Andrew Huberman: Relationships, Drama, Betrayal, Sex, and Love | Lex Fridman Podcast #393
- Listen, when it comes
to romantic relationships, if it's not a hundred percent in you, it ain't happening. And I've never seen a violation of that statement where it's like, yeah, it's
mostly good and they're this, and this is like the negotiations. Well, already you're, it's doomed. And that doesn't mean
someone has to be perfect, the relationship has to be perfect. But it's gotta feel a
hundred percent inside. Like, yes, yes, and yes. - The following is a
conversation with my dear friend, Andrew Huberman, his fourth
time on this podcast. It's my birthday. So this is a special
birthday episode of sorts. Andrew flew down to Austin just
to wish me a happy birthday, and we decided to do
a podcast last second. We literally talked for hours beforehand and a long time after,
late into the night. He's one of my favorite human
beings, brilliant scientist, incredible teacher, and a loyal friend. I'm grateful for Andrew. I'm grateful for good friends, for all the support and love I've gotten over the past few years. I'm truly grateful for this life. For the years, the days, the minutes, the seconds I've gotten to live on this beautiful earth of ours. I really don't want to leave just yet. I think I'd really like to stick around. I love you all. This is the "Lex Fridman Podcast." And now, dear friends,
here's Andrew Huberman. - I'm trying to run a little bit more. - Are you losing weight? - I'm not trying to lose weight, but I always do the same fitness routine after like 30 years, basically, lift three days a week,
run three days a week. But one of the runs is a long
run, one of 'em is medium, one of 'em is a sprint-type thing. So what I've decided to do
this year was just extend the duration for the long run. And I like being a mobile. I never wanna be so
heavy that I can't move. Like I wanna be able to go out and run 10 miles if I have to. So sometimes I do. And I wanna be able to
sprint if I have to. So sometimes I do. And lifting an objects, feels good. It feels good to train like a lazy bear and just lift heavy objects. But I've also started
training with lighter weights and higher repetitions, and for three month cycles, and it gives your joints a rest. And yeah, so probably, you know, I think it also is interesting to see how training differently
changes your cognition. That's probably hormone-related, you know, that hormones
downstream of training heavy versus hormones downstream of
training a little bit lighter. I think my cognition is better
when I'm doing more cardio and when the repetition ranges
are a little bit higher, which is not to say that
people who lift heavy are dumb, but there is a... 'cause there's real
value in lifting heavy. - There's a lot of angry
people listening to this right now.
- No, no, no. But lifting heavy and then
taking 3 to 5 minutes rest is far and away a different challenge than running hard for 90 minutes. That's a tough thing. Just like getting in an
ice bath, people say, "Oh, well, how is that any
different than working out?" Well, there are a lot of differences, but one of 'em is that
it's very acute stress, within one second you're stressed. So I think subjecting the body to a bunch of different types of
stressors in space and time is really valuable. So yeah, I've been
playing with the variables in a pre-systematic way. - Well, I like long and slow for, like you said, the
impact it has on my cognition. - Yeah, the wordlessness of it, the way it puts you in a, the way it seems to clean out the clutter. You know, it can take away that hyperfocus and put you more in a
relaxed focus, for sure. - Well, for me, it brings the clutter to the surface at first. Like, all these thoughts come in there and then they dissipate. You know, I've been, because I got knee barred pretty hard, that's when somebody
tries to break your knee, you know?
- That's Jiu-jitsu. They try and break your knee? Oh, so you tap, so they... - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, hyperextend the knee at that direction, they got
knee barred pretty hard. So in ways I don't understand,
it kinda hurts to run. I don't understand what's
happening behind there. I need to investigate this. It basically, this, the hamstringing flex, like curling your leg hurts a little bit. And that results in this weird, dull, but sometimes extremely sharp
pain in the back of the knee. So I'm working through this, anyway, but walking doesn't hurt. So I've been playing around
with walking recently, like for two hours and thinking- - I love that.
- because I know a lot of like smart
people throughout history. I have walked and thought,
and you have to like, you know, play with things
that have worked for others. Not just to exercise, but to like integrate this very light kind of prolonged exercise
into a productive life. So they do all their
thinking while they walk. It's like a meditative type of walking. And it's really interesting. It really works. - Yeah, the practice I've been
doing a lot more of lately is I walk while reading a book, in the yard, I'll just pace back and forth or walk in a circle. - [Lex] Audiobook or are you talking about-
- No, hard copy. - [Lex] Well, you're just holding- - I'm holding the book and
I'm walking and I'm reading. And I usually have a
pen and I'm underlining, I have this whole system, like underlining stars,
exclamation points, goes back to university of
what things I'll go back to, which things I export to
notes and that kind of thing. But from the beginning when
I opened my lab at that time in San Diego before I
moved back to Stanford, I would have meetings with
my students or postdocs by just walking in the
field behind the lab, you know, and I'd bring
my Bulldog, Costello. Bulldog Masttif at the time. And he was a slow walker. So these were slow walks, but I can think much
more clearly that way. There's a Nobel Prize winning professor at Columbia University School
of Medicine, Richard Axel, who won the Nobel Prize, co-won
Nobel Prize with Linda Buck for the discovery of the
molecular basis of olfaction. And he walks and voice
dictates his papers. And now with Rev or these other, maybe there are better ones than Rev, where you can convert audio
files into text very quickly and then edit from there. So I will often voice dictate first drafts and things like that. And I totally agree on the long runs, the walks, the integrating
that with cognitive work, harder to do with sprints. And then the gym, you know, are you, you weight train? - Yeah.
- You just seem naturally strong and like thicker jointed. - (chuckles)
- It's true, it's true. I mean, we did the one very beginner. 'cause I'm a very beginner
of jiu-jitsu class together. And yeah, as I mentioned then,
what if people missed it? Lex is freakishly strong. - I think I was born
genetically to hug people. - [Andrew] Oh, like Costello. - Yeah, exactly.
- You guys have a certain similarity. He had wrists, like, you know, it's like you and Jocko and
Costello have these like wrists and elbows that are super thick, you know, and then when you look around,
you see tremendous variation. You know, some people have like
the wrist width of a Whippet or Woody Allen, and then
other people like you or Jocko or, you know? There's this one Jocko video
or thing on GQ or something. Have you seen the comments on Jocko? These are the best. - [Lex] No. (chuckles) - The comments, I love
the comments on YouTube 'cause occasionally they're funny. The best is when Jocko was born, the doctor looked at his
parents and said, it's a man. (Lex laughs) - [Lex] It's like Chuck
Norris type comments. - Oh yeah, those are great. That's what I miss about
Rogan being on YouTube with the full length
episode, oh, that comment. - So this is technically
a birthday podcast. What do you love most about getting older? - It's like, the confirmation that comes from getting more and more data that which basically says, yeah, the first time
you thought that thing, it was actually right because the second, third
and fourth and fifth time, it turned out the exact same way. In other words, there have
been a few times in my life where I did not feel easy
about something I felt a signal from my body, this is not good. And I didn't trust it early on, but I knew it was there. And then two or three
bad experiences later, I'm able to say, ah, every single time there was a signal from the body informing my mind, "this is not good." Now the reverse has also been true that there've been a number of instances in which I feel there
sort of immediate delight. And there's this kind
of almost astonishingly simple experience of feeling
comfortable with somebody or at peace with something,
or delighted at an experience. And it turns out all, literally all of those
experiences and people turned out to be experiences and people that are still in my life and that I still delight in every day. In other words, what's
great about getting older is that you stop questioning the signals that come from the, I think, deeper recesses of
your nervous system to say, Hey, this is not good, or hey,
this is great, more of this. Whereas, I think in my
teens, my 20s, my 30s, I'm 40, almost 48, I'll be 48 next month. I didn't trust, I didn't listen. I actually put a lot of work
into overriding those signals and learning to fight through them, thinking that somehow
that was making me tougher or somehow that was making me smarter. When in fact, in the end, those people that you meet that are, you know, difficult or you know, there are other names for
it, you know, it's like, in the end you're like, that
person's a piece of, you know? Or this person is amazing
and they're really wonderful. And I felt that from go. - So you've learned to trust your gut versus like the influences
of other people's opinions. - I've learned to trust my gut versus the forebrain over analysis,
overriding the gut. Other people often in my life
have had great optics, right? I've benefited tremendously
from an early age of being in a large community. Well, it's been mostly guys, but I have some close female
friends and always have as well who will tell me that
that's a bad decision or this person not so good, or be careful, or they're great, or that's great. So oftentimes my community
and the people around me have been more aligned
with the correct choice than not-
- Christian, really? - Yes
- Really? When you were younger, like, or like friends, parents and so on? - I don't recall ever really
listening to my parents that much, you know, I
grew up in a, you know, we don't have to go back
to my childhood thing, but my sense was that-
- It's your fault, Andrew. - Thank you, I learned that recently in a psilocybin journey. My first high dose psilocybin journey, which was-
- Welcome back. - done with a clinician,
thank you very much. Thank you. I was worried there for
a second at one point, I might not coming back, but in any event, yeah, I
grew up with some wild kids. You know, I would say
about a third of my friends from childhood are dead or in jail, about a third have gone on to do tremendously impressive things. Start companies, excellent athletes, academics, scientists and clinicians. And then about a third
are living their lives as kind of more typical. I just mean, that they are
happy family people with jobs that they mainly serve the
function to make money. They're not sort of
career into their career for career's sake. But, so some of my friends
early on gave me some bad ideas, but most of the time,
my bad ideas came from overriding the signals
that I knew that my body, and I would say my body and
brain were telling me to obey. And now I say body and brain is that there's this brain region, the insula, which does many things, but it represents our
sense of internal sensation and interoception. And I was talking to
Paul Conti about this, you know, who as you know,
I respect tremendously. I think he's one of the
smartest people I've ever met, I think for different reasons. He and Marc Andreessen
are some of the like, smartest people I've ever met. But Paul's level of insight
into the human psyche is absolutely astounding. And he says the opposite
of what most people say about the brain, which is most people say, oh, the supercomputer of
the brain is the forebrain. It's like a monkey brain with a extra real estate put on there, and the forebrain is what makes us human and gives us our superpowers. Paul has said, and he's done a whole
series on mental health that's coming out from
our podcast in September. So this is not an attempt to plug that, but he'll elaborate on- - Wait, Paul-
- what I'm about to say. - [Lex] Wait, you're
doing a thing with Paul with the series?
- We already did. Yeah, so Paul-
- Oh, nice. - Yeah, so Paul Conti shot, we did, he and I sat down and he
did a four episode series on mental health. This is not mental illness, mental health about how to explore
one's own subconscious, explore the self build and
cultivate the generative drive. You'll learn more about
what that is from him. He's far more eloquent
and clearer than I am. And he provides essentially a set of steps to explore the self that does not require that
you work with a therapist. This is self-exploration
that is rooted in psychiatry, it's rooted in neuroscience. And I don't think this
information exists anywhere else. I'm not aware that it
exists anywhere else. And he essentially distills it all down to one 8 1/2 by 11 sheet,
which we provide for people. And he says there, I don't want to give too much away because I would detract from
what he does so beautifully, but if I tried and I wouldn't
have accomplish it anyway. But he said, "And I believe
that the subconscious is the supercomputer of the brain. All the stuff working underneath
our conscious awareness that's driving our feelings and what we think are the decisions that we've thought through so carefully. And that only by
exploring the subconscious and understanding it a little bit, can we actually improve
ourselves over time." And I agree. I think that, so that the mistake is to think that thinking
can override it all. It's a certain style of
introspection in thinking that allows us to read
the signals from our body, read the signals from our brain, integrate the knowledge that we're
collecting about ourselves and to use all that in ways
that are really adaptive, and generative for us. - What do you think is
there in that subconscious, what do you think of the
Jungian shadow, what's there? - You know, there's this idea,
as you're familiar with too, I'm sure that this
Jungian idea that there, we all have all things inside of us. That all of us have the
capacity to be evil, to be good, et cetera, but that some people
express one or the other to a greater extent. But he also mentioned that
there's a unique category of people, maybe 2 to 5% of people that don't just have all
things inside of them, but they actually spend
a lot of time exploring a lot of those things. The darker recesses, the
shadows, their own shadows. You know, I'm somebody who's drawn to goodness and to light, and to joy, and all those things like anybody else. But yeah, I think maybe it
was part of how I grew up. Maybe it was the crowd
I was with, maybe... But then again, you know, even when I started spending
more time with academics and scientists, I mean, you see shadows in other ways, right? You see pure ambition with no passion. I recall a colleague in San Diego who, it was very clear to me, did not actually care about
understanding the brain, but understanding the
brain was just his avenue to exercise ambition. And if you gave him
something else to work on, he'd work on that, in fact, he did. He left and he worked on something else. I realized he has no passion for understanding the brain, like all, I assumed all scientists do,
certainly why I went into it. But some people, it's just raw ambition. It's about winning. It doesn't even matter what they win. It's to which to me is crazy. But I think that's a shadow
that some people explore, not one I've explored. I think the shadow parts
of us are very important to come to understand and look, better to understand them
and know that they're there and work with them than to not
acknowledge their presence, and have them surface in the
form of addictions or behaviors that damage us and other people. - So one of the processes
for achieving mental health is to bring those things to the surface. So fish the subconscious mind. - Yes, and you know, Paul describes 10 cupboards
that one can look into for exploring the self. There's the structure of self
and the function of self. Again, this will all be
spelled out in this series in a lot of detail also in
terms of its relational aspect between people, how to pick good partners and good relations. It gets really into this from
a very different perspective. Yeah, fascinating stuff. I was just sitting there, just... I will say this, that four
episode series with Paul is at least to date,
the most important work I've ever been involved
in, in all of my career. Because it's very clear
that we are not taught how to explore our subconscious. And that very few people actually
understand how to do that. Even most psychiatrists, he mentioned something
about psychiatrists. You know, if you're a
cardiothoracic surgeon or something like that and
50% of your patients die, you're considered a bad
cardiothoracic surgeon. But with no disrespect to psychiatrists, there are some excellent
psychiatrists out there. There are also a lot of terrible
psychiatrists out there. Because unless all of those, all of their patients commit
suicide or half commit suicide, they can treat for a long time
without it becoming visible that they're not so good at their craft. Now he's superb at his craft. And I think he would say that,
yes, exploring some shadows, but also just understanding the self. Like what, you know,
really understanding like, who am I and what's important? What are my ambitions? What are my strivings? Again, I'm lifting from some of the things that he'll describe
exactly how to do this. People do not spend enough time
addressing those questions. And as a consequence, they discover what resides
in their subconscious through the sometimes
bad, hopefully also good, but manifestations of their actions. We are driven by this huge 90% of our real estate that is not visible to our conscious awareness. And we need to understand that, you know, I've talked about this before, I've done therapy twice
a week since I was a kid. I had to, as a condition of
being let back in school, I continue, I found a way
to either through insurance or even when I didn't have insurance, I took an extra job writing
for Thrasher Magazine when I was a postdoc so I could pay for therapy at a discount 'cause I didn't make
much money as a postdoc. I mean, I think for me, it's as important as going to the gym. And people think it's just, oh, you know, ruminating on problems
or getting, no, no, no. If you work with somebody really good, they're forcing you to ask questions about who you really are,
what you really want. It's not just about support,
but there should be support, there should be rapport, but then it's also, there
should be insight, right? Most people who get therapy,
they're getting support. There's rapport, but insight is not easy to arrive at. And a really good
psychologist or psychiatrist can help you arrive at deep insights that transform your entire life. - Well, sometimes when I look
inside, and I do this often, you know, exploring who you truly are, you come to this question, do I accept once you see parts, do I accept this or do I fix this? Is this who you are fundamentally, and it will always be this way? Or is this a problem to be fixed? Like, for example, one of the things, especially recently, but in general over time
I've discovered about myself probably has roots in childhood, probably has roots in a lot of things, is I deeply value loyalty maybe more than the average person. And so when there's disloyalty,
it can be painful to me. And so this is who I am, and
so do I have to relax a bit? Do I have to fix this part?
Or is this who you are? And there's a million,
that's one like little... - I think loyalty is a
good thing to cling to, provided that when loyalty is broken, that it doesn't disrupt too
many other areas of your life. But it spends also on who's
disrupting that loyalty, if it's a coworker
versus a romantic partner versus your exclusive romantic partner, depending on the structure of your romantic partner life, you know, I mean, I have always experienced extreme joy and feelings of safety, and trust in my friendships. Again, mostly male friendships, but female friendships
too, which is only to say that they were mostly male friendships. The female friendships
have also been very loyal. You know, so getting backstabbed is not something I'm familiar with. And yeah, I love being crude up, you know? - Yeah, yeah, no, for
sure and I'm with you, and you know, you and I are very much have the same values on this, but you know, that's one little thing. And then there's many other things, like I'm extremely self-critical. Then you look at my, you know, I look at myself as, I'm
regularly very self-critical, there's a self-critical
engine in my brain. And I talked to actually Paul about this, I think on the podcast quite a bit. And he's saying, this
is a really bad thing. Like, you need to fix this. You need to be able to be
regularly very positive about yourself. And I kept disagreeing with him. No, this is like who I am. And he seems to work, don't mess with a thing that
seems to be working, it's fine. Like I oscillate between
being really grateful and really self-critical. But then you have to like
figure out what is it, maybe there's a deeper root thing. Maybe there's an insecurity
in there somewhere that has to do with childhood and then you're trying to
prove something to somebody from your childhood, this kind of thing. - Well, a couple things that
I think are hopefully valuable for people here. One is one way to destroy your life is to spend time trying to control your or somebody else's past. So much of our destructive behavior and thinking comes from wanting something that we saw or did, or
heard to not be true, rather than really working
with that and getting close to what it really was. And you know, sometimes those
things are even traumatic and we need to really get close to them and for them to move through us. And that, you know, there
are a bunch of different ways to do that with support
from others and hopefully, but sometimes on our own as well. I don't think we can
rewire our deep preferences and what we find despicable or joyful. I do think that it's really a question
of what allows us peace. Like, can you be at peace with the fact that you're very self-critical and enjoy that, get some distance from it, have a sense of humor about it or is it driving you in a way that's keeping you awake at night and forcing you back to the
table to do work in a way that feels self-flagellating
and doesn't feel good. You know, can you get that
humility and awareness of how you're, you know,
of your one's flaws? And I think that can create, you know, this word space sounds very new agey, like get space from it. It's, you know, you can
have a sense of humor about how, you know,
neurotic, we can all be, I mean, you know, neurotic isn't actually a bad term in the classic
sense of the psychologists and psychiatrists, the freudians. So that, you know, the best
case is to be neurotic, to actually see one's own
issues and work with them. Whereas psychotic is the other way to be, which is obviously not good. So I think the question whether
or not to work on something or to just accept it as part of ourselves, I think really depends if we feel like it's
holding us back or not. And I think you're asking perhaps
the most profound question about being a human, which is, you know, what do you do with your body? What do you do with your mind? I mean, it's also a question. We started off talking
about fitness a little bit. We just, for whatever reason, you know, do I need to
run an ultra marathon? I don't feel like I need to. David Goggins does, and does
a whole lot more than that. So that for him, that's important. For me, it's not important to do that. I don't think he does it just
so he can run the ultras. There's clearly something
else in there for him. And guys like Cam Hanes and tremendous respect for what
they do and how they do it. Does one need to make their
body more muscular, stronger, more endurance, more flexibility? Do you need to read harder books? Do you need to, I think
doing hard things feels good. I think it, I know it feels good. I know that the worst I feel, the worst way to feel is
when I'm procrastinating and I don't do something. And then whenever I do
something and I complete it, and I break through that
point where it was hard and then I'm doing it, at the end, I actually
feel like I was infused with some sort of super chemical. And who knows if it's probably a cocktail of endogenously made chemicals. But I think it is good to do hard things, but you have to be careful
not to destroy your body, your mind in the process. And I think it's about whether
or not you can achieve peace. Can you sleep well at night? Stress isn't bad if you
can sleep well at night. You can be stressed all day,
go, go, go, go, go, go, go, and it'll optimize your focus. But can you fall asleep and
stay deeply asleep at night? Being in a hard relationship. Some people say, you
know, that's not good. Other people like it. Can you be at peace in that? And I think we all, you know, have different RPM that, you know, we all kinda idle at different RPM and some people are big mellow Costellos, and others are kind of like, you know, need more friction in
order to feel at peace. But I think ultimately what
we want is to feel at peace. - Yeah, I've been through
some really low points over the past couple years and I think the reason could be boiled down to the fact that I
haven't been able to find a place of peace, a place or people, or moments
that give deep inner peace. Yeah, you know, and I think you put it really beautifully. You have to figure out, given who you are, the various characteristics
of your mind, all the things, all the contents of the cupboards, how to get space from it. And ultimately, one good
representation of that is to be able to laugh at all of it. Whatever's going on inside your mind to be able to step back
and just kinda chuckle at the beauty and the
absurdity of the whole thing. - Yeah, and keep going. There's this beautiful, as I mentioned, it seems like every podcast lately, I'm a huge Rancid fan, mostly 'cause I just think
Tim Armstrong's writing is pure poetry and whether or
not you like the music or not, you know, and he's written music for a lot of other people too. He's not, doesn't advertise that much 'cause he's humble, but- - [Lex] And that by the way,
I went to a show of theirs like 20 years ago.
- Oh yeah? I'm gonna see them in
Boston, September 18th. I'm literally flying there for, or I'll take the train up from New York. I'm gonna meet a friend of
mine named Jim Thiebaud, who's a big guy who
owns a lot of companies, the skateboard industry. We're meeting there like
a couple little kids to go see them play. Amazing people, amazing music. - Very intense.
- Very intense, but embodies all the different emotions. That's why I love it, right? They have some love songs,
they have some hate songs, they have some, but you know, going back to what you said,
I think there's a song, the first song on the
Indestructible album, I think there's a, it's sort of, he's just
talking about like shock and disbelief of discovering
things about people that were close to you, and, you know, I won't sing it, but, you know, nor I wouldn't dare. But there's this one lyric
where that's really stuck in my mind for ever since
that album came out in 2003, which is, you know, that
nothing's what it seems, so I just sit here laughing,
I'm gonna keep going on. I can't get distracted. There is this piece of like,
you gotta learn how to push out the disturbing stuff
sometimes and go forward. And I mean, I remember hearing that lyric and then writing it down and, you know, that was a time where my
undergraduate advisor, who was like a mentor and a father to me, you know, blew his head off in the bathtub like three weeks before. And then my graduate advisor, who I was working for at that
time, who I loved and adored, was really like a mother to me. I knew her when she was
pregnant with her two kids died at 50, breast cancer. And then my postdoc advisor,
you know, first day of work at Stanford as a faculty
member sitting across the table like this from him, had a heart
attack right in front of me, died of pancreatic cancer
at the end of 2017. And I remember just thinking like, you know, going back to that
song lyric over and over, like, and where people would, you know, I haven't had many betrayals in life. I've had a few, but just thinking like, or seeing something or learning something about something you just,
like, you can't believe it. And I mentioned that
lyric off that first song, Indestructible on that album because it's this like, just
the raw emotion of like, I can't believe this, what
I just saw is so disturbing, but I have to just keep going forward. There are certain things that
we really do need to push, not just into our periphery, but often to the gutter and keep going. And that's a hard thing
to learn how to do. But if you're going to be
functional in life, you have to. And actually just to get at
this issue of do I change or do I embrace this aspect of self? About six months, it was April of this last year, I did some intense work around some things that were
really challenging to me. And I did it alone, and it may have involved some medicine. And I expected to get peace through this. I was like, I'm gonna let go of it, and I spent 11 hours just
getting more and more frustrated and angry about this thing
that I was trying to resolve. And I was so unbelievably disappointed that I couldn't get that relief. And I was like, what is this? Like this is not how
this is supposed to work. I'm supposed to be feel peace. The clouds are supposed to lift. And so a week went by and then another half week went by, and then someone whose
opinion I trust very much, I explained this to them because I was getting a
little concerned like, what's going on? This
is worse, not better. And they said, "This is very simple. You have a giant blind spot, which is your sense of justice, Andrew, and your sense of anger are linked like an iron rod and
you need to relax it." And as they said that, I
felt the anger dissipate. And so there was something
that I think is, it is true. I have a very strong sense of
justice and my sense of anger then at least, was very
strongly linked to it. So it's great to have a
sense of justice, right? I hate to see people wronged. I absolutely do. And I'm human, I'm sure I've
wronged people in my life. I know I have, they've told me, I've tried to apologize and
reconcile where possible, still have a lot of work to do. But where I see injustice, it draws in my sense of anger in a way that I think is just eating me up. And, but it was only in hearing that link that I wasn't aware of before, it was in my subconscious, obviously. Did I feel the relaxation? It wasn't, there's no
amount of plant medicine or MDMA or any kind of, you know, chemical you can take that's naturally just going to dissipate
what's hard for oneself. It needs, if one embraces that or if one chooses to do it
through just talk therapy or journaling, or
friends, or introspection, or all of the above, there needs to be an
awareness of the things that we're just not aware of. So I think the answer to your question, do you embrace or do you fight
these aspects of self is, I think you get in your subconscious through good work with
somebody skilled or, and sometimes that involves
the tools I just mentioned in various combinations,
and you figure it out. You figure out if it's serving you. Obviously, it was not bringing me peace. It was undermining my sense of justice, was undermining my sense of peace. And so in understanding this link be... Now, I would say that the, in understanding this link
between justice and anger, now, I think it's a
little bit more of like a, you know, it's not like
a Twizzler stick bendy, but it's at least, it's
not like an iron rod. Like, you know, when I
see somebody wronged, I mean, it used to just like,
(puffs) like immediately. - But you're able to step
back now that's like to me, the ultimate place to reach is laughter. - I just sit here laughing. Exactly, that's the lyric,
I like, I can't believe it. So I just sit here laughing like, can't get distracted. Just you at some point, but the problem I think in
just laughing at something, like that gives you distance. But the question is, do you stop engaging
with it at that point? Like, I experienced this, I mean, recently, I got
to see how sometimes I'll see something that's just like, what? Like this is crazy so I just laugh, but then I continue to engage in it and it's taking me off course. And so there is a place where, you know, I mean, I realize
this is probably a kid show too, so I want to keep it, you know, G-rated, but at some point for certain things, it makes sense to go, fuck that. - But also laugh at yourself
for saying fuck that. - Yeah, and then move on. So the question is, do you get stuck or do you move on, right? - Sure, but like, there's
a lightness of being that comes with laughter. I mean, I've gotten...
- Sure. - Like, as you know, I spent
the day with Elon today. He just gave me this burnt hair. Do you know what this is? - [Andrew] I have no idea. - I'm sure there's actually, there should be a Huberman
lab episode on this. It's a cologne that's burnt hair. - I see.
- And it's like supposedly a really intense smell. And it is.
- Give me a smell. - [Lex] Do please, it's not gonna leave your nose.
- That's okay. Well, that's okay, I'll take a gent... I'll whiff it as if I were whiffing a chemical in the lab.
- You have to actually spray it on yourself. 'cause I don't know if you can- - So I'm reading an amazing book called "An Immense World" by Ed Yong. He won a Pulitzer for
"We Contain Multitudes" or something like that, I think is the title of the other book. And the first chapter
is all about olfaction and the incredible power
that olfaction has. That smells terrible. I don't even-
- And it doesn't leave you. For those listening, it doesn't quite smell terrible. It's just intense and it stays with you. This to me represents like just laughing at
the absurdity of it all. - So I have to ask, so you
were rolling jiu-jitsu? - [Lex] Yeah, we're
training jiu-jitsu, yeah. - So is that fight between Elon and Zuck actually gonna happen? - I think Elon is a huge
believer of this idea of the most entertaining
outcomes is the most likely. And he almost like,
there's almost the sense that there's not a free
will and the universe has a kinda deterministic
gravitational field pulling towards the most fun and he's
just a player in that game. So from that perspective, I think it seems like something
like that is inevitable. - Like a little scrap in the parking lot of a Facebook or something like that.
- Exactly. - Sorry, Meta.
- Yeah. - But it looks like
they're training for real, and Zuck has competed right in jiu-jitsu? - So I think he is
approaching it as a sport. Elon is approaching it as a spectacle. And I mean, the way he talks about it, he's a huge fan of history. He talks about all the
warriors that have fought throughout history. If you look, he wants to
really do it at the Colosseum. And you know, the
Colosseum is for 400 years, there's so many, so much
great writing about this. I think over 400,000 people have died in the Colosseum, Gladiators. So this is this historic place
that sheds so much blood, so much fear, so much anticipation
of battle, all of this. So he loves this kinda spectacle. And also, the meme of it, the hilarious absurdity of it, that two tech CEOs battling it out on sand in a place where gladiators
fought to the death and then bears and lion ate prisoners as part of the execution process. - Well, it's also gonna be an instance where Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk gets to change bodily fluids. If they bleed, there's one
thing's about fighting, you know? I think it was in that book, it's a great book "Fighter's Heart," where he talks about, you
know, the sort of the intimacy of sparring. I only rolled jiu-jitsu with you once, but there was a period
of time where I boxed and which I don't recommend. I got hit, I hit some guys
and definitely got hit back. I'd spar on Wednesday nights
when I lived on San Diego. And you know, when you spar with somebody, even if they hurt you,
especially if they hurt you, you know, you see that person afterwards and there's an intimacy, right? It was in that book "Fire's
Heart" where he explains, you know, you're exchanging bodily fluids with a stranger, right? And you're in your primitive mind, and so there's an intimacy
there that persists, so. - You go together through a
process of fear, anxiety, like- - Yeah, when they get you, you nod. I mean, you watch somebody like
catch somebody if, you know, not so much in professional fighting, but if people are sparring
that they catch you, you acknowledge that they caught you, like you got me there. - And on the flip side of that, so we trained and then after
that we played Diablo IV. - [Andrew] I don't know what that is. I don't play video games, sorry. - But it's a video game. So it's like, it's a, you know, pretty intense combat in the video. You know, you're fighting like demons and- - Oh, okay. The last video game I played
was Mike Tyson's "Punch Out." - [Lex] There, you go. That's pretty close.
- I met him recently, went on his podcast. - [Lex] You went, wait... - It hasn't come out yet.
- Oh, it hasn't come out yet, okay.
- Yeah. Yeah, I asked Mike, his kids are great. They came in and they're super smart kids. Goodness gracious. They ask great questions. I asked Mike what he did with
the piece of a Evander's ear that he bit off and said-
- Did he remember? - He's like, gave it
back to him. (chuckles) - [Lex] There you go, sorry about that. - He sells edibles that
are in the shape of ears with a little bite out of it. Yeah, his life has been incredible. He's intimate. Yeah, his family are, you get the sense that
they're really a great family. They're really...
- Mike Tyson? That's a heck of a journey
right there of a man. - Yeah, my now friend, Tim Armstrong, like I said, lead singer
from Rancid, he put it best. He said, you know, that
Mike Tyson's life is, you know, Shakespearean and you know, down, up, down, up. And just that the arcs
of his life are just like sort of an only in America
kinda tale too, right? - So, speaking of Shakespeare, I've recently gotten to know Neri Oxman, who's this incredible scientist that works at the intersection
of nature and engineering. And she reminded me of
this Anna Akhmatova line, this is this great Soviet
poet that I really love from over a century ago that, "Each of our lives is a
Shakespearean drama raised to the thousand degree." So I have to ask, why do you think humans are attracted to this kind of Shakespearean drama? Is there some aspect
we've been talking about the subconscious mind that
pulls us towards the drama, even though the place of
mental health is peace? - Yes, and yes. - Do you have some of that? - Draw towards drama? Yeah. - [Lex] If you look at the empirical data. - Yes, I mean... Right, if I look at the empirical data, I mean, I think about
who I chose to work for as an undergraduate, right? I was, you know, barely
finished high school, finally get to college, barely. I think... This is really embarrassing
and not something to aspire to, you know, I was, you know,
thrown outta the dorms for fighting, barely passed
my classes, you know, the girlfriend and I split up. I mean, I was living in a
squad, got into a big fight. I was getting in trouble with the law. Eventually got my act
together, go back to school, start working for somebody, who do I choose to work for? A guy who's an ex-navy
guy who smokes cigarettes in the fume hood, drinks coffee, and we're injecting rats with MDMA. And, you know, I was drawn
to like the personality, his energy, but also, he
was a great scientist. Worked out a lot on a thermal regulation in the brain and more, you know, go to graduate
school, I'm working for somebody and decide that yeah, doing,
working in her laboratory wasn't quite right for me. So I'm literally sneaking
into the laboratory next door and working for the woman next door because I liked the
relationships that she had to a certain set of questions. And she was a kind of a quirky person. And, you know, so drawn to drama, but drawn to, I like characters. I like people that have texture. And I'm not drawn to raw ambition. I'm drawn to people that
seem to have a real passion for what they do and a uniqueness to them that I, you know, you
can kind of, not kind of, I'll just say how it is. I can feel their heart for what they do. And I'm drawn to that, like... And that can be good. The same reason I went to work
for Ben Barres as a postdoc, it wasn't because he was
the first transgender member of the National Academy of Sciences. That was just a feature of who he was. I loved how he loved Glia. He would talk about these cells like they were the most enchanting things that he'd ever seen in his life. And I was like, this is like
the biggest nerd I've ever met, and I love him. I think I'm drawn to that. This is another thing that
Conti makes elaborates on quite a bit more in the series on
mental health coming out. But there are different drives within us. There are aggressive drives,
not always for fighting, but for intense interaction. I mean, look at Twitter, look at people clearly
have an aggressive drive. There's also a pleasure drive. Some people also have a
strong pleasure drive. They want to experience
pleasure through food, through sex, through friendship, through adventure, you know? But I think the Shakespearean
drama is the drama of the different drives
in different ratios in different people. I know somebody and she's incredibly kind, has an extremely high pleasure drive, loves taking great care of
herself and people around her through food and through retreats, and through all these things, and makes spaces beautiful
everywhere she goes. And gifts, these things that are just so unbelievably
feminine and incredible. These gifts to people and
the kind and thoughtful about what they like. And then, but I would say
very little aggressive drive from my read. And then I know other people
who are just have a ton of aggressive drive and
very little pressure drive. And I think, so there's this alchemy that exists where people have these things in different ratios,
and then you blend in, you know, the differences
in the chromosomes and differences in hormones, and differences in personal history, and what you end up with is a species that creates incredible recipes of drama, but also peace, also relief
from drama, contentment. I mean, I realize this
isn't the exact topic of the question, but someone I know very dearly, actually an ex-girlfriend of
mine, long-term partner of mine sent me something recently
and I think it hit the nail on the head, which is
that ideally for a man, they eventually settle where
they find and feel peace. Where they feel peaceful, where they can be themselves
and feel peaceful. Now, I'm sure there's a equivalent or mirror image of that for women, but this particular post
that she sent was about men. And I totally agree. And so it isn't always that
we're seeking friction, but for periods of our life,
we seek friction, drama, adventure, excitement, fights, you know, and doing hard, hard things. And then I think at some point, I'm certainly coming to this
point now where it's like, yeah, that's all great and
checked a lot of boxes, but had a lot of close calls, flew really close to the sun
on a lot of things with life and limb, and heart and spirit. And some of, you know, people
close to us didn't make it. And sometimes not making it means the career they wanted went off a cliff or their health went off a cliff, or their life went off a cliff. But I think that there's
also the Shakespearean drama of the characters that exit the play and are living their lives
happily in the backdrop. It just doesn't make for
as much entertainment. - That's one other thing that's a benefit, you could say is the
benefit of getting older is finding the Shakespearean
drama less appealing or finding the joy in the peace. - Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that, I think
there's real peace with age. I think the other thing is this notion of checking
boxes is a real thing, for me anyway. I have a morning meditation that I do, well, I wake up now, I get
my sunlight, I hydrate, I use the bathroom, I do all
the things that I talk about. I've started a practice of
prayer in the last year, which is new-ish for me, which is, we could talk about it if you want.
- In the morning? - Yeah.
- Can you talk about it a little bit?
- Sure, yeah. And then I have a meditation that I do that actually is where I think through with the different roles that I play. So like, I start very basic. I say, you know, okay, I'm an animal. Like we are like,
biologically animals, right? Human, you know, I'm a man,
I'm a scientist, I'm a teacher, I'm a friend, I'm a brother, I'm a son, you know, I go through
this, I have this list and I think about the
different roles that I have and the roles that I still
want in my life going forward that I haven't yet fulfilled. It just takes me, it's
sort of an inventory of where I've been, where I'm at, and where I'm going as they say. And I don't know why I do it, but I started doing it this last year, I think because it helps me understand just how many different
contexts I have to exist in and remind myself that there's still more that I haven't done
that I'm excited about. - So within each of those contexts, there's like things that you
want to kind of accomplish, to define that. - Yeah, and I'm ambitious so I think, you know, I'm a brother. I have an older sister and
I love her tremendously. And I think like, I wanna be the best
brother I can be to her. Which means maybe a call, maybe just, you know, we do an annual trip
together for our birthdays. Our birthdays are close together. We always go to New York for our birthdays and we've gone for the
last three, four years, like really like reminding
myself of that role, not because I'll forget, but because I have all these other roles I'll get pulled into. I say the first one, I'm an animal because I have to remember
that I have a body that needs care, like any of us. I need sleep, I need food,
I need hydration, I need... That I'm human, that the brain of a human is marvelously complex, but also marvelously
self-defeating at times. And so I've been thinking
about these things in the context of the different roles. And the whole thing takes
about four or five minutes. And I just find it brings me
a certain amount of clarity that then allows me to
ratchet into the day. The prayer piece, yeah, I think I've been
reluctant to talk about until now because I don't believe in
pushing religion on people. And I think that, and I'm not. It's a highly individual thing. And I do believe that
one can be an atheist and still pray or agnostic and still pray. But for me, it really came
about through understanding that there are certain aspects of myself that I just couldn't resolve on my own. And no matter how much therapy, no matter how much, and I
haven't done a lot of it, but no matter how much plant medicine or other forms of medicine, or exercise, or podcasting, or science, or friendship, or any of that, I was
just not going to resolve. And so I started this because someone close to me said, a male friend said, "You
know, prayer is powerful." And I said, "Well, how?" And he said, "I don't know
how, but if you can get... It can allow you to get outside yourself, let you give up control, and
at the same time take control." I don't even like saying take control. But the whole notion is that, and again, forgive me, but there's no other way to say it. The whole notion is that, you know, like God works through us, whatever God is to you,
he, him, her, whatever, life force, like nature,
whatever it is to you, right? That it works through us. And so I do a prayer,
I'll just describe it, where I ask, I make an ask
to help remove my defects, my character defects. I pray to God to help
remove my character defects so that I can show up better
in all the roles of my life and do good work. Like to, which for me is
learning and teaching. Learning and teaching. And so you might say,
well, how is that different than a meditation? Well, I'm acknowledging
that there is something that bigger than me, bigger
than nature as I understand it, that I cannot understand or
control, nor do I want to. And I'm just giving over to that. And does that make me less of a scientist? I sure as hell hope not. I certainly know, there's
the head of our neurosciences at Stanford until recently. You should talk to him directly about it. Bill Newsome has talked
about his religious life. For me, it's really a way
of getting outside myself and then understanding how I
fit into this bigger picture. And the character defects
part is real, right? I'm a human, I have defects, like I got a lot of flaws
in me, like anybody. But, and trying to acknowledge them and asking for help in
removing them, not magically, but through right action,
through my right action. So I do that every morning. And I have to say that it's
helped, it's helped a lot. It's helped me be better to myself, be better at other people. I still make mistakes, but it's becoming a
bigger part of my life. And I never thought I'd talk like this, but I think it's clear to me that if we don't believe in something, again, doesn't have to be traditional, standardized religion, but if we don't believe in
something bigger than ourselves, we at some level will self-destruct. I really think so. And it's powerful in a way
that all the other stuff, meditation, all the tools is not because it's really operating at a much deeper and bigger level. And, you know, yeah, I think that's all I can talk about it, mostly because I'm still working out, you know, the scientists
in me wants to understand how it works, and I wanna understand. And the point is to just go, you know, there's you know, for lack of a better language for it, there's higher power than
me and what I can control, I'm giving up control on certain things. And somehow that restores
a sense of agency for right action, better action. - I think perhaps a part of
that is just the humility that comes with acknowledging
there's something bigger and more powerful than you. - And you can't control everything. I mean, that you go through
life as a hard-driving person, you know, forward center of mass. I remember being that
way since I was little. It's like a new Legos, I'm like, I'm gonna make all the Legos. And it was like on the weekends, you know, learning about medieval weapons and then giving lectures about it in class when I was five or six years old, or learning about tropical fish and, you know, cataloging
all of them at the store, and then organizing it and making my, you know, my dad drive
me or my mom drive me to some fish store and then
spending all my time there until they throw me out,
you know, all of that, but I also remember my entire
life, I would secretly pray. When things were good
and things weren't good, but mostly when things were weren't good 'cause it's important to pray, for me, it's important to
pray each morning regardless. But when things weren't right, I couldn't get make sense of
'em, I would secretly pray, but I felt kind of ashamed
of that for whatever reason. And then it was once in
college, I distinctly remember, I was having a hard time
with a number of things and I took a run down to Sands Beach, it was UC, Santa Barbara. And I remember I just, I was like, I don't know if I even
have the right to do this, but I'm just praying and I just prayed for the ability to be as
brutally honest with myself and with other people
as I possibly could be about a particular situation
I was in at that time. I mean, I think now it's
probably safe to say, I'd gone off to college 'cause
of a high school girlfriend. We had, essentially, she
was my family, more frankly, more than my biological family was at a certain stage of life. And we'd reached a point
where we were diverging and it was incredibly painful. It was like losing everything I had. And it was like, what do I do? How do I manage this? Do I, you know, I was ready to quit and join the fire service
just to support us so that we could move forward. And you know, it was just, but praying, just saying, I can't
figure this out on my own. It's sort of like I can't
figure this out on my own. And how frustrating that is
that no number of friends could tell me, or, and in
her wisdom couldn't tell me. And eventually, it led
me to the right answers. And she and I are are
friendly friends to this day. She's happily married with a
child and we're on good terms, but I think, you know, it's a scary thing, but it's the best thing when you just, I can't control all this. And asking for help, I
think is also the piece. You're not asking for some
magic hand to come down and take care of it. You're asking for the help
to come through you, right? So that your body is used
to do these right works, right action. - Isn't it interesting
that this secret thing that you're almost embarrassed by, that you did it as a
child is something you, it's another thing you
do as you get older, as you realize, like those
things are part of you, it's actually a beautiful thing. - Yeah, a lot of the content
of the podcast is, you know, deep academic content and we
talk about everything from, you know, eating disorders
to bipolar disorders, to depression, you know,
a lot of different topics, but the tools or the
protocols as we say, right? The sunlight viewing and all the rest, you know, a lot of that
stuff is just stuff I wish I'd known when I
was in graduate school. If I'd known to go outside
every once in a while and get some sunlight,
not just stay in the lab, I would've, you know, I might not have hit like a really tough round of depression when I was a postdoc and
working twice as hard. And, you know, when my
body would break down or I'd get sick a lot, I
don't get sick much anymore. Occasionally, about once
every 18 months to two years maybe I'll get something, but you know, I used to
break my foot skateboarding all the time, I couldn't
understand what's wrong with my body, I'm getting injured, I can't do what everyone else can. Now I developed more slowly,
I had a long arc of puberty, but so that was part of
it, I was still developing, but you know, how to
get your body stronger, how to build endurance? Like no one told me, the
information wasn't there. So a lot of what I put out
there is the information that I wish I had because once I had it, I was like, wow! Like A, this stuff really works. B, it's grounded in something real. You know, sometimes certain protocols are a combination of,
you know, animal, human, and animal, and human studies,
sometimes clinical trials, sometimes there's some
mechanistic conjecture for some, not all, I
always make clear which. But in the end, like figuring out how things
work so that we can be happier, healthier, more productive, suffer less, like reduce the suffering of the world. And I think that, well, I'll just say thank you and for asking about the prayer piece. Again, I'm not pushing or
even encouraging it on anyone, I've just found it to be
tremendously useful for me. - (sighs) You know, I mean
about prayer in general, you said information and
figuring out how to get stronger, healthier, smarter, all
those kinds of things. A part of me believes
that deeply, you know? You can gain a lot of knowledge
and wisdom through learning. But a part of me believes
that all the wisdom I need was there when I was 11 and 12 years old. - And then it got cluttered over. Well, listen, I can't wait for
you and Conti to talk again. Because when he gets going
about the subconscious and the amount of this
that sits below the surface like an iceberg and the
fact that when we're kids, we're not obscuring a lot of
that subconscious as much. And sometimes that can look
a little more primitive. I mean, that kid that's
disappointed will let you know, that kid that's excited will let you know. And you feel that raw
exuberance or that raw dismay. And I think that as we grow older, we learn to cover that stuff up. We wear masks and we have
to, to be functional, right? I don't think we all wanna go around just being completely raw. But as you said, as you
get older, you also, you get to this point
where you kind of go, eh, you know, what are we
really trying to protect anyway? I mean, I have this theory that, you know, certainly my
experience has taught me that a lot of people, but I'll talk about men 'cause that's what I know best. Whether or not they show up strong or not, that they're really afraid of being weak. Like they're just afraid. Like sometimes the strength is even a way to try and not be weak, right? Which is different than being
strong for its own sake. I'm not just talking
about physical strength, I'm talking about intellectual strength. I'm talking about money. I'm talking about expressing drive. I've been watching this series a little bit of "Chimp Empire-" - Oh, yeah. - So Chimp Empire is amazing, right? They have the head chimp,
he's not the head chimp, but the alpha in the group. And he's getting older. And so what does he do? Every once in a while he
goes on these vigor displays. He goes and he grabs branch. He starts breaking him and
he starts thrashing 'em, and he's incredibly strong, and they're all kind like watching. I mean, yeah, I
immediately think of people like they're deadlifting on Instagram and I just think, displays a vigor. This is just the primate
showing that displays a vigor. Now what's interesting is that
he's doing that specifically to say, Hey, I still have what it takes to lead this troop, okay? Then there're the ones that
are subordinate to him, but not so far behind- - It seems to be that
there's a very clear, like numerical ranking. - There is.
- Like, it's clear who's the number two, number three? - Oh yeah.
- I mean, probably- - Who gets to mate first? Who gets to eat first? This exists in other animal societies too, but Bob Sapolsky would be a great person to talk about this with 'cause he knows obviously,
tremendous amount about it. And I know just the top contour, but yeah, so number two,
three and four males are aware that he's doing
these vigor displays, but they're also aware because in primate evolution they got some extra forebrain
too, not as much as us, but they got some, and they're aware that the
vigor displays are displays that because they've done them as
well in a different context, might not just be displays of vigor, but might also be an insurance policy against people seeing weakness. Okay, so now they start
using that prefrontal cortex to do some interesting things. So in primate world, if a male is friendly with
another male wants to affiliate with him and say, Hey, I'm backing you, they'll go over and they'll
pick off the little parasites and eat them. And so the grooming is
extremely important. In fact, if they want to ostracize or kill one of the members of their troop, they will just leave it alone. No one will groom it. And then there's actually a
really disturbing sequence in that show of then the parasites start to eat away on their skin. They get infections, they have issues, no one will mate with them, no one, they have other issues as
well and can potentially die. So the interesting thing
is, is number two and three start to line up a
strategy to groom this guy, but they are actually
thinking about overtaking the entire troop, setting in a new alpha. But the current alpha did
that to get where he is. So he knows that they're
doing this grooming thing, but they might not be
sincere about the grooming. So what does he do? He takes the whole troop
on a raid to another troop and sees who will fight
for him and who won't. This is advanced contracting of behavior for a species that
normally we don't think of as sophisticated as us. So it's very interesting
and it gets to something that I hope we'll have an
opportunity to talk about 'cause it's something that
I'm obsessed with lately is this notion of overt versus
covert contracts, right? There are overt contracts where
you exchange work for money or you exchange any number
of things in an overt way. But then there are covert contracts. And those take on a very different form and always lead to, in
my belief, bad things. - Well, how much of human
and chimp relationships are overt versus covert? - Well, here's one thing
that we know is true. Dogs and humans, the dog to human
relationship is 100% overt. They don't manipulate you. Now you could say they do
in the sense that they learn that if they look a certain
way or roll on their back, they get food. But there's no banking of that behavior for a future date where then
they're going to undermine you and take your position, okay? So in that sense, dogs can
be a little bit manipulative in some sense, but. Now, okay, so overt contract would be, we both wanna do some work together. We're gonna make some money. You get X percentage, I get
X percentage, it's overt. Covert contract, which is,
in my opinion, always bad would be, we're gonna
do some work together. You're gonna get a percentage of money, I'm gonna get a percentage of money, could look just like the overt contract, but secretly, I'm resentful
that I got the percentage I got. So what I start doing is
covertly taking something else. What do I take? Maybe I take the opportunity
to jab you verbally every once in a while. Maybe I take the
opportunity to show up late. Maybe I take the opportunity to get to know one of your coworkers so that I might start
a business with them. That's covert contracting. And you see this sometimes
in romantic relationships. One person, we won't
set the male or female in any direction here and just say, I'll make you feel powerful
if you make me feel desired. Okay, great. There's nothing explicitly
wrong about that contract if they both know and they both agree, but what if it's, I'll do that, but I'll have kids with
you so you feel powerful, you'll have kids with
me so I feel desired, but secretly, I don't want to do that. Or one person says, I don't wanna do that or both don't, so what they
end up doing is saying, okay, so I expect something else. I expect you to do certain things for me, or I expect you to pay
for certain things for me. Covert contracts are the
signature of everything bad. Overt contracts are the
signature of all things good. And I think about this a lot because I've seen a lot
of examples of this. Like anyone, we
participate in these things whether or not we want to or not. And the thing that gets
transacted the most is, well, I should say the things that get transacted the most are the overt things. You'll see money, time, sex, property, whatever it
happens to be, information. But what ends up happening is that when people I believe don't feel safe, they feel threatened in some way, like they don't feel safe
in a certain interaction, what they do is they start
taking something else while still engaging in the exchange. And I'll tell you, if there's one thing about
human nature that's bad, it's that feature. Why that feature? Or is it a bug, or a feature
as you engineers like to say, I think it's because we were allocated a certain extra amount
of prefrontal cortex that makes us more
sophisticated than a dog, more sophisticated than a
chimpanzee, but they do it too. And it's because it's often harder to deal with, in the short-term, to deal with the real
sense of this is scary, this feels threatening than it is to play out all the iterations. It takes a lot of brain work. You're playing chess and
go simultaneously try and figure out where
things are gonna end up, and we just don't know. So it's a way I think of creating a false sense of certainty, but I'll tell you, covert contracts, the only certainty is
that it's gonna end badly. The question is how badly? Conversely, overt
contracts always end well. Always, the problem with overt contracts is that you can't be certain
that the other person is not engaging in a covert contract. You can only take responsibility
for your own contracting. - Well, one of the
challenges of being human is looking at another human
being and figuring out the way, their way of
being, their behavior, which of the two types of
contracts it represents because they look awfully
the same on the surface. - That's right.
- And one of the challenges of being human is the
decision we all make is, are you somebody that
takes a leap of trust and trust other humans and
are willing to take the hurt? Or you going to be cynical and skeptical, and avoid most interactions until they over a long period
of time prove your trust. - Yeah, I never liked the
phrase history repeats itself when it comes to humans because it doesn't apply if the people or the person is actively working to resolve their own flaws. I do think that if people are willing to do dedicated introspective work, go into their subconscious, do the hard work, have hard conversations, and get better at hard conversations, something that I'm constantly
trying to get better at. I think people can change, but they have to want to change. - It does seem like deep down we all can kinda tell the difference between overt and covert. Like we have a good sense. I think one of the benefits
of having this characteristic of mine where I value loyalty, I've been extremely fortunate to spend most of my life
in overt relationships. And I think that creates
a really fulfilling life. - But there's also this thing that maybe we're in this
portion of the podcast now, but I've experienced this-
- That just brings us this late at night we're talking about.
- That's right. Certainly late for me, but I'm two hours, I came in today on, I'm
still in California. - And we should also say
that you came here to wish me a happy birthday.
- I did. I did, and- - And the podcast is just like a fun last minute thing I suggested. - Yeah, some close friends
of yours have arranged a dinner that I'm really
looking forward to. I won't say which night, but it's the next couple of nights. You know, your circadian clock is one of the most robust
features of your biology. I know you can be nocturnal
or you can be diurnal. We know you're mostly
nocturnal at certain times of the year, Lex, but there're very, very
few people can get away with no sleep. Very few people can get away with a chaotic sleep wake schedule. So you have to obey a
24-hour aka circadian rhythm if you wanna remain
healthy of mind and body. We also have to acknowledge that it's aging isn't linear, right? So- - What do you mean?
- Well, I mean, the degree of change
between years 35 and 40 is not gonna be the degree
of change between 40 and 45. But I will say this, I'm 48 and I feel better in
every aspect of my psychology and biology now than I
did when I was in my 20s. Sort of quality of thought, time spent, physically I can do what I did then, which is probably says more
about what I could do then than what I can do now. But if you keep training, you
can continue to get better. The key is to not get injured. And I've never trained super hard. I've trained hard, but I've been cautious
to not, for instance, weight train more than two days in a row. I do a split, it's
basically three days a week and the other days a run, take one full day-off, take a
week-off every 12 to 16 weeks. I've not been the guy
hurling the heaviest weights or running the furthest distance, but I have been the guy
who's continuing to do it when a lot of my friends are
talking about knee injuries. - Hey!
- Talking about (chuckles) - Hey, hey, hey. (chuckles)
- I'm just... But of course, with sport, you can't account for
everything the same way you can with fitness. And I have to acknowledge that, you know? Unless one is power lifting, you know, weightlifting and
running, you can get hurt, but it's not like skateboarding where if you're going for it,
you're gonna get hurt. That's just, you're landing on concrete and with jiu-jitsu like
people are trying to hurt you so that you say stop. - No, but it-
- So with a sport it's different. And these days, I don't
really do a sport any longer. I work out, stay fit. I used to continue to do sports, but I kept getting hurt and frankly now, like a rolled ankle, I may put out a little small
skateboard part in 2024 because people have been saying
we wanna see the kick flip. I'll say, well, I'll do a
heel flip instead, but okay. I might put out a little part 'cause some of the guys
that work on our podcast are from DC, I think by now, I should at least do it just to show like I'm not making it
up and I probably will. But I think doing a sport is different. That's how you get hurt, overuse and doing it an actual sport. And so, you know, hat tip to
those who do an actual sport. - And that's a difficult decision. Like a lot of people have to make, I have to make with jiu-jitsu for example, like if you just look empirically, I've trained really hard from all my life in grappling sports and fighting sports, and all this kind of stuff. And I've avoided injury for the most part. And I would say, I would attribute that to training a lot. Sounds counterintuitive, but training well and
safely, and correctly, keeping good form, saying
no when I need to say no, but training a lot and
taking it seriously. Now when training is kind of
a side, really a side thing, I find that the injury is
becomes a higher probability. - But when you're just doing
it every once in a while. - [Lex] Every once in a while. - Yeah, I think you said
something really important. The saying no, I mean, the times I have gotten hurt training is when someone's like, Hey, let's hop on this workout together and it becomes, let's challenge each other to do something outrageous. Sometimes that can be fun though. I went up to Cam Hanes's gym and he does these very high
repetition weight workouts that are in circuit form. I was sore for two weeks, but I learned a lot
and didn't get injured. And yes, we ate bow hunted elk afterwards. - Nice. But the injury has been a really difficult
psychological thing for me 'cause, so I've injured
my finger, pinky finger, injured my knee. - And your kitchen is filled with splints. - Splints, I'm trying to
figure out, (chuckles) I'm trying-
- It's like, if you look in Lex's kitchen, there's some really good
snacks, I had some right before. He's very good about keeping
cold drinks in the fridge and all the water has element
in it, which is great. I love that. But then there's a whole like
hospital's worth of splints. - Yeah, I'm trying. I'm trying to figure
out, so here's the thing, a finger like pop out like this, right? Pinky finger. I'm trying to figure out how
do I splint in such a way that I can still program,
still play guitar, but protect this kind of torque motion that creates a huge amount of pain. And so-
- That's you have a jiu-jitsu injury.
- Jiu-jitsu, but it's not the kind of... It's probably more like a
skateboarding style injury, which is, it's unexpected
in a silly thing. - It's the thing that happens in a second. I didn't break my foot
doing anything important. I'd broke my fifth metatarsal
stepping off a curb. So that's why they're called accidents. You know, if you get hurt
doing something awesome, that's a trophy that you
have to work through. It's part of your payment to the universe. If you get hurt stepping off a curb or you know, doing something stupid, it's called a stupid accident. - Since we brought up Chimp Empire, let me ask you about relationships. I think we've talked about relationships. - Yeah, I only date Homo sapiens. - Homo sapiens. (chuckles) - [Andrew] It's the morning meditation. - The night is still young. You are human. No, but you are also an animal. Don't sell yourself short. - No, I always say listen, any discussion on the Human Lab podcast about sexual health or anything, I always, the critical force, consensual,
age appropriate context, appropriate, species appropriate. - Species appropriate. Well, can I just tell you
about sexual selection? I've been watching "Life in
Color" with David Attenborough. I've been watching a lot
of nature documentaries, talking about inner peace,
it brings me so much peace to watch nature at its
worst and at its best. So Life in Color is the
series on Netflix where it presents some of the most
colorful animals on earth and kinda tells their
story of how they got there through natural selection. So, you know, you have the
peacock with the feathers and it's just such incredible colors. Like the peacock has these
tail feathers, the male, that are like gigantic and
they're super colorful. And there're these eyes on it, it's not eyes, it's like eye-like areas. And they wiggle their ass
like to show the tails. They wiggle the tails.
- The eye spots, they're called.
- The eye spots. Yes, thank you. You know this probably way better than me. I'm just quoting it from David Attenborough.
- No, please continue. - But it's just, I'm watching this and then the female is as
boring-looking as po... Like she has no colors or nothing, but she's standing there bored, just seeing this entire display. And I'm just wondering like
the entirety of life on earth or not the entirety, post bacteria, is like at least in part, maybe in large part can be
described through this process of natural selection, of sexual selection. So dudes fighting and then women selecting, it seems like it's just
the entirety of that series shows some incredible birds
and insects, and shrimp. They're all beautiful and colorful and just-
- Mantis shrimp. - Mantis shrimp, they're
just, they're incredible. And it's all about getting laid. It's fascinating, like I just... And there's nothing like
watching that and Chimp Empire to make you realize, we
humans, that's the same thing. That's all we're doing. And all the beautiful
variety, all the bridges and the buildings, and the
rockets, and the internet, all of that is this kind,
is at least in part, this kind of a product of
this kind of showing off for each other and all the wars and all of this, anyway, it's not what I'm asking,
oh, relationships. - Well, right before you
ask about relationships, I think what's clear
is that every species, it seems, animal species
wants to make more of itself and protect its young. - Well, to protect its
young is non-obvious. - So not destroy enough of
itself that it can't get more to reproductive competent age. I mean, I think that, you know, we have a natural, I mean, healthy people
have a natural reflex to protect children. - Well, I don't know that.
- And those, that can't- - Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait minute. I've seen enough animals
that are murdering the children of some other- - Sure, there's even
siblicide there're like, first of all, I just wanna say that I was delighted in your delight
around animal kingdom stuff 'cause this is a favorite
theme of mine as well. But there's for instance,
some fascinating data on, for instance, for those
that grew up on farms, they'll be familiar with freemartins, you know about freemartins? This is, they're cows that have
multiple calves inside them. And there's a situation
in which the calves will secrete if there's
more than one inside will secrete chemicals that
will hormonally castrate the calf next to them,
so they can't reproduce. So already in the womb they are fighting for future resources. That's how early this stuff can start. So it's chemical warfare in
the womb against the siblings. Sometimes there's outright
siblicide, siblings are born, they kill one another. This also becomes biblical stories, right? There are instances of cuttlefish, beautiful cephalopods like octopuses. And that is the plural as we made it clear-
- Yeah, it's a meme on the internet.
- Oh yeah? That became a meme our little discussion two years ago?
- Yeah, it spread pretty quick. And now we just resurfaced it. (Andrew laughing) - Creating the dismay in
your voice is so amusing. In any event, that male cuttlefish
will disguise themselves as female cuttlefish infiltrate
the female cuttlefish group and then mate with them, you know? All sorts of, you know, types of covert operations.
- There we go. - [Andrew] So I think that- (chuckles) - Callbacks.
- It's like a drinking game where every time we say covert
contract in this episode, you have to take a shot of espresso. Please don't do that,
you'd be dead by the end. - So actually it's just a small tangent, it does make me wonder how much intelligence
covert contracts require. It seems like not much. If you can do it in the animal kingdom, there's some kind of instinctual, it is based perhaps in like fear. - Yeah, it could be simple algorithm. If you know, if there's some ambiguity about numbers and I'm not
with these guys and you know, then flip to the alternate strategy. Actually, I have a story about this that I think is relevant. I used to have cuttlefish
in my lab in San Diego. We went and got them from
a guy out in the desert. We put them in the lab, it was amazing. And they had a postdoc who was studying pre-capturing cuttlefish, they have a very ballistic, extremely rapid strike
and grab of the shrimp. And we were using high-speed cameras to characterize all this
looking at binocular. They normally have their eyes
on the side of their head when they see something they want to eat the eyes translocate to the front, which allows 'em stereopsis,
depth perception, allows 'em to strike. We were doing some
unilateral eye removals, they would miss, et cetera. Okay, this has to do with eye spots. This was during a
government shutdown period where the ghost shrimp
that they normally feed on, that we would ship in
from the gulf down here, weren't available to us. So we had to get different shrimp. And what we noticed was
the cuttlefish normally would just sneak up on the shrimp. We learned this by data collection. And if the shrimp was facing them, they would do this thing
with their tentacles of kind of enchanting the shrimp, and if the shrimp wasn't facing
them, they wouldn't do it and they would ballistically
grab it and eat them. Well, when we got these new shrimp, the new shrimp had eye
spots on their tails. And then the cuttlefish
would do this kind of attempt to enchant regardless of the
position of the ghost shrimp. So what does that mean? Okay, well, it means that
there's some sort of algorithm in the cuttlefish's mind that says, okay, if you see two spots, move your tentacles. So it can be, as you pointed out, it can be a fairly simple operation, but it looks diabolical. It looks cunning, but
all it is, is strategy B. - Yeah, but it's still somehow emerged. I mean, I don't think that
calling it an algorithm doesn't, I feel like-
- Well, there's a circuit there that gets implemented
in a certain context, but that circuit had to evolve. - You do realize a super intelligent AI will look at us humans and
we'll say the exact thing. There's a circuit in there that evolved to do this algorithm A and algorithm B. And it's trivial. And to us humans, it's fancy and beautiful and write poetry about it, but it's just surreal.
- Because so we don't understand the subconscious because they want that
AI algorithm cannot see into what it can't see. It doesn't understand the under workings of what allows all of this
conversation stuff to manifest. And we can't even see it. How could AI see it? Maybe it will, maybe AI will solve and give us access to our subconscious. Maybe your AI friend or coach, like I think Andreessen and others are arguing it's gonna happen
at some point it's gonna say, Hey, you know, Lex, you're making decisions lately
that are not good for you, but it's because of this algorithm that you picked up in childhood that if you don't state
your explicit needs upfront, you're not gonna get what
you want, so why do it? From now on, you need
to actually make a list of every, absolutely, outrageous thing that you want no matter how outrageous and communicate that immediately. And that will work. - We're talking about
cuttlefish and sexual selection, and then we went into
some, where do we go? And you said you were excited. - Well, I was excited where you were just saying what
about these covert contracts and animals do them, I think
is simple contextual engagement of a neural circuit, which
is not just nerd speak for saying they do a different strategy. It's saying that there
has to be a circuit there, hardwired circuit, maybe learned, but probably hardwired
that can be engaged, right? You can't build neural
machinery out of, in a moment, you need to build that circuit over time. What is building it over
time? You select for it. The cuttlefish that did not have that alternate context-driven circuit, didn't survive when there was a, when all the shrimp that they
normally disappear in the, the eye-spotted shrimp showed up and there were a couple
that had some miswiring, this is why mutation, right? X-Men type stuff is real. They had a mutation that
had some alternate wiring and that wiring got selected for, it became a mutation that was adaptive as opposed to maladaptive. This is something people
don't often understand about genetics is that it only takes a few
generations to devolve a trait, make it worse, but it takes a long time to
evolve an adaptive trait. There are exceptions to that, but most often that's true. So a species needs a lot of generations. We are hopefully, still
evolving as a species and it takes a long time, but to evolve more adaptive traits. But doesn't take long to
devolve adaptive traits so that you're getting sicker or you're not functioning as well. So choose your mate wisely. And that's perhaps a good
segue into sexual selection of humans.
- I could tell you're good at this. (Andrew chuckling) We said why did I bring
up sexual selection? It's relationships, so
sexual selection in humans. I don't think you've done
an episode on relationships. - No, I did an episode on attachment, but not on relationships. The series with Conti includes
one episode of the four that's all about relational understanding and how to select a mate based
on matching of drives and- - All the demons inside the subconscious? How to match demons that they
dance well together or what? - And how generative two people are. - [Lex] What does that mean? - Means that how, the
way he explains it is, how devoted to creating
growth within the context of the family, the relationship with work. - Well, lemme ask you about mating rituals and how to find such a relationship? I mean, you're really big on friendships, on the value of friendships. - I am. - And that I think extends itself into one of the deepest kinds of
friendships you can have, which is a romantic relationship. What mistakes, successes and wisdom can you impart? - Well, I've certainly made some mistakes. I've also made some good
choices in this realm. First of all, we have to define what sort of relationship
we're talking about. If one is looking for a life partner, you know, potentially somebody
to establish family with, with or without kids, with
or without pets, right? Families can take different forms. I mean, I certainly
experienced being a family in a prior relationship
where it was the two of us and our two dogs. And it was like, it was family. Like we had a little family. I think based on my
experience and based on input from friends who themselves have very successful relationships. I must say, I've got friends
who are in long-term, monogamous, very happy relationships where there seems to be a lot
of love, a lot of laughter, a lot of challenge and a lot of growth. And both people it seems
really want to be there and enjoy being there. - Just to pause on that, one thing to do, I think, by way of advice is listen to people who are in long-term successful relationships. That's like, it seems dumb, but like we both know and
are friends with Joe Rogan, who's been in a long-term,
really great relationship and he's been an inspiration to me. So you take advice from that guy? - Definitely. And several members of my podcast team are in excellent relationships. I think one of the things
that rings true over and over again in the advice
and in my experience is, you know, find someone
who's really a great friend. Like build a really great
friendship with that person. Now, obviously, not just a friend if we're talking romantic relationship, but, and of course,
sex is super important, but it should be a part of
that particular relationship alongside or meshed with the friendship. Can it be a majority of
the positive exchange? I suppose it could, but I think the friendship
piece is extremely important because what's required in a
successful relationship clearly is joy in being together. Trust, a desire to share experience both, you know, mundane and more
adventurous, support each other, acceptance, a real, maybe even admiration, but certainly delight in
being with the person. You know, earlier we
were talking about peace, and I think that that sense
of peace comes from knowing that the person you're in friendship with or that you're in romantic
relationship or ideally both 'cause let's assume healthy relation, the best romantic relationship includes a friendship component with that person. It's like you just really
delight in their presence, even if it's a quiet presence and you delight in seeing
them delight in things, right? That's clear. The trust piece is huge, you know, and that's where people start, you know, we don't wanna
focus on what works, not what doesn't work, but that's where I think people start engaging these covert contracts. They're afraid of being
betrayed, so they betray. They're afraid of giving
up too much vulnerability so they hide their vulnerability
or in the worst cases, they feign vulnerability. Again, that's a covert contract that just simply undermines everything, it becomes one, both one equals
two minus one to infinity. Conversely, I think if people can have really hard conversations, this is something I've
had to work really hard on in recent years that I'm
still working hard on, but the friendship piece
seems to be the thing that rises to the top
when I talk to friends who are in these great relationships. It's like they have so
much respect and love, and joy in being with their friend. It's the person that they wanna spend as much of their non-working, non-platonic friendship time with and the person they want
to experience things with, and share things with. And it sounds so kinda
canned and cliche nowadays, but I think if you step back
and examine how most people go about finding a
relationship, sort of like, oh, like am I attracted, of
course, physical attraction is important and other
forms of attraction too, and they sort of enter
through that portal, which makes sense. That's the mating dance, right? That's the peacock situation. That's hopefully not the
cuttlefish situation where the, (chuckles) but I think that there seems to be a
history of people close to me getting into great relationships where they were friends for a while first or maybe didn't sleep together right away. That they actually
intentionally deferred on that. This has not been my
habit or my experience, you know, I've gone the
more I think typical like, oh, there's an
attraction like this person, there's an interest, you
kinda explore all dimensions of relationship really quickly, except perhaps the moving in
part and the having kids part, which ideally because it's a bigger step, harder to undo without
more severe consequences. But I think, the whole take it slow thing, I don't think is about getting
to know someone slowly. I think it's about that physical piece because that does change the
nature of the relationship. And I think it's because it gets right into the more hardwired
primitive circuitry around our feelings of
safety, vulnerability, you know, there's something about romantic and sexual interactions
where it's almost like, it's like assets and liabilities, right? Where people are trying to figure out how much to engage their
time and their energy, in multiple people, I'm
talking about from both sides, you know, male, female
or whatever it sides, but where it's like
assets and liabilities, and that's where it starts getting into those complicated
contracts early on, I think. And so maybe that's why if
a really great friendship and admiration is established first, even if people are romantically
and sexually attracted to one another, then that
piece can be added in a little bit later in a way that really kinda just seals
up the whole thing. And then who knows, maybe they spend 90% of their
time having sex, I don't know, that's not for me to say
or decide, obviously. But there's something
there about staying out of a certain amount of risk of having to engage covert contract in order to protect oneself. - But I do think like, love at first sight, this
kind of idea is in part realizing very quickly
that you are great friends. Like I've had that experience
of friendship recently. It's not really friendship, but like, oh, you get
each other, with humans, not in a romantic setting. - Right, friendship.
- Yeah, just friendship, but not-
- Well, but dare I say, I felt that way about you when we met, right?
- But we also- - I was like, this dude's cool and he's smart, and he's
funny, and he's driven, and he's giving, and he's
got an edge, and like, I wanna learn from him,
wanna hang out with him. Like, I mean, that was the
beginning of our friendship was essentially, you know, that set of internal realizations. - Just keep going, just keep going. Keep going with compliments.
- And a sharp dresser. - Yeah, yeah, it just looks great. Shirtless on a horseback, yes. - No, no, no. Listen, I mean, despite
what some people might see on the internet, it's a
purely platonic friendship. - Somebody said, somebody
asked if Andrew Huberman has a girlfriend, and
somebody says, I think so. And the third comment was, this really like breaks my heart, like that Lex and Andrew are not an item. - We are not, we are great
friends, but we are not an item. Yeah, it's true, it's official. I hear over and over again from friends that have made great choices
and awesome partners, and have these fantastic relationships for long periods of time that
seem to continue to thrive. At least that's what they tell me, and that's what I observed. Establish the friendship first and give it a bit of time before sex. And so, you know, I
think that's the feeling. That's the feeling. And these are, we're
talking micro-features and macro-features. We're talking, you know, and this isn't about perfection, it's actually about the imperfections, which is kind of cool. I like quirky people, I like characters. I'll tell you where I've gone badly wrong and where I see other
people going badly wrong. If there is no rule that says
that you have to be attracted to all attractive people, by any means, it's very
important to develop a sense of taste in romantic attractions. I believe what you really like
in terms of a certain style, you know, a certain way of being, and of course, that includes
sexuality and sex itself, the verb. But I think it also includes
there's just general way of being, you know? And when you really adore somebody, you like the way they answer the phone. And when they don't
answer the phone that way, you know, something's
off and you wanna know. And so I think that the more you can tune-up
your powers of observation, not looking for things that you like, and the more that stuff
just kinda washes over you, the more likely you are to,
quote-unquote, "fall in love." As a mutual friend of ours said to me, "You know, listen, when it
comes to romantic relationships, if it's not a hundred percent
in you, it ain't happening." And I've never seen a
violation of that statement where it's like, yeah, it's mostly good and
they're this and this, like the negotiations. Well, already, it's doomed. And that doesn't mean
someone has to be perfect. The relationship has to be perfect, but it's gotta feel a
hundred percent inside. Like, yes, yes, and yes. I think Deisseroth, when he
was on here, your podcast, mentioned something that, you know, like, I think the words were you, or maybe it was in his
book, I don't recall. But that, you know, love
is one of these things that we story into with somebody. We create this idea of
ourselves in the future and we look at our past time together and then you, you story into it. I mean, there are very
few things like that, I can't story into, you
know, building flying cars. I have to actually go do something. I mean, and love is also
retroactively constructed. I mean, anyone who's
gone through a breakup understands the grief of knowing, oh, like this is something
I really shouldn't be in, for whatever reason, 'cause it only takes one. If the other person
doesn't want to be in it, then you shouldn't be in it. But then missing so many things, and that's just the attachment
machinery really at work. - I have to ask you a
question that somebody on our amazing team wanted to ask. He's happily married, another like you mentioned
incredible relationship. - Are they good friends? - They're amazing friends.
- There you go. - But I'm not saying who it
is, so I can say some stuff, which is they, it started out
as a great sexual connection. - Oh, well there you go. - But then became very
close friends after that. - Okay, listening-
- There you go. - So speaking of sex-
- Many paths to Rome. - He has a wonderful son and he is wanting to have a second kid, and he wanted to ask the
great Andrew Huberman, is there like sexual
positions or any kinda thing that can help maximize the chance that they have a girl versus a boy? 'Cause they had a wonderful
boy, they want a girl. Is there a way to control the gender? - Well, this has been
debated for a long time and I did a four and a half
hour episode on fertility. And the reason I did a four
and a half hour episode on fertility is that, first of all, I find it that reproductive
biology be fascinating. And I wanted a resource for people that were thinking about or
struggling with having kids for whatever reason. And it felt important to me to combine the male and female components
in the same episode. It's all timestamped, so you don't have to
listen to the whole thing. We talk about IVF, in vitro fertilization and we talk about natural pregnancy. Okay, the data on position
is very interesting. But let me just say a few things. There are a few clinics now in particular, some out of the United States
that are spinning down sperm and finding that they can
separate out fractions as they're called, you know, that can spin the sperm
down at a given speed and they'll separate out at different sort of depths within the test tube that allow them to pull
out the sperm on top or below and bias the probability towards male or female births. It's not perfect. It's not a hundred percent. It's a very costly procedure. It's still very controversial. Now with in vitro fertilization, you can extract eggs, you can
do introduce a sperm directly by pipette and it's a process called ICSI or you can set up a sperm race in a dish. And if you get a number
of different embryos, meaning the eggs get
fertilized to duplicate and start form a blastocyst,
which is a ball of cells, early embryo, then you can do karyotyping. So you can do, look for
XX or XY, select the XY, which then would give
rise to a male offspring and implant that one. So there is that kind of sex selection. With respect to position,
there's a lot of lore that, you know, if the woman is on top or the woman's on the bottom, or whether or not the
penetration is from behind, whether or not it's gonna
be male or female offspring. And frankly, the data are
not great as you can imagine 'cause those would be interesting
studies to run, perhaps. - But there is studies, there is papers. - [Andrew] There are some- - But they're not, I guess. there's more lore than sciences. - And there are a lot of other variables that are hard to control. So for instance, if it's
ejaculation during intermission, during sex penetration, et cetera, then you can't measure, for instance, sperm volume as opposed to when it's IVF, and they can actually
measure how many milliliters, how many forward motile
sperm, it's hard to control for certain things. And it just can vary between individuals and even from one ejaculation to the next. And, okay, so there's too many variables. However, the position thing is interesting in the following way. And then I'll answer
whether or not you can bias towards a female. But as long as we're talking about sexual- - [Lex] I have other questions about sexual-
- But as long as we're talking about sexual position. There are data that support the idea that in order to increase the probability of successful fertilization, that indeed the woman should
not stand upright after sex and should right after the
man has ejaculated inside her and should adjust her pelvis,
say 15 degrees upwards. I mean, you know, some
of the fertility experts, MDs will say, that's crazy, you know, but others that I sought out, and not specifically for this answer, but for researching
that episode, said that, yeah, you know what? You're talking about is trying to get the
maximum number of sperm and it's contained in semen and
yes, the semen can leak out. And so keeping the pelvis
tilted for about at 15 degrees for about 15 minutes, obviously, tilted in the direction that would have things running
upstream, not downstream, so to speak.
- Yeah, gravity. - Gravity, it's real, you know, so for maximizing fertilization, you know, the doctors
I spoke to just said, look, given that if people
are trying to get pregnant, what is spending 15 minutes on their back, you know, this sort of thing. Okay, so then with
respect to female getting a female offspring or XX,
female offspring, selectively, there is the idea that
as fathers get older, they're more likely to have
daughters as opposed to sons. That's a, from the papers I've
read is a significant, but still mildly significant result. So with each passing year, this person increases the probability they're gonna have a daughter, not a son. But look, so that's interesting. - But the probability differences
are probably tiny as you- - I mean, it's not, you
know, it's not trivial, it's not a trivial difference. But if they want to
ensure having a daughter, then they should do IVF
and select an XX embryo. And when you go through IVF, they genetically screen
them for karyotype, which is XX, XY. And they look at mutations, genotypic mutations for things like, you know, trisomies and aneuploidies, all the stuff you don't want. - But there is a lot of lore if you look on the internet.
- Sure, different foods- - [Lex] So there are a lot of variables- - There's a lot of variable, but there haven't been systematic studies. So I think probably the best thing to do, unless they're gonna do
IVF is just, you know, roll the dice and you know, and I think with each
passing year they increase the probability of getting
a female offspring, but of course, with each passing year, the egg and sperm quality degrade, so, you know, get after it soon. - So I went down a rabbit hole. There's like sexology,
there's journals on sex. - Sure. - Okay, so-
- And some of them, some of them, not all quite reputable. And some of them really
pioneering in the sense that they've taken on topics that are, you know, considered, you know, outside the main
frame of what people talk about, but they're very important. We have episodes coming out
soon with, for instance, the head of male urology, sexual health and reproductive health at
Stanford, Michael Eisenberg, but also, you know, one with a female
urologist, sexual health, reproductive health, Dr. Rena Malik, who is on, has a quite
active YouTube presence. She does these really like dry, like scientific
presentation, but very nice. She has a lovely voice and she, but she'll be talking about, you know, erections or squirting, or like all this, like she does like very kind
of internet type content, but she's a legitimate urologist, reproductive health expert. And in the podcast, we did talk about both male and female orgasm. We talked a lot about sexual
function, dysfunction. We talked a lot about pelvic floor. One interesting factoid is that only three, only 3% of
sexual dysfunction is hormonal endocrine in nature. It's more often related
to some pelvic floor or vasculature blood flow
related, or other issue. And then when Eisenberg,
he came on the podcast, he said that far less sexual dysfunction is psychogenic in origin than people believe that far
more of it is pelvic floor, neuro and vascular. So, you know, there are the myths of, I mean, it's not saying that psychogenic
dysfunction doesn't exist, but that a lot of sexual
dysfunction that people assume is related to hormones or that is related to psychogenic issues
are related to vascular or neural issues. And the good news is that there are great remedies for those. And so both those episodes detail some of the more salient points
around what those remedies are and could be, I mean, one of
the kind of, again, factoids, but it was interesting that, you know, a lot of people have pelvic floor issues and they think that their pelvic floors are quote-unquote, "messed up." So they go on the internet, they learn about Kegels, you know, and it turns out that
some people need Kegels, they need to strengthen their
pelvic floor, guess what? A huge number of people with
sexual and urologic dysfunction have pelvic floors that are too tight and Kegels are gonna make them far worse. And they actually need to learn
to relax their pelvic floor. And so seeing a pelvic floor
specialist is important. I think in the next 5, 10 years, we're gonna see a dramatic
shift towards more discussion about sexual and reproductive health in a way that acknowledges that, yeah, the clitoris comes
from the same origin tissue as the penis. And in many ways, the neural
innervation of the two, while clearly different, has
some overlapping features that you know, that there's
gonna be discussion around kind of anatomy and
hormones, and pelvic floors, and in a way that's gonna, you know, erode some of the kind of
like cloaking of these topics 'cause they've been
cloaked for a long time and there's a lot of like, well, let's just call it what it is, there's a lot of bullshit
out there about what's what. And now the hormonal issues, by the way, just to clarify, can impact desire. So a lot of people who have lack of desire as opposed to lack of anatomical function, this could be male or female, that can originate with
either things like SSRIs, or hormonal issues. And so we talk about that as well. So it's a pretty vast topic. - Okay, you're one of the
most productive people I know. What's the secret to your productivity? How do you maximize the number
of productive hours in a day? You're a scientist, you're a teacher, you're a very prolific educator. - Well, thanks for the kind words. I struggle like everybody else, but I am pretty relentless about meeting deadlines. I miss them sometimes, but sometimes that means cramming. Sometimes that means starting early, but- - Has that been hard, sorry to
interrupt, with the podcast, there's certain episodes, I mean, you're like taking just
incredibly difficult topics and you know, there're going to be, there's going to be a lot
of really good scientists listening to those with a very
skeptical and careful eye. Like how hard, do you struggle meeting
that deadline sometimes? - Yes, so we've pushed out episodes because I want more time with them. I also, I haven't advertised this, but I have another fully tenured professor that's started checking my podcasts and helping me find papers. He's a close friend of mine, he's an incredible
expert in neuroplasticity and that's been helpful. But I research all my all, I
do all the primary research for the episodes myself. Although, my niece has been
doing a summer internship with me and finding amazing papers. She did last summer as well,
she's really good at it. Just seek that kid on the
internet and she gets great stuff. - Can I ask you just
going on tangents here, what's the hardest, finding the papers or understanding what a paper is saying? - Finding the best papers. 'Cause you have to, you know,
read a bunch of reviews, figure out who's getting cited. Call people in a field, make
sure that this is the stuff. I mean, you know, I did
this episode recently on ketamine, about ketamine. I wasn't on ketamine and you know, there's this whole debate
about S versus R Ketamine and S/R Ketamine. And I called two clinical
experts at Stanford. I had a researcher at UCLA help me. Even then, you know, a few
people had gripes about it, that I don't think they
understood a section that I was perhaps could
have been clearer about. But yeah, you're always
concerned that people either won't get it or I won't be clear. So the researching is mainly
about finding the best papers, and then I'm looking for
papers that establish a thoroughness of understanding that are interesting, obviously, it's fun to get occasionally
look at some of the odder or more progressive
papers that are, you know, what's new in a field and then where there are actionable takeaways to really export those with
a lot of thoughtfulness. I mean, I think that going
back to the productivity thing, you know, I do, I get
up, I look at the sun. I don't stare at the sun,
but I get my sunshine. It all starts with a
really good night's sleep. I think that's really
important to understand. So much so that if I wake up
and I don't feel rested enough, I'll often do a non-sleep
deep rest, yoga nidra, or go back to sleep for
a little bit, get up, really prioritize one, you know, the big block of work for the
thing that I'm researching. I think a little bit of anxiety
and a little bit of concern about deadline helps. Turning the phone off helps. Realizing that those peak hours, whenever they are for you, you do not allow those hours to be invaded unless there's a, you know,
a nuclear bomb goes off. And a nuclear bomb is just a,
you know, a phraseology for, you know, it could be family
crisis, would be, you know, would be good justification if there's an emergency, obviously. But it's all about focus. It's all about focus in the moment. It's not even so much about
how many hours you log. It's really about focus in the moment. How much total focus can
you give to something? And then I like to take
walks and think about things and sometimes talk about
them in my voice recorder. So I'm just always churning
on it all the time. And then of course, learning to turn it off and
engage with people socially and, you know, not be
podcasting 24 hours a day in your head is key. But I think I love
learning and researching, and finding that those
papers and the information, and I love teaching it. And these days I use a
whiteboard before I start. I don't have any notes, no teleprompter. Then the whiteboard that I used beforehand is to really sculpt out the
different elements and the flow, get the flow right,
and move things around. The whiteboard is such a valuable tool. Then take a couple pictures of
that when I'm happy with it, put it down on the desk and
these are just bullet points and then just churn through,
and just churn through. And nothing feels better than, you know, researching
and sharing information. And as you did, you know,
grew up writing papers and it's hard. And I like the friction of a, (grunts) can't, you know, I wanna get
up, wanna use the bathroom. When I was in college, I was trying to make up deficiencies from my lack of attendance in high school. So much so that I would set a timer. I wouldn't let myself get up
to use the bathroom, even. Never had an accident, but I was, you know, I mean, it was like, I listened
to music, classical music, Rancid, a few other things. Some Bob Dylan maybe thrown in there and just study and just... And it felt, and then, you know, hit the two-hour mark and you're in pain, and then you get up,
like use the bathroom. Like, that felt so good. There's something about the human brain that likes these kind of friction points and working through them and you just have to work through them. So yeah, I'm productive and my life has arranged
around it and you know, that's been a bit of a barrier
to personal life at times, but my life's been arranged around it. I've set up everything so that
I can learn more, teach more, including, you know, some of my home life. But I do, you know,
still watch Chimp Empire. Still got time to watch Chimp Empire. Look, the great Joe Strummer, right, Clash or my favorite Mescaleros, he said, this is a famous Strummer
quote, "no input, no output." So you need experience, you
need outside things in order to foster the process. But yeah, just noses the
grindstone man, I don't know. And that's what I'm
happy to do with my life. I don't think anyone should
do that, just because, but this is how I'm showing up. And, you know, if you
don't like me, then scroll. Why do they say swipe left, swipe right? I don't know. I'm not on the apps, the dating apps. So that's the other thing
I keep waiting for when listens to Lex Fridman
podcast is a check box on like Hinge or Bumble,
or whatever it is. But I don't even know are
those that are field is, I don't know what are the apps now? - Well, I've never used an app, those foul troublesome
how little information is provided on apps. - Well, they're the ones
that are like a stocked lake. Like Raya, you know? They sort of like, companies
will actually fill them with, you know?
- Oh, interesting. - People that look a certain way and- - Well, soon it'll be filled with AI. - Oh yeah. - That's the way you said, oh. - Oh, that's interesting.
- A heartbreak within that. - Well, you know, I'm guilty of liking real human interaction. - Have you tried AI interaction? (Lex and Andrew chuckling) - No, but I have a feeling
you're gonna convince me to. (Lex and Andrew chuckling) - One day. Yeah, I've also struggled
finishing projects that are new, that are something new. Like for example, one of the things I
really struggled finishing is something that's in Russian
that requires translation and overdub, and all that kind of stuff. The other project I've
been working on for like, over at least a year, off and on, but trying to finish is something we've talked
about in the past is, I'm still on it project on
Hitler and World War II. I've written so much about it and I just don't know
why I can't finish it. I have trouble, like really... I think I'm terrified being
in front of the camera. - Like this? - Like this.
- Or solo? - Well, actually, no, no, no. Solo, basically.
- Well, if you wanna do solo and seriously, 'cause we've
done this before, right? Our clandestine study missions. I'm happy to sit in the
corner and work on my book or do something if you
wanna, if it feels good- - Just for the feeling of somebody else. - Definitely.
- What do you, I mean, how do you... You don't seem to, you seem to have been fearless, to just sit in front of
the camera by yourself to do the episode. - Yeah, it was weird. I mean, the first year of the podcast, it just spilled outta me. It was just, I had all that
stuff I was so excited about. I've been talking to
everyone and who would listen and anyone even when, who they'd run away, I'd keep talking, you know, before there was ever a
camera wasn't on social media. In 2019, I posted a little
bit, 2020, as you know, I started going on podcasts. But yeah, I just... The zest and delight in this stuff. I was like, circadian rhythms, I'm gonna tell you about this stuff. Just felt like, here's the opportunity and just let it burst. And then as we've gotten into topics that are a little bit further
away from my home knowledge, you know, like I still get
super excited about it. It's music in the brain
episode I've been researching for a while now, I'm just so hyped, I keep thinking about it. It's so interesting. There's so many facets. Singing versus improvisational,
excuse me, music versus I'm listening to
music versus learning music. I mean that, it just goes on and on. There's just so much,
that's so interesting. I just can't get enough and I think, I dunno, you put a camera in front of me, I sort of forget about it and
I'm just trying to just teach. - Yeah, so that's the
difference, that's interesting. I mean-
- Forget the camera. - Maybe I need to find that joy as well, but like for me, a lot of
the joys in the writing, and the camera, there's something- - Well, the best lecturers, as you know, and you're in a phenomenal lecturer, so you embody this as well. But when I teach at Stanford, I was directing this
course in neuroanatomy and neuroscience for medical students. And I noticed that the best
lecturers would come in and they're teaching the material from a place of deep understanding, but they're also experiencing
it as a first-time learner as at the same time. So it's just sort of
embodying the delight of it, but also the authority
over the, not authority, but the sort of mastery of the material. And it's really the delight in it that the students are linking onto it. And of course, they need and deserve the best accurate material, so they have to know what
they're talking about. But yeah, just tap into
that energy of learning and loving it, and people
are long for the ride. Or you know, I get accused
of being long-winded, but, you know, things
get taken outta context that leads to greater misunderstanding. And also I look at, listen, I come from a lineage
of three dead advisors, three, all three. So I don't know when the
reaper's coming for me. I'm doing my best to
stay alive a long time. But whether or not it's a
bullet or a bus, or cancer, whatever, or just old age, I mean, I'm trying to get it all
out there as best I can. And if it means you have to hit pause and come back a day or two later, like, that seems like a
reasonable compromise to me. I'm not gonna go longer than I need to and I'm trying to shorten them up. But again, that's kinda how I show up. It's like Tim Armstrong would
say about writing songs. I asked him, do you write,
how often do you write? Every day? Every day. Has Rick ever stopped creating? No. Has Joe ever stopped preparing for comedy? Are you ever stopping to
think about world issues and technology and who you can talk to? I mean, it seems to me
you've always got a plan, the insight. The thing I love about
your podcast the most, to be honest these days, is the surprise of like, I don't know who
the hell's gonna be there. It's almost like, I get a
little nervously excited about when a new episode
comes 'cause I have no idea. No idea. And you know, I mean, I have some guesses based on what you told
me during the break. I mean, you've got some
people where it's just like, whoa! Lex has went there? Awesome. Can't wait, click. You know, I think that's really cool. Like, you're constantly surprising people. So you're doing it so well. Like, it's such a high-level. And I think it's also important
for people to understand that what you're doing, Lex,
there's no precedent for it. Sure, there have been interviews before, there have been podcasts before. There are discussions before, but it's not like, how many
of your peers can you look to, to find out how best to
do the content like yours? Zero. There's one peer, you. And so, you know, that
should give you great peace and great excitement because you're a pioneer. You're literally the tip of the spear. I don't wanna take an unnecessary tangent, but I think this might thread together two of the things that we've been
talking about, which are, I think of pretty key importance. One is romantic relationships, and the other is creative
process and the work. And this again, is something
I learned from Rick, but that he and I have
gone back and forth on. And that I think is worth
elaborating on, which is, earlier we were saying, you know, the best
relationship is gonna be one where it brings you peace. I think peace also can be
translated to, among other things, lack of distraction. So when you're with your partner, can you really focus on
them and the relationship? Can you not be distracted by things that you're upset about from their past or from your past with them or their, and of course, the same
is true for them, right? They ideally will feel
that way towards you too, they can really focus. Also, when you're not with them, can you focus on your work? Can you not be worried about
whether or not they're okay? 'Cause you trust that they're an adult and they can handle things
or they will reach out if they need things? They're gonna communicate
their needs like an adult, you know, not creating
message just to get attention and things like that. Or disappearing, you
know, for that matter. So peace and focus are intimately related, and distraction is the
enemy of peace and focus. So there's something there, I believe, because with people that have
the strong generative drive and want to, you know, be productive in their
home life in the sense have a rich family life or
partner life, whatever that is. And in their work life, you know, the ability to
really drop into the work and like, okay, you might
have that sense like, I hope they're okay or, you know, need to check my phone or something. But just know like, we're good. So peace and focus, I think
being present are so key. And it's key at every level
of romantic relationship from, you know, certainly presence
and focus, you know, everything from sex to listening to, you know, raising a family, to tending to the house and in work, it's absolutely critical. So I think that those things
are kind of mirror images of the same thing. And they're both important
reflections of the other. And when you start to
just, you know, when work is not going well, then the
focus on relationship can suffer and vice versa. - And it's crazy how important that is. How incredibly wonderful
it could be to have a person in your life that kind of enables that creative focus. - Yeah, and you supply the peace and focus for their endeavors,
whatever those might be. I mean that symmetry there, because clearly, people
have different needs and the need to just really trust, you know, like when Lex is working, he's in his generative
mode and I know he's good. And so then they feel sure
they've contributed to that, but then also what you're
doing is supporting them in whatever way it happens to be. And I think that sometimes
you'll see that people will pair up along creative,
creative or musical, musical, or computer scientists. But I think, again, going
back to this Conti episode on relationships is that
the superficial labels are less important it
seems than just the desire to create that kind of home
life and relationship together. And as a consequence, the work mode. And for some people they're
both people aren't working. And sometimes they are. But I think that's the
good stuff, you know? And I think that's the
big learning in all of it, is that the further along
I go with each birthday, I guarantee you're gonna be like, what I want is simpler and simpler, and harder and harder to
create, but oh, so worth it. - The inner and the outer peace. It's been over two years, I think since Costello passed away. - [Andrew] It still tears me up. - You mentioned him still.
- I cried about him today, I cried about him today.
- Still? - It's proportional to the love. But yeah, I'll cry about it
right now if I think about it. It wasn't putting him down, it wasn't the act of
him dying any of that. Actually, that was a beautiful experience. I didn't expect it to be, but it was in my place when
I was living in Topanga during the pandemic where
we launched the podcast and I did it at home. And he hated the vets, I did it at home. And it was, he gave out
this huge (deep sigh) right at the end. And I could just tell he had been in just not a lot pain, fortunately, but he had just been working
so hard just to move at all. And the craziest thing happened,
Lex is, was unbelievable. I've never had an experience like this. I expected my heart to break. And I've felt a broken heart before. I felt it, frankly, when my parents split, I felt it when Harry shot himself. I felt it when Barbara died and felt it, when, you know,
when Ben went, so as well. And so many friends, like
way too many friends. I mean, the end of 2017,
my friend Aaron King, Johnny Farer, John Eckelberry, stomach cancer, suicide, fentanyl. It's like, whoa! All in a freaking week. And I just remember
thinking like, what the? But when Cost... And it's just heartbreaking,
you just carry that. And it's like, (grunts) and that's just a short list, you know? And I don't say that for sob story, it's just for a guy that
wasn't in the military or didn't grow up in the inner city, like it's an unusual
number of like deaths, like close people. When Costello went, the
craziest thing happened. My heart warmed up, like heated up. And I wasn't on MDMA and
just the moment he went, it just went whoosh! And I was like, what the hell is this? And it was just like a
supernatural experience to me. I just never had that. I put my grandfather on the ground, I was a pallbearer at the funeral. I've like done that more times than I'd like to have ever done it. And it just heated up with
Costello and I thought, what the fuck is this? And it was almost like, and
we make up these stories about what it is, but it was almost like
he was like, all right, I have to be careful 'cause I will cry here
and I don't want to. It was almost like, he
was like, all that effort 'cause I had been putting
so much effort into him, it was like, alright, you get that back. It was like the giant freaking thank you. And it was incredible, you know? And I'm not embarrassed to
shed a tear or two about it if I have to, I was like, holy shit! Like that's how close
I was to that animal. - Where do you think, where do you think you can
find that kind of love again? - Man, I don't know. I mean, when, and excuse
me for welling up, but it was just, I mean,
it's a freaking dog, right? I get it. But for me, it was the
first real home I ever had. But when Costello went, it was like, we had had this home in Topanga. We had set it up and we're like, and he was just so happy there. And I think it just... I don't know, it was like this weird like victory slash massive loss. Like we did it 11 years. Freaking did everything to make him as comfortable as possible. And he was super loyal, beautiful animal, but also just funny and fun. And I was like, I did it. Like, you know, I gave as much of myself
to this being as a human. I felt I could without
making it, you know, like, you know, detracting
from the rest of my life. And so I don't know, when I think about Barbara especially, I well up and it's hard for me, but I mean, I talked
to her before she died and that was a brutal conversation. Saying goodbye to someone, especially with kids. And that was hard. I think that really flipped a
switch in me where I'm like, I always knew I wanted kids. I'd say I want kids, I want a lot of kids. That flipped a switch in me. I was like, I want kids. I want my own kids. - [Lex] You might be able
to find that kind of love. - Yeah, I think because
it was the caretaking, it wasn't about what he
gave me all that time. And the more I could take
care of him and see him happy, the better I felt, it's crazy. And, I don't know. So I miss him every day, every day. I miss him every day. - You got a heart that's so full of love. I can't wait for you to have kids. - Thanks man.
- For you to be a father. - Yeah, well, - I can't wait to say-
- when I'm ready for it. When, you know, when God decides
I'm ready, I'll have 'em. - And then I will still beat you to it. As I told you many times before. - I think you should absolutely have kids. I mean, look at the people in our life 'cause we're kind of the... In case you haven't realized it already, like we're the younger of the podcasters, but you know, like Joe
and Peter, and Segura, and you know, and the rest, right? They're like the tribal elders, right? And we're, you know, we're not the the youngest in the crew, but if you look at all those
guys, they all have kids. They all adore their kids and their kids bring tremendous
meaning to their life. Like we'd be morons if, you know, if you didn't
go off and start a family, I didn't start a family. And yeah, I think that's the goal. I mean, I think- - The kids.
- of the goals, that's one of them. - Kids not only make them
their life more joyful and brings love to their life, it's also makes 'em more productive, makes 'em better people, all that. It's kind of obvious. - Yeah, I think that's
what Costello wanted. I think I have this story in
my head that he was just like, okay, like take this. Like you could, yeah. - And don't fuck this up. - And don't, (chuckles) Lord knows, don't fuck this up. - Andrew, I love you brother. This is incredible.
- Love you too, thank you, I appreciate you. - As we will talk often
on each other's podcast for many years to come. - Yes.
- Many, many years to come. - Thank you, thanks for having me on here. And there are no words
for how much I appreciate your example and your
friendship, so love you brother. - I love you too. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Andrew Huberman. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now lemme leave you with
some words from Albert Camu. "In the midst of winter, I found there was, within
me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there's something stronger, something better, pushing right back." Thank you for listening and
hope to see you next time.