Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #43 Kyle Thiermann

Episode Date: July 23, 2018

Tmann and I discuss life in big wave surfing, environmentalism, and doing what you love to change the world. Kyle Thiermann on Instagram Facebook and YouTube Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on Twitter and on Instagram Get 10% off at Onnit by going to Onnit.com/Podcast              Onnit Twitter        Onnit Instagram Show Notes Show Notes Part Reptile by dan Hardy The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler and Jamie wheal The story of stuff by Annie Leonard Thrive Documentary By Foster Gamble, Kimberly Carter Gamble, Steve Gagné The Internet’s Own Boy By Brian Knappenberger Merchants of Doubt by Robert Kenner

Alright guys, I want to tell you about our brand new Spider-Man battle ropes. We continue this partnership with Marvel. These are badass. They're just an incredible tool. If you've never been introduced to battle ropes, we have a wealth of knowledge and illustration videos on thehonoredacademy.com to show you how to use these things, but they're fairly simple. There's a number of moves you can learn to do with the battle ropes that are incredible for building aerobic capacity. If you want to go hard and do interval training, you can build anaerobic capacity, lactate threshold, all the stuff that you're going to need when you're in a fight or when you're just wanting to shed pounds extra quick. High intensity intervals is

the way to go. And battle ropes are low impact. They're an incredible resource. I think everyone should have a set at their house. And there's no reason you shouldn't have these awesome Spider-Man battleropes. You can check them out at Onnit.com. Welcome to the Human Optimization Hour with Kyle Kingsbury, presented by Onnit. Facelift! Yo, we changed the name one more time. That's all good. And as I've mentioned before, we're ahead of the

game. A lot of these podcasts are recorded a few months ahead of time, not on purpose, just because we've had a wealth of guests come through town, largely due to the influx during Paleo FX week. So you may hear me state that, welcome to the Onnit podcast. We've got so-and-so on, and that's okay. It is no longer the On It Podcast. You have not clicked on the wrong podcast. It is the Human Optimization Hour with Kyle Kingsbury. Here we go. T-Man, T-Man, T-Man, T-Man. Kyle Tierman is in the house. Kyle Tierman is a guy I got turned on to from Dr. Chris Ryan, the author of Sex at Dawn. Phenomenal book. I'm sure most of you are

familiar with. If you are not, buy it with a caution. If you're married, you might get slapped in the face by your wife if you buy that book. But enough about Chris Ryan. He's an amazing dude. He turned me on to Kyle Tierman. Kyle Tierman is an amazing dude. He is a surfer, a big wave surfer who travels the world and looks at social issues as well as environmental issues. And that's been his entry point to be able to travel all over the world. He's sponsored by Patagonia and a couple of different companies, but truly an amazing human being. He's a journalist. He writes for a number of publications and he has a wealth of knowledge in all things. I don't think that I've met a man as young as him who has as much

experience in the world as Kyle Tierman. We got to do a lot of fun stuff together while he was in town. He stayed at my house a few nights, might have partaken in some extracurricular activities with him. He came to Aubrey's fiance's birthday party, Whitney Miller, and had an absolute blast. And I got nothing but love for this guy. I know you guys are going to dig this episode. Thanks for listening. Well, we just jumped right in here. We've got my man, Kyle Thierman. Thierman. Thierman. Not Thierman. It's Thierman, right?

Yes. You don't say Thomas. You say Thomas. That's true. Well, you do say Thurman Thomas. You do. There we go. Yeah. Thierman is a German name, but- Thurman, Thomas. You do. There we go. Yeah. Thurman is a German name. Thurman. The Thurmans. The Thurmans.

But my grandfather was adopted. It was a closed adoption. He was born in Scotland out of wedlock. And they flew him to... That's called a bastard, by the way. Damn it. Don't call my grandfather a bastard. Sir.

He was born out of wedlock. Those be fighting words. We haven't gone within five minutes of this podcast um yeah so i don't actually know where my family comes from because it was close adoption and then he was adopted into the chairman family okay yeah so did you ever do like your 23 and me or any of that shit no but i just uh got it chris ryan actually gave me a 23 and me uh kit kit yeah so i can i can do it i just haven't done it yet that's pretty sweet deal yeah did you see here's something that'll fuck fuck your whole world up uh my buddy was out they still live where you're

at in the bay area and um they sent me this thing how they caught the golden state killer now i don't know the ins and outs of this but they used dna information to track this guy without him ever having submitted a dna report which means they located him through all the family members that had submitted dna reports there's a there's a huge write-up on this it's gonna sound retarded if i'm saying it like that but basically this guy was anonymous and they tracked him down through his family's genetics knowing certain attributes about him and caught the golden state killer you can google this shit golden state killer we're so close to minority report yeah yeah they're gonna have fucking precogs yeah you were gonna beat off in 500 feet of a school do you have any thoughts on crisper it's it's uh i have a lot of thoughts on crisper

you cannot change one aspect of dna without fucking having a cascade of downstream and upstream effects so whatever we do to give a child perfect blue eyes and blonde hair make them three inches taller is gonna fuck with all sorts of shit especially the more complicated the dna you know if you're fucking with a tomato that still causes a chain reaction but if you start doing that with humans you're gonna see fucked up people running around yeah in no time at all but china can run those we can't outsmart nature no no there's it's all interconnected we don't even understand fucking 20 years ago they called most of our epigenetics they were looking at that as junk dna they still don't know what all of it

does they know what our hardwired dna does like you're gonna be this tall you're gonna have this color hair um this is your likelihood for alzheimer's disease shit like that there's so much more than that though the vast majority is is a story that's not yet told so to fucking start playing with that and manipulating it and just saying like well we know this one does this thing yeah it's all fucking connected it's looking at it from a western science point of view right like hey we have problem x with our knee this is how we we can treat the pain or we can cut it and give it a surgical procedure and it's seriously only looking at the exact issue with the symptom and the problem where it is not how did you get the knee injury

what's causing the pain is it fixable without surgery it's a very atomized way of looking at things similarly in the western medical system right there's an issue that you might have with depression so they say all right well you are this single entity and we're going to try and fix it with this pill rather than looking at your social circles rather than looking at your diet your community trauma yeah fucking diet too i'm talking i talk to people about that all the time 80 to 90 percent of our neurotransmitters are made by the gut microbiome so perhaps the shitty food you put in your mouth each day contributes to how you feel. That includes serotonin, which they're trying to upregulate with SSRIs, 80 to 90% of which

made in the gut. You got to feed the good guys. Yeah, you sure need to exercise some humility when you are going down those roads of certainty. Like we have the solution here i uh was talking to you the other day about uh jim fadiman who i had on my podcast and he was telling me hold on back up though jim fadiman is your fucking neighbor he's my neighbor that is the coolest shit ever jim fadiman wrote the psychedelic explorers guide he's a legend in the he is microdosing he is he's brought 30 years of microdosing science to the world.

I encourage people to listen to him on your podcast, as well as the Tim Ferriss Show. He is a wonderful man. I had read his book. I had been interested in microdosing and psychedelics for some time. I didn't know that he lived in Santa Cruz. I also didn't know that I would bike by his house most days to go surfing.

So we did a podcast and he's like, oh yeah, here's my address. I'm like, you literally live three blocks away from me, dude. And anyway, he told me a story about, this is kind of getting back to the whole interconnectedness, about mycelium and how trees in

forests will use mycelium as their internet, basically their way to communicate, to the point that a giraffe can eat a leaf on one tree, and through the mycelium, that tree will communicate to the rest of the trees in

the forest to secrete a substance that giraffes don't like. But the giraffes know this. So the giraffes will try and move just outside of that communication circle. So everyone's in on the joke, except for us. We're just figuring this out through uh through people like jim fadiman through people like paul stamets and uh it's cool man it's so cool yeah it's fucking avatar yeah we're living it it's exactly what they're talking about an avatar you know yeah um yeah i had a chance to go out uh on a hunting trip just three or four days ago on the Big Island. And I'm learning how to bow hunt. And one of my mentors is this guy named Justin Lee, who's a badass.

He spearfishes down to 200 plus feet. He's one of the top 10 American spear fishermen. And he's also a black belt bow hunter. And the way that he can read the most subtle cues from nature as we're walking along this pathway, whether it's the dew on the grass that is slightly fractured in a certain area and through that dew he can tell

that a pig's been there just 20 minutes before. He's like the Native American in Predator who picks up the poop off the ground and touches it with his tongue and he knows where Predator is. Well, we were talking about this yesterday. When you immerse yourself deeply in aspects of nature, your senses become heightened. That's right. And we were talking about fasting too. I know Rogan has a buddy that fasts while he hunts and he says his smell picks up every day he goes without food yeah that's that's

it's i'm fascinated by it i want to get into hunting and i definitely want to go fucking hunting with you uh and greenfield and dudley and rogan and aubrey and as many people as i can it just seems the ultimate way to hack that primal piece of yourself yeah like dan hardy was a great great fighter and friend of mine he was there at my first ayahuasca ceremony helped me quite a bit he always talked about you know as i did ayahuasca i pulled away from fighting he still wanted to do it he wanted to tap into his reptilian brain so he wrote a book part reptile and it's like every thing we can do as humans that really hones us into that primordial piece of ourselves. Well, fucking hunting is about as close to that

as you can get. Having to clean your own animal, you're deeply connected to that. Yeah. I got into hunting through kind of a random occurrence. I was doing a story for Discovery Digital Network. I worked for them as a correspondent for a number of years doing environmental and ocean stories. And a friend of mine named Dr. Jameson Gove is an oceanographer, and specifically he studies, I'm going to get back to hunting here, but he studies land-based impacts on coral reefs, what we are doing here that is impacting coral out there. And we were having a conversation over a couple beers one night, and he's like, man, most people don't know the impact that wild pigs and goats on Hawaii have on coral reefs.

Like, really? That's kind of crazy. He's like, yeah. So these pigs and goats will go into these sensitive watersheds, and they'll root around for grubs and snails. And then when it rains, there's no soil retention. So it will create this kind of suspended mud over the reef, which will suffocate it. So coral reefs need what are called oligotrophic conditions, which is clear water. And when this mud is suspended out over the reef, the coral dies. So I pitched that story to Discovery Digital, and we went out, we got to dive with researchers from NOAA and Division of Aquatic Resources. And then we got to meet my friend Justin, who was the bow hunter. And I went along with him on the shoot and he shot a boar. And I just got to see how cool it is.

Like everything from, you know, the, I've been saying it a lot so far, but like the interconnectedness of an impact that a pig can have up on the mountain all the way out to a coral reef. And through hunting, you are incentivized to learn about your natural surroundings in a way that few people are. I think similarly, surfing. There aren't many groups that are that tuned in to that seam between society and the wild. And there's a lot going on right in that little seam and not

many people are paying attention to it. Yeah. And it's, I, you know, one thing I feel when I'm around high level surfers is kind of like being around high level jujitsu guys. There's like a certain level of calmness. There's a certain level of extrovertedness where they just are open and, and not afraid to be themselves. They know who they are and they feel a deeper connection in life to whatever the fuck that is, whether that's nature, source, whatever you want to call it. It's certainly there. But I want to back up a little bit because we've fucking jumped right in here. You're a guy who's traveled the world. You're doing all sorts of cool shit. You get to really look at how we're fucking up the earth which is fairly important i try to address that you know with what's happening with our food and glyphosate and monsanto and shit like that but

truly what are the environmental issues going on but how did you get into that stuff and then what got you into podcasting and launching all this shit because you're blowing up this is a long story we got some time i hate giving people loaded questions. That's the mother load question. Sure. Well, from a very young age, my mom ensured that when I would travel to go on surf trips, when I would just move through life that I had a sense that I represented something to people. So like when I was young, I got to take a trip

down to Chile. And before that trip, my mom said, Kyle, before you go, you should read this book on Augusto Pinochet, who was a dictator who was put in power by the CIA in 1973 and ran Chile like an iron fist. There are stories of musicians singing songs against Pinochet, and he would just cut off their hands. And most people in Chile know that this was a coup that happened as a result of the cia so her point was kyle look when you are traveling know that you represent something to people so be respectful and um i was i've always been fascinated by um you know we were just talking before we went on like you can learn anything. You can learn everything through anything. And I knew that I loved surfing. I loved traveling. I wanted to see as much of the world

as possible. And I found that that was a point of entry that I could learn about a myriad of subjects. So I got to travel when I was young. And when I was 18, I sought out a sponsor, which is a company called Patagonia. I was surfing for a few other companies at the time. And I really wanted to have a company that aligned with my values. And Patagonia was that so i reached out to them and uh i actually it's a it's a pretty funny story i had a friend who knew the owner of von schenard and i wrote him a letter and i told him that i was a handwritten it was not handwritten it was uh it was an email it was an email um i mean this is kind of say that's old school i don't think that out yeah it was it was over a candlelight fucking benjamin franklin sanskrit um anyway i wrote him uh a letter and around that time i was learning a lot about banking system and the impact that we have through our, the impact that we can have socially and environmentally through the choices of where we bank, right? So I wrote them

a letter and I said that I wanted to talk with them about their banking practices because when you put money into a bank, it doesn't stay there. If you put $100 in a bank, it is legally lent out through fractional reserve lending at about 10 times that amount. So I thought this was this kind of interesting point of entry into some social and environmental change that not many people knew about. Because if you put your money into a bank like, say, Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup, chances are it's being funneled out to fund something halfway around the world that you don't really know about. Whereas if you have your money in a local bank or credit union, it's also being lent out, but it's lent out within your community. So you can simultaneously stop funding the problem and start funding the solution all in

one move in this really easy way. And as I said, through fractional reserve lending, if you put $100 into a bank, that bank can legally lend out 10 times that amount. So it's this really leveraged point of action. So I wrote to Yvonne Chouinard and said, hey, I want to talk with you about this. I had been doing public school my whole life. And then when I was 17, I started doing homeschool and was able to learn a lot about just kind of like what I was interested in. And the banking system kind of fascinated me through this leveraged point of action. And I wrote them and I said, hey, I want to do a story on a proposed coal power plant down in Chile. And I know that Bank of America is underwriting the company

that is proposing this coal plant. It's down in this fishing village and most of those people are against it and I want to do this story on the impact that you can have on the environment through banking choices. So he wrote me back. He was like, this is kind of interesting.

I remember I was surfing in Santa Cruz and I got an email back. He's like, hey, Carl, this is Vaughn and this stuff sounds kind of interesting. I'd like to know more about it. So he invited me down to his house and I was a 17-year-old kid laying out the banking system for him.

And I've surfed for Patagonia for the last 10 years, and they've supported me incrementally more and more. But I got to take that trip down to Chile and was thrown into the frying pan. Didn't know how the fuck to make a documentary, but went to the site of the proposed plant, interviewed some fishermen, interviewed scholars, and told a story about how you can put your money in local banks and credit unions and have this really big impact um i released the movie it was a shitty little youtube movie but i released it in 2008 so remember what happened in 2008 it was the first time anyone was paying attention to their money because it was

all gone, right? It was the perfect timing for this story to come out. Arianna Huffington came out with her Move Your Money campaign, and the timing just hit, right? In retrospect, I realized that it was all timing. At the time, I think that I thought that I just had the golden touch of filmmaking and everyone wanted to see- I'm the shit. I'm the shit. Yeah. And we had this campaign to allow people to write in when they moved their money. So we documented a large amount of money being moved out of these centralized banks and into local banks that year, which created a bunch of media buzz. And that's kind of how I got started was through this idea that I could use surfing and traveling as this point of entry to

talk about environmental and social issues. So that became the Surfing for Change series, which I did from when I was 18 to 25, covered issues ranging from the Indonesia trash epidemic to working conditions in Sri Lanka, all using this point of entry of surfing. It's funny because when I think back on that first movie and all the success that I had, I think that it was really damaging to me to have that early success. I mean, I won most youth environmental awards in the country that year. And I had a lot of people behind me.

And I spent a whole year making the next movie, which was on how working conditions in Sri Lanka had improved due to consumer pressure. So I fundraised to make that film. I went over there. It wasn't very good because again, I just hadn't put the reps in to learn how to tell a good story and make a good movie. Very few people saw that film. And I was kind of left scratching my head. Like, it was almost like a chef who makes a meal that everyone loves, but he didn't really know how to make the meal.

And if I were to do it all over again, if I were to give myself advice, it would have been to fail much more quickly. And in that next year, I should have made 10 films. Because I think that one thing that most people don't tell you when you start out in anything really, but filmmaking specifically, is that when you start, you're just going to suck at it. So suck quickly. And I think that that, I think I'm kind of just coming out of that now through podcasting right because podcasting but it's it's such a kind of low uh

like low stakes you know like you have a conversation like oh that didn't go well okay i'm gonna fix it you know so i think that that has been one of the biggest learnings of my life is just to fail quickly and and gain a better relationship with it how many episodes do you have on your podcast now? 102. Yeah. So you're fucking rocking and rolling here. I love it. And I mean, you're good at it. I love it. That's what I mean by rocking and rolling. You're excellent with your podcast. And I've listened to Jim Fadiman on your show. We were talking about Duncan Trussell, the interview you did at Burning Man. I think I've listened to a few other ones. I'd started listening to you on Aaron Alexander's podcast because he's fucking great.

He's family here. When do you feel like you started to get your wheels? And when did you feel like you started to get everything going with the podcast? Because Ferris has this idea, like a lot of people ask, like, oh, I want to start a podcast. What should I do? What's the entry point? That kind of shit. And it's like, well, just understand this.

Ferris says your first five will suck no matter what. Doesn't matter how many times you've been interviewed. Doesn't matter how many other times you've spoken to people, you know, in front of live audiences, any of that shit, public speaking, that's all fine. But as the interviewer, you will suck for your first five episodes. So just take those as learning and continue on because most people quit at five. So what's the question? When do you feel like you started getting some steam? When did you feel like you started to shift and really break through? I think it was when I gave myself permission to really dive into subjects that I was interested

in. It was obvious that I was going to start interviewing professional big wave surfers because that's what I do. It was obvious that I was going to start interviewing professional big wave surfers because that's what I do. It was obvious that I was going to start interviewing environmentalists. But I think that it's very easy as a public personality to ossify your identity when people know that that's your version. This is the version of yourself. When I was on camera, hi, we're in Indonesia recovering the trash epidemic here. I'm a version of myself. Whereas podcasting is unique in Baldwin on the podcast a number of times. She's a somatic sex and relationship coach. And to see the response from that, I feel like it's always a good podcast when I'm holding onto my chair and you're like, oh, we're really going to put this out there. And I think that that was it, just giving myself the permission to go down those roads. it the

podcast has always been for an audience of one and as long as i can keep it that way um i i really dig it you know i've i've had the chance also through it to um do interviews with with a few big wave surfers that i don't think people would hear anywhere else. One of the guys on my podcast midway through confessed that he had been molested by his surf team manager when he was nine years old. And it turned into this big kind of media thing because of timing, because it was the same week that the gymnast coach was on trial right so this was like our version

in the surf world and i it was a really proud moment for me because the surf world um responded in a very cool way they were like hey you know adam we really appreciate your vulnerability and boldness for bringing this out and And I just don't think that that kind of stuff happens all that often in TV interviews because people get so nervous. Yeah. Yeah. It's a cool, I mean, it's not cool that anyone goes through those experiences, but it is cool when you can build enough trust with the person you're sitting across from.

They do open up and they feel comfortable in saying like, all right, I'm going to fucking share this. Never done it before. Sure. And I've heard a few of your podcasts as well and the one where you really opened up about um being on the edge of committing suicide and being in a really dark place and man that's helpful for people because it makes them know that they're not going through it alone yeah nobody does that i think that was one of the reasons I felt called to talk about that was just this idea that everyone goes through shit, you know, and it's, and it's, it's not mine's worse than yours or, or it's not comparative. It's not, uh, who had it worst. It's just, we all have some form of shit to go through and challenges in life. Right. And how do we, how do we cope from those things? How do we learn from

them? How do we grow? How do we get better better how do we get back up right and i think that's that's something that can be extrapolated to everyone or anyone you know yeah 100 what has been one of your favorite conversations you've had hmm i had a really fun one with Chris Ryan down in Baja. We took, I mean, another great thing about the podcast, right,

is that you can assume this sense of closeness with people that you haven't known for very long because you dive deep into this in the subject. And Chris has become, Chris is the author of a great book called Sex at Dawn. Phenomenal. Really smart Dawn. Phenomenal. Really smart guy. Phenomenal. And he has since really helped me with my writing.

So I'm a columnist for a few different magazines. And I'll go over to his house and I'll cook him beet tacos and he'll read my writing. And just like anything I can do to get his eyes on my work um i will make happen but we got to take a trip down to baja together because he's finishing his latest book called civilized to death you better finish the fucking book it's taking forever well it's it's kind of this great combo right because we we drove down and and, I will show him some of my writing. And I'm like, okay, well, here's this New York Times bestselling author looking at my work. And then he'll get lazy and be like, hey, you want to go walk down to the beach and hang out?

I'm like, no, Chris, we're going to do a whole nother hour. But yeah, he's someone who's had a really big influence on my life through the podcast and just through the friendship. He doesn't talk about this often, but I don't think he would mind me sharing it. When Chris was six years old, he had a researcher follow him around for a couple weeks. He agreed to it and weeks he agreed to it and uh his family agreed to it would study his activities his classwork and they've discovered that no surprise now that chris is a genius like 99th percentile in every category and he told me that he kind of used that pedantic nature and that pretension as a shield throughout his junior high and high school years.

Like, this doesn't matter. I'm smarter than you. And then he took a trip to Alaska in his early 20s. He hitchhiked all over Alaska. He was taken in by a bunch of different families and he had the insight that you know they're treating me nicer than i would treat them if they came to my house so what is true intelligence you know like who's who's the smart one here just because they don't know you know who these famous? Just because they don't know who these famous

authors are and they don't know all the stuff that I do. True kindness is what matters here. And I think that he was really able to break out of that. The way that he describes it is he was able to break out of that identity. And I just think that that's so cool because now he's this genius who travels around in his big red van and does podcasts and writes these big idea books that change the world. But I think that it's not often that people are able to just give it away in that honest way. And I've always really respected him for that. Yeah, and I'm glad you shared that

because I had no idea that that's exactly how he got to this point. But I often wonder when someone has that kind of skill set and level, how they come to a place of humility and they come to a place of wanting to share and serve others. And he's certainly in that place now. I think psychedelics certainly can play a hand in that too and he credits psychedelics with helping him through that yeah yeah that's major when uh i

mean fucking anybody that knows santa cruz no santa cruz and no stranger to to plant medicines when did you first start you know playing around with different different tools from from nature i started uh using psychedelics probably took mushrooms for my first time when i was 24 25 years old i'm 28 now damn you're that's holding out in santa cruz that's holding out in Santa Cruz. That's holding out long in Santa Cruz. Yeah. And yeah, man, I think that they're really useful when taken in the right set and with the right mindset and in the right setting. I think that they're very powerful and should not be taken lightly. I think that a lot of times we kind of just talk about them

as this really fun, like, woo, the party drug. But, you know there's they're serious and i've gained a lot of great insights from psychedelics i've also blown it a few times and you know i took lsd once at a at a festival called symbiosis and i've heard of that festival it's really fun it's like burning man on water okay um and we were took lsd we went to a santi gold concert and then an rl grime concert right after that we're like having a blast you're running around and then uh my girlfriend and i were walking back to camp and we saw a guy next to one of these art pieces. And he was face down,

and he wasn't moving. And great example of the bystander effect. People were just walking by him and not doing anything. And meanwhile, I'm like, man, these stars are kind of blending together here. And that pink's looking real pink but fuck there's a guy face down right now and i walked over to him i turned him over and he was unresponsive so i called over my girlfriend she's like i was like get help get the first responder so she runs away and i i start doing chest compressions on this guy while i'm on lsd there's one thing that will snap you out of a psychedelic ship real fast. It's doing chest compressions on a guy.

And luckily he woke up after about a minute. I don't know that he was fully gone, but he was right on that edge of overdosing. And he got up and I put him in my arms and he started vomiting. And I was just like shaking at that point. And the first responders came over and luckily everything turned out okay. But it was a great example of me getting too high in a situation where I couldn't necessarily control it. And I think that this is like,

honestly, my biggest fear is getting into a situation where I know that there are skills that I could have learned to help and I haven't done it. And I haven't taken the time to learn first aid, learn CPR. If there's one thing that the audience takes away from this conversation is if you haven't taken CPR class, if you haven't taken first aid, just do it. Please. It's cheap. It's one weekend. And if you- Or one day on a weekend. Rock up on a car accident and someone has sliced their femoral artery and you have a tourniquet in your car, you can save that person's life. And the amount of people that I have personally had to help in the ocean is, I mean, I just can't count it.

And the bystander effect is trippy to see. You see someone in trouble and no one's doing anything. And I think that for your audience, which are capable people who enjoy learning, I think that gaining a few of those skills can be some of the most important skills that you ever learn. Fuck yeah. I think that's great advice. I did CPR. I actually was doing EMT class past that to become a firefighter a few years back while I was fighting before I got into podcasting and going a different route. But yeah, it's a powerful tool to have to not, I mean, it's not like you don't worry, but when you're in those situations, it makes it a little easier knowing like, okay, I can

go back to this, these sets and reps and different things and try to figure out, you know, a course of action at least to help until. Well, you can systematize it, right? It doesn't become chaotic. You don't panic when you, when you know, when you know that there's something that you can do and you know, there are certain steps that you can take. Um, the whole situation becomes so much more manageable. Um, so I surf, uh, professionally and kind of specialize in surfing big waves. And we've had a few deaths within the big wave surfing community over the last 10 years. And just recently, when I was out in Hawaii, I took what was called the big wave risk assessment course, which is a course that has been developed by a few surfers in this core community to teach people basic life-saving skills. And when we're out in the water, one of the best tools that we have is a jet ski

to go in and pick people up. So it's really fun for me to get to learn how to become a more responsible person. You decouple the word responsible. It's response-able. And we're always learning, and I have actively sought out a few mentors who can teach me a few of these skills

because doing fun shit doesn't get any less fun if you do it more safely and if you have the ability to handle the situation. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it's something, I don't know, maybe you can talk a bit about this. Certainly, I guess I haven't with fighting, but something that I really appreciated about surfing came from the books, The Rise of Superman. I think that's the name of it. Kotler's book.

And then Ste stealing fire by kotler and jamie will and talking about how we hack flow states and that's why we've seen such a rise in extreme sports because when your life's on the line you're forced to fucking tune into that flow state and that we're not people aren't adrenaline junkies they're flow junkies and flow is a cascade of neurochemicals and feelings. They go far beyond adrenaline. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when you're,

that's been kind of your draw to the sport of surfing or is it just more growing up in Santa Cruz and being in the culture? Well, I think that it's, it's been a lot of things, right? I'm the youngest of five and most of my older brothers and sisters surf. So from a very young age,

I had a surfboard in one hand and a skateboard in the other. And probably early on, it was because of the community, all my friends surfed. Then I realized that it was this tool for me to be able to see the world and go to some of these far out places that very, very few people get to go, right? I was telling you yesterday, I had a chance to do that story in Sri Lanka. And while I was there, I got to surf a point break by myself and there were elephants walking along the beach. You don't really get to do that in tennis. And then it's incremental, right? I think that surfing big waves is something that I'm drawn to for a lot of reasons. Partly, it is the community. I really like big wave surfers. There's a kind of

closeness that you can assume. I would imagine similarly with fighting to these other men and women who are going through a situation that sucks. If you have a 40-foot wave that's about to land on your head and there's someone right next to you, you're probably going to be friends after that. And if you're out at a wave like Mavericks and you are sitting in the bowl and there's a set coming and there's a 50-foot wave coming at you, you need to hold the line. This is a nuanced aspect of big wave surfing, but you can't scramble out the back and then other people and you're all sitting there you decide not to paddle you're like okay we're gonna hold the line we're gonna whip it and go on this wave that's a cool experience to go through with other people um and i do think that i know my limits i

do think that i'm responsible when i go surf big waves i don't need to catch the biggest wave in the world, but it sure is fun when you get a big one. Yeah. It's gotta be an experience. I've surfed, I think once in Maui when I was 13, my mom took me, had a little, a little surfer guide,

like almost like Paul Rudd in the movie where he's given out fake names and shit. It's, it's a great experience and I'm not, I'm not, I haven't, I haven't really taken the deep dive into it. And you were talking a bit about getting into hunting through what's gone on with the coral reefs, but you're, you're now, you're into it, right? Yeah. Very into it. You've been on hunts. You've gotten some kills. Talk about the different places that you've hunted and what you've, right? Yeah, very into it. You've been on hunts. You've gotten some kills.

Talk about the different places that you've hunted and what you've gone for. Sure, I will start by saying that I'm still a novice compared to a lot of people. And I've gone to Hawaii a number of times and hunted pig. And throughout California, we also have pig. This year, I'm hoping to go on a few deer hunts. But again, you like surfing.

It is this way to incentivize you to learn about your natural surroundings, right? Whether it's learning about the way that the wind's blowing, learning how to go to call rams in. My friend Justin can do it way better than I can. Or surfing, right? Like most surfers are very tuned in to environmental issues because we are incentivized to learn about them, right? If I go to Indonesia to go surfing

and there is plastic spewing out of rivers as it is right now because they have switched their materials economy to plastics and have no infrastructure for dealing with it i'm going to start learning about plastic pollution like i mean i'll just i think i busted this photo out just recently but i mean this is a photo photo of a guy surfing in Indonesia. I love Ryan threw that up against the, look at that shit. And he's getting barreled, and there are plastic bags going over him in the wave.

So, you know, I think that surfers are a unique community. And similarly, in the way that hunters are a unique community, in the way that they are incentivized to learn about their natural surroundings and get involved. Imagine if every time it rained and you went to go work out in the Onnit gym, there was shit spewing through the vents and you were getting ear infections. You and your buddies would get together real quickly and you'd start knocking on doors and figuring out how you can make the waste management systems more effective. In the UK, in 1990, a quarter of the beaches were passing the minimum basic water quality

standards, a quarter of them. Surfers are getting sick left and right because there was raw effluent flowing out into the ocean so a small group of them say that again there was the raw shit okay raw shit yeah there we go i thought that's what it was my ten dollar attempted a ten dollar word there you got it you went way went way over my fucking head. Yeah. And surfers started knocking on doors of Parliament in the UK. And they got Parliament to, over the next 10 years, to invest in waste management systems. And now over 98% of the beaches in the UK pass the minimum basic water quality standard.

So it is, I think, a good example of a small group of people. What's the Margaret Mead quote? Never doubt that a small group of engaged citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever have. And I think that these communities of surfers, of hunters, when organized, when we don't live, when we don't exist in this kind of atomized state of individual gain over common good, when we get together, when we get together for beers and talk about the issues in our community, especially issues that are not polarized, especially issues that most people just haven't thought of, right? Like plastic pollution. If it doesn't affect you, you probably don't have an opinion on it.

But as soon as you see that the plastics industry and the oil industry are inextricably tied together and what funds the plastic industry are companies like Shell and Chevron and that they have goals to increase plastic production by 40% over the next 10 years, all of a sudden you start asking questions and getting involved.

And I think that that really is how I've been lucky enough to make enough films where I have seen enough activists who are in the trenches doing the work. And I know that that is how change happens. It's by a few friends getting together,

figuring out what the issues are in their community and changing legislation. Cause I don't think that cultural, I don't think that cultural shift is enough. I think you also need legislative shift. Yeah. I'm curious because, not to go down the politics rabbit hole, but we've seen a number of things get defunded with the Trump administration and EPA being vast cuts, vast changes.

How much do you think is being affected right now due to these changes? A lot. Oh, absolutely. I think that the downsizing of Bears Ears National Monument is a major one. For those of you who don't know, Bears Ears is this beautiful landscape out in Utah. of Interior Ryan Zinke have proposed to downsize it tremendously. They don't say this, but it's clear that they're doing it for oil and gas reasons. I was wondering if he was putting up golf courses. Yeah. And Patagonia is actually suing them.

Yvon Chouinard and Patagonia are suing Secretary of State. And I think that that's another component to this, is companies getting involved and actually taking a stand. Because as Noam Chomsky says, you can't be neutral on a moving train. And I really commend a company like Onnit for taking a stand on certain issues, whether it's psychedelics and health, or Patagonia on environmental issues. I think that companies that aren't taking a stand and showing that they do have values are getting left in the dust. And we're seeing that very quickly.

I got a question further on Onnit's stance on environmental we're we we are definitely pushing to be a greener company uh obviously you saw how many plastic cups were pushing out through that cafe how how does a how does that affect the environment and b what are some what are some ways we could go about that better sure well to zoom out, let's take a look at the materials economy, right? So right now, the way that we make stuff is through a process of extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal. So we are running a linear system on a finite planet. And you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet forever. There's a great film that I recommend people check out called The Story of Stuff. It has like 20 million views on YouTube by a woman named Annie Leonard.

And she talks all about this. She breaks it down. So when you understand that 99% of the feedstock, this is the raw materials to make plastic, come from oil, and that it really never goes away, you start to ask yourself some questions. So I think that from where we are right now to where we need to get to is from this disposable materials economy to a zero waste economy. So using things that are just bringing your own cup. Biomimicry, replicating nature as much as we can. Nature has very little waste, and that's how it's been able to sustain itself for so long.

So going back to what we were first talking about, exercising some humility and replicating those natural systems, I think is how we will get from here to there um you know so i think that with plastic yeah it's as simple as bring your own cup just i remember being in the bay area when they made it uh they outlawed all plastic bags because of how many plastic bags and grocery stores wound up in the bay and it was an absurd amount and so most cities didn't have any problem saying cool it's paper bags or bring your own and then they give you a discount if you brought your own reusable bag and it was like everyone was all the old farts were up in arms like i just want my plastic bags i don't want to pay 10 cents for paper and blah, blah, blah.

And then fucking six months later, everyone's got their reusable bag and it didn't mean shit. It was like the easiest shift I'd ever seen. Plus you're getting a discount for every bag you bring in. It's a great example of how humans respond to incentives. You put a $10 tax on something and then all of a sudden it's like, I'm going to bring my own bag. Right. And I think that you know this better than most people, that people do respond to incentives.

If you want to get someone in shape, how are you going to do it, right? It's going to be through these incentives. And I think that the conservation world could take a few pages out of the human optimization movement regarding behavioral change. Yeah. I mean, there's, it's funny and people have both, there's pros and cons to how we incentivize electric cars and things like that with government rebates and, and some people

bitch and bellyache about that. And obviously in California, they were giving out HOV lane stickers for, for a lot of Priuses back in the day and then so many fucking people had priuses overnight they were like all right no more for the prius it's got to be 100 electric and uh then you only get it for a year or whatever the case is but there's no doubt it works you know there really is no doubt that it works yeah i i go back and forth on my politics quite a bit because I do think that a big, blovated government that has programs that we create, they're never going to want to downsize.

They're never going to want to get uncreated. So I can very much empathize with conservatives and libertarians in that regard. And I think that local government is where people can really move the needle on a lot of these issues. I think we pay way too much attention to national politics and not nearly enough to local politics. So I get it in that regard. I also see, though, that when we slash environmental laws like what's happening with the current administration, the corporations are the ones who win. Because the corporations can then create products that have a big impact on our natural surroundings and really lower the quality of life for a lot of people. I think it's also important to note that poor people are inordinately

affected by environmental issues. If you look at Cancer Alley up north from Louisiana, where the oil pipelines go through, where the cancer rates are just through the roof, it is with poor people. If you look at what's happening in Indonesia right now, where they have rivers of plastic flowing out into the ocean, and what the plastic companies are recommending is just to build more incinerators, which then release carcinogenic chemicals into the air air this is affecting poor people right so on the other hand right like i do think that we need environmental regulations that make it so that you that you are less likely to die of cancer in 10 years you know imagine if

we had that same the same way that we think about um you know plastic the same way that we think about plastic as the way that we think about lead. Like, oh yeah, lead poisoning. Yeah, there shouldn't be any regulation on that. Let's just let it all go out there. But we banned that because we were seeing this impact on ourselves and on our natural surroundings. Yeah, it doesn't take much to want to respond when you see your children changing permanently it's a big it's a big one so let's let's let's get into i wanted to i i do have a i am curious how did you meet chris ryan in the first place how'd you get plugged in with duncan a lot of these guys because you're pretty plugged in with with uh some top tier dudes um i offer a lot of free surf lessons no uh chris hasn't taken me up on the surf lesson that's surprisingly damn i know um

you know i think that well i I met Chris through the podcast. He had me on his, and then we became friends. And since then, we've had a chance to go down to Costa Rica together and went to the spot called Rhythmia, which is a medically licensed ayahuasca treatment center. I wanted you to talk about that. Sure. And then we've gone on a bunch of trips together,

and we have mutual interests. And I think that, is it Tim Ferriss who says you're the mean of the five people, you're the median with big wave surfing, surround myself with people who I can learn from, whether that's with writers or comedians, any skills that I want to learn, I make it worth people's while to teach me. So I think it's pretty simple. Most people are very willing to help out and be generous with their time if you're willing to heed their advice. I think that's a big part of it. I really go in, whether it's on a hunting trip

with Justin Lee on the Big Island or whether it's with writing edits with Chris Ryan, with humility and with a cup that is empty. Yeah. Chris gave you a pretty fucking giant compliment on one of his shows. He was saying that your willingness to learn and to ask questions and actually do whatever is answered is unparalleled with most people your age. I appreciate that. I'll tell you something that's pretty personal and I haven't shared this on my podcast or any other for a number of reasons, but I'm going to start talking about it on my podcast. I told you about my mom. She's a really wonderful woman. Her name is Kimberly. She started a homeless teen center in Santa Cruz when I was a little kid.

It was the first place where homeless people, homeless teens could go. And I learned a lot about homeless people through that experience. She always told me, Kyle, you don't need to give a homeless person money if they ask you for it, but you need to look them in the eye. Because the strangest experience that homeless teens would tell her about was that they would go days without anyone looking them directly in the eye. And those kinds of lessons early on really helped me. And I have just the utmost respect for her. When I was 13 years old, she got together with a really wonderful guy named Foster Gamble. Foster Gamble and my mom together over the next eight years made a documentary called Thrive, which is a very controversial documentary. It's now one of the most widely seen independent documentaries in the world. It goes into the banking system, hence how I was learning

about the banking system as a 17-year-old kid. It goes into the banking elite. It goes into free energy technologies. It goes into UFOs. A lot of topics that I am not necessarily on board with, but was privileged enough to be at the table for when I was 16 years old. I would go to dinner at their house and the undersecretary of housing and urban development in the first Bush administration would be having a conversation about how she personally used taxpayer money to fund dark aerospace weapons programs.

And then I would leave there and I would go to a house party and start shotgunning Pabst Blue Ribbons with my friend. So this dichotomy of growing up in these two different worlds was really strange and I think influenced a lot of my curiosity growing up seeing documentaries like Who Killed the Electric Car, The Internet's Own Boy, and Merchants of Doubt, where you really realize that all is not as it seems. And then after Thrive came out, seeing how they're labeled as conspiracy theorists.

And it's a strange experience for me because I know that my mom and foster are very smart people. I know that they have a massive library. When you walk into their house, it's subjects on the banking elite, new energy technologies, fractional reserve, all this stuff. Okay, you do your research, and this is very far away from what most people believe is true and i think that the great challenge of my life and and why i'm so interested in journalism and kind of getting to the bottom bottom of things is because um like i think it's really forced me to be able to hold two competing views in my mind at once. And know that even if I'm not on board with some of the subjects that they're talking about,

it is possible that one day this might turn out to be true. And they're making a documentary right now, which is Thrive 2, where they are meeting with a lot of these inventors who claim to have these new energy technologiesists and be like, oh, that's bullshit. But I also see what a trigger word that is. It's almost like being called a racist, right? Like it just shuts people up. Oh, you're a conspiracy theorist. But conspiracies are happening all the time. But that doesn't shut up the flat earthers.

It does not. They do not think that the earth is flat that is that's throwing fuel on the fire it sure it sure is right so i'm i don't know what the the solution is right and and again i think that i just i think that a lot of times going down these deep rabbit holes which i have gone down um through circumstance and natural curiosity can sometimes lead to a paralyzing effect. Right? And so I think that the place that I choose to work is on these issues that are right in front of us, these issues that I know that we can move the needle on, and I can touch them, I can feel them. I know that if we can get to a place where we lessen our use of plastic or we designate national monuments, I know that that will be good in the short time that I'm here on Earth.

Leaving the campsite a little bit nicer than I found it is something that I can work on and I can use my skills on behalf of. Fuck yeah. You've got so many dope videos out. Where can people find you on YouTube? And will they be able to see the one that you showed me with Justin and some of the other ones? Sure. Like the Sri Lanka video, things like that? Yeah, yeah. It's all on YouTube. The one on coral reefs is called hunting wild pigs to save coral reefs but people will find me it's i'm easy enough okay and the last name is t-h-i-e-r-m-a-n-n you got it dope kyle it's been excellent having you on the show we're for certain gonna run you

back in the future love to have you here in town and uh it's been a pleasure getting to know you brother i'm honored thank you fuck yeah thank you guys for listening to the on a podcast with kyle tierman make sure you go to kyle tierman show it's his podcast as mentioned dude has talked to everyone on planet earth who's worth a damn he's got amazing episodes with duncan trussell from burning man as well as jim fateman the author of the psychedelic explorer's guide along with a laundry list of other people in the who's who, including myself, who took a deep dive with him on his podcast. Make sure you check that out. Leave him a five-star rating.

And while you're at it, leave The On It Show a five-star rating. You can now do it from your phone. Used to be a total pain in the ass, but now you can do it from your phone. It is very much appreciated, and it helps people find out about these wonderful shows like the On It podcast and the Kyle Tierman show. Thanks for listening.