---
title: 'The Mental Frame & Specific Daily Actions to Succeed | Andy Stumpf'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=baecUt1GaPk'
video_id: 'baecUt1GaPk'
date: 2026-07-01
duration_sec: 10511
---

# The Mental Frame & Specific Daily Actions to Succeed | Andy Stumpf

> Source: [The Mental Frame & Specific Daily Actions to Succeed | Andy Stumpf](https://youtube.com/watch?v=baecUt1GaPk)

## Summary

In this episode of the Huberman Lab Podcast, Andrew Huberman interviews retired Navy SEAL and former Red Bull wingsuiter Andy Stumpf. They discuss practical tools for mental clarity and discipline, including Stumpf's 'circle of influence vs. concern' exercise, the addictive nature of social media, and the power of making slightly harder choices daily. The conversation also covers high-risk activities like wingsuit BASE jumping, personal struggles with divorce and suicide, and the importance of small, consistent actions.

### Key Points

- **Small choices matter most** [0:04] — Andy Stumpf emphasizes that the small, unseen choices to do the slightly harder thing accumulate to make the biggest difference in life.
- **Circle of influence vs. concern exercise** [4:58] — A simple paper exercise: draw a line down the middle, list concerns on left and influences on right. Most things are concerns; only yourself is truly in your influence. This helps refocus energy on what you can control.
- **Social media as a perfect addiction** [11:58] — Huberman theorizes that social media is a 'low-resolution' addiction—you're aware you're wasting time but still can't stop, unlike other addictions where you lose awareness.
- **Mental reset through high-risk activity** [48:00] — Stumpf explains that wingsuit BASE jumping provided a profound mental reset—his entire circle of concern vanished, leaving only focus on the next few seconds. This clarity lasted for months afterward.
- **Divorce as the hardest challenge** [63:14] — Stumpf reveals that his contentious divorce was far harder than any SEAL training. It forced him to use every tool he writes about, including breaking time into small chunks and controlling self-talk.
- **Toilet paper lesson: do it right the first time** [91:41] — Stumpf uses a humorous example of his kids leaving empty toilet paper rolls to illustrate that 'it always takes longer to do it wrong.' Small shortcuts add up to wasted time and frustration.
- **Anterior mid-cingulate cortex and discipline** [103:47] — Huberman explains that the anterior mid-cingulate cortex grows when you do things you don't want to do. This brain region is linked to tenacity and successful aging.
- **Suicide and the gap between self-perception and reality** [127:05] — Stumpf shares the story of his friend Dave, a highly respected SEAL who took his own life. Dave's internal self-image was far worse than how others saw him, highlighting the danger of isolation and unaddressed trauma.

### Conclusion

The episode underscores that true success and mental resilience come from consistently choosing the slightly harder path, focusing on what you can control, and being honest about personal struggles. Stumpf's tools and stories offer practical, actionable wisdom for anyone seeking to improve their life.

## Transcript

Pick the choice as often as possible
that is slightly more difficult. To me,
it's the small stuff that nobody sees
that makes the biggest difference in the
world. Everybody knows the harder choice
versus the easier choice.
Everybody,
to include myself,
will look externally and say, "What do I
need to do?"
I know what I need to do, and so do
they. They need to do the thing
that even if it's microscopic, that they
want to do less more often than they do
the thing that they want to do more.
Over time
is the juice.
>> Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
where we discuss science [music]
and science-based tools for everyday
life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor
of neurobiology and ophthalmology at
Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
today is Andy Stumpf, a retired Navy
SEAL and subsequently a member of the
Red Bull High-Performance Team, where he
was a wingsuiter, where they literally
get into what some people call squirrel
suits and fly. He set two world records
wingsuiting, but today's discussion is
not really prompted by his career in the
military, nor his wingsuiting, although
it does impact the discussion. Today's
discussion was prompted by my reading of
Andy's recent book called Drownproof.
Now, there are a lot of books out there
by former Navy SEALs, but upon reading
it, I realized that this was a special
book, and that Andy's experience and the
lessons he shares, and most importantly
the tools he shares, are both unique and
indeed important for everyone to hear.
For instance, he describes a tool in
there that I now use every single week,
which has allowed me and many other
people, and I'm certain you, to separate
out issues of concern versus issues of
impact, meaning to allow you to actually
be able to impact, perhaps not control,
but certainly have an impact on certain
things while ignoring the issues in life
that distract you, that pull you into
drama, and that can numb you out, and
that essentially waste your life. Today,
you'll learn what that exercise is and
how to implement it in your life. You'll
also learn a lot of other simple tools
about how to take the slightly harder
road in certain moments versus the
easier road. You'll also learn from Andy
about the most difficult things that he
encountered in life and how he navigated
them. And no, those weren't in the
military nor wing suiting. It actually
comes from his personal life, which he
shares very candidly.
And finally, we have a very serious and
in many ways somewhat emotional
discussion about suicide and mental
health more generally. I do hope that
that discussion will benefit all of you.
I'm certainly we are certainly, I should
say, very open to your input. That
discussion, of course, raises more
questions than it provides answers, but
I think we can all agree that this is an
extremely important and timely topic.
The frequency of suicide is increasing
significantly in all communities. So,
for reasons related to the range and the
nature of the specific topics that we
discussed today, you're in for a very
special episode. Thank you, Andy Stumpf.
Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize
podcast is separate from my teaching and
research roles at Stanford. It is,
however, part of my desire and effort to
bring zero cost to consumer information
about science and science-related tools
to the general public. In keeping with
that theme, today's episode does include
sponsors. All right, my book is finally
ready for release.
Protocols, an operating manual for the
human body, is coming out in 3 months.
It's my first book and I've been working
on it for many years now and it's really
a reflection of decades of research and
experience that came even prior to
starting the book. My goal for this book
is that it serves as an easy-to-use
manual for dealing with any number of
different pain points or performance
goals that you might have in terms of
mental health, physical health, and
performance. It covers the science and
most effective protocols for sleep,
nutrition, exercise, focus learning and
neuroplasticity, stress management, and
much more. I'm super excited to share it
with all of you. The launch date is
September 15th. You can learn more about
it or pre-order by going to
protocolsbook.com.
It's also available on amazon.com and
I'm super excited that protocols is
finally ready for release. And as
always, thank you for your interest in
science. And now for my discussion with
Andy Stumpf. Andy Stumpf, welcome.
>> Thank you for having me.
>> I read your book, "Drownproof",
recently.
>> me nervous, by the way. Telling you that
before we started. I've read it.
>> [laughter]
>> A lot of books including a lot of the
quote-unquote seal books. It's awesome.
I'll mention a few of the reasons why
it's awesome, but I'll let people read
it for themselves, but just to really
get right to it, one of the practices
that you describe in the book is
something that I decided to do right
away and I've been doing every week
since I listened to it. Now granted, I
just listened to the book a few weeks
ago, so that means twice, but I found it
to be tremendously useful not just
during the exercise, but in the days
that follow and it's really
remapped a lot of what I would call my
unhealthy tendencies and given me much
more sense of agency and my days are are
just going so much better. In fact, I
was on time today for the first time in
my life.
>> Influence versus concern?
>> Yes. So, could you describe this simple
exercise because I'll tell you having
having done it, it is immensely
powerful. I only wish I had learned
about it like in junior high school.
>> Story of my life.
>> Yeah. So, first off, not my creation.
This is something I don't remember and I
think I said this multiple times in the
book because I want to be very clear
that of basically taking ownership over
nothing in that book because they're not
my unique ideas. They were things that
were taught to me
that I'm trying to pass forward. So, I
don't remember exactly where I first saw
this, but the way it was first
positioned to me was your circle or
sphere of
influence, which is very small, and your
sphere of concern, which for most people
to include myself is very large. So, if
it was the size of this table, that
would be your concern,
the influence would be the size of a pin
drop on the table. And the exercise is
actually really simple. Take a standard
piece of paper, draw a line down the
middle,
concern on one side, influence on the
other, and you just take the time to
write down the things that are occupying
your waking hours. So, I don't know if
you're anything like me,
I try not to set an alarm unless I have
something really pressing that day, but
if I do wake up and my brain does
revolution, I have to get out of bed
because otherwise I'm staring at the
ceiling in the bedroom.
And
if I have really sticky things in the
morning, I'll I'll usually do this about
once a month or once every 6 months now,
but almost every time that thought will
be on the left-hand side of the column.
It's just a concern. But why is it
preventing me from going back to sleep?
Why can't I let go of it? And it's
social media, the world that we all live
in. It's things you can't control. It's
just all the stuff that you spend your
energy and effort focusing on. And then
you go to the other side of that paper,
and I'm still yet to find more than one
thing that you can write down,
and that's the direct influence that you
have. And all you really can write on
that is yourself. Now, you can you can
trunch that out and say your thought
process, the way you speak to yourself,
the way you plan your day, the way you
manage your time,
but all that goes back into things you
can actually directly control,
which leads you
to the realization or leads me to the
realization that I have no control over
what happens to me in my life, but I
have absolute and complete and total
control over how I respond to it. And I
think that speaks to the agency piece.
And it helps me, especially when I have
those sticky thoughts,
it helps me at least take a step back.
I'm not going to say I'm perfect and I
can put down a lot of the things that
I'm concerned with, but it will identify
for me a healthy or an unhealthy
attachment to those things, and it does
help me cross back over to
okay, I understand that this is
scary or concerning, but being scared or
concerned about it doesn't impact
outcome. Everything on the right-hand
side of the paper does. So, that's what
it does for me.
Man, you want to talk about developing
some more efficiencies? It's a great
tool.
It's startling how much is going to be
on the left and how little is going to
be on the right.
>> Yeah, it's been a game-changer for me
because and maybe I misinterpreted the
exercise a little bit because on the
right-hand side of the
page, I've been listing out the things
that I can control and the things that I
can do with my time.
>> Listen, it goes back to you controlling
the management of your time. That's
totally fine. And with all these tools,
I don't think there is a wrong answer.
If it has the impact that you're looking
for, again, you could titrate all that
back up to you controlling yourself and
what you do with your time. I think it's
perfect.
>> Yeah, again, just an awesome exercise. I
really encourage everyone to do it. For
me, once a week has been very helpful.
And it just pops to mind anytime I'm
thinking like I saw something in the
news yesterday and and you start going
down these rabbit holes and you're like,
"Wait, what am I doing?"
>> Yeah.
>> They're like, "What am I doing?" And and
we can blame the algorithms, we can
blame the world, but ultimately, yeah,
you know, it's you know, once you
realize that you're being manipulated, I
think the obligation is to not follow
that that path.
>> is real. I don't know what it means.
I've listened to people argue about it
ad nauseam, but I have the choice as to
whether or not I interface with the
algorithm. And that's where the power
That's what I think the algorithm is
trying to do is figure out a way to take
that power away from you and put it back
into their hands, but it's optional.
>> You learned this some years ago.
>> Yes.
>> In the teens.
>> Yes.
>> But you still do it now about once a
month.
>> Mhm.
Yeah. [clears throat]
>> it around with you?
>> If you're anything like me, I spend a
lot of time on airplanes. It's a really
good time to occupy yourself with
something that is, for me at least,
productive as opposed to just tuning out
and watching YouTube videos of sovereign
citizens get arrested, which is one of
my favorite pastimes.
I highly recommend people get into it.
>> These are the people that that say you
can't arrest me, I'm a sovereign
citizen.
>> travel.
>> Right to travel.
>> the right, which they do have the right
to travel, but you can't
>> right to drive without a driver's
license in all 50 states.
>> Are they out there testing the law or
are they hoping that they'll get, you
know, flagged and and there'll be a
video so they can promote the sovereign
citizen thing or they or they just
really into being sovereign citizens and
living their lives?
>> I think some of them fall into the first
category and I think some of them
actually just legitimately believe.
>> Okay.
>> And they
There's amazing things on the internet.
You shouldn't believe all of them.
>> Right.
>> [laughter]
>> Maybe even most of them.
>> That's a fair point, actually. The vast
majority of things you should take, I
think, with a large dose of scrutiny on
the internet.
>> We're about the same age. So, late 40s
for you, 50 for me. I was thinking about
this in light of this concern versus
influence exercise, which is, you know,
that they created these like 10 and 20
and 30-year high school reunion things.
I think for the reason that you have the
choice to go back and learn about what
people are doing and
who's
still married, who's still alive, who's
thriving or what whatever. Whatever the
reason is, we have these things called
reunions. But with social media,
there's this opportunity to be
constantly aware of everybody you grew
up with, them of you, people you knew 5
years ago in a job that you no longer
think about. So,
I feel like that left column now has
grown tremendously, regardless of
somebody's age, the opportunity to be
aware of so many more things, not just
distant in other countries and other
other issues entirely, but like our past
lives are very much like anchored to us
now, unless we really
literally draw that line and and sever
from all that stuff. Cuz like, as much
as I wish the best for all my classmates
and all these people in graduate school
and like, it it really a lot of it
should not occupy one's mind.
>> Do you ever wonder whether social media
itself is making it harder to do this
exercise?
>> I think it could be. Do you know who
Chad Wright is?
>> Yes. I know of him and we've
corresponded a little bit.
>> He is
hilarious.
>> You want to we should probably describe
a He does the same type of stuff that
Goggins does. He's an endurance athlete,
long red beard. I call him the Forrest
Gump of the SEAL Teams, to his face, so
I'm comfortable saying it. He's amazing.
I've had him on the show a couple times.
Knew him when we were in the Teams
together.
And he came on the show on my show in
November.
And I don't know how [clears throat] we
started talking about it, but it was
this conversation around screen time.
It's like, all right, bud,
>> [clears throat]
>> let's pull the phones out. Let's see
what we got.
It's not awesome. I think it was 4 and
1/2 hours.
So, we decided that in January of this
year we're going to try to drive our
screen time per day to under an hour for
total phone usage. I think phone calls
we were able to strip out of that.
>> [gasps]
>> I think the closest he got was about 90
minutes. And then the last week of
January for me I got mine down to 30
minutes. Now, for clarity, I was still
doing a lot of the stuff that I was
doing on my phone, but I forced it over
to my laptop, which was a really
interesting experience because it's way
less sticky on that platform. So,
Instagram on your laptop sucks. [snorts]
It It's not intuitive. The things that
you would normally just do with your
thumb, they don't exist, so you end up
closing your laptop up. So, I'd get on
there, post what I wanted to, and then
just leave.
My mental health was better in January
than it had been in a long time.
So, I 100% think that social media is
not only designed to suck up as much as
that left-hand
portion of the your list as possible,
but again, it it's it's it's optional. I
mean,
you create content, you have a massive
platform. I create content, we can
easily tell ourselves we have to exist
on these platforms, which to a degree we
do. The question I ask myself is, is the
platform working for me, or am I working
for it? And that's the healthy
relationship. And I think actually that
goes right back to that exercise. Am I
targeting what I do with my time and
being efficient with it, and then moving
on, or am I just getting stuck into this
thumb scroll of death, which is right
before bed. I've heard you say it's the
best time to have electronic device
light.
Yeah, [laughter] real bright in a dark
room.
>> Right before bed, right?
>> really want to maximize, make sure you
do it first thing in the morning, too,
and don't get outside and look at the
sun. Yeah. But it's so sticky. I'm
telling you when I hopped over to my
laptop, at first I couldn't even figure
out how to post a picture. And it's so
clunky and so not intuitive that you
don't want to play with it.
>> Are you still there now?
>> Oh no, I went right back to using my
thumb.
>> What's Chad doing now with his social
media? Is he still
>> He's probably doubled it.
>> He said the same thing, too, by the way.
Man, this is amazing.
>> We should do this more often.
>> And just right back to being on your
thumb again by probably March.
>> So what's mind-boggling about this is,
and you'll tell me no, we're just
ordinary people who were trained to do
extraordinary things, but you know, SEAL
SEAL selection, you know, pairs down,
you know, for every 100 guys, you know,
maybe 15 get through, maybe 10, you
know, consistently, right? Discipline is
certainly a piece of that. Resilience,
mental toughness, you know, what
whatever language you want to throw at
it. You have that, Chad has that. You
guys were weaned in that, you were
forged in that. Then you do high-risk,
high-consequence work, right? And on
minimal sleep, et cetera, et cetera, and
here are two guys challenging each other
to spend less time on social media,
accomplish it by virtue of competition.
Okay, cool. And then you say revert.
What does that say, not about SEALs,
>> [laughter]
>> what does that say about the platforms?
Cuz I mean, think about the rest of the
world.
>> says everything you need to know about
the platform. The fact that you can like
you just said, you can recognize all of
those things. You can both text each
other back and forth in your limited
phone usage for the day. Man, this is
awesome. And 60 days later you're back
to the same behavior that led you to the
November-December conversation.
That's all you need to know about the
platforms.
>> Okay, I I have to drill into this. This
is not where I thought we would
>> [laughter]
>> we would go first, but but it gets right
to the heart of discipline and
self-control versus influence and time
and and time is everything. When you are
on a social media platform and you're
scrolling away, are you aware of the
time that's drifting away from you?
>> Yes.
>> Are you thinking, "Why am I doing this,
but I feel compelled to do it?"
>> Almost always.
>> oblivious? Is it like being drunk, where
you don't you you're not thinking about
the the the fact that you shouldn't be
doing it until you sober up?
>> I'm aware. I am aware that it's not
healthy, and I will actually sometimes
I don't know if you're like this. I talk
to myself out loud. I Somebody from the
outside would probably think I'm a
psychopath. But uh I would I will say to
myself, "Why why are you doing this?
This doesn't feel good."
And just
for hours.
>> Not for an hour. An hour. 4 to 5
minutes.
>> go that far. I I would I would feel as
if I needed to take a shower if I went
that far. But if I have 15 minutes,
>> Mhm.
>> man, it's it's enticing.
>> Mhm.
>> And I don't know what it is about it. I
mean, I don't feel joyful after doing
it. I try not to compare myself to other
people. Good luck being on the internet
and doing that.
I try not to get caught in the the
negativity aspect of it because I can I
recognize the negativity bias in myself,
where you'll get 99 like, "This is
amazing." and one guy's like, "You kind
of suck." and you're just like, "You
mother
That's [laughter and clears throat] the
only comment you pay attention to.
>> the brain is is uh wired for to identify
those outliers.
>> So, I refuse to be mean on social media.
I won't make negative comments. Um what
Don't get me wrong. You can insult
people by not being mean.
Just have to work your way around it,
and it takes a little bit longer. But uh
I know it's not healthy. I know I could
do
anything other than that time and be
more productive and maybe move my life
just a little bit in the direction I
want to,
but I don't.
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>> I've got a theory that I'm just going to
share
>> Please.
>> that I've been thinking about a lot
lately
having just spent some time with let's
just say one of the major providers of
online content. It's not a social media
platform.
So, I have this theory that unlike being
drunk
or doing
drugs of any kind, opioids or or or
amphetamines or something where people
exit the state of of intoxication and
and they realize like, "Oh my god, like
that was a huge waste of my time, my
life. I made these mistakes, etc."
Being on social media is different
because
there's this awareness that we're on
there and we probably could or should be
doing something else often.
And I have this theory that it's the
perfect addiction
because
it's what I would call low resolution
enough that it doesn't occupy all of
your mind. Like when people are really
intoxicated, they're not thinking about
the fact that they shouldn't be
intoxicated. That's the state they're
trying to achieve. This is a state that
people come out of and report. There are
data on this. They go, "Yeah, it didn't
feel good being on there for the last 45
minutes or 30 minutes or I feel like I
wasted a lot of time." So, they're aware
of that even while they're doing it.
Very unusual for addictions, right? Most
addictions fall into the category of
trying to erase the sense of time, lose
themselves in the activity, forget the
trauma if you think it's trauma related
just forget everything else and just be
in this moment. Gamblers will say this,
right? It's that zone they they crave so
much. This is different. Doesn't feel
really good. You're aware that you're
not supposed to be doing it quite like
that or that much.
So, I actually think it's it's the
quote-unquote ultimate addiction because
it's low-resolution enough that your
brain circuits can get attached to it
and keep doing it while you're
monitoring yourself.
And yet you can run these two tracks at
the same time. So, you're not getting
absorbed and coming out of it and going,
"Oh my god, I didn't study for my final
exam. Oh my goodness, I didn't pick up
the kids from school." It's just
low-resolution enough that you can still
kind of tend to the the kids, kind of be
in a conversation, sort of be on the
Zoom, sort of like and
>> Kind of still be driving your car.
>> your life doesn't totally fall apart.
Exactly. And so, in some ways because
it's not so extreme, I think that's
actually one of the problems. The other
problem is of course our brains can but
are not really designed to be split into
these, you know, two different
activities for for terribly long. It's
not just an inability to multitask. I
actually think that low-resolution thing
is to you can kind of do it while you're
doing other things.
>> Yeah.
>> So, I'm just this is something that I
actually want some laboratories to look
at.
>> Where does that lead if left unchecked?
>> Well, for you and for me, the
consequences are different and
probably less immediate because we've
already built our careers. There's the
social detriment, you know,
relationships to family and stuff that
undoubtedly suffer somewhat, right? But
they're doing it, too, right? So,
there's that. I do worry now I really
sound like I'm in my 50s like about the
younger generation because
I don't know whether I would have been
able to escape this tunnel
>> Yeah.
>> had these devices been around. So, I
think that otherwise incredible
accomplishments and human beings and
careers and families and everything in
between, art and music is literally not
going to be made. I fear this much more
than I fear AI, to be honest.
Yeah, I much, much more.
>> Yeah.
>> In terms of taking away jobs and taking
away careers, I think that because it's
it's I'll tell you this, I am confident
that it is way, way
worse than the than the quote-unquote
opioid crisis, which was already
terrible.
>> I think we're going to be okay. So, I
have three data points, which happen to
be my children.
>> Mhm.
>> So, almost 18, almost 21, almost 23. My
middle son has got it dialed.
He's going to college in Bozeman. I
think he's getting ready to start his
junior year in mechanical engineering.
He's doing an internship at a quantum
computing laboratory.
I don't know what that means. He tries
to tell me, I'm like, he just talk to my
wife.
>> It's super cool stuff.
>> He made a robotic hand. Of course, the
first way he tested it was a middle
finger, which I deeply, deeply
appreciate.
>> He is your son.
>> 100%. He
exists on social media.
He downloads the app once per week,
spends an hour on it,
erases it.
Because
it's the pendulum going the other
direction for him.
>> Mhm.
>> My oldest keeps it on his phone, but
uses it very sporadically, and it's
almost at least
uh the middle one is going to be 21, the
other one's going to be 23.
My oldest now is almost at the point,
and I think his peer group is almost at
the point a little bit of mocking people
who spend You know what I mean? It's
almost now it's almost almost on the
other side like, "Oh,
you're one of those." Even though they
were raised with electronic devices in
their hand. My daughter, on the other
hand,
surgically connected to her hand
and is constantly consuming. So, I I she
will get there as well, too, because
when I can kind of pull her out of that
digital world or we go places that have
less than optimal cell coverage
intentionally and somehow the Wi-Fi
doesn't show up cuz dad unplugs the
router but like, "Oh, there's no Wi-Fi
at the house. That sucks."
She can see the light, but my other two
as they've gotten a little bit older,
they have they have seen it and found it
on their own. And I I think we're going
to be okay because I think that
generation now is really
viewing these platforms with a little
bit more of a wary eye.
>> Mhm.
>> And I don't know why. But my middle son
was the first one he just was like,
"Nope, this is what I do. I'm on there
for an hour. It's 100% for memes for
him." And then he just deletes the
thing. Great.
>> No, I'm I'm I'm very reassured by by
what you just said.
>> That's at that a point of three though.
So
>> Well, it's interesting because that the
data on for instance um smoking in
teens, like when we were growing up a
lot of people smoked, young people
smoked you know that
>> That'd be your first act of rebellion.
>> There were all these campaigns to try
and get young people to quit smoking and
they did not work. It's going to give
you lung cancers. This is your lungs
after smoke None of that worked. What
worked was the ad campaign that had
these old white dudes
cackling and talking about all the money
they were going to make on these young
kids smoking. So the rebellion of youth
if you leverage it against the big
industry platforms,
no one likes to be manipulated. But when
kids realize and teens realize that
they're being manipulated, they'll push
back in a way that can be really good
for them, which is a little bit of what
what we're hearing here. So So you know
>> As a parent I can tell you they push
back in ways
super hard. Maybe almost pendulum the
other way. I tell you what they're also
pushing back on in my all three of their
generation, alcohol consumption.
Damn. Don't get me wrong.
They
there's a time and place for everything.
We go to a yearly jiu-jitsu retreat in
Costa Rica.
The drinking age is 18.
One of my sons is in college like I
said. It's an interesting watching those
two.
That might be the only singular time
they drink in an entire year. That was
the opposite of me growing up and the
the culture of the first community I
went into.
It is wild
to see the push in the other direction.
And now I talk peptides or
it's my middle son. I told him I was
coming here. He was just like, "Oh, I'll
ask him what I need to be doing for
sleep optimization." I'm like, "Oh my
[laughter] god." Happy to send it to
him. That's his generation.
>> Mhm.
>> I was not I think I started looking at
sleep optimization about last Thursday.
You know, it just wasn't the thing that
we were looking at. So, I actually
as much as my children, I truly believe
children are just designed to sharpen
their teeth on the parents' bones. I
also have a lot of faith on the next
wave coming through.
>> This is not a question I ever thought I
would ask on this podcast as somebody
who did an episode on alcohol that got
some reach and got people rethinking
whether or not they wanted to drink. And
I should just quickly say
the major response to that was one of
three different um types. One was, "I
don't like drinking and now I can
justify not drinking." There were a lot
of people who felt that they had to
drink and now they had a justification
not to. Other people who said, "Wow, I
didn't realize that, you know, it can
increase breast cancer risk or, you
know, we have cancers in our family and
that's a real thing." It's, you know,
class one carcinogen, etc. And then the
third category like, "You know, I wish
you hadn't told me this information. I
really enjoyed drinking and now my
friends don't want to drink with me."
Fair and I don't tell people what to do
and I, you know, etc. But
I have to ask do you think that your
kids and their generation are possibly
missing out by virtue of, you know, not
drinking at all?
>> That's a fantastic question. I mean, it
is a social lubricant
>> Mhm.
>> for a degree. I was probably
and still am antisocial in large crowds.
Is there an aspect of that where it
legitimately helped me not necessarily
feel more comfortable, but maybe get out
of my own way when I was younger?
Yes.
Did it lead to some bad decisions along
the way?
Yes. Did bad decisions and those
consequences shape the human being that
I would become along the way?
Yes.
I don't know where it it where it lands.
I do think that there is a chance
that yes, they are missing out on I'm
not maybe not formative life
experiences, but important life
experiences.
>> I think that the camera phones are a big
concern with drinking now because people
are so worried about becoming
less inhibited and
maybe not even saying or doing the wrong
thing, but even things as trivial as
like not everyone is an awesome dancer.
They can get filmed, it can get posted,
they can get teased, there's social
shame. The other problem is that
many, many people are awesome at certain
things and those are the things that
tend to be high amplitude also, and so
people feel like they, you know, if
they're going to be seen online, they
have to be in some in impressive form.
So, I don't really know. I I do worry
about the cannabis thing because I'm not
anti-cannabis, but I do think given a
couple drinks a week versus smoking weed
in terms of like the the overall
risk-benefit,
>> Yeah.
>> alcohol seems less risky to me, but the
the can Yeah, I think so. I mean, look,
there are high high performers and
people who can use cannabis and they're
like not a problem.
Young males in particular who have a
predisposition to psychosis or bipolar
disorder,
>> Yeah.
>> some of them smoke high potency weed or
even low potency weed and they never
come back from the psychotic episode. I
know a lot of examples of that and
that's in the data now. So,
alcohol, yeah, you can drive off a
cliff, you can run somebody over, you
can say or do something really, really
stupid, but assuming those things don't
happen, the the immediate risks and
long-term consequences of like
having a having a couple beers or a
couple drinks or maybe even a few more,
try to get home safe. You don't say or
do anything stupid like
>> Yeah.
>> You're not going to make yourself
psychotic.
>> I'm kind of in the same boat that you
are. I'm not here to tell people how to
live their life. I do think that they
should pay attention to the risk versus
reward. You know, live your life how you
want. Your choices are going to have
potential consequences and some of those
can be pretty big.
There's some things I deeply regret
about my expressions of being a human
being when I was drinking when I was
younger.
And there are some things
that I feel like my life would be
completely different without and that I
would never want to give those
experiences back.
>> Mhm.
>> I don't know how you table that though.
This is a fascinating conver-
>> Didn't know we were going to go here.
>> It's I mean I
In my own life, I wouldn't give up those
experiences.
>> Mhm.
>> But I also don't feel comfortable saying
you have to drink to have them.
>> Mhm.
>> I don't know what the difference looks
like though. Maybe later on as you grow
into your I mean, I'm a more confident
person now absent alcohol than I was a
more confident person younger absent
alcohol. So maybe time will help you get
to this places where you could take
those actions where you needed that
social lubricant. But maybe not. I don't
know man.
>> Well, it's like sleep is super important
and I think it's great for everyone,
especially young people to understand
just how great they can feel and
mentally and physically perform when
they're well rested. I think it's also
an important, not just right of passage,
but experience to know just how terrible
you can feel after a night of no sleep
and still go take a midterm exam or go
for the run you were supposed to go for.
Not because it's quote unquote the best
thing for you, but just because how do
you explore the outer margins of your
capacity unless you know
how feeling really great feels and how
let's just say not lousy, but how like
minimally good you can feel and still
complete something while you're
completely crushed. Like I mean, like
after a breakup, after two or three
nights of poor sleep, in a very
stressful time, not having eaten
perfectly. Like
it's good to understand what a workout
or what going to class and forcing
yourself to stay awake or having a hard
conversation with your significant other
feels like when it's like the the last
thing your body wants you to do. I think
there's utility there. You know, it's
kind of like the ice bath of of mental
experiences right?
>> Are you a fan of the ice bath?
>> I am and
>> What temperature?
>> Cold. I It's on
>> 34?
>> It's on Rogan I said, you know, low 50s
and he he like he was shocked and
dismayed. He looked He seemed It was
like an older brother or guy you respect
looking at you like, "Oh man, should we
even continue this podcast?" I was like
>> I thought I knew you.
>> And I quickly went to Yeah, but I go
into the sauna at 220° F, you know,
which I do. I'm very heat tolerant, not
as cold tolerant. I like to do cold
shower, cold plunge or or whatever.
Like, you know, low 40s now.
>> All right.
>> To me there's nothing as reliable and
provided you don't like jump into an ice
hole or something stupid like that or
do, you know, hyperventilation breathing
and then jump into cold water which has
killed people.
>> Yeah.
>> don't do that, I I don't know of
anything that is both safe and reliably
can give you that adrenaline spike in a
way that you can start to learn to work
with what it's like to be in a highly
adrenalized state. I think there's just
value in having your but body flooded
with adrenaline somewhat against your
will but you're controlling some of it
and learning I think it's a great space
to explore
Okay, do I distract myself? Do I lean
into it? Like you can you can explore a
lot of your own consciousness in these
high arousal states and I do think
there's carryover. And yes, there's a
nice long wave of dopamine that lasts
many hours, that's known. There's a nice
long wave of adrenaline. But
yeah, I think it's a great training
tool. If you don't want to do it
immediately after resistance training
cuz it can
it can reduce some of the the the quote
unquote gains you would get because it
it it vasoconstricts. You want blood
flow. You want to perfuse the muscles in
order to you know, get get the strength
and hypertrophy
benefits from in training but it
provided you do it before or on off days
or 6 hours after you resistance train, I
think it's a really valuable tool.
>> What protocol would you use? I like to
have my cold plunge at about 80. What
would you do? Like 10 in, five out,
couple times?
>> 80° Fahrenheit. It's great.
>> I can bump it to 85 if you think that's
a little too low.
>> You know, team guys have this advantage
that they did all that so they can be
like, I did it, I don't want to do it,
right? That's kind of like I went
through that.
>> It's like the people who are sleep
deprived in medical school. They're
like, yeah, I don't do that anymore. I
get it. Like you guys suffered enough.
When I went down to Jocko's, he he
specifically had me do a heat cold
protocol because I like to do three
rounds of each.
>> Okay.
>> You know, heat at somewhere about, you
know, 210, 215, maybe as high as 220. It
was just hot, but I'm pretty heat
tolerant.
>> For how long?
>> That'll be 20 minutes and then go into
the You don't want to start right off
with that, right? And then go into the
cold. And so
they packed the sauna, they cranked that
thing up, and they kept resetting the
clock.
And literally, he'll tell you, I was
down on the
>> floor where it's you know, not cool, but
it's still
>> colder. Heat rises, obviously. And his
daughters, they were laughing, his
family, and then so everyone in there,
young and old, male and female, was just
laughing at me. So, he has what he calls
the factory reset protocol, which is
where you don't know how hot or how long
you're going to be in there, and you
don't know how cold or how long you're
going to be in there. And that We'll
talk about this a little bit about time,
but I don't know. If you don't like the
cold, you don't have to do it, but I do
think most people can really benefit
from it.
>> I'm saying
I'll develop a protocol for 80.
The sauna will be at
97.
Easy transition back and forth.
Who knows?
>> All right. Um speaking of the guy who
jumps out of or off of mountains in a in
a squirrel suit. Let's talk about the
squirrel suit.
>> Sure.
>> And why in the world anyone who values
their life, seriously though,
>> Yeah, I know. I get it.
>> would do this. And is there an off-ramp?
Is there a parachute? And when you learn
how to do this?
>> Yeah.
>> How hard is it to learn? And what's the
juice there?
>> Okay, a lot of questions there. Okay,
it's funny a lot of people call them
squirrel suits. It's just a wing suit.
Squirrel is actually a manufacturer of
one of the suits, fantastic branding.
They happen to be the suit that I jump.
So essentially it is
a human body turning into a nylon wing.
That's really all it is. It's nylon,
it's some neoprene around the wrists so
you have a little bit of flexibility in
the wrist. They're really actually
advancing the leading edge technology
with the fabric. It's just I mean it's
crazy to look I don't know the name of
the program but you're looking at all of
these
images from the side of wind angles and
how the suits they're looking to reduce
drag. Um and it's more than just the
rigidity of your body. So at least the
suits that I jump are modern suits.
They are ram air inflated. So there is
an outer layer on both sides an upper
layer let's say for the your back and an
under layer for your belly. In between
it's much like a canopy. There's ribbed
fabric with port holes and on the front
and back of the wing
as you
give it air speed either exiting an
airplane that's already in flight. It's
most skydiving airplanes are probably
doing 80 to 120
miles an hour or in the base jumping
world and this is where it can get spicy
as you have no air flow for about the
first 4 seconds.
>> Base jumping for those that don't know
is
>> Fixed up. Call it a fixed object.
Building antenna span or earth is what
the acronym stands for. You're probably
not going to do it off of buildings cuz
it's it you need time to get the suit
actually flying.
But it's a different experience because
if you jump out of an airplane those ram
air inlets fill up your suit is it's
pressurized. You can feel it and you can
already fly your suit. You can flip
over. You can actually I've gotten above
aircraft many time. You can basically
translate that horizontal lift into
power and go above them. Surely you're
going to come back down
um otherwise you'll stall the suit and
it starts waffling down.
But in the base jumping world it's a
zero air speed exit. So for the first
about zero to 4 seconds
you don't have any air filling up the
ram air inlets. So, if you don't go off
in the right body position or if you go
head low and are scorpioning or head
high and then you pitch through that and
there is terrain below you, that's how a
lot of people die. But, the suit itself
is is basically that. It's uh there's
wings there's a large wing between your
leg, a wing underneath your arm on both
the left and right-hand side and they
come in a variety of sizes. So, learning
it
is
>> [gasps]
>> it's simple, not easy. First off,
skydive before you throw a wingsuit on
in the skydiving world. I think I had
3,000 jumps before I put a wingsuit on
the first time.
>> Is it important that people do different
types of skydiving? Uh by the way, I'm
not versed in skydiving. So, what what's
the most basic type of I I assume a
tandem jump and you start doing
individual jumps.
>> Some people go I like I went right to
the first time I did a skydive, I had an
instructor holding on to me from for
both sides until my parachute deployed.
It's a very structured
program that most modern drop zones will
have. A lot of people will do a tandem
first, which I recommend. If you're un-
if you've never done it and you're
uncertain about whether or not you would
like it, I I think there's two really
good options.
One is a tandem.
But, if even that idea makes you a
little bit uncertain, there's now enough
wind tunnels around, commercial wind
tunnels. There's down There's Oceanside
wind tunnel. There's one in LA. There's
one in San Diego. They're all over the
place. I was just in Virginia Beach.
There's one in Virginia Beach. So, it
simulates
the sensation of falling through the air
in an environment where you don't have
to wear a parachute, you don't have to
ride an airplane. You literally hop in
there. They can hold on to you and it
feels like skydive.
>> Sounds like fun.
>> It's leveled up what people can do in
the air cuz it's this contained
environment where you can see if you're
moving a millimeter.
The number of jumps I have had where you
get out you jump out into the air where
your only reference is another person
that's moving around and you get you are
sliding all over the place. Like, [ __ ]
you. You were sliding all over the
place. Neither of you know cuz your
reference is the earth just flying
around. And then you get in the wind
tunnel and you're both up against the
glass, and you're like, "Oh, we both
suck." So,
makes it a little bit more difficult.
The most basic type of skydive would be
just exiting the plane in flight,
falling with your belly to the oriented
towards the ground, and deploying your
parachute on time. Skydiving is two
parachutes, main parachute and reserve.
Reserve is packed by an FAA rigger.
And I believe it's For one period of
time, it was 90 days in between pack
jobs. I think it's 6 months in between
pack jobs now. But, full they open it
up, the reserve. They open the parachute
up, they inspect it, they make sure that
the canopy is good, the lines are good.
Um the automatic activation devices,
which are computers,
sensing uh fall rate, barometric
pressure, with a firing criteria, which
will fire your reserve for you if you do
nothing, which has hundreds of
documented saves, by the way.
Um for an unconscious jumper, or
whatever it may be, or somebody is crazy
as it is to say,
somebody falling through the air
forgetting to look at their altimeter
cuz they're having so much fun.
It happens.
So,
Cypresses or uh Vigils or just AADs,
automatic activation devices, have saved
hundreds of lives.
So, that reserve parachute is packed by
a rigger. Most civilian jumpers will
pack their own main parachute. It takes
5 minutes for an experienced jumper,
maybe 20 minutes for somebody who is
learning.
And you can go do
I think the most jumps I've ever done in
a day was probably 30.
That was at at a at a an event called a
boogie, where it's just as fast as you
can go. And you're just jumping,
jumping, jumping. An average day for me
when I lived in San Diego would be six
to eight jumps.
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>> For somebody's first uh non-tandem jump,
how high is the plane off the ground?
>> 13,000 is about average. 13 AGL. So, if
you're learning in Colorado or another
Rocky Mountain state,
you might only get
12 AGL because you might be up to the 16
to 18,000 ft. But, there's
[clears throat] flying with your belly
oriented to the earth. There's people
who like to do it vertically, either
feet down or head down.
People who fly on their back. There are
formation jumps where they'll get a
bunch of people together. I think the
world record is
hundreds of people linked up in
freefall. You can watch it from the
ground. It's crazy to see. They'll have
eight air cra- aircraft and you just see
these just people bombing out of the
back. And they'll make these snowflake
configurations and people just sitting
there on the ground watching with their
naked eye or with uh
with binoculars. And then they break off
altitude, everybody's tracking away, and
then all these canopies open up, and
then on landing it gets a little bit
wild. So, it can get as much as you
want, and then um wingsuiting is just a
part of that. But, you can jump a a
smaller wingsuit. So, if the suits I
ended up jumping had a lot of fabric
because I wanted to have a nice glide
ratio and I wanted to be able to extend
the amount of time in the air. You can
get suits with a smaller wing, which
give you more maneuverability.
And you learn in those and then get a
little bit bigger,
a little bit bigger and bigger and
bigger. So,
as safely as possible, graduating your
way towards those larger suits that can
have more consequence.
Uh you can end up on your back in the
wingsuits in flat spins. And I've seen
people
they can you can get out of it. You need
to get out of it quickly, but we're
talking fully blown uh red eyes when
they get to the ground from centrifugal
force.
And pretty quick, too. That's the
skydiving world.
Two parachutes. The BASE jumping world
is you're now down to one parachute that
is packed very similar to a reserve, but
it's packed now by the jumper who is
doing the BASE jumping.
And the reason for that is you are
generally very close to the ground at an
altitude where a reserve isn't going to
save you because it does take a couple
hundred feet for a reserve to open up.
And um
in the US, there's one place to legally
do it 24/7 365. It's the Perrine Bridge
up in Twin Falls,
which is where I learned. It's, you
know, the legality aspect is if people
pursue to go that they want to go that
way, um do your research because there's
some cities that had some problems with
it. So, they made it a felony, which
will change your life if you want to
test gravity off of a building. I don't
know if the capital F is necessarily
worth it. Vegas and New York are two
good examples of that.
Um
most people start off at that bridge. Uh
and then an antenna is of course exactly
that, radio antennas. And there are
other countries in the world where that
is legal to do. And a lot of times
people will travel.
>> [gasps]
>> Uh buildings, you can get permission uh
depending um I know one of your guys
worked with Red Bull, not for Red Bull.
He clarified for us. Shockingly enough,
if you write a large check, things that
were once illegal
can become legal for short periods of
So, they will get permission to go off
of buildings or you can go to Dubai
where for I think it was a year they had
this huge just it was fully just set up
for legal base jumping off one of the
top floors of one of those skyscrapers,
which is unbelievable.
And then Earth, which is obviously that
and
cliffs um my first
uh base jump off of a
uh
actually it was from the bridge. I have
actually I've done an antenna
buildings
not many bitty building not many
buildings, but my first jump uh off the
Earth was Monte Brento in Italy.
Which
you jump, open your canopy, land, walk
across the street, and there's an
Italian espresso just waiting for you.
Perfect. It's basically heaven.
And then we stayed there for 2 and 1/2
weeks and went into Lauterbrunnen in
Switzerland.
But I had been skydiving
and
flying a wingsuit, then I had to learn
how to base jump, and then at some point
you have to combine those two. So, one
day you have to go from never having
pushed off of a cliff in a wingsuit
and having time flying it in the air
to kind of bridging that gap where now
you have this first 4 seconds that you
have to deal with where the suit the
suit feels really sloppy, it doesn't
feel rigid, and you can't really do
anything until it powers up
and you can pull away.
So, that's kind of the activities. The
why I can't answer for anybody other
than myself.
But the why for me actually had nothing
to do with the activity itself. And it
is dangerous. There are some people who
try to romanticize the danger of that
and
if people want to par- participate in
things
because they're dangerous and that's how
they want to define themselves, I leave
that to you. Um just, you know, be aware
of the potential consequences you might
get yourself into.
For me, I got into that about 3 years
after I got out of the Navy and I didn't
realize what it was I enjoyed so much.
But it was the mental reset associated
with that.
Um
At about 1 minute out on a helicopter
for me and I can only speak for me.
Your entire you know we're talking about
time.
Your entire
circle of
concern
goes away.
Completely gone.
And there are very few times in my life
where I've ever been able to get into
that headspace.
But it might be the most powerful
headspace I've ever been able to arrive
into and my ability to find my way there
lasted for months afterwards. Because
overseas
yeah, they ask you to do some some
bizarre stuff. But you also likely at
some point in your in your career will
have [clears throat] a family.
Maybe your first house, whatever it is
and
like talking the washing machine just
broke and you're dealing with real life
stuff. Did I did I write enough checks
before I left the before the digital age
did I write enough checks before I left
to make sure that the rent was already
paid. Now these are the things you're
thinking about. Just normal everyday
life. An argument with your spouse, your
kids, the holidays you may have missed,
all that stuff.
Get on a helicopter and you start
heading towards an objective
and all that stuff starts to go away.
And in about for me about the 1 minute
and in until it lands or you're stepping
off it becomes this focus on the next 3
seconds of your life.
Is the only thing I was capable of
thinking about.
And that is such a beautiful place. God,
you want to talk about
the ability
to perform
and not feel like you're necessarily
you're not trying to force it. You're
just there's books been written about
the flow state for lack of a better
term. Incredibly impactful.
And I didn't realize how much I needed
that.
And I didn't realize how much that job
was providing for me until it was gone.
And then the static of everyday life
just is overwhelming. Skydiving
I guess you could get that or maybe I
got that when I first started, but after
a few thousand jumps
about everything that's going to go
wrong, you're going to have your first
cutaway, you're going to have a mal, you
know what I mean? You're going to deal
with your gear, your reserve is going to
open. And so that that really narrowed
focus it actually starts opening back
up.
The BASE jumping world, I remember the
first time I was with the guy who taught
me, he's like, "All right, let's climb
over the edge of the rail here and
you're looking at 486 ft. You test the
wind by spitting.
And if you and if it drifts past a
certain point, you're good to go."
So [laughter]
you can track your spit to where you are
going to deck if you don't pull your
parachute. Now, on the first one, he's
holding onto the pilot chute, so it rips
it off for you, so you don't have to
worry about it.
>> [snorts]
>> But you want to talk about that
right back into that space, holy cow.
That's what BASE jumping was for me.
I had some of the the deepest
conversations with my friends on the
4-hour hikes that would lead to a
90-second jump.
And
2 weeks of those 90-second jumps, I
could get myself into such a more dialed
head space
for 6 months and be better at business,
better at, you know, a more patient
father, a more patient husband. That's
that to me is why.
And at some point
it probably due to the death of my
friends and I had found other activities
that had started to provide that, it
crossed the
metric for me where the risk was no
longer worth worth the reward. I I have
been skydiving since 1999, I can take 5
years off and go jump out of an airplane
and I'd be fine, but I can't do that in
the BASE jumping world. The currency and
competency piece is so important and
then when I moved to Montana, my access
to the drop zones and the ability to
maintain currency and competency in that
wingsuit really decreased.
So, it got to a place where it just it
wasn't worth the risk. Skydiving is
still a bunch of fun, but I found other
activities that I could kind of lose
myself in.
Maybe not to the same I don't think to
the same degree. I I
It's hard to describe zipping up in that
suit
with a maximal heart rate to the point
where you're looking over your buddy
like "Hey
can Are you hearing my heart, too? Cuz
it's pretty loud. It's about the You
know what I mean? Like that thrush in
your ears."
>> That's informative to [laughter] hear
that your heart was maxed out because I
wondered if you you know, if adrenaline
was low, if it was high, you know,
something had had happened
systematically over the years in the
teams where your adrenaline was set too
low. You need to crank it above a
certain threshold. Sounds like you were
right where any rational person would
be, which was terrified.
>> Cuz at some point you grab your little
tail wing and you make a little nice
little teepee with it and you get your
toes to the edge
and you check all your stuff
and then you are just looking out into
the abyss.
And you have to make yourself rock
forward past a point of no return that
if you change your mind, whoopsies, that
doesn't work anymore and then you need
to have maximal human performance for
about the next 4 seconds of your life if
you want your life to continue.
So, if you're not scared in that
environment, I would recommend you stop
that activity immediately cuz you're not
paying attention.
It was
terrifying.
And that's probably why I liked it so
much. It was awesome. Don't get me
wrong. Ripping down a mountain in
Switzerland 6 ft off the ground almost
playing tag with your shadow and then
turning around and like carving through
trees amazing.
>> So, you're actually pretty low to the
ground just going very, very fast over
steep ground.
>> Yes. If you want to be. Not everybody
chooses to fly that way. And you can you
can have on the exact same jump
I can think of one very
specifically. It's at the far end of the
valley in Switzerland. It's a 4-hour
hike up and it's
I mean, you're getting water out of your
in your you know, canteen or Nalgene out
of like these glacially just spouting
out of the rocks and there's sheep and
stuff and you know, it's it's like a
postcard. You walk for 4 hours.
You can have a really aggressive jump on
that and fly for 60 seconds or you could
flatten your suit out and just glide and
fly for 2 and 1/2 minutes. Same jump,
different choices. Not that, you know,
necessarily flying farther out. You
still need to pack your parachute
correctly and all those things, but your
likelihood of impacting a tree at 100
miles an hour with your face
is a lot better than flying 6 ft off the
ground around corners that hopefully
you've done some test jumps on and
gotten lower and lower and lower and
lower instead of just flash point in
that thing hoping for the best as you
come around the corner. Which a lot of
people do.
>> How fast are you moving when you're
above the ground?
>> If you really bend those suits over, I'd
say you could get them to about 120.
Face first.
>> You're a human missile.
>> It's awesome.
>> [laughter]
>> I can, you know, we can the those of us
like myself listening to this can only
wonder right?
>> feel [clears throat] it in the suit. So,
again, the ram air inlets,
when you're a little bit flatter, flying
slow, you just It feels like you're on
an air mattress. It's really what flying
feels like. As you bend the suit over
and you're just violently diving at the
ground, you can feel the suit. It's
almost like it's it's just your power
meter is just all the way up. And so, if
you get in trouble, you can flatten that
out and that's how you that's your
safety. You can disconnect from the
terrain.
Which is how, unfortunately, some people
die. They're not paying attention to
that sensation and they're slowly
getting flatter and flatter and flatter
and flatter.
Then they encounter flat terrain and
they don't have enough performance in
the suit to clear it and they impact.
But that, when you're pitched over like
that and that thing is just
and you
it feels like you are licking the
largest 9-volt battery you've ever
licked in your life.
>> [laughter]
>> Uh would your uh would your parents say
that this this is a window into the
young Andy Stumpf or or is this a a
departure or an an evolution devolution
evolution?
>> I don't know if they would have called
that one. I don't think
I I don't know if I would have called
that activity. If I would have said this
one was going to be interesting to me.
>> Let me ask you this. When you were a
kid, not recommending anyone do this,
but when you were a kid and your and
your guy friends [snorts]
someone found one of the larger
firecrackers available, were you the kid
that would hold it
after it was lit until the last second
and then throw it? Cuz I knew that kid,
but it wasn't me.
>> Does he still have both hands?
>> Uh yes, but the He was great
skateboarder, by the way. Became pro
skateboarder right out of high school.
Um moved on to other things eventually.
I think those things were correlated,
right? I mean, he used to do big rails.
Like he had a very very good
relationship with confronting fear.
There was another kid in our crew who
would have been around the corner the
moment the thing came out. Okay, I was
neither of those kids, right? And then
there's a distribution in the middle.
>> Yeah.
>> Where were you?
>> My answer's not going to make sense to
you because
holding it that long sounds dangerous.
>> [laughter]
>> It is dangerous, but but wingsuit
>> I know, that's what I'm saying. It's not
going to make sense. That sounds
dangerous, but just for the sake of
danger, which somebody could 100% say
about base jumping as well. But I don't
know if holding on to, say, an M80 and
wondering, you know, how long you can
provides for you
that mental I mean, I'm talking about
your canopy opens, you land, you're
laying in a [ __ ] meadow in
Switzerland on your back.
Like
it is a sense of ease and peace.
I don't think you're getting that from
an M80.
>> No. The reason I ask is that, you know,
there are a lot of questions that the
scientist in me wants to know about, you
know, resetting of adrenaline set points
and you know, and because people can
become desensitized to to um high-risk,
high-consequence type situations.
>> You see that in the wingsuiting
community. I would say specifically the
wingsuit base jumping community. The
fatality rate is high.
>> Mhm.
>> I would never tell anybody that it is a
safe activity, but I think you can do it
as safely as possible. There's still
immense residual risk. So, you have to
ask yourself, what is it worth?
>> If we were to plot out um number of
wingsuit jumps
>> Mhm.
>> and
plot fatality time of fatality relative
to first jump, right? So, so that the
question like the area under the curve.
So, are you getting to address what you
just said? Are you getting more deaths
the longer people have been doing it
independent of the number of jumps,
right? They can't really do that
experiment. It's It's not a perfect
experiment. The The question is, are
people getting more dangerous to
themselves because
they need They're pushing further and
further into
the abyss, getting closer to the edge,
uh taking risks, or is the novice more
dangerous because they're a novice?
>> I think the Dunning-Kruger effect is
always
>> Mhm.
>> the most dangerous aspect of it. I think
it would probably track You certainly
see people
especially in the
content age, I've seen people reach out
not to me, but to forums, "Hey, I just
want to get into wingsuit base jumping
as fast as possible." And everybody on
there is like, "Whoa."
>> Mhm.
>> No, you need to go I mean, most people
will recommend skydiving 200 jumps to
even before you put a wingsuit on, which
for most people who aren't doing it
professionally, that's going to take a
year or two. It's a slow progression.
But that person reaching out saying that
doesn't have time for that.
So, you're definitely going to get some
people early on. The guys who are around
the longest, the ones that I know who
are kind of the titans in the sport,
it's not that I don't worry about them,
I worry less. I think it's maybe more I
honestly, I think it's that
Dunning-Kruger curve where it's going to
get people. Especially when
let's say you do this amazing jump,
right? You're ripping around a corner
and
things you learn later on, like, "Hey,
is it ascending or descending thermals
right now? Where's the wind coming from?
What type of day is this? Is the slope
I'm just jumped off maybe it was a
western facing slope that I jumped
towards and I felt this amazing uprush
of air which is what you want to feel on
an exit point. Same thing as why
airplanes take off into the wind, it
helps with performance.
Well, as I am cruising down this
mountain, am I thinking about the fact
that 3/4 of it is covered in the shade
and maybe the thermals have switched
along the way and you're going to start
feeling this pressure of almost a hand
on your back? You You know, you do it
The first time you do that jump
and you survive
the dangerous thing to say is
nailed it.
But did you nail it or did you get away
with it? And that's what kills people.
And that's that perfect Dunning-Kruger
ascending line.
>> Man, there's a a quote that should be
stamped into everyone's brain young and
old. Did Did you nail it or did you get
away with it? Because
>> There's a difference to a lot of areas
of life. They could spare people a lot
of pain and some important insights. I
got away with it more than I nailed it.
I'm I am
>> being humble?
>> No.
>> Okay.
>> No, you don't know what you don't know
until
you
see somebody else get bit by the same
thing. Or you're on a jump with somebody
and only one of the three makes it out
or two of the three makes it out and
they all had the same idea and plan.
>> And you describe some of that in your
book. I don't want to give that story
away but
>> with Alex specifically. I wasn't there
for Alex's jump but I had jumped with
Alex enough for years.
The The one thing I wish I could do
looking back with him is I was there
with him for some close calls that he
had.
A few were bad decisions
that he
I would like to think corrected for
because there there is a phase in
anything that you're doing
that my
uh instructor taught me how to fly
helicopters. He's like, "Listen, once
you know better, you can do better."
But there's a phase where you don't know
any better. And so you think what you're
doing is correct until either somebody
points it out or you watch something so
horrific happen and you pay attention to
an investigation afterwards or a debrief
afterwards
and you can learn from that.
But with uh with Alex, I I wish I could
go back and just honestly slap him
around a little bit cuz that's what it
would take for him to pay attention. He
would be appreciative of it, I think, if
he understood what it would save.
But
I I would associate his death directly
also with that
Dunning-Kruger curve and he had been
doing it for years.
That doesn't mean you're out of that.
It's that middle area where you think
you have everything dialed.
I think he had gotten away with it more
than he had nailed it and I and I had
to.
>> Would you let
your kids
squirrel suit?
>> Do I have the right to stop them?
>> Yes.
>> No.
>> Knowing the risk?
>> I mean, I would do everything I could to
prepare them as much as possible
and and by that I mean scare the
absolute dog [ __ ] out of them with the
reality and confront them with the
actual reality of it. Show them how long
it would actually take.
What they would need to do. What they
would need to sacrifice in order to be
able to get at that level.
But then if they
wanted to make that choice
I don't feel like I have the right to
stand in between them and that desire.
>> Appreciate the honest answer. I'm sure
they I'm sure they do, too. I don't know
if your wife appreciates that particular
answer, but we'll ask her. I don't get
involved in marital disputes. That's a
that's a
>> We don't have any. Our relationship is
perfect.
>> [laughter]
>> Excellent excellent answer. Wait, you've
been married before. No, that was a that
was a joke.
>> That is correct. I'll tell you what, I
learned some stuff. I learned some
stuff.
>> You talk very openly in
in the book. I mean, to the extent you
don't reveal specifics, but about that
the challenges of of uh
of that the ending of that first
marriage.
>> Hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
People think that being a SEAL is hard,
and it is.
Um but a lot of that is truncated with
hey, we're going to go overseas for this
short period of time, and time away, and
it can be physiologically and
psychologically challenging, but
once you're in that community,
I didn't encounter anything
the military never asked me to do
anything that that got me to a place
where I was judging or asking myself
what type of person I was, or if I was a
good enough person to be able to
continue going forward with anybody
other than just myself. Like those
questions I wasn't asking myself in the
military.
At the lowest points of a nearly 2-year
divorce process that was very
contentious. And quite frankly, the
reason I I don't go into details is I
have built a larger or a platform, and
my ex-wife doesn't have one, and that's
the fairest way to be about it. And I
totally respect that. If you want to go
talk with her, trust me, I know the
story you're going to get. Enjoy it.
Believe what you want to believe. I
always tell people if you hear bad stuff
about me, please believe it.
>> That's what you tell them? Yeah.
>> I mean, why not? It It I am certainly
not everybody's cup of tea.
There's no way to please everybody
ever.
>> Amen to that.
>> So, if somebody is out there
who wants to run me through the mud,
cool. Just believe every word that you
were told if you want to, but if you
want to get the real spit,
come hang out with me for a bit, and
maybe compare and contrast those two
things. But if you don't want to do
that, cool. Yeah, that's on you.
It took every tool that I wrote about in
that book to get through that. Circle of
influence, circle of concern, all the
things that I was worried about, what
can I do today? Breaking time down into
the shortest chunks humanly possible,
controlling how I talk to myself. It was
absolutely soul-crushing.
And
10 out of 10, do not recommend.
Yeah, zero stars on Trip Advisor.
>> Yeah, that portion of the book um
stopped me. I I to say, and and I uh
there were other parts of the book that
that paused me where I was like, "Whoa,
I didn't expect this coming." And you
know, I take notes on what I listen to.
I also read the hard copy. I should have
mentioned that earlier. I like to do
both. It's really helpful for me.
I think maybe other people would benefit
from that as well. But that segment
where you said this is the hardest thing
I'd ever been through and it was as you
put it again, soul-crushing. And what I
gathered was and I certainly can't say
I've experienced this before in a
different context that when
other people's narratives start to the
boundaries between other people's
narratives and and your narratives and
then and in your case kids were being
affected which is
which is huge. As a child of a divorced
parents, I think it's also probably got
to be somewhat different.
I mean you talk very kindly of your own
parents. Your story of
of your relationship to your mom and her
passing which we can also get to. That
also stopped me. Also got me to call my
mom.
>> [laughter]
>> So she'll thank you, right? I called my
mom.
>> You know you I'm well, you know, time
and you know, and
>> You never know how much you have left.
>> You never know how much time you have
left. But
what inspired you to talk about that in
particular? I know you're not one of
these guys and
you know, I don't want to say team guys
in particular, but not you're not one of
these guys who wants to paint a perfect
picture of himself. But talking about
how a contentious divorce
came close to you know, brought you
really close to your edge. Maybe to your
edge, but fortunately not over it. It's
an interesting choice and one that I
appreciate and I know readers will
appreciate. You humanized the whole
thing, but what at what point did you
decide that you wanted that in the book?
>> I mean probably from the beginning. I
think one of the biggest mistakes people
would make is if they would look at a
job like the one I used to have and
think that the people who do it are not
normal people. I was talking with Chris
Williamson about this and it's a mistake
that people make. There's no Captain
America shield
and cape and cowl that you actually
wear,
the things they ask you to do are
sometimes pretty nutty.
But,
after that,
you go take your gear off,
clean yourself up, get some food,
get together with the guys, and you just
talk about normal day-to-day [ __ ] If
you were having an argument with your
wife before you went out on an
operation, you're coming back to that.
If your
house had burned down,
which I wish I could say I didn't know
somebody's house burned down, but I did.
They got that notification shortly
before we went out on objective.
Hopefully, didn't allow that to invade
their mental thought process during, but
when they came back,
that's what they're dealing with. Then,
you come back from deployment,
and you're presented with all of those
things.
It's just It is such a mistake to think
that there are people out there
who have everything figured out, or that
are impervious to the things that are
damaging
to you as the person.
I started doing Q&A
sessions on Friday for my show because I
kept getting just this volume and wave
of emails.
>> [snorts]
>> And at first, I wasn't really trying to,
you know, tranche them into buckets, and
I thought if I started doing the Friday
episodes, it would decrease, but
instead, it multiplied them by orders of
magnitude. And I realized there really
were some deep themes. You know, one of
them is, "I I just don't know how to get
started on my goals." But, another one
is, and this is the most dangerous one,
"I feel like I'm alone.
I feel like I'm the only person dealing
with this.
How can you give me some advice? I look
at your life from the outside, and it
seems like you just have, you know,
you're able to do all these hard
physical things. What would you do if
you were me?" I'm like, "Dude,
I am you."
So, you have to put that in there. How
can you not? I mean, at the end of the
day, I don't know what I I to do with my
life, but I want to try to help people.
I don't think you can do that if you're
trying to sell [ __ ]
But I do think you can help if you can
talk about your own personal experiences
and your own mistakes and the whole
thing the things that you have suffered
with not always past tense because my
life is certainly not perfect and I go
through seasons in my life now as does
everybody.
Why not be honest about that? Why try to
portray this
you know,
follow my 12-step program for $19.99
every month and you're going to have it
all figured out. Those are some of the
most unhappy people that I know by the
way and often times not nearly as
successful as they are presenting
themselves.
>> Definitely.
>> I would rather just be like, "Listen,
you think your life is bad? Why don't
you put a seat belt on your chair? Got a
little story for you." And then people
hear that like, "What?
You mean you guys deal with that stuff
too?" It's like, "Yes, that's the whole
point. You're not alone. You're not
unique in this."
So I think from the very beginning of
deciding to write it I I didn't know
necessarily that I would
that I would use that particular
example.
But it was the most difficult thing I've
done in my life, I'm obligated to put
that in there and talk about it
as openly as possible while maintaining
the privacy of the other person
involved.
>> Yeah, I was impressed how you main
maintained respect for your kids, for
your ex-wife, your your current
relationship, you know, and um and at
the same time acknowledge that, you
know, the the exchange was anything but
cordial.
>> It was anything but cordial and you
know, as I've talked about this before,
but and I don't know if it made it in
the book, but I lost contact with my
oldest son for 18 months. I was the one
who initiated the end of the
relationship
and he was the oldest at the time and I
don't know if it was a matter of him
being in a certain phase of his own life
and [ __ ] you know the deal being a
a young man is not the easiest path nor
is being a young woman by any stretch,
but it's really interesting how
adults forget how difficult it was in
those years to just get through the day
when you think that everything is you
don't even know who you are. You're
trying to figure it all out.
But for 18 months, I I tried calling
him.
I tried texting him. I tried writing him
letters to his mom's house. I would pull
up next to him at a parking lot that he
would go to before he went to work.
And he would burn out [clears throat]
out of the parking lot without even
acknowledging that I was there and
you think SEAL training's hard? Imagine
something that you don't have the
vocabulary to describe how much you love
and thinking every day
I don't know if I'm going to get this
back. What else can I do?
And now, thankfully, by staying the
course, I think I have a closer
relationship. And And not everybody has
that that outcome. But our relationship
is probably closer than it has ever been
and he'll call and ask for my advice or
just
want to bounce stuff off of me, which I
think is apparent. Like, if your kids
are
soliciting your time to ask questions,
whatever it is you're doing, stop doing
that and take the time because it's
pretty awesome.
And it means
that they care about what you say.
But I thought that was gone, man. You
want to talk about soul-searching? It's
nothing I did in the SEAL teams that
made me wonder whether or not I was a
good enough man to still exist. But that
experience did.
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>> Wow. Well, I I will say um
as the description of your your final
moments with your mom led me to call my
mom. I wasn't being facetious, I really
did. You know, the description of the
divorce process and the challenges that
go there that, you know, I don't want to
make this about my story, resonated in
certain ways. I grew up in a very
high-conflict divorce. What you just
said now,
uh
I'm on good terms with my dad, but I you
know, I'm familiar with being the son
who wants to be protective of his mom,
but still loves his dad, and being
caught in the middle.
>> And I would think about those two. How
could you not? With all three of my
kids, how And I have this conversation
with with my wife now,
who
honestly is the only reason that I think
I pulled out of that was
the recognition and seeing from somebody
else, like, "Hey, just so you know,
like I know you're going through it, but
this person sees something in you that
is worth" I mean, I dedicated the book
to my kids and to my wife for that
reason.
But we'll talk about this now because I
mean it's like why why would they say
that or why would they do that? And
she's like listen, that's always going
to be there mom. I'm like yep, got it.
Totally nailed it. I understand now. And
it re-centers and like okay. Doesn't
make it any easier to deal with, but I
understand.
>> Sons and fathers have a certain dynamic
and mothers and sons have a certain
dynamic. And mothers and mothers and
daughters and fathers I only know my own
experience. I do have a sister so
there's a parallel experiment there's a
control experiment. She wouldn't
appreciate me calling her the control
experiment but
>> Did you realize in your parents divorce
that it was going bad before it did?
Before they got divorced?
>> Definitely.
And listen, I've done a lot of work with
both of my parents to we're on great
terms now. I can truly say that. My dad
was on this podcast. I know you've had
conversations with your dad publicly. My
dad and I are quite close.
You know, and I I now look at it
differently. I I I'm living in a state
of gratitude these days where I
basically like okay, they gave me life.
That's huge. Like you
you can't realize that when you're
younger cuz you're like, you know, F my
life you know, at times but they gave me
life so there's that. They gave me so
many opportunities and then the hardship
of those years I had my own story and
version of it, but recently just because
of some evolutions in my personal life
which are all good. I'm like I'm going
to put myself in my dad's
try and put myself in my dad's frame
where he was, what he was trying to do
in his career and in his personal life
and then my mom's frame. I confess it's
a little harder to do that because my
dad and I are both male and there's
always going to be that, but my mom and
I were still at home and he was living
elsewhere. So
I tried to really work through it in
those ways and I keep coming back to
this place where I I now I go, oh my
god, that must have been so hard for
them.
Like not for me. Like I had I mean I had
years of understanding about how hard it
was for me. I go for them I'm like holy
[ __ ] Like that's got to be so tough. I
would I mean I was really hard on my
dad.
>> How old were you when you realized your
parents were just people doing the best
they could?
>> Yesterday. No, I'm just kidding.
>> No, but that I mean
>> No, I No, I
>> For a long time in life as kids though,
your parents are
what they say, gospel. And they have
they must have the answers to everything
because they're older than any human
beings ever been.
>> Oh, man.
>> And then you realize they are out there
making [ __ ] up on the fly, doing the
best they can with the data set that
they have in front of them.
Not doing great most of the time. It's
not because they're not trying to do
great, they're just [ __ ] people.
>> Yeah. Well, I can't speak for your kids
and I wouldn't, but I can say that for
me, I I joke yesterday, but it was
actually very young because I I came to
this kind of black and white conclusion,
which was not the correct one, which was
they don't know what they're talking
about. And that led me to go elsewhere
to look for answers, and I found a lot
of answers to a lot of things that I
wanted. I also found some wrong answers.
>> Yeah.
>> I had great mentors throughout my life,
and the day you realize that your PhD
advisor doesn't have the answers, that's
when you go get a post-doc advisor. And
then you realize they don't have the
answers, and you go start your own lab,
and then you realize, "Oh my god, how
hard their job was?" Cuz now you're
dealing with graduate students that are
like saying things like, "Do you even
know what you're doing?" Until the paper
gets accepted, and then they're like,
"Oh my god, like you really know what
you're doing."
>> [laughter]
>> My first graduate student will laugh
when she hears that. She's actually a
professor now with a She has two kids,
she's happily married, she has super
successful lab. So, but and I said,
"Have you gone through that evolution?"
And she's like, "Absolutely." So,
I will say this, and I again, I can't
speak for your kids whatsoever, but
there was a real
benefit to having that realization early
that they don't know everything Yeah.
Because you're
you're forced to go look for certain
answers elsewhere. There's also
something really beautiful to the the
reconnect, you know, that I have with my
dad. And my mom and I were more constant
over the years because our as you said,
the relationship can be that much
closer. Would you wish it on anyone?
Would you wish a divorce on anyone? No.
But at the same time, like, you know, my
life wouldn't be what it was. So, that
portion of the book I have to say
surprised me. I know you're you're very
humble, so please hear this as it lands.
It impressed me that you were willing to
put it in there in the way you did and
how you handled it. And it really got me
thinking about my relationship to my
dad, my own family life now, where
that's going, and
and gave me a lot of uh
hope and humility around like it's hard
being a person, let alone being a
parent.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, [laughter] and
and and and the kid the kid the kid
piece is easy is easy to relate to, but
it really opened my perspective. So, I'm
grateful to you for putting that in
there.
>> Yeah, I didn't uh it to me it just
seemed natural. I didn't even give it a
second thought.
>> Yeah, but you're also jumping out
off mountainsides in squirrel suits.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, you
>> But I'm telling you if you've ever
tasted that 9-V the way I did, you might
you might actually be like, "So, what is
this progression?"
>> Let's talk about the wingsuit and the
9-V battery a little bit more because
you talked about the state that you were
in not just during but in the 6 months
or so afterwards.
>> So,
that's not going to be the long tail of
adrenaline, I'm guessing. I don't think
you were walking around for 6 months
like amped on life completely.
>> Oh, no, the opposite.
>> able to dial in. Could you talk a little
bit more about that? Did you ever
take some time to think about like,
"What is this?" And did you get that
after a gunfight? Did you get that after
uh
you know, a funeral? Uh you've gone to
more than your fair share of those.
Like, what do you think's going on
there?
>> It was the opposite of walking around
adrenalized. Uh people oftentimes have
asked me, you know, "What does it feel
like to be an adrenaline junkie?" And
I'd say, "I don't know. I don't feel
like I am one. I might participate in
some things that from the outside would
be viewed as people seeking adrenaline,
but I don't
I don't like that hyper-adrenalized
feeling where
you know, well and it could be different
for anybody and everybody whether it's
at the taste and copper in your mouth or
the heart rate or the you know, feeling
your hair. I don't I don't like that
sensation and that's not what I felt on
the edge just was scared shitless quite
frankly.
It's not an adrenaline and it would be
the opposite of walking around feeling
like that.
I would describe it as feeling
settled
or anchored.
>> Mhm.
>> And the ability to just
sit into it and think clear. It's It's
like having a stereo dial and the static
and you're just
twisting it down.
And then the BS of life and it comes
back up and it comes back up and it
comes back up and you go on another one
of those trips or I I should say I would
go on another one of those trips and it
would it would dial it down.
After a gunfight it's not like the
movies. Most of the time it is so fast
but it's such a road decision.
But it's high adrenaline. Presumably.
Moderate.
I think it would depend on how much time
you had to make a call. I mean, it most
of it is
or in many times a broad example. Come
around a corner binary threat or not
threat. There's not a whole lot of time
to get ramped I mean, you got to make a
decision right there. I think maybe
afterwards you might get an adrenaline
dump
or it it might catch up with you
and I and I don't I can't really think
of any anytime I've thought about an
adrenaline dump or I've seen it is
people actually kind of melt a little
bit the far side of that where they just
>> Mhm.
>> their performance degrades for sure.
They're on the other side of the bell
curve of performance.
I didn't see anybody
experiencing that or maybe they were
doing that when we were on a helicopter
or vehicle on the way out. Not that much
adrenaline. And again, it
it's just not as much time as movies and
TV shows make it out. It's just not that
It's not that sexy.
When you got back, I would say for
myself,
you know, if the if the optic of time
starts coming in [clears throat] at
about the 1-minute out, I would say
as you were to get back
and it and I would say for most guys
it's more of a routine,
but taking gear off a certain way, hang
it up, uniform off, shower, food. I
think you find that settling spot once
the guys come back together, generally
communally over a meal or back in your
hut, whatever. Your team, you know, we
would usually have it separated by team.
I think you would find your way to that
settled space as well, too. So, similar.
I don't know if it was as powerful,
though.
>> Let me ask it slightly differently.
Coming back from a wingsuit jump and it
went well. Everybody lived, including
you. Maybe learned a few things. Maybe
some errors you were able to correct,
which is also learning, but you you feel
good about it. How do you sleep that
night?
>> Oh, so good.
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah.
>> [clears throat]
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah, probably better sleep.
Um
I see Trying to think about sleep. God,
you mean you're going out so
repetitively?
Yeah. I mean, guys are
Is it Well,
wasn't an unhealthy reliance upon
ambient. Is that sleep or hallucinating?
>> [laughter]
>> I mean,
>> Ambient can induce
some amnesia,
but you know, it it has its place, but I
it's not it's not the first line of
attack. I you know, I I know SEAL Team
guys like like to ambient and I think
nowadays they're using things less um
>> It's what they had available.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> And I mean, unrestricted in a bowl, take
what you want.
>> I know people who would take two.
Unpackage another two, put them next to
their bed with a little cup of water for
the middle of the night when they woke
up but
I don't think four is healthy. I'm not a
doctor, but I don't think four is
healthy.
>> are better ways, but but when you're out
with your wingsuit buddies and you you
guys had a great jump that day and
you're going back, everyone knocks out.
>> You're wiped. You're just wiped.
>> And so for that next 6 months you're
feeling like you're in a you're in a
really good space.
>> You would feel it changing at like the
3-month mark, but for for a nice 3
months for me it was it was clean. You
could just think better.
And I I don't know the mechanism behind
it other than maybe your brain
gets better at parsing out the [ __ ]
that doesn't actually matter and as you
get that focus, so once it identifies it
in that moment you hold on to it less. I
don't know what's going on there.
>> It's still a mystery. You know, I've
spent some time looking at this in
advance of this conversation and the the
simple theory would be it raises your
stress threshold. So the things that get
you to secrete adrenaline like everyday
trivial things, that's not happening
anymore. Okay, that's a reasonable
theory. That's actually what what the
ice bath will do. That's what a morning
workout will do. But turns out that's
not what happens when in when people go
into these flow states and you get this
long tail of a of flow opportunities
because the tendency when people's
stress threshold goes up too high is
that uh they tend to engage in a lot of
meaningless behaviors cuz they're not
stressful enough. You want the sensation
of like that was a tough conversation
and I've got to deal with it or that was
a tough conversation. I just need to
avoid this person, right? Like this is
just not a healthy you know, it's stress
is a good indicator of of pain and
sometimes it's a psychological pain that
we need to overcome ourselves. Sometimes
there's psychological pain we need to
exercise from our lives. So it sounds
very different than that. And the reason
I'm so interested in this is it's the
exact same way that seems to come up a
lot on this podcast that like Rick Rubin
has described
after putting together an album with
some amazing artists where they've just
been working and working and working.
It's not just the time
while doing the work, it's in the it's
in the months that follow. It's like
this peace. It's like it's the post flow
state something. We don't have a name
for this.
>> And it's almost like it lowers your
stress threshold. Not it because I agree
with you. If if it just raised your
stress threshold,
I would have just continued to do
riskier and riskier behaviors, but at
the end, I feel like it lowers it and
just strips away the BS stress,
and makes you less likely to invest in
those other potentially nonsense
high-risk behaviors. I have no ability
to describe it whatsoever. And again, I
didn't realize what that headspace was
giving me while I was in the military. I
knew something was missing after I had
gotten out, and I think a lot of guys
find themselves in that kind of abyss of
how do I replicate this?
Spoiler alert, you can't really, and
they have to deal with that and work
their way through that. And I'm not
recommending
that wingsuit skydiving or base jumping
is the path for guys getting out. And I
specifically wrote about this.
I've seen people who can do this in art,
getting lost in creating something, or
yoga, or meditation, or ice bath, or
sauna, or I found a lot of it in the
ability to detach and be in the moment
in jiu-jitsu.
Even though it's totally artificial
violence, you're in the moment cuz it
sucks when your friend chokes you cuz
you want to choke your friend,
obviously. But,
you can find it It doesn't have to be
prescriptive.
But, if you can find your way there, I
don't care that nobody can describe what
it is. I am here to tell you it will
change your life if you can find your
way into that space. It really will.
>> There's a wonderful book, um, in
addition to yours. Uh, there turns out
there's another great book out there.
Um,
>> How dare someone
>> No no audio version, but it's called The
Secret Pulse of Time, and it's about
time perception. And so, the idea that
comes to mind that maybe we could talk
about is perhaps
these
endeavors, whether or not it's
wingsuiting, or producing an album, or
painting, or gardening, or whatever it
is, jiu-jitsu, whatever it is that
somebody does to access this flow state
and get this gets this long tail of
post-flow benefit, whatever we
what whatever that is. We don't have a
name for it, again. It seems to
calibrate our time perception is one
idea that perhaps brings us so much into
each moment that it's almost like our
ability to capture moments that becomes
high fidelity. Again, you talked about
getting the static out. Right? And then
when we go back into everyday life, it's
almost like we're perfectly calibrated.
This is I'm stating a theory here. So,
now you wake up the next morning, you're
home, and your kid comes in and they're
talking about something, and you're
thinking, and we'll get back to toilet
paper in a little bit. You'll be like,
"Listen, dude, you're talking about
this, but you didn't take [laughter]
care of the toilet paper." This will
become relevant in a moment. You read
Andy's I've never thought so much about
toilet paper rolls in the bathroom and
how they're stacked. My girlfriend and I
had a conversation about it the other
day. It's because of Andy's book. That
will all make sense in a few moments.
But, it's almost like you can still be
in that real world stuff, but your time
perception is adjusted so that you know
what you're doing. It's just that thing.
So, then when you pivot to the next
thing, you need to sit down and do some
work, it's almost like you can adjust
your your your frame rate appropriately.
It's like it pulls you into that.
>> It It allows you to sink into those
things
and digest better, to think better.
The yeah, the clarity of thought was
just and it would change how I thought
about
an argument or a conversation, and it
would allow me to look at it from a
different perspective. And I have no
idea why that was the case, but I agree
with what you're saying. I think there
might be some aspect of that. The
fidelity
and the ability to truly see clearly in
that moment, pulling you or anchoring
you into that. There's something there.
I don't know.
A really cool paper
came out just the other day showing that
when
we're stressed,
prior memories, while we can still
access them, we can't make um insightful
connections between things. And I won't
describe the whole experiment. It was
really cool. They basically have people
reme- remember pairs of of objects, and
then there's some link between the two
pairs. So, like it would be like apple
yerba mate, and there'll be a yerba mate
uh wing suit. And then at some point
later, you need to link, you know, the
wing suit to the apple. Right? You know,
it conceptually, not just that way. They
they up from basic things like I just
described. And And as you ramp up
people's levels of stress,
you essentially lose the ability to make
these connected insights. And this
speaks to the the hardwiring and the
software that the brain uses. I almost
wonder whether or not your stress
threshold, as you said, is brought down
so that you can now have novel insights.
Like, "Oh, this conversation with my son
about the toilet paper is actually
important
>> Yeah.
>> in [clears throat] a way that isn't just
me being annoyed." And and I feel like
maybe maybe be fun to explore this as
the science evolves with you you know,
and and talk about it more cuz I think
>> Yeah.
>> the reason I'm so obsessed with this is
for two reasons. One is navigating
everyday life,
which is
a lot. It's a lot of what people are
challenged with. It's so vital. The
other is how to navigate the hard stuff
in life. So, I want to get to both of
those things and talk about some
examples from your life and from your
book. But before we do that, I feel like
we're obligated to talk about toilet
paper.
>> The number of [clears throat] pictures I
have received via email
of people taking pictures of their kids'
bathrooms
and and basically saying, "I thought I
was the only one."
>> [laughter]
>> All right, this is really seeming like
an inside joke now for those that read
Andy's. What you got? All right, we will
get back to time perception and
navigating the everyday and the hard
things in life. I won't forget. We'll
spin that plate in the background. It's
spinning.
The toilet paper section, yes, it made
me laugh. It also made me think about
the little things I do each day and the
little teeny itty-bitty shortcuts that
I'm taking and how those ratchet up. So,
tell us about toilet paper.
>> It always takes longer to do it wrong is
the bottom line. And we all are tempted
with these shortcuts. So,
>> That's the mantra we have to remember.
>> My children, their bathroom,
if there was going to be an Ebola
outbreak in the US, it might start
there. I don't know anything about
Ebola, but I feel like
it might start there. So,
as with most bathrooms, there's toilet
paper rolls. And
my kids
when they finish a toilet paper roll,
instead of popping it off the holder,
taking it and going and getting a new
one, they go get a new one.
And they sit it right there. So, it's
like
empty toilet paper roll
up against the wall.
You would think
that when this one is done, they would
take them both. But, instead they do
this.
So, there's two against the wall, and
then the other roll goes here.
Now, I can't use this one cuz this is
open. But, when this roll is done, you
would think
that they wouldn't create a pyramid,
which historically, from my
understanding of math, isn't great to
balance things on. But, they will make a
pyramid
and then put this up here, and
inevitably this roll goes forward, hits
the ground behind the toilet, and then
they start screaming from the bathroom,
"I need toilet paper, Dad." To which I
respond, "You got yourself there. You
can figure it out on your own."
>> This is all of your kids?
>> Yeah, for sure.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> And they're all your kids?
>> Yeah.
>> All right. I'm not I'm not really saying
anything. I'm just
>> I'm [laughter] just just And so, the
point of all of this is, if you don't
want to be somebody screaming for a
toilet paper roll,
it actually takes less time to go and
when you're out of toilet paper,
disconnect it, throw it away on the way,
and bring another one in. It's the same
thing as laundry. Do you laundry?
I'm not perfect at this by any stretch.
But, do your laundry, fold your laundry,
put it away. That always takes less time
than do your laundry in a pile, then
you're in a pinch, and you're looking
for your t-shirt, or whatever shirt you
want to wear.
>> And I own a lot of black clothing.
>> Oh, my god. I do, too. It's all blues,
blacks, and the occasional red. The red
ones are easy to find in that particular
cohort. But, otherwise, you're in there
to and it's socks inside out, so you
don't know if it's got the right logo,
there's socks coming out of the sleeves.
Five x the amount of time that would
take you as opposed to just wash your
laundry, dry it, fold it, put it away.
I have tried to express this message to
my children to the limits of my
vocabulary.
I went into my daughter's bathroom
before we came up here.
There was three rolls of toilet paper.
Two of them were empty and wedged on the
side, and the third one was vertical.
And I just closed the door and walked
away, pretend like it didn't happen.
They don't They don't listen to me.
It always takes longer to do it wrong.
And those are the little shortcuts that
we all take. We tell ourselves,
"I'll do it later." Or I I I don't have
time to do it right now. You We all have
the same amount of time. It's where
you're allocating your time.
Do it up front, and I assure you like
the McRaven speech about making your
bed.
The number of parents that probably
thought that was life-changing was just
amazing. Like, "Yes, somebody else is
telling my kid to make the bed." It's
not actually about that. It's about
having the discipline to do the little
things, and it is way better at the end
of the night when you're tired to come
back to a bed that is made and ready for
you to hop into than having to Well, not
most people would do this, but make it
first and then get into it. But it just
gets worse and worse and worse. And in
the end, it will take you longer to
correct for that than the individual
action of just doing it right the first
time. What's your advice with respect to
this?
>> [sighs]
>> I mean, I can give you the advice, but I
also don't follow it all the time,
either. Every Every single decision that
you have in front of you in your life
will have a slightly easier and a
slightly harder choice. Make the
slightly harder one more often than the
slightly easier one. And the thing I
liked a lot about McRaven's messaging
around the bed is that it started your
day with an a small act of discipline
that could seem meaningless, but then
what if you pair another small one with
that? And then another small one with
that. I think that can really set you up
for success in your day. And yes, at the
end of the day, boom, your bed's ready
to go, and you can hop back into it. It
just feels better to get into a made
bed.
>> It took me a while to realize that most
of the people that I
could tell were really squared away in
their jobs and because I happen to know
their personal lives, too, also their
personal lives,
they're pretty tidy people.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh whether by sheer will or by reflex,
they're just pretty tidy.
>> I don't think it's everybody reflex. I
think it's always by always by will.
And it's not fun. And I'm Don't get me
wrong. I'm not I'm not perfect at it,
but if I can look back at my lives or my
life at times where things were
a little bit less
effort involved in and being successful
or making traction, it wasn't in chaos.
It was in a little bit more of a
controlled environment by me, again,
controlling what I can control, which is
my actions in the morning. You know, it
If you sit down in front of a desk and
you can't even find the thing that
you're looking for to do the work on it,
I I how I don't know anybody who has
become ultra successful in life with
that model.
But, I think we could both sit down and
talk about some people who are nailing
it, and I think the vast majority of
them would fall into that tidy category
or disciplined category. But, it's micro
discipline. They can make it seem as if
you have this macro discipline, but
that's not actually what it is. It's the
little things that nobody sees. That's
what leads you to that end state.
>> It's interesting. Earlier we were
talking about social pressure and um
alcohol and social media. You know, it
it's
interesting to me that there seems to be
some degree of social pressure to not do
the slightly harder thing. You know,
like [snorts] what we're what we're
describing now, I never get into uh
thinking about what the comments would
be, but I
I'd be willing to bet one pinky that
a fair number of people are either
thinking or commenting directly,
"Yeah, like that's really neurotic. Like
loosen up."
>> Yeah, take a picture of your [ __ ]
room and And it to me. I bet it looks
like [ __ ]
>> [laughter]
>> Exactly. My dad's first generation
immigrant from South America and and on
that never forget when in it was in the
mid-90s
he was probably took me to a movie in an
attempt to repair a relationship and
eventually worked out. We're doing
great. [laughter] Talk to him today. I
called him today. We're on such great
terms. It feels good to be able to say
it. And I'll never forget we were at the
movies and there were these people
walking by and they were wearing kind of
like baggy sweats and flip-flops or
something and he stopped me and he's a
very orderly guy and he said
"See that? That's the beginning of the
end."
And I said, "What do you mean?"
>> [laughter]
>> And he said
"I come from a third world country
when people start going to the movies in
their pajamas it's the beginning of the
end." And I thought, "Hey, this is like
you couldn't be more out He's I I
actually think he's right." What he was
talking about is that that the when the
social pressure is not sufficient to
like keep people feeling as if they need
to show up as if they're in public,
right?
>> And he might have been a bit extreme,
but you know, when when that social
pressure isn't there, then the social
pressure eventually erodes around what
people can say, what they can do and
then I do think that era of kind of
Jerry Springer daytime television where
people would watch people who were way
more screwed up than them so they could
feel a lot less screwed up. What's that
called? Schadenfreude when you take
>> pleasure in other people's pain?
>> Yeah. Well, I think that there's that's
that's the word for it for sure, but I
think this is
kind of adjacent to that where it's it's
like giving yourself license to not feel
that bad because like
like either they're just so neurotic
that I won't anything to do with that
kind of world where everything's right
angles or like well, at least I'm not in
total squalor. And this is where I think
that you know, we hear so much about oh,
everyone's presenting them best self the
their best selves on social media. Also
a problem to seem perfect cuz no one's
perfect, but I do think that there is
this drift where we go well, like
it's not going to crush my life with
that toilet paper thing. Like if it were
going to cost me my relationship or, you
know, my allowance, you know, your kids
might think about it differently, right?
>> Yeah.
>> But, so I think but what I got from your
book this this section of your book is
that it's because the consequences are
so small
at the individual level, but the upside
is so big
>> Yes.
>> 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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