Speaker 1There are three macronutrients to the happiest life. The happiest people have enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Those are the three macronutrients. Now, that's important because it means you need to enjoy your life and you need to know the difference between enjoyment and pleasure, which many people don't. I mean, the pursuit of pleasure is not the secret to happiness. It's the secret to rehab. Satisfaction, which is the joy of an accomplishment or an activity after struggle. And last but not least is meaning, the why of your existence. The happiest people have a bead on those three things and they pursue those three things really, really actively. Now, inside all three of those things, there's this funny thing called unhappiness. Inside each of the macronutrients of happiness, you find discontent and frustration and a lot of suffering. If you spend your life, which many people do today, trying to avoid unhappiness, trying to avoid and eliminate suffering, they will paradoxically miss it. They'll miss their own happiness.
Speaker 2Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Arthur Brooks. Arthur Brooks is a professor at Vanderbilt University and a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School. Today, we discuss what makes people truly happy and what this thing we call happiness is really all about. What I love about Arthur Brooks and what you'll realize today is that he looks to experimental data, philosophy, his and others' experiences to arrive at specific questions that you can ask yourself to determine what matters most to you and what stands in the way of you actually getting those things. In fact, I must say this episode with Arthur Brooks is one of my favorite ever on the Huberman Lab Podcast. He is brutally honest, he's open, he's generous with knowledge that can help you, the listener, and he's incredibly humble. Thanks to Arthur. The conversation you're about to hear is one that I'm confident you'll want to think about, act on, and come back to periodically. I can say for myself with certainty that it's the conversation I wish I had heard long ago. Arthur doesn't have all the answers, nor does he claim to, but I do think he has a sort of hard-earned compass and a set of maps that we can all apply to have a much better and indeed a great life. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my conversation with Dr. Arthur Brooks. Dr. Arthur Brooks, welcome. Thank you, Dr. Andrew Huberman. We're only going to call each other Dr. once at the beginning of this podcast. I'm so happy you're here. Me too. Yeah, I consider you a friend. And before we became friends, you were already my teacher. I was learning a ton from you. A ton of wisdom. And before you step into your humble self and push aside, I just really want to highlight that because there are a lot of people influencing, educating, advising, coaching, et cetera. But you represent really the confluence of ideas and practices and wisdom in ways that I and people can really understand and benefit from. So really looking forward to having you here. Thank you, likewise. I mean, what you've done over the past--
Speaker 1now 5 and 1/2 years with this podcast. Just about, yeah. You changed the whole way that educators can reach a lot of people. What we want is educators, science in the public interest. We want to touch people's lives. We want to lift them up and bring them together using science, using ideas. And how, how, how do you do that? You showed the way. Because what you did was you started this podcast within six months. It was a big deal. And what you showed was a whole generation of people younger and older than you, I'm older than you, that this is something that people can do, that we can reach people. You made that possible. You made that possible for me.
Speaker 2It was an incredible gift. Well, I'm honored. And thank you. I realize today that perhaps the toughest part about this conversation is going to be to make sure that I keep you focused on you a little bit. You're so humble, but I appreciate the kind words. And I consider us colleagues and friends. So you're known as the happiness guy. You know a lot about it, what it is and what it isn't. So let's start with-- first principles there that people can really wrap their head around and apply. What's the difference between unhappiness and happiness? Or is that even the right model? Yeah.
Speaker 1Most people start with the wrong model of what happiness actually is. So you can't define unhappiness until you can define happiness. And happiness is not what most people think. Most people conceive of happiness as a feeling, as an emotion. And that's quite wrong, in the same way that the smell of your turkey is not the same thing as your Thanksgiving dinner. The smell of the turkey is evidence of your Thanksgiving dinner. And the feelings of happiness are evidence of happiness. And when I first came into the field, I mean, I've been a behavioral scientist for 30 years. But I started specializing in the science of human happiness exclusively. I wrote the first book of mine on this in 2008. But I decided in 2019, after I took a hiatus from academia to go run a big think tank in Washington, DC, that I was going to specialize for the rest of my career in this thing that most people don't know. Most people believe they want it. I was going to really make it work. And there's, of course, happiness. People want to be happier. And the first thing that I realized is there wasn't a very good definition of happiness. It was just so crazy. The thing that everybody wants, they can't quite define it. I can't put words to it, but I know it when I feel it. This is what I would get when I would ask my classes. So what do you think you're studying? Or it's how I feel when I'm with the people that I love or doing the things that I enjoy. And I recognize that this would be completely inadequate in any other way. In any other area of science. And so I went back to try to find the right metaphor, the right parallel field to define happiness. And I felt that the field of nutrition did it really well by taking food and breaking it into macronutrients and micronutrients. So I asked myself, okay, what are the macronutrients of happiness? What are the fundamental elemental building blocks of happiness? And to figure that out, you go and you look at the people who have the highest life satisfaction that's measured in robust and proper ways, good construct validity, good science behind it. And what you find is doing kind of a factor analysis is that there are three macronutrients to the happiest life. The happiest people have enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Those are the three macronutrients. Now that's important because it means you need to enjoy your life and you need to know the difference between enjoyment and pleasure, which many people don't. I mean, the pursuit of pleasure is not the secret to happiness. It's the secret to rehab, right? And so you have to understand, right? Amen. And satisfaction, which is the joy of an accomplishment or an activity after struggle. And last but not least is meaning, the why of your existence. The happiest people have a bead on those three things and they pursue those three things really, really actively. Now inside all three of those things, there's this funny thing called unhappiness. Inside each of the macronutrients of happiness, you find discontent and frustration and a lot of suffering. And so the first, or I should say the second misunderstanding about happiness is that it's incompatible with unhappiness. It's not. If you spend your life, which many people do today, trying to avoid unhappiness, trying to avoid and eliminate suffering, they will paradoxically miss their own happiness. So that's the first thing to understand.
Speaker 2Could you drill a little bit deeper into enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning and maybe just put some contour on each of those? Sure. And then we'll go back to unhappiness. Unhappiness and suffering and how it relates to all three.
Speaker 1For sure. So enjoyment is very much related to pleasure, but pleasure is fundamentally a limbic phenomenon. If you touch in experiments, you've done these, you've seen these experiments forever, the ventral striatum or the ventral tegmental area, you can get this stimulation of these parts of the brain that will give you this sense of ebullience, this sense of immediate joy from anything from your girlfriend saying, "Andrew, I love you," or a big bump of cocaine. Not that you would, because the brain is so unbelievably thrifty, right? That's not part of happiness. That's a phenomenon from sort of the Pleistocene brain, from something the middle Pleistocene went 250,000 years ago, saying, "That rewards you. Go get more of that," is kind of what it comes down to. You don't want to have that as your goal in life. I mean, like the hippies used to say, "If it feels good, do it." My dad said, "That's the end of America."
Speaker 2He was kind of right. I think your dad and my dad either were friends. I don't think we have the same dad, but- Separated partners. Yeah, my dad and ... No disrespect to the hippies, but my dad had very clear thoughts about how the children of people with that mindset were at a disadvantage because of that message specifically.
Speaker 1Right. What will happen, of course, very quickly is that your pleasures, which are fundamentally animal, I mean, your dog, your beautiful new dog, friendly new dog that I just met, he has a limbic system. I mean, he's not that different than yours, and he feels emotions that are not that different than yours. Right? I mean, he has amygdala, amygdala, he has a dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, he has a ventral strain. I mean, he's got all these different parts just kind of like we do, but he's not human because he's managed largely by these emotions, and we have this choice. We have this incredible prefrontal cortex, this human cortex that's enormous. Your dog's is wafer thin. Ours is like 30% of the weight of our dog. That's the weight of our brain. And what that supercomputer allows us to do is to choose between animal impulses and moral aspirations. get to make that choice. That's a conscious executive choice. When we convert pleasure into enjoyment, it's because it takes on moral aspiration to it. We take our pleasures and we add people in memory, thereby kind of delivering them to an executive experience that we're managing, that we understand, that we're conscious of, that we can remember. And it's fundamentally social. It's quintessentially human, as a matter of fact. That's what it's all about. So I talk to my students who are graduate students, are 28 years old on average, and my kids who are 28, 26, and 23. What does this mean? And for most people, what it means is if there's something that makes you feel good, because we all have our thing, whether it's highly glycemic carbohydrates or any kind of addictive behavior. And in point of fact, it can be dependence-provoking, which many things can. When they wire into the dopamine system, you've talked about this so many times. I've heard you talk about this. If you're doing it alone, you're probably doing it wrong. It's probably more about pleasure and less about enjoyment. It's not a perfect rule. I like to walk in the woods by myself and say my prayers, but those things aren't addictive. And so that's how to think about it. You need to enjoy your life. And that means there are things that give you pleasure at a metaphysical or physical level, but they also have people in memory and you're managing them and they're not managing you. So that's kind of the, in a nutshell, how I think about enjoyment. Now, many people are bad at that, especially strivers. Who listens to your podcast? People who are serious about their lives. There's nobody that's like, eh, whatever. Who's going to listen to your podcast? We're not a whatever podcast.
Speaker 2You're a striver podcast. We should do a title card sometime, how to whatever. Yeah, right. And that won't go very well. That'll be our April Fool's episode. I know. Right. No, it's not one of those podcasts.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's like neon, right? And what strivers, one of the things they often struggle with if they're very, very, very competitive, if they're ambitious, if they're successful, is that they want to be special more than they want to be happy. And so they want to put points on the board. And if it's not putting points on the board, they're not going to do it. And these are the people that I have to work with to work on the macronutrient of enjoyment.
Speaker 2Is there fear that were they to enjoy life more, be happier? I'm probably using these terms incorrectly. No, no, no. Why not? That somehow they would lose their drive? Yeah. Yeah. As you were describing enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. And by the way, I love this description of enjoyment as, you know, we have animal impulses, but then there's this other end of the spectrum, which are moral aspirations. Wouldn't at least some component of a great life be to marry those two things so that your pursuit of these animal impulses actually raised you up morally? Right. Absolutely. And that's the ultimate. I mean, we have so many examples now in the media of prominent politicians in particular. Mm-hmm. With all the elections going on, where their careers are tanked. I do believe they might have been trying to be good people on average, but temptation ruined that career anyway. Totally, totally. And so it's clear it exists in them and in many, in everyone, right? Yeah. But the fact that that can happen, it almost feels like a misuse of the animal impulse. Yeah. Yeah. Is there a way to marry animal impulse to... To moral aspiration in a way that's seamless or is it always work?
Speaker 1No, no. You have just defined enjoyment. Proper enjoyment is one where you're doing what you think is prudent and natural and good to do. It's something that you want to see yourself doing and at the same time is pleasurable. You know, that's why the best moments over the course of my 35-year marriage are highly pleasurable and extremely enjoyable. And it's the kind of thing where I could get, you know, found a way to do it. And it's the kind of thing where I could get found out by the press that I'm having another beautiful night with Esther. You know, that's good is what it comes down to. And the truth is we all struggle with these things because we are biological creatures. You know, I'm fundamentally a behavioral scientist, but psychology is biology. And one of the things I've had to retrain in so many of these areas, especially over the past 10 years, is because the biology has become so salient in our field. And one of the things that you find is that the trouble that people actually have is when animals... Yeah. Animal impulse and moral aspiration go in different directions. And one of the great strategies for life is how to point them in the same direction. How to... And sometimes you have to choose. Sometimes you have to choose. And people feel like it's... I should... You know, if it feels good, it must be good for me. But that's how this... And so I'm going to do it. That's having the same life goals as protozoa or something, you know?
Speaker 2Or if it feels bad, it must be bad for me. Yeah, for example. And there's probably a lot of things that people should... Could benefit from doing that are going to feel, quote unquote, painful in their life. In the process.
Speaker 1Now we're in the gym. Now we're in the gym. I'm a gym rat. So are you. Do you like training? I like training. I really do like training. But it's a funny thing. Because leg day, I still want to throw up. I've been in the gym almost every day for 30 years. Wow. And... You're in great shape, by the way. I feel good. I mean, it's obvious to anyone watching, but you're... You know what? I feel good.
Speaker 2Is it okay to share? You're 62? Yeah, I'm 62 years old. You're in great shape.
Speaker 162 years old, yeah. And it's... And I've got genetics that keep me really lean. So it's not like it's any flesh. It's not like it's any flesh that I can stay at 10% body fat or something like that. That's not... That's just nature. But the truth is, I recognize that I need to keep the machine in good shape. Because the brain is part of the machine. And as we both know, hard exercise, picking up heavy things and running around is fundamental to affect management and also to the maintenance of the overall functioning of how the machine works. I don't want to have diabetes, which is what we're calling Alzheimer's these days. I don't want metabolic disorders that are avoidable. So I actually, I do that. Now, leg day sucks, man. I mean, I've been doing leg day every fourth day for 30 years. And I still don't like it. I would still skip leg day. Every day would be chest day, because everybody likes chest day, right? Because it feels better. But the truth is that I do it because I actually know how the muscle protein synthesis works. I know that for hormone balance, leg day is the most important day. really large muscle groups. And, and, and what am I doing? I'm making the decision to do something that foregoes my, my comfort, my pleasure, even a moment of my happiness for the moral aspiration that I actually have. And that leads to this important conclusion from the research in this area, which is that mother nature doesn't care if you're happy. This is, it's, you know, we all think it's like, if I'm not happy, then something's not right. No, no, it might very well be not right. You know, there, there are all kinds of suffering that you actually need to grow as a person. You need negative emotions because negative emotions are an alarm system that show that your reptilian brain has, has, has registered signals, sending these signals to your limbic system and, and, and, and setting off alarms in, you know, from sadness and anger and disgust and fear. That's unpleasant, but that doesn't mean anything's wrong. It means everything's right. How you react to it can be how you want to. And so doing have a better, having a better life, notwithstanding the fact that it doesn't feel good. And that's a life of discipline. That's a life of, of the kind of behavior that you actually want. That's worth moral aspiration.
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Things of that sort. answer those questions and Helix will match you to the ideal mattress for you. For me, that turned out to be the Dusk, D-U-S-K mattress. I've been sleeping on a Dusk mattress for more than four years now, and it's been far and away the best sleep that I've ever had. If you'd like to try Helix, you can go to helixsleep.com slash Huberman, take that two minute sleep quiz and Helix will match you to a mattress that's customized for you. Right now, Helix is giving up to 27% off their entire site. Helix has also teamed up with TrueMed, which allows you to use your HSA, FSA dollars to shop Helix's award-winning mattresses. Again, that's helixsleep.com slash Huberman to get up to 27% off. I've got this statement that you just mentioned, like ringing in my ears in the best way, which is that you're saying this moral aspiration piece has a lot to do with or reflects doing what you want to see. Yourself doing. I really like that because I think for many people, they want to see themselves doing things that others would approve of. And from a young age, we're told what we should do and why, right? You need to like get dressed up for this event, or you need to sit a certain way, eat a certain way, be polite and these things, which are all important parts of our training as humans. But there's something really special that happens as you point out, when we see ourselves doing something and it feels good and it's a positive self-reflection of the non-egotistical kind, right? And I don't think we talk enough about this because there's so much out there now about how social media is all about comparisons. So people are showing other people, here's what I'm doing. But there's a different version of that where somebody does something that they're proud of and puts it to the internet and they're seeing themselves do something that they're proud of doing. Right. And they get the feedback and, you know, provided that their ego is in check and they don't let the positive comments go to their head or set them up for disappointment when they don't get as many of them the next time, all the things that are wired into those reinforcement circuits. I think that's great. They're seeing themselves exercising. By the way, it could be painting. It could be time with family. It could be being in volunteer and service. And we tend to look at that stuff and say, oh, you know, they're just doing the display. So my question is, how do we really get the ideal match between this animal impulse and moral aspirations piece that we see ourselves and experience ourselves doing what we want to see ourselves doing and that we not share it? Because I'm open to the idea that the sharing diminishes it somehow.
Speaker 1It can. Yeah, it can. But fundamentally, I think it's actually quite important that you declare what your moral aspirations are. And part of the reason is because this gives you a commitment bias. So there's a lot of behavioral science about that. A lot of psychology actually talks about commitment. So I think it's important to have that commitment bias. And I think it's important to have that commitment bias. And I think it's important to have that commitment bias. When you say, here's the thing that I'm actually going to do. I'm going to finish my PhD, right?
Speaker 2This is a big part of weddings. I attended a lot of weddings. And it's kind of an amazing
Speaker 1thing, this wedding ceremony. Yeah. It makes you path dependent toward your own aspirations.
Speaker 2People stand up and give a bunch of really amazing promises in front of all their friends. And then they get a bunch of gifts. And I'm not cynical about this at all. Like from a reward pathway perspective, it's like you're rewarding the promises that they're making in addition to the union that they're in right then. A lot of the reward is the promises that they're making. The reward is like you're giving them things for their life going forward. Sadly, I have a number of friends who've been divorced. And depending on how long ago the wedding was, they often feel quite sheepish about all the gifts. Like they got all these gifts for the promises they made. Now they've changed their mind. In some cases, broken those promises, but they've changed their mind. It's not till death do us part. It's now until it got inconvenient enough that we're going to part ways. And it's an incredible, still occurring. Kind of ancient display of promising publicly, I'm not going to quit.
Speaker 1Yeah. No, totally. This is my person through thick and thin, through sickness and in health and all the things that you actually talk about. You're actually talking in the wedding promises. You're saying it's going to suck sometimes. That's what you're saying. I mean, it's like richer and poorer. And we're going to stick this thing out despite the fact that we're stating right up front that there's going to be times of poverty. There's going to be times of poverty. There's going to be times of sickness. There's going to be trouble ahead. And that's basically saying that happiness has unhappiness in it. I'm defining happiness. How am I defining happiness? That I'm going to get 80, 90 years. And as I take my dying breath, I'm going to be looking, I'm like Don Quixote. And this is my Dulcinella. And I'm going to be looking into her eyes as I recite the Holy Scriptures and take my dying breath. That's basically what you're saying. And you're defining that as your bliss. Your bliss. You'd be like, why are you doing it? I want it. Because that's a good life. That's what you're stating. And you're laying out what actually happiness looks for. And you're saying it's going to be full of unhappiness. That's what you're saying. And that's the thing for people to understand. That that's what it comes down to. When you are laying out publicly your moral commitments, when you're actually saying this, what you're saying is you're recognizing that happiness and unhappiness are intertwined. And you want the full. You're basically saying, bring it on. It's like courage. It's a declaration of your independence from the world and your dependence on each other, which is a beautiful thing. It's what you do when you're publicly baptized as an adult. Anytime that you're taken into a new religion, there's always these commitments about these moral aspirations that you're making. Recognizing, yeah, sometimes this is going to go contrary to my animal impulses. Absolutely. And you know, this is one of the things that I love about sort of the modern internet culture. There's a lot to regret. There's a lot that you and I look at like, oh, no. But the other thing I really, really like is this facilitated, this wholesale movement of aspiration for excellence. A lot of people, they want to be excellent. This isn't just the human podcast. It's not just entertainment, high-class entertainment. People want an edge. They want to know, why are they so attracted to the protocols? Protocols toward what? Toward being better. They want to be more successful. They want to be better liked. They want things to go better for them. That's a human drive for excellence. And when people can finally make peace with the fact that your animal impulses will not always and frequently not lead you to excellence, then you can finally be free. Do you think that a lot of
Speaker 2the friction out there, politically, socially, is basically about drawing the line between what is animal impulse and what is moral aspiration? I mean, I don't want to take us too far down the road. No, tell me more. What do you mean? I mean, some of the animal impulses are obvious, right? And they're all, for the neurobiologists, we would say they're very limbic, hypothalamic, right? But some people would say, okay, here's the, quote, unquote, traditional model of marriage and morality. And some people would say, actually, we want to kind of bend that a certain way where people could have, quote, unquote, unconventional relationships or unconventional families or, I mean, I think everyone would agree that lying, cheating, and stealing is bad, right? But there's an attempt, I think, to draw a kind of jagged line between moral and immoral that, you know, certain things that are not of biblical, traditional morality are okay because as long as they're done consensually and in the name of love, right? And we're not talking about breaking laws here. Some people really push this to the extreme, but that's not what I'm talking about. I know, I know, but that's marginal, right? And I'm staying off specific issues, not to be like politically careful here, but just because I feel like a lot of it is like, where are we going to draw the line between limbic and higher order? In fact, it actually gets inverted where people will say, no, the more evolved way of thinking is past all that, where you can really get beyond this very, you know, black and white morality and really say, no, there's all sorts of versions. Of what love, family, marriage, commitment, child rearing could look like. Pontius Pilate, what is truth? Right.
Speaker 1Right. It's very postmodern.
Speaker 2Yeah, it is very postmodern. But I think that, I mean, I feel like this is that like people are pulling back and forth on this line, just like in science, people are trying to say the scientists and doctors that are all, you know, traditional scientists and physicians, they have the knowledge and then the general components of the general public are saying, actually during the pandemic, you lied, you know, like a teenager telling their end, like, you need to admit you lied. And then they're like, I didn't lie. You know, and so there's just trying to pull back. We have the torch of truth. No, we have the torch of truth. And of course there are elements of truth on both sides. Right. But with this, in this case, it's sort of, I think at the extremes, we all understand murder is bad, right? Lying, cheating, stealing, bad. Right. But then what constitutes a moral aspiration to one camp is actually a moral insult and vice versa. So John Haidt, you've had him on
Speaker 1the show, right? Yes. Yeah. John Haidt's great. And John Haidt and I go way back. We go back to the early part of the 21st century. So, and John Haidt and I are just the same age. And we've had these sort of parallel careers writing about, about science of human happiness. That guy's a visionary. He's probably the greatest social scientist of our generation. Wow. He's that great. I mean, he's unbelievable. He wrote a book about moral foundations. And he talked about the fact that there are two moral foundations that everybody has in common. And That's care and fairness, care for others and fairness. define those things differently. I mean, what does care mean? Does care mean giving everybody, you know, taking care of them at the base level? Or does it mean everybody gets an apartment and free groceries? I mean, you figure out what that means. And that's a legitimate argument about, you know, what it means. Fairness is really, really different, especially between political polls, where one side is about redistributive fairness, and the other side is about meritocratic fairness, you know, what fairness actually means. But everybody wants a fair and caring society. And you believe that you should be fair as a parent, you should care for your kids. Then what he shows empirically with his work, which no doubt has a huge neurobiological basis, and I'm sure has a huge genetic basis as well, because these personality characteristics generally do, are usually between, in the identical twin studies, it's usually 40 to 80% genetic, all the aspects of personality, which is super interesting in and of itself, is that there's three elements of morality that are very different between the political polls. They are loyalty. Loyalty, purity, and authority. And so loyalty is like, flag burning is bad, right? You know, I come from a very, mostly progressive family, politically progressive family. And if I asked somebody, you know, from my family of origin, what do you think about flag burning? They'd be like, inadvisable, right? As opposed to morally evil. Right, soft answer. Yeah, right. And the second is loyalty, you know, loyalty to tribe. And what you find is that people who are more on the politically conservative side, they have a different sense of loyalty, loyalty towards sports teams. So you find that when you, in these interesting studies that you go into a political conservative's office, and you'll find like a sports poster, where in for political liberals office, you're very, very much less likely to find this, is what you find. And then of course, this, where it really has teeth is toward, you know, national identity, you know, where you're loyal toward national, it's like, my country, right or wrong, which is one of the reasons you find such a strong political preponderance of one side in the military forces, and the American military as opposed to the other, not to say that one side's right or wrong. But that's just, you know, how it comes down. John Haidt would say that's, that's a difference in moral foundations. And the last that you were really touching on here is purity, as moral purity. And the moral purity is about in, for example, in sexual matters is very, very profound, you know, and so, you know, there's a, there's a, you know, I've seen a bumper sticker in San Francisco, that says, your body may be a temple, but mine is an amusement park. Right? It's funny in its way,
Speaker 2right? But what that is basically saying is... It's very, what I would call, because I'm from the Bay Area, sort of old, older San Francisco, like circa 70s to now, now there's a, there's a kind of a growing conservative movement, somewhat tucked into the tech community, although you find
Speaker 1a mix of both. You find a mix of both, too. But it's kind of a libertine thing, where libertarianism and libertinism diverge, which is a really interesting boundary, too, is what you find. But that actually describes those differences are, you know, so, so, you know, each side will say the other side is immoral. No, they're differently moraled. And you decide, you know, which you think is right. And if you tell me in a structured survey, what you think is right on those particular issues, I have a very high degree of certitude in, in guessing how you vote, actually. Now, some people are in these weird things. You can be in kind of a, you can be a political conservative, but a cultural liberal, right? Those aren't very many people, but you do find them. They tend to be the political libertarians, as a matter of fact.
Speaker 2It's fascinating, because ultimately here, we're talking about drawing boundaries between different brain areas, at least that's what the neurobiologist in me thinks. But, I mean, obviously, politics, laws, and behavior matters a lot. It really matters, because ultimately, people can say all sorts of things about what they believe, what they want to be, but we are ultimately judged on what we do. And I think we probably judge ourselves on the basis of what we do, or ideally we would, we would look at that. Let's talk a little bit about... We've gone through one macronutrient. Right, one macronutrient. What exercises do you suggest to students to start to explore their own relationship between animal impulse and moral aspiration?
Speaker 1Yeah, so... One of the things that I talk about is how they understand leisure. So, leisure is what you do, and they're not compensating you for, in the time that's actually free. How you understand leisure. So, and the greatest writer about this is Josef Pieper, the mid-20th century German philosopher. His most important book was Leisure: The Basis of Culture. That's his most inflecting... It's actually a long essay. It's very, very beautiful. He says, "I can tell you everything you need to know, but a culture by how they actually use leisure." Interesting. He doesn't want to know what you do for money. He wants to know how you use your time when nobody's paying you. That's because he says that's what reflects who you actually are.
Speaker 2Brilliant. That's why I never liked the, "Oh, you can tell by the books on somebody's shelf," because books on somebody's shelf doesn't mean they actually read those books, firstly. Because they own those books. Right, exactly. Right. Many people own my books who haven't read them. Okay. Well, I've spent some time with it. I still need to go pour through it again, but...
Speaker 1Can't wait to read it. Wait till you see it.
Speaker 2I need to read Protocols, by the way. Oh, thanks. "If nothing else, Protocols will cure insomnia." The thing is almost 600 pages long. Thank you. Your book's awesome, and I spent some time with it. I want to spend more time with it, in part because it marries theory with practical steps and prompts. Not AI prompts, but the kind of prompts you really give oneself. So, this thing about leisure is fascinating.
Speaker 1Yeah. Leisure is really interesting. It's like that tells you what you need to know about a culture, but also about a person in a way. And so, if you find somebody who's using the leisure time to meet animal appetites, that's one thing. If they're actually using it for personal betterment, for personal betterment, not career betterment, not for the compensation, it actually comes from the worldly rewards. There's four worldly rewards: money, power, pleasure, and honor. And if you're doing something such that it doesn't reward you in one of those areas, that actually comes from Aristotle and Aquinas, et cetera, then you're actually doing what he would call proper leisure. You're doing proper leisure toward, you know, moral aspiration, which is ultimately the most rewarding thing. That's ultimately what will take you from the world of pleasure into the world of enjoyment and give you greater happiness. That's the theory. And it's actually been verified a lot in a lot of these ideas, the best questions, they come from the philosophers, and then the structural mechanisms come from neuroscience. And then the testing of these ideas comes from the behavioral sciences, right? The experiments, et cetera. Then of course, applying them to your life is a different kettle of fish. And so, what he says is, he says, "If you're going to do this, you've got to do it in the right way." And so, he says, "If you're going to do this, you've got to do it in the right way." And so, what he says is, that there's kind of three areas that make proper leisure and ultimate enjoyment. You want me to tell you the three? Please. Yeah. Okay. Number one is deepening relationships. On purpose, man. I mean, on purpose. And so, leisure is this weekend, I'm envisioning myself not touching my phone while I'm with my wife, right? Deepening my relationship, being fully present for my wife. And I'm going to go someplace, not because I want to chill on the beach, but because I want to be able to go to the beach. I want to be on the beach with the love of my life. So, deepening relationships on purpose with a real focus on that. The second is learning something you don't need to learn. And the third is actually developing yourself metaphysically. Is your spiritual, your religious life, or your philosophical life. It's to transcend what's going on here. For no other reason than the fact that you seek transcendence. Those are the three areas of proper leisure. And that's how he would say, I know that you're going from pleasure to enjoyment. That's how I know, based on
Speaker 2what you're doing, even though you don't have to. I love this. I'll tell you several of the reasons why I love it. One is people from time to time will say, what do you do for fun? It's a very difficult question for me to answer because people might be- Because your work is fun, by the way. My work is so much fun. I know. Like I'm reading this book about sunlight and how the dermatology world is revising their understanding about sun and skin cancer. And I'm loving that. I love my, I mean, I could, I could list it off, but I just say those things to just get people to, to think about what, what they enjoy doing. But the word that, you know, keeps coming up in my mind because I have a hard time with the fun thing because yeah, I do other things that are purely recreational is this word enrichment. I mean, it sounds kind of, you know, you know, like somebody is trying to be an academic when they say like, like, what do you do for enrichment? It doesn't, it's not, it's not as natural a question these days as like, what do you do for fun? It's like, what do you do for your own enrichment? It, it, it, it reshapes the question a little bit because the implication is it's not just about immediate pleasure, which fun kind of falls into the groove of pleasure. It's about personal excellence. Yeah. Like you come out of, you come out of it better. Right. Not just for having experience, the, the, whatever it was, the activity was, but like there's something carried forward into other things that you do and in a good way. And so the word enrichment, you know, feels good. It's the reason why, even though I was in the sciences as an undergraduate, I, you know, decided to take a course in Greek mythology and like loved it. Love, love, love it. That was leadership. And it turns out it was neuroscience too, right? You know, years later, like we talk about the, you know, the myth of the cyclops is all about anger and it has everything to do with the lack of depth perception that when you have one eye versus two eyes, it turns out like the Greeks like really understood stereopsis and depth perception there. I couldn't help myself in any case. That's interesting. So like this notion of enrichment and I love that in the example you gave of going to the beach with a friend or with a spouse or someone else you care about, it's not about your own experience of it. It's about your own experience of it. It's about your own experience of it. You said, because not just because you want to be there, but because you're actually there, that's a, that's a physical grounds for creating something else. So it's not really about the beach. No. leave the beach with. That's right. And it's not just memories of the beach. You actually both change as a consequence of being there, maybe in small ways, maybe in big ways. But you've enriched the relationship. And so the beach becomes incidental. When people talk about wanting to
Speaker 1go out drinking, what I want to know is, is it about the drinking or the people you're drinking with? That's what it comes down to. Now, I strongly recommend that people reconsider that decision. I mean, I've heard you. Two drinks a week is the safe level. I've got it, Andrew. I've got it. Man, more than that's probably not a good idea for most people. I'm a zero. I'm a non-drinker because it's the right cadence for my life. But people who do use alcohol responsibly, I'm not. I wish I were a person who could use alcohol responsibly. I'm not, right? So I don't. And I don't use it at all. But when people say, I'm going to go out drinking, I mean, I don't know if that's pleasure or enjoyment. I don't know if that's animal impulse or moral aspiration. I need more information. I need to know the reason for that. People are talking about getting a beach house. I'm going to get a beach house. I don't know whether or not that's animal impulse toward social comparison, toward actually a scoreboard effect so I can actually feel like I mean something. That's all animal impulse. All it is, that's just like your troglodyte brain actually saying you're not good enough unless you have a beach house like old Bill over there at the office, right? But on the other hand, if you tell me it's like, I got to create bait so that my kids and grandkids are here a lot. Okay, now I'm listening. Now I'm actually paying attention. And so a lot of things that people will say, I need a little bit more information such that I can categorize it in the right way. Whether or not we're on the right side, we're on the animal impulse side of the moral aspiration side, whether we're on the pleasure side or the enjoyment side, whether it's actually going to
Speaker 2bring happiness. I'm pausing because I have so many questions about this, but I want to make sure we touch on the other macronutrients because otherwise I'm going to, I'm going to encourage you to give a tutorial on how to really maximize every single choice and not just my life, the listeners.
Speaker 1Enjoyment protocols. We should have leisure protocols.
Speaker 2Absolutely. You know, we all know that like one of the major pillars is social connection and relationships, but the idea that leisure is part of that as a substrate for enriching those is obvious once we hear it, but it reframes everything. If exercising with somebody, you know, it turns out to be a way you deepen the relationship, which actually has been my experience with a lot of male friends, frankly. Like one of the best ways to get to know somebody in my experience is to have an intellectual conversation with them, like really deep dive with them or to go do something difficult. Yeah. Yeah. Rob, my producer and close, close friend, he's sitting to my left right now. I mean, one of the first things we ever did was like go for a run where he kicked my butt.
Speaker 1And by the way, a Vanderbilt graduate. Very pleased to see that.
Speaker 2Yeah. And I don't recommend people box, but years ago I boxed and I had a spa on Wednesday nights, don't recommend it. Yes. I wore headgear. Yes. I probably took some damage. I don't recommend it. But you feel so close to people that you actually tried to hurt and they tried to hurt you, but with rules. Yeah. And it's an amazing, it's very primitive. Yeah. And yet you, there's a bond there that it's obviously nonverbal. It's a lifelong bond. You see that person the next time. And it's like, especially if they played fair and they hurt you, you're like, yeah. Yeah. Like we know one another. Yeah. I've seen you, you know, there's a respect level. I'm not suggesting people do this,
Speaker 1but. You added people in memory to a strong experience, thus rendering it enjoyable and being part of happiness. Yeah. And point of fact, it wasn't strictly pleasurable,
Speaker 2but that wasn't exactly the point. No. Yeah. No, the point was to suffer together in some way. There's a great book by a guy named Sam Sheridan called A Fighter's Heart. He's actually a Harvard grad. Yeah. I think he was an art major there. His dad was a Navy SEAL. Very interesting guy. And this is a joke that, you know, you know, that sparring is like a, it's like a one night stand or something. You've like done something very intimate with someone you barely know. Yeah. And so it has both a feeling of connection, but it's also the illusion of connection. Yeah. Yeah. So he hits it better than I did. Yeah. Don't run out and start sparring with your friends. Well,
Speaker 1the military, why it has, it creates such, you know, bonds for life. I mean, my son's, my son is a sniper, scout sniper in the U.S. Marine Corps. And these are friends for life. I mean, these are guys who would literally give their lives for each other, who looked out for each other in very, very dangerous situations. And they were suffering together. Now the word compassion in Latin means to suffer together. That's what it means to be compassionate with somebody to suffer alongside that person. That's what it comes from. And it's, it has this, the passion of Christ and the Christian religion is all about the suffering of Christ. That's what it comes. And to have compassion towards somebody to suffer with that person through that. And when you even induce that suffering as dumb as it is beating each other up, getting into the octagon and, you know, that is what you're doing is this is, this is the experience of compassion, which gets us to our, our primordial need to move beyond the animal impulse into the moral space that actually makes us quintessentially human. That makes us fundamentally different than all the other beings. It makes us the dominant species. But by the way, it also renders us
Speaker 2the most miserable of all these species as well, which is so interesting. There's some dark and terrible examples of this. And sometimes people will call it trauma bonding, like the sort of Sid and Nancy story. Like did they like kill them, kill each other at the Chelsea hotel and like a drug induced rage or, but then like, if you watch that great movie with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, right? Like walk the line, like their relationship between Johnny Cash and, and June Carter, right? Was June Carter Cash, I think was eventually her married name was, it was a contentious one. It was like, it was the, it was the feistiness. It was the fighting, like they were forged in this challenge. She was divorced at a time when divorce wasn't, um, was really frowned upon and, and she was religious. And so there was, there was just a lot of contention. And then, then there's this peace that they achieve in being together, but you always sense that it's like that there, that there's this recognition that, that, that there's fight in them and they've been through it. And that's part of like, we tend to, we used to kind of hold up relationships like that now. Now we like to see everything look perfectly smooth. Yeah. Right. Um, but this gets back to like the marriage vows and this gets back to relationships of all kinds. It's the suffering,
Speaker 1the suffering, the suffer with, I'm going to suffer with my wife until I take my dying breath. It's like, cause we have a relationship. And she's going to suffer with you. My God. Yes.
Speaker 2The with is there, the both of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. To be clear.
Speaker 1No, for sure. I mean, it's no walk in the park being married to me. That's for sure. I mean, it's a pain for sure, but she will. I mean, this is like the bond that we've actually taken for life and the, and, and central to the, the, and we have great enjoyment. It's fantastic, but then enjoyment is everything to do with the fact that it's pleasurable. It's interesting. It's, it's fascinating. It's funny. And it's also hard. And it's also, there's a lot of suffering and there's a lot of it's daggers drawn. I mean, my wife is Spanish. So you have to understand that there's a high level of complexity and suffering, you know, there and words per word density per moment. Yeah, exactly. Right. And we have a 50, 50 Spanish and English marriage, which means that we can, you know, we can suffer in, you know, two languages. It's what it comes down to. But the truth is, you know, that's what, that's what people need to expect. You know, that's what people need to expect that it's like, okay, let's suffer together, baby. Come on, honey. Let's just, let's
Speaker 2just bring it on. And that's a beautiful thing. That's really what it means. And people talk so much about peace and ease as the goal. Yeah. I'm not, I'm hearing some of that, but I'm hearing
Speaker 1a bunch of other things too here. I get it. And, and particularly true that, that men, they want peace at home. They do want peace at home. And, and, and I see that by the way, women want peace at home too, but you're not going to get peace all the time. You don't want peace all the time. You want a full life, fully lived. You want to be, it's like the, to be fully alive. What does that mean? That means the whole range of your emotions. You're using all the parts of your limbic system. We're wonderfully made, Andrew. And it's just like, I want the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex to give me this sense of suffering and grief when I'm feeling social exclusion or the sense of loss. You know, I want the insula to be highly active when I have this sense of disgust or whatever it happens to be, or the amygdala to be active with fear and anger, et cetera. I want that. I want my brain to work the way it's actually supposed to. I mean, I want to suffer and I'm gonna, if I'm actually being fully alive and, and if I'm taking the chances and I'm doing the things that I actually need to do, because that is ingrained in the full experience of what human happiness is properly understood.
Speaker 2I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, AG1. AG1 just launched their newest formulation called AG1 Pro. And right now you can get an extra 20% off your first subscription. AG1 takes the clinically backed AG1 formula, which is a blend of vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and adaptogens, and adds three important new ingredients, creatine monohydrate, calcium HMB, and zinc carnosine. It has five grams of creatine monohydrate to support muscle strength and performance along with brain health. Calcium HMB is a very important ingredient in your body to support muscle recovery and reduce muscle breakdown, and zinc carnosine to support and improve the lining of your gut. Some of these ingredients I personally was already taking separate from the AG1 formula. So it's great to see all three of them now in the new AG1 Pro. As you may know, I've been taking AG1 every single day for about 14 years now. That means I discovered it and started taking it daily long before I even knew what a podcast was. I continue to take it and back it here on the podcast because it is an excellent formula. And it's now even called the AG1 Pro formula. For a limited time, you can get an extra 20% off your first subscription to AG1 Pro by going to drinkag1.com slash Huberman and using the code back to routine so that's what the numeral two back numeral two routine just go to drinkag1.com huberman so we have the second chapter in the book that maybe we write together although you're the real writer i confess i i i i yet to decide i'm a writer you're good at what you do man oh thanks one would be one chapter will be on leisure yeah you've told us that how one spends their leisure time is a critical window into self and um and the other uh would be to how to suffer more yeah in in pursuit of moral aspiration but also how to experience pleasure in pursuit of moral aspiration absolutely absolutely so we've gotten through enjoyment yeah let's let's talk about uh satisfaction yeah because because it sounds similar but it sounds like deeper more pervasive yeah more like an
Speaker 1i don't define a satisfaction yeah so i mean again and the the definition everything is in the definitions and and one of the problems with happiness is that everybody can they define it in different ways and et cetera so i try to stay out of the linguistic wars and it's like
Speaker 2consciousness yeah no neuroscientist really wants to talk about consciousness anymore because it's
Speaker 1like it's so circular it for sure yeah absolutely it's being awareness being aware of the fact that you're aware because you're aware or something i what you know many billions of dollars and euros
Speaker 2particular. That's a joke aimed at one Swiss scientist in particular. You've read Michael Pollan's new book. I haven't read the new one, but I think the world of him. He's fantastic. And the
Speaker 1new book is actually the book to read for people who are not either philosophers or neuroscientists or even psychologists for that matter on a world awaits is what it's called. I never met him, but I love the book. I think it's absolutely fantastic. And at the end of the book, you know a lot more and you still don't understand what consciousness is. You don't understand what it is. It's a lot of things. It's many things. It's sentience and it's feelings and it's awareness of others and it's awareness of yourself. And we don't know where it is in the brain. And oh my goodness. But the truth is that that's one of the problems in the field that I have too, which is the definition of terms and satisfaction is one of these things. Satisfaction as I define it, as many people define it, is the joy that you get from an accomplishment after struggling. And I think that's one of the things that I love about the book. It's a struggle. That satisfaction. So the satisfaction that you got from your PhD was proportionate to the suffering that actually went into getting your PhD and mine too, right? And they were like, oh man, I'm not doing that again. But it was so awesome. And you know, I think about-
Speaker 2But it was so awesome. Those are the key words.
Speaker 1I know. And it's like, I talked to my kids in the military. I mean, being a Marine is no, you're not screwing around. And I saw what my kids went through and the infantry training battalion scout sniper indoctrination. And my daughter is, you know, and she's an officer. She actually got her first salute from her brother. He's 6'5 and she's 4'11. It was awesome. You know, actually your older brother has to salute you. It's so cool. Yeah, it's great. But you know, people talk when I say, you know, tell me the story of your success. I mean, the people make jokes about it. You remember David Koch, one of the Koch brothers, you know, of Koch Industries in Wichita, Kansas. And he was a very, very funny guy. And he used to say, people say, how did you get so rich? And I say, well, it started when I was 12 years old and I found an apple and I was shining it up and I had paid a nickel for it. And somebody offered me a dime. And I said, well, it's a hundred percent profit margin. So I went back and bought two apples and I doubled my money. And I started doing this every day and every week, doubling my money and doubling my money. And you can do the math week after week and year after year. And finally my father died, left me a hundred million dollars. That's good. And the reason that that's funny is because that flicks the pair of hippocampal gyrus and it makes you feel like, that's surprise like in every joke. But the reason it's funny is because real satisfaction from your accomplishments comes from the struggle, not from the accolades. That's what it really comes to because you earned it and human beings are made to earn their success. This is the reason that they'll convince themselves that when somebody is giving them absolute utter largesse, that they actually earned it in some way. If you want to get to have your career destroyed as a politician, go to a bunch of senior citizens and tell them you're getting a lot, more back from social security than you ever paid in. Your career's over because you basically just, you know, flick their pair of hippocampal gyrus in a very unpleasant way. You kicked it, right?
Speaker 3So cool.
Speaker 1I don't like it. And, and, and so, so the truth of the matter is that, that he was saying that because the, the answer that people are expecting is I suffered and I had three bankruptcies and, you know, I almost lost my marriage and I had to raid my kid's college fund. And I was afraid, you know, like Bernie Marcus talks about the Home Depot and they were down there the last dollar. And it was, and it was, it was grim is how he talked about it. And, and so that's really, really important. And that's one of the reasons that satisfaction, which is so important, you know, we got to make progress. Why arrival leads to frustration, but, but progress toward goals is what is how we're wired. Purpose in life comes from goals and direction and progress toward purpose and goals. That's what purpose for our purpose. Life actually comes from. And, and so the result of it is that we need to, to have this sense that we're, we're sacrificing for something that we're doing something that, that that's bigger than who we are and we're willing to give something up. That's really one of the great secrets. It's one of the reasons also that when people hit their goals, they get so depressed is because there's no more progress. You know, it's why Olympic athletes are so likely to fall into a clinical depression after they win their, their, you know, their gold medal. And my people are so, when they win a billion dollars, they're like, I guess I need another billion. I guess I need, you know, because I don't, I'm not feeling it, man, because we're, we're actually made for this progress, but the progress entails a struggle. And we, we judge your students, my students, there's no satisfaction that comes if they cheat on an exam, but if they work hard and get an A, that's very, very satisfying. And you teach your kids this, don't eat before dinner. It's not because of nutrition. It's because you want their synaptically plastic little brains to register the fact that, that if they come to dinner hungry, dinner's better. Definitely. And you're, you tell junior, you know, don't eat before dinner because it's unhealthy. But if you were being honest, you'd say, I want you to suffer.
Speaker 2That's why you can't have a snack. A few years ago, I was out a lot on the internet saying, you know, dopamine that comes without effort before it is, is very pernicious. And I stand behind that, but some people like took the interpretation too far. It in part in an attempt to malign me, which is fine. Like, you know, I'm out there. Yeah, sure. That comes with the territory. But it, it, it sort of implied, I didn't have the language for it, but now I do thanks to you. It's sort of implied that I don't believe in leisure. Right. I don't want to return us to the first macronutrient in a way that distracts us, but I think this is appropriate now. So of course, leisure is great, but I would say leisure is way better when you've been working hard. And, and so if you've been working hard towards something that has its own intrinsic reward, you, the work itself can become intrinsically rewarding or not. You know, absolutely loved the process. And there are some of them that like, the only word for it is it sucked. Right. It just, it sucked. All nighters, like two days recording experiments and like, just like breathing all that isoflurane in the room. And it was just like, it sucked, but it, and it was awesome. But there are forms of leisure, like on those Fridays, when we finished those experiments, I would drive out to this, this, this orchard outside of Davis, where I did graduate school to Winters. And I would just, this would be like a, you know, like a, you know, maybe four phones. I would just listen to music in my car. And I just felt like, I felt like I'd been transported in time. That's right. And I felt connected to all the people who had worked a hard week and then were just listening to music in their car. And then eventually my girlfriend and I would drive out there. And now I could share that experience with her. And she was a scientist and working really, really hard too. Arguably even harder than I was because the experiment she was doing took, took a yet another level of, of persistence that really remarkable. So it's not that I'm saying that effort has to be there before dopamine is like, means you're a one track, like self-optimization junkie. It's just an important pie slice in being like a good human being in my opinion. So I kind of bristle at the idea that a concept like that could be construed as anti-pleasure, but in a sense, it's really like, there's something about the human mind where we hear one piece of this. We hear about one pie slice and we say, oh, so that means like leisure doesn't exist for this person. But what I love about your work and what you're telling us today is that it's really about the complete pie chart. It's not about any one moment.
Speaker 1With our brains, working with our biology, we are built to earn our rewards. We are built to earn our success. We have no concept of what anything is worth if we don't earn our success. And, and it's not like that, you know, that a Snickers bar gives you pleasure. No, no, no, no, no. It's actually the neurochemicals that are giving you pleasure that are actually making you feel this pleasure. It just happens to circuitously through the way that the brain works. Getting your PhD didn't give you pleasure per se. There's nothing about the piece of paper. It was actually the knowledge that you had done this thing. And so one of the greatest secrets to excellence and success in people's lives is the sense of earning it. And that means making peace with suffering, making peace with, with pain, making peace with struggle. It's what it comes down to now. That doesn't mean. And, and one of the biggest mistakes that strivers often make is that it's all. struggle. I mean, you remember this, the not discredited but complicated Walter Mischel marshmallow experiments at your fine institution. And what they, you know, the follow-up, you know, the kids who ate the marshmallow within five minutes, they were, they had no impulse control and they went on to actually get worse grades and worse jobs, et cetera. And the 20% of the kids in the marshmallow experiment who were able to not eat the marshmallow and they got the second marshmallow, they did much better in life. And so the whole point was the deferral of gratification is a big signal of how well you're actually going to do. One of the biggest problems that strivers have, and I'm speaking to all the strivers watching us right now, is that they don't know what their marshmallow even is. And so they're just going to wait their whole lives. And that's not what you've been saying. That's not what you're talking about. To never, never, never, never drive out to winters, to never actually listen to the music, to never actually wait for the second marshmallow and enjoy that second marshmallow. That's a mistake too. That's a huge mistake. But the whole point is we're trying to find the golden mean between earning it and not earning it, that doing enough and struggling enough and then actually taking the reward and then starting again. This actually feeds into a lot of the experiences that people have. A big part of my work is how to age well, about how to get happier as you age. Yeah, do tell. Yeah. I mean, it's super important. And part of the reason is because, man, I'm no spring chicken. And, and, and, and this is me search, right? For all of us, we're always doing me search instead of research. And so I want to know, how can I be happier at 60 than 50? And now I want to know how I can be happy years down the road at 70 instead of 60. I want to know how to retire. And so when I'm giving people advice, I'm doing public education about these things, it's because I've been trying to answer these questions for myself. Retirement is a classic case of screwing up the satisfaction part of happiness. It's like, I'm going to work and work and work and work. I'm going to be a miserable SOB. And then at 65, I'm going to stop completely and just goof around. That's the recipe for misery all the way through because it was no fun. It was all suffering without reward. And then it's all reward without suffering. That's neurophysiologically unsound, but it's also philosophically unsound. It doesn't actually make sense. So I help people retire constantly, but I also try to help them have the best life as they do to move through the course of their at that is both hard and rewarding, which changes over the course of your career. There's a lot of research on that, but it all gets into how can I maintain satisfaction? The mystery comes when we actually do get the thing that we actually want. And then we find that it leaves us cold. That seems like a real tyranny. Like mother nature had a trick up her sleeve, which kind of she did. I mean, you actually, people, if I can get that watch, that car, that marriage, then I'll be happy forever. I mean, guys will say to women, you know, if you marry me, you'll make me happy forever. That's not right. You know, it doesn't matter what she says when you propose. It doesn't matter what she says on her wedding day. It's what you say to each other over the course of your entire marriage that actually will give you net net the best possible life. That's why Mick Jagger saying, I can't get no satisfaction. He should have saying, I can't keep no satisfaction. And that that's a whole different, as we say in Seattle, a whole nother problem mystery.
Speaker 2Is that a Seattleism? I guess so. I don't know. There's so many articles out there and websites and blogs that are like the six things that people say on their deathbed. Nobody says, I wish I worked more. I don't know. My dad, he's in his early eighties and he's still rocking and he loves his work and he loves his wife and he loves his kids and he loves his coffee and he loves his meditation and he loves life. And he would say like work has been a, he's giving, he's still working, consuming ideas, giving lectures. And he, I think he would say he was really glad he worked as much as he did. Not more than that. But these lists to me are not useful, whether it's about work or whether it's about anything, because the lists to me are really about the question. When I look back on my life, I want to be able to say blank. Okay. I feel like that analysis peeled back to like, when I finished my college degree, I want to be able to say, all right, that can inform some choices. Going forward, make good friends, got enriched myself intellectually, et cetera, et cetera. Didn't, you know, got healthier as opposed to less healthy. You could do that, but it's not, I feel like it's the wrong question. Like it's the wrong thing. When I look back on my life, I went like, how about now and the decisions you can make today, this week, this month, this year, because that's how you end up in a place where, and let's face it, most likely those last moments, they could be very peaceful and beautiful, but you don't know. So we imagine this kind of like before the curtains close. moment that some people get, but I don't think most people get that. I've watched people die. It's not, it's usually not like that. It's, I feel like we tend to integrate our levels of satisfaction, pleasure, lack, the pain, et cetera, on a much shorter timescale. So is there a better set of questions and answers that we can come up with for living in the now so that we are steering right through the more of the time that we have between now and whenever it is that that curtain closes?
Speaker 1Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot actually on this. It touches on a couple of different things. Now, to begin with, this really gets into the third macronutrient, which is meaning. And what are we doing to understand the meaning of our lives? Ultimately, that knowledge is the most important macronutrient, the most philosophical, the most, I mean, it gets closest to the, you know, the problem, the hard problem of consciousness, to use Chalmers, his formulation on this, et cetera, et cetera. But there's a lot that goes into it. To begin with, it's, you know, it's like, these are, David Brooks talks about no, no relation, friend, but no relation. He talks about resume versus eulogy virtues. And, you know, it's true. You know, it's probably better if you don't imagine people at your funeral saying, he had 5 million miles on Delta. I mean, it's probably not.
Speaker 2That's some friends who are like really into their points on their cards. I know. It's a video game. It's an adult-ish.
Speaker 1Yeah. They're trying to count their scoreboard. And part of the reason is because that's, that's a sense of satisfaction. You know, it's, it's, they're trying to get that. They want to make, progress, progress toward a goal, goals and direction, making progress. We're progress oriented animals, which is why the scoreboard is so important. The trouble is that when, once you run up the scoreboard after a certain point, I mean, you die and stay dead and you realize that nobody actually cares. And so if all anybody talks about is this, is this score, this, this trivial scoreboard, which is frequent flyer miles or money in a bank account, right. Or, or any of these other worldly things, it's a problem. And that really leads to the first criterion for what actually is going to lead to regret and what isn't. And that, that's a deep philosophical thing that has, has a lot of roots in, in, in classical philosophy, but, but also a lot of behavioral science behind it as well. So Aristotle, the, these are the St. Thomas Aquinas in, in the 13th century, he, he asserted that we want to be happy. Okay. All right. Good. Fair. This is pretty good. Now his definition of happiness was the attitude, which is, is to the luminescence of presence of God, right. To the relationship with God. Other people define it in different ways who are not traditionally religious, but I think everybody would agree. Yeah. We want to be happy. He said that to do that, I mean, you, you have a tendency to, to, to follow your animal impulses. So far, so good. Gets back to an early part of the conversation. And he said, your animal impulses tell you one fundamental lie. And that fundamental lie is that the, the following four things are the fundamental lie. And that fundamental lie is that the, the following four things are the fundamental lie. And that fundamental lie is that the, the following four things, when they beguile you and you get them, that you'll be actually happy and you'll be finally satisfied. You'll finally be there. Those four things are money, resources, power, which is influence over other people, pleasure, which also is comfort or security, right. Or honor, which means, you know, for you and me as academics, it's like, Hey, that's Andrew Huberman. He wrote that paper in the journal of, you know, seven dimensional, you know, disappearing manifolds, or, you know, some academic, journal that nobody's ever heard of, but still academic prestige, admiration, whatever it happens to be. Those are beguiling idols that if you pursue those things as an end per se, there's nothing evil about them. They can be used for great good. But if you use them as an end per se, that's when you'll wind up in trouble. That's the problem that we actually get. So they say, nobody says, I wish I'd worked more. What they should say is nobody says, I wish I'd gotten a little bit more famous. I wish I had had, you know, a little bit more experience. I wish I had gotten a little bit more experience. I wish I had gotten a million more dollars in my 401k that I have no idea what's going to actually happen to it. That's really what they're saying. And so back up from that and to, for us to be happier, we need to assess whether or not we are serving these worldly idols. And that's incredibly good behavioral science because that is an almost perfect taxonomy of the things that we, that we actually chase. I have a game I play with my students at HBS. They don't know what their idol is. They don't know what it is. And again, I got to say, I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it's going to be. I don't know what it's going to be. And so I think, you know, I got nothing against money. I think money can be, does wonderful things. Jobs, opportunity, growth, taxes, philanthropy. There's nothing wrong with power, influence other people, wielded in a virtuous way. Pleasure. I mean, pleasure leads to babies. So great. Fame, you can refract your fame. I mean, there are lots and lots of people. I promise you, Andrew, there are lots of people pursuing their PhDs right now because of your fame, which is a beautiful and a good thing for humanity. The problem is it'll hurt you. If one of these things is your primary objective, is your primary goal, and you endow it with, with mythical power. So I play a game with them. What's my idol? They don't know. They don't know what their idol is. You want to play? Yeah.
Speaker 2I'm playing what's my idol. Yeah, I'm a little scared, but let's do it. Let's do it. I'd like to take a quick break to acknowledge one of our sponsors, David. David makes protein bars unlike any other. Their newest bar, the Bronze Bar, has 20 grams of protein, only 150 calories, and zero grams of sugar. I have to say, these are the best tasting protein bars I've ever had. And I've tried a lot of protein bars over the years. These new David bars have a marshmallow base, and they're covered in chocolate coating. And they're absolutely incredible. I, of course, eat regular whole foods. I eat meat, chicken, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, et cetera. But I also make it a point to eat one or two David bars per day as a snack, which makes it easy to hit my protein goal of one gram of protein per pound of body weight. And that allows me to take in the protein I need without consuming excess calories. I love all the David Bronze Bar flavors. Including cookie dough, caramel chocolate, double chocolate, peanut butter chocolate. They all actually taste like candy bars. Again, they're amazing. But again, they have no sugar, and they have 20 grams of protein with just 150 calories. If you'd like to try David, you can go to davidprotein.com slash Huberman. Right now, David is offering a deal where if you buy four cartons, you get the fifth carton for free.
Speaker 1The way to know what your idol is, and again, what Aquinas suggests and what modern social science absolutely verifies, is that... Again, nothing wrong with these things, but if you pursue this, this winds up being the source of your later bitterness and regret. The reason is because when you pursue these things, you're doing it at cost. And the cost is almost always love. Love is the secret of happiness. To love and be loved is what we want. And when you pursue something that's not real, that's not alive, then you're sacrificing opportunities to love and be loved. If you pursue it as a goal, per se. But when you know what your idol is, you'll still make mistakes. You're still going to mess up. You're still going to be miserable. You're still going to be miserable a lot. But you'll sometimes avoid the error, which is incredibly powerful. So the way to play this game is to eliminate, because you always do elimination when you're trying to do these things. It's much more robust. It's actually better. Eliminate the idol that you don't have. One by one by one. It's going to get harder as we go along. It's going to start off really, really easy. I can even make predictions about you, about what you would eliminate. But eliminate them until you've got the last one. And that's the one that's most likely. And that's the one that's most likely. And that's the one that's most likely to beguile you and lead you down the wrong road. So money, resources, power, pleasure, fame, or adoration of other people. You're going to get rid of one. And this doesn't mean you don't have it. It just means you're the population average. Get rid of one of those. Yeah. If you got rid of money, for example, you say, I don't care about it. That just means you're the most average American economically, which by world standards is unbelievable. Historical standards is fabulously wealthy. So you said it was money? Uh-huh. Power. Pleasure. And pleasure can also be comfort or security, right? Or, and, and honor, which is prestige or fame or adoration or whatever it happens to be, or respect. And power can be benevolent too, right? Totally. These all can be great because the most virtuous, happy people have these things. Yeah. They have a lot of these things.
Speaker 2Yeah. I don't, I don't care about, I don't care much about the notion of like honor and accolades. In fact, that just is a very brief anecdote. It was right about, I'd been tenured for maybe three, four years. And I was struggling financially as a professor, despite what people might think about Stanford. And I was happy to, you know. I was one of those too. And so I had a conversation with my then chair, or was it vice chair? And he said, well, you know, at some point, you know, you'll be chair. And then of the department, because it's a rotating chair. I'm still in this department, by the way. We'll see if I still am at the end of this conversation. What the heck? And he said, you know, it comes with a pay increase. And I was like, really? And I thought about, I'd seen what happened to chairs of departments. Couldn't, couldn't. It's a totally different, it's a punishment disguised as an honor. It's a punishment to any real scientist. But they make, but they cloak it and they say, no, this is service to the department. And that's true. Right. And a good chair is valuable. Some people are exceptional at it. I have a close friend of mine from childhood. He's a chair. But the chair needs certain attributes that are important. And I, and so the response out of my mouth was, how do I make sure I never become chair? Well, so I think now it's a good question. It's very unlikely I'll be chair of the department. I'm not around enough. But like, how do I make absolutely sure that I'm like, not like, like I'll do anything else, anything to not be chair. By virtue of the fact that my dad's a scientist and I grew up seeing a lot of scientists and hearing about a lot of luminaries of science. I heard this story about Richard Feynman, the great Richard Feynman, where apparently, I don't know if this is true or not, but he was elected into the National Academy of Sciences. And I think at the inaugural dinner, he said like to someone like, well, what happens now? And they go, oh, you elect other people in. And he goes, wait, so this is like a club where like we pin medals on each other. And he goes, I quit. If it's not true, it's awesome. If it's true, it's awesome. Yeah, that's funny. And I knew that true or not, what the story illustrates is that like those honors mean nothing. In fact, the most important thing about a Nobel Prize, I believe, is that it allows the winner, in addition to the value of the discovery, but it allows the winner to be a great fundraiser for other people at the university. That's it.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And so, and the discovery, obviously. But anyway, so honor doesn't really, like I'm not interested in medals or things. I got a PhD because I needed one to get to do a pen shop.
Speaker 1But you go super famous as a public intellectual. Is that important? Does that motivate you? Because that's, you know, that's a different kettle of fish, isn't it?
Speaker 2I will go on record saying that fame increases your opportunities exponentially and limits your freedoms exponentially. Right. No, it's not important to me. Okay. It's a byproduct of the pursuit of other things. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Strongly introverted, despite how much I talk. Got it. No, no, I get it. I need a lot of time. No, I get it. I need a lot. You should see me when I'm alone. I talk even more. No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 1You're probably exhausted after a podcast.
Speaker 2Yeah, I love my team, but I interact with very few people on purpose. No, I need time to think. And I love people, but I'm very, very introverted. I got it. Yeah.
Speaker 1I got it. Okay, go. So I believe you. So you'd go to the normal, the most normal. You'd be as famous as your mailman.
Speaker 2Oh, that would be awesome. Okay. I have the best, like the people that clean up my neighborhood. I live in a pretty grungy neighborhood. My place, I do my best to keep really nice. These people are like my heroes. I'm always bringing them a Tina. They're out there. They're literally scraping up shit from animals, people. I love these people. And they're so, like the ones I know, they seem so happy. They're so happy. And I'm like, man, maybe someday I'll just throw on one of them. One of those orange vests and just like disappear into like, you know, I won't name a town, but yeah.
Speaker 1Don't name the town or pretty soon they'll find you. Yeah. So, okay, good, good, good. Now we got rid of the easy one in a way. Money, power, pleasure. What's next? That means it's going to be a little harder because all these things are, you know, have their rewards.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1So which one do you get rid of next? Pleasure. Pleasure. And then because you're pretty austere. I mean, your book's called Protocols.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. I inherited my mom's, people are, I was, this kind of like observer comes on where like people are going to think I'm like scripting this. Like my mom has a save the world piece of her that's very real and very alive in me. But the thing we also share, like a desire to save, change, positive change. But the thing that comes alive in me that I definitely got from her is like, if an emotion like gets to me, if it comes up, it's big. Like I, like the people I love, I love so big that sometimes I think the top of my head's going to explode. Like, or that I think like my heart's going to explode. And, and it's, and it's not comfortable. Yeah. It's, it's, I've gotten better at tolerating that. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me emotional because I do think that like grief is proportional to love. And, but, so I don't walk out of my podcast studio where I work with my best friends, not all of them, but all of them are my best friends. It's not, but I have best friends elsewhere too. But I walk out and I don't think, oh, I'd like, I'd like to do this. I'd like, one of them might die on the road tonight. I just think I'm the luckiest human being on the planet to work with these people doing it. So, but it fills me so much. Sometimes it's a lot, it's a lot to, to, to tolerate. So pleasure is not something that I like, I don't need more intense experiences. I'm having intense experiences from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1And you, and you're, and you're not a drinker. You're not a substance user. I'm not a drinker. I've never been a drug guy. Yeah. So let me say something nice about your mom. Okay. So the, the fact that you kicked out honor right from the very beginning, you know what honor addicts all have in common? The thing that love is earned. That's what they all have in common. They usually have this common childhood where they're really, really good at something. I know you were a good student and you were a good skateboarder and you were good at stuff.
Speaker 2I was, wait, wait, to be fair, before the internet comes for me, I was not a very good skateboarder, which drove me toward academics because I kept getting hurt. I loved the sport and I was a, I was a good student, but I was not, I've always had to work hard.
Speaker 1It's very easy for, for, for a lot of people. A lot of young people, particularly the young people of, of those who are of intellectuals and, and excellent people to learn from their parents that they get attention and affection when they do something unusual. And the result is that their little brains register the idea that love is earned and love isn't earned. Love is a free gift, freely given, love is a grace. And if you go through life, particularly in the most plastic part of your, of your, you know, your psychological formation, thinking that love is earned, you'll surround yourself with people who will make you, make you earn their love. You'll marry somebody. who will make you earn her love and friends who kiss up to you. and say, you got to earn my love. And the result is you'll go from person to person to person. You'll be a real honor addict. And what people have in common is that they have a big public life, which happened to you, that you'll crave the adoration of strangers. You'll actually crave it because that's the addiction, is trying to earn the love even of strangers. And that's a big problem. So who actually made you whole? Probably your mom, probably your parents, because they loved you unconditionally and they probably still do. That's good parenting.
Speaker 2Yeah, they definitely did. And they love us unconditionally and they definitely do. And yeah, I get a zero, zero dopamine hit from people saying, oh, you're so-and-so, can I get a picture? It doesn't bother me. What does fill me is when I get an email that somebody is like, I'm going to go study neuroscience or I did this thing and it really, you know, I learned from so-and-so on your podcast and it's enriched my life. That feels really good because then I feel like, okay, great. At least I know I'm not wasting my time.
Speaker 1Yeah, money and money and power and money just means resources. It's the ability to do stuff. It doesn't mean that it makes you more whole as a person, but often the answer can come from a sense of identity. So often a money idol will come from people who grew up rich because that's what it means to be a normal person. Or they grow up poor because they know how bad it is when you don't have it. So there's all kinds of circumstances that can provoke this. And power is this like, I want to be in charge. I really, really want to be in charge. I really, really want to be in charge. I really, really want to be in charge, which is not, it's not, it's not a vice, it's not a, you know, but, but it's really what drives you. So which one do you get rid of next? Money. Money, which is you, you become the most, you become economically just like your postman.
Speaker 2Yeah, I, I'd be fine. Who probably has it. I mean, I'm saying that now from a position of financial security.
Speaker 1So it like, no, no, look, they're in the comments. Somebody is going to say, you know, easy to say Huberman and Brooks are, yeah, like completely full of it because they're, you know, right. I got it. But I believe you.
Speaker 2Yeah, but to those people. Look, you have been in both situations. Definitely. So my chairman in San Diego, before I moved my lab to Stanford, he had the, I went to him for a salary increase. So in that department, you could set your own salary as long as it wasn't higher than his. And I had a lot of grants. Get him a raise. What do you want to earn? What do you want to earn? And I told him and he said, no, there was no parity in that department. In our, in my department at Stanford, there is. You, you, you can't make more than someone more senior than you, right? So parity is important in certain departments, not in others. And I had a lot of grants. I'd like a raise of $20,000 this year, which on the, that was a significant fraction of what I was making. And, and he said, just remember, he like did the whole like pivot and look thing. Like that, like you're not allowed to do anymore. Like, like male chairman pivots towards you, like, like sitting with his knees open. And he like, you can never get away with this. And he said, just remember, you're going to make a lot less money than you deserve. He was talking about then. And he's like, and then in the later part of your career, he was talking about it. And he was like, I'm going to make a lot less money than you deserve. And he was like, I'm going to make a lot less money than you deserve. You're going to make a lot more money than you deserve because you're going to have tenure. He's actually a really good guy. And he was absolutely right. There's Bill Mobley. He's still alive. And, and, um, it's actually a meditator. He's friends with the Dalai Lama. So hi, Bill. He was absolutely right. I didn't know how that was going to happen or anything. I didn't know it was going to happen, but it turned out that that's true. So if I were to average my income back across two and a half decades of, yeah, I, I was perfectly happy to live in a lab and save up a little bit of money to be able to go snowboarding once a month in graduate school. Like, wow. I pay rent. They have showers in the building. They're called monkey cage washers, you know, like this, you know, like that you can't turn the heat on, you know, it was like, they have a bathroom with a sink. Like if people thought I was crazy. Right. But then, then I didn't have to commute, you know, now granted I wasn't married with kids or anything. So I've lived both ways. I wouldn't say I've ever been poor. I won't, I want to be honest. It was austere. Money's not like, it's great.
Speaker 1It's not that fun. I mean, it's not that much. You can, can you imagine like having a boat? No, that'd be a pain in the ass. Going out on the boat.
Speaker 2No, no. I had to go on a long boat thing with my grandfather. It was like, it was torturous. I want to go out on the boat for a day. I like seeing boats on the ocean. I like scuba diving. I'm not, no, I, it would be nice. We're talking extremes here, but no money is not a big motivator for, it's nice to have, but I'll tell you, I'm sort of answering what I think will be the next question. The best thing about having money is that I can use it to do things for other people. And that falls to me under this thing that you're calling power, but benevolent power.
Speaker 1But also it gives you freedom and freedom is not.
Speaker 2Freedom is nice. And being able to make, I'm not just making this up to make life easier by way of money or by way of connections. Like we were talking earlier about, I know a lot of people who either have or know people with serious medical issues and I can connect them to the, like to the one of three people that might actually be able to help them when no one else can. Like I've got story after story about it. I don't take credit. I just happen to know the best people in these little subdomains and it doesn't always work out that way. But a lot of times they're like, wow. Yeah. And so I'm not the physician, I'm just the concierge. But the fact that I have this job allows me to do that. Right. And the degree allows me to do that. Money doesn't allow me to do that. Right. It's just my network is insane.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 2And the ability to use it for, to help other people. Like, and part of that is having people like you on this podcast, right? Like Rob and I sometimes talk, like, I was like, I can't believe it. Like, yeah. Like Faye Faye Leon here. It's a colleague of mine at Stanford. You can get an hour with her at Stanford, but she came here and talked for three hours about AI.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Like, and I can share that with the world. That, or share what you're teaching to the world. That we're not just having this conversation on a walk.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And we can share it with the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That to me is like power.
Speaker 1Now, power, which is the ability to, to be in charge, to be the maestro, to which is to say, I'm, I'm going to be in charge, I'm not going to be subject to the authority of another person. Oh, that's a little tricky. That is, which is, which it is tricky to be sure. Now, you're not a vice-filled person. I mean, you're a person who's actually, you're, you don't have big problems in these, in this regard. But what Aquinas suggested is that when you've eliminated the others, that what you've found is something that might make you stumble and that might distract you from the things that really matter, the, the, the ways that you can actually have love in your life. And what the funny thing about it is that if I said, okay, just tell me your idol from the very beginning, you might not have eliminated. You might not have eliminated it to that particular point.
Speaker 2Yeah. Because I think that it's, it's really an interesting exercise. Obviously I'm doing this with you now, but I hope people are doing this in parallel because that's what it's all about. It's not about me and the examples.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, it's, it's where we, we want people to know their idol.
Speaker 2Definitely. Is that the words carry, they're loaded words, money, power, honor sounds actually cool until you really dissect it. And then you realize it's just as, you know, nuanced as the others.
Speaker 1That's the ancient, that's how Aquinas would have understood honoris. Yeah. Right. Which is not virtuous inherently.
Speaker 2Right. Right. So the words are, are, can be a little misleading. I will say where I've tended to stumble on the backdrop of all this before people, you know, it's not about avoiding the comments. In fact, please comment. Yeah, totally. And we love them all. And like, and suggest, like, and share. I'm just kidding. Don't forget to subscribe. Hit that subscribe button. Is, you know, but a big part of it also is, you know, that of course I'm susceptible to like the lure of pleasure, the lure of, I mean, like I'm human, right? I, we're all wired for it, right? The place where I've stumbled consistently is when over-resourced in a particular place, I, I don't always think about what the full arc of requirement is when trying to, I believe in a benevolent way, share resources. Right. So it's much easier to, to like connect somebody to somebody. And then if it's not going well to be like, well, that's their problem now, as opposed to really continuing to. To, to like make, make sure that happens. Right. So sometimes the, the big learning for me has been whenever over-resourced in any area, whether it's money, energy, generosity, whatever, that I need to be careful because the misperception is that because there's more than enough of it for me, I can just share whatever's left. Right. But there's a hidden cost and it's the cost of making sure that all of that goes smoothly. Mm-hmm. That's, and that's a cost that's hard to quantify. Yeah. And the most painful thing in my life nowadays is actually pulling back to places where I, I live, my team knows this. It's like, if I meet someone on the street and they are like, they would tell me something and then they want to tell me about, like, they have a question because they have an uncle who has a stroke. And like, I know a really great person for certain kinds of stroke. I'll take their, I'll give them my phone number.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2I've given up, you know, like I'll do this whole thing. But then later it's very hard to find the time to make sure that if they're not getting feedback. That I can do the, the call where I connect the two. And so there's this, the hardest part for me is I can't do it. And I got this from my mom. She sees a homeless person on the street. And when we were kids, we discovered she was putting homeless people up in hotels. Like, and we'd have people living in our garage and like, she can't help herself. Now she's better about it. But it, it comes from a good place. She wants to fix stuff.
Speaker 1She wants to fix stuff. She wants to, yeah. People's suffering is very, very big. And by the way, our vices are our virtues. When I'm weak, then I'm strong, said St. Paul the Apostle. But also when I'm strong, then I'm weak. Our strengths and weaknesses are opposite sides of the same coin. The weakness that you have, the idol that you have is also the opposite side of the greatest virtue that you possess. So that's one of the reasons that we shouldn't beat ourselves up about this, but we need to know what it actually is because that's what will actually lead you astray a lot of the time. Now it's, it's completely different for me. I would kick out power first control. The second thing I'd get rid of is pleasure. I'm a protocols guy too. I'm very austere, right? I'm every day in the gym and, you know, I eat a very strict diet and okay. The third thing I would get rid of is money, resources. It's not, I mean, and again, like, let's watch the comments light up. I got it. But what does that leave? That leaves honor. And the truth is, I want people to love me. I want people to love me. I want this. It's so, look, dude, I'm 62 years old and I still want that. It feels good. What do you get that? It's not even feeling good. It's like, I'm not a human being. I'm a human doing. I'm trying to earn everybody's love. It's so dumb. And I recognize it now. That's power. Right there is power because I know what I'm doing it. And I'm held accountable for it because my wife does not have this. Absolutely have this. And she'll say, you're doing that stupid thing again. You know what? Why would you? Why would you marginalize the people that you actually love for the adoration of strangers for Pete's sake? Why would you go do that thing that, you know, people really want you to do? You want it because you want people to appreciate you is what it comes down to. And I say, you're right, is the whole point. And the whole point is also that this is what I do for a living. This is what I study. And I'm weak. And I'm frail in this particular right. And when I resist that idol, when I fight against that idol, then I choose the better path. And I choose the space of moral aspiration. And that space of moral aspiration is to love and be loved. That's what the space of moral aspiration. That's where it actually takes me. To love and be loved, not by the strangers, not the prestige of the crowd, not the honor that comes from rising in the hierarchy. We're a tropical kin-based species, hierarchically arranged. The animal impulse comes from rising in our band of 30 to 50 hundred gatherers, you know, 250,000 years ago. I mean, this is all biologically wired. But when I understand that, then I can actually do. What the, you know, that Dante in the Inferno, he talks, it's arranged around the seven deadly sins. But he also talks about the seven, the heavenly virtues, you know. And so pride, humility, right? Envy, admiration. That's what it comes, you know, this. The heavenly virtue of this is, of the four, are what you really want. What you truly, deeply want in your soul. What you truly, deeply want in your soul. To love and be loved means that you're spending your time on your faith, the love of the divine, your family, the people that are biologically or by adoption related to you, your friends, the people that you actually choose, and serving the whole world through the way that you earn your daily bread, which is to earn your success through your work. Faith, family, friends, and work. And then only when you know that, you can pivot to the thing that your soul actually wants, the thing that you're actually hunger for. And that's where real satisfaction comes in. That's where you gain the satisfaction that you always wanted.
Speaker 2Can I ask you a question about the adoration piece and applause and that kind of thing? So embarrassed. No, well, I'm embarrassed. You know, I mean, it's like, it's a vulnerable place to like reveal, because the word is, are tough, like power. Like, you know, like Huberman admits that he is driven by, no, it's like, I want to, power, I want to help people. No, you want to have control over what you can control. I got it, yeah. Yeah. And. But, so when, let's say you, you give a lecture to a group that you respect them as an audience, whoever happens to be there, like you respect your audience, which is so important, you know, like, and. They love their audience. And they, yeah. And, and, and you, you get the feedback that you really like, you knocked it out of the park. Yeah. You knocked it out of the park. When you go back to your room at night, are you the sort of person that thinks about that and how great it feels? Or are you thinking. About this one thing that you said that you wish you had done differently. Are you the, like the one, the one thing that I wish I hadn't said kind of person, or are you the, or are you like basking in it? No, I'm not basking in it.
Speaker 1I mean, I'm actually self-critical. I'm thinking about what it could be differently because it wears off and it's evanescent. It's like a summer rain. You know, the ad, the adoration of strangers feels good in the moment. I mean, in, in neurochemically, it, it wears off very quickly, of course, because what you're getting is, you know, when, when you look at people who are deeply addicted to success, it looks very much. In, in, when, in under brain scans to people who are actually getting highly glycemic carbohydrate treats or even a hit of cocaine, you know, you win in some little game and, and, you know, and we're obviously, we were talking about dopamine here is you actually see it's the same thing, but that doesn't last. That's not supposed to last. That's supposed to wear away. And the first thing that somebody wants, who's an addict is another hit, whether it's a line of cocaine or another round of applause. So by the time I'm back in the hotel, I'm like, yeah, okay. Yeah. For, yeah, yeah, for sure. Actually what it comes down to, but by the way, we got to know what the solution is to this. And the solution to this is not to say, okay, I'm a horrible human being, but it's actually to pivot to choosing the path of the man that I want to be. You know, I, I, I don't give into the animal impulse to stay under the covers past 4.30. The man that I want to be is down in the gym by 4.45. 4.45 a.m. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. I mean, the, the. The man that I want to be when I'm either thinking about something I did wrong and I'm beating myself up or, you know, wishing there was another round of applause is somebody who's deep in prayer. That's the man that I want to be. Yeah. Because I do know that, that my metaphysical fitness depends on this. And that's a choice that I can actually make.
Speaker 2I have a question about who we, I don't want to say idolize, but among humans, can you name? People alive or dead that sort of embody or collectively sort of embody who you aspire to be like, or do you not put humans in that category? Because one thing that I realized in this discussion around power, and I'm not trying to soften anything around that, is I've always had this list of people whose like careers and art and music and stuff I really admire. And in looking over that list, I try and like sometimes see like the through lines. Right. And I can tell you that almost. I can tell you that almost all of them brought together unique things based on their past, their circumstances, et cetera, to like change the game. Like to me, that's kind of the ultimate. Yeah, I know. It's like. In our business. Yeah.
Speaker 1People think differently. The paradigm change.
Speaker 2Yeah. Right. It's like to change the game. Yeah. Like, and it, for me, this is a very important like time space dilation where I can look back on the history of science and the couple of neurobiologists who were there at the beginning. Right. Like Ramon y Cajal, you'd say he changed the game because he kind of like made it. He created the game basically, slicing up brains and understanding function. But like, but a few people came along, even in my career, in the time of my active lab career. And I was like, they really changed the game. And then I asked, so why did, how and why did they change the game? And you realize that every technique is fleeting because it gets replaced almost always. Right. And so you start to realize that, oh, like it was always this unique kind of like artist, scientist. Poet intersection. And I realized like, oh, that that's like, that's the thing. Right. There's people that are like outside the box because they found a unique confluence of things. Right. Striving for that. Yeah. Way more important to me than quote unquote power.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2It's like to be able to say like, I did it not my way, not their way, but I did it my way, period. Right. Like a unique expression that could only have been me coming out of me. And I don't. And so I'm not in competition with, with someone. With some structure, with other people. That to me is above the four idols that you described. No, I get it. I completely do. Because it's like, like that's like winning. That's what you admire.
Speaker 1That's what I really admire. That's kind of like an ideal type. That's what it actually means to be successful. That's what it means to be a success. And that's what excellence means to you. That's the personification of excellence is actually that kind of intellectual entrepreneurship. Yeah.
Speaker 2It's almost like it moves from the, because you said like to lead. Yeah. I actually am not concerned with leading. I also didn't want to be a chairman, right? Like I don't want to run the businesses, my podcast. I let someone else do that. He's way better at it than I could ever be. It's what I'm interested in is being outside of that, but still ethically completely free. Yeah. Like, yeah, I can't lead because I can't show anyone how to be me because they're them. Yeah. I can show them how to, I can get some ideas about how they can be them, but that's like an internal process for them. So that to me is like the ultimate. Right. And I think about Ramon E. Cajal is a good example, who, by the way, the greatest neurobiologist of all time ever by huge, huge margin. Also was like really into weightlifting. He was an artist. Like he was an incredible, like he drew images of the brain and inferred from that function from dead tissue. Amazing, amazing human being. Like he's an N of one. Yeah. But it was the confluence of his interest in physical exercise and neuroanatomy and art that made him Ramon E. Cajal. No one else can do that, right? Like, so I don't want to be like him. No, I get it. Because he did it the best. Like, why would you want to be like him? Boring.
Speaker 1You want to be excellent like him, but as Andrew Huberman. Exactly.
Speaker 2To me, the unique expression and like, you know, I think we'll eventually get to the notions of like, not notions. Let's talk a little bit about God and faith, because that's actually where you and I connected in person for the first time. I was talking at Stanford about science and faith. Very openly. Very openly. But that to me feels, I could be misinterpreting the message. Well. I feel like that's what God wants for all of us, and in the different domains of, of life. Yeah. And of course, adhering to ethics, like there are rules, there are structures we have to obey within that, but our unique expression, I feel like that's why we're here. Yeah. I tell myself, I know, like, I completely agree with
Speaker 1you. And, you know, so people often ask, so who, who's your hero? I don't know. I don't know. My dad, you know, you're like, Jesus, you say Jesus. Yeah, I know. It's like, I mean, it's like, who's your hero? But it's like, no, I mean, Jesus is the master, but the hero, it's like the hero. No, it's not like some sort of hero's journey, some Jungian, you know, archetype that we're talking about here. I struggle with that as well, but I do see people that I deeply admire precisely for this, for this reason. So somebody I really admire, the guy in my field, the social science scientist par excellence is James Q. Wilson. You know, James Q. Wilson, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor, which is pretty hard to do as a social scientist for, you know. Is he still alive? No, he died in 2012. And, and he was the greatest political scientist of the 20th century. And, and somebody I knew, he sat in on my dissertation defense, which went very poorly. I mean, it was rough, man. I had two Nobel prize winners in economics and James Q. Wilson. I was super nervous and it was, it was... It was, it was not a great dissertation. It got signatures. So that's the scoreboard effect on that. That's all I can say. It passed. But he said to me after that, you know, he had written monumental books. He had done works. He had written a great book called The Moral Sense. That was the first time that a social scientist had actually used the tools of, of empirical social science survey-based data to understand the moral sensibilities, the complex moral sensibilities that they actually possessed. And just quantifying it. And I read that. I said, I just want to do that. I want to do that. I don't want to be James Q. Wilson, though. I want to be Arthur Brooks, you know, and doing it my own, in my own way. And he said, you know, at my dissertation defense, he said, you know, nice try. You're going to be fine. When you need something, give me a call. And so some years later, I was an assistant professor at Syracuse at the time. And I was, I wrote my first commercial book, my first trade book. And it was about charitable giving. And it was, it was, it actually changed my life because the president read it for some odd reason and talked about it. And he said, you know, I don't want to be James Q. Wilson. I want to be And then suddenly I was, my career was changed forever as a result of that, for better and for worse. But when I was working on it, I wrote to James Q. Wilson and I said, would you read this manuscript? And he said, sure. I sent it to him. And he said, you know, I was going to write a book on this, but you've written, I don't have to. I'll write the foreword. Awesome. Unbelievable. Yeah. Unbelievable. Later, he recruited me to be the president of the American Enterprise Institute because he was on the board of that. And he was on the board until he passed away. And then I spoke at his funeral. I had the honor of speaking at his funeral at the Memorial Chapel at Harvard, where his funeral was held. And it was just, this guy, he was one of a kind. And I want to be a social scientist too, but not just like him, not even studying the same things that he does, but to have this, this intense curiosity and using the tools of science completely in the public interest. That's what I want to do. And so that's what inspires me. So my hero, I guess, but it's the admiration that I have because he was fully alive. He was fully alive in the way that I think that it was his destiny to be in all of us. And everybody watching us, like everybody watching us and listening to us has got their thing. That's what our destiny is to actually find that thing and be truly excellent and use it to serve. Be as excellent as you can possibly be in, in being a, you know, drywall hanger and, you know, and, and being a cook at a restaurant and being a college professor, God forbid, being a politician in the public interest, in the private interest, in, in, in showing people that this is an expression of your love. You see, in this way, it's godly in this way, you know, in the book of Genesis, it's, you know, God created heaven and earth. That was his gig. That was his job. And it was an expression of his love. This is what you and I can do. This is what you do. This is by the way, you're popular because you're good at your job for sure. But because you want the best for everybody, because this podcast is an expression of Andrew Huberman's love. That's why it's successful. And everybody can be successful in their way, can be, you know, have their own Huberman podcast, not in podcasting necessarily, by actually having it be an expression of your love, love for humanity through the way that you're earning your daily bread. That's the quintessential expression of excellence in my view. Does that accord with yours?
Speaker 2Very much so. And I, you know, I, it occurs to me like, you know, um, and maybe I'm a little bit bothered by this word power. Yeah, no, it's always driving. I'm striving for it to not be misconstrued, but no, no, no, no. I just, I mean, but, but I'm, I'm embracing it today. But what, to me, the ultimate win I realized, um, a few moments ago is like what I'm really trying to do in this podcast thing is I love learning. And when I find something that I think can be of use to people, uh, I teach it because what's most satisfying to me is if people change their behavior and it leads them to a better place, mentally, physically, or both. Right. And then they also understand why it did that. Right. And then they pass it along. Like, and, and there's no need for attribution in that. No. Right. There's no need for attribution. And I hope that like, I have a few friends who are actors, a few friends who are musicians, and I have to imagine that they love acting and playing music. And those sorts of people provide incredible enrichment to my life. I love music. I love film and as a consumer, but I've heard them say things like, yeah, you know, like you, you can transport somebody, you can inspire them. And I think ultimately that's what it's about is like, I think that we do at our best. I think we all want to find the thing that we love to do, put it out there. And I think we have this sense that it, that it could possibly ripple through time without attribution. To me, that's like the ultimate power. Right. Totally. I want to create
Speaker 1happiness teachers. I, I want people to go be teachers because that's leverage. I want a better world. I want to lift people up with these ideas. I can't do it by myself.
Speaker 2Well, the only reason we have like the microphones and the cameras are here, right, is to ripple it out further. Totally. These are literally, you know, they literally amplify things. Right. So, but yeah, the, the best way to amplify, amplify through space is the internet. Right. The best way to amplify through time might be the internet, but the way to really reinforce that whole thing is to teach people things, I believe in a way that they understand the process underneath so that a little bit of it. Right. So that they can, and they pass both things along. Right. This is why I think like, cuz nowadays, like I could go on any website and just go, what are the 10 top things that people on their deathbed say are keys to happiness? And I can get a list. Yeah. But people choose to listen to the, the mechanics of it. Yeah. Because there's something about the human brain. Yeah. I'm certain that when we understand a bit about the mechanics that gives rise to that thing, that's our buy-in. Yeah. That's the, that's the cost of admission. That's right. That's right. And then it becomes worth something. That's the effort that comes before the. Yeah. Well, you know what they say in medical schools,
Speaker 1they say at Stanford medical school to become a surgeon, you need to watch one, do one, teach one, watch one, do one, teach one. And, and you know, the truth is that there, that the process of learning and you know, there's a ton of research on how people learn and the way that people learn best is that they have to learn how something works. Then they have to actually practice it. Then they actually have to teach it. So my dad was a math professor. He was a brilliant biostatistician. I one time watched him as a math professor giving an advanced calculus lecture and 90 minutes, no notes. It was like watching Yasha high fits. And I was old enough that I had admiration for him. I was in my twenties is before he died. He died young, but I was still in my twenties and he was still going. And, and I said, dad, I was like, that was a virtuoso performance. How'd you do it? He said, I've done it hundreds of times. And, and he said, the process is simple. You learn actually what's happening. You look at the proof, you admire the science, and then you actually do a ton of problems. And then finally you explain it over and over and over and over again. The same thing is true for golf. And the same thing is true for speaking Spanish. And the same thing is true for, for understanding how to live a better life. You need to know the science. The reason that I'm so fascinated with the science. I want to talk about it in my podcast every week. It's like, it's so cool. When you understand the science, then you're more likely to change your habits. And then you're more likely to spread it and share it with other people in which case you will be a virtuoso in it. And you'll actually keep the cycle unbroken. That's magic. That's like, it's a, it's a complete miracle. That that's actually how we do it. And, and we have this moment, this miraculous moment where you and I can actually talk about serious science. We're not, I mean, this is not a doctoral seminar at Stanford or Harvard to be sure, but we're, we're talking about the real thing. And people will watch this. They're like, yeah, that's like, you know, they're, they're learning some things and they're going to go to someone going to go to PubMed and we're going to have show notes and, and the whole thing. And, and then we talk about it. Here's how you use it. Okay. So don't, when you go to the beach, make sure that you're going to a beach with friends. And here's your pro and your book is called. Protocols for a reason with several hundred pages of footnotes, right? Now go share it. You know, how many times people have told me, Hey, you know, what about coffee? You should wait for 90 minutes because you know, the, the caffeine molecule, the caffeine molecule blocks the A2A adenosine receptors and, and you won't get the crash at two in the afternoon. I'm like, yeah, I know where you got that. I know where you got that. You got that from Andrew and without attribution because they don't know they got it from you. But the whole point is the world's better. That's how we can bless the world with what we actually do. And that's so great.
Speaker 2I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors element element is an electro light drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium are vital for the functioning of all cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells. Drinking Element makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. My days tend to start really fast, meaning I have to jump right into work or right into exercise. So to make sure that I'm hydrated and I have sufficient electrolytes, when I first wake up in the morning, I drink 16 to 32 ounces of water with an Element packet dissolved in it. I also drink Element dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. Element has a bunch of great tasting flavors. In fact, I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor. So if you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement.com slash Huberman to claim a free Element sample pack with any purchase. Again, that's drinkelement.com slash Huberman to claim a free sample pack. So we got through enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning.
Speaker 1We got through enjoyment, satisfaction, not meaning. Well, we have not gotten all the way through meaning. Yeah, we haven't gotten through meaning.
Speaker 2But we, so tell us more about meaning. So we got the idols. Yeah, yeah, we got the idols.
Speaker 1So those are the things to be aware of and- That will block your satisfaction, that they promise satisfaction, they don't deliver. They won't deliver the satisfaction that you seek, but your brain tells you that they will. That will put you on what we, in my community, call the hedonic treadmill. Hedonic simply means feelings, or in your vernacular, is activity of the limbic system. And the treadmill means that the limbic system resets because emotions are not there to give you a nice day. They give you a set of signals about threats and opportunities so you can react. And they reset. They reset immediately. You always think they're going to last forever, so you have an incentive to either avoid or approach things.
Speaker 2This is the, you don't see it much anymore, but there used to be a bumper sticker out there that said that the person who dies with the most toys wins. Yeah, right. It's that one. Which reminds me about quantification. Can I share this with you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, please do. It's not my original idea, but Anna Lemke, Dr. Anna Lemke at Stanford.
Speaker 1She's been on, I've had her on my podcast, and yeah, she's fantastic.
Speaker 2Yeah, she's amazing. She told me that there's something. One particularly interesting lens on any behavior is whether the person tends to quantify that behavior very carefully and kind of covet the thing. She said addicts will like constantly check back and see how many like pills they have, how many bags they have, how many people who are obsessed, perhaps even addicted to making money will constantly check how much they have. Check your portfolio every single day. And it's cloaked as feeling. As the need to feel safe. But it has nothing to do with that. It's the limbic system is very, very good at charting profits and losses in whatever context. Like making lists, quantification. So we have to be very, this is not a call to not track your sleep or something or your HRV. But by the way, it can be a problem. It can be a problem. I check it once a week. Fitness trackers. I check my sleep once a week against a subjective quick line in my notebook. Or your steps or your HRV or. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's something that we don't hear often enough, even in the neurobiology crowd, that the limbic system loves to quantify. And if we get to the extreme of quantification in a given area, of life, of behavior, of obsession, it very likely, not always, but very likely reflects that that healthy behavior has become either an obsession or a full-blown addiction, which I find really interesting. That's so interesting. Very interesting.
Speaker 1What are we actually, what is the limbic system? What is the limbic system actually trying to do with that kind of control that's expressed through quantification? Never experience the drop. Never experience the drop.
Speaker 2It's like a way of, it's not getting more of. Right. It's avoiding less of. It's the illusion that you're getting more of. It's, right, you're working against losses by telling yourself you have this.
Speaker 1It's based on loss aversion. It's loss aversion. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2It's based on loss aversion. Yeah. And I said, it's funny, I said, what do you mean? And she said, oh yeah, like people who are like addicted to like certain kinds of barbiturates or painkillers or whatever, we'll like line them up and like look at them and count them. There's a very pathologic instance of this, which is very tragic too, because they often die sadly. But one of the hallmark traits of like true anorexia is that these reward circuits become such that the aversion of food becomes rewarding, which is, you know, deadly in its ultimate form. And people with true anorexia can look at an article of food and they have a calculator that can tell you within a very small margin, how many calories are you eating? How many calories? How much fat? How much protein? They know they can, they're like visual computers when it comes to food and food aversion, avoiding that stuff becomes their, it's like a, the addiction, the pleasure pathways get all inverted and they often, it's the most deadly of the psychiatric disorders. That's an extreme pathological case. But she said, heroin addicts who you would think can't get their life together can tell you exactly how much heroin they have and how much they think they're going to get, how much things, they're often very good at math. You know, they understand, you know, and so quantification is kind of a hallmark feature of the, of these rewards, these reinforcement circuitries. I thought perhaps that's an interesting point that I don't think we discuss enough. So when I think about whether something is a, an addiction, a compulsion, unhealthy or healthy pursuit, like how tightly am I quantifying every little bit of it and thinking about what I've done, like, you know.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1How many articles are on my Vita? You know, whatever, you know, cause we quantify our success and whether we look at the, you know, you're not trying to pat yourself on the back. You're trying to make sure that you're not falling behind. Right.
Speaker 2I remember this. Followers on, you know, I do think the social media platforms have, have intentionally brought this in. Yes. It's not like the number of likes can be reinforcing some followers, but the number of followers, people are monitoring their increases and decreases and they kind of covet them.
Speaker 1Yes, absolutely. And the rate of change of your followers, for example.
Speaker 2And the media will say like, so-and-so lost its number of followers or whatever, like it's like a thing. So I think there's something there around quantification.
Speaker 1Wait till your book comes out. Wait till you experience the New York Times bestseller list for the first time. Oh, it's incredible. It's incredible. You know, Ryan Holiday, right? You've ever had him on your show? Yeah, I have not had him on the show, but I'm aware of his books. He's great. He's great. And, and, you know, he, he, one time he said to me, it's like, I was sure that I was finally going to feel like completely alive. And I, if I, someday he said, I'm going to, I'm going to visualize that I'm going to have a number one New York Times bestseller. And he said, and finally it happened. And one week later I got knocked off the list by Trump's kid. Barron? Oh no. No, I don't know. I mean, one of his sons, but you know, it's like, I don't know. And, and, and his whole point is that it's so absurd because it's completely arbitrary. Right. The metric is arbitrary. Right. But what you're trying to do is you're trying to quantify your sense of self. Am I enough yet? Am I good enough yet? Am I enough yet? And so on the one hand, you're actually talking about the addiction. But one of the things that I see again and again and again and again is that people are trying to prove to themselves that they actually are enough and, and they don't. They don't feel like they are. And the way that they earn it is actually by looking at the scoreboard. This is what a lot of wealthy people do. It's what a lot of academics do. It's like, how many, what's this, what's this H index? You know, like how high is the H index? And oh yeah, so-and-so is such a big shot. H index is like 36. Joke. And nobody even knows what that means. Like 1% of the people watching us, but you and I know what that means.
Speaker 2Yeah. Cause it's about impact, right? Ultimately people, or they tell themselves it's that, but putting a numerical score on something. I mean, the brain has circuits that are pretty much hardwired for counting.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2I mean, my dog isn't as smart as my assistant's dog. He has a, a herding dog. They can count. They know how many people in there. He has a little of the miniature. They look at you like that. It's like you look at it. It's like, stop judging me. His dog is tracking how many in the group are here and how many are missing. Yeah. That's what makes them really good at their job. And that's where they get reward by making sure they're all in the book. Yeah.
Speaker 1And here's the interesting part about this, Andrew. That. Function that quantification function, that, that, that the essentializing function of how much, that's what we're really good at using the left hemisphere of our brains. That's that whole theory of hemispheric lateralization that McGill Chris brought back. When I was a kid, there was right brain, left brain people, right brain people are artsy and left brain people are analytical. That's not right. But the how to and what side requires hardcore quantification. And that's a fundamentally a left brain function. The right side that's complicated. Those are complicated problems, solvable, but complicated problems. If you've got the data, the right side of the brain deals fundamentally more with complex questions, which don't have quantifiable answers. All they have is understanding. All they have is intuition. That's the why side of your brain, not the how to and what side, and that's where meaning resides, which is the last macro nutrient of this, the right side of our brain, the, the, the, the, the love side, the meaning side, the God side, the. The complex side, all the problems that are most important to you, but you'll never solve. I mean, my car is left hemisphere. My marriage is right hemisphere. I will never solve my marriage. Never. I mean, before we stepped in here, my wife texted me. Good luck. I love you. She does. I'm going to call her later. She might be pissed off at me. I don't know. Don't know. I've been married 35 years. Andrew, I don't know. I mean, she's Spanish, so it's really complex, but you get my point, right? I do. And, but, but this is the thing, and this is the, this is the problem. that we face. need an integrated brain. You get two hemispheres for a reason and a corpus callosum to connect between the two hemispheres. You get that because you've got the, I'm going to go to work. I'm going to earn money. How to and what? Why? Because I love my family. Because I want to create value. Because I want to do something important in the world. Right hemisphere, left hemisphere, right hemisphere. And when that's cut off and when you're stuck in the left hemisphere, for example, looking at your phone 205 times a day and taking, you know, an endless algorithm of useless information that's fed to you, then meaning will be absent because you can only assess it on the complex side. And that's the biggest problem we face. You want to know the biggest crisis we face in happiness? It's meaning. And that's why. So how can somebody take steps to
Speaker 2enrich the amount and the type of, the array of meaning in their life? You and I have done both
Speaker 1a lot of work in the world of addiction. And I've done a lot of work in the world of addiction. Personally and professionally. And addiction is unbelievably interesting. It's endlessly fascinating how the human brain is captured. And one of the things that you find is when people finally are not in the grip of addiction, there's three things that have to happen. Number one is they get pissed. That's what all addicts do. They get pissed and they rebel. And they're like, no, no more. You've ever seen, you know, you've seen people in 12-step programs and they're like, they might laugh. About the crazy things that happened to them. But they finally, there's like, no, no more. I'm not going to put up with this anymore. You got to get pissed and rebel. The second thing that they do is that actually they understand something about the mechanism of becoming de-addicted. And that's different in different ways. You're addicted to gambling. You're addicted to pornography. If you're addicted to alcohol, you're addicted to drugs. There's different mechanisms for becoming de-addicted. And of course that's, that's very complicated and very, very hard. And it requires science and, you know, and, and, and, and clinical practice, et cetera, et cetera. But the last part is actually the most difficult, which is living in a new way, living with you. You know, it's like, it's one of the things that alcoholics always do. They always do this, is they move. They always move. And they're like, dude, if I move, it's like all these losers that are around me, and I'm not going to see any of those people. And I'm not going to be living upstairs from a liquor store. And for God's sake, moving is going to do the trick. I'm going to change my circumstances. And of course it never works because the first thing that jumps out of your suitcase is... Is you. With your alcoholic brain. That's the problem. And so you have to learn to live with you is the hard thing that actually comes from this. We are deeply, deeply, deeply addicted. We're deeply technologically addicted. We're hooked into this thing. We all know this. You've talked about it ad infinitum. So have I. John Haidt, who's been on your show, has talked about the affliction that we actually have. That's what we have to do. My work is fundamentally about how to rage against the machine to get pissed off enough. And even more than that, it's fundamentally about how to live with you, how to live differently. Because when you live with you, then you're in the right hemisphere of your brain. And you have to have right hemispheric experiences, which by the way, my great-grandfather, Leroy Brooks, he was in the right hemisphere all day long. He spent all day looking at a mule's butt. And he never came home and said to my great-grandmother, honey, I had a panic attack behind a mule today. No. And he also never said, you know, my life is so boring. And part of the reason was because his brain wasn't broken. His brain was working the way it was actually supposed to. But that's not ordinary today. And so what we need to do, number one, is we need to break the cycle. And then we need to live in an old-fashioned way. That's what it comes down to. That's how we find the meaning in our lives. And breaking the cycle, by the way, I mean, we all know the research. You've had it on your show. I've taken huge amounts of knowledge from you on this. You can break the cycle of technological addiction in your life simply by doing first hour of the day, last hour of the day, and mealtimes. Simply doing that. And there's tons of research that shows that the neurocognitive programming that happens in your first hour awake, the relationship programming and the sleep architecture that you're wiring the last hour of your day, and then the neuropeptides that you'll actually elicit by eating with other people without devices, your relationship to technology will change. But you've got to break the cycle. And there's tons of resources out there. How do you live in a... How do you live in a different way? Well, how do people illuminate the right hemisphere of their brains? They ask ungoogleable questions, right? Like, why am I alive? For what would I give my life? The deep philosophical questions. And that's what philosophy and spirituality and religion bring to you, is the deep questions that are fundamentally ungoogleable. And that's one of the reasons that the hemispheric lateralization literature shows that when you're in these spaces, that your right hemisphere is fundamentally illuminated. You can train a gorilla to answer all kinds of questions, but not ask interesting fundamental questions. That's humanity. That's God-like, is to ask questions. It's to fall in love is the right hemispheric experience. It's deep, deep mystery. It's like, that's the reason it's so scary. I don't know. I can't solve this problem. Somebody answer this question for me. No, man, you got to live it. You got to live it for the end of your days. That's why we're finding your calling. Why you and I, we have so much meaning through our work, until we're living our calling. This is what we're meant to do. That's why a calling is what you're meant to do. It has the word meaning in it. That's why worshiping God, living in the luminescent divine, that's why trying to become a sannyasi, as the Indians would say, is so critically important. That's why beauty, moral beauty, artistic beauty, natural beauty, these are right hemispheric experiences. And that's why suffering is so important. Because suffering helps you understand the meaning of your life per se. Suffering is where everybody's like, when did you know who you really, really were? How did you know what you were made of? They'll tell you something bad. Oh, that week at the beach in Ibiza. No. When my mom died, I loved her. When somebody left me at the altar, when I got fired, when I lost my business, God forbid, when I lost a child, people look back and they say, that was a moment. That was what I knew. Why? Because that's when we were truly integrated. That's when we became integrated human beings. That's what it means to be fully alive, to find meaning. And ultimately, that is the path to happiness.
Speaker 2And let that sink in for people. That's the real wisdom. And I'm going to stop you because I know you're super humble and you're going to pass it off onto someone else or something else, but you really have a gift and it comes through. Thank you, Andrew. That means a lot coming from you. Yeah, you really do because it like...
Speaker 1There's a lot of different ways people can say important things, but sometimes things just land and they just need to sit for a sec. So I have some questions that were prompted in your book, but I want to make sure that we return to this notion of faith. It's not something we talk a lot about on this podcast. I've talked about it as a guest on other podcasts, but... But it's really moving for me to have that conversation with you. Yeah, same. To talk about your journey and, you know, the... I mean, it's really easy to get into the physical fitness of life, but the metaphysical fitness of life is a different experience.
Speaker 2Yeah. The real like eye-opener, the first one for me was, oh, like striving for perfection, it might be perfection in quotes, might be the goal, but like no one attains that. No human... No one attains that. So be careful to not ask humans for answers that are not possible to come from human beings. And that's where that eventually moved to a real faith, a belief in God, a prayer practice that is, at least for me, it's the most consistent feature of my life for the last, you know, almost three years. And it's been interesting to be in a relationship where we like gone to church together and to pray together or to just pray with somebody, right? Yeah. When we parted ways at Stanford after the Veritas meeting, it was so interesting because we said goodbye, we did the usual like hug, like see you soon, brother, look me up, and you said, I'll pray for you. And you said, and if you don't mind, pray for me too. And I've been doing that. And it's... Now, some people might hear this and be like, oh boy, here we go. Here we go. A couple of scientists talking about... But if one just like entertains the possibility that maybe humans don't have all the answers, that's like a great vista to like skeptically look out. Yeah. That's kind of how I think they felt like a couple of years ago. It's kind of like, yeah. And then, you know, over time I've migrated very far forward. But I think that the whole thing of being like faith, I realize isn't this thing that one necessarily, especially like me, if you didn't grow up with a lot of it in your family, you know, just like run and fall, like new best friend. I know. It takes some... It doesn't have to happen that way. But I think people see that... And people see baptisms and they assume, okay, like into the water and you just like embrace, right? Born again. Right. Born again. Right. It's this like thick black line that you step over type thing. And one thing that I've learned from observing you and from conversations with you is that like it's allowed to be gradual. Yeah. It's okay to be skeptical, to move forward, to move back, to explore, to wonder, because that's all the stuff of having... It's okay to be skeptical, to move forward, to wonder, because that's all the stuff of having... It's okay to be skeptical, to move forward, to wonder, because that's all the stuff of having... It's okay to be skeptical, to move forward, to wonder, because that's all the stuff of having... It's okay to be skeptical, to move forward, to wonder, because that's all the stuff of having... It's okay to be skeptical, to move forward, to wonder, because that's all the stuff of having... It's okay to be skeptical, to move forward, to wonder, because that's all the stuff of having... It's okay to be skeptical, to move forward, to wonder, because that's all the stuff of having... It's okay to be skeptical, to move forward, to wonder, because that's all the stuff of having... human brain. And God probably wants that for us. And so I've been very, very moved by your teachings on Veritas that day, because for those that haven't seen it yet and weren't there, it was very clear that there was like a seasoned pro in there. Arthur grew up with a lot of structured religion and prayer practice in his home, and I did not, and coming to this rather late. So I was like the newbie. And it was so much, it was so liberating for me to be on a stage where in a room full of people where I was certain I was in the bottom 1% of knowledgeable about the topic. And that was what I could talk about, not knowing, right? It was so beautiful, the humility
Speaker 1that you actually brought to that to say, I don't know. I don't know, man. I'm just fumbling around here. I'm just doing my best. What I have written on my heart is that there is something here and I want more. And this is somebody who's... That's it. By the way, this is, according to the great sages, this is not proof of God, but it's evidence of something. Evidence of the existence of water is thirst. Evidence of the existence of sex is sexual desire. And there are no anthropologically any evidence of societies that are systematically secular. On the contrary, all human societies that we've been able to ascertain have a sense of the divine, have a sense of the things that we actually cannot see. And we have an innate desire for it. Not every single person watching us and not everybody in the exact same way. This is something that's characteristic of humanity. Otherwise, it would be absolutely evolved out of us. And by the way, that's evidence that the divine exists, is that we want the divine. It's like the desire. It's like the thirst. It's evidence of... An appetite is evidence of the existence of its object. That's a classic philosophical argument. And again, that's not evidence that God exists. That's not proof that God exists because you can't prove it. Faith is belief in something that is fundamentally based on a non-testable hypothesis, which is something that is fundamentally based on a non-testable hypothesis. It's super hard for you and me because testable hypotheses, that's where the action is. That's how we got hired at these fancy universities, is testing testable hypotheses. And yet the essence of living on the edge of the adventure of life as a scientist is to be in the realm of non-testable hypotheses of things that you deeply know in your heart exist. That's hardcore. That's what I want. That's the bite out of life that I want to take. But in keeping with this analogy earlier about
Speaker 2animalism, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. And I'm not trying to insult anyone here. I'm also speaking about many, many people who I deeply respect who will say, I don't have that craving. They don't have that wish. They don't have that thirst. And I can imagine there are probably two responses to that. One is that something has been deftly slid in front of them to give them the illusion that they're getting that thing, but it's not that thing, right? That they've made other aspects of life, I don't want to say they're God, but it's sort of filled in that hunger or thirst.
Speaker 1Maybe the terror of death, all that Ernest Becker stuff. And yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. Or at the other extreme, it could be a sort of spiritual anorexia, right? Like the circuits have, like, let's give them some credit. Maybe the circuits have actually modified to the point where the reward is in not wanting to satisfy the craving. Because the brain will do this too. This is what's so weird about these reinforce. I prefer the word reinforcement to reward because it it's more accurate because it's about closing a loop with desire and behavior, reset, desire,
Speaker 1behavior. Yeah. That's the wanting, learning, liking cycle. It's based on reinforcement.
Speaker 2Right. So the reinforcement, like dopamine and reinforcement always works. Dopamine and reward, it's complicated. Like you can stimulate dopamine through pain and no, and part of it is the offset of pain. It's rewarding.
Speaker 1This is one of the reasons that heroin addicts like the feel of the pinch of the needle going into the vein, right? That, that, that part of that is the pain is part of the reward per se, because it's actually reinforcing
Speaker 2the behavioral pattern. Exactly your point. If there was such a thing as a, a mild spiritual anorexia where people are actually getting pleasure from the fact that they are not interested in any of that and they got enough and they feel good not knowing. Right. You hear this. And I want to give, in fairness, I want to acknowledge those people exist and they're like good with the fact that they don't have a, a relationship, like a higher power relationship of belief in God. They don't have faith. They don't seem to have this thirst and the lack of it almost sounds in some cases like it's rewarding to them.
Speaker 1There's a pride that actually comes from being none, not an N-U-N, N-O-N-E. It's a designation. It's an identity. Actually, it's who I am as a person. I don't actually need that. And, and by the way, there are all very compelling explanations that are not consistent or necessarily consistent with the idea that there's an all knowing, all loving God. I mean, Stephen Cave at Cambridge has written, has a really beautiful book called Immortality. Have you actually seen it? Have you read it? And, and he's a philosopher and he talks about the fact that the human brain is able to, is able to cap, to capture the concept of physical death. You know, you're going to die and you're, you're, you're completely comfortable in that knowledge. You don't mind not like it. You might not want it now, but you know, you're going to die, but your brain is incapable of, of understanding non-existence. So, you know, you're going to die, but you can't understand non-existence because that's, goes beyond our cognitive capacities. And so you've got to resolve it. One way to deal with it is to not deal with it, to never think about it, stay drunk and high or stay busy and be a complete workaholic, stay busy. Another way to deal with it is to create a resolution that says I'm going to die, but I'm, I'm going to continue to exist. And so I can understand that. And that would be a social explanation for the concept of religion. Some neurobiologists, you know, back in the day in the 1990s and early 2000s were doing work on the God module in the brain. And they were using these, these mag, you remember those magnetic helmets that they were doing on this thing. And what they would do is they would just stimulate the same part of the brain that's, that's touched with people who have, you know, grand mal seizures. And so a lot of people who have epileptic seizures events that they'll have, it'll be a mystical experience. And, you know, if you're, for example, a Catholic nun and you have an apparition of the blessed Virgin Mary, the protocol from the bishop is to check you for epilepsy first. Because it might just be that you had undiagnosed epilepsy and you had a seizure and it made you have a mystical experience, right? Okay. I get it. You know, and then these are ways to actually say that, you know, Andrew and Arthur are going off the reservation here. They're not being good scientists. There are plenty good philosophical and neuroscientific explanations for the experience of God per se. For me, that is uncompelling. And part of the reason that that's uncompelling for me is that I've been walking through across the earth for the last 62 years and I can't get it out of my mind. I'm not worried about the problem of non-existence. It's not that it's been resolved, but this is not a preoccupation of mine. And quite frankly, there are lots and lots and lots of times that I don't feel a single, you know, a single molecule of emotional faith. On the contrary. But I have a strong sense of the existence of the Creator, a strong sense of the divine. Do I understand Him? No. I have a very imperfect physics. For full disclosure, I'm a Catholic and I go to mass every day. Why do I do that? I do that not because I feel it, not even because I believe, but because I'm serving this intuition through practice. And by the way, for everybody who's watching us who's like, I don't know, maybe, but I don't feel it. So what? So what? You know, if anybody who's married, they know that if you went according to your feelings, you will not stay married a month. You absolutely won't. You don't even go according to your belief in the institution of marriage. You go you stay married because you practice marriage. And the same thing is true with your relationship with anybody, including with God. Start with practice. Occasionally you'll believe and very occasionally you'll feel it. That's the way the whole relationship actually works. Andrew, that's
Speaker 2the protocol. I was happy to hear that the bishop has protocols. They do. But the protocol for
Speaker 1individual faith is not feeling, belief, practice. It's practice, belief, feeling. Without any attempt
Speaker 2to take away from the depth and impact of what you just described. I sat across this very table from Pavel Satsoulin, who's one of like the most revered strength trainers in the world, right? And he said like, and he said, as you, occasionally he'd say my name, Andrew, and then he'd like, tell me something. And he said, you don't weight lift, you don't work out. He's like, you practice strength training. Yeah. And it, and I, it's like, I don't know, I sort of get it. I, okay. Yeah. We can call it one thing or another. He's like, no, no. Every time you do it, you're practicing to get better at it. And that changes the whole motivational structure is, is what he essentially was saying. And that changes your expectation of what you're going to get out of it. Right. It's yes, you expect to get stronger, but it's this, this notion that you're always the student of yourself. You're always the student of this process and you never really expect to like conquer it because there's always more weight you could add. Yeah. Now this is a, this is a very mechanical, physical analogy to what you're describing, but there's an important, I think, um, elegance, um, in what he said and what you said. And the similarity there, I think is synergistic, which is when something is a practice, we are not focused on the outcome as much as we are the process. Yeah. That's, you know, fairly straightforward, but then there's this almost like higher order thing that comes from that because it predicts with near certainty that you'll continue doing it. Whereas if you're trying to obtain the, like grab the ring, get the prize, get the ribbon, lift the weight that has a ceiling to it. And so what you're really talking about in the real form of the word is ascension. Mm-hmm . Like, through practice, there's, like, ascension. Like, otherwise, like, there's only, there's the top podium. Right. There's, in science, there's a Nobel Prize. Right. You know, like, there are these awards. Like, you know, but, like, those are things, again, that are human. Like, we set those levels. But the laws of physics have an upper limit. Right. But what you're talking about doesn't have an upper limit. That's right. Like, we can't say this person experienced God more than anybody else. Right. And that's the goal. Yeah. Like, there's no ceiling to this relationship.
Speaker 1The way that the, in Vedic wisdom, the way that this is understood, they have a very, very elegant way of understanding this. And, by the way, the idea of practice, no joke. You practice your marriage. You practice in your job. You practice friendship. And you practice your religion for precisely the same reason that you practice lifting weights as opposed to just lifting weights. You practice it because practice, you get better. The progress principle, we've already talked about that. But the way that Indians talk about that over the course of a life is this. And it's based on this empirical regularity. This is a weird thing. People tend to get more religious as they get older. And, you know, James Fallow, the sociologist, wrote about this. He says, people, you know, they wander away and they're in their 20s. And I'm like, yeah, come on, man. I mean, an all-knowing, all-loving God. Well, explain kids getting sick and dying. And so they're like, no. Explain suffering. Right. Explain suffering. And you and I have talked about this before. You know, we were at Stanford. We talked about the problem with pain. And the problem with suffering. But when they're in their 40s, what Fowler notices is people get more religious for the following reason. When you're in your 40s, that's when you're like, yeah, you know what? Nothing makes sense. Actually, nothing makes sense.
Speaker 2You've done enough that you can say that.
Speaker 1Yeah, you can actually. I'm not going to resolve everything. You want a closed-form solution to life all the way through your 20s and 30s. You think that there's a kind of a calculus to it. And you realize that these are computational methods to everything that you're doing, which means you need to do it. No, there's no closed-form solution. You got to get a simulation going here to use. I'm an old operations research analyst. So, yeah, there's no closed-form solution to anything you really care about, which is, you know, the result of it is everything's messy. And you're much more comfortable with the cognitive dissonance of the problem of pain. And the result of it is that you actually look for something that has these transcendent properties, notwithstanding the contradictions that you actually see around you. The way that the Indians talk about that interest is as follows. Life is in four quarters. This is called the theory of the ashramas, which is a Sanskrit word, you know, for quarters of life. And the ideal life is 100 years long. And each one of these is 25 years. But your results may vary, right? The first quarter is brahmacharya, which means the student phase. Learn, learn, learn, learn. The second is grihastha, which is the householder phase. Earn, build, earn, build, family, business. That's up to 50. That's up to 50. OK. But at 50, you have a second adolescence that leads you into vanaprastha, which is a word in Sanskrit. That means it's from two words, vanna and prastha, meaning retiring into the forest, retirement and forth. And it's a metaphor. You're back into the forest, right? And what you're doing is you're actually gradually moving away from, not from doing your job, you know, not from your relationships, but from the scoreboard, from the honors of the world. And what are you doing? You're getting into an elite training for the last quarter, which is sannyasa, which that is the to sit. And the luminescence of the divine, of the godhead, of Brahman in Hinduism is the whole idea. But that requires super elite training. You're not going to get to 75 and experience time. Because time, for people who are very religious or very spiritual, time is completely different than the success addict. It's like time's running out. Got to do more, more, more, more. Like hedonic treadmill. For people who are very, very spiritual, time becomes less forward moving and more sort of lateral. It kind of spreads. It spreads out like the delta of a river where it slows down and you can't tell where the ocean begins and the river finishes. That's your life. That's what it means to sit in the luminescence of God. And when death comes, it's simply, it's a process. It's gradual. It's not binary at all, notwithstanding the fact that we can actually say where the electricity of the brain stops. It is a deeply, deeply spiritual and comfortable thing. But that requires the elite training of anaprastha. Not after 50 necessarily, because most people listening. To us, if they're enlightened, it might be they're 29 or they're 36. But the elite training of, and the elite training is actually not, you know, memorizing the whole Bible. It's asking the deep questions. Who am I? Who is God? Who created this? What is love? Am I loved? Can I love? These are the deep metaphysical questions that actually lead us to the ultimate source of that love and the imperfect physics that is organized religion.
Speaker 2How are you? How are you as a 62-year-old exploring this third phase? You described you go to Mass every day. Yeah. Is that sometimes online or always in person? Always in person.
Speaker 1So, and the great thing is, you know, the Catholic Church is like Starbucks. It's like, it's a very uniform, available product with high quality. And so, you know, I go with my wife at 6.30 in the morning when I'm home. And I'm home usually four days a week. I'm on the road 48 weeks a year, but usually about three days. A week that I'm out, sometimes four days a week. And, you know, I've got an app. Click, next Mass. It's great because it's literally the same product every place in the world, 450,000 times a day.
Speaker 2I'm very lucky in this way. It's like finding a gym. So, you're up at 4.30 in the morning. Yeah. And you're in the gym working out. For an hour. Six, seven days a week. Seven days a week. Seven days a week.
Speaker 1Seven days a week. But it's a four-day cycle. I'm obviously not doing the same thing, right? I have unbelievable stress injuries.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Push-pull legs, yoga.
Speaker 2Push-pull legs, zone two. And yoga. Super impressive diligence. And then you're in Mass. And then you move about your day. Yeah. Do you have a prayer practice at the end of your day? I do.
Speaker 1I pray the rosary over the course of the day. Generally speaking, I pray the Divine Office with my wife, which is an ancient monastic set of prayers that monks have been saying since St. Benedict in the 6th century. And that punctuates the day. My wife and I, we do it on FaceTime or on the phone, no matter where I am, almost any place in the world, as a matter of fact, before the end of the day. In India, which I try to go every year, while I'm going to sleep, she's saying the Divine Office for nighttime prayers at lunchtime. But we do that. And we do that together because that's a deep, deep right brain melding. One flesh for a married couple should be the union of the right hemispheres, where you have a deep, intuitive understanding of life itself that you can't quite explain, but you both understand. That's the satisfaction of a marriage.
Speaker 2So this right brain connection, you know, Dr. Alan Shore, right, who's been a guest on this podcast, and I loved his book. And, I mean, he really emphasized the importance of this right brain connection between especially mother and child, but also father and child. Right.
Speaker 1Husband and wife, close friends.
Speaker 2Yeah, that, you know, that the joining, you know, synchronizing the rise in like elation and then, and also the troughs, right? And then the calm peace of... No need for excitement. Like that as really the core. He was mostly talking about the psychology and neurobiology of what real connection is about. And so beautiful to hear you talk about that in the context of a romantic relationship. For sure.
Speaker 1And that's, you know, the nice thing about that, and we talk about faith, family, friends, and work, for example. The apex of family and friendship is the spousal relationship. That's the apex because that's somebody that you've adopted as your kin. And it's the neurobiology of falling in love is so interesting. Right? Starting with attraction and sex hormones. But then when the catecholamines get involved for, you know, intense desire and anticipation of reward and the ebullience that comes from the, you know, the norepinephrine release that actually comes and wondering, does that text from her? It's one word. Who cares? Right? And then the serotonin drop, the deep serotonin drop that actually happens when you start to ruminate on the other person, the sweet misery that comes from the rumination on the other person, which is, you know... Pretty much indistinguishable neurobiologically from clinical depression, right? It's like there's no serotonin in the synapse. And then last but not least is these neuropeptides like oxytocin, vasopressin, but especially, you know, that bond you together and companionate love, which is what you actually want. You've adopted that person. That's your person. That's your kin. That's your best friend. That's your lover. That's the person who actually shares the right hemisphere of the deep meaning of your life. And, you know, one of the beautiful things about... It helps me understand how the philosophy and the theology and the neuroscience and the psychology, it's all one thing, man. It's all one thing. It all comes together in this beautiful way. That's why it's such a powerful thing that you and I want in our lives, you and I need in our lives.
Speaker 2Anyone can really start to clearly understand how, while there are wonderful technologies and things available in the world, that so much of what we're offered and fed and paying for... Yeah. ...with our time, especially our time, are ways to short-circuit the building of these things. For sure. Whether it's with a romantic partner or a vocation or with our friends or...
Speaker 1Workaholism, alcoholism, pornography, all these things they short-circuit.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, I was thinking pornography is sort of like, it literally short-circuits the circuit that is supposed to be this magnificent, immensely complicated, like, cocktail of things that you would call, like, a really, truly amazing relationship. and it's just tapping into one thing. I am sort of living in the land of analogies today, but not unlike when I had a guy on this podcast, Chris McCurdy, who studies plant-based medicines, but not psychedelics. And he was talking about how the problem in this country is that we learn to isolate and synthesize the most potent of the plant molecules and they become very addictive. So whether they're painkillers or they're cocaine or they're kratom, but that in the whole plant form, these things actually had balance. And so there's a really, I think an appropriate perhaps analogy there that like when we try and get one slice of this in high potency and not have to risk anything to get it, you lose the whole thing.
Speaker 1When you shear something off from the whole experience, that's when it actually becomes addictive. That's when it becomes pathological. Naturally speaking, a lot of these processes, a lot of the things that we actually experience are supposed to be there. Look, I mean, we're so good at taking, at solving a little problem and creating a major crisis. You know, like, ah, man, that's like, I got a headache. I need something stronger. I need something stronger. I need something stronger. A hundred thousand people died of, you know, opiate overdoses or something last year. This is what actually happens. And then there are other things that we do as well. And by the way, you know, lest we look like we're, you know, holier than thou, workaholism is a classic case of this as well. It's just that that particular addiction sheared off from the natural, you know, humane and even divine process of creating value, you know, on this earth, when we become workaholics, the result is that people congratulate us for it. You know, can you imagine somebody who said, Andrew, you are unbelievably good at drinking vodka. You put away two 750 milliliter bottles of that last night and you were completely blacked out. But I was amazed at how adroit you are. You're talented. You're a great drinker.
Speaker 2This was the college I went to, you know, and I wasn't a big drinker there, but people would try and impress each other with how much they could drink.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you're our age. However, if you're doing that, people are, you think that you're, you know, a pathetic drunk. But if you're our age, my age, and if I'm 62 years old, completely neglecting my family and doing only stuff to run up the scoreboard on money and power and fame or whatever, people are going to be like, dude, you're good at your job. You're awesome. You know, it's like, I, yeah. You know how many speeches I gave last year? You know, how many frequent flyer miles I got? People are going to be like, it's really, really impressive. But the whole point is that sheared off from the natural human experience, it's an addictive behavior, it's dangerous, it's pathological, it's bad for us, and it leads to misery.
Speaker 2Yeah. I think what saved me was hearing the phrase, I don't know where I heard it was, everyone loves a young drunk. Yeah. And I was like, oh yeah, like this, this rolled forward does not look good. How old were you when you stopped? In college. I mean, and I- You stopped really early. No, I drank, but I noticed early on, mostly because I was doing a lot of catch up with my academics and then got into physical fitness. And I drank basically until my early 40s, but less and less and less and less. Oh, you did. Okay. Yeah. And then finally it was just like, no more. Just got to stop. I'm done. I'm done. I drank more and more and more and more and then stopped until my late 30s. Probably it was very socially unacceptable and isolating to not drink. People were like, academics would be like, you're boring. But I'd kick their butt the next day at the meeting when they're all kind of like worked. And then I'd see them. And I'm not one of these people like things like, oh, aesthetics and muscle and leanness are all it. But I'd see people get tenure. And I was like, you look like shit. I know. You look like you aged 25 years. And your kids are miserable. And all I hear are complaints about this. And I'm like, well, you're not taking care of yourself. So I don't want to be like that. So I figured I'm not the smartest, but I can work hard. Right. And if I get more years, then eventually I can catch up or get ahead. But it wasn't really competitive for me. I also just didn't like how it felt. I lucked out. But in any case, with the workaholism, as you're describing it, that is a very dangerous one.
Speaker 1Yeah. That's usually a secondary affliction based on success addiction, the addiction to success, down to that reward, that reinforcement. You get that little reward, the reinforcement of your goodness, the understanding of yourself. And so success addiction leads to workaholism. Success addiction, once again, is really downstream from earning love, from the belief that I can be enough if I do enough. The human doing phenomenon is actually what we see. The beautiful thing about this is that I talk about the behavioral science principles. We've touched on the philosophy. We've talked so much about the mechanisms on this show and in your writing and in your scholarship about the neurobiology behind it. And we're all wonderfully made. This all ties up in the same area. It's not like one thing leads in one direction and something else leads in another. On the contrary, you can get, there are many paths to these truths. The real pity is when we're not looking for the truth. The real pity is when we're distracting ourselves from what it actually means to be the people that we want to be, which leads us to the very beginning of this conversation. What if you were the person who was the person who was the person who was the person who was the person that you wanted to be? You know, that's, and the fact that we can actually do so by looking at this space of moral aspiration, I think that's a miracle. I think that's an incredible miracle.
Speaker 2Before we wrap, I have two things. First, a question and then a consideration. So I suppose both are questions because the consideration is for you. The first question is for somebody listening to this conversation today, I mean, earlier we were talking about exploring one's choices about and relationship to leisure and you touched on a number of other important points that you know, people can return to because we've, we timestamp these of course. But if there's a question or a small set of questions that anyone at any age can ask themselves that can help them redirect or just better orient in space and time and choice making, what are those? I mean, or do those, do those sorts of questions exist? Is there a self-assessment that actually does that? No, it will just, you know, like if we were going to, if we were, you know, shared this time on an airplane, I'm like, hey, thanks. And we didn't have cell phones. I'm like, anything else I should think about before we part ways? Like you got any suggestions, you know, or, or a book recommend, whatever. So much of what you said today is fodder for more questions. Yeah. Which is, which is means you've done, which is,
Speaker 1our work is so awesome. Our work is like a self-licking ice cream cone. Oh man, I haven't
Speaker 2heard that analogy in a long time. And that's how we used to describe some grants that we were about to deny. So let's not do that. Yeah. So asking about how one spends leisure, understanding this relationship between pleasure and moral aspiration and, and, and seeking to, to fuse those, because that clearly is a powerfully great thing to do. Who wouldn't want to do more of that? Are there any other sort of probe questions that we might ask ourselves like once a day or once a week, you know, while
Speaker 1we're leaving the gym or mass or whatever? Yeah. Yeah. What is the, yeah, no. And, and there are certain things that, you know, inventories that I actually try to take, you know, to make sure that my hygiene is appropriate, right? Holding yourself to high account is unbelievably important. Holding yourself to much higher account than anybody else would hold you. That's one of the reasons that the happiest people are the people who have a strong sense of propriety that they practice when no one sees them. You know, that's the essence of being honest with yourself. You know, it's one thing that you and I know so many famous people and, and typically they have a public persona and a private persona just because you have to separate those particular things. But the other thing is, you know, you have to be honest with yourself, right? Because if you're honest with yourself, you have to be honest with yourself, right? And you have to be honest with yourself. And you have to be honest with yourself, right? And you have to be honest with yourself, right?
Speaker 2That's the better answer to what I was asked earlier, but like, yes, opens opportunities,
Speaker 1limits freedoms, but you nailed it. Yeah. Those people, the people who are happy in spite of being famous are the same people when you're alone at dinner with them as they are in front of 10,000 people in an arena. They are. And I know people like that. I know people like Oprah Winfrey is like that. Oprah Winfrey is the same person at the dinner table. Oprah Winfrey is the same person at the dinner table as she is in a screaming arena full of people. And she's a well-integrated person and she's happy in spite of the fact that she's one of the probably five most famous people in the world. You know, it's extraordinary. I mean, I just coauthored a book with her, which was incredible learning experience about my own field by observing her life, right? But there aren't very many people like that. So the way to do that is to subject yourself to, you know, the queries that you would use on somebody else. You know, what are the probing questions? And, you know, that we have, it's usually based on, you know, asking people a set of questions. You know, I could walk through what's my idol? Am I serving my idols? There are a bunch of things like that. But fundamentally, for example, we all can fall into suffering about, you know, sort of the sense of emptiness, the ennui that comes from, you know, the modern world. We all feel depressed from time to time. There is a set of questions, why questions that interrogates whether or not we actually are the most important macronutrient of our own happiness, which is the meaning of our lives. Here are the three questions, the three big whys that I ask myself continuously, that I probe and I have to answer honestly, because being honest with myself is the essence of getting into the moral space. Number one, why do I think things actually happen the way that they do? And am I acting in accordance with that? And for a religious person like me, if I say, I think things happen the will of God, but I'm not acting that way, that's going to be a source of misery. Am I acting like I believe that the will of God exists and is true? Or am I acting like everything has to do with me, which means I'm freaking out about everything. I'm super stressed out about, you know, what's going to happen tomorrow that's completely out of my control. I'm anxious all the time. I'm worrying continuously. Worry is evidence of a lack of faith. And so therefore, if I say I'm committing to my faith, it immediately extinguishes worry, right? You shouldn't feel guilty. about it, you should act according to the person that you are. Number one, that's the coherence question for philosophers. Why do things happen the way they do? Am I acting that way? Second, why am I doing what I'm doing? That's the purpose question. That's the purpose in life. Purpose and meaning are not the same thing. Purpose is a subcategory of meaning. Why am I doing the things that I am actually doing? And then the next question beyond that is, is that in accord with my beliefs? Am I doing the things that I'm doing in accord with my beliefs? But why am I doing them? And by the way, for you and me, it might be because I'm chasing my idol, because I want more control, because I want more adoration of strangers, because I want more money, because I want to feel good. Is that in accord with my beliefs? And then the last part is, why does my life matter? And that's really to whom? Am I acting according to the people to whom my life actually matters? Am I acting that way? Am I marginalized? By the way, Andrew, I've screwed this up so many times. When I was a CEO running this big nonprofit organization, which was so important, right? I was at one point at the very end of it, I was interviewing a bunch of very famous and rich financial professionals for a book that I was starting to write that came out after I left. And when I was already back in academia called From Strength to Strength, it was a book about getting happier as you get older. And this woman is like a billionaire. I mean, unbelievable, named firm. Famous. And she's telling me about her achievements. I'm like, congratulations. That's great. She says, I'm so unhappy. I said, well, talk to me, sister. What gives? She said, my husband and I were married, but we're roommates. I have adult kids with a cordial relationship. I think my employees are, they do what I say, but I think they're afraid of me. I don't think my decision-making is crisp anymore. I don't love it, but I don't know what else to do. She said, I go to the doctor and the doctor says, you need to stop drinking and get into the gym. But I keep drinking. I don't go to the gym. She said, when I grew up, I went to church when I was a little girl and I loved that. I always wanted that. And I don't go to church and I don't know why. And she says, professor, what am I supposed to do? And I said, you don't need a Harvard professor. You just wrote your own prescription. Take a souvenir in your company and step back. Go away with your husband and get to know him. Go move closer to your kids. Get into AA. Go to the gym. Go back to church. Look, it's right there. She says, I know, I know, I know. I said, so why not? Why didn't you do that? And she was silent for a long time. And finally, she said, because I've always chosen to be special rather than happy. And that was like a knife to my heart. Because at that point in my life, me too. You know how many Little League games I didn't go to? Look, Little League games are boring. Let's be honest. But it's my kids. You know how many birthdays that I missed? Because I was trying to be special and successful and adored. I have people who don't care about me. And that specialness, that's an animal impulse that is hardwired into us. The moral aspiration is to choose happiness over that particular specialness. And that's the significance question. Why does my life matter? And to whom? And am I acting in accord and responsibly with my answer to that question? That's the interrogation.
Speaker 2That's the point, Professor Arthur Brooks. It's awesome. Those are great, great questions that I will be asking over and over. And that everyone should consider asking and trying to answer over and over for themselves. So I'm really moved. Thank you. Me too. You know, I've been doing this podcasting thing a while now. And every once in a while, someone sits down here and takes us someplace else. I knew you were that guy because we had shared the conversation before. Yeah. You've given me so much to think about. I'm going to be listening to this and taking notes
Speaker 1for my own reasons. No, thank you. Thank you. What an honor it is. You've blessed me again and again and again and again with the scientific knowledge that you bring to it, but the soul you actually bring to the science. That's the magic formula that you actually bring to all your work.
Speaker 2Well, thank you. I have a couple of people in my life who are about, I've always had a couple of people in my life who are about 10 years older. I really look up to you. I really do. I admire you. Thank you. But it's a potent one. I won't tell you who else is on camera, who else is on there, but it's an all-star team. I aspire to be more like you. And I say that with all the respect that you're a human and you have your struggles, but I think it's important for anyone at a given developmental stage to look at people who've migrated the path more or less that they're on, but are ahead of them and get some useful information. So I appreciate that. So whether you like it or not, you're a mentor to me.
Speaker 1Thank you, Edward. Thank you. That means the world to me and we're all on the path. We're all on the path. We all have our, life is, every religious tradition has pilgrimages, almost every religious tradition. If you go across India, you see mendicants that are actually walking toward a holy city. In the Christian faith, we have three big pilgrimages to Jerusalem, to Rome, and to Santiago de Compostela, which is the Camino de Santiago. And these pilgrimages are metaphorical for what we're actually trying to do with our lives, which is why they're such deeply mystical and spiritual experiences. I recommend that everybody go on a 500 mile walk across Northern Spain from the French border to Santiago de Compostela. You didn't do it on your knees, did you? I did not do it on my knees, but I've done it just the last eight days, two times, because my wife won't do more than eight days. And I love my wife. But the point is you have that, what you realize is that that's a metaphor for your life. We're walking through this life. We're all learning. Andrew's on a pilgrimage. Arthur is on a pilgrimage. Every single person watching us is on a pilgrimage. And that means progress, but that actually means the excellence that actually comes from making progress in little ways every single day and being open to metaphysical truths. So it moves me a lot that I could be some little stone church on the side of
Speaker 2the road on your pilgrimage. Well, you absolutely are. And in sharing this with other people, you are to them too. So I did say I had one more question slash consideration. So I'm so inspired and struck by what you shared that I think it would be worth considering perhaps, and don't feel obligated to answer here. Maybe we just leave it a cliffhanger and not answer on here, or if you want, you can. People would really benefit from hearing from you more in the context of structured sets of questions. I know you do this on your podcast, and we've touched on some of that today. You have your books and so forth, but be fun to explore the possibility of doing a exploration series with you at some point. And we can figure out the venue if it's on here or it's elsewhere. But if you'd be willing to consider ways we could explore things more fully, also selfishly, so I can learn more from you. Likewise. My answer is yes. Awesome. Let's do it, man.
Speaker 1All right, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's get a band together. Fantastic. I love it. God bless you. God bless you too, Andrew. Thank you for all the things that you're bringing to me and for all the people who are watching. I'm honored to be part of this. Thank you for joining me for today's
Speaker 2discussion with Dr. Arthur Brooks. To learn more about his work and to find links to his many excellent books, please see the show note caption. If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero cost way to support us. In addition, please follow the podcast by clicking the follow button on both Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five-star review. And you can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple. Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the way to support this podcast. If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast or guests or topics that you'd like me to consider for the Huberman Lab podcast, please put those in the comments section on YouTube. I do read all the comments. For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out. It's my very first book. It's entitled Protocols, an operating manual for the human body. This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years, and that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience. And it covers protocols for everything from sleep to exercise to stress control, protocols related to focus and motivation. And of course, I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols that are included. The book is now available by presale at protocolsbook.com. There you can find links to various vendors. You can pick the one that you like best. Again, the book is called Protocols, an operating manual for the human body. And if you're not already following me on social media, I am Huberman Lab on all social media platforms. So that's Instagram, X, Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And on all those platforms, I discuss science and science-related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the information on the Huberman Lab podcast. Again, it's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms. And if you haven't already subscribed to our Neural Network Newsletter, the Neural Network Newsletter is a zero-cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries, as well as what we call protocols in the form of one to three-page PDFs that cover everything from how to optimize, how to optimize, how to optimize, how to optimize, optimize your sleep, how to optimize dopamine, deliberate cold exposure. We have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training. All of that is available completely zero cost. You simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the menu tab in the top right corner, scroll down to newsletter and enter your email. And I should emphasize that we do not share your email with anybody. Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Arthur Brooks. And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science. I'll see you in the next episode of Neural Network Newsletter.
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