In this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Joe sits down with Michael Hyatt to talk about his new book, The Comfort Crisis, and why we need to push back against the comfort that we ve created for ourselves. Joe and Michael talk about how we ve become so used to being comfortable that we don t even notice the discomfort around us anymore, and what we can do to push against the soft bed, the microwaveable breakfast burrito, and the soft chair in front of the microwave to get us out of the comfort zone. Joe also talks about the benefits of getting outside of our comfort zone, and how we can explore the edges of our "soft space" in order to challenge ourselves in ways we ve never been challenged in our past, and explore the potential that we can create for ourselves in the soft space we ve built for ourselves right now. This episode was produced and edited by Alex Blumberg. The opinions expressed here are our own, not those of our companies, unless otherwise specified. We do not own any of the rights to the music used in this episode. It was produced, produced, and licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. All credit given to artists and labels used with permission. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and review in the comments section below. Thank you for listening and reviewing it! Tweet me if you have any thoughts, suggestions, suggestions or suggestions for future episodes or topics you d like to be featured in future episodes. Timestamps? or have a podcast episode? or are looking for us to use in the next episode of The Joe Rogans podcast, or any other podcast episode, we'd love to know what you d love to hear us shout about it out on the show? ? and we'd like to hear it out in a future episode of his podcast! Tweet us on :) <3 Thanks for listening to Joe's podcast, Tim's Insta: - Timestories: . , & @ , and ( ) : Music: (Music: "The Comfort Crisis Podcast: , "The Goggins Song: ) & "The Peacefully Awkwardness Podcast" by . ( ) , ( ) & , & ) -
00:00:41.000So if you think of the average person's daily life, they wake up in the soft bed, temperature-controlled home, they shuffle over to the microwave, microwave of breakfast burrito, right, that came in from who knows where and is made with who knows what, and then it's like, I go to work, I drive to work,
00:00:59.000I don't have to move at all or put any effort into this day, and then it's back to bed in front of the TV, and you just rinse and repeat that at no point in daily life.
00:01:08.000I would argue, are people really challenged or really uncomfortable anymore, like we were in our past?
00:01:40.000Well, it's for folks that just, like, say if you work in an office, and this is how you make a living, and you have to do that commute, and there's no other options, and this is what you do.
00:01:51.000Like, for them to hear this, they're like, yeah, yeah.
00:01:57.000Well, I mean, the answer is not to totally overhaul your lifestyle, right?
00:02:02.000I mean, we have amazing lives right now.
00:02:03.000The fact that we don't have to go out and hunt for food or put physical effort into every day is great.
00:02:09.000But at the same time, I think, and I argue in the book, The Comfort Crisis, that we need these moments that push back at us, and we need to sort of investigate these discomforts that we used to face in our evolutionary past.
00:03:11.000Yeah, they just were trying to get by.
00:03:12.000Yeah, and we spend 95% of our time indoors as well.
00:03:15.000And we know that there's benefits to getting out and moving more.
00:03:19.000We know there's benefits to being outside.
00:03:21.000We also know that there's benefits to truly being challenged in life.
00:03:25.000It's like, like I said before, you can basically never be challenged as you go through life in a real sort of fundamental way.
00:03:33.000And you'll probably have a decent life.
00:03:36.000But you know, if you think about potential and human potential, let's say that Human potential is this big circle around us, right?
00:03:44.000Now, most of us live in this sort of dinner-sized place.
00:03:47.000We never go out and explore the edges of our potential by trying to get uncomfortable and doing things that are maybe a little outside of our comfort zone.
00:03:54.000We can just kind of exist in this sort of soft space that we've created for ourselves right now.
00:04:00.000And, of course, there are people who get out and You know, into that, those edges, like the Goggins of the world, like the Cam Haynes of the world.
00:04:09.000But I think most people don't really go out and see what they're capable of.
00:04:15.000Now, I don't think anybody's going to push back against this book.
00:04:35.000Well, there's nothing wrong with being sedentary and having your body turn into jello.
00:04:39.000Well, there's nothing wrong with living a boring life with no stress at all and, well, stress, but mental stress.
00:04:45.000No actual physical adversity to overcome, which stresses out the body but actually relaxes the mind.
00:04:54.000That's what people are missing, right?
00:04:57.000When you actually physically exert yourself, it actually calms the mind.
00:05:01.000And I think there's probably a direct correlation, although I haven't done any studies, I would imagine there's a direct correlation between physical inactivity and mental depression.
00:05:09.000I would have to imagine that there's at least some crossover there.
00:05:16.000I think that exercise, the studies show, it grows the hippocampus, which is an area that tends to be shrunken in people who have depression.
00:05:23.000So this is why the APA now advocates that psychiatrists recommend exercise to a lot of their patients.
00:05:30.000But I think to get back to your question of, am I going to have any pushback?
00:06:14.000Yeah, he looks like a fucking model for some J.Crew catalog out there wandering around.
00:06:19.000Maybe like an Abercrombie& Fitch, which I didn't know used to be like a little offside here, was a company that sold like fly fishing and outdoor stuff.
00:06:29.000Now it's like these weird young models.
00:09:27.000But it's like, do we really know how to get back into discomfort?
00:09:31.000And like, in the book, I argue that there are a handful of fundamental discomforts that we lost over time as the world became more comfortable.
00:09:40.000So, a few of the important ones are that...
00:09:44.000We don't take on these big, epic challenges in nature like we used to.
00:09:48.000So, for example, traditional rites of passage, all totally gone.
00:09:52.000You know, in the past, we would send young people out to do some trial.
00:09:57.000And the idea was that, like, hey, you're at stage one of life right now, but we need you to get to stage two so you can be a better contributor to the tribe and so you can almost become a new, more confident, capable person.
00:10:09.000And in order to do that, We're gonna send you out in the wild to do any number of things.
00:10:14.000It depends on, you know, what the culture was.
00:10:17.000So, for example, the Maasai, they would send young warriors out to hunt lions with a spear.
00:10:23.000And if you kill the lion, then you would officially transition into a warrior.
00:10:26.000And, you know, in that space, that trying middle ground, that's where you learn a lot about yourself and your potential.
00:10:35.000And by going through something like that, you come out on the other side, an improved person.
00:10:40.000And there's all kinds of different rites of passage throughout time.
00:10:43.000They're essentially what Joseph Campbell called the hero's journey.
00:10:46.000There's this, you know, typical archetype of, you know, leave comfort of home, go into this trying, challenging, uncomfortable middle ground, come out the other end, and you've learned something about yourself and evolved.
00:11:52.000You just push all the challenge out of your kid's life.
00:11:55.000So a good example of this would be the parents who paid to get their kids into those challenging schools, you know?
00:12:03.000So now you start to see kids who were born after 1990 have much higher rates of mental health problems, like anxiety and depression, because they essentially have no armor.
00:12:15.000Like, you've never really been challenged.
00:12:17.000So when you get into a classroom or whatever it is and someone challenges your idea, you have no idea how to deal with that.
00:12:41.000I think Jonathan Haidt's work points to bullying, particularly for girls.
00:12:45.000It seems to be for girls, social media is, like, Jordan Peterson talked about this, that men are more aggressive physically, but women are more aggressive in terms of reputation destruction.
00:14:25.000Boredom is this evolutionary discomfort that basically told us, whatever you're spending your time on right now, it's not an efficient use of your time.
00:14:35.000Now in the past, this would be like, let's say you're picking berries from a bush, you've picked the easiest to pick ones.
00:14:40.000Well, if we didn't have the skew of boredom, we'd be like reaching into the very back for the berries that are hard to pick, but they become successively harder to pick because we've picked all these different ones, right?
00:14:50.000Boredom would kick on and be like, hey, your return on your time invested has worn thin.
00:15:12.000Okay, so I'm a professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and one of the classes I teach is an intro class, so it's got about 150 students, and it's a media class I teach in the journalism department.
00:15:25.000First day of class, I'll talk about how, just how things have changed with media.
00:15:29.000You know, it's like we lived 2.5 million years with no media in our lives, and now it's become our lives.
00:15:33.000And then I will ask, all right, I want everyone to pull out your phone right now.
00:15:37.000I want you to look at your screen time.
00:16:36.000And what's interesting about boredom is when oftentimes, when boredom would kick on, we would go inward, sort of mind wander.
00:16:46.000And mind wandering, it gives you, your brain, some time to like reset and revive.
00:16:52.000Whereas anytime you're focused on the outside world, your brain is actively processing information.
00:16:58.000So this is kind of like in the book, I compare it to lifting a weight.
00:17:02.000When you're having a conversation, looking at your phone, watching a screen, whatever you're doing, if you're focusing on the outside world, your brain is working and it's lifting.
00:17:10.000When you go inward, your brain goes into this default mode network, which is like a rest period, right?
00:17:15.000So now, because every time we're bored, we just pull out that screen and focus more, our brains are just constantly being worked and overworked and overworked.
00:17:23.000This is associated with just burnout, anxiety, etc.
00:17:31.000Yeah, there's some real benefits to boredom in terms of creativity as well.
00:17:38.000Boredom is really good for coming up with new ideas.
00:17:40.000Yeah, and there's actually research behind this.
00:17:42.000They've done studies where they'll have...
00:17:45.000They'll have people watch something really boring, like a video of people folding laundry, just like they bore the shit out of these participants.
00:17:52.000And then they have them take these different creativity tests that scientists use, and the people who are bored come up with more better solutions and responses than the people who had been stimulated the whole time.
00:18:06.000And you think about this, I mean, just in terms of anecdotes from creators, it's like, You need time to just sit and be with yourself and have these weird ideas bubble to the surface.
00:18:17.000If you never have that, you're not letting the weird stuff come out, you know?
00:18:22.000Do you experience this when you're trying to think of stuff in your own work?
00:19:37.000And he basically says, he talks about the muse as if the muse is a real thing.
00:19:43.000And he's like, treat it like it's a real thing.
00:19:45.000Treat it like you're a professional and you're there to summon the muse.
00:19:48.000And if you just show up every day and do that work, it will come.
00:19:51.000It will come to you and it will bestow upon you these creative ideas.
00:19:55.000But if you don't do that, if you don't sit down and be uncomfortable, it won't happen.
00:20:03.000And in this day and age, like you said, we're so accustomed to having any boredom alleviated by our phone.
00:20:15.000You hear all this stuff that's like, break up with your phone, less time on your phone, here are a thousand different ways to use your phone less.
00:20:24.000But the problem is a lot of times when people go, okay, I'm going to use my phone less.
00:20:29.000So they put their phone in a safe or whatever weird habit they've developed, but then they go watch Netflix.
00:20:34.000It's like your brain doesn't know the damn difference between the screen on your phone and the screen on your TV. The point is that you need to remove yourself from this outside media that's totally just weaved its way into your life.
00:20:50.000The switch from phone to Netflix is like, oh, I'm quitting smoking, but I'm going to go buy some Redman and just pack that in real hard, you know?
00:22:28.000It's like if you want to leave the built environment, you're getting on big plane to medium plane to little plane to really little plane to why the fuck am I in this size plane?
00:23:22.000There's no one around me for miles and miles.
00:23:25.000My cell phone doesn't work because today we're increasingly, even when we think we're alone, we're with people through our cell phones, through text messages, through whatever.
00:23:36.000And you start to kind of get a little, at first I'm like, man, this is dangerous.
00:23:42.000Like I don't, like I did not like it at all.
00:23:43.000But then, you know, sort of as time went on, It's like, actually, this is kind of interesting to be totally removed from society because now all of a sudden it's like, we have all these social narratives of like, how do we act?
00:24:42.000And the injury, I hope I'm not fucking this up, is one of the things that motivated him to decide to move to the woods and build a cabin and film and document it all completely by himself.
00:26:38.000Okay, just play the video because this is the one I've seen.
00:26:43.000It was one of the ones I've seen, but it goes into great depth about how he built his cabin and what his history was and that he just became...
00:26:54.000Obsessed with the idea of being in nature and how much he loved it.
00:26:58.000And he lived there until he was in his 80s and then went to stay with his brother because his health was failing.
00:27:05.000And then eventually, you know, he lived the last days of his life, I think, in Washington State.
00:27:11.000But here it shows him making various tools.
00:27:16.000Wood auger to make a hammer with and makes makes a wooden mallet and did the whole deal like he made everything But he got just this tremendous satisfaction and talked about the tremendous satisfaction he got from just being allowed to live this subsistence life and Yeah.
00:27:35.000Have you seen these videos on YouTube where people are doing this similar thing where they'll show themselves make an entire log cabin?
00:28:53.000But figuring out, like, how do we balance this all and have these moments where we have, you know, solitude, go more inward and aren't as stimulated.
00:29:01.000So one thing that, you know, after I... I'm standing out there in solitude.
00:29:06.000When I get home, I start researching, you know, what are the benefits of solitude?
00:29:11.000Because we know that the data shows that being lonely isn't good for us, but there's the difference between loneliness and solitude.
00:29:19.000Like, solitude is electing to be by yourself and using that time for sort of introspection.
00:29:25.000And the scientists that I talked to, they said, yeah, you really need this because a lot of times people are more conductor circuits and they don't do well when they're alone at all.
00:29:35.000This is part of the reason we have such a loneliness problem.
00:29:37.000But if you can, like, build this capacity to be alone, they call it, like, that can serve you well in a long time.
00:29:47.000I mean, it's like there's a reason that thousands of years of religious tradition, they have people who go and spend this time alone out in nature.
00:29:55.000I mean, Jesus was in the desert for 40 days.
00:29:57.000The Buddha exited the palace gates, you know, and spent a bunch of time alone and in solitude.
00:30:03.000Even Abraham Lincoln used solitude for a lot of his writing and stuff like that.
00:30:09.000And I feel like people don't have that as much anymore.
00:32:36.000We pitch this thing on this, like, kind of knob, because the winds are coming in from a direction where, like, oh, it's going to be protected, and then we'll move it when the winds shift in a couple days.
00:32:45.000While the winds shift overnight, I wake up, and there's just, like, this pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, the fabric, you know?
00:32:52.000And the winds just keep coming, get faster and faster overnight.
00:32:56.000And eventually by morning, I mean, they're like 70 mile an hour gusts.
00:33:00.000And I'm just like, holy shit, we're going to lose this thing.
00:33:03.000And then like, what do we do after that?
00:33:04.000Like, it's just crazy and it's freezing, you know?
00:36:15.000This was a ways into it, I don't know, maybe like 15, something like that?
00:36:20.000What if you guys had been successful early?
00:36:22.000Like, what if you ran into a herd, like, on the second or third day?
00:36:27.000Then we wouldn't have been so damn hungry.
00:36:30.000But you were going to stay out there no matter what.
00:36:32.000Yeah, we were going to stay out there no matter what.
00:36:34.000Yeah, because, I mean, you know, Donnie, he wants footage, and I signed on because I wanted to experience that, you know, so we would have stayed out there.
00:36:43.000Now, did you guys have a lot of supplies in terms of food, or were you living off your back?
00:36:49.000We were mostly living off our back, yeah.
00:38:58.000There's benefits to being dirty, especially if it's outside dirtiness, not like indoor dirtiness like raw chicken and other people's germs.
00:41:54.000Out of shape he was, how soft he was in comparison to them, and how difficult their life is.
00:41:59.000And just, it puts into perspective how many things you take for granted.
00:42:02.000Oh, we totally take so many things for granted.
00:42:04.000I mean, when we got back, the first thing we did is we're in this airport in Kotzebue, and the airport is like a shed, a big shed more or less, right?
00:42:16.000But it has running heated water, and so I go in and I, you know, I pee and I get to the faucet and it hits me.
00:42:23.000It's like, holy shit, this is running water.
00:42:27.000I mean, I had the biggest shit-eating grin on my face from that hot water.
00:42:30.000It was like, oh my god, this is unbelievable.
00:42:33.000Because out there, anytime we needed water, it's like we got a...
00:42:37.000Hike down to a stream, fill up these water bags, hike them back up to camp, you know, and everything is effortful.
00:42:45.000So having these moments where you get out of that, you know, sort of comfort zone that we're used to, it helps you become a lot more appreciative of everything that we have.
00:42:55.000I mean, we had another one when I was just telling you we had to go back out across, back through the tundra to get back to the teepee that one night.
00:43:04.000I mean, that was one of those where, you know, it hit me.
00:43:07.000If we would have quit, like, you can't quit.
00:43:09.000You know, you have to just keep going.
00:43:11.000Because if you stay out there overnight, I mean, that's a lot more dangerous than just putting one foot in front of the other and making it back.
00:43:18.000And, you know, before I went up to Alaska, like...
00:43:21.000For example, my wife and I, we go to this restaurant all the time, and the food is amazing, amazing, but the service is not quite there.
00:43:31.000And before I get to Alaska, I would just sit there as we're waiting, being like, oh, God, this place is so mismanaged.
00:43:35.000What the fuck is wrong with these people?
00:44:18.000And so it makes you so much more appreciative, you know?
00:44:20.000And it also sort of makes me, made me less of an asshole.
00:44:26.000Because once you're appreciative, you're slightly less of a nitpicky person.
00:44:30.000Which, you know, imagine if we could put 5% less of an asshole on At scale for everyone.
00:44:36.000My friend Dan Doty actually does that with young troubled men.
00:44:40.000He takes them on these experiences in the woods, this sort of rites of passage type deal.
00:44:47.000A lot of young guys, particularly ones from affluent households who really don't have any challenges in their life, and he takes them and has them live in the woods with them.
00:45:29.000And came back with Deere and then we went to this place, I believe it was Billings, we went to this just ratchet fucking motel that we stayed in and took a hot shower and it was phenomenal.
00:45:45.000It was like one of the best experiences of my life.
00:45:56.000Like, there was nothing nice about this motel room.
00:46:00.000Except there was everything nice about it in that moment, right?
00:46:03.000Oh my god, the fucking shower was glorious.
00:46:06.000You know, and I had brought my own soap, you know, because I travel with— That's good planning.
00:46:12.000This is soap that I use called Defense Soap, and it's got—it's mostly—it was developed for grapplers, but it's all to protect your skin from, like, skin issues like ringworm and stuff like that.
00:46:26.000My friend Guy Sacco created it for wrestlers, and it's all tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil, so it's really good for you.
00:51:05.000We're just cranking at, you know, what we think is going to be about 300 yards.
00:51:08.000We, like, get into the dirt and we army crawl.
00:51:11.000And I've got the, you know, meanwhile I have the rifle.
00:51:14.000And army crawl a couple hundred yards, pop up, can't see anything, another hundred yards.
00:51:21.000And I'm looking through the scope and Donnie has binoculars, you know.
00:51:24.000And all of a sudden at the apex of the saddle just, like, appear these antlers, right?
00:51:32.000And then more antlers and there's about 30 of them in this herd and we'd already identified at least two that we thought were older and bigger.
00:51:40.000And they come over this saddle and down like exactly as we'd hoped and you know they're 300 yards, 200 yards and still at this point I'm like Are you sure you're going to do this, man?
00:53:12.000And so we walk out and it's, you know, down on the tundra, almost like it had been placed perfectly.
00:53:19.000There's the only sign that it is dead is there's like this tiniest trickle of blood coming down its mane.
00:53:26.000And I was like, dude, what have you done?
00:53:31.000Like, look at this majestic thing and that's on you, you know?
00:53:36.000And Donnie's a good person to go with because him and William were like, hey, we're gonna go get our stuff because we left our packs back there.
00:54:07.000But at the same time, I'm like, I don't know if I'd ever do this again.
00:54:11.000Those guys get back and Then we start to, you know, field dress the animal.
00:54:17.000And in that moment, my mind started to shift because I went from, okay, you just killed this majestic creature to now I'm seeing it as meat and therefore a giver of life or less.
00:54:31.000And I think to myself, dude, you eat meat all the time at home and never once do you feel an iota of emotion, but you do here.
00:54:39.000And so it made me a lot more appreciative of Not only like that animal and the place where it came from, but also all meat that I eat now, right?
00:54:48.000Like it totally woke me up to like what goes into eating meat.
00:57:25.000I mean, we're like four-wheeling this smart car thing, and it was just unbelievable.
00:57:29.000And after 45 minutes, you know, he pulls over, and I have to hike for maybe 10 minutes along this trail and get to this guy's shack.
00:57:39.000And, you know, he has someone there who helps him with stuff, and she makes me do this, like, cleansing ritual with, like, smoke and, you know, some water.
00:57:54.000Very basic, like a cooktop or whatever.
00:57:56.000And the third room has this silk sort of drape in it.
00:58:01.000And I pull that drape back and I'm immediately hit with the smell of burning incense.
00:58:07.000And on the right, there's this, there's like a big statue of the Buddha and like photos and different little, you know, trinkets, Buddhist trinkets.
00:58:17.000And then I look over and the light is like catching this incense smoke.
00:58:23.000And behind it, there's this guy's face.
00:58:25.000And he just looks over at me and he's in the lotus position on this platform.
00:58:29.000He's in his full like Buddhist robes and everything.
00:58:33.000And he just looks at me and goes, welcome.
00:59:03.000He talks about it in terms of when you think about the fact that, you know, I'm going to die, you're going to die, we're all going to die eventually.
00:59:11.000You take that into your life, it changes your behavior because you start to realize, like, there's going to be an end to all this, right?
00:59:19.000And things that maybe were, you know, finicky in your life or these, like, little minute things that really work you up, I think?
00:59:44.000Those people end up report that they're happier, that they're, like, more on track in their life.
00:59:48.000They've done this in people who are dying as well, where they, like, think about the end and accept it, sort of take it into their life.
01:00:11.000It's probably very important in terms of what you need to enjoy the ride.
01:00:17.000You just think it's going to go on forever.
01:00:19.000It's like you're saying about kind of being impatient about the waitstaff.
01:00:25.000That restaurant and thinking what an inconvenience it is that they're so slow to get you water versus what you feel after you've been hunting for 33 days and actually killed an animal.
01:00:41.000We're so spoiled in terms of Our attachment to food.
01:00:47.000I decided about nine years ago that I was either going to become a vegan or I was going to become a hunter.
01:02:32.000Like you were saying, once you start cutting it up and then it becomes meat...
01:02:36.000Like, when it was down, it was like, okay, I've done this thing.
01:02:41.000I've done a lot of things in my life that make me nervous, and I think I always gravitate towards things that I think are difficult, that are scary, whether it's martial arts competition or stand-up comedy or anything.
01:02:56.000I gravitate towards things that I think are difficult because I'm...
01:03:05.000This was a challenge because it was a new thing and it was like, you know, you're doing this rugged thing.
01:03:12.000We floated down the river like 40 miles and carried all of our supplies and tents and set up on the banks of the Missouri and it was heavy.
01:03:45.000This is so much better than any other...
01:03:47.000I've never felt meat that tasted this good before.
01:03:51.000I've never felt connected to my food before.
01:03:53.000I've caught fish before and eaten fish, and it's great.
01:03:56.000But there's something that was so much more intense about this.
01:03:59.000I guess because it's a mammal, there's some weird connection where your DNA is letting you know that this is way closer to you than a fish.
01:04:08.000You can take a fish out of an ocean and take a photograph of it online.
01:04:45.000They didn't know what to say because it was just meat.
01:04:48.000But there's photos of me with a dead bear, and it is the most hate I've ever gotten for any photograph online.
01:04:55.000Even though I ate that bear, and even though you have to eat...
01:04:58.000Well, you have to shoot these bears because their population in Alberta, where my friends John and Jen run a hunting camp up there, They're out of control, and they need to control the population because they decimate the moose population, they decimate the deer population,
01:08:22.000I feel like that with just trying to be the best person you can be.
01:08:26.000You're only going to reach the people that want to hear the message.
01:08:31.000And for the people that want to hear the message, those are the people that you're reaching to.
01:08:35.000But the idea of scale, the idea of how do you feel...
01:08:37.000I've heard that argument from vegetarians or vegans that you shouldn't hunt because when you say you should hunt for your food, how are we going to do that with the entire population?
01:09:17.000You got to show them that there's a real reward in pursuing risk and then in doing difficult things and challenging themselves, even though it's hard.
01:09:26.000And there's moments, man, to this day, even just doing stand-up comedy or doing anything that's hard, I mean, especially in the public eye, you face a lot of criticism.
01:09:35.000There's a lot of, like, days where it's like, God, is this really worth it?
01:09:39.000But then you come out on the other end of it, and it is worth it.
01:09:41.000But you have to recognize, you have to understand the process, and you have to recognize that through this struggle, eventually there'll be a resolution that'll be better.
01:09:50.000You'll learn, you'll get better at what you're doing, you'll be a better version of who you are because of this struggle.
01:09:56.000But most people don't want to hear that shit.
01:11:07.000There's weird things that people do with food when they get really, really wealthy and really, really opulent and just where there's so much food, you can do whatever you want, but there's that...
01:11:39.000Duncan Trussell's the one who told me about this.
01:11:41.000They would eat it underneath like a tablecloth.
01:11:47.000And the idea was that you would get the smells of this thing in because it was like literally drowned in brandy, but also because you were shielding yourself from God.
01:12:37.000It's enveloped in fat that tastes subtly like hazelnut, French chef Michael Girard told the paper in 2014. And to eat the flesh and the fat and the little bones hot all together is like being taken to another dimension.
01:12:53.000The fragile songbird from France, which weighs less than one ounce, And is about the size of your thumb was served exclusively to royalty and rich...
01:14:47.000However, that doesn't stop some from eating the bird.
01:14:50.000According to the New York Times, about 30,000 Ortolan are still being captured and sold illegally in the south of France, where a single bird is going for $180 or the price of an ounce of coveted white truffles.
01:20:34.000It was like it had broken in and it had broken into their food supply.
01:20:39.000There was a couple different issues with this particular bear.
01:20:42.000And once they just decide, like, It would be literally like if you were really hungry and like a puppy was trying to keep you from getting to some food.
01:24:48.000It is interesting that they get turned off by the fact that someone would eat a predator, but they don't get turned off by someone eating like a duck.
01:26:48.000I mean, because we, you know, you could argue it's like, well, you guys are trying to play God.
01:26:52.000But at the same time, it's like we've had such an impact on the wild that if we don't do anything, I mean, things are going to get a little weird.
01:27:21.000But I think sound wildlife practices based on real sound research by wildlife biologists is valid too.
01:27:30.000They know what they're doing, and they know that certain populations of animals get out of hand.
01:27:34.000It could be a real issue, both for prey animals and for predators, for all of them.
01:27:42.000There's a balance that can be achieved.
01:27:45.000I mean, it's controversial, but there's a documentary.
01:27:50.000The reason why it's controversial is because the guy who made the documentary is a bit nutty.
01:27:56.000But it's called How Wolves Changed Rivers, and it's about Yellowstone, and it's about the reintroduction of wolves.
01:28:04.000And now the reintroduction of wolves, although it lowered the amount of elk, the amount of elk that were in the area, it was essentially an unnaturally large population because there was no predators.
01:28:18.000So the hunters loved it because it was easier to go find and kill an elk.
01:28:24.000So they were upset that these wolves came in.
01:28:26.000But then in this documentary, he's explaining how the wolves killing the elk actually made more vegetation because the elk weren't grazing on the vegetation.
01:28:38.000It opened up these pathways for all these animals to grow and plants to grow.
01:28:44.000All these other things survive because there's more vegetation now.
01:28:47.000Because the populations of these deer and these cervids are down.
01:28:54.000And that there's a real balance that needs to be achieved.
01:28:57.000And part of it is how we've structured the lower 48, right?
01:29:03.000Like there's roads everywhere so these animals can get sort of caged in and wolves are a lot more successful.
01:29:08.000Whereas like in the Arctic, it's all open space.
01:29:10.000And the caribou can see a wolf coming.
01:29:15.000Way more often than not, wolves don't have a chance.
01:29:17.000They have to really work together as a team to converge and find a caribou that's injured or younger or whatever.
01:29:24.000But most of the time, caribou are getting away, so they're not as successful.
01:29:54.000We had, one time, this was super fascinating, we had gotten skunked, had this, you know, old bull that was like the size of a Buick that just got away.
01:30:05.000So we're coming back to camp and, you know, we've gotten our asses kicked.
01:30:10.000We get inside of the teepee that night, and there's a herd, like, literally in our camp, you know?
01:30:16.000And so we're like, oh, God, of course it works out that way.
01:30:19.000So William kind of sneaks in to get a view of these guys, get some footage, and he ends up spooking them.
01:30:25.000And Donnie and I are lying on the tundra, and this herd sprints, but they're sprinting like...
01:30:45.000At 50, it's like the ground is vibrating.
01:30:47.000It was like one of those moments where I'm just like...
01:30:50.000Like a zen monk just totally looking at this herd and just like totally in the moment and maybe like 30 yards out one of them sees us peels up and they all follow they all react as a group in sync you know so they go up the top of this hill and Donnie and I just look at each other like holy shit man unbelievable and it's uh I mean it's like uh It's kind of like wild as a religious experience,
01:31:31.000You know, we're out there encountering all these risky, sketchy things, you know, so you would think that I would be on edge the entire time.
01:31:49.000Of course, we had moments where there'd be spikes in nervousness, but, like, overall...
01:31:55.000I was way calmer than I'd ever been in my life and just super chill.
01:32:01.000Do you think that's also because of the physical exertion you're doing all day because you're walking multiple miles and you're really burning off any excess energy that you have?
01:32:10.000I think that has something to do with it, but not everything.
01:32:13.000So I get back and I follow up on this idea, like, what the hell's going on out there, you know?
01:32:19.000And I meet this woman whose name is Rachel Hopman.
01:32:34.000There's this idea called the nature pyramid.
01:32:36.000And you can think about it a lot like the food pyramid, except saying, like, eat this many servings of grain and this many of meat.
01:32:43.000It basically tells us how long we should spend in what type of nature.
01:32:48.000So at the base of this pyramid, the research says that if you spend at least 20 minutes a day three times a week, that's associated with Less burnout and less stress and just kind of overall more well-being.
01:33:04.000And that's the type of nature that you could find like in a city park.
01:33:09.000At the next step of this pyramid is five hours a month in a little bit more out there nature.
01:33:16.000So this is the type of stuff that you might find like in a state park.
01:33:19.000You have to go a little bit more out there to get it.
01:33:22.000And this is associated with a lot less depression, Better well-being.
01:33:27.000And then at the very top, there's this thing called the three-day effect.
01:33:31.000And it basically says that after three days in nature, it leads to these brain changes in the waves that your brain rides.
01:33:39.000So generally, in this sort of modern, frantic world we live in, people ride these waves that are called beta waves.
01:33:46.000And they're associated with, like, stress, just kind of go, go, go, go, go, you know?
01:33:52.000On the third day, in nature, people's brains, when they do scans out there, they have this shit they have to take out in the wild and put these caps on people's heads.
01:34:01.000People are riding what are called alpha waves, and those are waves that are found in experienced meditators.
01:34:07.000And people start to report, like, man, I just feel so much calmer and more collected and more at peace and in tune with my surroundings.
01:34:17.000Kind of going on a meditation retreat, except there's no gurus and they're not charging you and you can eat whatever the hell you want, you know?
01:34:23.000Well, that's how human beings are designed, right?
01:34:48.000What you're doing is something that's completely contrary to the way human beings evolved in nature for hundreds of thousands of years.
01:34:56.000You're stacking people on top of each other.
01:34:58.000You're constantly surrounded by people that you don't know at all, which puts you in this heightened state of anxiety, which is so bizarre because as tribal creatures, Our whole inclination is to be surrounded with people that we can trust and be distrustful of people that we don't know.
01:35:13.000And then when we see others coming, we look at them and we get nervous.
01:35:17.000I mean, that's the whole reason why we have Dunbar's number, right?
01:36:32.000Well, they're designed much like fractals, where you kind of have these big splatters that go into these smaller ones, and they all kind of fade in and out.
01:37:52.000And a really strange year for counting on our so-called leaders to guide us in terms of what's the best course of action for being healthy.
01:38:02.000The best course is not wear a face diaper and wait to get jabbed.
01:38:06.000The best course is take care of your physical health first.
01:38:12.000There's no discussion about vitamins and exercise and healthy behaviors versus unhealthy behaviors.
01:38:18.000And maybe this is a good time to lose weight.
01:38:21.000More than 70, I think it was 78% of people in the ICU for COVID were obese.
01:38:26.000That information was not distributed widely because they're worried about fat shaming people.
01:38:30.000Instead of worried about giving people the information that they could use to boost their natural immune system and to bring their physical body into a healthier state, no, we have to protect people.
01:38:41.000We have to protect people from their feelings.
01:39:23.000Whereas in the past, it's like, yeah, good luck.
01:39:26.000Our food system, it's like we have so many foods that are designed to tap into this evolutionary reward system that we have, you know, with, like, dopamine spikes.
01:39:52.000Well, I think that I would have had to tweak the algorithm because were they normal steps or were they fucking Arctic steps on these tundra tussocks where you're just like...
01:40:04.000That's where something like a whoop strap would come in handy because it would give you an indication of where your heart rate was and heart rate variability, so it would show you how much stress you've...
01:43:39.000And it was for a story when I was on staff at Men's Health.
01:43:43.000They thought it'd be really funny if they had me exercise with a bunch of old guys for like a week because I was like kind of hard charging, you know?
01:43:51.000They're like, you're going to have to exercise with this group of old guys for a week.
01:44:04.000So, like, one of the things that these old guys like to do is go into spin class, and I'm in there, and there's this one in front of me that, like, was in this group, and, you know, before we got there, he'd been, like, telling me, he's like, yeah, I'm really into, you know, rare Jefferson airplane recordings or whatever.
01:44:22.000The spin class starts, and I, like, realize, and I'm just looking at this old dude's butt the entire hour spinning.
01:44:53.000I was watching this Hunter S. Thompson documentary.
01:44:57.000And in it, it talked about, you know, how he was like really in a grace lick when she was performing in San Francisco.
01:45:04.000And, you know, it showed them like performing and it showed, you know, like you listen to some of the music and you realize like, wow, I forgot.
01:46:22.000I know you want to be like Hunter, but you very rarely get to be yourself by trying to be like someone else.
01:46:28.000You just got to figure out who you are.
01:46:31.000And maybe one of the ways is to try to be like that guy, and then along the way you realize, hey, this is not for me, and then you find yourself...
01:46:39.000One thing that does happen with stand-up comedians is, especially in the open mic days, you find yourself mimicking the comedians that you admired.
01:46:48.000The ones that inspired you to get into comedy sound just like them.
01:46:53.000Patrice O'Neill used to call them babies.
01:46:56.000He'd be like, I got a lot of babies out there.
01:46:59.000People that wanted to talk like Patrice.
01:47:03.000And Dave Attell had probably the most babies of anybody.
01:47:06.000Because there's all these comedians that wanted to talk like Dave Attell.
01:47:21.000Yeah, but most of them, and I've known some guys that started out like that, that did sound like a tell or whoever, and they mostly, if they stay in a long time, if they're legit, they come around and then they become themselves.
01:48:10.000He had this insane routine that it was documented in, I forget what book it was, or article some woman wrote about him.
01:48:21.000I'm pretty sure it was a woman, but Greg Fitzsimmons and I read it on the air, like read just what he did, like 6 o'clock in the morning, cocaine, all these different things that he did.
01:48:32.000And then, who's the fucking guy that turned it into a song?
01:50:25.000What he was saying, because he had literally destroyed his ability to communicate through cocaine and drugs and alcohol, and he was always drunk, and it was just like...
01:50:37.000You go back and see him in the 60s, like when he would talk, and even though he was odd, and he was clearly like...
01:51:44.000Sam Kinnison said he would show up at parties and they would just go, oh, like he wrote about it, like, oh, it's him, it's him.
01:51:49.000And they would just make this giant line like a fucking yard long of coke and he would do it and his heart would be ready to leap out of his chest.
01:51:55.000They would just assume that that's what he did.
01:54:36.000You know, it's one of those questions where you go, do the people just have this gear and that gear also happens to come with substance abuse problems?
01:54:45.000Whereas, like, had they never picked up a drink or drugs, like, they would have been that damn good regardless.
01:54:51.000And, like, there's like a gene that, like, these two go step together.
01:56:19.000I think the biggest thing for me, and this kind of goes back to that story I told you about the restaurant, is we don't realize just how different our lifestyles are now than they were in our recent past, even 100 years ago.
01:56:33.000But we evolved in these uncomfortable environments, and we have tipped the balance so far into everything being easy and effortless and challenge-free.
01:56:44.000That we take so much for granted, you know?
01:56:46.000And so for me, it was like, I had to go through that in order to see that.
01:56:50.000And from that, I found a lot more gratitude.
01:56:52.000Like, when I was out there and things really sucked, like, I just thought to myself, like, I just was filled oddly with gratitude.
01:58:44.000And these failures are often in our head, whereas in the past, it was like there was real consequences to failure.
01:58:49.000So I think trying to figure out ways where how can I insert these moments where I'm facing these, you know, sort of evolutionary challenges can show us that we have way more potential than we thought.
01:59:02.000It's like we get out to that edge of our comfort zone.
01:59:06.000And all of a sudden it expands, and it expands, and we learn something about ourself.
01:59:11.000We learn that we're capable of more, and then we come back into our modern life.
01:59:18.000Yeah, I think I've definitely found that personally, that in doing challenging things, it makes the challenges of regular life less nerve-wracking.
02:01:30.000He has a facility called P3, and they have a contract with the NBA. So what they do, and a few other leagues too, what they do is...
02:01:39.000Players come in and he attaches all these reflective markers all over their body and he has them run through all the movements they would in a game.
02:01:46.000Meanwhile, there's cameras capturing these movements and then that gets fed into an algorithm so they can see how the player moves and compare it to other players and basically be like, look, the way that you jump, the way your whatever knee caves in, that's putting you at a 60% risk of having an injury this year.
02:02:05.000So, this can also tell you what's interesting, some of the promises in your game.
02:02:10.000So, for example, I don't know if you're into basketball at all, but Luka Doncic, guy for the Mavericks, Rookie of the Year, NBA All-Star, he started coming to P3 when he was, I think, 15. He was a decent player then.
02:02:25.000They did all this stuff and they go, Luca, we have bad news for you.
02:02:33.000You are off the charts at decelerating or slowing down.
02:02:37.000Like, you're very, very fast at slowing down.
02:02:39.000So we want you to develop your game around sprinting, stop, defender careens forward because you can slow down faster than them, shoot.
02:02:47.000So he developed his game around that and now he's sort of the future of the NBA. I told you all that to basically tell you that this Marcus Elliott dude, he's obviously into this big data and how can we use that to improve ourselves and improve our performance,
02:03:02.000but he also understands that not everything that improves an athlete that improves a human can be measured.
02:03:10.000So another thing he does with his friends and players that are interested is this idea that he calls Misogi.
02:03:18.000So it's named after an ancient Japanese myth.
02:03:23.000And the basic idea is that once a year...
02:04:08.000And then number two is that you don't really brag and boast about it and share whatever you do on social media because, again, it's you for you.
02:04:16.000It's not so you can get a bunch of pats on the back.
02:04:19.000So some things that he's done with people is one year they got a 85-pound rock.
02:04:26.000And they walked it five miles underneath the Santa Barbara Channel.
02:04:30.000So one, you know, the rock was at the bottom of the ocean.
02:04:33.000They'd sort of dive down, you know, 10, 20 feet, whatever it was, walk 10 yards or 20 yards.
02:04:40.000Guy would come up, next guy would come down.
02:04:42.000And after five hours, it's like the rock is at point B. So it kind of goes back to that idea of these challenges where you like sort of separate.
02:04:50.000You go through this trying middle ground.
02:04:51.000You're like, I'm not gonna be able to do this.
02:04:54.000But by doing it, you get on the other side and you're like, man, I really learned something about myself.
02:05:00.000So he's done all kinds of different strange, weird, kooky challenges with different people.
02:05:05.000And a lot of them are athletes who are really clutch performers in the playoffs.
02:05:11.000It's like the guys that go through this because once they've gone through that, it's like...
02:05:14.000Now all of a sudden the stress of that playoff game is perhaps not as heavy because you've had these times where you're like, man, this is really, really crazy and trying against me, you know?
02:05:24.000So you come out on the other end of that and prove.
02:05:28.000Doing something like that can be a good thing for the average person because going back to that rule one is that it has to be hard, which is defined by a 50-50 shot of finishing it.
02:05:38.000It's like my 50% is different than your 50% is different than your 50%.
02:05:45.000So if you're the type of person who...
02:06:10.000By going through that, finishing it, you're going to learn that you maybe had a gear that you didn't realize was there, and that'll help you sort of move on.
02:06:18.000And the nice thing is, like, you don't have to over-prepare.
02:06:21.000It doesn't have to be a massive production.
02:06:22.000It's just, like, they do it once a year, and again, it's one of those things that, like, he's like, look, I can't.
02:08:20.000We're just going to call it quits after.
02:08:23.000And I got back on that third lap and I was like, Okay, we're gonna make a go at the fourth one, just whatever.
02:08:30.000And on that fourth one on the way up, like I literally had this moment where I'm like running over this.
02:08:35.000I mean, the trail is unbelievable because you go through all this red rock and just beautiful, beautiful country.
02:08:39.000And especially because you're changing elevation.
02:08:41.000So like the environment is changing as you do it.
02:08:45.000I had one of those moments where literally, like, I started giggling and laughing and just being like, holy shit, I am thankful to be alive.
02:10:22.000But then when we got put in those real positions of risk, which would have happened, if we could outdo that, we have a better chance of survival over time.
02:10:32.000You know, you don't want the hold my beer people who are incapable.
02:10:37.000You want the people who are a little more risk-averse, who are actually more capable than they are.
02:10:44.000Do you think there's a mechanism that happens in the mind or in the body where the body realizes, like, no matter what we think, how we're trying to deter this guy from doing this very difficult thing, he's going to keep doing it.
02:11:02.000Like, there's probably some sort of a biomechanical mechanism in the mind and in the body that allows you to accomplish, like, you know, like adrenaline, right?
02:12:06.000He set me up with a really sweet bow, but I got it right before COVID, so I was trying to take lessons, and then all of a sudden it was shut down.
02:19:14.000Most other animals, they've got to grab something with their mouth and they can't drag it far because that's inefficient.
02:19:19.000So these Harvard scientists I talked to, I mean, they think that doing the activities that we evolved to do, that we're uniquely built to do, Can have a lot of benefits.
02:19:30.000So I started looking into this idea of carrying and it really shaped what we became.
02:19:35.000Like this is why we have really strong grips.
02:19:37.000It's why we have sort of relatively shorter torsos that are really strong, longer legs.
02:19:43.000It's why we don't have much fur and why we sweat to cool ourselves.
02:19:49.000So you probably have heard the idea that we're born to run, right?
02:19:54.000But we're actually, I argue in the book, probably more so born to carry.
02:20:12.000We'd bump it and it would sprint and then pant and eventually the animal would topple over from heat exhaustion because we're really good at cooling ourselves.
02:20:21.000So then we'd have to cut it up, carry it all the way back to camp.
02:20:24.000And as gatherers, we evolved to just walk out in our environment, find stuff to eat, and carry it back to camp, right?
02:24:01.000So you could do all your workouts, you could lift weights, you could do all kinds of crazy shit, and you can have like serious weight on your back.
02:24:09.000But you see how the pack itself, like that is a rugged backpack.
02:25:22.000And I'm like, I'd also lost weight, right?
02:25:24.000Because we're not eating that much, and we're just moving all day.
02:25:27.000Like, I looked, you know, once I got to the hotel and, like, went to shower, took my clothes off, I'm like, shit, I look like Conor McGregor at a weigh-in right now, you know?
02:26:36.000The SF guy I talked to was like, yeah, it's essentially cardio for people who hate running and lifting, for people who hate the gym, you know?
02:26:45.000And we know that there are health benefits to doing both cardio and strength.
02:26:50.000It's like, I feel like we kind of live in this world where the runners are like, oh...
02:27:44.000Don't you think that what happens when people get involved, whether it's weightlifting or running, they get really interested in the results in whatever particular discipline they're involved in more than overall health.
02:27:56.000It's not that common that people start thinking, well, I want to do a little bit of weightlifting and a little bit of running.
02:28:03.000A lot of times they get obsessed with the thing.
02:28:05.000That's why the runners will say, ah, you don't need to lift weights.
02:28:07.000Or the weightlifters say, ah, you don't need to run.
02:29:02.000Yeah, you should really do a variety of things if you're being wise about it and looking at it in terms of, like, I'm trying to engineer a more sound, fitter body that can do a lot of different things that I ask it to do.
02:29:37.000When you wrote this book, did you write this book not just to document all these issues that people are having with comfort, But also to give people maybe some feedback or some pointers or some direction in terms of,
02:29:53.000like, how to maybe possibly move your life into a better place.
02:29:59.000So, I mean, the way that the book is written is I tell this story of this hunt that I did in the Arctic, and that's the overarching narrative.
02:30:08.000And as I'm facing these specific discomforts we used to face as we evolved, Then I sort of peel off and then I investigate each one in different sections and I talk about different on-the-ground reporting that I did.
02:30:21.000And at the end, there's always some takeaway.
02:30:23.000Now it's not like explicit advice in like a box that's like, okay, here are the steps to do this.
02:30:28.000But it's all inherent and you leave knowing, okay, here's how I can weave this back into my life.
02:30:34.000And I think going back to that idea that our environments have changed so much, It's not like just doing any one of these is going to solve all your problems.
02:30:45.000Yes, it'll be helpful, but it's like we really need to think about how are these different ways that I can weave this stuff throughout my days, weeks, months, and years.
02:30:55.000Some of this stuff is relatively easy to work in.
02:31:00.000For example, even the data on keeping your house colder is really interesting in terms of weight loss and overall calorie burn.
02:31:07.000And even just things like, people are never hungry anymore.
02:31:12.000Let's figure out why you're eating in the first place.
02:31:16.000And then by reintroducing hunger back into your life, you're probably going to lose some weight if you can determine, oh, I'm eating because I'm stressed or bored versus I'm physiologically hungry.
02:31:27.000Then some of them are a little bit more challenging.
02:31:30.000Like, we need things that really push back against us.
02:31:33.000That's something, like the Masogi idea I talked about, where it's like, dude, do something epic.
02:31:39.000Like, you may not think that you can do it.
02:31:42.000It's like freaking humans were hunter-gatherers for 2.5 million years, and now people are like, well, I couldn't go outside for three hours.
02:31:49.000It's like, what the hell are you talking about, man?
02:31:52.000You know, like, we're just, we can do a lot more than I think we...
02:32:50.000Probably for a while, though, I was 185. And so I was within what's considered healthy, but I'm still at the higher end of the healthy BMI. And just from running, my hips would hurt afterwards.
02:33:03.000And I started working with this dude who's in the book, and his name is Trevor Cashy.
02:33:09.000He's, I think he's 28 now, but he graduated college, I think, when he was 17 or 18. Got his PhD when he was 22, I believe.
02:33:24.000Like, the way I describe it is like, you know, to say that Trevor's smart is to say that LeBron James is pretty good at basketball, you know?
02:33:31.000Like, I mean, and look, for my work, like, I talk to People at Harvard, people at the NIH, scientists everywhere.
02:33:39.000This guy is blow-your-mind smart, can just unpack arguments.
02:33:43.000Imagine you're going to your high school prom and he's graduating from college and you're both the same age.
02:34:00.000He's interesting because when he was in college, he started working with a lot of athletes and just like everyday people helping him lose weight.
02:34:10.000Like he was in a lab doing cancer research but found that he just was really into...
02:34:16.000Strength sports, so he has like a couple national strength records and was working with people like ultramarathoners, other strongmen, and was just really damn good at it.
02:34:26.000So now he has this nutrition company he calls Trevor Cashy Nutrition.
02:34:30.000And his approach is really interesting because he doesn't really give a damn what you eat.
02:35:17.000So this is why around five weeks, people usually hop off diets and fall back into their normal patterns because they can't deal with that discomfort of hunger.
02:35:27.000And they often fall into intense cravings that aren't really physiological cravings.
02:35:32.000It's just your mind being like, Snickers, Snickers, Snickers, you know?
02:35:36.000So he works with people to help him figure out how do I discern the difference between, you know, this sort of, I guess in the book I call it real hunger versus reward hunger.
02:35:47.000And then how can I become aware of what I eat?
02:35:50.000Because people don't know how much they eat.
02:35:53.000You look at research and people miscalculate their daily intake by hundreds, sometimes even thousands of calories.
02:36:02.000Sort of similar to miscalculating the amount of screen time they use?
02:36:08.000So there's this one famous study that found It looked at overweight people who said that they could not lose weight despite eating just 1,000 calories a day.
02:36:21.000Well, they went in and they did precise measurements and tracking, and the people were eating 2,000 calories.
02:36:26.000So this is like saying, well, whoops, I ate a half a pizza and I totally forgot.
02:37:21.000And he works with everyone from, you know, people whose this is their last stop on the quote-unquote diet train, the next thing is going to be bariatric surgery, to he's worked with strong men who have been, you know, champions and ultra runners and stuff like that.
02:37:38.000He worked for, I can't remember, one of the Eastern countries Olympic teams for a while, too, and helped him win some medals.
02:39:28.000But I would imagine when you're telling the Hells Angels how to correctly make meth, there's got to be a little bit of trial and error there.
02:41:42.000And for Bronson, he started during COVID because he has a child, and he realized that a lot of people were saying that Obesity is a real problem during COVID and he also realized he was just way too fat and out of shape and he was just so unhealthy and and he wanted to be there for his wife and his child and he just made a conscious decision that I'm gonna be a healthier person and he's a chef too which is also kind of crazy because you know likes fantastic
02:42:13.000food but he's lost 130 pounds just this year and I worked out with him we took him to the Onnit gym and he looked great.
02:42:29.000I feel like our food system is set up in such a way in our lives overall that, I mean, it's a wonder that not more than 70% of people are overweight, you know?
02:42:40.000It's like the food that we have now, being so ultra-processed and calorie-dense, like...
02:42:45.000It sort of preys on these internal mechanisms we have where it's like you get a shot of dopamine from eating this ultra processed stuff and it doesn't fill you up.
02:44:10.000And, you know, there's actually some thought that honey, dependent upon the area that it's in, can help – this might be – Total woo-woo horseshit.
02:44:21.000Maybe we need to Google this now that I'm thinking about it.
02:46:06.000That's preserving psychedelic mushrooms in honey.
02:46:11.000But there's a type of honey that the way these bees gather the pollen, that they're somehow or another getting pollen from some plant that has some sort of a psychoactive ingredient in it.
02:46:27.000Known to be a powerful hallucinogen and recreational drug as well as being ascribed many medicinal features.
02:46:34.000The honey is thought to be effective in treating everything from hypertension and diabetes to poor sexual performance when taken in small doses.
02:48:09.000Yeah, what's interesting is like going back to this idea of challenges, like even Native American tribes, when they would go get the peyote, it was often like there was a physical ceremony that went into that.
02:48:21.000It was a long hike to go down to that area that it grew and it became like a ritual, like almost a religious practice, right?
02:48:28.000So it was like this physical trial they'd go through to get it and then bring it back up.
02:48:32.000So it became this overall life-changing thing.
02:48:36.000It was like marrying the physical with the mental and having to get through things.
02:48:42.000Yeah, like the ayahuasca rituals that they'll have in the jungle and different rites of passage.
02:48:48.000Yeah, I think for a lot of young people, there's this weird thing that happens as you become an adult where you're like, okay, am I an adult now?
02:49:03.000But if you do go through some sort of a rite of passage, it would make sense that there would be, especially if it's a difficult thing, that you would feel like you had crossed over and you'd become whole.
02:49:33.000I think difficult things, whatever those difficult things are, whether it's running marathons or something where you can accomplish very significant goals.
02:49:46.000Where you are pushed and that these aren't easy accomplishments.
02:49:52.000You're breaking through some new area of your fortitude where you recognize that you do have capabilities beyond what you thought before you did this.
02:50:07.000Yeah, I think, look at Joseph Campbell.
02:50:09.000I'm going to mess up this quote, but in his Hero with a Thousand Faces, he's got this line that's like, when we go out and think we're slaying another, we're actually slaying ourselves.
02:50:19.000When we go out into discomfort, we're actually coming into the center of our own existence.
02:50:24.000So it's like, we don't go out and do these things, like, for others at all.
02:50:28.000It's like, this is 100% you becoming this different, more capable, confident person, you know?
02:50:52.000Even then, I'd want to hear it from the guy.
02:50:55.000Well, one, it was more challenging than I thought.
02:50:58.000And two, the producer was hilarious because apparently I have certain words and phrases that are, you know, the generations of whatever it is, Easter generations from the sticks in Idaho.
02:51:11.000And I'd say them wrong and he'd be like...
02:51:28.000I'm going through and I have a reference to Mozart in the book, but I'm going through and I just see it, M-O-Z-A-R-T. And so I'm like, you know, blah, blah, blah, Mozart.