Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 046 - Andrew Huberman

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Join us for a discussion with Andrew Huberman, podcaster, neuroscientist and associate professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Listen in as Cam and Andrew cover Andrew’s backstory, tattoos, faith and more!  Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com   Andrew Huberman Links: https://www.instagram.com/hubermanlab/ https://www.hubermanlab.com/  Thank you to our sponsors: Blokes: https://blokes.com/cam use code CAM for 20% off labs MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping Ketone IQ: https://hvmn.com/CAM use code CAM for 20% Leupold: https://www.leupold.com/ Black Rifle: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first Order Bass Pro/Cabelas: https://www.basspro.com   Timestamps: 0:00:00  Intro - Recap of Lift, Run, Shoot 0:05:25  Training Design: The Purpose of Lift, Run, Shoot 0:09:34  Andrew’s First Experience with Archery 0:15:17  Time Perception & Being in the Moment 0:19:40  The Sequence of Steps in Archery 0:20:40  Habits Never Die 0:21:58  Andrew Huberman's Backstory 0:31:00  Skateboarding & Youth Detention 0:35:27  UC Santa Barbara 0:39:10  Failure & Accepting Being a Loser 0:42:30  Community College 0:47:02  An Academic Beast 0:50:09  Why Andrew Doesn’t Show His Tattoos 0:51:09  Leaving UC Berkeley 0:53:49  Experiments at UC Davis 0:59:42  Andrew Huberman’s Faith 1:10:56  An Ecosystem of Great Podcasters 1:18:20  Andrew’s Critics 1:24:05  Improving People's Lives For Free 1:32:42  There Are No Shortcuts 1:34:31  Do Hard Things 1:39:57  Dr. Anna Lembke 1:43:19  Harvard Postdoc 1:49:36  Building Up a Sense of Determination 1:51:39  Sharing Experiences & Stories 1:55:04  Outro

Every step I take, I move my truth. Every time they tell me stop, I use. Every comment hate that makes my feel, gather up my energy and boom. I hear them talking, saying the way that I move is so reckless. That is a part of my mind I've been blessed with. Giving my blood so I am relentless. Well, Andrew Huberman, I cannot believe you're on the podcast. I'm super happy to be here.

And I like that we're podcasting late in the evening because it's a different vibe. Yeah. You know, I think early in the day, just the brain is different than later in the day. And we've had quite a full day. So super happy to be here. We didn't have time to do a podcast earlier. We were too busy. Yeah, we were grappling with the laws of physics.

Yeah. So how is your day? How is, you know, I like to share my life with people who I admire or look up to or I'm inspired by and you're all those three. So it meant a lot for me to be able to share today with you. What did you think? Well, first of all, right back at you, I'm incredibly inspired by you. There are many a day when I'm back home and I'm like, I'm not going to run today. And then I look at your Instagram feed and I'm like, I'd better do it.

I better do it. You've dadded me a bunch of times that way. Today was spectacular. I'm still digesting the full magnitude of it. You know, yesterday gave this talk. at University of Oregon to some students and thanks for coming out you and Rihanna for coming out. I meant a lot to look into the front row and go oh friendly faces. I love and respect. So and then got a good night's sleep fortunately. Got some good long sleep and then this morning

we had to tell me the proper pronunciation. Mount Piscata. Mount Piscay. And there was the option to hike it with either a 72 pound ruck or backpack, which is how I normally ruck once a week, but not with a 72 pound weight. Normally, for me, it's about 35. Or a 72 pound rucksack that goes over the shoulders, kind of more like beanbag rucksack. Yeah.

Or a 72 pound rock. And that 72 pound rock is a little mini boulder, you know. Yeah. But not mini boulder. I mean, this thing's about, how big is it? It's about the size of this bear's head, basically. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, about two foot long, probably.

Yeah. Yeah. So I picked the rock and I knew it was a mile and a half up and it was super hard work. Yeah. I'll go on record saying that's the hardest quote unquote cardio workout I've ever done. My heart rate was up near max the entire time. Well, I was I was impressed. So you did this goal, you set this goal for yourself, never to set the rock down. Don't set the rock down. And that was going to make it harder. And that, you know, there's only been one other guy kept folks who didn't set it down. He rushed it on his legs a couple times, but like you, he didn't set it down. But that's been, you know, I've had, I don't know, 40 guests now, all like tough people or endurance athletes or fighters or whatever. And it's only been you two who didn't set it down. So that's, I mean, that's impressive. You picked the hardest thing of the three and then carried it all the way up. Well, I'm here in Oregon with Cameron Haynes and crew, so I'm going to pick the hardest thing, right?

How could I not? Yeah, the idea was to not set it down. I did stop, rested on my knee, but it was, and I just thought, don't set it down, don't sit down. Because I think starting up again is harder if you do that. It would be for me. And then there was one point at the end, this is that lesson. And always, you know, we were talking about we're home stretch. Yeah.

We took a pause, home stretch. I'm like, okay, let's go. and then I slipped. Yep. It's right when you think you're there, you know, and I did catch it. My arm stayed underneath it, stood up and kept going.

And I'll tell you, saying that thing on the rock felt really good. On the monument? Yeah, getting it off your shoulder. The monument to Ken Kesey's son. Yeah. And the monument's beautiful.

I know we got some footage of that. Yeah. And I've seen you hop up on that thing, which, by the way, folks, in the videos where Cam hops up on that monument, he makes it look so easy. It takes some skill and some serious confidence to do that. So yeah, it felt amazing.

Again, the hardest cardio workout I've ever done. And, you know, the last time I was here in this gym slash studio, we did a circuit workout. Right. And I was for like two weeks. So there's something distinctly different and harder about the work that doesn't stop. like incessant work. Right.

Because I do, you know, legs on Monday, you know, shoulders on Wednesday, you know, Saturday arms, you know, in the gym. And you get, you know, two, three minutes, sometimes five minutes rest between sets. You drink the water, listening to music. Completely different game. Even if you're grinding out, you know, four straps at the end and you're sucking for air. But then the rest comes. But when the rest does not come, it's a completely different test.

of your inner resource. And I was praying. I was trying to distract myself today. I mean, multiple times I thought I had to pull on all the resources. Yeah. Yeah. Hey guys. Looking to take your wellness to the next level,

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and I'm really excited to be partnering with them so I can keep hammering for another day. They're offering you guys 20% off labs if you use code cam at blokes.co slash cam. I don't know if I have the right formula, but what I've, you know, in regard to workout, I'm training for bow hunting. I mean, it sounds weird to some people

like you train to bow hunt, but yeah. So in bow hunting, it's, and in the mountains in particular, it's a test of endurance many times. And it's not just to endure, it's to endure and be at your best to deliver a perfect arrow. So it's not like you just have to stumble your way through and just make it to the end. Because many times after you've pushed and pushed and pushed and you get that opportunity, then you have to be at your best, most accurate to make the best decision on when to shoot

and then the most precise shot to offer that animal merciful kill. So my training is what I found prepares me for that moment. and I need to be able to just perform over long periods of time and then still capitalized. So that's kind of what I've designed my training for. And I don't know. I don't know if it makes sense or I don't know. I just know what works for me. Right.

I don't know as far as human body and training and mental and all that if it's, you know, all the formula checks out. But for me, that's what works. Yeah, well, clearly it does work. coming cam as being humble, but, you know, I've been informed by multiple, you know, season elk hunters that even a very seasoned elk hunter might be lucky to get one, um, bo hunted elk, you know, about 10% of the outings. That's not a very high numbers and come away with one bowl per season would be even, even that would be an outrageously high number. And you're,

you far exceed that. And so I can understand why, you know, you have so many fans. You know, you have so many fans. People were coming up to us on the trail and saying to Cam, you're a legend. Like, you know, and you are. I mean, and it's earned. You know,

I think you should take that in because it's earned. You can't, you know, you could be a billionaire multi-times over and you can't buy a skill. You can't buy the ability to get out into the wilderness and that far. And you left out a key part. After you get that perfect shot or perfect for that moment shot, then you got to carry the thing back.

Right. So it's, I mean, it's even a lot of work breaking the animal down because that in itself, I want to share it with you so bad just so. Because I feel like I love sharing this experience with new hunters or with people who, well, with anybody really. But to appreciate it, you have to know what that's like to be bent over an animal, skinning it, quartering it, just how your back feels. bent over for hours and it's like that's still all part of the process but to your point yeah i mean it's

not over once the arrow is delivered and the animal's dead then there's probably the most important part of the work and that's getting the meat out before it spoils get it out the weather get it cooled um and get it taken care of and then my another i mean i love the whole process obviously i've dedicated my life to this but then to go and share a meal of an animal i killed with people i care of about like tonight we had elk chili so good and I mean I can't I can't explain to somebody who who maybe hasn't done I can't explain it correctly but to what that feels like as a hunter to do that is it just I mean it just feels right it feels like that's how that's what it's that's how that's how we're supposed to conduct ourselves and and share our kill and provide and it just

when somebody is eating some meat that I've killed and they say, man, this is so good. It's like it, I mean, it makes it all worthwhile. It's what it's all about. I love it. I love how you're so connected to every piece. I feel very fortunate in my own life that, you know, I've dedicated myself to gathering, organizing and dispersing information. And I'd be doing that even if I didn't have a podcast.

And I love every piece of it. And it's so clear knowing you and coming up here, especially today and going through first the ruck and then bow hunting. Excuse me. Shooting a bow. Arture. I was archery. See, I'm a true novice. We haven't bo-hunted yet, but we will.

We were hunting. I was hunting paper targets. That's right. Yeah. They were very stationary today. Yeah. They didn't smell us. They couldn't.

None of that difficulty. Sorry, bow-hunting. First step toward bow-hunting. I would love to bow-hunt someday. I have to tell you. you the archery, well, first off, I'm addicted. That was an amazing experience. There are not many things that I try for the first time. I'm like, I want to do this. Yeah. So so much to say about that. You know, like Lex had me take a jiu-jitsu class for the first time. The guys at 10th Planet

in Austin are great. They walked me through it and did that. And it felt great. And I could see myself getting into jiu-jitsu, but it didn't, you know, it didn't grab me right away. That's something like, I want to explore this. But the moment, that first, flock hit the target today, I'm like, I want to do this. Why? What is it? What is it about it? There's just something so satisfying.

I mean, there's a lot of steps for somebody who's never done it before. Yeah. I knew which direction the error goes out and that's about it. Learning how to use the right musculature to you'd actually be able to draw back. I always thought that on a compound boo that when you draw back that it just sits there like you could take your hand off. I didn't realize that you have to provide some additional. like ongoing tension yeah citing up on it you know bringing the mind's focus to such a little narrow cone of attention and then there's a i think it's the contrast between that stillness a decision and then

in you know ballistic movement and then it's and it's gone like arrow leaves the bow like that that's it's it you've set it all up and um yeah it just feels amazing it's it's very it's it's very it's Very hard to describe because A, I'm brand new to it. B, it's so kinest, it's all kinesthetic. Right. I'm not sure there's a word to describe all of that and how good it feels, but it feels so good. So you've been incredibly gracious.

He gave me a bow, and I'm going to be using that thing in my yard. That's good. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to be at it, if not every day, very close to it. Mountain Ops has been my go-to supplements for the past seven years. My exclusive Keep Hemmering line of products offers a blended protein powder, BCAs and a pre-workout that I take every day. I also use their greens, reds, and they actually have a new hydration product called hydrate that I use before every run. Mountain Ops has been a great partner

over the years, and I especially love all they do to give back to the community. Every purchase made on the Mountain Ops website gives back to a family in need. They also give away a ton of different hunting opportunities. They even gave away an elk hunt and a deer hunt at one of my most cherished hunting spots in Utah. If you listen to the podcast, you also get 20% off by using code cam. that's CAM at www.W.m.com. Did you know that there's a quote that says the history of archery is a history of mankind? I didn't know that. Yeah, Fred Bear. And it's a, it's just a lot of people, not unlike you, that you've tried other things. And they didn't resonate like. today did. But it's like it feels natural for some reason because man has been bow hunting

for a long time. So it's like even though it's foreign to you specifically, it feels familiar somehow when you do it or powerful or like this is what I'm supposed to do. Why it does that? I have no idea. I just know that it does. And I've seen I've seen people react the way you're reacting to it right now and Joe was one of them. And it's just it's just something that I don't know if can be described succinctly or I don't know. I don't know if there is a way but it's other than man has hunted. We're you know we're born to hunt. Some people don't do it. You don't have to. You can buy food. But man, when you're immersed in it, it's it's not only life changing, but it just feels like this is what this is what we're supposed to be doing yeah yeah i mean i've shot rifles shot pistols before

and enjoyed that but it didn't resonate for me in the same way i didn't feel connected to you know the mechanics of it in the same way i haven't done a lot of it but so maybe needed to do more but i think with the with archery with the bow that you know i realize i'm loving every step i love how that little arc what do you call that thing comes the rest the rest kind of comes up slow and you're Like, here we go. And then, you know, and then trying to, you know, take the right positioning with feet and arms and back and all that. And yeah, breathe, but get into a position where you can make adjustments. And then, yeah, there's something about that contrast between stillness and then so much motion.

Yeah. And you have to be relaxed. So you have to be calm, relaxed, and precise back here. And then, as you said, it's just like, not an explosion. but a release of the arrow. And then you didn't, wait till you experience the arc of that arrow. So once we get to distance with your bow and arrow set up, there's that release and then you watch the arrow arc

and then hit home. And that is like, we were close today, so it's hard to see that arc and appreciate that. But when you get to distance and you can watch that, and that's like the closure of that repetition, there's nothing like it. That's why I like, you know, once we get out of distance, We put the balloon up and then you can watch it.

And you see that arrow arc and they hit. And there's that immediately or that immediate indication that my arrow went or were supposed to. It's incredible. I'm glad you're so enamored with the process. Oh, I'm completely taken. You know, if anyone's listening to this and thinking, oh, it's just because he's like, I'm completely taken by the experience. I'm thinking about it more now.

You know, one of the things that I'm absolutely obsessed with is time perception and how elastic our perception of time is. And when we get our eyes into a narrow area, our phone or like think about a watchmaker, you're paying a lot of attention to something. Even like, you know, I was watching the gentleman at the shop to remind me his name. Trent. I apologize. Trent.

You know, making some adjustments to calibrate the bow. You know, you're getting into that narrow cone of attention. It's almost like things are in slow motion right before you leave, release the arrow. So you're, you know, you bring your cone of attention in. And in small visual areas, we know that. that you can register very small movements. That's kind of a duh. And that's because you're taking lots of visual frames.

It's like frame rates high, which means slow motion. Like when you see slow motion of a dunk, that's because frame rate was high. Yeah, high speed. But then you go into this totally different frame rate when you release the arrow. Mm-hmm. And it's, you know, and it's just spectacular.

And I think it does something. I think it really did, does cause my brain and people who like this feeling the brain to go, wow, Like it's, you know, and it's related to your movements and your steadiness and all that. So I'm totally, totally taken, you know, smitten. Yeah. Well, and I like, cause you're so busy and you have so much going on and, you know,

usually it's like this intellectual type areas where you're operating, right? But I like that when you were shooting that your bow today, it's like that's all you could be thinking about. You couldn't be solving these world problems or answering these questions. from these people or educating as you do as a professor. It was like, it was all this, all like, okay,

what do I need to do to release this arrow and hit where I want to hit? That's it. You can't, there's nothing else that can come into the equation to make you the best at doing that. And that's what I love about it is it's like, you know, people say it's therapeutic or it's meditative like, but it's you just have to be all in on it to do it right.

And I think that's powerful. Yeah, there aren't a lot of things that can bring us into the present and keep us there, you know, until we set it down. You know, the amazing thing about the human brain is that we can think about the past, the present, or the future, or a combination of past and present or present and future. It's hard to think about all three at once. Right. But, you know, I think we imagine that, and you hear that people, you know, they focus too much on the future, future tripping, future.

I don't think we do that as much as people think. I think we are rarely thinking about the future as much as people claim. And I think it's rare that we are fully present. I think we tend to think about the past a lot. Too much? Too much. I mean, if you think about it, the best life is to remember the past if you need to, but to have the future pull you forward.

And to be present in each day. I mean, I really believe that the unit of the day is the functional unit to really anchor oneself. to the sunrise, the sunset, sleep at night. What are you going to accomplish that day? Maybe you even need to divide the day into thirds, but at least the unit of the day. And then the unit of the week is not a coincidence

and that we follow that. But the moment you start trying to think about what you're going to do for more than a week, maybe something you're going to do down the line, you put it on the calendar, but you can't really impact things out that far, except what you do right now. Yeah.

So I love the keep hammering slogan, mantra, whatever you want to call it, law of nature for you. So yeah, applies because it's, it's that incessant like now, now, now. You want to be better next year? You're right, now. What are you going to do today? And so I think archery clearly brings you into the moment. There's no question.

I feel the only thing that's ever, you know, not the only thing, but something that also brings me right into the moment is when I do my solo podcasts. It's always just me and Rob in the room. Right. When I think about what I need to accomplish at the beginning, I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. I always allow myself four pages of one-sided notes, no teleprompter, despite what people say. And then right as we start, I'm looking at the little bead in the camera, and I always just think, my God, I don't know what to do. And then you just, you start segmenting.

Yeah. Do the intro. Do this. Do this. Do this. When you hit the end, you're like, well, that's how you do it. You break it down. It's sort of how to eat the elephant one bite at a time. So I think with archery, I also loved that, I love the sequence of steps is so fixed. I loved that. Yeah, but like knocking the arrow. Just putting the arrow in, you know, I heard, you know, you dry fire at once, you destroy the bro. Great. I love rules.

Right. Because it's like, there you go. I'm never going to drive. So I was really slow, as you notice. I'm like checking every time. I love that the, like the details and how those matter. But I love it when there's a fixed sequence. because I do believe that you can break things down into a sequence,

well then you can get better at each piece and each piece getting better, help you improve. But I know at the end of the day, it's also just reps, quality reps. Right. Yeah. Like with anything, podcasting, running, lifting. I mean, you know, people always probably ask you too, like, you know, what does it take to get really good at something?

It's like about 10 years of reps and then just keep going. and going and going yeah i mean people have asked if i ever get tired of running the same because i run pisg every day i ask if i ever get tired of it and i'm i don't i don't even think about it like oh i'm tired of this it's just like this is just what i do it's just like there is no i don't it just seems weird to me to be bored with something like that because it's that's not even part of of that's not an option it's like no i i need to run the mountain because i need to get a thousand foot of gain every time I climb to the top of this hill. So what it looks like or what it feels like doesn't really matter.

I'm achieving what I need to do for the day. It's non-negotiable. Yeah, exactly. What is the least amount of sleep you've ever run? Piscone. Oh, I've not slept many times. And you still force yourself to do it. Yeah, yeah.

I've never, I mean, yeah, just like everybody, I had COVID a couple times. I never ran less than 10 miles, no matter what day I had, what day of COVID I had. It's just like I'm running 10 miles. I don't give a shit about anything. So that's, I don't miss date.

I mean, it doesn't matter what happened. You're a beast. I love it. I think non-negotiables are the best. Deadlines are the best. I wouldn't have a career for one deadline. I wouldn't have my degrees. I wouldn't.

Deadlines are the only thing that work for me. Yeah, I was going to, I was, so, I mean, I just want to hear, I mean, I know people have asked you this many times. But so your story of the Andrew Huberman journey, all I know, you know, I follow you. I see what you do. But I had never seen like the impact in person of you like I did last night. So Thursday night, University of Oregon, from five to about eight, Andrew Huberman is going to be speaking. And it was packed.

They said, okay, I was out there, you know, before you got there, I was out in the hall. And they said, they announced only. 500 people can come in. So once it's full, doors are closed. People started streaming in. They went in, got in there and said, oh, looks like maybe 10 more people could come in. But there was more people than 500 on a Thursday night, you know, young college kids that want to come hear you speak. That is, you know, other than maybe like a Taylor Swift or I don't even know who, but a scientist? That's kind of weird, right?

Does that feel word to you, or are you so used to it now? Because, I mean, you've been teaching for a while. You've been at Stanford for years. Are you used to it? Because to me, it seems like crazy to think that kids would voluntarily go to hear a scientist speak. Yeah, I'm definitely not used to it. I mean, I taught undergraduates when I was a job. junior professor. We say junior professor before you get tenure. Tenure is really, you know,

do a certain amount of work in a given area and you get essentially, tenure is basically academic freedom. You can still lose your job. People think it's job. Like how long does it take to be tenured? It depends. I mean, anywhere from five to ten years after you start your faculty position at places like Stanford and some of the other, you know, top, top tier universities, it can take even longer than 12, 15 years sometimes. So my goal, I mean, without getting into my full backstory right now, we could talk about if you want. But my goal, once I decided to, like, get my life in order,

which was when I was 19, was to get my PhD by time I was 30, to get a faculty position by time I was 35 and to get tenure by time I was 40. And I wrote it down. Why was that, I mean, where'd that goal come from? Yeah, so I can kind of back this up and then we can kind of get to what I think might be going on

in terms of the interest in science in the podcast, but I'm definitely not used to it, you know, because podcast started in January 21, so we're about three years in. Prior to that, I did a year of going on podcasts, Rogan, Lex Friedman, Retrolet, et cetera. But prior to that, I put a few things out on the internet in 2019, and prior to that I was just completely underground, no social media. I had it, but I post pictures of my dog kind of thing. Yeah. Costello. Yeah, miss him. Well, today, multiple times on that rock, I was just thinking about some of the harder hikes that Costello and I had taken how he overheat because he was a bulldog mastiff and how you're just like,

yeah, you know, and I just come on, let's do this, let's do this, you know. And I was thinking, man, he really put out the effort for me. Yeah. Bulldog will die for you. They're lazy as hell. And anyone owns a bulldog knows that. He didn't have an underbite, so he had like, you know, traditional bite so he could breathe a little bit better. but the bulldog relationship to its owner is they'll absolutely die for you and i you know this because

when you have one they face the door whenever you have people over they love a crowd but they always face the open door and then someone comes through that door they're friendly but if you if they sense that you don't like them they'll just get right between you and anything he got between me and an a tiente tv on the beach once it looked like the Tiananmen square picture yeah this was no small a tv right this was a giant thing and they were just laughing and they'd move toward him and he'd move toward them this is a vehicle run them over yeah that's how dumb they are and yet how brave they are how loyal they are they're super loyal so um the the quick version of the backstory is that you know my dad's a scientist um so i grew up knowing what science was he he was a physicist and um i had a pretty traditional upbringing two parents

at home i got a sister three years older than me would sit around the dinner table every night TV was off. It's a pretty wholesome environment for the most part. I was fortunate in that. Was there pressure to be assigned to be to make something of yourself? No, I think early on they were worried about me because I was obsessive about learning. So when I was like six, I'd spend all my time in, you know, pet stores cataloging all the fish. I was obsessed with medieval weapons. So this kind of interesting that you know, pull around to today with the archery. And then I would go into class and I would ask if I could give lectures in class when you were six

when I was seven or eight and they let me do it because otherwise I wouldn't shut up and my voice back then was the same it is now my nickname was Froggy when I was a kid I have a mutation that affects my adrenals that actually I had hair on my

Adam's apple when I was a little kid so I was like this little like man professing right did they make fun of you oh yeah I got teased froggy froggy froggy and I was obsessive about Legos and I was obsessive about fish and I was obsessive about biology and learning. I love the encyclopedia, Guinness Book of Worlds, Right? And I would just be talking about it all

the time. What would your lectures be on stuff like that? Yeah, I'd say, you know, like today we're going to talk about the cichlids. These are African fish that when the pond shrinks, they get aggressive and it has to do with a hormone and then I explain what a hormone. I was like nine at that point. You know, it was kind of weird, it was weird, right? It was a weird. Like by today's standards, they probably would have said, oh, you know, he's on the spectrum. But I had friends. I was socially connected. Not that kids on the spectrum can't be,

but I was socially well connected. But I always loved learning things. And then I couldn't help myself but share the information. So that was a big part of my childhood. And so my parents, I think, were less concerned about that than they were the fact that, you know, they just kind of couldn't bring that energy to a calm resting place. I was just constantly foraging for information and sharing it.

And I did some. I played soccer and swam like every kid in my area, but I was not a good athlete. And even though I had the voice thing, I wasn't particularly strong or lean or anything. It was, you know, life proceeded pretty normally. And then when I turned about 13, 14, 14, my parents got divorced. It was unfortunately a very high conflict divorce.

I mean, I love them both. I've reconnected with both of them in real ways. But I would say you take the list of all the things that parents shouldn't do in a divorce. And they basically did them all. Hey guys, you want to be as smart as famed neuroscientist, Andrew Huberman, PhD at Stanford? Well, sadly, that's probably not going to happen. But I did find something that can help, and that's HVMN, ketone IQ. I actually down one right before reading this.

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Use code cam, CAM for 20% off your first order. So, you know, at that age, what happened was I, there wasn't a lot of parental oversight at that point. My dad was out of the picture, largely. My mom was really struggling with the whole change in our family structure. My sister was out of the house. And I, you know, at that time I was getting really interested in skateboarding. And so that's a sport where you don't need parents around.

It's also a sport where you have people of all ages. You know, so I started going up really young, hanging out with skateboarders, going up to San Francisco to a different city than it is now. And there was this place called Embarcadero, the EMB. How did you get there? We'd take the 7F bus or we'd just hop in a car where the guy was like 16 and had his license and went. You know, that was kind of how skateboarding worked. And to be really clear, I wasn't very good at skateboarding. It wasn't bad, but I wasn't good.

And I kept injuring myself. My body hadn't gotten strong yet. And, you know, I had hit puberty on time, but it was. a long slow puberty you know like I didn't start shaving until I was out of college but I'd hit puberty when I was 14 right so in those years I was what could only be described as just like feral wayward youth um I was truant a lot so I wasn't going to school um mainly avoided drugs and alcohol I smoked a little weed this kind of thing but started getting in fights I saw a lot right saw a lot fights got a fast education you know some of those kids

Embarcadero was filled with great people, but also some criminals and sociopaths, all a lot of beat downs. I saw murder, not there, but, you know, elsewhere, like right in front of me. Like, whoa. See someone stabbed and killed right in front of you. And then I wasn't going to school very much. I started getting in trouble. And eventually I ended up in youth detention, which really woke me up, right? The moment that key closes, you're like, oh, I'm messed up.

I called my team manager because I've been put on a skateboard sponsor, mostly out of sympathy. Like I said, it wasn't very good. Yeah. I was like, hey, you got to help me out. I'll never forget what he said. Steve Ruggie, who's a great guy, I'm still in touch with him, said to me, he goes, man, I can barely take care of myself. And he goes, and guess what? You're the most normal guy I know.

And I thought, oh, my goodness, like, I'm really in trouble. Yeah. Anyway, I eventually got out. But while I was- What were your parents doing? I mean, were they weighing in on any of this? Oh, yeah. They'd show up because once a week you could get visitors.

And the people who ran the place were really good people. They were trying to sort out what was going on at home. You know, they're wondering all sorts of things. Is there physical abuse? Is there sexual abuse? And fortunately for me, none of that happened, right? But they realized that I was not, I was pretty neglected. Reality was, no one could take, was in a position and take care of me and give me what I needed.

Were you lonely? At that time I was because, you know, my community of friends in skateboarding were great, but they weren't equipped to deal with this. Yeah. Even the older guys we knew. some of whom I'm still in touch with. One of them who I really adore, and he's a close friend now is Jim Thebo,

who's kind of, you know, one of these guys who really had his act together early, married his high school girlfriend, and like he took care of the community. But, and he gave me some books, encouraged me to write. He had written some poetry books. He was like, write, you know,

kind of get your thoughts down. But that was, you know, that wasn't going to get me where I needed to go, but it really helped, you know, and in some ways it was really a lifeline. So I always journaled. And then when I got out, a condition to being let back in school is that I would do therapy. Now, this is like late 80s, early 90s.

No one did therapy. The movie Goodwill Hunting hadn't happened. None of that, none of that. And so I would secretly go to this therapist because I was so embarrassed. And he was a really smart guy. And he said, listen, you're very physical. I think you need to learn to take care of your body. You keep getting hurt.

So I sought out a football coach in my school and started lifting weights a little bit. I started running a little bit. And unlike skateboarding where you hit the concrete all the time and you're getting hurt, those sports or activities were more effort-based. So I was like, hey, the more I run, the further I can run. I eventually ran cross-country for a year. I was not, again, not a good athlete,

but I started taking better care of my body. Now, unfortunately, in that time, I also, I got a great girlfriend, but then we started getting into some more serious trouble. We kind of started dabbling in drugs and things like that. And she had a tough situation at home. we drank too much mostly. But, you know, by time I got to my senior year of high school,

she had graduated because she was a year earlier ahead of me, went to UC Santa Barbara. And I was going down to visit her. And just, she was like my family. And then I realized, you know, I don't want to let her go. You know, I don't want, I loved her. She was amazing. I'm like, I want to be with her.

So I started taking fire science classes, my senior year of high school. I figured I'd be a firefighter. I'm physical. I like hanging out on a big, crew of guys, like at that time it was mostly guys, like it's service to the community. Seems like a good fit. Great career. And somehow, I don't know how. Somehow I got into Gusey Santa Barbara. I mean, I probably shouldn't say this, but I'll just say it because I haven't

been crystal clear about before. What I'm about to say, I do not recommend. But the morning of my SAT, my mom, who was at home at that point, said, hey, you got to go into school and take the SAT. I'd take it a half hit of acid the night before. I didn't sleep. don't take LSD when you're kids kids just don't take LSD period mm-hmm so I go in and I just start I'm you know I fill out my name mm-hmm fill out the other information and then I start filling out bubbles filling out bubbles not even reading the questions or what just feeling making pictures with the bubbles basically it could have only been and I'm serious here it could have only been divine intervention that I cracked a thousand on the SAT

I cracked a thousand. I wrote a decent enough essay about my life, which was honest, and they let me in. Wow. So I go to UC Santa Barbara, and this is a great opportunity, right? I'm going to college.

She's there. I completely blow it. I get there, I'm like, this is like a free-for-all. Like, I, you know, I had already been in environments where there were no rules. All these kids are, like, away from home for the first time.

And I'm, like, getting in fights. I'm spending all my time at the gym. or I got really into tie boxing. I was just a complete knucklehead, right? And she and I would split up, get back together. Anyone she dated, I'd get into fights. We was just a mess, right? Yeah.

But yeah. Yeah. And at the end of my senior year, actually got into enough trouble that I was banned from going within a 200-yard radius of the dormitories. So I was like, look, this isn't working. I'm going to move home. So I moved home and went to community college.

But the summer before, the summer between that first year and when I moved home, July 4th, 1994, I go to a party with a bunch of friends and there's some guys ripping off the house. So what do you do? Beat them up, right? Because if you're knucklehead like I was back then, four guys, so I get into a fight with all these guys, there's huge melee, a bunch of people in the street, you know. And luckily I didn't get hurt. No one got killed or stabbed, although it got really tense, you know, and I did fine. I stayed up, you know. I wasn't some sort of tough guy, but like I'd been in enough fights.

You know, it's, you know, and there's some things that you can do, like not tell people you're going to hit them. Yeah. Just yet. You know, that was kind of, yeah. But listen, I'd already had one friend get cold cocked at a bar and ended up with permanent motor cortex damage. He still walks with a limp today. So, you know, fights, we think, oh, you know, boys would be boys, but you can be brain damage or someone can pull out a gun or knife. So after that, I went home.

to where I was squatting. I was squatting in a empty home that at that summer at Santa Barbara. And I realize I'm like, I'm officially a loser. I'm 19 years old. A girlfriend and I are split up. I screwed up my first opportunity or the opportunity to get a college education. I'd gotten straight season to ease my first year if I even got that. I've already been to youth detention once.

But now I'm 19. I'm delivering bagels. I don't like the guy who owns the bagel shop. I have a bad attitude. Like, I'm officially a loser. Did you, did you, I mean, is that, did you accept that that you're a loser? Yeah.

Did you think that I'm capable so much more, I just need a break? What was your mindset? I think I was in the bitterness about what had happened in my family life. I think I was angry, to be honest, that, like, I wasn't good at anything. I was like, I'm not good at skateboarding.

And I mean, like, wah, you know. Victim. Yeah, victim mentality. And, you know, I, you know, I knew I had a strong drive and a capacity to do things, but I kept thinking, you know, who's going to be the great teacher that's going to get me excited about a subject? And I actually wrote a two-page letter to my mom. I still have it where I said, you know, this is it.

I'm turning it around. I don't care if the teachers are good. I'm going to just do the work and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and a bunch of stuff. I, you know. Did anybody tell you you were intelligent or, because, Because right now, people, if they think of you now, you're like one of the most intelligent people they know of, they listen to you, you're just like, you could throw any topic out

and you have some amazing answer. Did you feel intelligent then? Anybody tell you you're smart? No. Loophole optics has been providing my binoculars and eyewear for the last few years. I like that it's an Oregon company and they make such high quality glasses, all I've really used. and if you can't find what you're hunting, it's going to be tough to kill.

So Loopold Optics has really played an integral part in my success these last few years. Thank you, Loopold, for supporting the podcast. I had some carryover from when I was younger that I have a really good memory and then when I'm excited about something, I really throw myself into it. But, you know, no one told me I was dumb,

but I didn't have anything to show for my time. All I had was this story about how things went wrong. And that was really the, the switch in my head. It was when you're young, people can say, oh, yeah, you poor kid, you know, all this stuff happened. And, you know, I'm not getting into the details of my home life early on. It was, you know, from about 13 to 18, it was super dark. I mean, there were times where I go home and I was just completely alone. And, you know, and I lived in a community where that wasn't common, so it was easy to hide. But I had friends whose parents, you know,

I'd go to their house and eat dinner with them or my mom was doing the best she could, you know, And I really, I want to be clear, you know, her idea of family was nuclear family, two parents, the kids. And when that fell apart, I think she just went into a tailspin. Yeah. Gave up hope a little bit. Yeah. It was just a total tailspin. So I think what happened that summer after that July 4, 1994, and sort of funny because, you know,

not that I worry if people believe the stories or not, but recently, there are a couple very well-known and musicians and people that were actually at that, that became well-known people in the world who talked about it on other podcasts. You know, and I had a reputation after my freshman year being the guy that was fun to have at a party because I was gonna, it was gonna be a fight or we'd get mattresses up on the roof

and set them on fire and then jump onto him. Like, I was just wild. Yeah, it was wild. Before there was jackass, there was like, everybody that was doing that anyway. Crazy stuff. So, you know, that letter was really, about like enough is enough.

And actually looking back, I realized just now, I mean, that was me parenting myself. I'm like, I'm going to be a good parent to myself because no one else can control me. My parents might have tried. So the letter was to your mom, but it was really to you. Yeah. It was like, hey, listen, whatever has gone on in your past, it's going to mean nothing to the world unless you clean your act up now. So I moved home and I went to Foothill College was a community college. And when you move home to community college, you're with all the kids that didn't leave.

Yeah. You're with the kids in high school that didn't leave. And most of them are, it's a commuter school. No one lives there. And I would say most of them at that time weren't staying. They were like taking a couple classes and then leaving. But I will say this because I think people here, I'm at Stanford. I'm a tenure at Stanford professor.

I'm a huge fan of the community college system. I mean, it's extremely inexpensive compared to university. Because I think some people feel like that's a failure. earlier and you know that you didn't get into the four-year school and now they got to go to community college or they can't afford it or they can't afford it or maybe their grades weren't good enough and so they need to go get an associate's or something but you're there with 40-year-old moms you know and it's like some kids feel like it's a failed failed experiment right and they have to settle for community college yeah well i think also i'd spend so little time in high school that i

didn't have the basics so i got a great education at foothill for two quarters on the quarter system. I took art history. I took some psychology, some biology, and I'm like, that's it. Like, I can do this. I can, if I, you know, I started working really hard,

memorizing my textbooks, working really hard. I go to the gym. I always reacted well to the weights. You know, my body could grow quickly. I was still running, lifting. And I started studying for real. And I was like, okay, I'm pretty good at this. If I study, it's kind of interesting.

Everyone thinks school's so hard. They tell you what you need to know. Yeah. I mean, sometimes the test, or hard or the lectures are difficult to parse, but they have office hours where if you go, they'll explain what they meant if you didn't understand. I mean, it doesn't get any easier than that in life.

It's time consuming, but it doesn't get any easier in that. The challenge can be balancing too many classes. So for sure. And some classes are downright hard. But I decided this is it. So I quickly became a straight A student at the community college. And then I decided to go back to Santa Barbara because I'd taken a leave of absence.

So they let me back in, even though I wasn't allowed within 200 yards of some of the classrooms, I had to kind of say, can I come into just this classroom? Yeah, I had some mess. And people reacted very strangely. They thought, you know, who's this guy now? You know, he left. He was this kind of like wild one, you know?

I mean, someone sent me some pictures from my time in Santa Barbara recently. And I think the one, like I always had a shaved head back then. And I had like a can of WD 40 and was like blowing like, you know, from flames. Yeah. We were just wild. It was like, where's the activity? And I come back and I live in a studio apartment by myself. And I, no joke, it was sit down, set the timer.

I'm going to study. I allow myself to listen to Rancid, still my favorite band by a long shot or Bob Dylan. And I wouldn't even let myself get up to use the bathroom unless that timer buzzed. And how long was the timer? Usually two hours at a time, which sucks if you're drinking coffee. And that was studying? Studying. So I would do four two hour blocks and just.

Go eight hours a day at least eight hours a day I'd allow myself to lift allow myself to run and to eat of course Mm-hmm and who paid for the apartment. Yeah, so that that's a good that's a good question. So I was very fortunate that I got some support from my dad Mm-hmm who at that point was kind of like listen, it's do or die for you And I should have mentioned this earlier you know as an academic. I thought you know like there was a part of me back then I was like half you, you know like like where were you when I need you? I You know, like, where were you kind of thing. And he and I have since worked out our stuff. We're close. But, you know, he was like, listen, you have a great opportunity with the public education system.

You know, I actually said I want to go to Whitman. I want to become a journalist. And this is private school up in Walla Walla, Wall of Washington. I'm going to be a journalist. And he looked at the tab, like how much it was going to cost? He goes, how are you going to pay for it? Yeah. And so I said, would you pay for it?

He goes, no. And that actually was the right thing for him to do. He's like, I want you to go to a big school. Big place with public education. My taxes have been paying for this and go. So I got some help from him and I worked. So basically you humbled yourself enough to accept his help. That's right.

Because some kids would have said, no, I don't want anything to do with you. Fuck you. Right. And he was an academic and I thought at one point I was like, I'm not going to be an academic because you know. Because you are. Because you are. And I realized this is going to be self-defeating, you know, cut off your nose to spite your face kind of thing. So I also earned some income working at a supplement.

store. It's kind of funny. You know, near a gym because I could study when people weren't in there. So, and I got free gym membership. So I was able to, you know, support part of my requirements, you know, my life, life expenses. And I decided I don't care who the teacher is or how much they annoy me. I'm going to be in the front row. And I'm going to ace these classes. Like, and so I became kind of a beast. I would, academic beast. Academic beast. It was a, it was. like I just put everything I had into getting the top score. You know my girlfriend back then, and we're still in touch, she's happily married and we talk every once in a while. She was like, I created a monster because she was much more studious than I was. And she had grown up in a home

where she raised horses. And as you know, probably people who raise horses like have to do hard work. Shovel manure, horses get colic, you know, like it's hard work. Like she was a physically hard worker and worked hard. And her dad only had a seven. and made something of himself coming in this country. Yeah. You know, so we started seeing each other again, which was good. But it was all about getting my life in order at that point. And at one point I met a guy, his name was Harry Carlyle and he was an ex-Navy guy who was

a neuroscientist, believe or not, a physiologist. He worked on how the body reacts to cold, cold thermogenesis. Yeah. And I started working in his lab and that was it. I was like, now there's a hands-on piece, you know, we're doing experiments. injecting rats and cutting up their brains and, you know, doing, and I was like, man, this is really good. And I just, you know, it gets built on itself. Yeah. I would still go out of a momentum. Get some momentum. And he was the one who said, you know, you're pretty good at this. You should go

to graduate school. They pay you in the sciences to go to graduate school. And so I applied to Berkeley and Princeton. Don't ask me why. But I did, I eventually graduated with honors, you know, and took neuroanatomy, which was my was a hard course, did well in that. Were you seeking out the hardest courses or just courses that interested you? Courses that interest me, especially the courses that you had like you liked the challenge of part of this. Yeah. You said you wanted the front row highest grade.

Maybe those courses were the, the most reputation, the most difficult there was. I don't know. Yeah. Like there was a course in neural development and I got a B plus and it still pisses me off. And the guy that taught at Ben Reese was the, toughest professor and I loved it. I was like man like I love this stuff I was at so I love the material and a lot of those courses were really hard was he a tough professor like how how I mean was he a beast too like you oh yeah he taught he taught us as if we were adults and so what you find is and they're

data on this that you know the professors that crack a lot of jokes people like but they don't get as high respect ratings as the difficult professors that are serious Yes, it's like take people, take your students seriously. You know, I think you can still have some fun and stuff. But I made a point like, you know, later when I became a professor, you know, I don't swear in class. I keep the, you know, I keep it light and we have a conversation to make things relevant. But then we get serious.

We're there to learn, right? Is that part of the covering of the tattoos? It is. Just to keep it. I know, I've heard you say you don't want to distract from what you're teaching. So is that part of that whole thought process is like, I'm not joking around. We're being serious. I'm serious. Look, I'm not, you're not seeing any entertainment on my body or art. It's not relevant

right now. Yeah. Okay. And it's really out of respect for the students. You know, my dad, despite us having our differences over the years, you know, he always said, you know, if you show up a little bit overdressed to something, at least it shows that you had enough respect for your hosts. And so in the, in the classroom setting, it's like, yeah, I respect them enough to say, hey, listen, my life, my tattoos, what they mean. We could talk about some other time, maybe or maybe not. But like right now, this is me teaching you, I'm here for them. I'm not in the classroom for me, although I enjoy it. So back then, Harry Carlisle was my favorite professor and he taught about, you know, depression, schizophrenia, dopamine, thermoregulation, feeding and hunger. He's a really brilliant professor.

And then when I got into graduate school, I decided to go to Berkeley at the time. Now, my parents were very happy that I had turned my life around. But, you know, I'll be honest, I, I hadn't worked out. some of the demons. So I get to Berkeley and very quickly I ran into some trouble in my interpersonal life with my girlfriend and I, you know, flailed on a statistics exam. I'm like, ah, and then it wasn't the right fit of a lab for me. I didn't make the right choice. So you had a bachelor's and you were working on your master? I was working on a PhD, but what ended up happening was I ended up leaving Berkeley after a master's and switching to UC Davis. Now a lot of people at the time, including some folks at Davis said,

what are you doing? You're in the PhD program at Berkeley. Berkeley's better, blah, blah. Another case where the top tier, the higher rank school isn't always the best situation. Because what happened was I went up to Davis on the recommendation of somebody that I, a professor at Berkeley,

and I checked it out. And I met this woman, Barbara Chapman. And something just felt right. I was like, I like the work she's doing. And she said, yeah, if you want to come to my lab, you could transfer here or start from scratch. You know, she said, I'm going to have two kids.

So you're going to have the lab kind of to yourself, but I'll teach you what you need to know. What do you mean you're going to have two kids? She said she was going to have two children in the next couple of years. And so she had a planned already. And she lived in San Francisco and that was a two hour commute each way. And she said, you're going to have the lab most of you yourself.

So she knew she's going to be missing a lot of time. Yeah. And I thought, perfect. Mm-hmm. Because for me, and this is what I ended up doing, I ended up moving up to Davis. So for anyone listening, if you think, oh, you know, why would you ever give up a Berkeley degree for a Davis degree?

Well, if the right person to work with, with Davis, if it hits that cord, that's the place to go. So I went to her lab and put tinfoil on the little window. Five o'clock I'd lock the door, crank rants it so loud, and just did experiments nonstop for four years. Nonstop. In fact, I was supposed to take my qualifying exam

and they were like, we're gonna kick you out of the program if you don't take the qualifying exam. But I was so busy publishing papers. I was already publishing papers in really good journals. And finally Barbara came to me and she's like, listen, I'm going to kick you out of the lab. And I was like, no, no, no, no. I loved her so much.

And I just was like, nothing. No, no, I loved the life. And she could just see that. I lived on black coffee, diet Mountain Dew, but it got me caffeinated. Cucumbers, ground beef, metrics, protein drinks, and just punk rock music. Like, what were your experiments? So at that time, I was studying neural development, how the brain wires up, sort of nature, nurture type stuff, and critical period development.

So I was doing experiments on a little carnivore species called a ferret. They're actually a carnivore, not a rodent. They have binocular vision, so I was studying binocular vision. They're real cool animals. They're real cool animals. I mean, they're kind of stinky, kind of musty, smelly. I kind of like the smell, but some people don't like it. One of my favorite packages that I get on a monthly basis is a black rifle coffee club

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They're offering followers of the podcast 20% off on your first purchase to the coffee club or order on their site using code Keep Hammering to get America's Coffee today. and they have an interesting visual system because it develops mostly out of the womb. So the way biologists talk about, they're like a half-baked kitty cat. So a kitty cat gestation, before a kitten comes out, is about 63 days or so.

A ferret is essentially got a pretty complex brain. It's got the bumps, which means it's kind of a bumpy brain is complex brain. They're highly visual, and they have a 42-day gestation. So when those little pups come out, It's like being able to do embryology on an animal ex-uterro. It's a lot easier.

Because it's not fully developed? Because it's not still in the mom and it's not still fully developed. Right. So I also started doing some work on fetal macaque monkeys with something I didn't really enjoy, but I was really interested in certain questions I could only be addressed in a non-human primate. And Davis had a primate center. Still does. And I'll tell you, I loved doing experiments.

And I adored Barbara. Like what would you do to? Yeah. So physically, so what we were. doing it, I was injecting little tracer dyes into specific areas of the brain, looking at looking at anatomy, discovering new circuitry in the brain that people hadn't seen before. I developed this toxin labeling techniques so that you could do multicolored labeling in the brain to see how pathways not just two but away from things.

That was something I became known for. And then I also figured out how to introduce genes from the jellyfish, which glow green, fluorescent protein into ferrets, so I was making green glowing ferrets, but not just to make green glowing ferrets, but so you could visualize specific neurons in the brain. I was also recording the electrical potentials of neurons in the... And what would that tell you? And I was learning a couple of things. First of all, how binocular vision develops, how plastic or malleable binocular vision is, depending on experience, something that has direct relevance to human ophthalmology and vision. And then I was also trying to discover the sort of genetics and molecules.

molecules that allow a brain to wire up so precisely. I mean, if you think about it, it's wild. A sperm meat egg starts duplicating. You get a bunch of cells. And you end up with a brain. Yeah. Wild. And that brain can be modified by experience.

Like you have circuits in your brain specifically for bow hunting that others don't have, clearly. But all the wiring that's required for making sure that you breathe, digestion, heart rate, vision, all of that has to come online before you see anything. So we were figuring out some of the chemicals that guide neurons to one place or away from another place. And we had discovered there was a series of molecules that act as what are called repellents. They push neurons out of certain regions. Now, there are two ways to wire up a very detailed map in the brain of connections. One is to say, you go here and guide neurons to a place.

The other is to say don't go here. And what we discovered is that a lot of the brain wiring is by exclusion. You just say you can't go here, can't go here, by default they go to a different location. So that's what I did in Barbara's lab and it went spectacularly well. I loved working for her,

published a lot of papers and a lot of really good journals. And at that point I was like, was that like publishing a paper, that's a big deal, right? Yeah, so publishing a paper is the final step in any project. Project starts with a question ends with a publication.

It's a long process, two to three year process typically. Most graduate students would be happy to publish one, maybe two, first author papers where they really led the project. And then there are different journals like science, nature, sell. The rejection rates are about 99%, so 1% acceptance rate, excuse me, 1% acceptance rate. That's published. That's published.

And then other journals, maybe it's 75, 25, and so on. And I was both lucky and very hardworking, and I hit the timing right. And by time I'd finished my PhD, I'd published, eight first author papers, including one in science. And that's one in nature. It's exceedingly rare, yeah. I mean, I'll say that, you know,

most scientists would be lucky to publish one paper in nature or science in their career. And I've been very lucky to have published, you know, I can't do the math right now. I'd have to go back to my CV, but probably five or six. Is it a function of quality writing or the experiment itself? It's usually the discovery. The writing in the most scientific papers is pretty fractured and poor. Oh, okay.

So it's a result of the experiment. Yeah. So when I finished my PhD, I had really turned my life around. I was like, okay, you know, I did it, right? I was like, okay, I have a path. I know what I want to do. And then I went and did a five-year postdoc,

which is like a residency, so where you're not taking classes, but you're just doing experiments. I did that at Stanford. For five years. For five years. So how long have you been in school at this point? Gosh, I left high school when I was 17 because I went fall baby.

So my birthdays in September. So I was 17, 18. And did five years as an undergrad because I took the time at Foothill. Two years as a master's, four year PhD, five year postdoc. Five years as junior professor. 12 years as a, as a tenure professor. Holy shit. So, yeah, I've got a lot of time under my belt.

And so, but this is one. So I'd, sorry, I got distracted by something. When you're talking about the brain and all the, I mean, you mentioned it last night and this, this had me thinking. It's like, when you think how all that works, I have to take an aside and say, how could that happen in nature is without a creator? Yeah. So, well, here's the thing.

I mean, we know that the programs, meaning genes, so genes. DNA, and there's DNA, then there's RNA, and then there's proteins. And proteins are the action end of the game where they say, hey, like grow over here, don't grow over there, you know, become this kind of cell, dopamine cell or a serotonin cell. We know that those mechanisms are incredibly well conserved

from mice to humans. Now, certain things happen in the human brain that you don't see in other species, like the elaboration of the parts of the brain that are involved in context and planning. especially. But the memory systems, the ones that control hormones, breathing, heart rate, they're very similar. Not exactly the same, but very similar. When you start to study and understand brain development, as I did, or neuroplasticity or dopamine, you have to,

meaning I don't care if you're an atheist agnostic or believer and creator you have to step back and just go wow wow now then of course there's this difference among scientists as to who believes in god who doesn't i'll just go on record i'm very comfortable saying i believe in god i do i think there are many things that science can explain there are certain things science can't explain but i'll even go a step further, which is that all the elements of science are entirely compatible with the idea of there being a God. And I'm not the first scientist to say this. I mean, Einstein believed in God. Carl Jung, one of the greatest psychologists ever clearly believed in God. There are many atheist scientists. There are agnostic scientists who are just kind of like unsure, right? And, you know,

for me, I'm an absolute awe, absolute awe of biology. It's just incredible. We're sitting here having this conversation. It's with language, that they're low sound waves that you're perceiving and understanding. I mean, it's just, and I think the brain represents the apex

of incredible in terms of biology. Like the heart is interesting. The immune system is interesting. The liver is interesting. But the brain is unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, think about the number of different ways you can move your body

compared to another species. Think about what you did today. Think about what I was attempting to do today, right? Yeah. Spectacular. Think about technology, these lights, the, you know, Tesla cars, spaceships. I mean, the internet. I mean, unbelievable.

And yet, oh, so real. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, we could talk a bit about how I, you know, well, I'll just say this. Secretly, I've always prayed. I grew up in a split religion home. My family's like the UN. We've got people in Guatemala, Denmark, Argentina, New York. Like all the different political battles are in my family, super left.

super right libertarians lefties to the you know it's crazy thanksgivings can be difficult yeah but i'll say this you know i absolutely pray i absolutely love that the idea but also what for me is really a deep belief which is that we can't control everything we're not in as much control as we think we are and that the magnificence of biology and the magnificence of of of nature is it's impossible for me to conceive how that could be come about any other way. It just is. Now, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, full stop.

Who do you pray to? That's an interesting one because I think God. Yeah, so I absolutely do. I've actually started reading the Bible recently, start to finish. I feel like it's my duty to like learn and in some sense compare old and New Testament, I'm like really, I'm really interested in the stories, but I'm also, I'm fascinated by the story of us, right, and the story of everything.

And so, but yeah, I pray out loud in the morning, sometimes again in the middle of the night if I wake up. And it's only recently that I've been doing this more often. It's given you peace. Oh, my goodness, it's giving me so much. It's giving me peace. And, you know, it's going to sound weird and probably people are going to be like, what are you talking about. It works. It works. There's a way in which certain things I was grappling with, you know, I just couldn't resolve. I couldn't do it. And it was all internal and I just couldn't do it.

How were you trying to resolve these things? Like have an answer? Yeah, discipline myself. I mean, it wasn't like I was super, you know, undisciplined. I mean, obviously I have a lot of self-disciplined. But, you know, like I always pray, you know, I want to remove my. my defects of character, I want to, you know, I certainly pray for other people. I mostly, you know, these days I pray for the ability to really harness as much care and love for other people and for myself, something I haven't been that good at in my lifetime in order to be able to put the best possible work into the world. to really serve.

Like I really see myself as serving higher power. Like I'm a conduit. Right. And the better I can do that, the better I'm serving. The better I'm serving, the better I'm serving, the more I feel connected to humanity. Do you think that with this, I don't know, if you've always felt like this,

it sounds like it's more of a newer, newer feeling. Somewhat, although secretly. Yeah. Like in Santa Barbara, I'll just say there's this place, Sands Beach down at the end of the beach for anyone's ever been there. And I used to run down there. Once a week, I always did a long run, long for me, run on Sunday, minus a 72-pound rock.

Right. And I would pray. And I just pray for, you know, be honest with myself, be honest with others. And that was years ago. God was 18. Oh, okay. 19, 20. So, and then, you know, I've seen some hardship along the way.

I mean, I would just mention that I've had three amazing scientific advisors. You know, Harry shot himself. Two weeks after I told him we published a paper in science. He said, come on down to Santa Barbara. It'd be great to take you out for pizza and celebrate. Two weeks later, ate a bullet in the bathtub. Barbara died of cancer when she was 50. I'm friends with her daughter.

I saw her. She did have those two kids. One's a neuroscientist. Oh, man. At McGill. And she was like a mom to me. He died. I was speaking at her memorial.

And then my postdoc advisor died. He was a pretty impressive guy in his own right. And so at one point I'm thinking like, what's going on? You know, I'm the common denominator. How am I picking these people? But they were amazing and, you know, I had some friends commit suicide, you know,

this kind of thing and you live long enough, that's gonna happen, people are gonna go. That's just the reality. But there were times when I'm like, you know, it's dark, it was, you know, like where am I? Why, why me? And at those moments too, just accepting that there's a plan

and it's happening for a reason and I don't know what it is and just putting my truck in that allowed me to grieve those things properly and to really try and you know I got the message I got the download to take the lessons from them and just not waste a single day and to do things that I've really felt mattered so to me it's all always been linked right to you know sort of forces greater than me certainly does it feel like you know when I'm hearing all this does it feel like once you've taken like a more, I don't know,

intentional turn for being grateful and praying, you're not drinking since 2019. It seems like that's been in tandem with your success. Absolutely. You know, I always wanted to have a deeper relationship to God. I always wanted that. And I kind of was like, why don't I have that? Well, duh.

That's like saying, I want to be fit. why I'm not, I'm not fit. Well, because you're not running. You're not lifting. You're not doing the things. It was like, and it was a couple of different people that kept showing up in my life. And they were doing it. And it was like, we'll pray.

And, you know, I've learned and I certainly try and do this, a lot of prayers about listening. And a lot of prayers about you ask for things or listen for things. And then an hour later, two days later, you go, wait. Like it doesn't happen in the moment necessarily, just like fitness. I don't want to compare fitness. I don't want to trivialize prayer by comparing to fitness, but there's some parallels that are relevant. Yeah.

It's consistent work. Yeah, it's consistent work. And then all of a sudden, like, things come up. And you're like, oh, my goodness, I can't believe it. That makes so much sense. Now, I think that the success of the podcast, first of all, I'm incredibly grateful for, incredibly grateful. But in many ways, I'm doing exactly what I was doing when I was that six, seven, eight,

nine-year-old kid. I'm learning and sharing. So it was always in me. And it always felt like this energy, this thing. Like it's like, how did I end up like this? How come all the other kids like don't have this? And how come sometimes it feels like a little bit of a, not a curse, but kind of a burden. Like, what do I do with this?

And the deep satisfaction for me comes from acknowledging this is me. I've always been this way. It's not going to change. And that it's not coming from me. It's coming through me. Right. And I just want to do right by it. And I think we talked a little bit.

It's a gift and you're honoring your gift. That's right. Essentially. Yes. Yes. And I feel like if we're honoring our gifts, we're rewarded. Absolutely. And I think one of the biggest rewards recently comes from,

and we talked a little bit about this on the mountain today, it's like for me, the sweet spot that I finally get steady glimpses of is being loving, but also realistic. Like you can be so loving that you lose touch with the reality. Too much trust isn't good either. But you don't want to be unloving to yourself and others because then you look at the world through cynical lens and then you're not going to be doing your best work.

So for me it's all about being loving but realistic. And I think prayer helps me arrive there. It does many, many other things. I also just feel like our time here is limited and I've been so blessed by people that have come along. I mean, those academic mentors meant everything to me. But so did the academic mentors that I didn't work for directly that helped me along. So did the high school football coach that taught me out of Lyft.

So did Lex Friedman, you, Joe Rogan, right? Rich Roll, people who gave me the opportunity to talk on their podcasts about science and then eventually, you know, we started our own podcast. So to me, it's this like beautiful ecosystem. And I never, ever think of myself as like, okay, like I'm here professing to people. I just love being a part of it. I also just like when I was a kid, I'm crewed up with a bunch of great people, you know, and it's not all guys, Rhonda Patrick too, who by the way, folks, people always say,

who was first man in on public facing science and health education? Not first man, first woman. It was Rhonda. She was the first. Then came Matt Walker, me, some of us. others, right? So I think the community of podcasters also, I feel like, wow, like this is as great as when I discovered neuroscience. And I actually feel more resonance with podcasters because it's really like of the love. You can't have a podcast that is worth anything in terms of its success or

its content unless the person doing it loves that thing. Right. Like you can't. It's not journalism. It's not media. I mean, there's a media component because it's public facing, but it's like you love bow hunting. Yeah. You love fitness. You love hammering away every day, right?

Right. And so you're basically talking about the things that you would be doing anyway. And so am I, and so is Joe, and so is Lex and so is Rich. Right. So is Rhonda. Yeah.

And we're getting paid for this? Right, exactly. I'd do this for free. Exactly. So if anyone out there wants to do a podcast or social media, what I would say is make sure that what you talk about is something that you really truly care about. And Rob, my producer and I were talking

about this today that, you know, I think young people would be wise to figure out at least three things that they absolutely love doing. And hopefully one of those things can be your source of income in life. Maybe you need an advanced degree to build it up. Maybe you don't. I don't think everyone needs to go to college. But maybe, like, you want to be a lawyer or a doctor. You need, you need the degree. A bowhunter? No. No. The degree is earned out there on the hunts. Right. So I think that, but if you love those things and then you also want to teach other people and share how much you love it, well, then you should be a podcaster. But you can't, the podcasting is not like the career. The career is all the stuff that goes into the podcast. Right. So anyway, I feel extremely blessed. I'm completely humbled that students would show up on a Thursday night to listen to that lecture. We do live events and, you know, like thousands of people. Like, it's wild. And then I also. just turn off any kind of notion that it's like about me because it's not it's coming through me

but to me it just feels like the biggest gift in the world just learn and share you know people say they're blessed all the just kind of like a I don't I don't know doesn't mean maybe what it should it's just kind of like a habit oh yeah I've been blessed but when I when you when I hear you say you you feel blessed and then I see the I mean there's people there last night just staring at you just like couldn't believe you were there. And what I saw from you was this. Thank you. Thank you. I truly believe you do feel blessed. It's not just lip service because I saw it. But I saw these people looking and they want to put you up like on an altar, you know, and that probably feels odd. But to me, your personality, your mindset or where you are allows you to be like, thank you. I'm a conduit.

this is what this is I've been blessed with this I'm sharing it and it feels very genuine to me after seeing it and hearing it and spending time with you um yeah I mean I don't know it it makes me feel good oh thank you I mean I your perception is correct that I I truly feel blessed and I and I am so grateful and humbled for all of it and I also it's like I just have to laugh right. I'm like doing the same thing as I did when I was a kid. I go learn something. I get excited about, oh, mindsets or the years the data or like I'll find a gem in the literature. Like, oh my God, people are going to, their minds are going to be so happy. They're going to be so many people will benefit. They're going to like this. Like, or even if they don't like it,

like this is super cool, like to me. And so it's just like geysers out of me. And so if people are focused on the idea of like the personality that's delivering it or the fact that I always wear a black shirt, I'm like, cool, like that's. That's fine if it if that's what you know there's an anchor point there for them but for me it's really about the information allowing truly about the information allowing people to feel better and do better and look I also have a deep you know I'll share something I've never shared before my mom's like a super do-goater when we were growing up we'd see a homeless guy in our neighborhood there there aren't it wasn't that frequent back then there was a guy who were sheepskins she we call him the sheep man she put him in a hotel we didn't know that but she was like trying to save everybody. And I think it eventually wore on her, you know, that the world isn't healed up the way that she wished. And, you know, I'm not a bleeding heart,

but I do have a bit of that for my mom. Like I do believe that it's at least part of my role in being here to try and help heal, heal the world. And by giving and sharing and the fact I can do it by doing things that I love, while also accepting that like, listen, people are going to do what they're going to do. Can't control everything. There's a reason for it.

I believe that. Like humanity's not ready yet. Not ready yet. Right. Hopefully that someday, right, it will be. But I can just do my part. And so I really trying to deepen my sense of purpose all the time. And, you know, we talked about prayer earlier and asking for things.

And I do. you know, please help me remove my character defects to get through today. I has to not get injured on the hike. You know, little things. It's kind of more minor. But then there's also the listening piece. And like hearing, you know, the messages of, hey, listen, you know, you need to rest or you need to push harder. I hear that sometimes.

You need to push harder. You need to go deeper. You need to be more precise. Who do you hear that from? Oh, I mean, if I'm in my mind that's coming from God, no, not from me. I mean, I don't think that there, I couldn't come up with that message. Okay. My mind doesn't have the structure or the wherewithal to do that.

And it comes through as a very clear, you know, message, right, of, is what you need to do, you need to go harder into the paint or you need to, sometimes you need to rest. You need to back off when that's not my impulse. That's how I know it must not come from me. I see. Yeah. I mean, does this any, I mean, is any of this sound, is this sounding crazy or is this, No, no.

That resonate. No, I just, yeah. I mean, I just wondered how, is that how you also deal with, you've had critics? I mean, everybody, everybody who stands out and is making an impact, there's people who don't, they are jealous or whatever. So there's been critics of Andrew Huberman.

Yeah, including some very well-respected scientists. And is it because your sense of purpose in this message that you're feeling, that you're able to ignore that? Well, or do you ignore it? Yeah, at first it was hard to ignore.

So like, hey, you know, like I was one, and I still consider myself one of the neuroscience community. You know, I earned my stripes,

right? Those papers didn't publish themselves. You went to school for 50 fucking years. Yeah, and I reviewed those people's papers, and I know about them, and I know they're not perfect, but, you know,

anytime you're trying, you get in defensive and someone's pointing at you and you're pointing back, like you're, you know, and it's, listen,

we all have that impulse, including me. Yeah. I would say about a third of scientists were very supportive and said, hey, go for it. This is great. People are learning. I clearly understand why you're doing this. And actually, I'm benefiting from some of the information. A lot of scientists are really unhealthy. A lot of physicians are really unhealthy. Look at them. Right. Okay. It's not just weight. Sometimes it's weight. It's also just look at them. They're clearly not well.

Okay. So, and many of them are, but fewer are than aren't actually. Okay. About a third, I would say, just, I haven't heard. heard from. Maybe they're, you know, and then there are. No comment. No comment. Yeah. And then a third, I think, have been critical in part that we run sponsors and things like that. And I always say, look, the podcast to me is a perfect ecosystem. The information is available free. Free. Completely free. And you don't have to watch it. You can slide past the ad reads if you don't want. But a lot of people want to know where they can obtain things that could be useful to them. And they obviously choose to do some choose to do that and that helps subsidize it for the kid that can't afford it

right they can't afford the podcast they get it free everyone gets it free and then of course the sponsors are happy so the and the funny thing is and this was pointed out by a colleague of mine usually the people that are criticizing that you know that you're doing this podcast thing and there's advertisements they're usually at universities where guess what getting the education is behind a paywall So the alternative is to put it behind a paywall, which we don't do. So it's not that I'm completely oblivious to it or that I ignore it. But what's kind of interesting, and I'm sure you're familiar with this, when you hear something the first time or 10 times, it hurts a little bit. You're like, hey, being misunderstood hurts.

Well, when you're passionate about something. Right. When it's something you've been doing since you're six years old because you love it and you're still doing it. And now of a sudden you're because you're successful, you're criticized for it. Right. Because maybe these people haven't. had this success, they see you, they're jealous. And so they want to tear it down or you're in shape.

They're not in shape and they do the same thing. And you're like, well, he's getting, he's getting attention because he's jacked. Well, I think there's all sorts of ways to analyze it. Critique always reveals people's insecurities too. I mean, the first, a lot of them will say, say things and you realize, wow, they really think that I'm saying that people have to do all this stuff.

I'm just giving you options. I'm not telling anyone what to do. I'm just giving you options. I heard you say that last time. You're talking about underage drinking. And you said, I don't, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling you, here's what happens. Right.

So do as you will, but know what you're doing. Yeah. And then in terms of the critique, I also think part of it is because I don't just talk about my own work. I cover subjects that I've worked on. I also go in research subjects that are in other people's domain. And I've always invited people to give me critique. In fact, we now have a formal portal on Hubermanlap.com website where we invite, if you have a critique, put what the critique is, put what the basis of your critique is, right?

Not, I don't like it, but, you know, are there data that are conflicting? You know, we'll see what comes in. But to this day, no one's ever, I've gotten critique, especially on Twitter slash X. Yeah. But no one's actually said, this is the problem I have. So that they just seem unhappy with it. But I will say it's also been wonderful to hear the people that have benefited from morning sunlight, improve sleep, improve focus, and a number of other topics that we've covered.

So when you get those critiques early on, it stings a bit. But it's sort of like publishing papers. When you get reviews back, anonymous reviews, the first ones, you're like, ouch, oof. But by time you're publishing your 50th or 60th paper, you know, it bounces off you like, you know, like cap gun fire. Yeah. And the same way on social media, you know, if I make a mistake, I hope it's pointed out.

But if people attack, I mean, I've gotten so much of it since I started that now I'm like, And I don't mind it. It also really helps to have an amazing team and people around you. And that another thing I love about podcasting is that it's not competitive between podcasters. We have the same guests on. We run different content. So it's nice to have a community of people like you and Joe and Lex and et cetera. You can refer to if you're feeling kind of like, hey, how seriously should I take this critique? But having my podcast team, which is, you know, many people, but it started as kind of four, four people, Rob, Mike, Ian, and me. I run things by them. Hey, like, do you think this is valid? We shouldn't think yes or no? And

sometimes it's like, hey, yeah, we should talk about something that we could have done better. I am far from perfect. I mean, I have many, many, many flaws. But I do strive to get things right. I'll put anywhere from dozens to hundreds of hours into prep. I would think that the people that say that you shouldn't be sponsored, it's like, well, you're working your ass off. I mean, preparing for these teachings you're doing basically online and your podcast. It's like, why wouldn't you be compensated? And for the people that's saying you shouldn't be, but are behind a pay while at the college, you know, it's almost, I don't know, I mean, you're offering education of people who maybe never went to college, couldn't afford to go to college,

but have learned so much from you for free. I mean, how could that be criticized? Well, I think one issue with academia that I absolutely have is that so much of its power is derived from this in-group out-group thing. Like if people really understood how science was done, and have-nots. Yeah, if people really understood how science was done and that the people doing it are just like everybody else, but they picked that, they lose a little bit of their cachet. I believe everyone should at least have the information to give them access to mental health, physical health, and up-leveling their performance. So I make it zero cost.

And I think that, you know, when I say everyone, I mean everyone. And this is one of the great things about those early challenges I had. Had I just gone to school and had the perfect home and then gone off to college and then got a job and maybe I would have been a scientist, I don't think I would have the kind of understanding of what it's like to, you know, like I had a friend those high school years and he had 14 brothers and sisters and his mother was a crack addict and he fortunately made something of himself but like i don't i truly don't distinguish between the janer the Nobel Prize winning scientists the homeless person on the street i do believe in personal accountability but you don't know that person's story i don't know

that person's story you know everyone deserves the opportunity and no one gets away without hard work so there's that but i do believe that giving him information out for free in the form of clear under you know clear to them format is really key you know a lot of academics use language that you know people go wow like they're really smart yeah but that's talking over people right so people say dumbing down is bad talking over is bad so that's my favorite thing about you you can talk about shit I had have no idea how to understand it but in a way I can understand it you know what I mean well it's like it today I was asked asking a lot of questions about bow hunting.

And thank you for that. Yeah, one of my goals, like one of the big challenges for me is how to take complex information that's like embedded in nomenclature and make it accessible. I mean, you challenged me on that earlier tonight. You said, wait, what were you doing in graduate school? And I'm like, okay, and it made me think about how

what we call them in my field is axon guidance, molecules, chemo repellence, and stuff. I'm saying, you build a nervous system by saying, don't go here, go here, go here. And that's one of the things I really enjoy is trying to take complex themes and break them down into still accurate and actionable language so that the everyday person can say,

hey, yeah, I understand why I need morning sunlight, circadian rhythm. I've never heard of circadian, but like, that makes sense. I understand why elevating your heart rate and your blood pressure with exercise would cause lower heart rate and blood pressure later because, like, it adapts, it changes. You know, there's so many people in the world

that don't have, and frankly, there's no need for them to get a formal education or certainly advanced education. So, but they need, I believe they need the information too. Well, it can better their life. Right. And position them to do more in whatever endeavor they're in and position relationships in better places.

So again, so I'm at the point now where if someone sends me a valid criticism, meaning like I made an error, then certainly I'll correct that error. But otherwise, I talk to my team. And if it still bothers me, we're back to this again, but it's true. I close my eyes and I just, I ask for guidance. What, what do I do with this? And then I listen.

And I take that in for whatever information I hear seriously. Yeah, I'm, I don't know. I don't know. I've gained a lot from just hearing your story. And it helps me understand you better, which is, you know, How do you really understand somebody without sitting down and having a conversation like this? Because, you know, normal life you don't sit down for an hour or two hours and hear about. So tell me about your life story.

But it's, I mean, I don't know, I think you're in a position now where you're impacting. And we just said that, you know, you're helping improve somebody's life with maybe some tips, health tips. But also, that has a compounding effect because if they're performing better in life, better at their job than others are too, right? Because the positive impact you've given them, hopefully they're passing on. And that's the ripple effect we're talking about where, you know, you want to make a positive difference here and honor the gifts you've been given. What better way to do it than help improve somebody's life and health?

I mean, it's, I don't know. I don't, yeah, I can understand. I can't understand, I guess, but it's not surprising that people, would criticize the podcast and being a capitalist, I guess. But isn't everybody in some way? Oh, yeah. And I'm telling you, our tax dollars are paying their salaries, these people. I'm sure, like, your appearance fee to show up and, like, speak at the, at the university. It's probably a lot, right? Oh, for what I did, a U of O? Yeah. No, zero. I did it for U of O for nothing. I have a friend there and he asked me to do it. Now, we do live events and we charge a,

you know, admissions fee. We try and keep the tickets price. But yeah, so that right there. I did that because I wanted to come up here and see my host, Chris at the university, and they started the center on the science of happiness and well-being. And I thought, that is a great initiative. Let's go. You came up here. Yeah, we paid our tickets up.

I mean, they actually booked my ticket, but we extended to come here and we took care of that. Like, I'm not, I did it because I was excited at the opportunity and then also to sit down and run and carry with you. I don't want that point to be missed. I mean, so you did this for your friend and you're excited about the program at the university. Yeah, and I enjoy it. I was like, wow. And I've always loved you of O.

I've come up here for the track meets for the Olympic track and field trials except for the year COVID where they didn't allow outsiders. I went to the previous two. And I love the story of Nike and Pre and, you know, and Bowerman read the Bowerman book. And I've always loved you of O. I've always loved Oregon. And yeah, I came up here because I wanted to hang with you. And yeah, I mean, all of it comes truly from the heart. It's like, how could I, I mean, there's no other way to do it in my view.

Yeah. And I will say this, that as much criticism as I've gotten, I've also gotten some notes from faculty, including some really like a Nobel Prize winner outside my field and saying, like, hey, I think this is great. Keep going. Keep going. And that really helps. But even if they didn't send me that encouragement, like,

kind of like that kid I was way back when I can't help myself yeah it's because again it's it's not me going okay like how do I pick something that people are going to like and it's like what's my reward for this yeah I mean and that's how a lot of people get through life they're like you know they want to know if I do this job how much am I getting per hour you know what I mean that's that's most people I mean you got to make ends meet and um at the same time doing things for money Mm-hmm. Oh, like, if you, people out there, if you, if you approach life that way, you're going to be miserable, and you're probably also never going to have enough. If you do things because you love them and you do them in a principled way, I've never seen it fail.

Mm-hmm. I've never seen it fail. And the idea of, you know, and I've punched the clock before, too, right? I mean, you know, I've done that, too. I'm delivering bagels, buss and tables. you know, all sorts of things. But, and it wasn't always easy. I mean, there were nights when I'm doing experiments

and experiments are failing and stuff, but you just have to be grateful for the opportunity and then just suck it up and just get right back out there. I mean, reps, reps, reps, reps, reps. I mean, it works. It's always worked and it's always going to work. Yeah. And there are no real shortcuts.

Right. Every time we see someone try and take a shortcut, I think it's safe to name names because, I mean, they're all in jail anyway. You know, I think Sam Bang, Benfrey got found guilty. 110 years or something like that? I didn't see the sentence, but you know, or you know, Liz Holmes,

there are no, I mean, when people cheat, sometimes they get away with it, but, you know, the shortcuts don't work. And sometimes they get people in, you know, in jail for the rest of their life. And also assuming that there's some quick hack that's going to get you there is, but the things that I share are really about giving people also a sense of agency. Like if people have, like a lot of people have anxiety, like a lot of people have anxiety. And they don't know what to do. Like, do they take medication?

Should they meditate? You know, so you give them a tool like physiological sighing. People can look that up to see what it is. And they do it and they go, oh, this thing works. And like, now they have a sense of control. And I think a lot of times people feel stricken by their biology and their psychology. You give people a little sense of control over themselves. And they go, oh, wow.

And then, you know, it's like with the bow. Like, you know, like I kept drawing, what was it left or right? You know, you're supposed to put a little hole in. the paper and I'm like ripping a typewriter line. And then I realized that, you know, the way the string is coming off the cam is tilted and something, looking up and you adjust and did I fix it perfectly? No, but you make that adjust.

You go, there's agency there. Like, I can get better at this if I pay attention. Yeah. And so I think it's the same with our health. It's the same with anything. And it would be a shame if we could do it well the first time or perfectly the first time. Where's the fun in that? That was a good question last night,

which I think Rob mentioned he was pleasantly surprised, but that one of the questions that came up was, if you could take whatever heartbreak or failure and eliminate it and have it never have happened and never felt like that, would you do it? And more than half of the people said, no, they wouldn't do it. They liked, or they didn't like,

but the feeling of failing or pain was useful. And helped define them. I was very surprised by that answer. And because there's certainly some things, I've failed that over and over and over. You know, I'll be open. I mean, I've been very successful in my career choices. I have amazing friendships.

I'm fortunate to, as far as I know, have my physical health, knocking wood. And, but you know, I've struggled to merge my career ambitions and the amount of time I put into that with my personal life and building a family. I'm late to that, despite some efforts. There have been a lot of failures. And I take responsibility for my role in those.

Absolutely. But it's something I'm still striving to get right. And I'll keep striving to get right. But I agree with what the student said fundamentally that the hardships, the losses, they make the good times way better. A sense of appreciation is so deep. And also it shapes us, makes us who we are. And I do think having a little bit of a pebble in your shoe sometimes can keep you working harder and really persevering. I mean, certainly you're not as hardworking as you are because it's just keep hammering and succeed every time.

It's keep hammering and you get more frequent success over time, right? But I'm guessing there were some dark ears in there too. And you've written about this and some really tough stuff. And you had to parent yourself early on too. You had to scruff yourself and be like, hey, I mean, your life took some quick turns towards like, hey, it's now or never. Well, I mean, your story resonates with me because I felt that too. I didn't, my dad wasn't around.

I didn't want anything to do with my stepdad. I was on the streets walking around Portland, seeing a lot of just by myself. So like the lonely part, that's why I asked, did you feel lonely? Because that was me. I moved away and my brother was back here with my mom. I felt lonely. So I was like, that really resonated with me. And I mentioned today.

when that rock is fucking a pain in the ass to haul up the hill. But it's like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

the moment you get into one position, your hands start hurting, then your arms and you move it to your shoulder and then you're good for a few paces and then that starts hurting you got to move to the other side and then your back cramps up and then your legs are cramping up. So, I just think that, you know,

when you go through real challenges and a heartache in life, it's little like, even though it sucks, carrying the rock up the mountain, that's going to be over. That's just not lasting more than an hour, you know? So it's like when you've been through real pain, you can compartmentalize and say,

this is whatever, this is temporary, I'm good. So it's like, you know, kind of going back to that question is like, yeah, I've hurt. I've been in pain. I've been lonely. And this isn't that. Yeah. I can get through this long run. I can get through this race.

It's over in three days, even if it's 200 miles. It's not that bad. Yeah. I think one of the most important things for everybody to be able to say to themselves, knowing they're being completely honest, is I can do hard things. If it gets tough, I know I can do it because I've done it. And I think, you know, you can't ask a two-year-old to say that to themselves or a 10-year-old, but maybe even a 10-year-old, you know, sadly, you know, if I had my way,

everyone would have the gift of a near perfect childhood. But if I had my way, also everyone would be able to experience something, hopefully not so damaging that they're permanently scarred and dissolve into a puddle of their own tears, but they could say, I can do hard things. And I know that to be a fact, not just a mantra because I've done hard things. Yeah. Or in your case, you can say, I do hard things every day. I try.

I mean, mostly I do it just because I feel like a lot. fraud half the time or poser. So I have that written on the rock just to remind myself I'm a poser. Well, one of the most common questions I get is how can you build confidence? The way you build confidence is by doing hard things, hard for you, like really challenging, failing. That class, that neural development class, Ben Reese gave me that B plus still pissed off about it. That's not failing, by the way. No, but coming from where I was coming from, anything less than an A was a failure. was like the beginning of the slide back to being that 18 year old kid. And I worked so hard.

And I saw that B plus is my favorite course, my favorite grade. Because it reminded me like it was the hardest class. He was such a difficult professor to like to the material was like postdoc level. Super difficult. And I just think like I can do hard things. And yeah, I think it's that simple. I mean, it's a short sentence, but it's one that if you know you can state it to yourself honestly, then you can get through whatever. And that's confidence.

I do like that one thing that I, you know, have noticed with you, if you're always giving credit to is it, who is it Stanford? Is it Liz? Oh, Anna Lemke. Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite people. You're always, you're always referencing people you've worked with professors, people who have impacted you. You're always naming names. And a lot of people skip that part.

Yeah. Well, they talk about how much they've done or how much they've overcome and they forget the help along the way. But you never do. I mean, I've heard you many times. I've listened to your podcast. Listen to you last night. I listened to you today. And it's like you're always quick to share accomplishments, share where you learn something,

the lessons you've learned, people who's helped you. And it's like, I just love it. Because a lot of people, once they get to the top, they forget all that part. You know what I mean? Well, thanks for mentioning that. For me, it's a little bit difficult to articulate, but when I'm, Anna Lemke came and gave a lecture on addiction in my course that I teach to medical students,

the neurobiology course. And I heard her lecture and I was like, she needs to come on the podcast. She's amazing. And she was yet to release her great book, Dopamine Nation. And the fact that I've gotten to know her, and she's a spectacular human being, but also that her message about addiction is just so powerful,

mechanistically make sense and practical and on and on and that she's so generous. So for me, mentioning that, first of all, it's what's appropriate because she did all that work. I didn't do that work. Second of all, like, I feel so lucky that I know her. It's the same way I feel about knowing you. I feel so lucky. I mean, I think I know I'm going to be doing archery, you know. Like I just know it. You know, whether or not bull hunt, I guess, remains to be seen, you know, but that would be a wonderful place to take it. But so I'm so lucky or like Joe and what Joe's done to help me, but also just I love his podcast and I think he's done some truly important work in the world by having guests on like Matt Walker. I don't like

you. You don't like Matt Walker? And he talks about sleep. Oh, we'll get your sleep ironed out. Matt's a really good guy. But the, Matt, he doesn't dislike you. It's that Cam has trouble I'm just joking. We'll get him squared away. Yeah. But, you know, so I feel so blessed, like, how lucky am I? Yeah. That I know these incredible people.

Lex tells me start a podcast. And I meet Rob, who's like, helps me. Then we bring in Mike, who's a photographer. Like, I'm, I'm like beyond grateful. Yeah. So when I'm crediting people, I'm not thinking, oh, got to do this. I'm thinking, I'm so grateful. It's like, it's weird.

It's more about a feeling in me that, you know, I feel like I feel like I'm, the luckiest guy in the world. And I'm just doing what I would do anyway if there was never a camera or microphone. Yeah, I just, I just really notice it because a lot of people would say instead of mentioning names, they'd say colleagues, the colleague and I have worked on this project or I read, you know, so it's just, it's just, I just notice it. And it's like, it's, I love it. It's awesome.

And yeah, I mean, you seem as genuine as can be on, on your pursuits. But so I didn't want to, I kind of interrupted you. talking about, I think, faith and a creator. But you talked about you got kicked out of what you were four or five years. And finally, your professor had the two kids came back and said, you got to go. So then what happened? Yeah.

So I graduated from my PhD and had these papers, which then I allow you to do a postdoc. So I did a postdoc at Stanford. But there's a twist in the story. Okay. I took a postdoc at Harvard. Because Harvard's Harvard. Yeah, what is that? What is, I don't even know what the fuck a postdoc.

A postdoc is like is a four or five year period in which you just do research and you develop your own independent ideas that then you're going to take to your own lab as a professor. So I went to Harvard. I was supposed to start my postdoc January 1, 2005. Excuse me. Yes, January 1, 2005. I arrived there Halloween night. And I started attending lab meetings of this particular professor,

even though I haven't started there yet. So he's not paying me. And I observed some things in his treatment of other people, including the janitor. And I'm like, uh-oh, I don't think I can work for this guy. I mean, he was unkind. He was impatient. And I thought, oh, no. So I told him, listen.

Like Professor Lambo. So I told him, and he's the head of brain sciences at Harvard at the time. Like, what am I going to do? So I call someone at Stanford that had given me an offer earlier. said I'd like to come there. And I go to this person at Harvard and I said, listen, you know, I'm going to go. This isn't going to work. And you haven't started paying me.

So I'm going to go before you start. And he says, no, you're not leaving. Now, I'm an adult. I've cleaned up my life. But I also grew up in a skateboarding punk rock scene. Like, you know, you're not going to tell me no, I'm not going to go. How old were you at this time? I was about 18 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, I was about the 30 years old. Okay. Yeah. And he said, listen, I think you're depressed. You're not thinking clearly. Maybe you're having some mental issues. I want you to see a psychologist and come back.

And I left. And then I walked in the next day and I said, I'm leaving. Here are my keys. And he said, you're not going. And I said, watch me. And I left. And I was like, oh my God. Now at this point, I don't have a professorship.

I'm afraid, right? I mean, you know, where's my career going to go? Can you be blackballed? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. So I go that's a risk. That's a huge risk, but I just couldn't do it. Fortunately, there was someone back at Stanford who was eager to have me in his lab. So I went to his lab and I said, listen, I'll work on whatever you tell me. He said, well, you should do the thing that you were going to work on in that lab. And I go, no, no, I don't want any beef with that guy. And he goes, no, you absolutely should do it. Should take him on. And I was like, you're kidding me. No, no, no, I don't want to do any. But he convinced me. And in the end, I ended up in a direct competition with that lab, except they've got an army and I'm one guy. And I had to be clever in how the projects I picked. And in the end,

I held my own, published those papers, did well as a postdoc and got hired to run my own lab, first at UC San Diego, and then I transferred my lab to Stanford. What was the paper on? So at that time, I was, and this gets a little technical, but at that time, what we were trying to figure out was, we're still trying to figure out the wiring of the nervous system. You know, a huge question that's still unresolved is, you know, what are the circuits in the brain? And we know that, you know, the visual stuff is in the back and the, you know, the planning stuff is in the front, but the fine wiring.

And so I was still developing genetic tools to visualize those connections. And so as a postdoc, the way I competed with that other lab, and they got theirs too, they did pretty well too, was I developed a lot of tools. and I gave him all away. And as a consequence, the community outpublished him. Or at least made it certain that he didn't get full credit. Full credit. You got to share.

And that was kind of my like, you know, that was my piece. And you also, when you share widely, people are grateful. When you share widely, you suddenly have friends that are teaching you new things that you didn't know. And I realized this is the key. Like you don't hold everything close to your chest. You give it away. Now you protect your own pursuits, right? You don't give everything away.

Right. But I was like, wow, there's this whole other way of doing science where you share. And I became known- Which is what you're doing now. Which is what I'm doing now. And I became known for being extremely generous with these resources.

And then when I started my own lab, I started working on neural regeneration. I always wanted to work on this. I want to have an impact on the world. So we started working on how you repair neurons, brain cells after brain damage, especially in the visual system. We continue to make attempts to try and cure certain forms of blindness, glaucoma in particular.

And we've had some degree of success in the animal models that are now being implemented in humans and we'll see where it goes. So, you know, that's how the story went. And I will say along those years, I, you know, sometimes I trained less than others, you know. There was a time when I only lifted one day a week and ran three days a week and that's the worst shape I've ever been in. If you see pictures of me when I was a graduate student, I look very different. I like slim down a lot. I was just working constantly.

The picture I saw today, you looked like you've been lifting. It seems like it's going viral. All right. For the record, I just want to say this. Cam posted a picture of me with my shirt up. Here's the thing. I never intended to take my shirt up, but I started that rock carry with a hoodie on.

And quickly I was starting to overheat. So I took off the hoodie. And then I had the shirt and the shirt was soaking wet. Mostly sweat, but some water I threw on myself too. And then at some point, I was like, I'm going to be so much more comfortable if I can just get a shirt off. be, you know, ventilating better.

Right. And so I took my shirt off. I'm like, the hell with it. This rock is going to land on that monument. Come hell or high water. Before it touches the ground. Yeah. Period.

Yeah. So I wasn't thinking about any social media posts. I was thinking about getting that rock on the monument and whatever happened in the meantime. Yeah. That's fine. So be it. So be it.

So, you know, I like to think, you know, I'm, I like to think I'm benevolent and I give credit where credit to do. but also if I have a goal, you know, as you do for you, like I'm going to, I'm going to hit that goal. Right. I think building in a sense of determination and building up a sense of determination and weathering it and doing hard things, like learning to do hard things, is so valuable. Well, I mean, I don't think that's just lip service either because you had the goal of getting the rock to the top without setting it down.

And I don't, you know, all your other achievements in life, I don't know anything about really other than what you've said. But what I saw today, you had many times to take it out. Yeah, you offered me. Many times. I said, let's trade. Let's, you just take this, just whatever, just to right here. You set it down right here. And it's like, so, I mean, your, the lessons you're, you're talking about, I saw firsthand.

It's not just, it's not just talk. So, I mean, got my respect there for sure. Well, thank you. and Rob, who was out with us, is it multiple Iron Man's under his belt, and I also didn't want to disappoint you or him. I also, I think that doing hard things with other people is also fun. And there's a lot of fun, I have to say,

and people might go, how is that fun? Well, then you haven't done it, right? If you do it, you know, you feel closer to people. And I'll tell you, the probability of me carrying that rock up from the parking lot to that monument, if you guys weren't there, is zero minus one. million no chance and then today i heard something outrageous and you showed me the video you carried a hundred and thirty pound rock up that thing which is bananas like when i think about that

i'm like i mean i have to be honest i don't think i could do it not not currently i bet you could but what i like to your point we looked at all the photos of the guests on the wall and it's like every person. I think we went through almost all of them and they all have this story that stands out about the experience. And as I said, I'm not a rogan. I can't just sit down and have just some awesome conversation. But I can do better. I'm not saying it's awesome, but I can do better when I've shared an experience a day with somebody of working hard, shooting arrows, archery, talking. It's like that's where I'm good, you know, or better. I'm not saying I'm good at anything, but I'm better. And so I feel like my part of this discussion is better because we shared that

just like all those people on the wall. We shared something today that I'm going to tell other people about. And that's, that should be life, right? I mean, as a hunter, that's a big part of being a hunter is telling the story of the hunt. To me, this is just life. This is just what do you? And I've always told people, it's like, whatever you're doing in a life, make sure you've got good stories to tell.

That's it. It's like we got a great story. I love that. And I love it because there's a long tradition, meaning thousands of your tradition, of people doing things during the day and then convening around a fire or light, or in this case, we're under the light.

Studio. Talking about it and tell them the stories. And I learned from a colleague, Sachin Panda, who's at the Salk, he's done a lot in circadian biology. And he said, you know, this fire, these evening discussions about the day have carried our species and civilization forward for a long time. I, you know, I think what you just said makes me,

you know, raises an idea in the back of my head. I'm familiar with this sensation where I think there's really something fundamental to this. I mean, maybe this is part of the path forward for humanity, is to have people gathering in the evening with neighbors or family again and starting to like relate about the day and starting to bridge the gap because as opposed to all of us being in our own unique portals to the world through social media which i'm a fan of social media i'm on social media but maybe we should get some like evening story fireside chats going on social media i love it you and me both and see who else

would join us and just talk about like hey like tell me a story from today you got five minutes and yeah and hear from people i love it and it's just i I love hearing stories. We love telling stories. And it's like that's what keeps life interesting to me. Because we go through life and we have, what are we doing that's what stands out? Are we doing something that somebody would want to hear about, you know? And I just think it's so special and we can sit around and reminisce or remember when or today was great because it's just, I don't know.

It just, it kind of feels like it energizes you. gives you meaning. Yeah, well, I think it connects us through time, right? I mean, if our experiences during the day were just erased at the end of the day, I think this came up in the discussion with the U of O students too. Like you could just, your memories were gone

at the end of each day, including the hard stuff. We wouldn't be worth anything. Connecting our experience with others and through time and relating to earlier experiences is so fundamental to who we are and how we script our life experience. I think it's, yeah, you're really on to something with this.

I don't quite have the clear articulation around this just yet. But again, when I get that feeling in the back of my head on the right side, it means there's something there. So I think you're on to something. Yeah. Well, I don't know. This has been one of the best days I've had. I mean, this has been so fun.

And I'm so thankful for your time. I know we talked about, well, we're going to start at this time. We're going to finish about this time. We've got a lot to do today. And we're well past that time. And it's all good. Yeah. It's been such.

great day and I just loved how excited you were to delve into archery and I cannot wait till we can hunt and we talked about I mentioned this up on the mountain but um about you know your your life and like you perform at such a high level and I perform at like the basics of the basic no man come on your your performance and your endeavors is is truly in the top point well oh 1 percent I just let's be fair I'll say it since if you won't I want to share like the basics of humanity is killing and surviving hunting that's like we have to do that somebody has to do that and I want to share that just the the with you because I just feel like you could articulate it unlike almost anybody else because like you're you're studying the brain you're studying all this upper level

at the highest level of humanity, but imagine if you could sandwich that with the basics, too, and it's like base level of survival. I just think it just excites me to think about sharing that with you and, you know, hunting, being successful, yes, killing an animal because we need to kill to survive. Life begets life. And then breaking that animal down and we talked about packing out weight on your back. Yes, we packed a rock today or weight today, but that's to prepare us for packing an animal out after we kill it to bring it home to share with our family i showed you my freezer full of meat we ate meat that it that's that's everything because without that we can't be studying the brain you know what i mean now that's the that's the bedrock and and you know

someone has to do it right if a good we talked earlier about you know grocery and factory farm meat like that's such a like a horrible industry period and and the idea that you provide in this way It's amazing. I will say that I'm so glad we did what we did today. I learned so much. I'm certain I'm going to be doing archery. I'm certain. And hopefully I'll be bow hunting elk.

Someday I'll get a bull. Hopefully. We're going to do it. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that today was like definitely one of the best days of my life. Really? It was. I'm totally buzzing. I learned so much.

I turned to Rob at one point. I was like, today is like the best day. It's amazing. I learned so much new things got to do with amazing people, this beautiful out, and there's something to carry forward in terms of a skill to pursue and really drop into. And that doesn't happen to me often. You know, I'm not like, oh, you know, I'm going to pick up golf. No, like I don't pick up new things often and want to stick with them. So I'm so grateful to you. And I'm, yeah, today was one of the best days of my life. I'll never, I'll never forget it. That means so, you know, I can't challenge you intellectually, like, you know, maybe some of your colleagues or maybe what you've been, you know, what you've been so hungry to pursue in life. But because you saying that is like, well, fuck, maybe I can offer something. I guess I did. You have. I feel so grateful. You not only have you offered, you've given me so much in your team as well. So much is it's hard to come up with words. For me to have a difficulty coming up with words means I'm overtaken. It's hard for me to. It's hard for me to.

to put words to it that are adequate you know today was amazing oh i'm not going to be the same thank you you know normally i end this podcast with handing you your new bow but who knows where the hell it is it's beautiful and it's black can you get it's a it's a the uh i love the color we call that murdered out murdered out and that it goes with your your ward for all black well the all black thing is i always did even before i had a podcast you know i get a friend who's on twitter dave feldheim He was a professor at UC Santa Cruz. And one day he just tweeted it out a few years ago. He said, he always wore the black shirt.

Yeah. And that's because it's not for Johnny Cash. It's Joe Strummer, singer from the Clash, mescaleros. He would play shows in long-sleeved button-down shirt, just soaking sweat. And he would never even peel up his sleeves. He would never roll up his sleeves. Oh, here it is. Yeah.

So here is your brand new bow. You shot so well today. Thank you with a ton of guidance. Oh, man. This thing is beautiful. Yeah. That's, well, that will kill a bull elk. Wow.

So, yeah. Love this thing. There's this feeling when you tuck that thumb under the jaw and come back and you beat up on that whole thing. Yeah, yeah, level up. We even talked about the level, the pins, the peep. A lot of visual cues there. Yeah, there's the, thank you for this. I'm so immensely grateful.

It's beautiful. You know, you explain your purpose. This is my purpose. I love it. This is my purpose, sharing the world of archery. So it's, you know, this is everything to me. Well, I can tell and the world can tell. Like, you can't, you can't fake what you do.

It clearly comes from the heart and it's like wired throughout you. And you're so generous with it. And gosh, the folks at the shop and you and everyone spend so much time, like so much time getting everything exactly right. And in one moment I thought, like, wow, like, do I deserve this? you know, and I don't know if I deserve it or not, but I'll tell you, I'm going to put it to good use. Good. Well, I'm going to go down. Stay with you. Please do. Yeah. We're going to get that, shoot bows in your backyard. It's going to be awesome. Thank you for coming to Eugene to Springfield, to my home, to the mountain with me, and to the bow rack. I appreciate you. Well, thank you ever so much for hosting me.

And again, today's been phenomenal. I'm not going to be the same for the better going forward. I said it before. I'll say it again. Today it was one of the best days of my life. And I so appreciate you. So glad we met. So glad we became friends. I consider you a colleague in the podcasting space.

And I, listen, I just really appreciate you, brother. All right. Thank you, brother. Hoyt Archery has been my bow hunting sponsor since 2005.

And personally, I really don't care what bow you shoot, what brand it is. I just hope that you have the same level of confidence in your equipment as I have in mind. Because I know if I get one, opportunity with my Hoyt, it's going to pay off.