the rail here and
[50:15] you're looking at 486 ft. You test the
[50:18] wind by spitting.
[50:19] And if you and if it drifts past a
[50:21] certain point, you're good to go."
[50:23] So [laughter]
[50:24] you can track your spit to where you are
[50:26] going to deck if you don't pull your
[50:28] parachute. Now, on the first one, he's
[50:29] holding onto the pilot chute, so it rips
[50:31] it off for you, so you don't have to
[50:32] worry about it.
[50:33] >> [snorts]
[50:33] >> But you want to talk about that
[50:35] right back into that space, holy cow.
[50:38] That's what BASE jumping was for me.
[50:41] I had some of the the deepest
[50:43] conversations with my friends on the
[50:45] 4-hour hikes that would lead to a
[50:46] 90-second jump.
[50:48] And
[50:49] 2 weeks of those 90-second jumps, I
[50:51] could get myself into such a more dialed
[50:53] head space
[50:55] for 6 months and be better at business,
[50:58] better at, you know, a more patient
[50:59] father, a more patient husband. That's
[51:02] that to me is why.
[51:05] And at some point
[51:07] it probably due to the death of my
[51:08] friends and I had found other activities
[51:11] that had started to provide that, it
[51:13] crossed the
[51:14] metric for me where the risk was no
[51:17] longer worth worth the reward. I I have
[51:19] been skydiving since 1999, I can take 5
[51:22] years off and go jump out of an airplane
[51:23] and I'd be fine, but I can't do that in
[51:25] the BASE jumping world. The currency and
[51:27] competency piece is so important and
[51:30] then when I moved to Montana, my access
[51:31] to the drop zones and the ability to
[51:33] maintain currency and competency in that
[51:35] wingsuit really decreased.
[51:38] So, it got to a place where it just it
[51:41] wasn't worth the risk. Skydiving is
[51:42] still a bunch of fun, but I found other
[51:45] activities that I could kind of lose
[51:46] myself in.
[51:48] Maybe not to the same I don't think to
[51:49] the same degree. I I
[51:52] It's hard to describe zipping up in that
[51:54] suit
[51:55] with a maximal heart rate to the point
[51:58] where you're looking over your buddy
[51:59] like "Hey
[52:00] can Are you hearing my heart, too? Cuz
[52:02] it's pretty loud. It's about the You
[52:03] know what I mean? Like that thrush in
[52:05] your ears."
[52:05] >> That's informative to [laughter] hear
[52:07] that your heart was maxed out because I
[52:10] wondered if you you know, if adrenaline
[52:11] was low, if it was high, you know,
[52:13] something had had happened
[52:14] systematically over the years in the
[52:16] teams where your adrenaline was set too
[52:17] low. You need to crank it above a
[52:19] certain threshold. Sounds like you were
[52:20] right where any rational person would
[52:23] be, which was terrified.
[52:25] >> Cuz at some point you grab your little
[52:26] tail wing and you make a little nice
[52:28] little teepee with it and you get your
[52:29] toes to the edge
[52:31] and you check all your stuff
[52:33] and then you are just looking out into
[52:35] the abyss.
[52:36] And you have to make yourself rock
[52:39] forward past a point of no return that
[52:42] if you change your mind, whoopsies, that
[52:45] doesn't work anymore and then you need
[52:46] to have maximal human performance for
[52:48] about the next 4 seconds of your life if
[52:51] you want your life to continue.
[52:53] So, if you're not scared in that
[52:55] environment, I would recommend you stop
[52:57] that activity immediately cuz you're not
[52:58] paying attention.
[52:59] It was
[53:01] terrifying.
[53:02] And that's probably why I liked it so
[53:04] much. It was awesome. Don't get me
[53:06] wrong. Ripping down a mountain in
[53:08] Switzerland 6 ft off the ground almost
[53:10] playing tag with your shadow and then
[53:12] turning around and like carving through
[53:13] trees amazing.
[53:14] >> So, you're actually pretty low to the
[53:15] ground just going very, very fast over
[53:17] steep ground.
[53:18] >> Yes. If you want to be. Not everybody
[53:20] chooses to fly that way. And you can you
[53:22] can have on the exact same jump
[53:25] I can think of one very
[53:26] specifically. It's at the far end of the
[53:28] valley in Switzerland. It's a 4-hour
[53:30] hike up and it's
[53:31] I mean, you're getting water out of your
[53:33] in your you know, canteen or Nalgene out
[53:35] of like these glacially just spouting
[53:37] out of the rocks and there's sheep and
[53:38] stuff and you know, it's it's like a
[53:40] postcard. You walk for 4 hours.
[53:43] You can have a really aggressive jump on
[53:45] that and fly for 60 seconds or you could
[53:47] flatten your suit out and just glide and
[53:49] fly for 2 and 1/2 minutes. Same jump,
[53:51] different choices. Not that, you know,
[53:53] necessarily flying farther out. You
[53:54] still need to pack your parachute
[53:55] correctly and all those things, but your
[53:57] likelihood of impacting a tree at 100
[53:58] miles an hour with your face
[54:00] is a lot better than flying 6 ft off the
[54:03] ground around corners that hopefully
[54:05] you've done some test jumps on and
[54:07] gotten lower and lower and lower and
[54:08] lower instead of just flash point in
[54:10] that thing hoping for the best as you
[54:12] come around the corner. Which a lot of
[54:13] people do.
[54:13] >> How fast are you moving when you're
[54:15] above the ground?
[54:17] >> If you really bend those suits over, I'd
[54:18] say you could get them to about 120.
[54:22] Face first.
[54:23] >> You're a human missile.
[54:25] >> It's awesome.
[54:27] >> [laughter]
[54:27] >> I can, you know, we can the those of us
[54:30] like myself listening to this can only
[54:33] wonder right?
[54:34] >> feel [clears throat] it in the suit. So,
[54:35] again, the ram air inlets,
[54:37] when you're a little bit flatter, flying
[54:39] slow, you just It feels like you're on
[54:41] an air mattress. It's really what flying
[54:42] feels like. As you bend the suit over
[54:45] and you're just violently diving at the
[54:48] ground, you can feel the suit. It's
[54:50] almost like it's it's just your power
[54:52] meter is just all the way up. And so, if
[54:54] you get in trouble, you can flatten that
[54:56] out and that's how you that's your
[54:57] safety. You can disconnect from the
[54:58] terrain.
[54:59] Which is how, unfortunately, some people
[55:01] die. They're not paying attention to
[55:02] that sensation and they're slowly
[55:03] getting flatter and flatter and flatter
[55:05] and flatter.
[55:06] Then they encounter flat terrain and
[55:08] they don't have enough performance in
[55:09] the suit to clear it and they impact.
[55:12] But that, when you're pitched over like
[55:13] that and that thing is just
[55:16] and you
[55:17] it feels like you are licking the
[55:21] largest 9-volt battery you've ever
[55:22] licked in your life.
[55:24] >> [laughter]
[55:25] >> Uh would your uh would your parents say
[55:27] that this this is a window into the
[55:29] young Andy Stumpf or or is this a a
[55:32] departure or an an evolution devolution
[55:35] evolution?
[55:37] >> I don't know if they would have called
[55:38] that one. I don't think
[55:41] I I don't know if I would have called
[55:43] that activity. If I would have said this
[55:44] one was going to be interesting to me.
[55:46] >> Let me ask you this. When you were a
[55:47] kid, not recommending anyone do this,
[55:49] but when you were a kid and your and
[55:52] your guy friends [snorts]
[55:52] someone found one of the larger
[55:54] firecrackers available, were you the kid
[55:56] that would hold it
[55:58] after it was lit until the last second
[56:00] and then throw it? Cuz I knew that kid,
[56:01] but it wasn't me.
[56:03] >> Does he still have both hands?
[56:04] >> Uh yes, but the He was great
[56:06] skateboarder, by the way. Became pro
[56:07] skateboarder right out of high school.
[56:09] Um moved on to other things eventually.
[56:11] I think those things were correlated,
[56:12] right? I mean, he used to do big rails.
[56:13] Like he had a very very good
[56:15] relationship with confronting fear.
[56:17] There was another kid in our crew who
[56:19] would have been around the corner the
[56:20] moment the thing came out. Okay, I was
[56:22] neither of those kids, right? And then
[56:25] there's a distribution in the middle.
[56:26] >> Yeah.
[56:27] >> Where were you?
[56:28] >> My answer's not going to make sense to
[56:29] you because
[56:30] holding it that long sounds dangerous.
[56:32] >> [laughter]
[56:34] >> It is dangerous, but but wingsuit
[56:36] >> I know, that's what I'm saying. It's not
[56:37] going to make sense. That sounds
[56:38] dangerous, but just for the sake of
[56:40] danger, which somebody could 100% say
[56:42] about base jumping as well. But I don't
[56:44] know if holding on to, say, an M80 and
[56:47] wondering, you know, how long you can
[56:50] provides for you
[56:52] that mental I mean, I'm talking about
[56:54] your canopy opens, you land, you're
[56:56] laying in a [ __ ] meadow in
[56:58] Switzerland on your back.
[57:01] Like
[57:02] it is a sense of ease and peace.
[57:05] I don't think you're getting that from
[57:06] an M80.
[57:07] >> No. The reason I ask is that, you know,
[57:09] there are a lot of questions that the
[57:10] scientist in me wants to know about, you
[57:12] know, resetting of adrenaline set points
[57:14] and you know, and because people can
[57:16] become desensitized to to um high-risk,
[57:18] high-consequence type situations.
[57:20] >> You see that in the wingsuiting
[57:22] community. I would say specifically the
[57:23] wingsuit base jumping community. The
[57:25] fatality rate is high.
[57:27] >> Mhm.
[57:27] >> I would never tell anybody that it is a
[57:29] safe activity, but I think you can do it
[57:31] as safely as possible. There's still
[57:33] immense residual risk. So, you have to
[57:35] ask yourself, what is it worth?
[57:36] >> If we were to plot out um number of
[57:40] wingsuit jumps
[57:41] >> Mhm.
[57:41] >> and
[57:43] plot fatality time of fatality relative
[57:46] to first jump, right? So, so that the
[57:48] question like the area under the curve.
[57:49] So, are you getting to address what you
[57:52] just said? Are you getting more deaths
[57:54] the longer people have been doing it
[57:56] independent of the number of jumps,
[57:57] right? They can't really do that
[57:58] experiment. It's It's not a perfect
[58:00] experiment. The The question is, are
[58:01] people getting more dangerous to
[58:02] themselves because
[58:05] they need They're pushing further and
[58:07] further into
[58:09] the abyss, getting closer to the edge,
[58:12] uh taking risks, or is the novice more
[58:14] dangerous because they're a novice?
[58:16] >> I think the Dunning-Kruger effect is
[58:17] always
[58:18] >> Mhm.
[58:19] >> the most dangerous aspect of it. I think
[58:21] it would probably track You certainly
[58:23] see people
[58:24] especially in the
[58:27] content age, I've seen people reach out
[58:30] not to me, but to forums, "Hey, I just
[58:32] want to get into wingsuit base jumping
[58:34] as fast as possible." And everybody on
[58:36] there is like, "Whoa."
[58:37] >> Mhm.
[58:38] >> No, you need to go I mean, most people
[58:39] will recommend skydiving 200 jumps to
[58:42] even before you put a wingsuit on, which
[58:43] for most people who aren't doing it
[58:45] professionally, that's going to take a
[58:46] year or two. It's a slow progression.
[58:49] But that person reaching out saying that
[58:50] doesn't have time for that.
[58:52] So, you're definitely going to get some
[58:53] people early on. The guys who are around
[58:56] the longest, the ones that I know who
[58:59] are kind of the titans in the sport,
[59:00] it's not that I don't worry about them,
[59:02] I worry less. I think it's maybe more I
[59:05] honestly, I think it's that
[59:05] Dunning-Kruger curve where it's going to
[59:07] get people. Especially when
[59:10] let's say you do this amazing jump,
[59:11] right? You're ripping around a corner
[59:13] and
[59:14] things you learn later on, like, "Hey,
[59:17] is it ascending or descending thermals
[59:19] right now? Where's the wind coming from?
[59:21] What type of day is this? Is the slope
[59:24] I'm just jumped off maybe it was a
[59:28] western facing slope that I jumped
[59:30] towards and I felt this amazing uprush
[59:32] of air which is what you want to feel on
[59:34] an exit point. Same thing as why
[59:35] airplanes take off into the wind, it
[59:36] helps with performance.
[59:38] Well, as I am cruising down this
[59:41] mountain, am I thinking about the fact
[59:43] that 3/4 of it is covered in the shade
[59:45] and maybe the thermals have switched
[59:47] along the way and you're going to start
[59:48] feeling this pressure of almost a hand
[59:50] on your back? You You know, you do it
[59:52] The first time you do that jump
[59:55] and you survive
[59:57] the dangerous thing to say is
[59:59] nailed it.
[60:01] But did you nail it or did you get away
[60:03] with it? And that's what kills people.
[60:05] And that's that perfect Dunning-Kruger
[60:07] ascending line.
[60:08] >> Man, there's a a quote that should be
[60:10] stamped into everyone's brain young and
[60:12] old. Did Did you nail it or did you get
[60:14] away with it? Because
[60:15] >> There's a difference to a lot of areas
[60:17] of life. They could spare people a lot
[60:19] of pain and some important insights. I
[60:23] got away with it more than I nailed it.
[60:25] I'm I am
[60:26] >> being humble?
[60:27] >> No.
[60:28] >> Okay.
[60:28] >> No, you don't know what you don't know
[60:30] until
[60:32] you
[60:33] see somebody else get bit by the same
[60:35] thing. Or you're on a jump with somebody
[60:37] and only one of the three makes it out
[60:39] or two of the three makes it out and
[60:40] they all had the same idea and plan.
[60:43] >> And you describe some of that in your
[60:44] book. I don't want to give that story
[60:45] away but
[60:46] >> with Alex specifically. I wasn't there
[60:47] for Alex's jump but I had jumped with
[60:50] Alex enough for years.
[60:53] The The one thing I wish I could do
[60:54] looking back with him is I was there
[60:56] with him for some close calls that he
[60:59] had.
[61:00] A few were bad decisions
[61:02] that he
[61:03] I would like to think corrected for
[61:05] because there there is a phase in
[61:06] anything that you're doing
[61:08] that my
[61:09] uh instructor taught me how to fly
[61:10] helicopters. He's like, "Listen, once
[61:13] you know better, you can do better."
[61:15] But there's a phase where you don't know
[61:17] any better. And so you think what you're
[61:19] doing is correct until either somebody
[61:20] points it out or you watch something so
[61:23] horrific happen and you pay attention to
[61:25] an investigation afterwards or a debrief
[61:27] afterwards
[61:28] and you can learn from that.
[61:30] But with uh with Alex, I I wish I could
[61:33] go back and just honestly slap him
[61:35] around a little bit cuz that's what it
[61:36] would take for him to pay attention. He
[61:38] would be appreciative of it, I think, if
[61:39] he understood what it would save.
[61:42] But
[61:43] I I would associate his death directly
[61:46] also with that
[61:47] Dunning-Kruger curve and he had been
[61:49] doing it for years.
[61:50] That doesn't mean you're out of that.
[61:51] It's that middle area where you think
[61:53] you have everything dialed.
[61:55] I think he had gotten away with it more
[61:56] than he had nailed it and I and I had
[61:58] to.
[61:59] >> Would you let
[62:00] your kids
[62:02] squirrel suit?
[62:03] >> Do I have the right to stop them?
[62:05] >> Yes.
[62:07] >> No.
[62:10] >> Knowing the risk?
[62:11] >> I mean, I would do everything I could to
[62:13] prepare them as much as possible
[62:15] and and by that I mean scare the
[62:17] absolute dog [ __ ] out of them with the
[62:19] reality and confront them with the
[62:21] actual reality of it. Show them how long
[62:24] it would actually take.
[62:26] What they would need to do. What they
[62:28] would need to sacrifice in order to be
[62:30] able to get at that level.
[62:32] But then if they
[62:35] wanted to make that choice
[62:39] I don't feel like I have the right to
[62:40] stand in between them and that desire.
[62:45] >> Appreciate the honest answer. I'm sure
[62:46] they I'm sure they do, too. I don't know
[62:48] if your wife appreciates that particular
[62:50] answer, but we'll ask her. I don't get
[62:51] involved in marital disputes. That's a
[62:53] that's a
[62:53] >> We don't have any. Our relationship is
[62:55] perfect.
[62:56] >> [laughter]
[62:56] >> Excellent excellent answer. Wait, you've
[62:58] been married before. No, that was a that
[63:00] was a joke.
[63:01] >> That is correct. I'll tell you what, I
[63:02] learned some stuff. I learned some
[63:04] stuff.
[63:04] >> You talk very openly in
[63:07] in the book. I mean, to the extent you
[63:08] don't reveal specifics, but about that
[63:10] the challenges of of uh
[63:12] of that the ending of that first
[63:14] marriage.
[63:14] >> Hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
[63:16] People think that being a SEAL is hard,
[63:18] and it is.
[63:20] Um but a lot of that is truncated with
[63:22] hey, we're going to go overseas for this
[63:24] short period of time, and time away, and
[63:26] it can be physiologically and
[63:27] psychologically challenging, but
[63:29] once you're in that community,
[63:32] I didn't encounter anything
[63:34] the military never asked me to do
[63:36] anything that that got me to a place
[63:38] where I was judging or asking myself
[63:42] what type of person I was, or if I was a
[63:45] good enough person to be able to
[63:48] continue going forward with anybody
[63:50] other than just myself. Like those
[63:51] questions I wasn't asking myself in the
[63:53] military.
[63:54] At the lowest points of a nearly 2-year
[63:56] divorce process that was very
[63:58] contentious. And quite frankly, the
[63:59] reason I I don't go into details is I
[64:02] have built a larger or a platform, and
[64:03] my ex-wife doesn't have one, and that's
[64:05] the fairest way to be about it. And I
[64:06] totally respect that. If you want to go
[64:08] talk with her, trust me, I know the
[64:10] story you're going to get. Enjoy it.
[64:11] Believe what you want to believe. I
[64:12] always tell people if you hear bad stuff
[64:14] about me, please believe it.
[64:16] >> That's what you tell them? Yeah.
[64:18] >> I mean, why not? It It I am certainly
[64:21] not everybody's cup of tea.
[64:23] There's no way to please everybody
[64:26] ever.
[64:26] >> Amen to that.
[64:27] >> So, if somebody is out there
[64:30] who wants to run me through the mud,
[64:32] cool. Just believe every word that you
[64:35] were told if you want to, but if you
[64:37] want to get the real spit,
[64:38] come hang out with me for a bit, and
[64:39] maybe compare and contrast those two
[64:41] things. But if you don't want to do
[64:42] that, cool. Yeah, that's on you.
[64:44] It took every tool that I wrote about in
[64:46] that book to get through that. Circle of
[64:47] influence, circle of concern, all the
[64:49] things that I was worried about, what
[64:50] can I do today? Breaking time down into
[64:52] the shortest chunks humanly possible,
[64:54] controlling how I talk to myself. It was
[64:57] absolutely soul-crushing.
[65:00] And
[65:02] 10 out of 10, do not recommend.
[65:04] Yeah, zero stars on Trip Advisor.
[65:07] >> Yeah, that portion of the book um
[65:09] stopped me. I I to say, and and I uh
[65:12] there were other parts of the book that
[65:13] that paused me where I was like, "Whoa,
[65:15] I didn't expect this coming." And you
[65:17] know, I take notes on what I listen to.
[65:19] I also read the hard copy. I should have
[65:20] mentioned that earlier. I like to do
[65:21] both. It's really helpful for me.
[65:23] I think maybe other people would benefit
[65:25] from that as well. But that segment
[65:27] where you said this is the hardest thing
[65:29] I'd ever been through and it was as you
[65:31] put it again, soul-crushing. And what I
[65:33] gathered was and I certainly can't say
[65:37] I've experienced this before in a
[65:38] different context that when
[65:40] other people's narratives start to the
[65:43] boundaries between other people's
[65:44] narratives and and your narratives and
[65:46] then and in your case kids were being
[65:48] affected which is
[65:50] which is huge. As a child of a divorced
[65:52] parents, I think it's also probably got
[65:54] to be somewhat different.
[65:55] I mean you talk very kindly of your own
[65:57] parents. Your story of
[65:59] of your relationship to your mom and her
[66:01] passing which we can also get to. That
[66:03] also stopped me. Also got me to call my
[66:05] mom.
[66:06] >> [laughter]
[66:06] >> So she'll thank you, right? I called my
[66:08] mom.
[66:09] >> You know you I'm well, you know, time
[66:11] and you know, and
[66:12] >> You never know how much you have left.
[66:14] >> You never know how much time you have
[66:15] left. But
[66:16] what inspired you to talk about that in
[66:19] particular? I know you're not one of
[66:20] these guys and
[66:22] you know, I don't want to say team guys
[66:24] in particular, but not you're not one of
[66:25] these guys who wants to paint a perfect
[66:26] picture of himself. But talking about
[66:29] how a contentious divorce
[66:32] came close to you know, brought you
[66:34] really close to your edge. Maybe to your
[66:35] edge, but fortunately not over it. It's
[66:37] an interesting choice and one that I
[66:39] appreciate and I know readers will
[66:40] appreciate. You humanized the whole
[66:43] thing, but what at what point did you
[66:44] decide that you wanted that in the book?
[66:47] >> I mean probably from the beginning. I
[66:49] think one of the biggest mistakes people
[66:50] would make is if they would look at a
[66:52] job like the one I used to have and
[66:54] think that the people who do it are not
[66:57] normal people. I was talking with Chris
[66:59] Williamson about this and it's a mistake
[67:02] that people make. There's no Captain
[67:04] America shield
[67:06] and cape and cowl that you actually
[67:08] wear,
[67:09] the things they ask you to do are
[67:11] sometimes pretty nutty.
[67:13] But,
[67:15] after that,
[67:16] you go take your gear off,
[67:19] clean yourself up, get some food,
[67:23] get together with the guys, and you just
[67:24] talk about normal day-to-day [ __ ] If
[67:27] you were having an argument with your
[67:29] wife before you went out on an
[67:31] operation, you're coming back to that.
[67:34] If your
[67:35] house had burned down,
[67:38] which I wish I could say I didn't know
[67:39] somebody's house burned down, but I did.
[67:41] They got that notification shortly
[67:43] before we went out on objective.
[67:45] Hopefully, didn't allow that to invade
[67:46] their mental thought process during, but
[67:48] when they came back,
[67:49] that's what they're dealing with. Then,
[67:50] you come back from deployment,
[67:52] and you're presented with all of those
[67:54] things.
[67:55] It's just It is such a mistake to think
[67:57] that there are people out there
[68:00] who have everything figured out, or that
[68:02] are impervious to the things that are
[68:04] damaging
[68:06] to you as the person.
[68:08] I started doing Q&A
[68:10] sessions on Friday for my show because I
[68:12] kept getting just this volume and wave
[68:15] of emails.
[68:16] >> [snorts]
[68:16] >> And at first, I wasn't really trying to,
[68:18] you know, tranche them into buckets, and
[68:19] I thought if I started doing the Friday
[68:20] episodes, it would decrease, but
[68:22] instead, it multiplied them by orders of
[68:24] magnitude. And I realized there really
[68:26] were some deep themes. You know, one of
[68:29] them is, "I I just don't know how to get
[68:31] started on my goals." But, another one
[68:33] is, and this is the most dangerous one,
[68:36] "I feel like I'm alone.
[68:38] I feel like I'm the only person dealing
[68:40] with this.
[68:42] How can you give me some advice? I look
[68:45] at your life from the outside, and it
[68:46] seems like you just have, you know,
[68:48] you're able to do all these hard
[68:49] physical things. What would you do if
[68:51] you were me?" I'm like, "Dude,
[68:53] I am you."
[68:55] So, you have to put that in there. How
[68:57] can you not? I mean, at the end of the
[68:59] day, I don't know what I I to do with my
[69:00] life, but I want to try to help people.
[69:03] I don't think you can do that if you're
[69:05] trying to sell [ __ ]
[69:07] But I do think you can help if you can
[69:09] talk about your own personal experiences
[69:11] and your own mistakes and the whole
[69:12] thing the things that you have suffered
[69:15] with not always past tense because my
[69:17] life is certainly not perfect and I go
[69:18] through seasons in my life now as does
[69:20] everybody.
[69:21] Why not be honest about that? Why try to
[69:23] portray this
[69:25] you know,
[69:26] follow my 12-step program for $19.99
[69:29] every month and you're going to have it
[69:29] all figured out. Those are some of the
[69:31] most unhappy people that I know by the
[69:32] way and often times not nearly as
[69:34] successful as they are presenting
[69:35] themselves.
[69:36] >> Definitely.
[69:37] >> I would rather just be like, "Listen,
[69:40] you think your life is bad? Why don't
[69:41] you put a seat belt on your chair? Got a
[69:43] little story for you." And then people
[69:44] hear that like, "What?
[69:46] You mean you guys deal with that stuff
[69:47] too?" It's like, "Yes, that's the whole
[69:49] point. You're not alone. You're not
[69:51] unique in this."
[69:53] So I think from the very beginning of
[69:54] deciding to write it I I didn't know
[69:55] necessarily that I would
[69:57] that I would use that particular
[69:59] example.
[70:00] But it was the most difficult thing I've
[70:03] done in my life, I'm obligated to put
[70:05] that in there and talk about it
[70:08] as openly as possible while maintaining
[70:09] the privacy of the other person
[70:11] involved.
[70:11] >> Yeah, I was impressed how you main
[70:13] maintained respect for your kids, for
[70:15] your ex-wife, your your current
[70:17] relationship, you know, and um and at
[70:19] the same time acknowledge that, you
[70:21] know, the the exchange was anything but
[70:23] cordial.
[70:24] >> It was anything but cordial and you
[70:25] know, as I've talked about this before,
[70:26] but and I don't know if it made it in
[70:28] the book, but I lost contact with my
[70:30] oldest son for 18 months. I was the one
[70:33] who initiated the end of the
[70:34] relationship
[70:35] and he was the oldest at the time and I
[70:37] don't know if it was a matter of him
[70:39] being in a certain phase of his own life
[70:42] and [ __ ] you know the deal being a
[70:45] a young man is not the easiest path nor
[70:47] is being a young woman by any stretch,
[70:49] but it's really interesting how
[70:51] adults forget how difficult it was in
[70:53] those years to just get through the day
[70:55] when you think that everything is you
[70:57] don't even know who you are. You're
[70:57] trying to figure it all out.
[70:59] But for 18 months, I I tried calling
[71:03] him.
[71:04] I tried texting him. I tried writing him
[71:07] letters to his mom's house. I would pull
[71:10] up next to him at a parking lot that he
[71:12] would go to before he went to work.
[71:14] And he would burn out [clears throat]
[71:15] out of the parking lot without even
[71:18] acknowledging that I was there and
[71:20] you think SEAL training's hard? Imagine
[71:23] something that you don't have the
[71:24] vocabulary to describe how much you love
[71:28] and thinking every day
[71:30] I don't know if I'm going to get this
[71:31] back. What else can I do?
[71:35] And now, thankfully, by staying the
[71:37] course, I think I have a closer
[71:38] relationship. And And not everybody has
[71:40] that that outcome. But our relationship
[71:44] is probably closer than it has ever been
[71:47] and he'll call and ask for my advice or
[71:49] just
[71:50] want to bounce stuff off of me, which I
[71:51] think is apparent. Like, if your kids
[71:53] are
[71:54] soliciting your time to ask questions,
[71:57] whatever it is you're doing, stop doing
[71:59] that and take the time because it's
[72:02] pretty awesome.
[72:03] And it means
[72:04] that they care about what you say.
[72:06] But I thought that was gone, man. You
[72:08] want to talk about soul-searching? It's
[72:09] nothing I did in the SEAL teams that
[72:11] made me wonder whether or not I was a
[72:12] good enough man to still exist. But that
[72:15] experience did.
[72:17] I'd like to take a quick break and
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[73:55] >> Wow. Well, I I will say um
[73:58] as the description of your your final
[74:00] moments with your mom led me to call my
[74:03] mom. I wasn't being facetious, I really
[74:05] did. You know, the description of the
[74:08] divorce process and the challenges that
[74:10] go there that, you know, I don't want to
[74:11] make this about my story, resonated in
[74:13] certain ways. I grew up in a very
[74:14] high-conflict divorce. What you just
[74:16] said now,
[74:17] uh
[74:18] I'm on good terms with my dad, but I you
[74:20] know, I'm familiar with being the son
[74:22] who wants to be protective of his mom,
[74:24] but still loves his dad, and being
[74:25] caught in the middle.
[74:26] >> And I would think about those two. How
[74:27] could you not? With all three of my
[74:29] kids, how And I have this conversation
[74:31] with with my wife now,
[74:34] who
[74:35] honestly is the only reason that I think
[74:37] I pulled out of that was
[74:39] the recognition and seeing from somebody
[74:41] else, like, "Hey, just so you know,
[74:43] like I know you're going through it, but
[74:44] this person sees something in you that
[74:47] is worth" I mean, I dedicated the book
[74:48] to my kids and to my wife for that
[74:50] reason.
[74:52] But we'll talk about this now because I
[74:54] mean it's like why why would they say
[74:55] that or why would they do that? And
[74:57] she's like listen, that's always going
[74:59] to be there mom. I'm like yep, got it.
[75:00] Totally nailed it. I understand now. And
[75:02] it re-centers and like okay. Doesn't
[75:04] make it any easier to deal with, but I
[75:06] understand.
[75:07] >> Sons and fathers have a certain dynamic
[75:09] and mothers and sons have a certain
[75:11] dynamic. And mothers and mothers and
[75:13] daughters and fathers I only know my own
[75:14] experience. I do have a sister so
[75:17] there's a parallel experiment there's a
[75:18] control experiment. She wouldn't
[75:19] appreciate me calling her the control
[75:21] experiment but
[75:22] >> Did you realize in your parents divorce
[75:24] that it was going bad before it did?
[75:25] Before they got divorced?
[75:27] >> Definitely.
[75:28] And listen, I've done a lot of work with
[75:30] both of my parents to we're on great
[75:32] terms now. I can truly say that. My dad
[75:34] was on this podcast. I know you've had
[75:36] conversations with your dad publicly. My
[75:37] dad and I are quite close.
[75:39] You know, and I I now look at it
[75:41] differently. I I I'm living in a state
[75:43] of gratitude these days where I
[75:44] basically like okay, they gave me life.
[75:46] That's huge. Like you
[75:48] you can't realize that when you're
[75:49] younger cuz you're like, you know, F my
[75:51] life you know, at times but they gave me
[75:53] life so there's that. They gave me so
[75:54] many opportunities and then the hardship
[75:56] of those years I had my own story and
[75:58] version of it, but recently just because
[76:01] of some evolutions in my personal life
[76:02] which are all good. I'm like I'm going
[76:05] to put myself in my dad's
[76:07] try and put myself in my dad's frame
[76:10] where he was, what he was trying to do
[76:11] in his career and in his personal life
[76:13] and then my mom's frame. I confess it's
[76:16] a little harder to do that because my
[76:18] dad and I are both male and there's
[76:19] always going to be that, but my mom and
[76:20] I were still at home and he was living
[76:22] elsewhere. So
[76:23] I tried to really work through it in
[76:25] those ways and I keep coming back to
[76:27] this place where I I now I go, oh my
[76:30] god, that must have been so hard for
[76:32] them.
[76:33] Like not for me. Like I had I mean I had
[76:35] years of understanding about how hard it
[76:36] was for me. I go for them I'm like holy
[76:38] [ __ ] Like that's got to be so tough. I
[76:41] would I mean I was really hard on my
[76:42] dad.
[76:43] >> How old were you when you realized your
[76:44] parents were just people doing the best
[76:46] they could?
[76:47] >> Yesterday. No, I'm just kidding.
[76:48] >> No, but that I mean
[76:49] >> No, I No, I
[76:50] >> For a long time in life as kids though,
[76:53] your parents are
[76:55] what they say, gospel. And they have
[76:57] they must have the answers to everything
[76:59] because they're older than any human
[77:01] beings ever been.
[77:01] >> Oh, man.
[77:02] >> And then you realize they are out there
[77:04] making [ __ ] up on the fly, doing the
[77:07] best they can with the data set that
[77:09] they have in front of them.
[77:11] Not doing great most of the time. It's
[77:13] not because they're not trying to do
[77:14] great, they're just [ __ ] people.
[77:16] >> Yeah. Well, I can't speak for your kids
[77:19] and I wouldn't, but I can say that for
[77:20] me, I I joke yesterday, but it was
[77:23] actually very young because I I came to
[77:25] this kind of black and white conclusion,
[77:27] which was not the correct one, which was
[77:29] they don't know what they're talking
[77:30] about. And that led me to go elsewhere
[77:33] to look for answers, and I found a lot
[77:35] of answers to a lot of things that I
[77:36] wanted. I also found some wrong answers.
[77:38] >> Yeah.
[77:38] >> I had great mentors throughout my life,
[77:40] and the day you realize that your PhD
[77:42] advisor doesn't have the answers, that's
[77:45] when you go get a post-doc advisor. And
[77:47] then you realize they don't have the
[77:48] answers, and you go start your own lab,
[77:49] and then you realize, "Oh my god, how
[77:50] hard their job was?" Cuz now you're
[77:52] dealing with graduate students that are
[77:53] like saying things like, "Do you even
[77:55] know what you're doing?" Until the paper
[77:56] gets accepted, and then they're like,
[77:57] "Oh my god, like you really know what
[77:59] you're doing."
[78:00] >> [laughter]
[78:00] >> My first graduate student will laugh
[78:01] when she hears that. She's actually a
[78:02] professor now with a She has two kids,
[78:04] she's happily married, she has super
[78:05] successful lab. So, but and I said,
[78:08] "Have you gone through that evolution?"
[78:09] And she's like, "Absolutely." So,
[78:12] I will say this, and I again, I can't
[78:14] speak for your kids whatsoever, but
[78:17] there was a real
[78:19] benefit to having that realization early
[78:22] that they don't know everything Yeah.
[78:24] Because you're
[78:25] you're forced to go look for certain
[78:27] answers elsewhere. There's also
[78:28] something really beautiful to the the
[78:31] reconnect, you know, that I have with my
[78:33] dad. And my mom and I were more constant
[78:35] over the years because our as you said,
[78:37] the relationship can be that much
[78:38] closer. Would you wish it on anyone?
[78:40] Would you wish a divorce on anyone? No.
[78:43] But at the same time, like, you know, my
[78:46] life wouldn't be what it was. So, that
[78:48] portion of the book I have to say
[78:49] surprised me. I know you're you're very
[78:51] humble, so please hear this as it lands.
[78:53] It impressed me that you were willing to
[78:55] put it in there in the way you did and
[78:56] how you handled it. And it really got me
[78:58] thinking about my relationship to my
[78:59] dad, my own family life now, where
[79:02] that's going, and
[79:04] and gave me a lot of uh
[79:07] hope and humility around like it's hard
[79:10] being a person, let alone being a
[79:12] parent.
[79:13] >> Yeah.
[79:13] >> You know, [laughter] and
[79:14] and and and the kid the kid the kid
[79:17] piece is easy is easy to relate to, but
[79:19] it really opened my perspective. So, I'm
[79:20] grateful to you for putting that in
[79:22] there.
[79:22] >> Yeah, I didn't uh it to me it just
[79:24] seemed natural. I didn't even give it a
[79:25] second thought.
[79:26] >> Yeah, but you're also jumping out
[79:28] off mountainsides in squirrel suits.
[79:30] >> Yeah.
[79:30] >> You know, you
[79:31] >> But I'm telling you if you've ever
[79:32] tasted that 9-V the way I did, you might
[79:34] you might actually be like, "So, what is
[79:36] this progression?"
[79:37] >> Let's talk about the wingsuit and the
[79:38] 9-V battery a little bit more because
[79:40] you talked about the state that you were
[79:42] in not just during but in the 6 months
[79:45] or so afterwards.
[79:46] >> So,
[79:47] that's not going to be the long tail of
[79:50] adrenaline, I'm guessing. I don't think
[79:51] you were walking around for 6 months
[79:53] like amped on life completely.
[79:55] >> Oh, no, the opposite.
[79:55] >> able to dial in. Could you talk a little
[79:58] bit more about that? Did you ever
[79:59] take some time to think about like,
[80:01] "What is this?" And did you get that
[80:03] after a gunfight? Did you get that after
[80:07] uh
[80:07] you know, a funeral? Uh you've gone to
[80:10] more than your fair share of those.
[80:11] Like, what do you think's going on
[80:13] there?
[80:13] >> It was the opposite of walking around
[80:15] adrenalized. Uh people oftentimes have
[80:18] asked me, you know, "What does it feel
[80:19] like to be an adrenaline junkie?" And
[80:20] I'd say, "I don't know. I don't feel
[80:22] like I am one. I might participate in
[80:24] some things that from the outside would
[80:25] be viewed as people seeking adrenaline,
[80:28] but I don't
[80:29] I don't like that hyper-adrenalized
[80:32] feeling where
[80:34] you know, well and it could be different
[80:36] for anybody and everybody whether it's
[80:38] at the taste and copper in your mouth or
[80:41] the heart rate or the you know, feeling
[80:43] your hair. I don't I don't like that
[80:45] sensation and that's not what I felt on
[80:47] the edge just was scared shitless quite
[80:49] frankly.
[80:50] It's not an adrenaline and it would be
[80:52] the opposite of walking around feeling
[80:53] like that.
[80:55] I would describe it as feeling
[80:57] settled
[80:59] or anchored.
[81:00] >> Mhm.
[81:00] >> And the ability to just
[81:05] sit into it and think clear. It's It's
[81:08] like having a stereo dial and the static
[81:11] and you're just
[81:13] twisting it down.
[81:15] And then the BS of life and it comes
[81:16] back up and it comes back up and it
[81:17] comes back up and you go on another one
[81:19] of those trips or I I should say I would
[81:21] go on another one of those trips and it
[81:22] would it would dial it down.
[81:24] After a gunfight it's not like the
[81:27] movies. Most of the time it is so fast
[81:29] but it's such a road decision.
[81:32] But it's high adrenaline. Presumably.
[81:35] Moderate.
[81:36] I think it would depend on how much time
[81:38] you had to make a call. I mean, it most
[81:41] of it is
[81:44] or in many times a broad example. Come
[81:46] around a corner binary threat or not
[81:48] threat. There's not a whole lot of time
[81:50] to get ramped I mean, you got to make a
[81:52] decision right there. I think maybe
[81:53] afterwards you might get an adrenaline
[81:55] dump
[81:56] or it it might catch up with you
[81:58] and I and I don't I can't really think
[82:01] of any anytime I've thought about an
[82:03] adrenaline dump or I've seen it is
[82:04] people actually kind of melt a little
[82:06] bit the far side of that where they just
[82:08] >> Mhm.
[82:09] >> their performance degrades for sure.
[82:10] They're on the other side of the bell
[82:11] curve of performance.
[82:13] I didn't see anybody
[82:15] experiencing that or maybe they were
[82:16] doing that when we were on a helicopter
[82:18] or vehicle on the way out. Not that much
[82:19] adrenaline. And again, it
[82:22] it's just not as much time as movies and
[82:24] TV shows make it out. It's just not that
[82:26] It's not that sexy.
[82:28] When you got back, I would say for
[82:30] myself,
[82:32] you know, if the if the optic of time
[82:34] starts coming in [clears throat] at
[82:35] about the 1-minute out, I would say
[82:37] as you were to get back
[82:40] and it and I would say for most guys
[82:41] it's more of a routine,
[82:43] but taking gear off a certain way, hang
[82:46] it up, uniform off, shower, food. I
[82:49] think you find that settling spot once
[82:51] the guys come back together, generally
[82:52] communally over a meal or back in your
[82:54] hut, whatever. Your team, you know, we
[82:55] would usually have it separated by team.
[82:57] I think you would find your way to that
[82:59] settled space as well, too. So, similar.
[83:02] I don't know if it was as powerful,
[83:03] though.
[83:03] >> Let me ask it slightly differently.
[83:05] Coming back from a wingsuit jump and it
[83:07] went well. Everybody lived, including
[83:10] you. Maybe learned a few things. Maybe
[83:13] some errors you were able to correct,
[83:14] which is also learning, but you you feel
[83:16] good about it. How do you sleep that
[83:17] night?
[83:18] >> Oh, so good.
[83:19] >> Mhm.
[83:19] >> Yeah.
[83:20] >> [clears throat]
[83:20] >> Mhm.
[83:21] >> Yeah, probably better sleep.
[83:23] Um
[83:24] I see Trying to think about sleep. God,
[83:27] you mean you're going out so
[83:28] repetitively?
[83:31] Yeah. I mean, guys are
[83:33] Is it Well,
[83:35] wasn't an unhealthy reliance upon
[83:37] ambient. Is that sleep or hallucinating?
[83:39] >> [laughter]
[83:39] >> I mean,
[83:39] >> Ambient can induce
[83:41] some amnesia,
[83:43] but you know, it it has its place, but I
[83:45] it's not it's not the first line of
[83:46] attack. I you know, I I know SEAL Team
[83:48] guys like like to ambient and I think
[83:50] nowadays they're using things less um
[83:52] >> It's what they had available.
[83:53] >> Yeah. Yeah.
[83:53] >> And I mean, unrestricted in a bowl, take
[83:56] what you want.
[83:57] >> I know people who would take two.
[84:00] Unpackage another two, put them next to
[84:03] their bed with a little cup of water for
[84:05] the middle of the night when they woke
[84:06] up but
[84:08] I don't think four is healthy. I'm not a
[84:09] doctor, but I don't think four is
[84:11] healthy.
[84:11] >> are better ways, but but when you're out
[84:13] with your wingsuit buddies and you you
[84:15] guys had a great jump that day and
[84:16] you're going back, everyone knocks out.
[84:18] >> You're wiped. You're just wiped.
[84:20] >> And so for that next 6 months you're
[84:21] feeling like you're in a you're in a
[84:22] really good space.
[84:24] >> You would feel it changing at like the
[84:26] 3-month mark, but for for a nice 3
[84:28] months for me it was it was clean. You
[84:30] could just think better.
[84:31] And I I don't know the mechanism behind
[84:33] it other than maybe your brain
[84:35] gets better at parsing out the [ __ ]
[84:38] that doesn't actually matter and as you
[84:40] get that focus, so once it identifies it
[84:42] in that moment you hold on to it less. I
[84:44] don't know what's going on there.
[84:45] >> It's still a mystery. You know, I've
[84:46] spent some time looking at this in
[84:48] advance of this conversation and the the
[84:50] simple theory would be it raises your
[84:53] stress threshold. So the things that get
[84:55] you to secrete adrenaline like everyday
[84:56] trivial things, that's not happening
[84:58] anymore. Okay, that's a reasonable
[84:59] theory. That's actually what what the
[85:01] ice bath will do. That's what a morning
[85:02] workout will do. But turns out that's
[85:04] not what happens when in when people go
[85:06] into these flow states and you get this
[85:07] long tail of a of flow opportunities
[85:10] because the tendency when people's
[85:13] stress threshold goes up too high is
[85:15] that uh they tend to engage in a lot of
[85:18] meaningless behaviors cuz they're not
[85:20] stressful enough. You want the sensation
[85:22] of like that was a tough conversation
[85:24] and I've got to deal with it or that was
[85:26] a tough conversation. I just need to
[85:27] avoid this person, right? Like this is
[85:29] just not a healthy you know, it's stress
[85:31] is a good indicator of of pain and
[85:33] sometimes it's a psychological pain that
[85:35] we need to overcome ourselves. Sometimes
[85:36] there's psychological pain we need to
[85:37] exercise from our lives. So it sounds
[85:40] very different than that. And the reason
[85:41] I'm so interested in this is it's the
[85:43] exact same way that seems to come up a
[85:46] lot on this podcast that like Rick Rubin
[85:48] has described
[85:49] after putting together an album with
[85:52] some amazing artists where they've just
[85:54] been working and working and working.
[85:57] It's not just the time
[86:00] while doing the work, it's in the it's
[86:02] in the months that follow. It's like
[86:03] this peace. It's like it's the post flow
[86:06] state something. We don't have a name
[86:07] for this.
[86:08] >> And it's almost like it lowers your
[86:10] stress threshold. Not it because I agree
[86:13] with you. If if it just raised your
[86:14] stress threshold,
[86:16] I would have just continued to do
[86:18] riskier and riskier behaviors, but at
[86:20] the end, I feel like it lowers it and
[86:23] just strips away the BS stress,
[86:26] and makes you less likely to invest in
[86:28] those other potentially nonsense
[86:30] high-risk behaviors. I have no ability
[86:32] to describe it whatsoever. And again, I
[86:34] didn't realize what that headspace was
[86:36] giving me while I was in the military. I
[86:39] knew something was missing after I had
[86:40] gotten out, and I think a lot of guys
[86:41] find themselves in that kind of abyss of
[86:44] how do I replicate this?
[86:46] Spoiler alert, you can't really, and
[86:47] they have to deal with that and work
[86:49] their way through that. And I'm not
[86:50] recommending
[86:52] that wingsuit skydiving or base jumping
[86:53] is the path for guys getting out. And I
[86:55] specifically wrote about this.
[86:57] I've seen people who can do this in art,
[87:00] getting lost in creating something, or
[87:02] yoga, or meditation, or ice bath, or
[87:04] sauna, or I found a lot of it in the
[87:07] ability to detach and be in the moment
[87:08] in jiu-jitsu.
[87:10] Even though it's totally artificial
[87:11] violence, you're in the moment cuz it
[87:13] sucks when your friend chokes you cuz
[87:15] you want to choke your friend,
[87:16] obviously. But,
[87:18] you can find it It doesn't have to be
[87:20] prescriptive.
[87:22] But, if you can find your way there, I
[87:23] don't care that nobody can describe what
[87:25] it is. I am here to tell you it will
[87:27] change your life if you can find your
[87:29] way into that space. It really will.
[87:32] >> There's a wonderful book, um, in
[87:34] addition to yours. Uh, there turns out
[87:35] there's another great book out there.
[87:37] Um,
[87:37] >> How dare someone
[87:38] >> No no audio version, but it's called The
[87:39] Secret Pulse of Time, and it's about
[87:41] time perception. And so, the idea that
[87:44] comes to mind that maybe we could talk
[87:46] about is perhaps
[87:48] these
[87:49] endeavors, whether or not it's
[87:50] wingsuiting, or producing an album, or
[87:52] painting, or gardening, or whatever it
[87:54] is, jiu-jitsu, whatever it is that
[87:55] somebody does to access this flow state
[87:57] and get this gets this long tail of
[87:59] post-flow benefit, whatever we
[88:02] what whatever that is. We don't have a
[88:03] name for it, again. It seems to
[88:04] calibrate our time perception is one
[88:07] idea that perhaps brings us so much into
[88:09] each moment that it's almost like our
[88:11] ability to capture moments that becomes
[88:13] high fidelity. Again, you talked about
[88:14] getting the static out. Right? And then
[88:17] when we go back into everyday life, it's
[88:18] almost like we're perfectly calibrated.
[88:20] This is I'm stating a theory here. So,
[88:22] now you wake up the next morning, you're
[88:23] home, and your kid comes in and they're
[88:25] talking about something, and you're
[88:26] thinking, and we'll get back to toilet
[88:28] paper in a little bit. You'll be like,
[88:29] "Listen, dude, you're talking about
[88:30] this, but you didn't take [laughter]
[88:31] care of the toilet paper." This will
[88:32] become relevant in a moment. You read
[88:34] Andy's I've never thought so much about
[88:35] toilet paper rolls in the bathroom and
[88:37] how they're stacked. My girlfriend and I
[88:39] had a conversation about it the other
[88:40] day. It's because of Andy's book. That
[88:42] will all make sense in a few moments.
[88:43] But, it's almost like you can still be
[88:45] in that real world stuff, but your time
[88:48] perception is adjusted so that you know
[88:51] what you're doing. It's just that thing.
[88:53] So, then when you pivot to the next
[88:54] thing, you need to sit down and do some
[88:55] work, it's almost like you can adjust
[88:57] your your your frame rate appropriately.
[89:00] It's like it pulls you into that.
[89:02] >> It It allows you to sink into those
[89:05] things
[89:06] and digest better, to think better.
[89:10] The yeah, the clarity of thought was
[89:12] just and it would change how I thought
[89:14] about
[89:15] an argument or a conversation, and it
[89:18] would allow me to look at it from a
[89:19] different perspective. And I have no
[89:21] idea why that was the case, but I agree
[89:24] with what you're saying. I think there
[89:24] might be some aspect of that. The
[89:26] fidelity
[89:27] and the ability to truly see clearly in
[89:29] that moment, pulling you or anchoring
[89:32] you into that. There's something there.
[89:34] I don't know.
[89:35] A really cool paper
[89:37] came out just the other day showing that
[89:39] when
[89:40] we're stressed,
[89:43] prior memories, while we can still
[89:45] access them, we can't make um insightful
[89:47] connections between things. And I won't
[89:49] describe the whole experiment. It was
[89:50] really cool. They basically have people
[89:51] reme- remember pairs of of objects, and
[89:54] then there's some link between the two
[89:55] pairs. So, like it would be like apple
[89:57] yerba mate, and there'll be a yerba mate
[90:00] uh wing suit. And then at some point
[90:01] later, you need to link, you know, the
[90:03] wing suit to the apple. Right? You know,
[90:04] it conceptually, not just that way. They
[90:07] they up from basic things like I just
[90:09] described. And And as you ramp up
[90:10] people's levels of stress,
[90:12] you essentially lose the ability to make
[90:14] these connected insights. And this
[90:16] speaks to the the hardwiring and the
[90:18] software that the brain uses. I almost
[90:20] wonder whether or not your stress
[90:22] threshold, as you said, is brought down
[90:23] so that you can now have novel insights.
[90:25] Like, "Oh, this conversation with my son
[90:26] about the toilet paper is actually
[90:28] important
[90:29] >> Yeah.
[90:29] >> in [clears throat] a way that isn't just
[90:30] me being annoyed." And and I feel like
[90:32] maybe maybe be fun to explore this as
[90:34] the science evolves with you you know,
[90:36] and and talk about it more cuz I think
[90:38] >> Yeah.
[90:38] >> the reason I'm so obsessed with this is
[90:40] for two reasons. One is navigating
[90:42] everyday life,
[90:44] which is
[90:45] a lot. It's a lot of what people are
[90:47] challenged with. It's so vital. The
[90:49] other is how to navigate the hard stuff
[90:53] in life. So, I want to get to both of
[90:55] those things and talk about some
[90:56] examples from your life and from your
[90:58] book. But before we do that, I feel like
[90:59] we're obligated to talk about toilet
[91:00] paper.
[91:02] >> The number of [clears throat] pictures I
[91:03] have received via email
[91:06] of people taking pictures of their kids'
[91:08] bathrooms
[91:10] and and basically saying, "I thought I
[91:12] was the only one."
[91:13] >> [laughter]
[91:16] >> All right, this is really seeming like
[91:17] an inside joke now for those that read
[91:19] Andy's. What you got? All right, we will
[91:20] get back to time perception and
[91:22] navigating the everyday and the hard
[91:23] things in life. I won't forget. We'll
[91:25] spin that plate in the background. It's
[91:26] spinning.
[91:28] The toilet paper section, yes, it made
[91:30] me laugh. It also made me think about
[91:32] the little things I do each day and the
[91:35] little teeny itty-bitty shortcuts that
[91:37] I'm taking and how those ratchet up. So,
[91:40] tell us about toilet paper.
[91:41] >> It always takes longer to do it wrong is
[91:43] the bottom line. And we all are tempted
[91:45] with these shortcuts. So,
[91:46] >> That's the mantra we have to remember.
[91:48] >> My children, their bathroom,
[91:50] if there was going to be an Ebola
[91:52] outbreak in the US, it might start
[91:53] there. I don't know anything about
[91:54] Ebola, but I feel like
[91:56] it might start there. So,
[91:58] as with most bathrooms, there's toilet
[91:59] paper rolls. And
[92:02] my kids
[92:04] when they finish a toilet paper roll,
[92:05] instead of popping it off the holder,
[92:09] taking it and going and getting a new
[92:11] one, they go get a new one.
[92:13] And they sit it right there. So, it's
[92:15] like
[92:17] empty toilet paper roll
[92:19] up against the wall.
[92:21] You would think
[92:23] that when this one is done, they would
[92:25] take them both. But, instead they do
[92:29] this.
[92:30] So, there's two against the wall, and
[92:31] then the other roll goes here.
[92:34] Now, I can't use this one cuz this is
[92:35] open. But, when this roll is done, you
[92:38] would think
[92:40] that they wouldn't create a pyramid,
[92:42] which historically, from my
[92:43] understanding of math, isn't great to
[92:45] balance things on. But, they will make a
[92:46] pyramid
[92:48] and then put this up here, and
[92:49] inevitably this roll goes forward, hits
[92:51] the ground behind the toilet, and then
[92:53] they start screaming from the bathroom,
[92:55] "I need toilet paper, Dad." To which I
[92:56] respond, "You got yourself there. You
[92:59] can figure it out on your own."
[93:01] >> This is all of your kids?
[93:03] >> Yeah, for sure.
[93:04] >> Okay.
[93:05] >> Yeah.
[93:05] >> And they're all your kids?
[93:07] >> Yeah.
[93:07] >> All right. I'm not I'm not really saying
[93:09] anything. I'm just
[93:10] >> I'm [laughter] just just And so, the
[93:12] point of all of this is, if you don't
[93:14] want to be somebody screaming for a
[93:16] toilet paper roll,
[93:17] it actually takes less time to go and
[93:21] when you're out of toilet paper,
[93:22] disconnect it, throw it away on the way,
[93:25] and bring another one in. It's the same
[93:27] thing as laundry. Do you laundry?
[93:30] I'm not perfect at this by any stretch.
[93:32] But, do your laundry, fold your laundry,
[93:34] put it away. That always takes less time
[93:37] than do your laundry in a pile, then
[93:39] you're in a pinch, and you're looking
[93:40] for your t-shirt, or whatever shirt you
[93:42] want to wear.
[93:42] >> And I own a lot of black clothing.
[93:44] >> Oh, my god. I do, too. It's all blues,
[93:46] blacks, and the occasional red. The red
[93:48] ones are easy to find in that particular
[93:49] cohort. But, otherwise, you're in there
[93:51] to and it's socks inside out, so you
[93:53] don't know if it's got the right logo,
[93:54] there's socks coming out of the sleeves.
[93:57] Five x the amount of time that would
[93:58] take you as opposed to just wash your
[94:01] laundry, dry it, fold it, put it away.
[94:04] I have tried to express this message to
[94:06] my children to the limits of my
[94:08] vocabulary.
[94:09] I went into my daughter's bathroom
[94:11] before we came up here.
[94:14] There was three rolls of toilet paper.
[94:16] Two of them were empty and wedged on the
[94:17] side, and the third one was vertical.
[94:19] And I just closed the door and walked
[94:20] away, pretend like it didn't happen.
[94:22] They don't They don't listen to me.
[94:24] It always takes longer to do it wrong.
[94:27] And those are the little shortcuts that
[94:28] we all take. We tell ourselves,
[94:31] "I'll do it later." Or I I I don't have
[94:33] time to do it right now. You We all have
[94:34] the same amount of time. It's where
[94:36] you're allocating your time.
[94:37] Do it up front, and I assure you like
[94:40] the McRaven speech about making your
[94:41] bed.
[94:43] The number of parents that probably
[94:46] thought that was life-changing was just
[94:47] amazing. Like, "Yes, somebody else is
[94:49] telling my kid to make the bed." It's
[94:50] not actually about that. It's about
[94:52] having the discipline to do the little
[94:53] things, and it is way better at the end
[94:55] of the night when you're tired to come
[94:57] back to a bed that is made and ready for
[94:59] you to hop into than having to Well, not
[95:01] most people would do this, but make it
[95:02] first and then get into it. But it just
[95:03] gets worse and worse and worse. And in
[95:05] the end, it will take you longer to
[95:06] correct for that than the individual
[95:08] action of just doing it right the first
[95:10] time. What's your advice with respect to
[95:12] this?
[95:15] >> [sighs]
[95:17] >> I mean, I can give you the advice, but I
[95:18] also don't follow it all the time,
[95:20] either. Every Every single decision that
[95:22] you have in front of you in your life
[95:24] will have a slightly easier and a
[95:25] slightly harder choice. Make the
[95:27] slightly harder one more often than the
[95:28] slightly easier one. And the thing I
[95:31] liked a lot about McRaven's messaging
[95:33] around the bed is that it started your
[95:35] day with an a small act of discipline
[95:38] that could seem meaningless, but then
[95:39] what if you pair another small one with
[95:41] that? And then another small one with
[95:43] that. I think that can really set you up
[95:45] for success in your day. And yes, at the
[95:47] end of the day, boom, your bed's ready
[95:48] to go, and you can hop back into it. It
[95:49] just feels better to get into a made
[95:51] bed.
[95:52] >> It took me a while to realize that most
[95:55] of the people that I
[95:57] could tell were really squared away in
[95:59] their jobs and because I happen to know
[96:01] their personal lives, too, also their
[96:02] personal lives,
[96:04] they're pretty tidy people.
[96:06] >> Yeah.
[96:07] >> Uh whether by sheer will or by reflex,
[96:10] they're just pretty tidy.
[96:12] >> I don't think it's everybody reflex. I
[96:13] think it's always by always by will.
[96:16] And it's not fun. And I'm Don't get me
[96:19] wrong. I'm not I'm not perfect at it,
[96:20] but if I can look back at my lives or my
[96:22] life at times where things were
[96:26] a little bit less
[96:28] effort involved in and being successful
[96:31] or making traction, it wasn't in chaos.
[96:34] It was in a little bit more of a
[96:35] controlled environment by me, again,
[96:37] controlling what I can control, which is
[96:39] my actions in the morning. You know, it
[96:42] If you sit down in front of a desk and
[96:43] you can't even find the thing that
[96:44] you're looking for to do the work on it,
[96:46] I I how I don't know anybody who has
[96:48] become ultra successful in life with
[96:50] that model.
[96:51] But, I think we could both sit down and
[96:53] talk about some people who are nailing
[96:54] it, and I think the vast majority of
[96:56] them would fall into that tidy category
[96:58] or disciplined category. But, it's micro
[97:01] discipline. They can make it seem as if
[97:03] you have this macro discipline, but
[97:05] that's not actually what it is. It's the
[97:06] little things that nobody sees. That's
[97:08] what leads you to that end state.
[97:10] >> It's interesting. Earlier we were
[97:11] talking about social pressure and um
[97:13] alcohol and social media. You know, it
[97:17] it's
[97:18] interesting to me that there seems to be
[97:21] some degree of social pressure to not do
[97:25] the slightly harder thing. You know,
[97:27] like [snorts] what we're what we're
[97:28] describing now, I never get into uh
[97:30] thinking about what the comments would
[97:31] be, but I
[97:33] I'd be willing to bet one pinky that
[97:36] a fair number of people are either
[97:38] thinking or commenting directly,
[97:41] "Yeah, like that's really neurotic. Like
[97:42] loosen up."
[97:43] >> Yeah, take a picture of your [ __ ]
[97:44] room and And it to me. I bet it looks
[97:46] like [ __ ]
[97:46] >> [laughter]
[97:47] >> Exactly. My dad's first generation
[97:49] immigrant from South America and and on
[97:51] that never forget when in it was in the
[97:53] mid-90s
[97:55] he was probably took me to a movie in an
[97:57] attempt to repair a relationship and
[97:58] eventually worked out. We're doing
[97:59] great. [laughter] Talk to him today. I
[98:01] called him today. We're on such great
[98:02] terms. It feels good to be able to say
[98:03] it. And I'll never forget we were at the
[98:06] movies and there were these people
[98:07] walking by and they were wearing kind of
[98:09] like baggy sweats and flip-flops or
[98:12] something and he stopped me and he's a
[98:14] very orderly guy and he said
[98:17] "See that? That's the beginning of the
[98:19] end."
[98:20] And I said, "What do you mean?"
[98:21] >> [laughter]
[98:21] >> And he said
[98:23] "I come from a third world country
[98:25] when people start going to the movies in
[98:27] their pajamas it's the beginning of the
[98:29] end." And I thought, "Hey, this is like
[98:31] you couldn't be more out He's I I
[98:33] actually think he's right." What he was
[98:34] talking about is that that the when the
[98:37] social pressure is not sufficient to
[98:39] like keep people feeling as if they need
[98:41] to show up as if they're in public,
[98:43] right?
[98:44] >> And he might have been a bit extreme,
[98:45] but you know, when when that social
[98:46] pressure isn't there, then the social
[98:48] pressure eventually erodes around what
[98:50] people can say, what they can do and
[98:51] then I do think that era of kind of
[98:52] Jerry Springer daytime television where
[98:54] people would watch people who were way
[98:57] more screwed up than them so they could
[98:59] feel a lot less screwed up. What's that
[99:01] called? Schadenfreude when you take
[99:03] >> pleasure in other people's pain?
[99:05] >> Yeah. Well, I think that there's that's
[99:07] that's the word for it for sure, but I
[99:09] think this is
[99:10] kind of adjacent to that where it's it's
[99:12] like giving yourself license to not feel
[99:14] that bad because like
[99:16] like either they're just so neurotic
[99:18] that I won't anything to do with that
[99:20] kind of world where everything's right
[99:21] angles or like well, at least I'm not in
[99:24] total squalor. And this is where I think
[99:26] that you know, we hear so much about oh,
[99:28] everyone's presenting them best self the
[99:29] their best selves on social media. Also
[99:31] a problem to seem perfect cuz no one's
[99:33] perfect, but I do think that there is
[99:35] this drift where we go well, like
[99:39] it's not going to crush my life with
[99:40] that toilet paper thing. Like if it were
[99:42] going to cost me my relationship or, you
[99:43] know, my allowance, you know, your kids
[99:45] might think about it differently, right?
[99:46] >> Yeah.
[99:46] >> But, so I think but what I got from your
[99:49] book this this section of your book is
[99:50] that it's because the consequences are
[99:53] so small
[99:55] at the individual level, but the upside
[99:57] is so big
[99:58] >> Yes.
[99:59] >> it when you, you know, collect these
[100:01] things together that the real incentive
[100:04] to do the slightly harder thing is
[100:05] there.
[100:06] >> I mean, the toilet paper is not going to
[100:07] cost your life. If it does, I'm going to
[100:08] need a case study on how that happened
[100:10] because I'm fascinated at this point.
[100:12] But, what if it the we'll call it what
[100:15] it is, either the lack of discipline or
[100:16] the laziness in the moment changes the
[100:19] trajectory of your life because you
[100:21] apply that to everything in your life
[100:23] because
[100:24] that's how you start your day and how
[100:26] you end your day. I get it. People on
[100:29] I could I'll take a picture of my room
[100:30] and send it out. Guess what? It's not
[100:31] hospital corners on the bed and there's
[100:33] probably something in the corner. I'm
[100:35] not saying that I'm perfect in this, but
[100:38] it's not being neurotic.
[100:40] It's doing the work that nobody sees.
[100:43] And for the people who can, you know,
[100:44] say, "Oh, it's, you know, that seems too
[100:46] neurotic for me." Like, let's
[100:48] let's have a cup of coffee. Where do you
[100:50] want to be in your life and where are
[100:52] you at in that journey? I would love I'm
[100:53] fascinated by
[100:55] and that and you know, like we're
[100:56] saying, internet's the best worst thing.
[100:58] People can
[101:00] find this conversation
[101:02] and then critique us to death and say
[101:03] that we're being neurotic, but I'd also
[101:05] love to connect with somebody and say,
[101:06] "Listen,
[101:08] why do you have the your an allergic
[101:09] reaction to that particular statement?
[101:11] Is it because perhaps you're living it?
[101:14] And if you are, let's talk about the
[101:16] potential impact that it's having."
[101:18] Because again, I didn't create this. I'm
[101:20] passing along, you know, one of the
[101:22] mantras in the teams, how you do
[101:23] anything is how you do everything. But,
[101:26] there's so many stupid small things
[101:30] that you do specifically in training
[101:32] that have nothing to do with anything
[101:34] except doing the stupid small thing.
[101:37] That That's it. I mean
[101:39] you know, this the
[101:41] 2-mi swim. You have a K-Bar knife in one
[101:43] of your hands and a CO2 cartridge in
[101:45] another, and you're wearing your life
[101:46] jacket, and we're like got a jeweler's
[101:49] loop out looking at the you know, the
[101:52] little uh twist-in section of the CO2
[101:55] cartridge.
[101:56] God help you if I find a grain of sand
[101:58] or a fleck of rust. Guess what? The
[102:00] jacket's still going to function even if
[102:03] both of those things still exist because
[102:05] it actually has nothing to do with the
[102:06] knurling of the CO2 cartridge and
[102:09] everything to do with I told you to have
[102:12] nothing in this to make sure it was
[102:14] basically brand new because you have to
[102:16] follow the procedure because the
[102:18] procedure is what's going to save your
[102:19] life. Can you
[102:21] even when you're exhausted and you don't
[102:23] want to and you have limited time do
[102:25] what I told you to do because of the
[102:26] impact that it'll have. I mean, that
[102:28] exists in that community everywhere. So,
[102:31] it's not me. I'm just telling you.
[102:34] The most successful people that I have
[102:35] encountered are not becoming successful
[102:39] in chaos. Now, of course, there will be
[102:41] an uh somebody that can point to
[102:43] something and say, "Well, what about
[102:44] this person?" I'm not saying that
[102:45] there's not a What do they call it? A
[102:47] white elephant or a black elephant?
[102:48] Whatever it may be. Does that scale? No,
[102:51] it doesn't. So, if you're trying to
[102:54] replicate that, "Oh, they did it through
[102:55] chaos, so I'm going to as well." Live
[102:57] your life however you want to, but maybe
[102:59] you and I aren't being neurotic. Maybe
[103:01] we're just trying to help.
[103:02] >> Yeah, uh you said even when exhausted
[103:04] and limited uh in time. Those are the
[103:07] two times when these little I guess I
[103:11] used to think about them as extras. I'm
[103:12] trying to start thinking about them as
[103:14] foundational. That's when they become
[103:16] really tough.
[103:17] >> It's when they matter the most, though.
[103:18] >> Mhm?
[103:19] >> Because if you I mean
[103:20] >> [laughter]
[103:22] >> It's like this toilet paper roll weighs
[103:24] 2,000 lb. There's no way I can get it to
[103:25] the garbage if it's tired. That's
[103:26] exactly like the days you don't want to
[103:28] work out. Those are the most important
[103:30] days. Even if you do less, the mental
[103:32] victory there,
[103:34] in my mind at least, and I'm not an
[103:36] expert in any of this, far outweighs any
[103:37] of the physical aspect. It's the fact
[103:39] that you did and you didn't want to. If
[103:41] you stack that up over a lifetime,
[103:44] you're going to blow people away with
[103:45] what you can
[103:46] can accomplish.
[103:47] >> Yeah, and the
[103:49] generalizability of what you just
[103:51] described is definitely supported by
[103:53] science. People have perhaps heard me
[103:54] say this before, so I'll make it very
[103:55] brief, but there's this brain area, the
[103:57] anterior mid-cingulate cortex, which
[103:59] most neuroscientists that teach
[104:01] neuroanatomy, including me, didn't know
[104:02] what it did until a few years ago. A guy
[104:05] at Stanford, Joe Parvizi, is a
[104:06] neurosurgeon. He was stimulating this
[104:08] brain area and regions adjacent to it
[104:10] looking for
[104:11] foci in a patient. That's how they find
[104:13] out where the where to burn out the
[104:15] seizure site. And he's stimulating in
[104:18] the cingulate cortex and then he gets to
[104:20] this anterior mid-cingulate cortex and
[104:21] in every patient where he taps this
[104:23] region electrically, the person feels
[104:26] and reports, "I feel like there's a
[104:28] storm coming
[104:29] and I want to lean into it. I know I can
[104:32] go through it." Someone else might
[104:33] describe it as, "I feel like there's
[104:35] this like big thing about to happen,
[104:38] but I I'm going to
[104:40] persevere." So, it's amazing,
[104:42] [clears throat] right? So, this anterior
[104:43] mid-cingulate cortex turns out
[104:45] hypertrophies. Well, it grows in volume
[104:48] per maybe in number of connections, etc.
[104:51] Number of neurons, maybe, but certainly
[104:52] grows in volume
[104:54] when people successfully diet,
[104:56] when they take their existing exercise
[104:58] program and just add three 30-minute
[105:01] uh sessions of cardio, but here's the
[105:03] caveat, if they hate cardio.
[105:06] If [laughter] you love the ice bath,
[105:08] this your anterior mid-cingulate cortex,
[105:10] which by the way predicts successful
[105:11] dieting, predicts successful completion
[105:13] of any of other hard things,
[105:16] all of that relates to whether or not
[105:18] the thing that you're introducing
[105:20] is something that you do not want to do
[105:22] in the moment that you do it. And so,
[105:24] there's real science to this now.
[105:25] There's a long review that I can put a
[105:27] link to in the in the caption if people
[105:28] want to get into the science. So, this
[105:29] is in human studies and it goes just on
[105:32] and on. So, it's not the thing it's the
[105:35] thing you don't want to do.
[105:36] >> Yeah.
[105:37] >> And so, when people say, "I love working
[105:38] out in the final two reps of that set,
[105:40] that teaches me how to be hard in life."
[105:42] You're like, "Do you like working out?"
[105:43] They're like, "Love it." And you're
[105:44] like, "Ah, it's not doing anything for
[105:45] your anterior cingulate cortex." So, I
[105:47] think this is very important science,
[105:48] which is why I keep bringing it up on
[105:49] multiple podcasts. And and I think the
[105:51] toilet paper roll. So, your kids have
[105:52] this amazing opportunity.
[105:54] Uh other people have to uh I don't know,
[105:57] do whatever. Um you know, they seem like
[105:59] very uh uh hard-driving kids and um the
[106:01] way you describe them. Anyway, so it
[106:03] turns out that for them the the the
[106:05] toilet paper thing
[106:07] and no, uh your dad didn't pay me to say
[106:09] this. The toilet paper thing turns out
[106:11] to be your the the route to anterior
[106:13] cingulate cortex growth, which then
[106:16] translates to a By the way,
[106:19] growth of this structure is the defining
[106:21] feature of what are called super agers.
[106:23] Bit of a misnomer because these are
[106:24] people who maintain cognitive ability
[106:27] and many of their physical abilities
[106:28] relative to their peers into their 80s
[106:30] and 90s.
[106:31] >> That makes sense.
[106:31] >> So, it it's so it may even be related to
[106:34] the will to live. It may be this the
[106:36] tenacity structure in the brain, which
[106:38] people who successfully push back
[106:41] against certain uh you know, life
[106:42] confrontations and things and on and on.
[106:44] So, it's pretty it's pretty cool
[106:45] structure and it may be the basis of the
[106:47] toilet paper phenomenon.
[106:48] >> It's same thing as putting your dishes
[106:50] in the dishwasher when you're done as
[106:52] opposed to just dropping them in the
[106:53] sink for the next morning. The examples
[106:56] are everywhere. Not that that would ever
[106:57] happen in our house, but
[106:59] >> [laughter]
[107:00] >> Uh
[107:00] we're going to get back to the time
[107:01] perception piece, but um you've
[107:03] mentioned jujitsu a few times.
[107:05] >> Yeah.
[107:05] >> What's an aspect of jujitsu that for you
[107:09] is this thing, this friction point where
[107:11] you actually don't want to do or do you
[107:12] just love the whole thing?
[107:13] >> What I love about jujitsu is it can't be
[107:15] mastered. There's no way. I and I have
[107:17] been very fortunate enough now to train
[107:18] with people or be around them
[107:20] that have been black belts for damn near
[107:22] as long as I have been alive. And I love
[107:25] asking them, you know, what do they like
[107:26] about it? And it's these seasons and
[107:28] phases where
[107:30] they think they have it figured out and
[107:31] then they see something else and their
[107:33] realization is they haven't even begun
[107:36] to understand. And then so they build
[107:37] back up and something again and they the
[107:40] more experience these people have, the
[107:42] less they think it have they that they
[107:44] have it all figured out. And I
[107:46] I don't know what the key to aging is,
[107:48] but I love doing things that seem as if
[107:51] it is impossible to master them.
[107:54] I think that's the key to staying at
[107:55] least mentally as young as possible.
[107:57] Constantly learning new stuff.
[108:00] I would like to take a quick break and
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[109:22] >> I seem to be referencing your book a
[109:23] lot, but there's a great story in your
[109:24] book about some intense intestinal
[109:26] distress that that is not uh
[109:28] >> Is that what we're calling it?
[109:29] >> Yeah. That is not of the just the the
[109:31] diarrhea constipation type but like you
[109:34] described as the worst pain
[109:36] >> Yeah.
[109:36] >> you'd ever experienced. Which when most
[109:39] people hear a statement like that, they
[109:40] go, "Okay, well, what pain have you
[109:41] experienced?"
[109:42] >> I touch
[109:42] >> Turns out you also been shot.
[109:44] >> Yeah.
[109:44] >> Um turns out uh
[109:47] you were you know, your your job
[109:49] selection process involved a fair amount
[109:50] of
[109:51] immediate and long-term pain processes
[109:53] under, you know, uh limited sleep and so
[109:55] on. So, we we can check the box easily
[109:58] for you like understands pain and then
[110:00] this was the worst pain. What do you
[110:02] think about this notion? Maybe I heard
[110:03] this from Chad Wright that when you
[110:05] vocalize about how hard something is
[110:08] that you make it more real. I was
[110:11] wondering if in that moment where you're
[110:12] in the hospital, I don't want to give it
[110:14] all away. It's it's a great chapter
[110:15] actually uh and you're dealing with this
[110:18] worst pain of your life, not from being
[110:20] shot but from the other thing, that were
[110:23] you just cursing? Were you quietly
[110:26] cursing in your head? Do you think that
[110:28] we can make our physical pain and just
[110:30] challenges in general worse by talking
[110:32] about them? Or do you think holding it
[110:35] in makes it worse?
[110:36] >> I don't think you could make it worse
[110:39] by talking about it. I think if people
[110:41] were open and honest about let's just
[110:43] say pain in general, whether that is
[110:45] internal or external
[110:47] I think what they would be shocked to
[110:48] find is they're generally surrounded by
[110:49] people willing to do anything they can
[110:51] to help relieve that pain. So, I think
[110:52] you could probably make it much better.
[110:54] >> Mhm.
[110:55] >> For anybody who thinks that I might have
[110:56] stuff figured out or I'm an intelligent
[110:58] person, here's a story for you. Here's
[111:00] how stupid I am. So, I was doing a
[111:02] podcast when I first felt the first
[111:04] little shift in my stomach. I had took a
[111:06] sip of coffee. I was like, "Huh,
[111:07] >> [laughter]
[111:08] >> that's weird."
[111:09] And I thought it was a gas bubble.
[111:12] My wife was teaching a jujitsu seminar
[111:13] at the time. We were just south of Salt
[111:15] Lake City.
[111:16] So, I got done with that.
[111:18] Couldn't really [clears throat] stand up
[111:19] straight. But, it was the open mat
[111:21] portion. So, throw the gear on, go roll
[111:23] for 90 minutes.
[111:25] Couldn't
[111:26] definitely could not stand up straight
[111:28] after that. So, I was just slouching in
[111:29] a chair, you know, to try to hide it
[111:31] from my wife who had at that point
[111:33] started looking over at me.
[111:35] And she's like, "What's going on?" I'm
[111:37] like, "Ah, I just got a stomach ache.
[111:38] It's not that big of a deal."
[111:39] And we were going to drive from Salt
[111:42] Lake City back to Kalispell, Montana,
[111:44] where I live, which should take a day.
[111:47] And she was saying, "Hey, let's get you
[111:49] some like, you know, gas medicine or
[111:51] something like that."
[111:52] And she wanted to go to In-N-Out. We
[111:53] don't have any In-N-Outs in Montana. For
[111:55] people who live around In-N-Outs, I'm
[111:57] here to tell you it's a really big thing
[111:58] to people who don't live around them. I
[112:00] don't know why.
[112:01] >> No, it's pretty darn good.
[112:02] >> Yeah, I'm I was raised by them or around
[112:04] them. So, to me, not that big of a deal.
[112:06] I'll grab them when I can, but also not
[112:08] going to totally detour off to go get
[112:10] one.
[112:11] So, she goes and gets her, you know,
[112:12] double-double, whatever it is. Pulls
[112:14] into the Walgreens. I'm in the passenger
[112:16] seat at this point. She First off, she
[112:17] tricks me. I drove her to the
[112:19] In-N-Out. She's like, "Just let me
[112:20] drive." I'm like, "Fine." We get to the
[112:22] Walgreens.
[112:24] I'm in a good amount of pain at this
[112:25] point. She goes inside to get
[112:27] Gas-X pills or whatever. She comes out.
[112:29] I am upside down in my seat trying to
[112:31] relieve the gas bubble cuz that's what I
[112:33] thought it was. So, my head was down by
[112:34] where you keep your feet.
[112:36] I didn't let her know I was So, I she
[112:38] comes back into the car and is like,
[112:40] "What are you doing?" Just fully
[112:42] inverted in the car.
[112:44] I'm like, "I'm fine. Just, you know, I'm
[112:45] just trying to see if I could get the
[112:46] gas bubble to dislodge."
[112:48] And she asked me,
[112:50] "What do you want to do? Do you need to
[112:51] go to the hospital?" I'm like, "I think
[112:53] we're going to be okay. Just start
[112:54] driving home. We'll be going through
[112:55] Salt Lake, so we'll get to a higher
[112:56] level of care if it gets worse."
[112:58] She got on the phone,
[113:00] Googled the nearest hospital, and drove
[113:01] me straight there. So, that's how smart
[113:03] I am when it comes to pain.
[113:05] I wasn't verbalizing
[113:06] how bad it was. and it wasn't It was
[113:08] incrementally getting worse, but that's
[113:10] an example of A, I 100% don't have
[113:13] anything figured out. That's how dumb I
[113:14] am. And B, keeping it to myself didn't
[113:16] help much, but she knew me well enough
[113:18] that it was time to go. I was able to
[113:20] walk into the emergency room, and then I
[113:22] ended up laying on the emergency room
[113:23] floor, mostly because it was cool, and I
[113:25] I was starting to sweat at that point.
[113:27] They bring me in, and
[113:29] uh did a bunch of imaging, and I had an
[113:31] intestinal blockage, which required
[113:32] emergency surgery the next day. The most
[113:34] painful portion of that, though, was
[113:38] about 6 hours when they gave me this
[113:40] fluid that you drink to constrict all of
[113:43] your intestines that they generally give
[113:44] to elderly people who haven't [ __ ] in
[113:46] weeks.
[113:47] So, what ended up having is I had a loop
[113:48] of scar tissue on the inside wall of my
[113:50] stomach that a piece of intestines had
[113:52] gone through, and it cinched.
[113:55] So, that particular red juice of death
[113:59] was the single most consistent pain that
[114:02] I have ever been in.
[114:04] I sweat like I sweat through all of my
[114:06] clothing.
[114:07] Uh my sister and I have a genetic blood
[114:09] abnormality where I don't process
[114:10] opiates the same way as people do, so
[114:12] morphine to me doesn't even do anything.
[114:13] I did not know that until I got to the
[114:15] emergency room in Baghdad after being
[114:17] shot. And I kept asking for more
[114:19] morphine, and the guy pulled out a chart
[114:21] and said, "This [clears throat] is what
[114:22] you weigh.
[114:23] This is your dosage. You are now at the
[114:25] threshold. If we give you more, your
[114:27] heart's going to stop." So, they stopped
[114:29] the morphine,
[114:30] put me on Dilaudid,
[114:32] barely touching the pain at the maximum
[114:35] dosage of Dilaudid.
[114:37] But, that was
[114:39] the worst pain I've ever been in, and
[114:42] it's funny that you ask about talking
[114:45] about it or not.
[114:46] My sister is a nurse. She's been in
[114:48] health care for quite some time, and
[114:51] they had just gone on vacation.
[114:54] And my wife wanted to get a hold of
[114:57] them. And I'm like, "Whatever you do, do
[114:59] not call them and ruin their vacation."
[115:01] What she was trying to do
[115:04] was understand what she needed to say to
[115:06] the staff so she could talk to them in
[115:08] their language because the dosages they
[115:10] were getting just wasn't doing anything.
[115:11] And I think to the degree they thought I
[115:13] was
[115:14] uh
[115:15] like seeking meds even though I think
[115:17] the athletic sweat might have been a
[115:18] little bit of a tell and the fact that
[115:20] I'm like
[115:21] writhing and the doctor's coming I'm
[115:22] like, "I don't care what it is, cut it
[115:23] out right now. We can just do sur- He's
[115:25] like, "Oh, we got to do imagery and
[115:27] you got to do paperwork." I'm like,
[115:28] "Sign my name. Let like let's just do
[115:30] the uh knock me out and cut this out of
[115:31] my body right now. I don't even care
[115:32] what's left."
[115:34] But
[115:35] I didn't even want to share that with my
[115:37] sister
[115:39] cuz I didn't want to ruin her experience
[115:40] with her family in another country and
[115:42] that didn't make anything better.
[115:44] Shortly after that
[115:45] right after I told my wife not to call
[115:47] her, she went outside and called her.
[115:49] And then I got switched over to the ICU
[115:50] where they hit me with ketamine and that
[115:52] did the trick.
[115:53] Almost to the point where they almost
[115:55] they almost pushed me into the K hole
[115:56] and I didn't like that at all. I could
[115:58] hear the hairs on the inside of my ears
[116:01] starting to move around. And it was a
[116:03] dead quiet room and I remember saying to
[116:04] my wife
[116:05] "Can you hear it? It's so loud in here."
[116:07] And she's like
[116:09] "It is
[116:10] completely and utterly silent." Right at
[116:12] the lip. To the point where I told the
[116:14] doctor, "Please no more ketamine
[116:15] regardless of what it takes." But then
[116:16] they went and did the surgery.
[116:19] All of that to say
[116:21] the more open and honest I was
[116:23] the better it got.
[116:25] And that time where I was trying to not
[116:27] share that or not talk about the pain,
[116:29] it was still just as real for me.
[116:32] But there was no benefit in being quiet
[116:34] like that. And I think that that's
[116:35] something that people can
[116:37] in my life and I'm not sure yours
[116:41] every time I've verbalized pain or grief
[116:44] or struggle
[116:46] surrounded by people willing to help
[116:48] out.
[116:49] Why not talk about it? What's the
[116:51] potential downside if you look at it
[116:53] purely from a physical perspective was
[116:54] me suffering for a few more hours
[116:57] because I'm an idiot.
[116:59] >> [laughter]
[117:01] >> Well, I totally agree that when it's
[117:03] real pain
[117:04] it's important to
[117:06] share. Also, uh God bless your your wife
[117:09] for not listening to you around this
[117:12] particular issue.
[117:13] >> me figured out. It's everything up to a
[117:14] point she's like, "Nope, I'm we're going
[117:16] to we're going to go ahead and take the
[117:17] wheel from here."
[117:18] >> Yeah.
[117:18] >> [laughter]
[117:18] >> Once I got in uh
[117:20] uh before we came in here we were
[117:21] talking about dogs. Uh we'll get back to
[117:23] but you know, having owned a bulldog
[117:25] >> I must have you realized that they hide
[117:26] their pain. Like he you know, you know
[117:29] >> ran out to uh you know, two they don't
[117:33] have knees, right? But ran out to uh
[117:34] ACLs, right? I mean, he was his own
[117:36] worst enemy. But he would never quit on
[117:38] me either. So, it's like you kind of
[117:39] have to know [clears throat] that about
[117:40] bulldogs, right? So, there's enough uh
[117:42] bulldog in you. Uh
[117:44] you have a dachshund.
[117:45] >> Yes.
[117:46] >> dog. I know that they're very, very
[117:47] smart and they're kind of mischievous.
[117:49] >> Yeah.
[117:50] >> Right? But they're loyal. They like
[117:52] >> Um
[117:53] You are either one of their people or
[117:56] you're one of their enemies.
[117:58] >> Is that you?
[117:59] >> I'm his I'm probably his favorite
[118:00] person.
[118:01] >> No, I meant is that your your phenotype,
[118:02] too? Is that your you're either one of
[118:04] my people or you're one of my enemies?
[118:06] >> I don't think so.
[118:07] >> Okay. Yeah, you don't strike me that
[118:08] way.
[118:08] >> I am inherently distrustful of human
[118:10] beings just based off my own personal
[118:12] experience.
[118:12] >> All human beings?
[118:13] >> Not all human beings. Well, yes, the
[118:16] species but not every person that I that
[118:18] I meet. I am just aware
[118:21] that there is a subsection of who we are
[118:25] that is out there
[118:26] that ticks in the completely opposite
[118:29] manner with which I do and I'm not to
[118:30] say here to say that's right or wrong,
[118:33] but I've seen it enough with my own eyes
[118:35] that I can never forget that.
[118:38] >> You're talking about from your your time
[118:39] on deployments?
[118:40] >> Yeah.
[118:40] >> Yeah.
[118:41] >> Just seeing beliefs and ideologies that
[118:43] are completely at odds with what my
[118:45] beliefs and ideologies are and
[118:47] sorry for anybody listening to this,
[118:49] whatever your belief and ideology is,
[118:50] there is an axis out there that feels
[118:52] that way. that's just the way that it
[118:53] is. It doesn't mean you should distrust
[118:55] everybody. I just remind myself that
[118:57] human beings are really capable of some
[118:59] gnarly stuff, but I also don't walk
[119:00] around
[119:02] snap judging everybody. But I try to
[119:04] enjoy my life, just like everybody else
[119:06] does. But yeah, for that dog, it's uh
[119:09] you can go from being one of his enemies
[119:11] to one of his friends though. If you
[119:12] have enough treats and spend enough time
[119:14] around him, then he gets super excited
[119:15] when he sees you. But they're amazing
[119:16] dogs.
[119:17] >> Yeah, I love dachshunds. I I don't know
[119:19] that I have the
[119:21] the tenacity to own one. But I mean cuz
[119:24] bulldogs are stubborn.
[119:26] >> Yeah.
[119:27] >> But
[119:28] they're so food driven
[119:30] and
[119:31] they're not that smart.
[119:33] >> [laughter]
[119:33] >> Don't tell them that. I've had a bulldog
[119:35] long enough and now a second one to know
[119:36] that they're
[119:37] um and it's part of what makes them
[119:39] great.
[119:39] They they don't do advanced math on on
[119:42] their life experience. They're doing
[119:43] basic addition
[119:46] and sleeping.
[119:47] >> We have
[119:47] >> They'll die for you,
[119:49] but if your life isn't on the line,
[119:50] they're not doing [ __ ] at all. That's
[119:52] kind of like the bulldog.
[119:54] >> Our dog does puzzles.
[119:55] >> Yeah. So, right. That that's what I'm
[119:58] talking about. Yeah.
[119:59] >> And like we have an outside fetch ball
[120:01] that I thought didn't fit through the
[120:02] doggy door. It was in the house the
[120:03] other day.
[120:04] >> What's going on here?
[120:05] >> Right. Right. [laughter] Totally same
[120:07] same species, all completely different
[120:09] brain structures.
[120:09] >> Man.
[120:10] >> Well, and they were bred to be
[120:11] independent because they were bred to be
[120:12] at down in little tunnels going for I
[120:14] tell people they were bred to fight
[120:15] lions. Nobody seems to believe me. And
[120:17] I'm also not sure that that's true, but
[120:18] >> You need 75 of those.
[120:20] >> Yeah, like rats. Yeah, that's that's
[120:21] what I tell people. They hunt in packs,
[120:22] obviously. I would be terrified of 75
[120:24] wiener dogs chasing me down.
[120:25] >> Absolutely.
[120:27] >> [laughter]
[120:28] >> No, they're down down in tunnels and
[120:29] that's also why they bark so much and
[120:31] why their bark is so loud. It's so it's
[120:32] their handlers could track them as they
[120:34] went. So, a lot of that stuff makes
[120:36] sense.
[120:37] Not necessarily in an urban setting, but
[120:39] you know, it's fun to deal with.
[120:42] Your dog needs to do puzzles or he'll
[120:43] drive you crazy.
[120:45] >> Yeah, we do go down the the the
[120:47] conceptual rabbit hole of uh
[120:50] of dog breeds, but we won't because we
[120:52] left an important plate spinning that I
[120:54] want to return to. What do we leave?
[120:56] This notion of time perception to
[120:58] navigate everyday life more effectively
[121:02] and time perception
[121:05] to navigate the real really hard stuff.
[121:09] Your community by virtue of the work
[121:11] that you guys
[121:12] did and do lose a lot of people.
[121:15] Relative to other professions, there's a
[121:17] there's a high fatality rate relative to
[121:19] other professions, but in the larger
[121:22] outside world now, you know, we are
[121:24] seeing much more suicide. Let's just be
[121:28] real blunt.
[121:29] >> Yeah.
[121:29] >> Walking in here today, we were talking
[121:30] to one of our
[121:32] team members here, not SEAL team
[121:33] members, but editors, you know, somebody
[121:36] a real
[121:37] um
[121:38] a real luminary in the
[121:40] skateboarding world, you know,
[121:42] cause of death still unclear, but you
[121:44] know, like this yet another example of
[121:46] somebody highly accomplished,
[121:48] family, etc. I have a colleague who
[121:51] recently
[121:52] sadly took his own life. Like this just
[121:53] happens across domains, right? And it's
[121:56] not just men, it's women, too, but it
[121:57] does seem to be higher among men these
[121:59] days. You know, it raises some really
[122:02] complicated, but I think important
[122:04] questions around
[122:06] what
[122:07] is going through people's minds that
[122:08] would lead them them to think that it
[122:11] was or should be the end of the line for
[122:13] them
[122:14] for themselves. Goes against every bit
[122:16] of adaptive evolutionary biology. It
[122:19] goes against all religious doctrine in
[122:21] terms of what's adaptive. So, you know,
[122:23] there's no straightforward answer to
[122:25] this but
[122:26] earlier we were talking about before we
[122:28] were recording, perhaps people get into
[122:31] a tunnel of the idea that the way they
[122:34] feel in a given moment is the way it's
[122:35] going to be forever.
[122:37] So, two guys sitting here who are not in
[122:38] that state to kind of wonder what that
[122:40] is is we can only speculate. But
[122:45] what do you think
[122:47] based on what you've observed and you're
[122:49] welcome to share if you like this from
[122:50] your book you talk about Dave.
[122:52] >> Yeah.
[122:52] >> Is there any understanding of of what's
[122:54] going on for people in the in the days,
[122:57] weeks, months, moments leading up to
[122:59] those decisions that you know, maybe we
[123:02] can do some good here.
[123:03] And help people identify if they're
[123:06] starting to enter that it's always going
[123:08] to feel like this mode.
[123:10] >> And there have been so many
[123:11] conversations about this and there are
[123:13] so many programs that exist to try to
[123:16] help. I'll I'll say guys because that's
[123:18] the community that I came from with
[123:20] this.
[123:21] The Green Beret community
[123:23] has now lost more people to suicide than
[123:26] combat operations since 2001.
[123:28] >> What?
[123:29] >> Yep. I don't know where the SEAL
[123:30] community is with that, but I bet you
[123:32] they're close.
[123:34] The numbers will eclipse for sure.
[123:36] So
[123:37] it is an issue, but it is an unavoidable
[123:40] issue. Every situation is different to a
[123:44] degree that they share some
[123:46] similarities. The So in speaking
[123:48] specifically of the SEAL teams
[123:50] I mean there's the biggest similarity,
[123:51] right? They came from that community and
[123:53] they probably had
[123:55] some semblance of shared experiences
[123:57] whether that be deployments, time away
[124:00] from family, the psychological and
[124:02] physiological stresses of the job.
[124:05] But it doesn't seem to impact everybody
[124:08] equally either. Everybody's experiences
[124:10] differ. You could be in a room I was
[124:12] going to say with six people, but it's
[124:13] unlikely you'll be in a room with six
[124:15] people just because uh
[124:17] we don't generally have that many people
[124:18] and we try to solve issues with as few
[124:21] as possible. Well, let's say four. I
[124:23] have no understanding why
[124:26] the same shared experience although
[124:28] maybe
[124:29] viewed from a slightly different angle
[124:32] in totality could break somebody, but
[124:34] not the other three or why everybody has
[124:36] a different volume of you know,
[124:38] somebody's got this much volume versus
[124:39] this much versus a thimble. And I don't
[124:42] I don't understand why
[124:45] those experiences
[124:47] seem to break some people.
[124:49] Or, in my opinion, I think they can, if
[124:51] you put the work in, make you an even
[124:53] better version of yourself. And I also
[124:55] think that you can pour some of the
[124:56] stuff out or drill a hole in the bottom
[124:58] and work through these things.
[125:00] Dave being the example,
[125:03] I The things that stick out would be And
[125:06] again, this is me This is me speaking. I
[125:08] can't speak for Dave.
[125:12] There was a huge delta, I think, between
[125:15] how he thought of himself and how other
[125:18] people thought of him.
[125:22] And in most of the funerals that I've
[125:24] gone to that involved suicide,
[125:27] the number one question is
[125:29] why?
[125:31] Why didn't somebody reach out for help?
[125:33] Or, and maybe they did, because you
[125:34] don't you know, you don't I mean, I
[125:35] guess you could look at their electronic
[125:36] device or maybe it was a face-to-face.
[125:39] It's hard to say.
[125:40] But, the difference in
[125:44] what Dave left behind. He left behind
[125:46] some journals.
[125:48] And I think that there are
[125:51] pros and cons.
[125:53] If you are in a place where you have the
[125:56] opportunity to read somebody's what they
[125:58] have left behind and not,
[126:00] you may not want to know. It may make it
[126:02] more difficult because I've also seen
[126:04] people attach a a very immense amount of
[126:07] grief because they either think that
[126:08] what was written and left behind
[126:10] was specifically about them. Or, they Oh
[126:13] man, I was there and I could have, you
[126:15] know, the coulda, woulda, shoulda, which
[126:17] is all hypothetical and doesn't change
[126:18] the fact that it already happened. But,
[126:20] I've seen people deeply, deeply struggle
[126:22] with that.
[126:23] So, that would be the negative. The pro
[126:25] could be
[126:26] perhaps, I don't know, closure. So, it
[126:28] really depends on the person. Choose
[126:30] wisely as somebody who is a
[126:32] experienced that.
[126:34] Um my experience is it was a combination
[126:35] of both. I I felt a deeper level of
[126:38] understanding, but also a deep sense I
[126:40] wish I would have done more.
[126:42] >> [snorts]
[126:45] >> The internal struggles
[126:48] and self-talk
[126:50] and monologue
[126:52] I couldn't read it without crying.
[126:57] And I don't think he realized
[127:01] how highly
[127:03] other people thought of him.
[127:05] The gap between the two is just
[127:06] unbelievable. He He and not everybody
[127:09] is.
[127:10] He was isolated at the time.
[127:12] There was alcohol involved to the best
[127:14] of my knowledge.
[127:16] Which unfortunately, especially in the
[127:17] community that I come from, those two
[127:19] things are pretty often tied, not
[127:21] always, but often tied alcohol in that
[127:23] decision as well.
[127:24] And the stats are
[127:26] pretty well back about, you know, that
[127:27] alcohol being a You could speak to this,
[127:29] you know, but
[127:31] >> [snorts]
[127:31] >> central nervous system depressant. It's
[127:33] not like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm feeling the
[127:34] best I've ever felt." It generally will
[127:35] spiral you in the other direction.
[127:38] But when I look at Dave, he was and is
[127:41] to this day what I would consider to be
[127:43] the standard for a team guy.
[127:46] And what I loved about him so much is
[127:48] that not only did he expect that
[127:50] standard from other people, but he held
[127:52] it himself. And actually more than that.
[127:54] I think I would say he held himself to a
[127:57] higher standard
[127:59] than he would hold other people to.
[128:01] If you met his standard, you were going
[128:02] to get two thumbs up. Probably not a pat
[128:04] on the back, but you were going to get
[128:05] two thumbs up, and you were going to
[128:06] know you did a good job.
[128:08] If you did not meet his standard, which
[128:10] I tested many times, you were very
[128:12] specifically told
[128:14] where you were deficient in life and as
[128:16] a human being.
[128:17] >> [laughter]
[128:18] >> And he God, he had a tongue like a whip.
[128:20] He was awesome. And uh
[128:24] I I at the end, and this is me speaking
[128:28] for him a little bit,
[128:30] I think he arrived at a place
[128:33] where he couldn't live with the reality
[128:35] that he couldn't hold himself to the
[128:37] standard that he had expected from other
[128:39] people, and I think it destroyed him.
[128:41] But I don't know if he shared that with
[128:42] anybody. I don't think so. Some of the
[128:44] last people that he spoke with
[128:48] knew that he was
[128:51] struggling for sure. He He had an
[128:53] alcohol addiction issue for sure. And
[128:54] for clarity, I mean, that's
[128:57] Dave would be pissed actually if I
[128:58] didn't mention that cuz he would never
[129:00] tolerate anybody else beating around the
[129:02] bush. He legitimately had an an issue
[129:03] with alcohol as
[129:05] some people do from that community.
[129:07] They knew that he was struggling. He's
[129:09] the only guy I know who did multiple
[129:12] treatments of
[129:13] I have zero experience in psychedelics,
[129:15] but from listening to people talk about
[129:16] ayahuasca and ibogaine
[129:18] rides that don't seem to be a very good
[129:20] time.
[129:21] And often times will instantaneously
[129:23] change the relationship they have with
[129:24] substances, whether it's
[129:26] opiates or alcohol. Not that you would
[129:28] never drink again, but their their
[129:30] relationship with it just shifts.
[129:32] They're like, "You know what? Uh, I
[129:33] don't even have the desire to do so."
[129:36] 72 hours later, 96 hours later, and it's
[129:39] not like he just tried once.
[129:41] He would go back.
[129:43] He would even facilitate
[129:45] treatment for other people. [snorts]
[129:49] But it wasn't working for him, but he
[129:51] wasn't he wasn't sharing that. And that
[129:54] isolation and loneliness
[129:57] and that difference between that
[129:59] standard and what he was able to do
[130:03] got him to that place
[130:04] where he put a gun in his mouth, you
[130:06] know alone
[130:07] isolated at his family home in Florida.
[130:11] And when everybody showed up at the
[130:12] funeral, it's like,
[130:14] "What could we What could we have done
[130:16] more?" And [clears throat] that And that
[130:17] happens at every Nobody's at a funeral
[130:20] saying, "I did everything I could."
[130:21] Never have heard that, by the way. To
[130:23] just God, I nailed it. I'm like, really?
[130:26] Exhibit A would like none of us nailed
[130:28] it. We all [ __ ] up. Or
[130:32] did we do the best that we could and
[130:34] it's something that we can't stop. I
[130:36] don't know. I've have I've started to
[130:37] have pretty deep conversations with
[130:40] friends around from that community
[130:42] around what can be done.
[130:45] I don't think an absolutist approach is
[130:47] good. I think driving to zero is
[130:49] possible because is impossible because
[130:51] it's a it's a an affliction that strikes
[130:53] all of humanity.
[130:55] A reductionist approach I think is
[130:57] helpful.
[130:58] But at this point I don't know what else
[131:01] can be done.
[131:03] I mean, millions of dollars advocated
[131:06] towards these type of programs. Things
[131:08] like
[131:09] Ambio, you know, just south of the
[131:11] border or what Marcus and Amber
[131:13] compeller doing with the vets, which are
[131:15] largely an interface to the and there's
[131:16] portals and people and I'm on some of
[131:18] these groups where
[131:20] even the inkling
[131:22] somebody is in trouble or you need help
[131:23] like people are they're trying to get
[131:25] stuff done, getting connected. People
[131:26] are getting on airplanes and I was with
[131:30] mutual friend DJ, I think it was last
[131:31] week and one of his new guys who had
[131:34] become a team leader who had gotten out
[131:37] just killed himself.
[131:39] And both and
[131:41] we we sit there with faces like this
[131:43] with
[131:45] things that are un that we don't know
[131:46] what to say. And between us, I don't
[131:48] know.
[131:49] >> [sighs]
[131:50] >> I don't know what's going on there.
[131:52] >> Yeah, well I certainly don't know
[131:54] either. I think that um
[131:58] if we can
[131:59] borrow anything useful from other areas
[132:02] of
[132:03] uh mental health and neuroscience cuz it
[132:06] I think ultimately this is a brain
[132:08] issue.
[132:08] >> Mhm.
[132:09] >> Right? I don't think it's like a gut
[132:10] health issue, although that could impact
[132:12] it, right? I might be wrong.
[132:13] >> correlary. I mean
[132:13] >> Right, could be yeah. I mean that it
[132:14] could be but but I think it's a a
[132:17] thought process that leads to a decision
[132:18] that, you know, and that's in the brain.
[132:20] So, if we were to just take like start
[132:21] at ground truths,
[132:23] not to try and make this reductionist,
[132:25] we'd say maybe suicidality is not one
[132:28] thing.
[132:29] Just like we know that
[132:31] you can get a fever from a lot of
[132:32] things. Yeah. I don't want to say no one
[132:33] is immune because I do think that
[132:36] fortunately, it's, you know,
[132:38] not everybody, but maybe everyone has
[132:39] the potential to go there and there are
[132:41] certain buffers that we're not aware of.
[132:43] >> You might come out of the box immune to
[132:45] it, but I think either something
[132:47] psychologically or physiologically can
[132:49] happen that maybe could open a door that
[132:51] had started off closed.
[132:52] >> Mhm.
[132:54] >> That's a guess.
[132:55] >> In all these instances, they're leaping
[132:56] to mind are
[132:58] unfortunately, real-life suicides. Every
[133:00] single one of the people um was a very
[133:03] high-performer at one point, highly very
[133:05] highly regarded, yeah, revered, etc.
[133:08] And so, I think you've really um
[133:11] touched on something important, which is
[133:12] that this notion of like it's lonely at
[133:14] the top. There there's It's true that
[133:16] there's
[133:17] people are busy, you know, there's not
[133:19] the general public is not so concerned
[133:21] about, you know, winners and their
[133:23] plight, you know, but when you hear
[133:25] about something like this, you know, um
[133:28] you realize that it people can be quite
[133:30] lonely and perhaps as the number of true
[133:33] peers that somebody has because they're
[133:35] in a leadership position over already
[133:36] ultra-high performers, the need to
[133:38] impress, the need to not have their
[133:40] their image shattered is it goes up and
[133:42] up and up and up. There might be
[133:44] something there. I think there's
[133:46] certainly important work to be done, but
[133:48] there aren't real data, I don't think,
[133:50] on the number of people who were kind of
[133:52] veering in this direction, but somebody
[133:54] reached out.
[133:55] >> Yeah.
[133:56] >> And then they're 6 months later saying,
[133:57] "Hey, thanks, you know, I you know, you
[133:58] really helped me back when." And maybe
[134:00] they weren't right at that edge. Yeah.
[134:01] So, we don't have data on what worked to
[134:03] keep people away from this edge, either.
[134:05] So, it's a really tough problem, but,
[134:08] you know, tough problems
[134:10] are tractable.
[134:11] >> Yeah, I worry less about the guys who
[134:13] are able to verbalize what they're going
[134:15] through.
[134:17] It's the ones who are
[134:18] more quiet. You know, you talk about,
[134:20] you know, lonely at the top. Dave I left
[134:22] Dave's military career largely out of
[134:24] it.
[134:25] He originally wanted to go to
[134:28] development group and didn't make it
[134:29] through the screen process. I think
[134:31] largely more due to a personality
[134:32] conflict with one of the instructors,
[134:34] which totally happens. You get on
[134:35] somebody's radar,
[134:36] you might have to come back through. But
[134:38] he ended up going to another JSOC
[134:40] command
[134:42] that works at an incredibly high level,
[134:44] very less known,
[134:47] often times
[134:49] by yourself
[134:51] in adversarial countries. And he crushed
[134:53] it there I think like 10 years.
[134:56] I mean like
[134:58] the top performer
[135:01] of performers. And then they contracted
[135:02] him to come back and teach guys in their
[135:04] own very long selection course.
[135:07] What I didn't realize
[135:09] is how much he was struggling
[135:12] just holding up that image though.
[135:14] >> A part of their selection course occurs
[135:15] out in Las Vegas.
[135:18] He had more than one incident where he
[135:20] thought his career was going to be over
[135:21] cuz he went out and got shit-faced and
[135:23] got arrested.
[135:25] They work so independently and
[135:28] individually so often,
[135:30] nobody even realized he'd gotten in
[135:31] trouble
[135:32] until his security clearance came back
[135:34] around and it popped on his security
[135:35] clearance.
[135:37] Which then, you know, leads to a whole
[135:38] variety of other things. But that
[135:40] happened to him while he was active and
[135:41] then after while he was out.
[135:44] But if you were look at the guy,
[135:46] you you mean you'd say to him, "How do I
[135:48] match your career exactly? What exactly
[135:50] are you doing to be able to do what it
[135:52] is that you're doing?"
[135:54] Then behind the curtain, holy [ __ ]
[135:57] Just suffering.
[136:02] You can see it in the writing. Just in
[136:04] the
[136:06] the shape and texture
[136:09] of the words. You can You can see it
[136:11] degrading
[136:13] towards the end. It's gnarly.
[136:16] And look, I'm not one of these people
[136:17] that thinks everyone should just go do
[136:19] Ibogaine, which is not a recreational
[136:21] experience. You know, right, but I was
[136:22] going to say the fact that he did that
[136:24] has worked. I'll just say this on I've
[136:26] said it publicly before, but I'll make
[136:27] sure I hammer this, you know,
[136:30] straight in the middle that I've been
[136:31] very supportive of Veteran Solutions
[136:33] because
[136:34] and the work that was being done at
[136:35] Stanford to support them. The arc of
[136:38] both successful escape from addiction
[136:41] and PTSD or whatever you want to call it
[136:43] through the proper use of Ibogaine
[136:45] medically supervised
[136:48] as well as the number of just tragic
[136:51] instances of people who didn't make it
[136:54] there.
[136:55] I happen to know Chad Wilkins'
[136:56] wife and talk to Sarah, you know, and
[136:58] you know, it's a painful thing to be at
[136:59] these things and hear all these
[137:01] wonderful stories of people that feel
[137:02] like they were rescued, their spouse was
[137:03] rescued and then
[137:05] um the spouses that are there are
[137:06] saying, you know, it's
[137:08] grateful this exists and I'm I'm
[137:09] frustrated that it wasn't there in time
[137:12] for their spouse or parent or you know,
[137:14] so or kid. So, many people have
[137:17] benefited, but some people just seem
[137:19] like they're refractory to it.
[137:20] >> Well, hopefully
[137:22] talking about suicide
[137:24] frankly will will um get people thinking
[137:27] about
[137:28] different avenues around it. I don't
[137:30] know the angle.
[137:31] >> Yeah, I don't know the angle. I mean,
[137:33] I've tried to focus sometimes on talking
[137:35] about
[137:36] the impact that it has on those left
[137:39] behind in the hopes that that would
[137:42] I don't know.
[137:44] Buy somebody a 1%
[137:46] maybe think about that for 1%
[137:47] [clears throat] and it changes literally
[137:49] the trajectory of their life.
[137:51] I don't understand
[137:53] the choice I will I will describe the
[137:56] choice of ending your own life as an
[137:57] irrational decision. That's
[138:00] I can't make any sense of it other than
[138:01] to say, like you said, it goes against
[138:03] every evolutionary
[138:05] everything that we can understand. So,
[138:08] somehow people are arriving at an
[138:11] irrational decision and considering it
[138:13] to be
[138:15] the only rational solution.
[138:17] Talking about the people that they left
[138:19] behind and the impact it's going to have
[138:22] doesn't seem to have impacted it at all.
[138:25] I don't I don't know what the answer is.
[138:28] Many times, you know, I
[138:30] whatever is left behind are text
[138:32] messages the world's better off with You
[138:33] know what I mean? Better off without me.
[138:34] They feel it. I'm not going to say they
[138:36] feel as if they're doing the world a
[138:37] favor. That's That's not what I mean to
[138:39] say, but often times the language is
[138:40] close to that. Like,
[138:42] "I'm doing this because you will be
[138:44] better off without me." And again,
[138:46] irrational decision as their only
[138:48] rational option. I don't I don't know.
[138:52] I do know that statistically it's way
[138:53] higher in the occupation that I came
[138:55] from. What I didn't realize and what
[138:57] I've started talking with a lot more
[138:58] about guys I served with is their time
[139:00] before the military, though.
[139:03] The trauma in in the military can
[139:05] certainly be unique, but I tell you
[139:07] what, the number of guys that I've
[139:08] talked to now that I didn't have these
[139:10] conversations with that I when I was in,
[139:12] they brought a full sea bag of trauma
[139:14] with them before.
[139:16] And if you layer that on top of
[139:19] everything that happens while you're in
[139:21] and you don't get a handle on that,
[139:23] >> [snorts]
[139:24] >> it's going to get a handle on you. And I
[139:26] think that's played itself out many
[139:27] times. A lot of the emphasis is on just
[139:30] the military aspect. And I'm not saying
[139:32] that everybody from the military world
[139:33] came in with the broken, shattered, fill
[139:35] in the blank
[139:36] bucket of trauma,
[139:38] but there's a lot of them the more that
[139:40] you dig into this. And that has to be
[139:42] addressed as well, too.
[139:44] It makes sense. If you had a jacked-up
[139:46] childhood or you were bullied, what
[139:48] better job than to be able to dispatch
[139:51] bullies or those that are preying upon
[139:53] others? Yeah, that's exactly what you're
[139:55] going to want to do. But that doesn't
[139:57] mean that the little suitcase you
[139:59] brought with you
[140:00] isn't going to meet you on the tail end
[140:02] of that journey. Then you pair that with
[140:03] isolation. A lot of times guys get out,
[140:05] they'll move uh you know, back to where
[140:06] they came from. So, away from their
[140:08] social circle. The uniform goes up in
[140:10] the closet.
[140:12] Identity and purpose struggle that we
[140:14] all have when you go from that
[140:15] occupation.
[140:17] Social isolation. Maybe they bring with
[140:19] them some unhealthy social habits.
[140:22] Alcohol, whatever else it may be with
[140:25] them, with that isolation, with those
[140:27] struggles, with that baggage.
[140:30] It's a lot, man.
[140:32] >> You make a very important point. I
[140:33] think, you know, perhaps one of the
[140:36] reasons they went into that profession
[140:38] is they were traumatized going in. But,
[140:40] of course, as you also pointed out, many
[140:42] guys are not. They
[140:43] >> I won the genetic lottery with my
[140:44] parents. They were spectacular.
[140:47] But, I I now
[140:49] I just I wish I had been mature enough
[140:52] to sit down with people when I was
[140:54] younger and be like, "Dude,
[140:56] like, are you okay?
[140:58] What was your What was your background
[140:59] like coming up?
[141:00] You know,
[141:01] tell me about your life before the
[141:02] teams." Cuz nobody ever asked about your
[141:04] life. Like, "Where are you from? Cool,
[141:05] shut up. You made it through buds,
[141:06] great. Go get your [ __ ] It's time to go
[141:07] do gangster shit." I'm like, "Okay,
[141:09] cool. Let's go do gangster shit."
[141:11] It's afterwards where I I would get to
[141:13] know these people better at a deeper
[141:14] level. I'm like, "I'm sorry, what?
[141:17] What situation did you come from?"
[141:19] Dave was a good example.
[141:21] He brought a lot with him.
[141:24] Again, that's a data point. I can't
[141:26] apply that broadly.
[141:28] But, in the anecdotal conversations I
[141:30] have had, it is trending past 50% of the
[141:33] guys brought a lot of stuff with them.
[141:36] >> Yeah, and the
[141:37] um
[141:38] the sort of hyper proclivity for alcohol
[141:40] might have been related to that. I mean,
[141:42] we can do a just-so story, but what
[141:44] you're saying, you know, it it
[141:47] ratchets together in in a logical way.
[141:49] And of course, everything we're talking
[141:50] about wicks out to the the world at
[141:53] large. I mean, checking in on people is
[141:55] no small thing.
[141:57] >> Yeah.
[141:57] >> You know, I I like a few years ago I
[141:59] talked about how like, you know, this
[142:00] group of like people would just like
[142:01] check in in the morning and it seemed
[142:02] people like, "Oh, well, that's like it's
[142:04] supposed to be the health act." It's
[142:04] like, "Oh, no, there's one guy in my in
[142:07] my crew that like he's he's like every
[142:09] single morning. If we don't hear from
[142:10] him by 8:00 a.m. we're like, "He's
[142:13] dead." You know,
[142:14] >> [laughter]
[142:14] >> like you know, and then like 8:15 he's
[142:16] like, "Sorry, I'm late, guys." And you
[142:17] know, just by virtue of that group he
[142:18] sends out he's, you know, he sends
[142:20] around a little Bible passage, sometimes
[142:22] like a wish for the day for folks.
[142:23] Everyone checks in. It's like, it's a
[142:24] real thing. Like it's a real thing. It's
[142:27] not just that I'd be worried about him.
[142:28] I honestly I'd be worried about me if if
[142:30] he didn't send that. Now, is it am I
[142:31] completely dependent on it? No, but
[142:34] those small things, back to this notion
[142:36] of small things, they can really matter.
[142:38] They can they can really make the
[142:39] difference. I don't know, my mind goes
[142:40] to all these places and maybe I've
[142:42] spent more than my fair share of time
[142:44] with uh
[142:45] a our mutual friend Eddie Penny where I
[142:47] I actually think and and forgive me cuz
[142:49] I'm a scientist, but these days I talk
[142:51] very openly. I actually think that evil
[142:53] forces can hijack people's minds.
[142:56] I know it sounds crazy, it sounds like
[142:57] conspiracy, but I believe that inside of
[142:59] our minds we have a susceptibility to
[143:02] positive messaging and we have a
[143:04] susceptibility to evil messaging and it
[143:06] can come in in different forms and I
[143:08] think bad forces can work through us and
[143:11] they tend to come through the places of
[143:14] shame. They come through the things that
[143:16] we don't want to acknowledge. They're
[143:17] like the way it was described to me by
[143:19] someone far smarter than me is it's like
[143:20] a lighthouse that's, you know,
[143:22] spinning its um
[143:24] its illumination and then there's like
[143:26] there's still like some
[143:28] like dirt on the on the lighthouse and
[143:30] it casts this like shard of a shadow and
[143:32] that's where stuff comes in and gets us
[143:34] and if we can kind of see that stuff and
[143:37] really acknowledge it, that's kind of
[143:38] what the real trauma process trauma
[143:40] healing process is about. Once you own
[143:42] it, it's very different. Things can't
[143:43] get to you the same way. Now, I'm
[143:45] speaking in like riddles and metaphors
[143:47] here, So it So I want to be careful cuz
[143:49] I'm a scientist. I believe in biology,
[143:51] but I think that hopefully conversations
[143:53] like these will start to open up the the
[143:55] thought and maybe in the dialogue around
[143:57] this cuz I think the mental health
[143:58] community, but really the general public
[143:59] needs to start thinking about this
[144:01] >> Yeah.
[144:01] >> in a real way because the numbers as you
[144:04] mentioned in the SEAL Teams and other
[144:05] special operations communities are
[144:06] staggering, but it's growing. I mean and
[144:10] on and on and I don't believe anyone is
[144:13] completely immune just given the the the
[144:15] examples. These are people who
[144:16] quote unquote [clears throat] everything
[144:17] going for them and then some. So
[144:20] God willing this will have some positive
[144:22] impact.
[144:23] >> I think it's important that somebody
[144:25] like yourself as a scientist is open to
[144:28] other non-scientific
[144:30] answers or
[144:32] possibilities at least
[144:35] because we clearly don't have [snorts]
[144:36] it figured all out yet. That I'm not a
[144:39] scientist, but I'm pretty sure
[144:40] scientists don't know everything
[144:42] regardless of how some of them might
[144:44] like to tell you that they do.
[144:45] >> Definitely do not know everything.
[144:47] >> And if we don't know everything, maybe
[144:49] let's just keep it open to possibilities
[144:52] because in that journey hopefully one
[144:54] day we will figure out everything.
[144:56] But if we lose a bunch people along the
[144:58] way because we were unwilling to at
[144:59] least even
[145:01] table a conversation about something
[145:03] maybe outside of the science realm
[145:05] I don't think it's worth knowing
[145:06] everything.
[145:06] >> I think that our We're talking about
[145:08] dogs before. I think our species is a
[145:11] remarkable species technology
[145:13] development. I think that we have
[145:14] incredible capacity for for goodness and
[145:18] I think we also should finally
[145:20] acknowledge after many thousands of
[145:22] years that we have a hardwired failure
[145:25] to understand ourselves. That
[145:28] the answers are just not going to come
[145:30] from us. This is where I sit now. I
[145:33] don't want to sound too dogmatic about
[145:34] this. Like it's just obvious. Like you
[145:35] wouldn't expect uh 50,000 dachshunds to
[145:39] come up with uh well maybe they could
[145:40] come up with a supercomputer, but you
[145:42] know
[145:42] >> I'm in on this experiment so far. Do you
[145:44] know anybody who'd be willing to back
[145:45] us?
[145:46] >> [laughter]
[145:46] >> In this day and age, I probably do. Um,
[145:49] but it's be it's just so, you know, we
[145:50] we tend to think that because we are the
[145:52] curators of the Earth, we are the ones
[145:54] that control the technology. All that is
[145:55] true, that we're sort of above our own
[145:58] [ __ ] and we're not. And so, the big
[146:01] revelation for me was like, "Oh,
[146:04] maybe we shouldn't look to
[146:07] ourselves, certainly, or even other
[146:09] humans, or even groups of humans, or the
[146:10] technologies we create, or that
[146:12] combination for every answer. I do think
[146:14] gene therapies are going to cure a lot
[146:15] of diseases. I think that AI actually
[146:17] has is going to be of great benefit,
[146:18] etc., etc. It's got its issues, but
[146:21] we'll navigate that. But, when it comes
[146:23] to
[146:24] how somebody like Dave could be
[146:26] literally
[146:27] take his own life, I think the
[146:29] implementation of the solutions will
[146:31] have to come from humans, but that
[146:32] really understanding the root of the
[146:34] problem is not going to come from from a
[146:36] from a strictly scientific psychological
[146:39] understanding. It's just not
[146:41] >> I think that's okay. I think I I like
[146:42] that type of malleable
[146:45] willingness to accept other options much
[146:48] more than I like the dogmatic, rigid,
[146:50] you're not going to do anything other
[146:52] than it's either this way or the
[146:53] highway.
[146:54] >> I feel comfortable sharing this. Let's
[146:55] just say that I knew someone very well,
[146:57] I still know him, fortunately he's still
[146:58] alive, in your community, who was in a
[147:00] really challenging place. And the only
[147:02] language I heard someone else speak to
[147:03] him, unfortunately he's still around,
[147:05] they'd said something to him to the
[147:07] words of like, "Your goggles are foggy,
[147:11] so you can't trust anything you think or
[147:13] see about yourself for the next 6
[147:15] months.
[147:17] You only can trust these three people."
[147:20] >> It's not a bad approach.
[147:21] >> And he said, "Okay."
[147:24] And he's like, "You cannot do that. It's
[147:25] It's as if you're you're you're wearing
[147:27] prism glasses." It's kind of what I
[147:29] jumped in with. Borrowed that from a
[147:31] neuroscience experiment.
[147:32] >> glasses is a better analogy
[147:34] >> You're grasping for the mug here, but
[147:36] it's actually right here. And if you can
[147:38] just accept the fact that your
[147:40] optics are off, your thinking is off,
[147:42] you cannot trust it.
[147:44] And And the reason that resonated with
[147:46] me and got me thinking about the other
[147:47] thing I just said is the
[147:49] I I think that we all have this innate
[147:51] desire to not be controlled. And I think
[147:53] that I'm not going to do the if only
[147:55] game, coulda, woulda, shoulda, but if
[147:57] people as
[147:59] as hard driving as like team guys or
[148:01] just anybody were told to listen that
[148:03] what you feel it actually is not coming
[148:05] from you. You're being controlled.
[148:07] That can set up a resilience. It can I
[148:09] do think you can trigger that anterior
[148:11] mid cingulate cortex. And it's like
[148:13] instead of [ __ ] me
[148:15] or [ __ ] all that all these other people,
[148:16] it becomes
[148:18] no. You can just start to like you can
[148:20] start to resist these forces. And I I do
[148:23] think there's something there. So, I
[148:24] don't think science alone is going to
[148:26] cure suicidality or psychology alone. I
[148:28] don't think it'll come in the form of a
[148:29] pill. Again, I think the implementation
[148:31] will be very much of the human world,
[148:32] but I think that the
[148:34] um the core understanding about what's
[148:36] happening in those moments is going to
[148:39] come from accepting a a bigger picture.
[148:42] And I think it's obvious what I'm
[148:43] talking about here. And hey, what why
[148:46] not?
[148:46] >> It's a It's a deep topic, man. It's a
[148:48] tough one.
[148:49] I know everybody wants easy solutions. I
[148:51] just don't think there is one on that
[148:52] topic.
[148:54] It's a painful, long road.
[148:57] >> Bringing it to the everyday life.
[148:59] >> Mhm.
[149:00] >> I was imagining if I was like a I don't
[149:02] know
[149:03] 20-year-old or 30-year-old or 40 or
[149:05] 50-year-old.
[149:06] >> Do you ever think you'd be 50?
[149:08] >> [laughter]
[149:09] >> Actually, no. At my 50th birthday, I was
[149:10] like Joe Strummer, one of my heroes,
[149:12] died at 50. My graduate advisor, dead at
[149:14] 50. Like a lot of friends, even though I
[149:16] was in the military, dead early. Like I
[149:19] felt really lucky to make it to 50. And
[149:21] uh I feel very excited about what's to
[149:24] come, but I'm mindful
[149:26] of everything we just talked about. You
[149:28] know, um but no, I never never did. But
[149:30] the fifth floor is awesome cuz Kelly
[149:31] Starrett described it to me best. He He
[149:33] said, "Listen, when you're in your 40s
[149:35] and you're like in good shape and your
[149:36] life is together, you're like, yeah,
[149:37] like you're doing okay relative to your
[149:39] peers. The moment you hit 50, like
[149:41] you're like, all right, I'm doing great.
[149:42] And And he said, "You have to be very
[149:43] careful, cuz that's like comparing
[149:45] yourself to people who are really
[149:46] slacking. So, [laughter] you got to
[149:47] triple down, Huberman." He goes, "Don't
[149:49] come off the gas pedal." So,
[149:51] >> Hello, Kelly Starrett.
[149:52] >> Yeah. I can imagine that many people are
[149:55] thinking, okay, get give me the program.
[149:57] I know you're anti-hacks. I am, too.
[149:59] But, what would that look like? What can
[150:01] they do? Start with the bed. So, wake
[150:04] wake up in the morning. Let's Let's walk
[150:05] through it.
[150:06] >> The bed do the bed, don't do the bed. I
[150:09] would say start as early as you can with
[150:11] some semblance of a discipline act. If
[150:14] you don't want to do the bed, drink a
[150:15] drink a 16-oz glass of water in the
[150:17] morning before you have a cup of coffee.
[150:19] Not many people enjoy doing that.
[150:21] Uh especially if it's not flavored with
[150:23] something, but I tell you what, I
[150:25] implemented that, and it's kind of
[150:27] amazing how much better you feel when
[150:28] you hydrate a little bit after you sleep
[150:31] with your mouth tape, of course, on your
[150:33] sleep metrics, cuz you have to have a
[150:35] competition with your wife on who's
[150:36] winning the sleep score. Not a big deal.
[150:38] And I I hate being prescriptive. And so,
[150:41] just broadly, I tell people to pick the
[150:44] choice as often as possible that is
[150:46] slightly more difficult. And the reason
[150:48] why the bed doesn't work for some people
[150:50] is that you have somebody you care about
[150:51] deeply still sleeping on the other side.
[150:52] Maybe your day starts at a time where
[150:54] they're not ready to get out of bed,
[150:55] right? So, you don't want to negatively
[150:56] impact somebody else's life so you can
[150:58] have this I have to do this to get
[151:00] started.
[151:01] To me, it's the small stuff that nobody
[151:04] sees that makes the biggest difference
[151:05] in the world. It's the choice to have
[151:07] the water before your coffee. It's the
[151:09] choice to
[151:11] the night before you go to bed, if
[151:12] you're you know you're going to have a
[151:13] busy day,
[151:16] meal prep, or if you're going to have a
[151:18] breakfast that is other than ready to
[151:19] eat or complicated, do all the prep work
[151:21] beforehand. So, it makes it, you know
[151:23] what I mean? It's just the small things
[151:24] that
[151:25] nobody Oh, great, posting on Instagram.
[151:27] Look, I'm cutting up asparagus so I can
[151:28] put it into my omelet, but in next
[151:30] morning when it's ready to go and you
[151:31] actually have a healthy breakfast over
[151:33] something far less healthy,
[151:36] the difference in your life and the
[151:37] difference in your energy and your
[151:38] thought process and all these things
[151:39] continue to build.
[151:41] I try to get people or advocate sweat or
[151:45] get as close to sweat as you can once a
[151:46] day. For some people that's just getting
[151:48] off the couch and walking around. And I
[151:50] get it. I have limited time just like
[151:51] everybody else does.
[151:53] If I push my physical exertion until
[151:55] later in the day, I'm far more likely to
[151:57] push it off until the next day. So I try
[151:59] to bring it a little bit earlier into my
[152:00] day. The jiu-jitsu training for me
[152:02] usually occurs around midday, so that's
[152:03] a nice setup and that's based off a
[152:05] class schedule, not my own creation.
[152:07] >> Are you working out early days well?
[152:10] >> Uh I will either do jiu-jitsu or work
[152:12] out. I generally don't do both. Um as
[152:15] I'm getting older as well, I see the
[152:17] utility in both and the lack of utility
[152:20] in doing both a very hard in the same
[152:21] day because man, you can auger yourself
[152:24] in with a little bit too much. So I'll
[152:25] do one or the other. But also sweat
[152:28] could be and again, this I mean they can
[152:29] get
[152:30] as far out there as you want. It could
[152:31] be sitting in the sauna for 30 minutes.
[152:33] If that's all you got and you don't
[152:34] have, you know what I mean? Figure it
[152:35] out.
[152:36] >> Which in your case is an ice bath.
[152:38] >> [laughter]
[152:39] >> Well, I mean
[152:40] >> I'm just teasing cuz the 80, yeah.
[152:42] >> Set the sauna to 105, which is the
[152:44] perfect temperature for a sauna. Easy. I
[152:46] mean, you could put one in the other.
[152:48] You could
[152:49] ice bath and sauna. How much research
[152:50] has been done on that, Andrew? Not
[152:52] enough, you know?
[152:54] We could create the world's first ice
[152:55] bath sauna.
[152:57] >> I don't think it's going to sell.
[152:58] >> it the stump.
[152:59] >> It's not going to sell. [laughter]
[153:00] >> It's not going to sell.
[153:01] >> Yeah, it would just be at 90° for both
[153:02] of them, which I think actually would be
[153:04] perfect and delightful.
[153:05] Everybody knows
[153:08] the harder choice
[153:10] versus the easier choice.
[153:12] Everybody
[153:14] to include myself
[153:16] will look externally and say, "What do I
[153:18] need to do?"
[153:20] I know what I need to do and so do they.
[153:22] They need to do the thing
[153:25] then even if it's microscopic that they
[153:27] want to do less more often than they do
[153:29] the thing that they want to do more.
[153:30] It's the And I know that's broad, and I
[153:32] know people want more of a prescription
[153:33] than that.
[153:34] But that over time
[153:37] is the juice. What I like about it so
[153:39] much is that it it
[153:41] transcends circumstances, and it
[153:43] transcends the kind of moment-to-moment.
[153:45] So, there's always an opportunity to do
[153:47] something slightly harder. And then you
[153:49] find yourself in that friction point,
[153:50] that laziness point of like, "I'll do
[153:52] this later." Or, you know, like leave
[153:53] that dish in the sink and you know times
[153:55] you realize, "Oh, [ __ ] I got to go."
[153:57] And you got a coffee cup in your hand,
[153:59] finish it off, and the sink's right
[154:00] there and so is the dishwasher.
[154:02] This is a perfect example. Easy one, put
[154:04] it in the sink, which you have to deal
[154:05] with later. Crack the dishwasher open,
[154:07] put the thing in there, close it up, and
[154:08] be on your way. That is an example to me
[154:12] of a small victory. That's making the
[154:13] slightly harder choice. Is that in and
[154:15] of itself going to change your life? No.
[154:17] But what if you make that choice 100
[154:19] times in your day? You're telling me
[154:21] it's going to look the same as it did
[154:23] yesterday? No way in hell. No way in
[154:26] hell.
[154:27] Pair that out over a week, over a month,
[154:29] over a year. Your life's not going to
[154:30] look the same.
[154:32] Yeah, I think the the social pressure to
[154:35] not do that stuff is the new
[154:38] counteracting pressure and the draw to
[154:40] to the phone and all these things. But
[154:42] look, it's just all more opportunities
[154:44] to grow your interior mid-cingulate
[154:45] cortex size. Without somebody sticking,
[154:47] I'm assuming a thing in your head. That
[154:49] doesn't Yeah. The funny thing about
[154:51] neurosurgeons is they'll tell you,
[154:52] "Well, listen, after we make the little
[154:54] hole in your skull." They literally say
[154:55] this. One of my best friends from
[154:56] childhood is the chair of neurosurgery
[154:57] at UCSF, and he'll tell you, "Look, you
[154:59] know, yeah, we make the hole, like we do
[155:01] the thing, but then we put a titanium
[155:02] plate in there afterwards, and that's
[155:04] actually better than a skull cuz it can
[155:06] protect your brain even better." Maybe
[155:08] on that one little tiny area. actually,
[155:10] if you look this up, there are people
[155:11] who have, you know, these big pieces of
[155:13] titanium plate. Anyway, fortunately,
[155:15] the wingsuiting thing, you close shop
[155:17] with that early enough that you don't
[155:18] need those things, which brings me to
[155:20] have the the uh
[155:22] final question, although there might be
[155:23] one more. What are you super excited
[155:25] about these days?
[155:26] >> So, of all the things I do now
[155:29] and for people who are unfamiliar with
[155:30] me, I own a coffee shop. Um
[155:33] >> Black Rifle.
[155:34] >> Black I own a Black Rifle coffee shop in
[155:35] Kalispell Montana.
[155:37] Uh I'm very good friends with the
[155:38] founder. He allowed me to open up the
[155:39] first one in Montana.
[155:41] Uh host a podcast. I travel the world
[155:44] with my wife. She's coaching. I do not
[155:46] coach jiu-jitsu. I participate in
[155:48] jiu-jitsu. Please don't ask me for
[155:49] jiu-jitsu advice cuz I'm going to tell
[155:50] you I'm not a coach. Go talk to someone
[155:52] who does this professionally.
[155:53] >> You roll with her?
[155:54] >> Yes.
[155:55] If you can beat your spouse, don't.
[155:57] That's going to save people a lot of
[155:59] pain and suffering right there. It's not
[156:01] worth it.
[156:02] I have beat my wife one time.
[156:04] And for clarity, before somebody clips
[156:06] this, I am talking in the context of a
[156:09] jiu-jitsu
[156:10] >> [laughter]
[156:11] >> As that was coming out, I'm like, oh,
[156:13] no.
[156:15] in a jiu-jitsu consensual jiu-jitsu
[156:18] exchange, I have submitted my wife one
[156:21] time.
[156:23] And
[156:25] the visual of our eye contact,
[156:28] I should have realized before finishing
[156:31] the submission what the potential
[156:33] long-term consequences would be.
[156:35] I did not and uh let me be the test
[156:38] subject for anybody else out there who
[156:40] trains with their significant other.
[156:41] Just drill.
[156:43] Just drill. Let them assume a dominant
[156:45] position and if they beat you,
[156:47] great.
[156:49] Take my advice for that. So, jiu-jitsu,
[156:51] coffee, podcast, I guess I can say I'm
[156:54] an author now. I have no plans for a
[156:55] second book. I had no plans for a first
[156:57] book, but here we are.
[156:59] All of those things,
[157:01] if you had given me an unlimited amount
[157:03] of time for a month when I was getting
[157:06] out of the SEAL Teams and had said,
[157:09] here's
[157:11] bunch of legal paperwork
[157:12] like legal notebooks and a pen as many
[157:14] as you want. Write down anything that
[157:16] you think you could possibly be doing
[157:18] when you get out.
[157:19] Not a single thing that I am doing right
[157:21] now would have been on that list.
[157:22] Couldn't even have fathomed it. I worked
[157:25] for a strength and conditioning company
[157:26] for a while. In doing that, I started
[157:28] being the pilot for the owner of that
[157:30] company, which led me to doing part 135
[157:32] charter operations flying jets.
[157:35] Which I did that for a little bit. Well,
[157:37] and then I was a professional skydiver
[157:38] and base jumper for years. I got into
[157:40] the public speaking world. Uh moved to
[157:42] Montana. Then got into the coffee shop
[157:45] stuff. And I lost complete and utter
[157:48] sense of what the hell I wanted to do
[157:49] with my life somewhere in that mix.
[157:53] And what I am actually the most excited
[157:55] about now is that I have absolutely no
[157:57] idea
[157:58] what I want to do next.
[158:01] And I am old enough
[158:03] to realize
[158:05] that I don't have to like white-knuckle
[158:07] it. That it's going to present itself.
[158:10] Because that has what been the case in
[158:13] my life up to this point. So,
[158:16] you know, money's a great thing. I only
[158:18] want to make enough money so I can say
[158:19] no to things. That's my favorite most
[158:21] powerful word. Yes, the addition and
[158:23] subtraction, it is the older I get
[158:25] subtraction is way more powerful. Are
[158:27] you good at saying no?
[158:28] No.
[158:29] >> [laughter]
[158:31] >> It can be hard. It depends. Because if
[158:33] [clears throat] the question comes from
[158:34] a pure business aspect, my litmus test
[158:37] is do I naturally do this in my life and
[158:39] would I actually enjoy this regardless
[158:41] of the check? If either of those is a
[158:43] no, it's an easy no.
[158:45] Tougher ones are
[158:46] uh friends, family. Hey, do you want to
[158:48] do this? That would get a little bit
[158:49] tougher cuz it's a little bit of a mix
[158:51] of personal and professional.
[158:52] But I am at a place where I know that I
[158:56] have the tools
[158:58] that I will be able to sort whatever
[158:59] comes my way.
[159:01] And by relaxing a little bit and
[159:03] white-knuckling it less and not having a
[159:06] specific target that I'm throwing darts
[159:08] at, it has actually provided more
[159:10] opportunities for me
[159:11] than anything else.
[159:13] So,
[159:16] yeah I
[159:17] I wish I could give you a specific
[159:19] answer, but truly the realization that I
[159:22] know I'm prepared for whatever comes
[159:24] next is actually what I'm the most
[159:26] excited about.
[159:27] >> Very cool. I I can sense your excitement
[159:30] about the uncertainty about exactly what
[159:33] it will be,
[159:34] but the certainty that you've got a
[159:36] process that's now well worked out
[159:37] within you that just emerges and that's
[159:39] going to happen.
[159:40] >> You know, when I first got out of the
[159:41] military, it was almost crisis mode. I
[159:43] was working for the strength and
[159:44] conditioning company as my initial
[159:46] bridge out and I've been doing so on the
[159:48] weekends moonlighting. So, I had from a
[159:49] economic off-ramp, I went from making
[159:53] what I was making in the military to
[159:54] what I was making for that company.
[159:55] There was a slight increase as opposed
[159:56] to a decrease, which is great.
[159:59] Until that ended 16 months later when I
[160:02] quit without having uh another job lined
[160:04] up whatsoever and then went into the
[160:05] garage and started selling things on
[160:07] Craigslist, which is a really good way
[160:09] to meet really weird people. If you
[160:10] haven't tried it, give it a give it a
[160:12] go.
[160:13] Um maybe meet them away from your house
[160:15] or you know, [laughter] meet them down
[160:16] the street somewhere.
[160:18] But, it was for years
[160:21] am I going to have enough money to pay
[160:22] the bills? Am I going to have enough
[160:23] money for the mortgage? What am I going
[160:25] to do?
[160:26] What am I going to do if somebody
[160:27] doesn't reach out with an opportunity?
[160:30] Built a a uh
[160:32] I would say more I mean, I was going to
[160:33] say a tool
[160:34] a tool kit or a skill set, but it's more
[160:36] of a mentality than anything
[160:38] to realize that you can solve what does
[160:39] come out and you can kind of build on
[160:41] your you know, your foundation of the
[160:42] work that you have done and that can
[160:44] slowly build out over time. It takes
[160:45] time. This is not something that
[160:47] happened in a matter of 1 year. This is
[160:48] well well over a decade at this point,
[160:51] but getting out of that survival mode
[160:54] and just having the ability to assess
[160:57] opportunities from a place of do I even
[161:00] want to do this as opposed to a place of
[161:02] I feel like I have to.
[161:04] Man, you want to talk about a sleep
[161:06] score difference?
[161:07] >> Totally [laughter]
[161:09] can can relate.
[161:10] Can relate. Oh, it's it's a world apart.
[161:13] >> Yeah.
[161:14] >> And you've earned it.
[161:15] >> But it takes time and that's what people
[161:17] don't want to see. It's the overnight
[161:18] 10-year success.
[161:20] Which
[161:21] >> Again, I'm sure you could point to
[161:23] somebody who has that.
[161:25] Does that scale broadly?
[161:27] >> Yeah. And it doesn't last. I don't know
[161:29] anyone that came up quick and it just
[161:30] had like a step function where it's
[161:31] still going. It's
[161:33] >> Yeah.
[161:33] >> Or continued on the the vertical
[161:34] forever.
[161:35] >> Yeah. Yeah.
[161:35] >> Yeah.
[161:36] >> And again, it's an outlier. Cool,
[161:37] totally get it and two thumbs up for
[161:39] that person.
[161:40] But for everybody who thinks they're
[161:41] going to replicate that, even by doing
[161:43] exactly the same things,
[161:46] hasn't been my experience.
[161:47] >> Last question. You talk about the price
[161:50] of success.
[161:51] >> Mhm.
[161:52] >> And just acknowledging it.
[161:54] Wouldn't want to scare anyone out of
[161:56] going after their dreams.
[161:58] >> I would. That's what I'm here for.
[162:00] >> [laughter]
[162:01] >> Either short-term or long-term dreams
[162:02] cuz I'm like a, you know, I pick the
[162:04] target and go after it. And you know,
[162:06] you know,
[162:07] I think five-year
[162:09] five-year increments are really good.
[162:10] That's
[162:11] Anyway, that's just my bias, but there's
[162:14] a price.
[162:15] >> Mhm.
[162:15] >> Yeah. I could list off the number of
[162:16] things I missed or didn't do or failed
[162:18] or whatever. You certainly talk about
[162:20] some of those and and they can go from,
[162:23] you know, the many small things that one
[162:25] can miss out on that it, you know, in
[162:27] total or turn out to be bigger things.
[162:30] And then there like key moments that,
[162:32] you know, people miss and maybe let's
[162:34] just get your thoughts on
[162:36] gauging the price of success. Should
[162:38] people have a sense of what their line
[162:40] is before they, you know, jump into the
[162:44] you know, the line of pursuit for their
[162:46] goal or do you think it's just something
[162:47] that, you know, you just got to learn by
[162:49] experience?
[162:50] >> I think until you learn through at least
[162:52] a little bit of experience, it's hard to
[162:54] gauge where your line is. Because for a
[162:56] while,
[162:57] you just don't know what you don't know.
[163:00] And maybe we live in a in a world where
[163:02] information is more accessible and so
[163:04] people can figure it out. Like my middle
[163:06] son as an example, it's fascinating
[163:08] watching my kids
[163:09] use the internet to bridge gaps in
[163:11] knowledge.
[163:12] Going on to you My middle son
[163:13] specifically started two businesses when
[163:15] he was
[163:16] in high school.
[163:17] Uh he started a window cleaning company
[163:19] called Peeping Tom's Windows.
[163:22] >> [laughter]
[163:22] >> Which By the way, I came up with both of
[163:24] these names. That was on the only
[163:25] marketing help I had. And he had a
[163:28] Christmas light company that was called
[163:29] Epstein's Lights cuz they're not going
[163:31] to hang themselves.
[163:32] Right? Again, I I came up with the
[163:34] names. He had to go door to door.
[163:36] But everything to include LLCs,
[163:39] equipment, it's YouTube. How do you
[163:42] How do you start an LLC? How do you
[163:45] get a business license? How do you get
[163:47] insurance for a window cleaning company?
[163:50] So
[163:52] I think when you and I were growing up,
[163:53] you were kind of out there smacking your
[163:55] head against the wall a little bit
[163:56] unless you could find somebody who was
[163:57] exactly in that profession.
[164:00] So when I was in high school wanting to
[164:01] be a team guy, I didn't know any team
[164:03] guys.
[164:04] I mean, I knew Charlie Sheen, but
[164:06] who didn't, right? Documentary movie who
[164:08] probably inspired thousands of people to
[164:11] join the military and then they get
[164:12] there and like, oh,
[164:13] this is all made up. Damn it. Except for
[164:16] the opening scene where he shit-faced
[164:17] wakes up in the ocean, relatively
[164:19] accurate.
[164:19] >> [laughter]
[164:20] >> Beyond that though, don't take that
[164:21] movie seriously. You're not jumping off
[164:22] your Jeep over the bridge and you know,
[164:24] Chesapeake to get to work.
[164:26] I didn't actually run into a SEAL to get
[164:30] beta from until I was in the military.
[164:33] So I didn't even have access to that.
[164:35] There are I mean, I saw this when I was
[164:37] an instructor, there are websites that
[164:38] list every single day of training with
[164:41] relative accuracy to everything you're
[164:43] going to do that day.
[164:44] Which actually the instructors were
[164:47] pissed about and then I realized, oh,
[164:49] that's a good thing. That plays to our
[164:50] favor.
[164:51] >> Mhm.
[164:51] >> If you an instructor
[164:53] >> I was an instructor.
[164:54] You can then remind them how much time
[164:57] they have left. You can play the time
[164:58] game in reverse with them.
[165:01] But again, growing up, I
[165:03] I didn't have a real good place to get
[165:06] this information where my kids do now.
[165:08] So, I think there's an opportunity if
[165:10] you smartly use these tools
[165:13] that you can maybe learn a little bit
[165:14] more and at least get access to
[165:17] some of the mistakes or just the the
[165:19] mistakes that you would naturally make
[165:20] because you just didn't know. Like you
[165:21] probably can do a window cleaning
[165:22] business, but you might get in trouble
[165:24] from the city because of you're into it,
[165:25] you didn't realize you needed to have a
[165:26] business license. Like, okay, you can
[165:28] skip that because you could go to the
[165:29] internet and find out what you need
[165:31] and the requirements and all that stuff.
[165:35] I
[165:36] much like you, I don't ever want to tell
[165:39] people that they shouldn't pursue their
[165:41] goals, both short-term and long-term.
[165:44] But I am now of the opinion as I get
[165:48] older
[165:49] that I would rather have people arrive a
[165:52] little bit under this massive lifetime
[165:55] goal
[165:57] and be a really happy
[165:59] really fulfilled, really enriched person
[166:02] than somebody who carves out everything
[166:04] from their life
[166:06] life experiences, social experiences,
[166:09] family experiences, holidays, and they
[166:12] get exactly what it is that they wanted
[166:15] and they have nothing. Cuz I think both
[166:17] you and I know people who from the
[166:20] outside, oh my god,
[166:22] the money,
[166:23] the fame, the fill in the blank. They're
[166:26] not that happy, but they have everything
[166:28] that they wanted and they have nothing.
[166:32] That sounds like hell.
[166:34] I'd rather have people fall a little bit
[166:35] short of that and be really happy about
[166:37] where they are.
[166:38] But
[166:40] it's tough. I mean, how can you be
[166:41] prescriptive with that? How do you say,
[166:43] "Aim for your goal, Andrew, but just a
[166:45] little bit short." Yeah. That's a shitty
[166:47] fortune cookie.
[166:48] >> You know?
[166:50] >> Try hard. Believe some for yourself.
[166:54] >> It is a tough one. And um if people at
[166:58] sort of top 1% of their careers were
[167:00] willing to open the veil on their lives
[167:03] and show what, you know, Christmas Day
[167:05] looks like for them or what, you know,
[167:06] New Year's Day looks like for them or a
[167:08] typical, you know, Friday evening looks
[167:11] like for them,
[167:12] >> Yeah.
[167:12] >> you know, a lot of people would probably
[167:14] rethink their goals.
[167:15] >> I think it would shock a lot of people.
[167:18] And again, I don't consider my
[167:21] the people we're talking about, I mean,
[167:22] these are publicly facing people. You
[167:24] could look at them and think
[167:26] that it's perfection. And we have a
[167:29] little bit of social circle overlap and
[167:30] I've rubbed elbows with a couple of
[167:32] these people
[167:33] and kind of leave with the perception
[167:35] of man
[167:37] you have everything, but at what cost?
[167:40] I just don't think it's worth it.
[167:42] >> Yeah, I don't think it's worth it,
[167:43] either. And it sort of brings us
[167:45] >> to elements of our prior conversation
[167:47] about when things really, you know, drop
[167:48] into the trench for certain people who
[167:50] are, you know, at least from the outside
[167:52] doing incredible in their professions or
[167:54] their craft.
[167:55] >> I think there is a a place to find
[167:57] balance on the whole. Maybe it's like
[168:00] first 50 years, you just, you know, I'm
[168:02] talking to myself, right? Uh you just
[168:04] grind it out and then you go, "Okay,
[168:05] cool." Like the, you know, someone said
[168:07] it, I didn't say this. I think it was
[168:08] Naval that said this. Like you, you
[168:10] know, one of the reasons to win the game
[168:11] is so you can stop playing the game. So
[168:13] you have to sort of define what winning
[168:15] the game is and and that's different for
[168:17] different things. But that portion of
[168:19] your book really got me thinking. You
[168:21] know,
[168:22] >> is an interesting aspect.
[168:24] More seems to be the number of people
[168:26] are after more than a number.
[168:29] And I don't know what that looks like
[168:30] because what if your number is never
[168:32] enough and you're constantly seeking and
[168:34] you never get to enjoy what you have via
[168:36] an experience as opposed to a thing that
[168:38] you're not going to get to take with
[168:39] you anyway?
[168:41] Doesn't more end up netting you less?
[168:44] Yeah, Morgan Housel has a He has a
[168:46] couple of really good books. Um I
[168:48] actually like the second one more. Uh
[168:50] they're both excellent, but uh the
[168:51] second one is called The Art of Spending
[168:53] Money, which sounds like, you know,
[168:54] here's a rich guy telling people how to
[168:56] spend their money. Very interesting
[168:57] book. Uh mostly psychological but how to
[169:00] really um assess what's what things are
[169:02] worth to you both in terms of what it
[169:04] takes to get the resources and then when
[169:06] to use them. And I mean, I will say, you
[169:09] know, all the There's a lot of data
[169:11] saying that, you know, you know, past it
[169:12] used to be like $70,000 a year. Now, I
[169:14] think it's scaled up with inflation, you
[169:15] know, past a certain amount of money
[169:17] people aren't happier. I disagree. I
[169:19] actually think that money cannot buy
[169:21] happiness, but it certainly can buffer
[169:23] certain kinds of stress.
[169:25] >> I agree.
[169:26] >> Not all forms, right? I know some very
[169:28] wealthy people that used to fund my lab
[169:29] for studies on optic nerve repair who
[169:31] had kids with diseases that were
[169:33] blinding disease. I'll tell you, you can
[169:34] have a billions of dollars in the bank
[169:38] and
[169:40] they're putting money to try and heal
[169:41] that pain and solve the problem.
[169:44] Fortunately for their kid and many
[169:46] others, that's the Fortunately part is
[169:48] that they're willing to do that.
[169:49] >> Yeah.
[169:50] >> But money can solve certain problems,
[169:52] not others, but it can buffer stress,
[169:55] certain forms of stress. And I think
[169:57] that's not that that's just the honest
[169:59] truth.
[170:00] >> Yeah.
[170:00] >> It can't buy connection of a real kind,
[170:02] and it can undermine.
[170:04] >> I was going to say at a certain level of
[170:05] money,
[170:06] I've seen it undermine the connection
[170:08] because the person becomes wary of why
[170:09] does this person want to have a
[170:10] connection with me in the first place.
[170:12] And they're they didn't come that way.
[170:14] They got taken advantage of enough times
[170:17] that they developed that thought
[170:18] process.
[170:19] >> You know, it's a whole other
[170:20] conversation, but money's a certain form
[170:21] of energy, and when people have a lot of
[170:23] it,
[170:24] it it tends to attract people who want
[170:26] to I don't want to say steal, but they
[170:27] they feel like some they're entitled to
[170:29] some of that energy. At the end of the
[170:31] day, I I think if everyone could define
[170:34] what enough for themselves is, maybe
[170:36] with that includes a buffer. Like cuz
[170:37] they grew up with a lot of financial
[170:39] fear or something, they need enough plus
[170:41] a little bit more just in case kind of
[170:43] thing. I know people like that. Past
[170:45] that, I I don't think there's anything
[170:47] more to be gained in terms of well-being
[170:49] or life experiences.
[170:50] >> I do agree with the stress. I mean, if
[170:51] you can get to a place where you could
[170:53] outsource food or
[170:56] menial tasks that will give you more
[170:57] time to do the things that you are
[170:59] enriched by, yes, it 100% can help with
[171:02] that.
[171:03] But, you know, the example you said, you
[171:04] know, a billionaire
[171:06] who probably feels helpless.
[171:09] What?
[171:10] You know? Like, those two things
[171:12] shouldn't go together in a sentence, but
[171:13] that's the reality. No amount of money
[171:15] is going to make that person not feel
[171:16] helpless, especially when they're
[171:17] touched by that particular situation in
[171:19] their life.
[171:21] May not be the end-all, be-all that
[171:22] people think it is.
[171:23] >> Well, Andy,
[171:25] loved the book. I know I've said that
[171:27] many times, so I don't want to diminish
[171:29] from that statement by saying it too
[171:30] many times, but it's an awesome book.
[171:32] Thank you. Really has changed my life
[171:34] for the better. I've been recommending
[171:35] it like crazy. I was in New York last
[171:36] week giving a talk to uh this group
[171:38] raising money for uh a different
[171:40] laboratory and um they said, you know,
[171:42] what's what's the difference between
[171:44] people who are like 11th to 100th in
[171:46] their profession versus the top 10? And
[171:49] I said, well, so much of it is about how
[171:50] they allocate their energy, and I found
[171:52] this tool recently in, you know, Andy's
[171:54] book and, you know,
[171:56] I've been talking about the book like
[171:57] crazy because of the practical value
[171:59] that it has and also the potency of the
[172:02] of the true life examples that you give
[172:04] that really extend to everybody. I know
[172:06] we talked a lot about teams and guys and
[172:08] stuff and everything in there really is
[172:11] a benefit, I say this with certainty, to
[172:14] men, women, boys, girls, young and old.
[172:16] So much value there. You're you're
[172:18] clearly uh get-after-it kind of person.
[172:20] You're also clearly very reflective. And
[172:23] whatever friction it took to write
[172:25] portions or or that book and get it out
[172:27] there, I'm just very grateful that you
[172:28] did. It's it's a real asset. And um I'm
[172:31] also very grateful you came here today
[172:32] to to share
[172:34] >> We finally linked up.
[172:34] >> And we finally linked up. I have to say
[172:36] Montana is my favorite state in the
[172:38] entire country and maybe my favorite
[172:40] place in the entire world. Many years
[172:42] ago I dreamed of living there and I love
[172:44] hiking in Glacier and yes, they do have
[172:46] real bears there, not like in Yosemite
[172:47] where they have bears but not the kind
[172:49] of bears that will hunt you. So wear
[172:51] your bear bell, story for another time.
[172:53] And
[172:53] >> got somebody not too long ago. Yeah, in
[172:55] Glacier.
[172:56] >> Yeah, wear your bear bell.
[172:58] Hang [laughter] your food, wear your
[172:59] bear bell. But uh,
[173:01] listen man, you're doing amazing work
[173:03] and we'll put links to all the things
[173:05] mentioned but thanks so much. Let's do
[173:07] it again.
[173:07] >> Thank you. I appreciate it.
[173:09] >> Thank you for joining me for today's
[173:10] discussion with Andy Stumpf. To find
[173:13] links to his book Drownproof, which
[173:15] again I highly recommend everybody read
[173:17] or listen to, as well as to find links
[173:19] to his work and to his podcast, please
[173:21] see the links in the show note caption.
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