Best of 2025 (Part One): Conversations That Shaped Us

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I think we can all agree on that but You know not without their irresistible temptations Cookies everywhere pie at every gathering the sugary fruit thing you're on made and listen, you know, I'm not immune But either is your gut meeting your microbiome is absolutely paying attention to what's going on All of which is why AG1 matters during this extended two-month stretch You need something to anchor you and one scoop of AG1 consolidates your multi-vitamin your superfood your anti-oxidants this daily health drink takes 30 seconds Easy peasy and the next gen formula is clinically shown to fill nutrient gaps Which is huge when your diaco sideways for a handful of weeks here and there I keep all four flavors around Original citrus berry and tropical cold water person in the morning just one baseline thing Locked in before everything gets away from me and right now AG1 has their best offer ever at drink AG1.com slash ritual you get a welcome kit a flavor sampler plus 126 dollars in free gifts at drink AG1.com slash ritual Why do you believe your life and for what would you give your life your time and energy is the single most valuable resource you have in your life There's probably been more good advice shared on the internet in the past 15 years than the rest of human history combined Hey everybody before we get into today's episode I just wanted to express a heartfelt Happy holidays from me and from my entire team here at the RRP and voicing change media 2025 has been a Delirious year for many reasons I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a very difficult year for me personally But having the support of all of you has made it a lot easier. So thank you for that and now it's over Which is something to celebrate because you can't embrace the birth of something new until you completely let go of the old So celebrate we will with the first of two best of the year compilation episodes Which is our annual tradition here for the last 13 years? I really have done my very best to host deep and meaningful long-form conversations and I do it in Service to your personal development to your relationship with change and transformation and this year was no different Too many fantastic guests to feature here But what follows is our best attempt to synthesize the greatest the year had to offer into the most compelling and practical guy that we could So I want you to think about these next two episodes as a refresher course for the devoted RRP fans out there a Reminder to revisit episodes that maybe you skipped or perhaps really resonated with you or as an abbreviated anthology on What we do here for those that are brand new as always these episodes are our way of expressing Gratitude for you the audience as well as of course to our amazing guests who helped make the year what it was and It's really in that spirit that we present this first episode to you now starting with a clip from my friend Mel Robbins Who went absolutely stratospheric this year? What have you learned or discovered about this you know kind of Self obsession that we have and this deep-rooted desire You know to kind of be in control or to get the world to kind of Conform to our idea of what it should be well I have two things to say about this one You're never going to get rid of this fundamental need for control It's part of the hard wiring and understand that everybody hasn't We'll also make you understand why the way that you've been dealing with relationships and the world at large is backfiring And so there's a huge difference between seeking control and actual power and Here's the headline that I've discovered by saying let them and let me now for two years straight It's this If you feel overwhelmed or tired or stressed out or lonely or you are not achieving the things that you want to achieve or you're not as happy as you want to be the Problem isn't you the Problem is the power that you're giving to other people to their thoughts to their emotions to their expectations to their moods and You don't have to live like that Your time and energy is the single most valuable resource you have in your life how you spend your time what you pour your energy into it is what your life is and what I discovered by saying let them and let me an understanding the difference between control and true power Is that I was controlling the wrong thing I? Had life reversed see I thought I'd be happy if you liked me rich I thought that if I navigated my life based on my kids moods or my husbands moods or my parents expectations That was the way that I would feel more in control But here's the joke that we all need to stop like to accept and like kind of laugh at ourselves and then change how we live our lives There's one thing you'll never be able to control And that's another person and yet we've organized our entire lives around ensuring that other people are happy or that they think a certain thing or they're in a good mood or that you've met their expectations and Here's what I've learned When you actually stop giving your power to other people's opinions into their moods and to their expectations of you And you take the power back and you say well, let me focus on what I think about myself Let me focus on what my values are and what my intention is and let me act in a way that is aligned with that as best as I can And let me actually learn how to respond to my own emotions like a fucking adult Instead of vent texting at everybody or pouting in the corner or gossiping or bitching or taking it out on other people Let me be the mature adult here and let me work on this when you actually put your time and energy there a funny thing happens All the other stuff takes care of it's oh my god rich like when you're proud of yourself You actually don't think much about what other people think When you are kind of focused every day on just doing little things that make you proud of yourself for that are aligned with the things that you care about You're not worried about what other people's expectations are if you screw up and hurt somebody's feelings It's not like world war three is broken out you literally just know your intentions so you can Take responsibility for the impact it had and apologize move on like it doesn't become this new surround your neck And you don't feel this sense that you're responsible For everybody in your life like even last night we yesterday made a really long day and my daughter and I worked together and It we're having dinner and I kind of snapped at her and then we got into this little thing and And We were all sitting in a booth and Somebody said on this side of the booth just let her be upset with you What a beautiful thing Just let my adult daughter have a moment where she's annoyed with me Why do I have to fix this I don't she is allowed to have feelings She's allowed to be disappointed She's allowed to be pissed off at me and if I give her the space To have those feelings Then I'm actually recognizing the power that she has to process her own experience in life and it immediately starts to disappear It's unbelievable how we have taken on the responsibility of the world and in doing so We've not only burdened ourselves and robbed ourselves of time and energy But we've also robbed other people in our lives our children our partners our parents From the experience of actually facing life And feeling what they need to feel and understanding that wow like nobody needs to step in and rescue somebody Stand by their side and support them But you know, I also can see that I would rush in and try to solve everything for my kids Which only made their anxiety worse when they were little because every time I stepped in and I wouldn't let them struggle Or I wouldn't let them have the uncomfortable feeling when I step in and just try to take it away I'm actually communicating. I don't actually believe you can handle this. Yeah, which makes it worse Next up is my friend the Harvard happiness expert and social scientists are their brooks It's one thing for you and I to talk about meaning purpose and happiness as people who are in the in our kind of era of crystallized Intelligence and we're you know, we're looking we're looking we're looking backwards at our life and trying to make sense of things But as somebody who's now kind of directing your focus on on younger people like What's different about how you talk about these issues with respect to that generation versus ours? So when I'm talking so the first book that I wrote about this was from strength to strength That's how you and I met that was the first book that But you know the first time I came on the show we talked about that that made a big assumption Which is you're not perfect in terms of meaning of life, but you have a good concept of it That's not an assumption I can make with people in the mid 20s What you find is that the the inflection point in generalized anxiety and clinical depression for people in their teens and 20s Exactly follows the answer to the question. I feel like my life is meaningless And it tracks with data showing that when people stop looking for the meaning of their life Also, of course, it's contemporaneous with the onset with the sort of the critical mass of people living online So that's all these things are going together So when I'm talking about people in crisis in the second half of their life for you know Burning out or having a mid-life crisis super strivers not knowing what they're gonna do That's a different problem because that's predicated on the idea that you have an underlying sense of life's meaning That you can tap into and live in a different way I can't make that assumption with people in the 20s today So I have to go back to first principles That's why what I'm writing about right now is the meaning of your life and how to find it You know one of the big things that you actually need to do to understand about your brain The practices you need to actually start adopting so that you will open yourself up to questions of meaning and And come to some sort of understanding about it I think that there's a paralysis that ensues with young people when you throw words around like purpose and meaning But it's sort of like I'm supposed to know my purpose and so I either feel Bad about myself or guilty or less than um Or I'm just sort of confused. I don't know what that even means at that stage of life. Yeah, for sure And so that that's why it is so big That for the longest time I would you know just talk about it in those terms and it is quite paralyzing So I'm writing a book about it right now that talks about actually What are the steps to go and find it which starts off with Confronting the fact that there is a problem Understanding neurophysiologically what the problem is Talking about the things you need to stop doing in your life and then the practices that you need to actually admit the The sources Purpose meaning in your life and and it's not straightforward because you know back in the place to scene They know these problems and even your grandfathers didn't have this problem because just daily life made it organic But you know there's some of it is is still pretty straightforward You know when I when I only have 10 minutes with young people I'll talk about You know taking a little test A little two-question exam of whether or not you have a crisis in your life And if you do what to go and search of So all two questions for example, I'll ask my students or my adult kids for that matter Why do you believe you're alive and for what would you give your life? Because you find that people who have the greatest tangible sense understanding of meaning of life They have a sense of understanding about the why of their life and for what they give their life It's like being alive and not being alive This is one of the reasons that people who've been in combat roles in the military have such a A strong sense of life's meaning because they've had to confront that without ever even asking those questions for what would you give your life? The Marines but it's self-selecting in some regard Because these those are the kind of people that would go into the military They already have a conviction around that maybe although you know have being the father of two Marines I can tell you that a lot of them they go into the Marines because they want adventure and they come out having found meaning Because they've they've addressed these particular questions. So when I talk to my students They're on average 28 years old their MBA students at Harvard. I say One of your projects is going to be to be thinking very very deeply about your theory about why you're alive Which means how are you created and for what purpose? I mean writing a mission statement and What would you die happily for right now? Happily like that's a rough question for anybody, but for a young person You know, that's that's a very confronting question. They find it super exciting to take it on They find it super exciting because they don't have to do it right now. It's like this is the project and they're fine like Oh I don't have to go find the meaning of my life. I have to try to understand the answers to those questions Which is a lot more tangible than what they've been dealing with Why am I alive and so what do I read? I'll read this and read this and read this and talk to this person and you know start going and and Sort of contemplative practice and you can start doing stuff to try to get the information That will give you some illumination around the around at least an understanding of those questions and that's That's progress That's that feels It feels less diffuse it feels less unanswerable Still still a steep mountain to climb Meaning brutal No, I mean, it's like again, this is the same thing. It's like we we can conceive of our death, but we can't conceive of our non existence There's that your prefrontal cortex is not ideally designed To confront questions that have understanding but no answers. This is one of the contemplative traditions. They'll say You know to the junior monk. Okay for the next 40 years Chop wooden carry water. Well, you think about these co-ins Yeah, you know because it's not because it's not straightforward This is ronda patrick health researcher So like when we're building a black tape as a result of vigorous exercise It's passing through the blood brain barrier. It's going into our brains And it's doing all sorts of beneficial things like something called neurogenesis right like so talk a little bit more in depth about The importance of lactate or the relationship between it and and the healthy brain that we all are trying to You know kind of foster. Yeah, I'd love to It's it's one of the reasons why I really try to engage in a lot of vigorous intensity exercise that I've got neurodegenerative disease on both sides of my family So for me, I'm very brain focused when it comes to exercise It's it's one of the main reasons I do exercise. I feel better But I also know that I'm delaying the aging of my brain and helping prevent neurodegenerative disorders So lactate um, you know, it depends on how there's a lot of factors at play in terms of how much lactate you're gonna make Right so how intense you're going in terms of your exercise? You might a control function a lot of individual variability here at play But generally speaking, you know when you start to go into that vigorous intensity zone You know, you can start typically our steady state lactate levels are like less than one millimolar And when you get when you start to go into you know 80 85% 90% max heart rate You can get anywhere between seven to 14 millimolar of of lactate in your blood string And this is can be measured, you know, you can go out and get tests. I've measured it before for myself The the lactate levels don't last long in your in your blood system And that is because it is being transported and going and taken up by other tissues. So really As far as I've measured repeatedly, it's about a 20 minute about 20 25 minutes And then it goes back to your baseline So there's been a variety of studies that have shown by the way dr. George Brooks from UC Berkeley was the first to really propose at the time this lactate Shuttle theory as he called it and it's not really a theory anymore It's been proven time and time again, but he was really the first to To propose that lactate was being transported inter circulation It was being taken up by a variety of other tissues Notably the brain and that it was you know having beneficial effects in these other organs So um in the brain so there is a transporter lactate goes through this it's called an MCT transporter And it gets into the brain and there's been a variety of human studies showing that actually during physical activity Lactate is fueling the brain because you know your brain is working hard to your heart is working hard during exercise your lungs are working hard Your brain is also working hard right? I mean you know this as you're as an endurance athlete your brain is also working hard during exercise and lactates feeling that Feeling the brain activity that's been shown and some of that also has to do with the fact that lactate It's increasing brain drive neurochromic factor so you mentioned that bdnf for short and That is doing a lot of things it is helping grow new neurons Particularly in part of the brain called the hippocampus which is involved in learning and memory It's also a part of the brain that atrophies with Alzheimer's disease So there've been a variety of studies that have shown even older adults that are engaging in Modern intensity activity for about a year Can increase the size of their hippocampus by like 2% which is amazing because typically Older adults lose in their their hippocampus hippocampus atrophies with time So not only were they fighting and staving off the atrophying, but they were also increasing it So so that was pretty um, I think one of the one of the big eye opening studies and this was this was over 10 years ago This was like a 2012 study that was published on showing this So um the brain drive neurochromic factor is growing new neurons Can increase the size of the hippocampus But also it's really important for something called neuroplasticity and that is It's kind of like you can think about keeping our brains more pliable and and malleable and Adaptable so really Neuroplasticity allows our brains to adapt to a changing environment and this is important for aging But it's also important for mental health So people with major depressive disorder for example they have dysfunction and neuroplasticity So and that kind of makes sense right if you can't adapt to a changing environment It's very stressful and can cause anxiety can be depressing so There've been a variety of different You know researchers that are trying to target neuroplasticity as a treatment for depression So neuroplasticity not only plays a role in brain aging But it also plays a role in mental health and I think that's important to To point out because I mean I think I think almost everyone by now knows that Exercise is one of the best things you can do for mental health, right? I mean, it's like it's just you can't deny it right I mean you go out even just even doing like a 10 minute high intensity Workout you feel better, you know, you feel better. How important is the plasticity piece in the mental Health conversation and you know, what is the significance of Of that plasticity increase as a result of vigorous exercise? Yeah, it's a good thing to point out. I think There are a lot of things that are changing with exercise. I mean endorphins that make you feel good You know into cannabinoids that make you feel good. I mean there's serotonin gets increased right? So there's a lot of different I would say um short term effects for for that are potentially responsible for the beneficial like Elevation and move that you experience after exercise with neuroplasticity I would argue there's more of a long term effect, right? It's your your your your brain is now able to Adapt better to a changing environment and that's going to have a more of a long term Consequence so neuroplasticity is another really important thing that brain drive neurotropic factor Regulates and again coming back to the lactate which is what we were talking about You know lactate is also When I say it's a signaling molecule It is it is communicating and and activating a lot of different things in the brain So neuroepinephrine is another one that's been shown to increase and neuroepinephrine is a neurotransmitter That is responsible for focus attention, but also mood You know, so people are often treated with nor nor epinephrine re-eptake inhibitors for anxiety and also depression. So lactate plays a role in increasing that as well um, but again, we're just getting down into the nitty gritty of one Aspective exercise and as you pointed out there's a whole plethora of changes that occur with exercise that are beneficial not limited to lactate. I just I think the lactate story is so important because it it really is A proven mechanism both human animal studies. It's something that's measurable You know, and again, it's something also that we've known is it links It links the more high intensity exercise the more vigorous exercise With you know a lot of these beneficial effects on the brain. Mm-hmm We continue our best-of-series with psychology professor Laurie Santos This is something that culture gets wrong. We talked about culture getting manifesting wrong I think that's number one thing we get wrong on tiktok When number two thing we get wrong about happiness on tiktok is this If you look anywhere on tiktok itself about self-care treat yourself self-self-self You look at the studies of happy people and happy people are not focused on themselves happy people are very other oriented They're doing nice stuff for other people right controlled for income happier people tend to donate more money to charity than not so happy people right It's just these like subtle correlations between doing nice stuff for others and feeling better But then you have all these experiments where you kind of force participants to do nice stuff for other people One of my favorite is by Elizabeth Dunn and her colleagues where they walk up to folks on this tree Hand them 20 bucks and say either Hey spend this 20 bucks to do something nice to treat yourself right or hey spend this 20 bucks to do something nice for somebody else You could donate it to a homeless shelter. You could buy a friend. You know something nice like But has to go to someone else When they call people at the end of the day or even at the end of the week They find that people are happier when they treated someone else rather than when they treated themselves right In giving that money to the other person if you qualify it then becomes a burden for them As opposed to an enriching experience where you felt like oh, I like you know, I did something nice for somebody Yeah, and and this is a spot where even in my own life if I'm not careful with it like There's just like a terrible opportunity cost because like all the money you spend on yourself to feel better You know buying yourself a massage or buying yourself that new gadget or buying your treating yourself to a nice glass of wine Well, it's just the same money that you could have spent on someone else often joked that that every time my brain is like I'm gonna get a manicure. I'm gonna do something nice for myself. I'm like wait Can I give my sister in law a manicure? Can I like buy that in that massage for like someone in my workplace like It genuinely is one of these things that even violates my intuitions even saying and now I'm like dude I would like the massage better the sister in law, you know, whatever But but you're cultivating abundance and abundance right instead of lack like you're you have to hoard it Because you're afraid it'll run out or you'll run out and the benefits is like when you do nice things for other people Like what you get back in the social connection is huge right? My my producer and co-writer for my podcast Ryan dilly tells this story of he was walking into a coffee shop And someone was walking out with this cookie. They were very excited about and then dropped it like on the threshold of the doors They were walking out and seems sad and he ran into the coffee shop and brought this person a cookie and like gave them the cookie And like press was really happy and he's like Months later. I'm still telling Like I don't ever tell the story at the time I walked to the coffee shop and just got myself the cookie like now It's you know millions of people in your show are hearing you right and so These moments of good deeds that we do for others they he they percolate they percolate in our own memory They percolate in our social conversations even you know just hearing Brian's story probably all your people I have this little boost in happiness that we get and so we we forget that our our actions and our things we do to feel happy at the moment Some of them live on better than others and the things we do for other people live on in special ways is there any science to establish I want to call it a placebo effect, but it's not quite that what I'm getting at is The intention behind it like does it matter if you Give of yourself from a place of you know open-heartedness and generosity or You're doing it selfishly because Lori Santos said you want to have in his place. It makes me happy and I know just based on my anecdotal personal experience that It actually doesn't matter like if I just Even if I don't want to do the thing like I know that it will make me happier and so to be Selfless from a selfish person back to yes, yeah, it still ends up Creating a shift. Yeah, and I think that's true for all the like We get the benefit from the behavior in a lot of the cases I think that again with all these things. There's a little bit of nuance Laura Aknan has this work that if you feel Force to do nice things for others like you don't have any choice You don't have any agency in it that can be not good This is one of the reasons we see things like caregiver burnout and so on like you have no choice You have to be doing these nice things That's not great But if you come at it from like hi, I don't really go do this baby I'll try it kind of works and that's like that's true in all these domains, you know like I respect so many people that get the like the wonderful emotional hit that have the like craving for working I never have that it's always a slog for me. I've hoped that doing it more and more. I'll get into it Never is but every time I do it what I'm done. I'm like, oh, that was great. Why did I hit doing it? What's my problem right? Yeah, and I think the same thing can be true for Doing nice things for others for me. That's also true for like talking to people I know that talking to strangers from all my studies again I can like tell you the journal article name right that it makes you happier But I'm just like don't really feel like talking to people but then And inevitably when I do it. I'm like okay. I should really do it I wind up feeling better. Yeah, even on the the plane over here today I was sitting next to someone who kind of plopped down and This individual sort of disabled and like had a tough time getting in and was sort of seemingly sort of frustrated And I had this moment of like all I want to do is look at my phone and check my email That's all my craving and motivations telling me to do but I know happiness wise I should like try to brighten this person's day And so I did it and we had a little chat and then I felt a little bit brighter You know the first 10 minutes into the flight and feel like I've made you know his version of that flight a little bit better than if I was just kind of on my own Be back in a flash but first the quick break We're brought to you today by pro lawn It is pretty clear at this point based upon established and newly emerging evidence-based science That periodic fasting holds an important place in tending to our health as well as extending longevity That said there are just so many different kinds of Fasting out there and admittedly it all kind of comes across as pretty extreme This is but one reason why I appreciate the work of my friend and repeat friend of the pod dr. 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I am not sure why but at the end of it. There's always somebody who's profiting Meanwhile, yeah, you look back on it and say how silly um, but at the same time the fact that you like didn't get that valentine when you were in seventh grade or whatever You know create some neural pathway in your brain. Yeah, you know 30 years later You're still acting out on as a result because it's some form of trauma that remained unhealed Yeah, and you know, but to recognize that other people's responses to us are a function of their needs They say nothing about us You know um to every compliment you give me Uh is not really about me It's more about you. Yeah, every insult for you to like me. Yeah every insult and so on and If we were brought up to understand those things even a seven-year-old can understand them if they're spoken in kitties um Then Johnny doesn't give you the valentine. Yeah, so Johnny didn't give you a valentine It doesn't have to you know you go from that you didn't get the valentine Therefore nobody likes you. Therefore your life is going to be a failure It's silly right. I mean how do we communicate these things to the children? somebody says how many valentines did you get married and you got more than Susie so therefore you're a better person Um, where Susie said yeah, but I've got the valentines from the most important people It's all crazy. Yeah, you know, um, I talked to you about how um that pancreas story You know that um, I still can't this was a story where um, I'm not gonna eat the pancreas But I feel I have to eat it because now I'm a married woman. It's very young age and I still can't figure out Why I thought that you know that there's so many Things that are communicated to us, you know, if you're sophisticated these are all the things that you'll do um and it would go back and people I don't know it's become my new mantra who says so You know, um, and when you recognize the three levels that I talk about you know, um, where level one and three look the same But they're very different level one two three thinking maybe explain that yeah, well, you know The easiest example I'm gonna keep using the New Yorker. It's a wonderful magazine and this example doesn't shine So be it level one yet people who don't read the New Yorker level two people who read the New York Level three people who don't read the New Yorker anymore Level one and three look the same, but they're very different people you get haven't read it again But that makes a story too complicated You know, you have a young kid is uninhibited um, the rest of the world is Inhibited and then you get to a certain point. We say who gives a damn, you know, and you become disinhibited But when they accuse the older person of being like a child They're not they're very different the child doesn't know the rule The older person knows the rule and thinks it's silly You know, and I remember on the you know Can this is so silly, but if I had gotten Spilled something on my shirt You know, I'd be walking around like this You know, so nobody would see it without realizing how ridiculous this itself looks um as if every moment is This is going to describe who we are for a lifetime that people won't realize Yes, you could have dirt on yourself one minute doesn't mean that's the way you wear your clothes you wearing two different shoes Doesn't mean you you don't know that um, there'll be a different response to wearing the same shoe um All everybody worrying so about what other people think and Everybody knows they themselves don't know And the joke is thinking that other people do know and so you're always guessing at what's the right thing to do And I'm here to inform people nobody knows and nobody can know Because everything is changing everything looks different from different perspectives And it's okay not to know Because there are other things you do know So Next up is world champion mountain biker cake Courtney So what do you say to the person who's looking for something to go all in on that doesn't quite know what that is It's a really good question I think it's about listening to that curiosity and excitement and I I think you just follow it you just follow the little bread crumbs of that feeling and And be willing to take a little risk when you need to to find out what you're capable of it can't be manufactured and it can't be Faked right like But you also can't just wait to be struck with it like I think those things are revealed through Doing things and to your point like being willing to explore your curiosities and I think The modern world has a way of like eroding our relationship with our own curiosity As we're told we need to do these things or this is what Success looks like or the path that you should be on and Curiosity's are in indulgence or something that we kind of like repress or quash rather than kind of move towards It feels like there's a lot of focus on what we get out of things right now Which is important. I mean, I would not be sitting here if things hadn't If the pendulum of luck hadn't kind of swung in the right direction at certain races in my career, right? So I'm not saying that Accomplishments and and what you get out of things doesn't matter at all like I live in reality but I find that a better compass is What you can give to things And I'll tell you a little story and this now I've related everything back to the Olympics Which you know, I guess these pivotal moments they really make an impact and you learn from them But I always thought like from when I was a little kid that if I went to Olympics, I'd go get the Olympic tattoo Right, that's like the Sexy focus thing so I go I don't know this great experience. I obviously do not get the tattoo You don't want to look at it and be reminded of completely yeah And then I don't make the Paris team which we didn't really get to but yeah, I Was ranked you know 10th in the world and actually had a really good season But the other two Americans were top Three at the first two World Cup and they just absolutely crushed it and they earned those spots and so I'm like sitting at home and during this period I went and visited my brother and we ended up going and We got matching tattoos and I'll tell you what we got there. It's very small. You don't know where it is but it's uh, it's on my ribs and I ended up getting the words give him hell tattooed on my ribs and there's a good story as to why so my grandpa growing up Every time I did anything in my life He would tell me give him hell And that was his like mantra to us was just like give Everything you've got in what you do And he sent me videos before a bunch of hard races where he said that message and it really impacted me because It's about Being willing to meet yourself in every moment and give what you've got and I think you know Early on maybe the Olympics maybe pursuing racing was about getting the flashy tattoo and having the accomplishment and being able to say like here Look what I did and here's what I got for it But I think for me now the question I ask is like what can I give and How far am I willing to go To Exhaust that potential and to give everything I have while I still have the opportunity to give it It's service. It's like what am I giving not what I'm not what am I extracting from this? Yeah, and I think when you're looking for What will fill your cup and what will be a worthy pursuit over a long period of time? I think it's a lot about what What thing are you doing where you're giving everything and in that moment you're enjoying it Right like the deep engagement with the activity whether it's like giving back to the community whether it's giving everything and an interval on your bike like where that act is So illuminating that at the end you have gotten something. Yeah, it's a byproduct. It's also You know kind of this weird thing again where You might trip yourself up because it's like give them hell like give it give it everything you've got like that Pushes all the buttons of blood. They're like, you know I'm gonna over train and I'm gonna like you know live in a cabin and be like if I if I'm gonna give them hell Then here's what I need in order to do that But it's an ex you're coming at this like more mature more expansive like to give it all You've got like requires that holistic Peace where you are making room for going on bike rides with all of these you know women and girls that you're trying to get You know into the sport and you're working with these brain like you're doing your life is much bigger now right like giving it all you've got Mean serving all of these different things all of these value buckets that you know allow you to sustain your athletic career But give your life meaning This is psychologist and researcher Ethan cross Where my head is going at this moment is thinking like I'm trying to put myself in that state of distress And I know myself well enough to know that like when I'm in the midst of like a negative emotional experience It's more difficult to grasp for the solution like there's something that As uncomfortable as it is you're resistant to changing it like it is doing something for you like on some unconscious level You're choosing it and an adaptive way I suppose That makes me resistant to like reach out For help or to find a way Out of it like I'm more likely to like indulge it well and if you find that that approach is serving you well That is I mean it's not well well then I think I if that's not serving you well having the foresight to recognize Actually this intuition I have to lean into this emotion even further It is not going to help me Rehearsing that ahead of time and we can go over how to do that because actually the penultimate chapter of my book is all about How you go from knowing to doing right how when you find yourself in the midst of the storm Can you be reminded that your default tendencies may not be adaptive let's plug in some of these shifters We'll talk about how you could do that But if you know, I think recognizing that sometimes our instincts Don't serve us well. I mean worry is a great example of this right so worry. It was the topic of my first book A lot of people worry Because they think it's going to help them There's something that feels really Secure about worrying right because I look this is a really important thing So let me try to figure out every possible angle on this like your brain Is an unbelievable supercomputer your ability to come up with an infinite number of what if worst-case scenarios This is remarkable out certain point like It's useful until it ceases to be useful typically. I think the ceases to be useful happens like three three minutes into the worry About rather than three days or three weeks or three months So recognizing that this temptation you have To lean into this is not serving you well and giving yourself the permission to do a little experiment Just give yourself like the next time you find yourself really wanting to indulge in the sadness or the anxiety Let's try something else and see how that works out and try some of those shifters That is something I would invite you and everyone else listening to do yeah, and I like again Myself too like I've sometimes had to like I love Approaching problems Right when they happen. I'm not dispositionally Avoided When something happens I like to deal with it nip it in the bud move on very tactical I have learned that sometimes that does not work well In particular in an interpersonal context sometimes if I'm in an argument with someone else They need some time To recalibrate before we can productively deal with the situation at hand I have to force myself all right Ethan you're gonna distract for a while And I lean into work hard for like several hours or several days even And that really serves me on I'll tell you what now that I've benefited from that it has broken The previous automatic response pattern that was not serving me well Yeah, what's interesting about that predisposition to problem solve like I would imagine your inner monologue is like this is a positive quality like when I see a problem I solve it right away But if you're curious about why that is perhaps you may find a Deep discomfort with uncertainty, you know, it's like what's driving? Oh, yeah behavior right and that uncertainty is so uncomfortable That it has to be eradicated and the best way to eradicate it is to just Solve the problem right well as opposed to what does it feel like to sit in that uncertainty instead or You could sit in the uncertainty. That's one thing you can do you can also Productively distract from the uncertainty And let time temper the emotional response linked with whatever is driving that certainty and see what that does for you Or you can talk to someone else you got to be careful who you talk to to help you reframe the uncertainty Or you can lean on your culture for support and if you believe in a higher power or our spiritual Activate some of those resources. There are lots of things you can do to deal with that experience and One of those things or two or three Maybe far more productive than the default Which is to just try to kind of hammer it away with the worries We continue with longevity scientist Walter Longgo What's interesting about your work is that and and maybe what's somewhat unusual about you as somebody who is a research scientist is that you are thinking about how you balance Your discoveries around efficaciousness with sustainability and adherence in the general population It's one thing to look under a microscope have a discovery and extrapolate from that into some sort of principle but You know, how can that be translated into something that the average person can take and use sustain that will benefit them over time Yes, and I think that We want to take it all the way to Uh, disease cures No, you know, not just treatment cures, right? So now for example, we with diabetes We now have three or four trials all of them showing a 50 to 70 percent regression of the disease and then on the FM day On the FMD just once a month without changing their diet And that's a very important thing right? So we don't change your diet. We don't change your lifestyle And we're saying so you know for thousands of years people have been talking about food is medicine, right? But then really never happen, right? So so that's what we're trying to do. Say you can we standardize this You know vegan based medicine and then use it to In some cases even cure diseases and so diabetes I think is definitely one of the ones where we're very confident and So universal layden or the universal high the bird did the first trial A couple years ago and short impressive impressive effects A1c but also on reduction of drug use and then laden repeated and got the same results and So so I think yes, this is You know feasible ways to bring people back to a functional state from a disease state to a functional state And I think that You know a lot of that has to do with Molecular mechanisms that are much more sophisticated than people You know May imagine so for example we just publish in collaboration with Laura Perrin at a children's hospital We publish on the use of the FMD in kidney in rats we kidney damage and then in people with kidney disease, right? But in people of course we We don't get to see what happens, but in rats we get to see what happens It's really remarkable. So we damaged the kidney and you see a complete disruption of the Gene expression. So how genes are turned on and off in the different cells of the kidney And then we start the fastening making diet and you see that so there's a there's a very precise architecture Let's say right 3D mental and then they could completely destroy by the by this toxin that we give the rats, right? Then we start the fasting making that cycles and you see everything going back to the to where it was like almost like a magic intervention So it's not really the fasting making diet that is doing anything right it is the rat that always and people are the same that always had programs that are able to be triggered by fasting to turn on regenerative and developmental like program so the same genes that are used when the organ when the kidneys are first generated in a in a baby like pluripotent stem cell generation Is that what you're talking about? Yes. Yes. So the cells are being reprogrammed into into some of these reprogramming factors. Yamanaka factors also known as Yamanaka factors are turned on and you see that every organ is turning on different ones Right so some in some cases you see Oct 4 being turned on in some cases you see Mick so different organs use different ones But they all have the same thing in common they turn on these many genes that are involved in cellular in an organ generation and then That's how they can go from this very disrupt the state back to the previous healthy states I so they know exactly you know what to turn on to get back to fix the problem So um, yes, so then that that's a power of this of this fasting making diets So turning on the ability of the body to fix itself and so now you know diabetes we're seeing it we're seeing now with That we kidney disease we are now seeing it with I mean at least this is in humans and and animals but for some other like god We are clearly seen in animal studies and now there are many A number of trials that will test that in their inculence trials here We've got a lot more to come but first a quick break Today's episode is brought to you by roka. 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Particularly in the self-help, you know world where there are outsized personalities out there who are Commentering like very large audiences and a significant mind share um Amongst, you know, a vast population of people who are Probably genuinely looking for good advice and guidance at some period in their life in which they need it but back to like kind of what youtube and the internet rewards it rewards Hot takes contrarianism heterodox thinking certainty conviction, you know charisma all of these things none of which necessarily are related to truth veracity and you know good advice right so you as somebody who who I know thinks about like how do I Provide good advice and do it with integrity. You're out there not competing, but you know You're you're in a world in which you know those other people are out there for better or worse sure who are motivated not by Values necessarily But more and more by metrics like growth and you know with growth that means Platforming people who might be not the best people to platform under the rubric of like just asking questions and all of that kind of thing like You know, let me tell you what they don't want you to know and you know Everything you've ever been told is a lie and you know, this is like what works right and I don't know if it's a willful blindness or a lack of self awareness or maybe just a I don't give a fuck like it doesn't matter as long as I'm growing and more and more people are paying attention to me Yeah, I've mixed feelings about this because I think it's Good for the world Actually, let me start with a caveat and then I'll go into my mixed feelings. So the the caveat of all of this is I want to say that As this is simultaneously having the guru's fear as you put it. I really like that word Uh is exploding right self-help is bigger than it's ever been it's become mainstream essentially There is an unprecedented wealth of genuinely good mental health and physical health information that's been become available in the last 10 15 years that was never available in The all of human history like there's probably been more good advice shared on the internet in the past 15 years than the rest of human history combined so That's mixed in with all this stuff and it's often very very frustrating to as a consumer to parse the good from the bad even people who Buy in large have ridiculous positions and beliefs about most things will occasionally share a really good piece of information So it's it's like there's a mental struggle of sifting through all the information out there So I want to put that on the table first and then that relates to my mixed feelings in the following way which is Ultimately, I feel like it's a good thing to let Two opposing narratives into the public sphere and let them kind of combat each other and Because a lot of times the conventional narrative does end up being full. I mean how much how much nutritional information over the past 20 years You know that was conventional Turned up to be absolutely terrible and horrible for people, you know a decade later, right? So it's like the conventional wisdom does get overturned frequently and so you do want that You do want it to be free and available for people to attack and combat and offer alternative theories and Yeah, even occasionally their hairbrained You know sure whatever That I think is fine and I do think it does cause a lot of stress and strife among the population and among consumers It makes our lives a little bit more complicated is it puts more responsibility on us to figure out what we're consuming and whether it's good or not What I do worry about is is to your point the overindexing of Crazy town Let's call it. I've kind of come to just as somebody who has observed Online media My entire adult life and tried to like really kind of track it and understand why certain audiences behave certain ways I've kind of come to the conclusion that Perhaps the most chronically online population in the world are the crazy town conspiracy theory people They're more engaged. They're more vocal um If they like you they'll watch everything they'll like everything they'll comment on everything and so I think As creators, I think there are a lot of people in our industry who You know they'll dip their toe in that pool In the crazy town pool and they'll get that flood of engagement And that feels good. It's like especially I mean when you've been Say grinding through 20 episodes and you're at this plateau and like nothing's really popping off or performing well and you're like man What am I What are we doing wrong like what can I be doing better and also in one just like shoots off like a rocket And like man I should do more of that Next up is the iconic Maria Schreiber What What am I here to do and how do you drown all of that out? I don't think you need to get hit by a two by four I don't think you need Necessarily to hit rock bottom whether it's in a a and a you name it or whether it is to get divorced or Get fired from a job. There's all kinds of heartbreak I think going on all the time, but I think the key is stopping In this society stopping and allowing yourself to sit in silence and have that conversation with yourself and report on what's going on within So I think that that's possible for everybody. I wouldn't advocate You know hitting rock bottom. I would advocate, you know, ending up on a floor looking at your marriage and going now what you know But sometimes that's what it takes, but I think I think we're seeing breakdowns in small ways all over the place today And therefore that's why I'm hoping that whether it's writing For your friend you're you were saying that he's democratizing poetry and telling everybody that they can write And people feel a huge release when they write they even if they don't think of themselves as writers Some people write with their opposite hand that they're non dominant hand and see what comes out there I'm just a big believer that that can help you find your way forward When you feel in crisis when you feel stuck when you don't know the way forward. Yeah It feels indulgent, but it's actually, you know Positive self-care to do that and for somebody who indulge into right? Well, I think to stop and pause and and carve out quiet time for yourself Especially if you're somebody who does feel like you're always behind in terms of like living up to others people's expectations of you Yeah, I know it's like the time to do it is when you feel the least compelled to do it Like it feels like that is a luxury that I cannot afford But you need that pattern interrupt otherwise you're gonna continue to just reap what you've always sound right But it can be you can start with five minutes you can start with ten minutes you can start with 15 I'm not saying you have to be thorough and go to Walden pond or you have to go off onto a silent retreat or go on to a retreat or You know do what Jesus did and go away for 40 days, but if you look at history If you look at people who've actually been able to gather their thoughts Before social media They they went away and kind of took time to be in silence to gather their thoughts at things I've read about Bill Gates Jeff Bezos they still Go away and find time to like what am I thinking? Where am I going? What is my purpose? How do I want to change up what I'm doing? That's a conversation that everybody needs to have with themselves So if you're having it in the bathroom in your closet I've talked to some women who have you know two kids and they said they get up 20 minutes early and they go in the bathroom Lock the door and just try to figure out what do I think? Where am I going? What do I want to do? So I think if you start I have a poem there start where you are and start with what you have Which might be five minutes might be ten minutes just it that kind of thing can lead that can begin to design your path I think when you talk about like things like purpose or meaning like what is my purpose that that's intimidating for a lot of people Or perhaps even violent like oh, I should feel bad about myself because I don't know my purpose is and you know These poems that you've written are really just Demonstrating you know what it means to like look inward You know and try to make sense of you know the complicated emotions that that we all have and Those bigger grander ideas kind of emerge from that as a practice. Yes. I mean, I think purpose is different for everybody And I I find so many people come up to me young people Especially you know friends of my kids and like I'm looking for my purpose It's like your purposes and hiding behind a tree right? It's not but just kind of doing something you love Your purpose is you're here I'm a big believer in that and we all and it changes as we move forward in life But these poems are really about an excavation of one's childhood of one's feelings of one's longing of one's love and My purpose has changed my purpose now is to share this To share the kind of art of poetry the democratization of poetry Reflecting it's different than it was when I was in my 20s and that that can evolve All my work has kind of brought me to this place in a funny way where I never thought I would be I think young people often feel like I need a purpose. Oh my god. Oh my god And I think it just to take some of the It's okay You know You're okay. You're doing great. You're enough This is writer and artist Craig mod Going out to Silicon Valley was sort of I'd say probably one of the most pivotal moments of my adult life So I moved to old Palo Alto and my two roommates were the Stanford D school guys and these guys were just The freaking huggiest guys in the world and every damn just being smothered by these hugs and they were so Positive they were vegetarians. There's no drugs alcohol. They didn't drink and I went from this place of everyone's Getting blasted blacking out, you know alcohol is part and parcel of everything every meal is like just meat You know Japan loves meat, right? It's just like beef everywhere To moving to this house where these guys are just hugging me constantly There's no meat. There's no alcohol and they come from Clearly a place of abundance these two guys you just felt behind them were Generations of love that had manifested these two human beings and so that was all just part of this how do I Give myself again not having a mentor not having a An archetype not having someone older to lead the way. How do I give myself a greater sense of self-worth? And in doing that The alcohol fell away pretty naturally and I'd say it was about 31 when I was finally able to really kind of Say goodbye for good put it completely in the rear view. Yeah those guys that your housemates yeah Seem on some level to exhibit Something that you talk about in the book which for me like one of the biggest most impactful Uh Things that that that I took away from reading your book Is this idea I never heard of before called yo you yeah, is that how you say it? Is that how you pronounce it? Yo you yo you I want to hear more about this because I think this is a really like cool and profound idea Yeah, so in yo you in in Japanese is you in English it could kind of be empathy, but it's it's deeper than empathy You know and in Japanese way I've come to understand it is It's having the space in your heart to Accept someone else to have space in your heart for someone else an abundance of space in your heart in your life to be able to accept hardship to be able to respond to hardship um And that's I think what I felt fundamentally when I move there is that having These systems on a greater level supporting people imbued everyone I saw on the street everyone I was passing with this a little bit of yo you And more people have more yo you and less yo you than others, but there is this sense of space in the heart in the west abundance is something we're seeking and when we get it we We reward ourselves by trying to get more of it and hoarding it It's sort of an energetic thing your relationship with this energy is such that should you be lucky enough to have it yeah It's best uh It's best deployed you know outward yeah in service of other people And when you have a lot like then you have more to give and it's your responsibility to give that right and in doing that you Ingender empathy it allows you to forgive more easily like it it it opens up space to your point For these other emotions that we tend to like kind of Clamp down on yeah, or you know we hoard those too like I'm not gonna forgive you until this or that we're very conditional about these things Yeah, and I think Being around people with you and realizing I grew up in a place with no you where everyone was economically kind of pushed against the wall And in terms of what are our opportunities? Well, there aren't any and so like when you're in a situation like that Where you can fall when you see how far you can fall I think this is like another thing about the American condition. That's a little bit scary Is when you see how far you can fall and you can fall To hell beyond hell in America. There just aren't those safety nets to catch you Um when you see how far you can fall it's really hard to feel a sense of abundance that you can gift other people And so in Japan because of like all these structures and these social structures and like you can only fall Oh, I can see how far I can fall. It's not that far. It's not that scary for me to help this other person out I think just being around that and feeling that and then being on these big solo walks that I've been doing now for six seven years It was in that and I write about this in the book, you know, I was able to I'm able to laugh about who my father was. I was able to find this crazy Sense of forgiveness for this guy that I didn't know was possible. I did know as capable of And you know feeling that experiencing that is again is again. We're getting back to this self-worth Ratcheting and I think having a sense of you feeling that you're being able to deploy it in a way that's positive that elevates people Again, that just helps you feel like you have more value as a human too. It's like it's it's mutually beneficial We continue with actor and podcaster Ethan suple With all the rubber banding and then now in this You know stable situation that you're in right now. I mean we could talk all day about like what worked and what didn't I'm less interested in the details of that. It's all very personal personalized uh in individualized but From those experiences of succeeding and failing and rubber banding and relapsing and back and forth and you know now it's cycling now it's a gym Yeah, I mean you have compiled like an encyclopedia of principles around transformation and change. Yeah, so if you had to write a book and it had like, you know, 10 chapters like you know each one being one of these Principles like what rises to the top in your mind as the most important factors for somebody who is contemplating making a change Having a plan for the day and then preparing for the plan to go out the window Once you meet reality and having another plan and having as many plans as you can consider and then having a plan for when all of the plans fail and kind of You know getting through the day is the most important thing Realizing that the weight isn't the issue at all That the weight is a byproduct or a symptom of the issue that it will Look, if you need to lose 10 pounds that you put on during covid or you know Twisted your ankle and were laid up for a few months or something like that then none of this applies to you But if you've been overweight your whole life There's likely not going to be an intervention That you apply that then when you're done you don't have to keep applying to some degree um My big fear now Like I'm a fan of the GLP ones for the morbidly obese. I'm also glad that I achieved this prior to their advent but my fear with them is That People are going to use them like fad diets and that what we'll see long term is a version of what I did in those years which was Find something that takes weight off really quick You're losing muscle mass and fat and by the way any diet any extreme diet you're losing muscle mass and fat Doesn't matter if it's keto And you're eating a bunch of meat if you're losing pound today some portion of that is lean tissue But You get on him for three months you lose 30 pounds You get off him you gain the 30 pounds back You've 40% of what you lost is muscle and 100% of what you gain back is fat and so we could see Over a long period of time People's weight stay static if not rise a little bit But their body fat percentage skyrocket and that worries me because there is no consideration to anything But that the weight is the problem Not a byproduct or a symptom of the problem Also you're missing The whole piece around developing discipline and a connection with your body and your mind like You have extraordinary discipline and you've done the inside work to untangle those knots and understand You know why you tick the way that you tick and if you just inject yourself with something like I they're appropriate for people who are some It means like obesity is driving all these chronic lifestyle ailments like you have to if the house is on fire You got to deal with that first. I'm not against this in any way but in terms of Like what you had to learn About yourself and the way your mind and your body works by going through this process Has placed you in this sort of sense a position you know what I mean like you've done the work And so what you have to say about this like matters versus somebody who you know took a different route to it It's such a tricky thing because I've I'm trying to be as open and honest as possible, but there is a team out there That is these are life-saving drugs and if you say anything bad about them you're killing people and then there's another team that is These are gonna these are gonna result in killing people you can't say anything good about them There's such a lack of nuance, you know, they're yeah, I don't know if it's as big today, but there was a whole Thing about like Keto and sugar is killing and and carbohydrates are killing everybody we just cycle through this, you know by the season right nuance is lost Next up we're gonna talk consciousness with author on a caheros What I've come to believe is that we don't yet understand consciousness at all and This is a legitimate question to ask period we don't there there one thing I don't like about panpsychism Is it implies that there's some fully formed set of beliefs for us to subscribe to And I don't there there is not yet a theory there's you know there are many suggestions But we really don't know and so I think part of the reason why scientists have also been receptive to this is because I'm simply asking the question I'm simply making the case that we've gotten to the point where we can say this is a legitimate and important scientific question to be asking is consciousness more fundamental than than the sciences have previously assumed As far as your description of Consciousness being fundamental and what that means about matter I wouldn't say that matter emerges out of consciousness and one thing I should also say is that um In my thinking and in my 11 hour docu series you can kind of follow my my thinking around this where my the evolution of my thinking You know changes and so by by the end of the documentary I get to the place where what I realize is The hard problem of consciousness, which is the thing I'm trying to address You bump into that wherever you try to place consciousness no matter how far now if you put it in electrons If you put it and and panpsychism does a little bit of this the only way to actually address the hard problem is to put consciousness At the very at the most fundamental level And so if that's the case and that's a big if I you know, I don't know but if this is something that I Um that I like to entertain now and to think about and to think about how all of these different um Theories about quantum gravity and all the rest I talked to be small in and Carla Revelli about their views I like to now think of this all through the lens of if consciousness is fundamental You know, how do we interpret this phenomenon or that phenomenon and so if consciousness is fundamental um Matter what we perceive to be matter is just other conscious experiences arising in the universe and so the mathematics the physics That's all a description of conscious experience and so what act everything actually is at bottom Is felt experiences arising and passing away in the universe and again, they can be very very simple and incomplete also because we Can only perceive you know very small fraction of what's actually happening all we can actually agree on is that Consciousness is real and that we are experiencing consciousness and as you know, say I'm sort of always repeats in his daily meditations like Consciousness is all we have right like You know and the idea that something you're over there and I'm here and you know, this is happening in tomorrow Like these are all on some level like kind of flawed interpretations of a reality that we are not you know We don't have the perceptual ability to accurately interpret. Yeah, whatever description we have Of the reason why we're having the conscious experiences we have I mean if we were brains and a vet we would expect this to be exactly the same right and so the only thing We can have direct experience of is our conscious experience and and we know those are real and Exist in the universe, but what they mean about the external reality we really don't know And so in some sense it really is the only thing We know and the truth is everything we know or think we know has to happen within consciousness as well because You know, you can make ridiculous statements and you just you know put at the end of it But I was unconscious and it actually makes no sense, you know I decided to have eggs for breakfast this morning But I was unconscious when I made that decision that those things we we absorb Information and knowledge and process it always as a conscious experience It is so incredibly difficult to Try to process what you just said in any meaningful way, you know, I mean like I've spent years it I guess like the way in really is Meditation and you know a real like sort of confrontation with the illusion of self and the kind of emergence of thought and you know perceptual stimuli that allows you to first connect with a deeper reality that is beyond our ability to kind of perceive in our normal everyday lives. Yeah, I mean, I I'm not even sure I would call it a deeper reality. I would call it a clearer way of seeing even our own conscious experience and so We certainly walk around with a lot of illusions and we we know the brain is creating illusions like this all the time for us Change blindness just in terms of our visual field and But the yes the illusion of being a self in the way that we typically feel ourselves to be When you're able so there there are different ways of kind of seen through this illusion some of them are just intellectual You can understand how the brain works and realize there's there's no self in there to mind But you can do it introspectively as well through meditation or through psychedelics often you have this experience And we now understand also how this related to the state of the brain You know when the default mode network quiet's down It's in that state that we tend to be able to drop that illusion of self and the experience of it is of seeing things more clearly Is it feels like a simpler more basic understanding of the reality Next up is activist Robin Greenfield Here in the United States we have 5% of the world's population, but we consume 25% of the world's resources That by definition is extreme The world can't handle the way that we exist and So the reason that I am so is so extreme is that I am a product of an extreme society And to do anything other than go to the extreme would not allow me To to even simply Exist in a harmonious way. I have to go to this extreme just to even try to get to a place of a truly harmonious way of being And then also my objective is to simply exist in a way that results in the questioning of the status quo and the societal norms That are Unquestioned and even believed to be unquestionable like you know the concept of not of the concept of ownership Which is at the the heart of what I'm focused on right now You know there's cultures that don't even have a word for ownership. There's not even a concept of owning but in our I don't even know if I would call it a culture. We're so fragmented, but in our society It's like unquestionable ownership We can own the land we can own The possessions we can own the money you know and a lot of people accept that we can even own people and so To go to this level of non-ownership it is extreme But it is only extreme because I would say we are so we've you know We've become so disconnected and and I'm so enthralled by testing The levels of society that are very challenging to test and I have You know I just um, I'm doing it because I I love it. I want to be doing it Yeah, I mean you're you're poking the bear. It's it's sort of like you're you're taking a stab at what we consider in Alienable truce everything in life is about perspective right and it's so true and when you Talk about normalcy Like things that we don't question and we just accept as fact there are plenty out there that we just sort of blindly kind of assume and Use as a basis upon which to build the foundation of our lives and Ownership is certainly one of those like what is ownership like we assume it's a real thing. It's not a real thing It's not real. It is a story. It is a social Construct a social Contract right That we simply do not challenge but doesn't actually exist and for you to kind of challenge that is Is deeply confronting and is going to inevitably put you on like a crash course, you know crash collision course with like authority And like all kinds of institutional structures right and that's what you're signing up for so Should you know the the law enforcement and Griffith Park decide that you need to be you know locked up for a night or two like you I'm sure you're aware that that may well be near future, right? You're okay with that like in the same way that like Gandhi is like, you know, okay? You know nonviolent communication but also nonviolence in general like acceptance and for you as this As this activist it's all part of the story that you're telling yes, and uh I I actually so I've never been to jail Even though there's plenty of people who would rather mean not be able to share my message because It stands against a lot of what corporations would like and what our government would like I have been pretty effective at poking the bear with a smile on my face. Yeah, where they haven't You know, so there's a lot of people online. Don't they just think you're insane right? A lot of people who think I've gone mad Yeah, so I've done it. I've been you're like look. I did TED talks that helps you know I mean you have a gaggle of people around you right who are kind of running interference for you like these The sort of acolytes and the people that are following you that are kind of showing up in Griffith Park like Ant and the light Yeah, um, I mean none of them are there enough to if the if the rangers come that they're going to be able to do anything You know if the rangers come that's and they want to take me away They they can they they will I don't have anybody I don't have anybody supporting me and in that regard really Um and one of the reasons why is because well, I just want to first acknowledge one thing the activism that I'm doing is Is in a very it's in a realm where I've been very safe up to this point and that I've certainly taken a lot of risks There's no question about that and I've certainly given up a lot of comforts But the reality is I I live a very comfortable life even with the fact that I own nothing and have no money And there's certain areas in which I'm I think right now is an area of you know civil disobedience where I'm I'm you there's a good chance. I will be in jail in the years ahead because I'm just so deeply wanting to test the the things that are likely to to bring me there and I have to say That if I was to spend some time in jail right now. I mean, it's absolutely perfect For your needs are bad. Yeah to practice non-ownership. I have a bed. I'll have food. Yeah, we'll be able to practice just simple existence This is nutrition scientist Matthew Nagra And this is a study out of Canada where they looked at unprocessed red meat consumption and the risk of cancer But they did something interesting where they separated people into those who eat little fruits and veggies moderate fruits and veggies and then high fruits and veggies And they found that in those with a lower intake of fruits and veggies unprocessed red meat was associated with cancer risk But in those with the highest intake it was not significantly associated with higher risk So lane takes that to say that well at high at even a you know regular intake of unprocessed red meat If you're eating fruits and veggies and have a good diet quality, it's not problematic But my criticism of that study or rather that conclusion from that study is that if we look at the amount of red meat that they were consuming the high consumers We're having We'll say a little a little above 500 grams a week. That's less than a serving a day So 100 grams is a typical serving that's about you know a deck of cards size per day And so these people were consuming less than that and and that's sort of the threshold for where we typically see risks So I would argue that the men in that study weren't even consuming enough and the women in that study were Exuming even half as much so even less So that's problem one the second problem is they lumped all the cancers together or they did another analysis where they lumped 15 cancers together The issue with that is if let's say unprocessed red meat increases colorectal cancer risk But doesn't impact these other cancers or most of these other cancers Well, then if you're looking at overall cancer risk, you're not going to see much Even if you get an uptick and one cancer is going to be sort of washed out by the other ones So I don't think it's fair to consume that there's no risk there and then the third problem is Um, it's just cancer. What about cardiovascular disease or other outcomes? Or we can't conclude that it's safe For all of these other issues. So so that is Sort of what I made a post on and this is back a few years ago now This funny I'm surprised I even commented I didn't have much of a following or anything at the time But somebody tagged him and was like hey lane talks about this what you know What do you think or or they were maybe a bit concerned about the conclusions they'd heard from him And he just commented saying that I'm biased and cherry picking and there's other data that supports his position And so I just replied well, can you share that data because I haven't seen other data like that and in fact He often talks about that study because of its uniqueness and the way that they did the analysis So it doesn't make sense that there would be other data that supports it Lane is somebody who's also going to say you're going to want to begin taking more protein than this RDA Yeah, and I think we and that's the other thing I really want to be clear of I think a lot of the information he puts out is good right I'm not to be super critical of him and in general I just think around the animal protein versus plant protein debate and the red meat stuff I think there's maybe a bit of bias there or something but But yeah, I would very much agree with him on going a bit higher than the RDA Most people believe that red meat is perfectly fine and appropriate as a part of a healthy diet This could be a semester, you know course here but Perhaps that's true. I'm interested in your perspective But my sense is that We're just eating altogether way too much of it and when you consider the fact that you know cardiovascular disease is the number one You know Reason why most people are going to die and the relationship between CVD and saturated fat and cholesterol and LDL Red meat intake is only going to drive you You know in the direction of that rather than in the reverse Yeah, and I think a really important variable here is dose right you you've actually needing too much of it Like do I think that someone and I'll say this as a vegan even when it comes to health Do I think you can include red meat especially lean red meats once twice a week something like that? Yeah, I don't think it'll have a meaningful impact the problem is where you're averaging a serving a day Like that's where really the problems start to creep up and even with lean meats We see and there's a trial by Bergeron in 2019 where they actually compared Red meat lean red meat white meat and plant protein and they match saturated fat They matched fiber intake and still the plant protein lowered APOB relative to the animal proteins And so that they're still a bit different. What do you make of that like what would drive that? differential I think a part of it is going to be the dietary cholesterol So that's one thing that wasn't matched because it's inherent to the meat and I know there's a lot of debate around dietary cholesterol and the impact that it has And there's some nuance there So if you take somebody who eats no dietary cholesterol you take a vegan and you start feeding them cholesterol through eggs or other foods Their LDL is going to shoot up more whereas if you take somebody who's already eating about 400 milligrams of cholesterol a day And you add more it doesn't do anything There's a phyto effect. There's also genetic differences person to person But that wouldn't show up in a trial like that because everyone was doing every diet So it could be that that little bit of a bump in in APOB could be due to the dietary cholesterol or you know Potentially due to some of the the phytochemicals and the plant foods may be having a little bit of impact or something as well The exact mechanisms. I mean, I don't know that will tease out exactly what proportion each one contributes to but those could all be factors We Continue with the iconic supermodel El McPherson I wanted the experiences and so I just you know, I did that Aussie thing which was like step outside of your comfort zones and give it a go and And so if if opportunities came my way and they resonated with me even if they didn't make logical sense I would take Steps towards it and then the doors would open and one thing led to another and before I knew it. I'd sort of built a brand and Had a platform and then started producing things and then started licensing and and then finally owning a business with Welco Yeah, I mean There's lots of stuff in there like Set aside like the television and the film stuff I also didn't realize like how many like sort of projects you did You know in the kind of realm of Hollywood But was the first kind of entrepreneurial venture when you decided to like do your own calendar? Yeah, I was the first instance that that was like realizing well sports illustrators putting these things out like I can do this Myself and control it Yeah, and I realized at the time that I was in more photographs in the calendar than a lot of the other girls And so it was sort of heavily based on me anyway and I just sort of thought well, I'm not really being paid for this Perhaps I can do it myself, but it was a fun project as well like I wanted to be able to choose the photographer and choose the location and I apply what I'd learned with sports illustrated to my own project and It was brilliant. I I remember I think it cost like maybe 60 grand and I pulled it all together and I found a you know found a producer a printer and a distributor and And just did it it was like a kid that you know doesn't know any better when they're going down the mountain in this game They have no fear. Well, I had no fear at that time I didn't think well, what if it fails or what if I can't get it out or what if no one buys it? I just thought I can't give this a go Were you like the first person to try something like that at that time? Maybe I don't know if Kristi Brinkley had done her own things I mean she was sort of the generation just before me and she was already Sort of stepping out of the kind of regular model mode And she had a health and beauty books. She was doing other things and so she may have done a calendar I I don't know yeah, and then you had the lingerie company right that was like a licensing deal there Yeah, but that was also you kind of seasoned control and saying like I can do something outside of the You know kind of Structures of this modeling world and create kind of financial independence in a different way I mean now today with the influencer economy like that just seems like an obvious thing But back then it wasn't no and it was really kind of a Perfect sort of combination of events because this little New Zealand company was brilliant at making underwear They came to me and said would you be the face of our brand? I was looking for a project. I didn't know what because I had I'd already kind of Seen licensing in action as a child. I remember playing tennis and Do you remember John Newcombe? He was an Australian tennis player and I remember getting a little tennis skirt and it had his logo on it Which was his like wink face in his big moustache and I was like man Here's a tennis player and he he's making clothes Like I think that's so genius that he's able to do two things and so that sort of was in the back of my mind And I had this concept that I had a a platform through sports illustrated. How could I use that platform into Creating a business that didn't require me going to the studio every day like showing up as a model how could I kind of find some sort of Something and at that time I thought it might have been swimsuits That I could put my name on and And have the swimsuits be the stars So the sale of the swimsuits be my income rather than me just showing up at the studio so making money while you sleep really And this New Zealand company had come to me and said will you be the face about brand and I just said Why don't we do a licensing agreement where I'll help you design because I love lingerie. I was living in Paris at the time. I can't find anything that fits I have a particular type of thing that I want to do for myself And if it sells great we all make money if it doesn't sell we don't you know, it's it's a wash And so that was my first truly entrepreneurial I think decision Next up is filmmaker and telepathy tapes podcaster Kai Dickens Rupert Sheldrake he's a biologist from Cape Entune University. I mean, that's a very prestigious school He's an incredibly smart man and I loved his story about how he fell into this he didn't believe in so up Of the air that sigh abilities could be real He was in the tea room at Cambridge and there was uh, you know, I think he was a young graduate student or something at this point I don't exactly remember but I know he was early in his career and there was a scientist at the school Sir Rudolph Peter so he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his contributions to the scientific field with an England so this is a very prestigious professor and Rupert was in the tea room with Sir Rudolph Peters who said I have just come across a blind boy Who was able to read an eye chart when his mother was looking at it And that's fascinating. Well, how is that possible and it sounds very similar to what we're talking about right now at this in this interview Sir Rudolph Peter saw well, this is fascinating. It seems like either this boy is seen through his mother's eyes or somehow has a telepathic link So They ended up doing like a telepathic test. I think where they put them, you know in rooms far apart and they did like You know tell up with the experiment between the two and the It was statistically relevant. It was pretty remarkable and that changed Rupert's life It changed his perspective and it changed the questions he was asking So he has written a ton of books on animal telepathic in particular the sense of being stared at Testing whether or not dogs know when their owners are coming home And explain that one. This is my favorite study Yeah, it's quite wonderful because I think a lot of us who our animal lovers have had that feeling right that your animal knows what's going on And so he tested they would page. I think this is before that part time of cell phones They would page an animal owner when it was time to head home And they would have them take different routes different cars Taxis whatever it be so that the dog wasn't used to the sound of the engine or the you know the rumble of this particular gravel on the road and they would make sure that person was coming home at different times So when they did this experiment they were trying to account for all these variables and Statistically relevant amount of cases the dog would come and wait by the door the sink in that their owner's Mental you know was mental state was like headed home when they were going home And of course there's a few moments where a car got a fat tire or someone got called back into work And when that happened they hit the cameras up the dog would go back And lie down and go back to it's you know what hour it was sleeping and and then if the owner turned their mind to Would come home again the dog would come back up and wait and so that was a really enjoyable study And it was it was statistically relevant in dogs and even in some cats which I thought was great so he's been studying this for a long time and One thing that he Posterulated that really helped might get my mind around this is that the mind has a mental field and this is not Uncommon in science right we know that the earth Has a gravitational field you can't see it you know it's there you know it's powerful You know the magnet has a magnetic field like magnetic field yeah, we don't see the magnetic field But we know it's there. We know it's powerful And so why wouldn't the but I mean it's not an uncommon idea to think that our brain might have a mental field that extends Outside of us that might help us to understand when we're being stared at or overlap with someone when it comes to You know to lap a tear pre-cognition or that type of thing. Yeah We do have that intuition when Somebody is behind us looking at us. Don't we yeah, it's pretty undeniable We're dismissive of it, but I think we can all relate to that. I just know I've two big dogs our yard is fenced our dogs are out They just kind of like roam around out in the yard and when I'm driving home I have an electric car doesn't make any noise at all And if I have the windows down as I get you know close to our driveway well before Anybody can see anything the dogs are like right at the right at the gate and they're barking like every time Like they know when I'm coming and I'm like they have this incredible sense of smell Maybe they can smell something about I don't know what it is, but like I've had my version of that experience Yeah, and like for me I'd be like I wouldn't trust that that's telepathy or something unless you were to try it never stop that much about it But like well no it could be but I'm saying like if you test it in different cars right you test it coming home a different way You test it Putting on like uh, you know trying to get like you smell off your body like try everything you can and if it's still working Then there's something going on yeah, like I think that's it's so important that like No one should take this off of face value I mean that's ridiculous to take it at face value. We're not gonna advance anything We're not gonna become smarter as a as a human race We're not gonna become more educated or more thoughtful about anything if we just take any of this at face value Like you have to ask the questions you have to do the science you have to research it you have to peer review it you have to Analyze it and I think I mean that's been my whole hope with the telepathy tapes podcast is just to try to get Research funded for the scientists where so often it's hard to get a grant to study ESP Or to love at the or clairvoyance because it has been historically seen as woowoo and Rounding out our list is dr. Judith Joseph an expert on high functioning depression The high functioning person Generally in my experience has a pretty powerful motor like they have this drive, you know They're trying to make their imprint on the world for better or worse, right? Uh, and trauma maybe the Kind of Cause of why they are that way or at least in a related way, but the fuel For that drive is Essentially fear of one former another and that fear is is linked obviously to the trauma or some other root Cause or source, but it is a fear response, right this fear could be If I don't do it like everything's gonna fall apart or my identity is so wrapped up in what I do And if I don't show up for it then who am I? I'm scared of you know who how other people will perceive me Intreating people who suffer from this I suspect you you have to identify the the locus of that fear and and try to deconstruct it Yeah, I do that and you're absolutely right that fear What is what we would call anxiety, right? Fair of the not being loved fear of the running out of money You know from from me I have done this deep dive into my own past because I came to this country with very little And From the Caribbean and I didn't even realize how this chasing accolades You know not just having one lab but three labs, you know having all these roles was tied to this fear of running out of resources On a conscious level I knew okay, there's no one gonna run out the money's in the bank. I'm good But the inner restlessness came from this unprocessed fear of running out And many people you know they may not have come from this similar background that I have but They're the generations before them that could have been passed down You know, let's say if your grandparents came from a war-torn country where they were oppressed and they came here And they lived in ways that you know, you're not supposed to take risks. You're supposed to hoard You know don't waste food Some of your behaviors are out of this scarcity trauma that was never processed And that's why it is important to sit still and to trace yourself back to that moment It could have been in your in your past in your family history It could have been in your personal history, but it's important to sit down and reflect on it It's validating If you take your foot off the gas, it's all gonna collapse right like it's all gonna go away whether that's An imposter syndrome thing or a scarcity mindset or or trauma Um Unless I'm there doing it all the time. It's all gonna break down Which is Which is a fear response. It's also there's a layer of narcissism on top of that. It's as if like I'm so powerful I'm so afraid of being not in control But I'm also all powerful and I will be able to solve it and and beneath that is a discomfort with uncertainty because this scarcity mindset Is really a discomfort with not knowing what's gonna happen And so what can I control while I can control my output and my work and that will solve it but of course the world is uncertain and No amount of work or effort is going to allow you to transcend that I love that you said narcissism because One of my professors in training at Columbia once told us to look out for people who have the They're like the the flip coin one side is narcissism and the other side is masochism And narcissists, you know, what we think of Narciss we think of people who are full of themselves who like empathy Who are you know prideful and boastful, but we don't think about the masochistic narcissist who Ben's over backwards is constantly working is the laying pleasure Because they believe that there are the only ones who can do it right Only they could do it right and I think many people with high function depression have these narcissistic masochistic tendencies And it's not because they're a bad person. It's just because they didn't process that pain And what they end up doing is finding their self worth in that role So they it looked very narcissistic. I'm the only one who could do it But it is masochistic because they're bending over backwards and it's self-alidating also And then and then you look at the world through that lens like see when I did it at work And when you didn't it didn't work, you know, and it's constantly being reinforced that way But they're not happy. Yeah, they're leaving joy on the table They are miserable We did it. I really hope you enjoyed this reflection in the rear view and found this episode uplifting and inspiring The full list of guest featured and links to the full episodes can be found in the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com And thank you. Thank you for the love and love the support part two with a bunch more awesome excerpted combos will be up later this week. So stay tuned for that and I can't wait to grow and learn alongside you in the new year ahead All right, everybody that's it for today Thank you so much for listening. I really do hope that you enjoyed the conversation to learn more about today's guest Including links and resources related to everything discussed today Visit today's episode page at richroll.com where you will find the entire podcast archive as well as my books Finding ultra the voicing change series and the plan power away If you'd like to support the podcast the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is free actually all you got to do is subscribe to the show on apple podcast on spotify and on youtube and Leave a review or drop a comment sharing your show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome as well and Extremely helpful. So thank you in advance for that in addition I like to thank all of our amazing sponsors without him this show just would not be possible or at least you know not free To check out all their amazing product offerings and listener discounts head to richroll.com slash sponsors And finally for podcast updates special offers on books and other subjects Please subscribe to our newsletter which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com Today's show is produced and engineered by Jason Camillo along with associate producer Desmond Lowe The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis and Morgan McRae with assistance from our creative director Dan Drake Content management by Shana Savoy copywriting by Ben prior and of course our theme music as always was created all the way back in 2012 by my stepson's Tyler and Trapper pilot along with her cousin Harry Mappis Appreciate the love love the support and I'll see you back here soon peace plants