Dr. Andrew Huberman’s Path to Fame, Money, and Total Human Optimization

Andrew Huberman

We probably shouldn't box. I boxed; I had my boxing card and boxed pretty consistently at various times. I'm not very good. You don't get a nose like this doing yoga.

Sam Parr

andrew huberman was just on the podcast if you don't know who he is I'm gonna try and describe him very simply he's this guy who works at stanford I believe he's a neuroscience doctor huberman is his name and he's got this youtube video series and a podcast called huberman labs where basically he picks one topic like sleep stress building muscle depression addiction and he'll do like an hour to 2 hours of just talking into the camera and talking to his mic and explains very easy ways to understand what it means and how you can overcome or like what supplements or what exercises you can do to address he's only been around for 10 months and he's already one of the top 10 most popular podcasts he's everywhere on youtube this guy is a badass we just had him on the podcast I'm kind of like starstruck a little bit because I'm such a fan of his I think you're really gonna dig this it's a little bit health focused towards the end we get into a little bit more business stuff but if you're into business you have to be healthy otherwise you're not gonna be able to perform well and so we talk a lot about that we talk a lot about morning routines and these aren't just like oh I write in my journal it's like well no if you do this based off of science based off peer review research if you do this you're gonna feel this way and that's gonna help with x y and z so it's like kind of a evidence research based podcast that that we've just done it's pretty freaking cool so enjoy it ben what do you think he he just sean used the term shortcuts he's really good for giving little hacks I just feel like I took away like 6 to 10 little hacks I can use in my life that is gonna make it better mostly biologically like it's gonna actually improve my sleep or improve improve my ability to focus and things like that so I think there's a lot of great little nuggets for people in it so check it out and by the way we are giving a $1,000 to 6 people what you have to do is you go to rate this podcast.com / mfm so that's m f m as in my first million so rate this podcast dot com / m f m and leave us a review all you gotta do is leave us a review I don't even care if it's a negative review tell us how you think about anything 1 star 5 star I don't care do whatever you want and at the end of the month we're gonna pick like I think 6 of them and give a $1,000 away so rate this podcast.com/mfm write something cool write something funny maybe if you stick out we'll we'll pick you let us know what you think about the podcast enjoy the episode do you check notifications on youtube

Andrew Huberman

I do not

Sam Parr

Okay, so let me tell you something really quick. About two weeks ago, I'm a big Bay Area punk rock fan. I listen to, like, I used to live in San Francisco for years. I listen to old Rancid, old Green Day, and I was looking at an old interview with Tim Armstrong from Rancid. It has very few views, and I was loving this interview. I was going to comment on how much I love it, and I scrolled down and you were the first comment on there. I replied to you, and I thought that was funny. We have similar interests. I did not expect to see you there on an old Tim Armstrong interview.

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, I'm a huge Rancid and Tim Armstrong fan. I mean, without taking up too much of our time on this, I've never met Tim personally. But growing up, I was an Operation Ivy fan and a big fan of a band called Crimp Shrine. I saw the East Bay punk scene, and then Rancid came out. Actually, Tim and Matt Freeman had a band called Downfall in between. You can find some of those tracks, and I love those tracks. I just love it! They cover such a huge range of styles, and they've just done amazing things. So, if there's any content out there that's, you know, Rancid acoustic or Downfall rare Rancid tracks, I’ve scoured the internet for them. If I don't know about them, send them to me because I devour that stuff.

Sam Parr

And we'll have Sean kind of do like an intro on you, but really quick, this is one of the reasons why I think people like you and why your podcast has taken off. Because you're this intellectual powerhouse, but you look like an athlete, yet you kind of have this punk rock side to you. Like, you gotta tell that you have that too. And I think that you're just a really eclectic, interesting person, and I think that's why... So basically, Sean, you could do the intro, but you've had this podcast that just launched.

Shaan Puri

like a year ago you're already the biggest guy there is or top 10

Sam Parr

Top 5! It's pretty amazing, and I think that's one of the reasons why you're kicking ass. It's because you are quite eclectic and very different from what we're used to.

Andrew Huberman

oh and I just we no go ahead

Shaan Puri

I guess we can kind of set the scene. So, we have Andrew Huberman here, Dr. Huberman, known for the Huberman Lab. You're a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford. You have a whole bunch of interesting content, and I've seen you everywhere recently. I don't know if this is because you have hired an amazing PR person or if I'm just late to the party, but you went from someone I never heard of before, let's say, three months ago, to now I only hear about you. My YouTube feed is basically just giving me more and more of your content every day. Is that a new thing, or am I just discovering you now?

Andrew Huberman

no it's a it's a very new thing I mean to just give you the quick arc you know leaving out all the preacademia stuff you know I did my training in neuroscience and in physiology things like temperature regulation and things of that sort and over the years I worked on a number of different problems formally meaning in laboratories as a phd student postdoc junior professor and tenured professor things like stress and regeneration and what happened was right around 2015 I started getting curious about how scientific information is making it out into the general public but there really wasn't a cause or a venue for doing that there were these meetings like big summit meetings and things like that that weren't really my flavor to be honest they're perfectly fine but they would typically go something like you know yoga class group meditation one talk buy my product buy my book and then people go and so what happened was in 2019 I have a good friend his name is pat dossett he's a wharton grad a former navy seal operator did 9 years in the seal teams is a good friend of mine we swim together he much further ahead than I of course you know those guys definitely have extra gears I've you know seen that and and pat also has a company called madefor which is a behavioral health company who started with blake who's a founder of toms shoes so what happened was that in 2019 pat asked me a question we're literally getting out of the water we've done an early morning cold water swim and he said what are you going to do in 2019 to make the world a better place and I was like well you know I'm trying to figure out neuroregeneration stress and how to sleep better in my lab I said yeah but what are you really gonna do he was kinda poking at me and I said well you know I think it'd be fun to just teach science on the internet and just put quality information out there because I don't see that so I started doing that in 2019 little short post pretty nerdy stuff mostly on instagram and people seem to like it and then in 20 and I got a book deal in 20 end of 2019 I thought I would do what most academics do write a book sell a book and then 2020 hit and a couple of things happened one is I realized there was a tremendous need for people to have the tools for managing stress and circadian rhythms and sleep and managing mental workload and etcetera because everyone was locked down and stressed out and confused as was I frankly but I had access to these tools so I started disseminating the tools by going on podcasts and on instagram and then eventually the podcast led to a you know the rogan appearance certainly had a lot to do with it a rich roll appearance that did well also in lex fridman at the end of 2020 great podcaster and also a great friend of mine now said you should start a podcast so january of 2021 bought the mics set it up I looked to my skateboarding punk rock past I have a friend named mike blayback known as blayback photo in the skateboard and action sports community he shoots all the stuff of jin khanna and ken park driving rally cars of danny way tony hawk all the there are only a few superstars of skateboarding and action sports photography mike happens to be one of them and he said let's build an aesthetic that kinda represents you I always wear the same black shirt I own 26 of these that's not for the podcast you know I I always keep my hair short and just you know this is me on any day it's just that the kind of camera showed up and I started sitting down and saying well what would I do in a classroom if someone was interested in stress and how to manage stress well I would give 4 lectures on that and so a big feature of the podcast that's a little different is that than most podcasts is that I try and stay on theme and I try and keep it like I would in a classroom but then offer a lot of tools which is a little different and so that's really how it happened and no no pr firm no you know big no no contract signed everything we've got with my team which

Shaan Puri

is how did you get on rogan

Andrew Huberman

just to one page yeah how'd you get

Shaan Puri

On Rogan, because that was a big, obviously, inflection. And then that leads to Tim Ferriss, that leads to more.

Sam Parr

and more so how'd you

Andrew Huberman

Get on Rogan. Yeah, and that was all this year. So then, well, two things about that. I just want to make sure I close the hatch on. I haven't written this book; I haven't released it for two reasons. One is that in 2020, I didn't want to sell anything. I was coming to the table as an academic with a tenured position and a salary. Frankly, we don't make big salaries even at Stanford. Yes, if my dean is listening, the salaries at Stanford are not in keeping with the cost of living in the Bay Area, which is why most people sit on company boards and things of that sort. So, you do science for the love of it, but I didn't want to talk about my work and be self-promotional. I really love learning and teaching, and I have one mission in my professional life, and that's to share the magic and the utility of biology. I mean, that just fills me up. Talking about my work is fun; we can do that if you want, but there's so much terrific work out there. So, what happened was the second Rogan appearance. You know, Joe said, "Huberman's doing this podcast thing, and people seem interested in it. Let's get him back on to share some of this information." But how did it happen in the first place? Well, I have a good friend and business partner at my podcast. His name is Rob Moore, and no, he's not taking new clients. So, because he no longer does what I'm about to describe, which is that Rob came from the world of PR, but then he got really interested in podcasts. He's in his mid-thirties and he started a podcast called "The Fight with Teddy Atlas." He loves boxing.

Shaan Puri

loved teddy

Sam Parr

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I listen to that every week. Yeah, that... okay, you work with that guy? Yeah, but he's got like a thick Boston accent, right?

Andrew Huberman

that's ken rideout who's a friend who I met through rob rob you're not gonna see you're not gonna find he sits behind an email wall and he's a a close friend of mine that you know october this time last year october november of 2020 we went for lunch and I said let's start a podcast lex thinks that we've got traction with a podcast and I think he's right and he said great let's do it let's buy the mics let's you know we built the studio with our own hands mike showed up got the dc team in there because they're friends with of mine dc shoes dc skateboarding and they helped me you know create an aesthetic that we thought would would work for make people feel like they were in a classroom and you know rob was the one who connected me to the person who connected me to joe there's a little bit of since this is a public venue there's a little bit of of a wall there just because they get flooded with requests and I'll be honest you know I don't know what their process is I think that they have a process and and if I'm not privy to it I think that what's beautiful about the rogan podcast having been a guest on there and obviously a big fan is that they I think what you see is the real deal you know joe sits down with people that he'd like to have a meal with and or conversation with and has a conversation and and the human appetite for that is obviously huge people seem to really resonate with that and of course joe is a tremendous reason so he's been tremendously helpful tim ferris rich roll and lex fridman and I will say that lex has been my kind of guiding light in this whole process about bringing certain elements of my own person and personality to things you know yeah I am I mean this is gonna sound weird to anyone who's looking to this for science information but and it might not even make sense but sam you'll get it and I don't know other people will too which is like yeah I'm a dyed in the wool punk rocker I grew up in that and if this that scene I think people think of as like loud music loud clothes loud everything that scene at its at its essence the reason I gravitated towards it early is that it's very varied it's about showing up like heartful strong it's not a it's never a victim stance but it's not an aggressive stance but it's not a weak stance either and for me it just resonated and so I was like let's you know the opening track of my podcast for instance is a song I don't wanna get the copyright people on me so that's familiar from the punk rock culture and I just wanted to bring all that forward and I think lex was the one who really said pick 2 or 3 things that you really feel represent your relationship to science and that give you energy for that I mean lex is a is a genius I have to say what you see there with the jacket and tie and all the interviews lex works so hard he thinks so hard about where he's going with all this and he just interviewed the director of the national institutes of health francis collins that is not an easy grab so in any case that's a long winded I don't tend to be succinct so I'll stop

Sam Parr

Yeah, I want to ask you about... I'll ask you about Lex in a second. But for those who are listening and don't know who you are, basically, I have your channel up right now. Your first video was launched 10 months ago. Your video is basically you, and this is weird to say to you, but you're a good-looking dude. You've got a goatee, you look kind of like a football player. You're wearing a black shirt with a black background. You're pretty serious, and you're just sitting there for like 60 minutes to almost 2 hours sometimes. You're explaining things that sound complicated, like how your nervous system works, how to master your sleep, using failures, movements, and balance to learn faster. These are somewhat complicated topics, but you sit down, look at the camera for 1 to 2 hours, and explain what it all means. Then you do something interesting where you say, "Alright, so how do you take advantage of this? How do you apply this and use this?" You're long-winded on purpose because you said, "I'm not going to just tell you exactly what to do. I need you to know exactly how this works so you can decide what you want to do."

Shaan Puri

Yeah, there's like a balance. You can simplify something so people can understand it without removing their own agency to dive in.

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, thanks for that description. You know, my, like I said, the goal and really my purpose in life... I know mission statements and purpose sound kind of cliché, but it is really important to me. I have this process that I've used for a long time, which is I like to just pay attention to what puts energy into my body. The music... like I'll hear a song, and you're familiar with this, you hear a song and you're like, "Yes!" It just fills you with energy. Whether or not that's dopamine or adrenaline or whatever, we could dissect that, but that's not the point. That energy is a neural energy; it doesn't have to do with calories. But that energy is your source, right? In Eastern philosophies, they would call it chi or whatever it is. So I've always sensed what I really enjoy, and for me, learning cool information and sharing it is what I want to do. What I try and do is paint a tapestry at the beginning of a topic, like stress, sleep, dopamine, ADHD, eating disorders, or whatever. I arm people with the language and make them realize that the nomenclature is just words. We can replace some of those words and let's get a functional definition of things going. Then, once they understand how things work a little bit, some of the algorithms, so to speak, then let's talk about what you can do with this. How you can use light to change your circadian rhythms or particular patterns of breathing that are grounded in physiology to de-stress rapidly, etcetera. And so, yeah.

Sam Parr

And can you explain this first video? Your first video is only... Sean was saying that you're everywhere very quickly. Your first one was only 10 months ago, and that first video has 652,000 views. It's a slick-looking thumbnail. Can you walk me through how much you spent to build that studio? And how did the first traction, do you think, come to this video? Your very first video, 650,000 views. The very next one looks like a month later, a million views. The next one, 630... I mean, you hit right away. You were hitting right away. How did that happen?

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, that's a good question. So, a big part of that... I don't think it was the thumbnails because actually we were told by YouTube that our thumbnails weren't legible. I had these fancy anatomical drawings.

Sam Parr

oh shit

Andrew Huberman

You know that now we've changed them a bit. We've learned some things; you know, faces do better than images, etc. But if you look at thumbnails that are really clickbaity, they are thumbnails where someone is going like this. They said, "The wider the eyes, the more people click," and kind of crazy stuff. We didn't do that because I want people to know that I'm here with serious information. I'm serious about them. It's sort of like why I always wear the black shirt. These are actually the black shirts; I am literally on my 26th of these that I like. I like these particular shirts. I'm not trying to get picked up by the maker, so I won't mention it, but I've always worn them. I like them.

Sam Parr

But it's also there. Sean and I always wear black, typically, because it's easy to hide if you're fat or have wrinkles.

Andrew Huberman

Right, or tattoos. Not that I'm confessing that I have any tattoos, but if I were to get neck-to-knuckles tattoos, I would just do it. But I'm not. As for kids, yes, you should be able to dress however you want and do whatever you want, but that's not the way the world works. People are always evaluating, so you decide—it's your gamble. I always say authenticity is not the same as oversharing. These days, I think there's a big tendency to think, "Oh, because you can deadlift £500, that you should put that on the internet." So, this is part of my answer: by the end of 2020, the Instagram channel had grown to several hundred thousand followers. But mind you, that took two years and 50 podcast appearances as a guest. We announced that we were going to launch a YouTube channel to get over there and subscribe, and then we just started pushing out content. Frequency is a big deal. You know, we do one a week. We may advance to one and a shorter one each week next time. But, you know, consistency—not surprisingly—counts. There's consistency of aesthetic too. The building of the studio was fairly straightforward. Thank you, Mike Blabach, my good friend in DC. I mean, the one thing about skateboarders is that they really, really know how to create original content in a DIY format. Okay, so actually, Mike is out on a shoot right now with Spike Jonze. I grew up with—I don't know Spike, but I grew up with a lot of the guys who ride for Girl. Mike Spike Jonze owns a portion of Girl Skateboards. So, I grew up around people that took video of us playing around in the streets on skateboards and made videos that became these iconic things.

Sam Parr

Well, skateboarders were kind of like the first YouTubers, you know? If you look at old Transworld or 411 videos, or old DC... or like what Bam was doing with Jackass, you know? It was the CKY videos. We... the skaters were the first YouTubers.

Andrew Huberman

That's right, they really were. And you mentioned 411, so you definitely... you know, 411 is like...

Sam Parr

no I still skate I I I was just hanging out with mikey mikey taylor this weekend professional skateboarder

Andrew Huberman

skateboarder yeah yeah yeah yeah and to be clear because I wanna maintain my integrity with that community I wasn't a great skateboarder I was okay thunder trucks put me on out of sympathy spitfire put me on out of sympathy but I wasn't gonna be one of the big guys it was just a community I really felt a part of and when I went off to college because my high school girlfriend went to college I tripped and fell into biology I thought I'd be a skateboarder or a firefighter or something that was more physical but I fell in love with biology and and just that's what I've been doing ever since but I think the step keeping a a fairly narrow messaging too you know we've turned down every option to make a little bit of extra money doing affiliate codes I mean we do have advertising and affiliate codes but to just pepper things with you know advertising everywhere we just I want people to have a zero cost trusted source for science health and fitness information of course we're not gonna get everything exactly right but to know that if they come to the huberman lab channel that they're going to get information that's vetted that I've I always consult with at least 2 or 3 colleagues professional in a given area before I do a a podcast of just me because I don't work on adhd I know the a fair amount about it but I consult with experts and so I have a kind of advisory board so I use the scientific community and it's a kind of a beautiful ecosystem where our advertisers are happy we're happy our but the main thing is the consumers get it at zero cost to consumer and I think that's very different than a book and that's very different than a behind paywall strategy I've seen a lot of health and science podcasters who are quite good move their stuff behind a paywall because you can make much more money charging you know 10 $30 a month or something and I like to think that people would be willing to do that for our content however I feel best about the fact that for some kids sitting halfway across the world who wants to understand weight training or adhd or dopamine or sleep they as long as they have an internet connection they have to tolerate a few ads but the information is free to them

Sam Parr

why why don't you just bail as a dollars a year

Andrew Huberman

Well, I guess I'm academically masochistic because it's interesting. I'm happy to announce this now: I actually took... I'm not extremely wealthy, nor do I suffer, you know? Money is important. I always say money can't buy happiness, but it absolutely can buffer stress—no question about that. Anyone who's ever had significant funds throughout their lifetime won't truly understand that statement. People who haven't will understand exactly what I mean. I think money is very important, but so is the ecosystem between academia, public health, science communication, and the private sector. For the time being, it just makes sense for me to continue to teach at Stanford. I teach medical students in the winter on neuroanatomy. I direct the neuroanatomy course, and I really enjoy academic conversations. They're slow; it's like wading through steel, one thin layer at a time. But what you get to often is a kind of granularity where it's a process. It's not so much that you get to answers; it's that you get to a process of getting to answers. I don't think I'd be happy without doing that.

Shaan Puri

I showed a couple of people who are fans of the podcast, and I knew they would be excited to have you on. We mostly focus on business-oriented topics, which is why I wanted to ask you some questions about the business side of how you became a content creator, how you built your audience, and why you do what you do.

Sam Parr

choose to sean we've not even we've not even told them what we do I guess I I I didn't even

Andrew Huberman

I did a little bit of research, and I was delighted when you guys asked. I mean, I'm new to Twitter. Frankly, I didn't like Twitter when I first got on it. I was like, "Wow, people are really combative compared to Instagram." I think it's because you don't have to show your face. I'm not an aggressive person, but if somebody wants to go toe to toe, I still have that in me. I'm not suggesting anyone get violent out there, but people would come at me on Instagram and sort of say, "Well, show yourself. Let's go. You know, let's have a conversation." I don't get into back and forth in comments. I found Twitter to be an incredibly combative neighborhood. Then you guys showed up, and I was like, "Oh wow, I guess there are some nice people in the neighborhood." It's sort of like finding the other punk rockers and skateboarders. It's like, "You and me, we got the same thing, and we're good." So that was the feeling I had, and then it turns out that's actually the case.

Shaan Puri

Twitter rewards you for different types of wit. On one hand, you get rewarded for being witty in 140 characters. On the other hand, if you have the sharpest insult for someone, you also get rewarded. You don't have to show your face, and there are all these other benefits. It brings out a different side. YouTube used to be this way too. I don't know if people remember this, but YouTube comments used to be the running joke as the cesspool of toxic commentary. It was called the YouTube comments. Now, YouTube comments are extreme. I don't know what they changed in the algorithm or the flagging system, but YouTube comments are, on the whole, either funny or supportive. They really changed that. TikTok is doing a similar thing. Anyways, I want to say...

Andrew Huberman

Something about comments before I forget. Sorry to interrupt, but vis-à-vis business, because I know that's your main audience, one thing that I did on Instagram early on and that I do on YouTube is make the comment sections interactive. I actively request feedback and we read every single comment. I say, "Tell me, give us feedback, but also give us suggestions and ideas about future podcasts." I've devoted entire episodes—though we haven't done one in a while—to what we call "office hours," which is where I go through the most frequently asked questions and address those. So now there's an incentive to ask and put stuff in the comments. I think that's a really good, non-combative use of the comment section. Of course, we still get some crazy stuff in the comments and people being combative, but they should just know that we don't actually read those. No, I'm kidding! We read them all.

Shaan Puri

Yeah, for sure. So, I wanted to talk about a couple of things. One was what we discussed earlier: how did you break out? I think it's great. You know, I teach science on the internet. It's such a simple business statement of what I do and what I'm here to do. I enjoyed that as well, but I wanted to actually go through some of those greatest hits. Some of the reasons you've grown in popularity is that you put out nuggets that are interesting to people. When I was talking to friends saying you were coming on, they said, "You know, we ask a lot of the kind of questions like, 'Oh, you know, we have a billionaire on the podcast. Hey, you're super successful. What's your morning routine?'" They tell us, "Oh, you know, here's what I do in the morning." People sort of equate that to, "If I do this, I too will become a billionaire," which is obviously not the right way to think about it. But I think if I ask you about your morning routine, which I'm guessing is centered around health, mental health, fitness, and regulating your body, that actually will be applicable to more people. So, take us through what your morning routine is. I know you've talked about this on some other podcasts, but I bet the majority of our audience has not listened to all your stuff. So, you know, these are the greatest hits. Let's do them.

Andrew Huberman

sure yes so I wake up for me that's usually somewhere around somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 depending on how early I went to sleep I wake up and I do an assessment of whether or not I feel rested or not most days the answer is no just because of life staying up too late stress etcetera so I do a 10 to 30 minute yoga nidra session first thing in the morning yoga nidra is a passive listening you can find these yoga nidra links on youtube there's one which is 10 minute yoga nidra there's one that actually made for put out for free called nsdr non sleep deep rest that's a 30 minute one it's a script where you just listen it brings your brain into a state that's like that's pseudo sleep after that 10 or 30 minute yoga nidra I feel like I've slept as much as I need to sleep it's a really remarkable reset and it it avoids your brain going into the state of planning and organization what we call duration path and outcome in the neural circuitry world and keeps it in that kind of liminal state of adjusting and there are some interesting data published showing that these yoga nidra meditations if you will are can up regulate some of the neurotransmitters in the brain including dopamine that make you prepared for action and so they're very restorative especially in the absence of complete sleep if I feel great I might just get out of bed the first thing is always and I have to be careful because it lists every step because sometimes people say wait he doesn't even go to the bathroom in the morning I'm I mean obviously I go right foot left foot to the bathroom then I use the restroom then I go downstairs I I drink water I hydrate and I go outside and I get some sunlight in my eyes for 10 to 30 minutes foundational absolutely critical practice when I don't do it for more than 2 days in a row I start messing up all sorts of aspects of my life and most people are not doing this even on cloudy days do it don't wear sunglasses unless you have a medical reason why you need to it's fine to wear corrective lenses or contacts you don't need to stare directly at the sun or see the sunrise and these are the questions I most often get this is why I'm hitting these as bullet points and if you wake up before the sun rises flip on as many lights as you can in your space if you wanna be awake in your artificial light environment and then once the sun is out go outside I don't care if you're in the depths of scandinavian winter the sun comes out at some.

Andrew Huberman

Some people might need a daylight simulator, but the discussion about daylight simulators is usually an excuse to avoid having to just go outside and get sunlight in your eyes for 10 to 30 minutes. You can check your phone if you want, or bring the newspaper if people still read those, or a book. I usually bring a journal and write down some things that I want to do that day. I try to make sure that I'm clearing away some of the clutter. If you have a dog, you could do this while walking, etc. Sometimes, I will combine this with a walk. **Optic flow**, when you're just walking through space and not looking at anything in particular, like your phone, is known to suppress a circuit in the limbic system that involves the threat detection centers. It is very calming to walk through space, and it reduces your overall levels of anxiety. Many people are just being indoors, not getting sunlight, not getting enough sleep. Life is stressful, and they're not doing this. So basically, all of that can be accomplished in one hour. It's wake up, do yoga nidra for 10 to 30 minutes, use the bathroom, drink some water—of course, all the basic biological functions.

Sam Parr

what about l theanine in coffee

Andrew Huberman

Okay, so I don't ingest L-theanine during the day. I take it as part of a sleep cocktail before sleep. Some people will take L-theanine with coffee; it's now in many energy drinks because it takes away some of the jitters. It's a mild sedative and helps reduce the jitters that caffeine can induce. I don't drink any caffeine until 90 minutes, or ideally 120 minutes, after I've woken up for the following reason: during sleep, and well, during wakefulness, the longer you're awake, adenosine builds up in your system. Caffeine is an adenosine antagonist. Functionally, I realize it's a competitive agonist for you aficionados, but it basically blocks the adenosine receptor functionality. So to speak, when that caffeine wears off, you're going to get a big crash because there's going to be a surplus of adenosine. By waiting 90 minutes to 2 hours to ingest caffeine after waking, it's a little bit of a struggle to learn how to do this, but your natural adenosine system, that adenosine capers down very, very low as a consequence, and you don't get that rebound in the afternoon. I drink mate, a yerba mate tea. I love it! There's a great one; I don't like the really smoky ones. I have no business relationship with any yerba mate company, by the way, but the one I love is from Anna Park. It's really delicious, comes loose leaf, and has a very high caffeine content, so you don't need very much of it. It also has a lot of what's called GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide 1), which is actually being used now as an anti-diabetes and obesity drug. There are all sorts of great things about GLP-1; it upregulates dopamine receptors, etc. So, I'll drink mate starting about 90 minutes after I'm awake, and then that's kind of my morning. After the walk, I go inside, and I do try to avoid social media at that time.

Andrew Huberman

Maybe a quick check of 10 minutes I set I'll even set an alarm and then

Sam Parr

on a on a phone or computer

Andrew Huberman

typically on a phone I'd like to move more to the computer but I'm in transit a lot these days and you have to be thoughtful obviously but I think maybe 10 minutes on social media but I want social media to continue to be a pleasure and because of the dopamine system and we can talk about that I don't wanna get I don't wanna go down the rabbit hole of someone else's psychology or neurology I wanna stay in my own frame the the orientation I have in the early part of the day with that notebook is I want to be in my own mental frame I've just slept during sleep is when we have neuroplasticity the actual rewiring of neural connections occurs during sleep I'm a big believer in the subconscious and you're when you wake up you are now in a position to extract whatever it is that these new neural circuits have have figured out about the previous day and days events and so if I immediately bombard myself with sensory experience or input or distractions I'm not able to do that so this morning for instance I'll just give an example I'm preparing an episode of the podcast on time perception I've been reading a lot about this and I woke up this morning went outside with a notebook and just sat there and then realized that there's a way to organize this episode that has to do with frame rates and sort of slow motion versus fast motion cognition or hopefully it'll be clear by the time the podcast happens it's not fully formed but that came in so I wrote that down thought great and then I'll move into some more typical type work it's great if you can avoid email until after 12 noon but that's very hard for a lot of businesses so I will usually do a brief check-in on email critical items but then I like to write so I will I'm working I am working on a book finally I will work on scientific papers on grants on reviewing papers I try and make that pretty heavy intellectual lifting and take that till about noon and then I'll I'll look into and then we can talk about you know food and other things at this.

Andrew Huberman

I haven't eaten anything

Sam Parr

Do you have a family? So, you have not eaten until noon, but one thing that you did not bring up is... I'm wondering, do you have a family?

Andrew Huberman

No, I have a relationship, and I had a dog until recently. He passed away, so I do understand that people have different things... yeah, I have different constraints. He was a big part of my morning routine. I had this big 90-pound bulldog mastiff named Costello, and we would slowly do our walk. We'd get the sun together. Animals are perfectly happy to do these because these are very innate behaviors.

Sam Parr

but no kids

Andrew Huberman

no children then you you

Sam Parr

know who you are

Andrew Huberman

children in my life I'll say that but but they're I don't have any children yeah

Sam Parr

you remind me of henry rollins

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, except his jaw goes to about here, right? You know, like Henry's head is like this big, right?

Shaan Puri

sean do

Sam Parr

You know who Henry Rollins is? No? One time I... Sean, okay. Sean doesn't know who Dolly Parton is. He didn't know who Jimmy Buffett was. Sean doesn't know like... white people stuff. And so we're gonna put this in the category of white people stuff. Henry Rollins... What was he the... Was it Black Flag that he was the lead singer of?

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, so, well, alright, I have to be careful not to go down this path too. I mean, I'm a big Ian MacKaye fan, so Minor Threat, right? Then Minor Threat and then there was Black Flag. Yes, Rollins was part of Black Flag, and he was early in the punk rock scene to get into lifting weights. Ian and those guys were straight edge. Straight edge means different things in different eras, but at that time, it meant no alcohol, no drugs. It's a pretty firm stance in the eighties compared to the rest of the culture. Yeah, I don't know Henry, I don't know Ian, but I listen to Minor Threat all the time.

Sam Parr

But Sean, Henry is like this guy. He's a punk rocker, and he might be in his sixties now. He basically sang punk rock but didn't drink or anything. He started lifting weights, so he was kind of like a meathead, but not in a bad way. He was jacked. Now, at this point in his life, he's completely single. He doesn't have kids or anything, and he's a poet and an actor. He's just kind of like a renaissance man. If you Google him, you'll recognize him. Did you Google him? You'll definitely recognize him. He was in "Sons of Anarchy" and things like that. Anyway, he's a really interesting guy. He'll go into a TED Talk or something like that and just talk about his philosophy on anything. He's kind of like Mike Tyson a little bit; every time he talks, it's just wisdom. Anyway, Huberman has this Henry Rollins vibe a little bit, and that's why I was asking about kids. You're this interesting guy who's kind of like... in my head, I picture you as this guy who's alone, intensely studying, and trying to figure out how to crack a problem. I think that's a really interesting part of you, or at least, yeah, in my head, that's what I'm making you up as.

Andrew Huberman

Sure, I mean, in the spirit of authenticity but not oversharing, what I can say about this is that I’m blessed with great friendships. I’ve always had a community of friends, especially from that skateboarding punk rock era. Since it was mostly guys back then, I have a lot of friends who swim, work out, and play music. I'm really good friends with a guy named Michael Mueller, who’s a photographer that does all the Marvel stuff, and I train with him. I sometimes train up at Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reese’s pool. I like those workouts; they're good friends of mine when I'm down there. At this point in my life, I live in a somewhat remote area. I have a gym, a sauna, and a cold dunk. I spend a lot of time with books. I’m dying to get another dog, and I do live that kind of monastic lifestyle. I do have a relationship, and that’s great. The children thing is interesting because I started off studying brain development and neuroplasticity. Let’s just say that if I do something, I do it 100%. So, I have no children now, but if I do have kids, I genuinely want five of them. I want a big family or none at all, so that’s the plan.

Shaan Puri

We should talk because your specialty is around the eye, right? I've heard you say this. The eye is essentially part of the brain that exists outside of the cranium, where the rest of the brain is stored. It's actually like an...

Andrew Huberman

that's right

Shaan Puri

It is the same, is it? What, the same tissue? Or it's like developmentally that it kind of segregated at some point. But it's basically the only part of your brain that's like facing the world out.

Andrew Huberman

Yep, that's right. You got several points there, and none of them are wrong. These two bits are pieces of your central nervous system that got extruded out of the skull, or we should say out of the cranial vault, because technically they're still in the skull. They are the way that your brain figures out where it is in space and time. You've got the right setting of the sun and the changing of the amount of light throughout the year, regardless of where you live. They are responsible for delivering 40% of the brain's real estate devoted to vision in some way or another. We are incredibly visual animals. Even in blind people, that real estate for vision in the back of the head, the so-called occipital cortex, is overtaken by areas that respond to touch and hearing. That's why they're so good at tactile and auditory perception. In sighted individuals, vision is the predominant way not just that we represent and see objects around us—like a blue car or a tall, good-looking woman or man—but also the way that we orient ourselves in space and time. We set our frame rate, and we can talk about this, but essentially, as you move through life, you're either batching time in big chunks or in small chunks. That has to do with how you're viewing the visual world. So, you're either thinking in slow motion or thinking fast, depending on your visual environment. That's probably a little abstract, but yes, these two bits are brain outside your cranial vault.

Shaan Puri

Why do you say "kind of" in the morning? You want to go... You know, one of the key things of your morning routine is to get outside and let the sun hit your eyes. It's basically alerting the body that, "Hey, the sun is up! Kick start all your engines because it's daytime." It's regulating that way. I think there are different things throughout the day that you've talked about, like anxiety, that maybe help you go to sleep. I'll give you kind of two questions that came from the audience when I tweeted out that you were coming on. They're both in the same vein. One question is, we talk a lot on this podcast about the 80/20 rule, right? We are fans of shortcuts. Shortcuts get a bad rap around the world. You know, it's sort of seen as the lazy, "I don't care" thing to do. But in many ways, a shortcut is great. A shortcut is basically saying, "How do I identify the highest leverage points that, if I did those, I would get maybe the biggest impact?" Or, "How do I get the results I want faster instead of slower?" So, what would be the 80/20? Meaning, if you could change something for all the people who are listening to this right now—imagine 100,000 people listening—if you could implant sort of one or two behavior changes that they could do in a day, a maximum of two, which two would you pick that you think have the highest ROI, the highest return on investment for what it takes to do them? What do you think would make the most impact?

Sam Parr

happy or healthier

Shaan Puri

It doesn't matter. Anything that's meant to make you feel better, whether it's to improve your health or enhance the way you feel throughout the day. What would be the one or two things that you would consider as your kind of...?

Andrew Huberman

yeah so you know it's a great question I think we need to think about foundational practices and the two things that set the foundation for optimal mental and physical functioning are going to be really good sleep and really good mental frame and mental frame is going to be the ability to toggle between different states of mind and so let let me give you the practices first so that I don't get accused of being an an intellectual to the. Of you know curing insomnia right during this podcast the first one is that morning sunlight in your eyes should be a nonnegotiable thing 360 days out of the year if it's raining stand under an overhang I'm very unsympathetic to the well I wake up and it's early and then I gotta drive to work stand outside for 5 minutes I I don't you know I I I got plenty of rest last night so I'm not ornery about this but I've I've grown a little bit exhausted of the well you know I can't do that because I've got kids where take them outside with you they need this too that sets a cortisol increase in the morning which is a healthy cortisol increase that provides wakefulness triggers your metabolism in the proper direction if that cortisol spike happens too late because you didn't view light then you step out during noon too often remember one day is no big deal but step out in the sunlight too late off too often late in the day you have a delayed cortisol spike which is associated with insomnia depression they're a good date on this so get that morning sunlight 360 days out of the year you will thank me I promise everything gets better now it's a slow subtle shift it's not like popping you know a 1000 milligrams of l tyrosine and drinking a double espresso and going to the gym it is not a it's not it's a foundational practice so I like to think of it as it raises the tide so that your boat can leave harbor that's how I think of it rather than oh this is like putting another outboard motor on on my vessel okay so that's the first one and the second one is a little bit of a broader category but it's get sleep right you have if you're until you're sleeping well 80% of the time or more get your sleep right and for this I can just defer people we do have a newsletter it's completely free but we have our privacy policy we don't share your email it's at hubermanlab.com just go to newsletter all the prior newsletters are listed there's the key tips for sleep you can watch the master your sleep episode or you can just download that 12 steps for optimal sleep yes there is a segment on supplementation with some of the considerations and warnings there's also sections on non sleep deep rest protocols links to those so get your sleep right and get that light in your eyes early in the day if you're a blind person there's another protocol I've done some work with blind people to try and help them with this many blind people still maintain the cells in their eyes that can reset the that can set these mechanisms

Sam Parr

what what's the and what's the mental framework

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, so **mental frame** is something that I don't think has been formalized in the kind of health and fitness optimization.

Sam Parr

Sean's really good at that, by the way. Like, Sean is very good at deciding what frame he's going to be in. Let's...

Shaan Puri

Put it differently, my number one priority, my number one mission, the thing I work on is not even my ability to be in the state of mind I want. It’s basically about being able to experience the experiences I want, the way I want them—beautiful. I just made it my top priority in life. Then I started to get good at it because I realized, "Oh shit, this is the cheat code." You've got a stressed-out billionaire over there and a joyful single mom over here. Which quality of life do I actually want? Well, I want the one where my state of mind is in those states that I enjoy, not fear, anxiety, stress, or depression. Not these other states that I'm trying to avoid. That's my quick rant on it.

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, no, it's great. **Mental frame** is so key. I will say, and I want to be very respectful of all the work that has preceded me when I showed up, but you know, a lot of the stuff that's out there in the self-help and business literature is frankly kind of nipping at the margins of some of this stuff. And look, I don't want to throw out names because it becomes disparaging. I think the one person who really deserves a nod, who is truly a pioneer in this space, is Cal Newport. "So Good They Can't Ignore You" is an incredible book; everyone should be required to read that book. "Deep Work" is this... I'm essentially paraphrasing some of the protocols from "Deep Work." But Cal, who I don't know and have never met, but have great respect for, is a computer science professor back east. It's about setting a mental frame, and context switching is dangerous.

Sam Parr

which book which which book are

Andrew Huberman

You’re saying, so he has a book called **"So Good They Can't Ignore You,"** which was written some years ago. That book is more about not trying to find your passion but rather getting really good at skills. **Deep Work** is an excellent book he has as well. He's not on social media, but he has given some TED Talks.

Sam Parr

and that book is about getting in the right frame

Shaan Puri

it's sort of like it's a lot about flow right

Andrew Huberman

It's about not succumbing to distraction so you can do work that actually moves the needle.

Sam Parr

but that's not what you're talking about is it I thought that you were talking

Andrew Huberman

about so yeah then there's another one which is a world without email that he wrote recently here's the key essence of the cal newport work okay the the key essence of it as it relates to to mental frame is that the brain is extremely good at and the body at context switching like I could be doing this podcast right now and if a fire alarm goes off or someone comes knocking on the door I can switch up my context and respond to that but 90% of the work that we are that moves the needle meaning that we are rewarded for or that enriches professional life and relationships it we used to talk about this about mindfulness and presence but it's really about getting the brain to start doing certain operations more in a more facile way and this is why habits are important but because going to the gym is different than reviewing a paper or writing a scientific paper it's different than podcasting or being a guest on a podcast for that matter so what happens is early in the day when you get the download from sleep you identify a few things that are key you've already you're starting to funnel your neural networks toward what I'm calling framesetting and what you're not doing is allowing something that came in from the external environment to adjust your frame so you get a depth of connection with the work a depth like I knew I was doing this podcast today at noon and I wasn't walking and thinking about it but I set that as a as a goalpost and because I wrote it down my brain is orienting toward what I need to do so that when we clip on we're ready to go and so mental frames are very important context switching is deadly I'm stealing cal's words so forgive me cal some people will put freedom the the computer program so that they are not able to engage with the internet this device which I've turned off or I guess it is on but it's it's on airplane mode for the podcast I try and keep away from me for the first half of the day very hard very hard especially when you need to post on social media but I try and I want to have here's the goal in the morning to make this simple I wanna have 1 90 minute block that I completely conquer that I that is where I experience immense resistance to do something other than what I'm doing but that I stay in in noodling away or gnawing away would be the better word at writing something or reading something or trying to comprehend something and you have to be very careful the moment you walk to the restroom and then maybe like wash your hands and lick yourself in the mirror and then you're like oh you know I got this weird hair growing on my cheek or some you're you're starting to switch mental frame and so 90 minutes seems like nothing but it is remarkable what you can accomplish with this but the more important aspect is that in that exercise of getting good at what we call no go operations in the brain you have go and no go operations and pushing aside things and enforcing those blinders you're able to bring that same mental frame to other things later in the day and in life and you're able to engage it much quicker it's sort of like if you're a car you drive a car and you've never been up to a 110 miles an hour you don't really know how to get around a semi in front of you that's braking fast and you're on a downhill but when if you have to do it you can do it you're comfortable at speed and you're comfortable braking and so this mental frame thing is not just about the work you are able to do in that 90 minutes it's about getting better at doing deep work even for shorter bouts because as the day goes on we all have this experience right things start coming in we start getting bombarded and we're starting to get that that kind of fragmentation of our of our goals and we're kinda getting pulled off and some people the the the peak time is in the afternoon some people it's in the morning some people it's late at night but you're getting yanked off center and so you have to be able to recognize just how delicious and effective that state is and then you can apply it later and I'll let people use their imagination but this comes into into use in many aspects of life that have nothing to do with work okay like being able to stay at that at that groove with somebody or in some interaction or you're on a run I mean you know use your imagination this is the the the important thing is it's all the same circuit it's this engagement of the prefrontal cortex which is saying duration path outcome meaning what how long is this gonna how long should I do this what path should I take what outcomes am I getting in real time and not getting pulled off center by someone else's dpo as I call them dpos incidentally or not so incidentally I I've been fortunate enough to do some work with the special operations community in the canada and the us in addition to those guys being really good at shoot move and communicate the really exceptional ones know how to flip the switch on we think of it as like grit resilience and mental toughness and yes they're all gritty but there are a lot of gritty people out there the difference is the ability to take your environment narrow that environment and be effective and cut a fine slice through something and then stop and move to something else that's a mental operation that involves multiple circuits multiple neurotransmitters we couldn't say just dopamine just epinephrine or something like that it's gonna be that but a bunch of other things too and so 90 minutes like learn that 90 minute battle and it takes time and and then you get very very good at it so I'll podcast for 2 hours I drop into that that's the state I'm in when I podcast

Sam Parr

Two quick questions: 1. What do you suck at? Because when I talk to you, I'm incredibly intimidated. When it comes to mental health, physical health, and emotional health, I'm like, "I'm so inadequate." Because, well... I watch your YouTube to see, you know, "I stink at this, therefore I want to learn what you're saying so I can be better." And then when I hang out with you now, I'm like, "This guy's got it together." I know that's not the case. You're human, you've got issues just like me.

Andrew Huberman

not the case

Sam Parr

So, I want to know what you struggle with. Also, do you just have loads of people dropping into your DMs hitting on you? Because I hear you talk.

Shaan Puri

and I'm

Sam Parr

Is this guy for real? Or is it all just a bunch of dudes sending nude pictures of like a mole on their back? Asking, "What do you think it is?"

Andrew Huberman

how do you know I don't find moles on backs incredibly I'm just kidding people ask

Sam Parr

Every doctor has that. All my doctor friends, it's just half of us say, "Hey, what do you think this lump is?"

Andrew Huberman

Exactly. So, okay, just to make sure I close the hatch on that. You asked for two tools, and I gave you three: **morning sunlight**, **master your sleep**, and you can see that newsletter for the tools. Then there's this **90-minute bout**. Look, some days it goes better than others, but remember, it's not just about what you accomplish. It's about getting into those frames and controlling it. I guess I wish I had said this before: you are setting the beginning, middle, and end of that frame. That's what's key. It's not happening because someone else said, "Game time, noon on Sunday," and you're just showing up. Anyone can do that with some practice. What you're learning how to do is flip the switch. You're learning how to engage that, but you have to be very judicious in your use of this circuitry. You can't do it for 12 hours a day. So, that's when I do email and all the other stuff. Okay, and I do two 90-minute bouts. Maybe one last bout about that, and then I'll tell you what I suck at. But there isn't time in the universe to get all of it. There's a second newsletter there, which is about optimizing learning and plasticity. That touches into some of the details and includes some free links and protocols related to that. Also, at the newsletter, it's the October newsletter. Okay, so what do I suck at? Oh goodness.

Sam Parr

Like, what are your struggles? I mean, I imagine now that you're famous, your Instagram and your Twitter are probably blowing up. So maybe it's hard to keep track of your email and stay on top of that. I mean... I don't know, I'm projecting.

Andrew Huberman

So, three things that have been helpful for this... Okay, I'm dreadfully poor at follow-up communications. I'm really bad at it. I really like comments and I try to respond, especially on Instagram. I like to give people a response. If you ask a professor a question, they're going to give you an attempt at an answer. It may not be accurate, but they're going to try and get it right. So, I have to control my impulse to respond to everything just for the sake of time, so I can focus on the big important things. I'm a terrible cook. I'm an absolutely terrible cook. I mean, I'm fortunate that I have someone in my life who's an exceptional cook, but I am an absolutely dreadful cook. I could destroy toast! I just don't get it right. I don't have the patience.

Sam Parr

do you eat sugar or do you eat really clean

Andrew Huberman

So, my diet's pretty clean. I basically do low carb. I'll eat some nuts in the morning if I'm hungry, but I don't make a big deal out of it. I put salt in my water, which kills your hunger a lot of the time. A lot of people get shaky and think they need sugar, but your electrolytes are low. Just put some sea salt or a little pinch of salt in water and drink it. You'll find, "Oh, I can go another 2 hours," and your brain function is great. Blood volume goes up. Well, you know, I think we're going to see 2022 as the year that salt comes back. Science Magazine has done a lot about the hypertension stuff. If you have hypertension, check with your doctor. But, you know, I eat low carb throughout the day—meat and salad. I might have a little bit of rice or something if I train. I do exercise; I train in the morning. I prefer to do it early, but I find time to do one hour of exercise every day. It's weight training one day, running the next, weight training again, and then running. I take one full day off each week. I never train for longer than an hour. After warming up, I hit it as hard as I can because I can't seem to come off the gas pedal. That's my thing, and I've been doing that for 35 years. So, I'm 46 now, which means I've been training for 32 years.

Shaan Puri

And what is... but I was going to ask you one related question, which is you talked about health and you kind of mentioned intermittent fasting. Basically, you don't eat until noon.

Andrew Huberman

yeah about that

Shaan Puri

And you train a certain way. When it comes to health, there's a high-carb diet, a low-carb diet, and the debate over whether meat is good or evil. There's also the discussion about weight training being good or horrible, and whether cardio is good or bad. So, there's sort of this bombardment of different side information. What you're trying to do is get to the source of it, to the truth of things. What is one piece of conventional wisdom that you disagree with? Or maybe it's hipster wisdom—something that's a fad or a trend right now that you say, "Hey, pump the brakes on that." That might be able to help some people out. So, what's something that you hear a lot but you don't buy, or you don't agree with? Or do you think it actually might be harmful?

Andrew Huberman

sure I hate to always backped a little bit but I I have this thing about thoroughness of answers so forgive me I've got a little bit of a of a ocd on this I'm terrible at cooking so I suck at cooking and I'm not a good writer I'm not a bad writer but verbal exchange is how I do best so I I solve this problem by I write into I I dictate into voice voice memos and then I put it on what's it rev.com they they got they allot my personal income and then I I sculpt from there and because I'm not I'm not a very good writer so and I'm a terrible musician I love music I'm I can't play a chord to save my life and I that's okay I'll live with that so I'm I'm terrible at a lot of things sam and and if you talk to any of my ex girlfriends that they you know they'll give you their take on what I'm good at and what I'm not good at you know but trust me there are plenty of things I'm like world class failure at and I don't try and hide those but I think I'm glad you asked the question because look I don't have it all figured out I've been greatly inspired I just wanna give a nod to tim ferris who I've know only through the podcast interaction that podcast 4 hour 4 hour work week 4 hour body especially had a tremendous impact in accelerating my career in science because I was able to focus on things that really matter maybe not just 4 hours but just the principles in those books I think we should all be rereading those books they're so damn good and yeah so okay the diet thing I do low carb during the day and then I eat carbohydrates at night I like starch I like pasta and salad I try and limit my protein at night because it makes me sleepy and I get into really great sleep by eating my starches later in the day usually around 8 8 or so I eat dinner and then I go to sleep around 10:30 or so I'll have a snack sometimes if I want 1 but generally I don't want 1 and that's really really key because if I've trained early in the day and I'm running around like crazy I'm also burning up a lot of glycogen I wanna repack my glycogen so I can train in the morning so I tend to like to train early in the day okay so what's out there well first of all the the nutrition space is a disaster it's an absolute disaster so much so that I'm already preparing for the attack about what I'm about to say which is a well accepted truth in science there's a paper from chris gardner slab at stanford showing that as long as people ingest fewer calories than they burn you're gonna lose weight regardless of whether or not those calories are a low carb regimen or vegan regimen or pure meat regimen etcetera so calories in calories out is a foundational principle I've been accused of saying different but the fact of the matter is it's true now the calories out portion is gonna be regulated by a number of things basal metabolism how much you exercise are you hormone augmented are you what

Sam Parr

what's what's the controversial thing that you've you've just said though I I don't even understand that

Andrew Huberman

So, in the nutrition space, there's this other idea. It's grounded in some rationale, which is like, for instance, when you eat animal protein like chicken, beef, or fish, there's a metabolic cost. There's a calories-out equation from the digestion and utilization of protein and the use of that.

Sam Parr

but that seems like a rounding error no

Andrew Huberman

It's not huge, but it's very different than if you were talking about an equivalent number of calories from starch. Now, there are hormonal effects of what I call a biased diet. I eat a macronutrient complete diet that includes fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are sort of on an as-needed basis. So, if I'm training a little less, I might eat a few fewer of them, etc. But the nutrition space is a mess because everyone has to eat, and people have different preferences. A lot of the stuff that you see out there is really just geared toward finding a match with an audience that prefers plants, or prefers meat, or prefers to fast. Having explored the fasting science and literature, there's nothing wholly about fasting that provides autophagy—the cleaning up of dead cells. I mean, low-calorie diets will do that also, even if you're not so-called fasting. However, there appear to be some benefits to having periods in each 24-hour cycle where you're not ingesting calories, independent of the total number of calories. The biggest issue I have, the mess that I see out there, that I hope will get resolved, is that people are using social media and a certain type of "he said, she said, they said, we said" to amplify controversies that don't really exist. I'm willing to bet, for instance, I'll just state my stance on this: eating more plants and less meat. Forgive me, Paul Saladino—he's a friend of mine, and you know he's the Carnivore MD. He's got great data to support what he's got, but I like plants. I'm going to eat a salad. Am I going to die? Maybe, but I'm eating my salad. But I'm also going to eat a steak. So, it's almost crazy when we start talking about this. Are we really talking about this? Here's what I'd like to see.

Sam Parr

The Carnivore MD, it's this guy on Instagram. So my name, do you know who the Perfect Keto guys are? Andrew?

Andrew Huberman

I know of them yeah

Sam Parr

you so anthony is lives across the street from me and then justin has been on this podcast a bunch

Andrew Huberman

okay

Sam Parr

And then Anthony and this other guy went to somewhere in Africa (I forget where) to see how this tribe lives, eating mostly just meat and some honey. That other guy, his name is Paul, he's got this Instagram handle... Sean called it "CarnivoreM.D." Basically, he pretty much only eats meat, organs, and like butter - just animal products.

Andrew Huberman

Do you think he'll do honey and some berries and stuff? Look, very smart guy. People will come. The battles on the internet, like, "Does dietary cholesterol impact serum cholesterol? Is serum cholesterol impacting testosterone or not?" I mean, it's so crazy. But the reason it's crazy is not...

Shaan Puri

because it isn't a valid conversation I mean we all have to eat and people want to live a long time

Andrew Huberman

and feel vital conversation I mean we all have to eat and people want

Shaan Puri

to live a long time and feel vital

Andrew Huberman

it's crazy because there's really no field it's not like vision science or stress science or sleep science or you know cognitive psychology there's no field it's bringing together people with very diverse frameworks trying to resolve the same problem and so it's sort of like if I were to be in a discussion or agreement with someone who's a philosopher I don't do philosophy I don't know the principles of philosophy so I think that the issue on the internet right now is a is a big one who are the experts I mean we've seen this with everything related to covid right who are the real experts are they the people with government jobs are they the people who who are you know mds is it phds I think what I would like to see more of what I know I'd like to see more of are more panel discussions this is one thing that isn't happening on podcast as much as it could panel discussions where people can get to the heart of the matter by combining physicians scientists and practitioners I do understand the frustration and the angst of people who devoted a career to being in the trenches of doing stuff and then someone who has an md or writes a book and comes along and says hey I've solved weight loss or I've solved it by way of eliminating 1 macronutrient which by the way is not what paul saladino is saying I just wanna be clear that I that's I'm not pointing anything at him directly when I say that so I think that it's a kind of a a free for all right now nutrition is the worst but in terms of the battles but there are some shining bright lights in that space for instance doctor andy galpin is an exercise physiologist who's done work with a lot of athletes he's a professor cal state fullerton in terms of training regimens he's just for endurance and for strength for female athletes and for male athletes for the everyday person he's got his content is just so damn solid and grounded in mechanism all the way from muscle sarcomeres to this is how long you should rest between sets if this is your goal and then in the nutrition space I've found what works for me which is this low carb starting around noon and then gradually transitioning into higher carbohydrates because I eat for health but I mainly eat for mental and physical functioning I'm paying attention to how I feel and I want to be able to do my work and so I think that's very important too and it's a missing piece of the equation which is that you know I wouldn't survive a day doing you know 6 small meals of you know each macronutrient I'd be I'd have to cook

Shaan Puri

You know, you can break the population up into kind of these six categories. This might be the ideal diet or optimal diet for you, or do you think it is? Hey, the solution you have actually might work for everybody. I like to think that. I know it's not to the tee of like, you know, exactly what you eat, but in terms of, on one side, you’ve got completely plant-based, and on another side, you’ve got completely carnivore. Then there's just sort of no carb, low carb, or slow carb, right? There are all these different varieties. Do you think, when it comes to humans, knowing what is optimal, that there are completely different configurations for different groups of people? Or do you think there would actually be one sort of optimal diet for all humans?

Andrew Huberman

I have to assume that there's going to be some genetic bias towards certain things we're getting. For instance, I lucked out, but I also suffer because I don't like alcohol. It just makes me go to sleep. So, I don't care if there's alcohol or not. Some people really like a drink; that's probably genetic. It just doesn't make me feel good. In fact, it makes me feel bad.

Sam Parr

do you do you do you like to get fucked up at all what do you do you have you like drugs do you like anything

Andrew Huberman

I don't really no drugs no I I mean

Sam Parr

you don't even smoke weed

Andrew Huberman

No, I don't smoke weed. I never liked marijuana or alcohol very much. My drug is learning and adrenaline. I have had to work on the adrenaline part. There are stories for another time. I put myself into some unhealthy and dangerous situations, but I come alive with dopamine and adrenaline in my stomach.

Sam Parr

So you don't do any drugs, you don't... you really don't drink? I don't drink and do drugs either, but my advice is I'll eat like a whole box of Twinkies when I wanna party. That's like... I'm like, "Yeah!" Like I'm planning it like 2 weeks out. I'm like, "Let's go eat a whole burger!"

Shaan Puri

king party

Sam Parr

yeah you don't do any

Shaan Puri

of that

Sam Parr

I don't

Andrew Huberman

no no oh sure I don't eat you know I would say about 85% of the time I eat clean but but I'll eat bread I love bread and I love butter on it you know basically bread is a vehicle for butter in my case you know and I now watch the plant people are gonna come out they there's a video they already came after me like huberman says butter is look if you increase your fats your saturated fats a bit do the blood work you'll watch your your serum testosterone go up and we can talk about testosterone if you want but it's not necessarily good for your heart I didn't say it was good for your heart I said it's good for your vitality which is different in the short run than in the long run but in terms of vices I like caffeine I do use certain stimulants over the counter stimulants like I'll take l tyrosine these days I take 300 milligrams of alpha gpc if I really wanna laser in I do I don't do it any more than 2 3 days a week maximum and that's also in that second toolkit newsletter that and phenylethylamine or phenylalanine those 2 combined I mean you're you're in a you're in a focused tunnel but I don't touch modafinil I don't touch stimulants I don't do recreational drugs when I was in college sure I mean I I partied a bit but also you know I don't need any chemical to say exactly what's on my mind or to withhold some of the things that are on my mind so I I'm it's just not been my thing and but also I'm generally training in the morning and I generally wanna get work done and you know look I always admired people that could have a couple of beers and relax because it's such a big part of our culture but that just didn't that's not the way I went you asked about in terms of diets and genetic differences well you know this is the same thing with sleep and chronotypes we have people that prefer to stay up late and wake up late and people that prefer to wake up early and then it's a fairly normally distributed population what should we do about this well for instance some people probably feel better eating more starches and less protein and maybe more plants and some people look it looks to me like joe rogan's doing just fine on his elk meat and whatever else he's eating diet I don't know I don't he seems like he's thriving I will say in full disclosure that the people that I know who are hormone augmented I'm not talking about big bodybuilders I'm talking about people that are taking low dose of of testosterone whether or not it's to replace something or not they tend to crave or at least eat more proteins because it increases protein synthesis and you know

Sam Parr

that's me

Andrew Huberman

yeah yeah

Sam Parr

So I'm good. I'm on it now, and prior to being on it, I worked on it for... I tried doing it naturally for like 2 years to increase it. It was like 200, it was so low, and... oh.

Andrew Huberman

that's low yeah

Sam Parr

It was shit, and it was so low. I was running a company at the time, and I was so stressed out. So, I took time off, I ate meat, I squatted, and then I started taking TRT (testosterone replacement therapy). My life changed, and oh yeah, it was crazy. Then I started eating more meat. I didn't do it for body reasons; I did it for emotional reasons. But my body changed. I feel like a professional athlete at 32. It's pretty crazy how much that changed. What you said on one of your podcasts seems true: there's a likelihood that I will not live as long. There was some study—I'm not sure if you said it or someone else, Sean. They did these studies, basically, or for some reason, there was this group where they would castrate you in China. I don't know if it was done out of being like a monk or something like that.

Andrew Huberman

yeah yeah

Sam Parr

and these guys didn't have dicks anymore and they cash rated them and oh balls

Andrew Huberman

they they didn't have

Sam Parr

test sorry yeah they didn't have balls anymore yeah yeah and they

Andrew Huberman

I mean I didn't do the experiment nor did I check the data but I'm assuming

Sam Parr

They lived longer... they consistently live longer. It's... and like now that I'm on this, I'm like, "I probably maybe I'll live to be 90 instead of 95." I don't know, who knows what it's going to be, but it's a pretty sick life. So that's kind of the sacrifice that I'm making.

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, well, the basic idea that your story speaks to is a true one. Vitality and longevity are sort of orthogonal to one another. They're not counteracting each other, but they're kind of orthogonal. Puberty is the most rapid stage of aging in our entire life. It's accelerated aging, right? I mean, puberty is aging. It's just that you're not thinking about it in the context of a portion of the entire life arc. So, introducing hormones of the sort that were robust during puberty will accelerate that process.

Sam Parr

Now, you just said that **vitality** and **longevity** are orthogonal, basically meaning the better and more optimized I want to feel, the less I'm going to live.

Andrew Huberman

Not necessarily that they're sort of off-center to one another, but they're not counteracting one another. They're not antagonistic. So here, let me explain how this would work in the real world. If you—let's use you as an example—you decided to go on testosterone replacement. Your total testosterone, you said, was in the somewhere in the 200 nanograms per deciliter range, which is below the normal reference range. So you go on, and you're saying, quite aptly, that maybe that's going to shorten your life because of the way that it can negatively affect lipid profiles and things, the way it affects the liver. There's a lot of biochemistry there we don't have time to go into, but that's true. However, testosterone will also, whether or not it's coming from endogenous sources or from replacement, increase your energy level and your ability to lean into friction. You're going to be running more; you're going to be able to exercise more. I have done a number of episodes on hormones, but one thing that's really important to understand—because I get a lot of questions about this—is that the main effect of testosterone is that it makes effort feel good. This is because it creates a readiness for challenges of all kinds: intellectual challenges, the tropic challenges...

Sam Parr

The way that I describe it to people is, "I want to fight all the time." And not necessarily fist fight, but I just want to be in a battle, whether it's a battle with myself.

Andrew Huberman

or yeah

Sam Parr

yeah I want I want fight I wanna go fight

Andrew Huberman

Friction feels good. The great Robert Sapolsky was on my podcast, and he said they've done these experiments with altruistic acts of friction, where people donate money, for instance. It's not just about beating people up and this kind of thing. But I'm not suggesting people run out and get on TRT [testosterone replacement therapy]. I want to touch on that. Basically, you could say, "Well, my blood lipid profiles are perhaps a bit worse," but with that extra energy, you can now start exercising four times a week, plus cardio, and four times a week of weight training, and recover with no problem, provided you're doing the other things that you need to do. Whereas if you weren't, you would probably be depleted. There's a depression component, and you know, your finances would probably suffer—these kinds of things. Now, some people do not need testosterone replacement. I'm going to just mention this because I think I'm kind of walking around the margins, and people are probably wondering, "Well, is Huberman on TRT? Is that what this is about?" I'm 46 years old. I didn't touch it until I was 45. I went 45 years without it. I've talked about some of the supplements that can naturally increase testosterone.

Sam Parr

you're you're on trt

Andrew Huberman

Oh, so from... I'm 46 now. I started on my journey at 40, after 45. But let me explain. What I did is... I'm researching a book. I did 45 years of training and sleep, and all the normal things. I found some supplements that can increase testosterone: that's Fadogia and Tongkat Ali. You can see that on the Joe Rogan episode. I talk a lot about this on the episode with Tim Ferriss. A number of women are taking Tongkat Ali as a way to increase their free testosterone and are getting quite good results. I don't have any relationship whatsoever with Tongkat Ali or Fadogia companies. I don't care if you take it; definitely check with your doctor. There are some kind of spooky reports out there about Fadogia and toxicity of the cells in the testes, but those seem to be limited to rat studies. Anyway, do your research. I'm not telling you what to do, and you're responsible for your health, not me. But those supplements, done properly from the right sources, can increase testosterone by about 200 nanograms per deciliter. The most dramatic shift I've ever seen is from about 300 or high 200s to like, you know, eights and nines. When I decided to try TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) in a small dose spread throughout the week, my testosterone at that time was already sitting in the high eights, so I was doing fine. I did it as an experiment for part of this book. It changes your mental frame. It makes you more self-directed, more willing to lean into challenges. Counter to popular belief, it makes you calmer. This is the thing that people don't realize: it gives you more energy, but it makes you calmer. In primates, nonhuman primates, and in humans, stressed, angry people are typically the ones that are in the kind of low to mid-range of testosterone. Typically, there are averages from a few studies that...

Sam Parr

And I always thought expectations... I always thought, "Well, it just makes me more confident." Confident men don't get upset easily, you know? Like if someone's yelling at me, my masculinity is not being challenged right now. I'm not... That's why people are like, "Oh, so you want to fight all the time?" Like, well, actually no, the opposite. If someone gets in my face, I'm confident enough that I could walk away. Do you know what I mean?

Andrew Huberman

you're in your own you maintain your own frame you're not gonna get pulled off by projection or nowadays the the the buzzword is gaslighting everyone's gaslighting everybody without really under a a a very interested in psychoanalysis I've been fascinated by this for years and this whole concept of projection is very interesting how do you actually shift someone's nervous system this is not a good thing but how does one shift their nervous system to change the mental frame of another nervous system it's very interesting and kind of spooky stuff when you start to think about how your nervous system will frame shift you're framed someone else's frame now this is vital too when your child or your partner comes to you and says I really I'm really stressed about something it requires a a an adaptive frame shift and you need to do that people who are autistic who have asperger's don't frame shift very well they're very much in their own frame and they're very good at certain kinds of things and less good at others people who are highly empathic are susceptible empaths will know to getting yanked down different frame shift pathways such that they can oh my god I haven't done anything with my life because I've been so consumed with so and so's thinking or feelings around things so testosterone makes effort feel good I'm talking about the effects on the brain let's leave aside all the effects on the body and yes it might change blood lipid profiles but in general the energy is the component it provides a neural energy and an activation stance where then it's a question of what you do with that so if you use that as an excuse to eat a little less well train a little less then you're no better off and you might be worse off if you use that as an opportunity to lean into life then it's wonderful I I work with a number of professionals and athletes in a kind of consulting role to assist with some of this of course with an endocrinologist as well new parents for instance who decide they don't want any more kids and they're dealing with lack of sleep and all these things oftentimes benefit from that and the relationship can often benefit for a number of reasons so this is probably a whole other discussion I'd be happy to come on sometime and just talk all about the hormones because it's all estrogen is key a lot of people in particular men are blocking estrogen when they take trt which is a terrible idea estrogen promotes brain longevity estrogen is good for connective tissues it's good for libido blocking estrogen is a bad idea in most cases but of course some people are worried about water retention or breast development in males and so they're blocking estrogen you have to work with an endocrinologist so it's not testosterone is good estrogen is bad that is absolutely that's very sophomore thinking you know it's it's it's more complex than that

Sam Parr

sean did you get your you did you get your

Shaan Puri

No, but I hit a bunch of people with that. That's how I'm going to combat people.

Sam Parr

so you're gonna gaslight them

Shaan Puri

on their sophomore thinking yeah I will gaslight

Andrew Huberman

The gaslighting thing is funny because, you know, gaslighting is where the basic people are saying that they're triggering them. Gaslighting is something very different. Having experience with borderline individuals, that's a real challenge both for the borderlines and for the people in their lives. It's a real psychiatric challenge. So anytime I see these valid psychiatric terms being kind of bastardized on the internet, I get a little bit... a little bit frustrated.

Shaan Puri

Of a problem, challenges, right? Like pop science, you know, this sort of popifying of everything. It'll be more viral, right? Like, you know, it's easier to make something viral when you take away all these causes, that blank statement, you know, blanket state to actually get.

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, hearing that "it depends" is not an answer that goes very far. But here's where I'm hoping for a tide change: if people can understand the mechanism, they can start to understand a little bit about our stress system. We hear that stress is bad, but I just did a podcast episode with Duncan French from the UFC Performance Institute. Duncan's work has shown, in peer-reviewed studies, that short-term stress raises testosterone. However, stress that lasts more than a day or two, or training sessions that go longer than 90 minutes, depletes testosterone. So, is stress bad for reproduction? It depends. But if people can understand the mechanism, then they can start to grasp that an ice bath is stress, but it will protect you against illness. In the short term, adrenaline buffers you against infection because adrenaline is the signal by which your immune system says, "Oh my goodness, I need to combat something." If people can understand the mechanism, then it doesn't matter if you're talking about acupuncture, cold baths, saunas, lifting weights, sprinting, or Bikram yoga. I believe that people are smart, and if you extend a hand of respect to their intelligence, they'll come along for the discussion about the mechanism. Even if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, they could digest the next wave of information coming to them in a much more nuanced way. Of course, people still need protocol; they need a jumping-off point.

Andrew Huberman

And so that's why my podcast has been mainly about that. But I think science and health information on the internet is changing very quickly. Thanks, here again, I just have to say it was seeing Lex Fridman's podcast. I don't know what the equivalent is in the finance and entrepreneurial area; maybe it's you guys. But in the kind of general landscape of podcasting, I saw Lex's podcast for the first time and I thought, "This guy is having really intense intellectual conversations."

Sam Parr

Yeah, he's such a good... he's so weird in a cool way. He's so interesting. He's unique. He is... he's kind of punk rock. I mean, Lex is very punk rock.

Shaan Puri

I mean

Andrew Huberman

His lifestyle... If you think my lifestyle is unique, I mean Lex—well, maybe just get him on the podcast. He's a really... I'll let him do the speaking for himself. But I think that once someone's out there doing that, it's very hard for people to follow suit with the kind of low-level version of that. So what I love—and I have listened to your podcast—what I love about your podcast, what I love about Ferris, Rogen, Lex, and Rich Roll... and I'm missing a few. Alright, I'm going to regret it later that I'm not remembering these names, but because there are others, of course, is that if Sagar and Jetty's news channel, for instance, is remarkable, it's that if we all push each other to constantly try and increase the quality and the value per unit time of a podcast—even if it's not just protocols, but it's a style of discourse like we've done today—that, to me, is going to elevate the medium as something that is serious instead of just the... you know, chatter.

Sam Parr

Do you... How big is your audience right now on YouTube? You've had 10 months, so you're north of a million. What about on podcast?

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, so, on Instagram, I think we're sitting somewhere around **730,000 followers** or something like that. But that's just really... I do put out unique content there that's separate from the podcast from time to time. But you're going to laugh, but I actually, and I'm not cloaking anything, I actually don't...

Sam Parr

tell me you don't know

Andrew Huberman

I don't know... I don't know. So, that's Rob. We have a web guy.

Sam Parr

I mean you gotta if I had to guess like 5 to 10,000,000 a month

Andrew Huberman

That sounds about right. I think it's on the higher end of that. I know that's right because if it's about $2,000,000 per episode in the first couple of weeks, is that something? I don't know. I'm not sure.

Sam Parr

2,000,000 you're at 2,000,000 an episode

Andrew Huberman

I I don't know I should ask rob

Sam Parr

do you otherwise you're killing me

Andrew Huberman

do you realize that like later

Sam Parr

Listen, do you realize with 2 million downloads an episode... Surely Tim or whoever has talked to you, and Joe has talked to you. With 2,000,000 downloads an episode, dude, you're rich. You're... you could be very wealthy. I'm shocked that you're still teaching.

Andrew Huberman

that I'm still wearing the same shirt every day

Shaan Puri

Yeah, I looked up the average salary before the podcast. I was like, "This guy could easily be banking a few million dollars a year and doing the exact same thing you're doing now." It's not like you'd have to shift to doing something else. I looked up what professors make. Here's what I found: a Stanford professor, according to the internet—no idea if this is true or not—will average somewhere between $200,000 to $225,000 per year, which is obviously a great living. But I thought...

Andrew Huberman

That's high for an academic, and it doesn't matter for a non-MD academic. The pay is not just at Stanford; it's abysmal in the Bay Area. I want to be respectful; people have different needs and costs. But in the Bay Area, that's a tough, tough life for someone with kids. You know, it depends... not a tough life. But anyway, I'm going to get some haters for this, but you know what?

Sam Parr

fuck it

Andrew Huberman

come hang out come hang out

Sam Parr

do you

Andrew Huberman

do we'll you know

Sam Parr

and have you have you enjoyed being famous

Andrew Huberman

Well, okay, so a couple of things. One, about the views: I really do need to check with Rob on the numbers. I don't know; I don't track that. I know we're doing well. One thing on the business side, since you have this audience, is that I only advertise products I actually use. I've been using Athletic Greens for over a decade, right? So I love that stuff. We stay with a limited number of advertisers.

Sam Parr

insidetracker I I bought them and I use I use my code huberman huberman

Andrew Huberman

Yes, we work with Thor. Thank you. We work with Athletic Greens. For me, it was a really good supplement. It's the only one I set aside money for as a student, and as a postdoc and professor, because it covered a lot of things.

Sam Parr

so expensive though

Andrew Huberman

yeah it I I feel better when I take it so that's why I take it but I get it no it's it is it's

Sam Parr

like a $150 $200 a month I think

Andrew Huberman

There's a cost there... It has to be within the scope of someone's decisions around finances. But the sleek cocktail... We work with Thorne because the great thing about Thorne is the quality of their supplements is so good that you can actually take less of Thorne supplements, in my experience, and get away with it. There are other great supplement companies out there. I'm not here to plug our sponsors, but I do understand that's the way podcasts make money. I pay my staff, which includes Rob, Mike, and Ian, and we have a few others as well. I should mention one thing about the medium and its business model. I have never talked about this, but the Huberman Lab podcast is just one of several podcasts under a company that I founded with Rob. David Sinclair, a tenured professor of genetics at Harvard, is also involved.

Sam Parr

lifespan right

Andrew Huberman

lifespan so he's launching the lifespan podcast with david sinclair and you're and you're owning this yeah I own span podcast with david seymour

Sam Parr

and you're and you're owning

Andrew Huberman

this yeah I own that

Shaan Puri

brilliant yes podcast network of

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, so we're working on the front end and back end materials for that. Mike Blaback and I are the creatives on that with the "So Smart" aesthetic. It will be very different from mine, right? Because David, I mean, he's... you know, we're different. David's David; he's not me.

Sam Parr

You're building this media business all centered around longevity and healthy longevity, and mental and physical health. I don't know, we'll call it **mental fitness**. That's a word that we've used... mental fitness.

Andrew Huberman

I like

Sam Parr

that you're gonna crush this this is gonna be huge

Andrew Huberman

Well, thanks. The goal is really that, for instance, many professors have excellent information they can share on gut microbiome, addiction, and ADHD that goes well beyond the depth that I can provide in one of my episodes. They need to do 6 or 7 episodes, but they probably don't need to do a podcast in perpetuity. So, the idea is to have a set of podcasts that you can come to. Mine, if you like David's, or maybe, God forbid, you have a relative dealing with Parkinson's and want to hear from somebody about what you can really do about that. Or, if you have a kid and you want to know what the science-based practices are for getting a child to sleep and for neuroplasticity in a child, well, let's talk to a world expert in that. The idea is to have an umbrella for multiple podcasts. The Huberman Lab podcast is but one of those that I plan to continue. David's is going to be the second, and we've got a third and a fourth that are revving up now. Who knows? Maybe we should do one on, I don't know, something related to crypto or something. I only know what I know, and I know academics, I know science, and I know medicine. That's what I'm going to bring to the table.

Sam Parr

this is awesome this is awesome I

Shaan Puri

had this

Andrew Huberman

thank you

Shaan Puri

Call back, which was... I remember thinking about my favorite science teacher. He was great, but I just thought about his kind of sphere of impact. Each class had about 20 kids, and he would teach 5 classes a day. So, he'd teach about 100 kids a day. His reach, as my best teacher growing up, was 100 students a day, or essentially 100 students a year. Then, with the internet, I thought, "Wow, this is going to change." The best teachers in the world are going to have 1,000,000 students, and they're going to make 1,000,000 dollars, as they should, for being amazing teachers. I've always been looking out for and investing in every platform I can get my hands on, anywhere I can see that teachers are able to scale and have millions of students. Because, you know, if I'm going to learn math or I'm going to learn about nutrition, I can either learn locally—that's the way the world always worked. I just learned from my best local teacher that was available to me. Now, I can learn globally. I can actually find who is the best at not only being an expert but also packaging it and conveying it in a way that's entertaining, relatable, and fits me. So, you know, that's what you're doing. You're the perfect example of something I've been thinking: "Why isn't the world moving this way?" Actually, it is. It just wasn't through online school; it was through things like podcasting.

Sam Parr

And it's more popular in other countries. You know, China does a really good job of this. They've got... we've done some Chinese teachers who make tens of millions of dollars a year.

Shaan Puri

superstar they're like musicians and athletes

Sam Parr

Yeah, same with India. What... you know, Sean, we have that... You sent that... You shared with me that really cool photo of a guy in India teaching math, and it looked like he was a comedian because there was like...

Shaan Puri

a stadium in the people his name is biju no he's a guy in india

Andrew Huberman

I'll have to check it out

Shaan Puri

Teacher, he would teach in local villages, and people loved learning math from him. He would go to other cities, and they would come find him because the word had spread by word-of-mouth. Eventually, he was filling up stadiums—free, you know, free to attend. He was just teaching math on a projector in a 20,000-person stadium.

Sam Parr

and now he created an

Shaan Puri

He created an app. It's like a $10 billion education app in India. But, you know, that was his origin story, and I thought that was...

Andrew Huberman

I love it, you know? I love the model around podcasting because, yes, you have to tolerate some ads, but advertisers are happy, consumers are happy, and it's zero cost to the consumer. That, to me, is like if ever there was order in a universe—not the universe, but in a universe—that's it.

Sam Parr

Yes, but it sucks. Do you know my company at all, or did you know my company?

Andrew Huberman

I'm afraid I don't

Sam Parr

I apologize, so it's all good. We own this, and then we own this thing called... I started this company called **The Hustle**, which was a daily email that reached about 2,000,000 people a day for business news. We just sold it to HubSpot for many tens of millions of dollars, and we were making about $20,000,000 on ads. So, we made a lot of money. The problem with ads is it's cool when you're doing it now because you can pick and choose, like Thorn and Athletic Greens. You can pick and choose cool stuff, and that's exactly how we started. But then you get staff, and you're like, "Alright, we're going to try and triple every year." In order to triple every year, there aren't that many Thorns and Athletic Greens. Then you have to look at some other options, and you're like, "Well, we gotta hit these growth numbers." So, it kind of... you know.

Shaan Puri

don't think he worships at the altar of year over year

Sam Parr

Well, you know... it's not that simple. You always think about it. For example, what if I talk shit about Athletic Greens? Let's say they did something kind of wrong and you... well, that's my... That's exactly my... You will say, "Well, I don't know." You know what I mean? It's even the most honest people and good people. We're all incentivized by something. So maybe he would be willing to defend them a little bit more because they're giving him money, which is a natural thing. You know what I mean?

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, so that is an issue. I mean, I think that we do care about growth, but the reason we built out a philanthropic arm of this company is because I really empathize with the struggle that academic scientists live in day to day. They don't have time to do their own research, let alone work for the world, which is what they're really hired to do. Their grants come mainly from public sources. So, we're trying to think about ways that we can start to pump some money back into science through the podcast. The money coming into the podcast actually represents some of it going back into the scientific community to do better work. We're starting to explore NFTs and how that might be incorporated. Twitter's a great place to learn about that. I just want to say that the NFT landscape and crypto landscape—people are so kind. It's like they're trying to come together. It kind of reminds me of the early punk rock movement. They know I'm paying attention to their energy, even though I don't understand a darn thing about it.

Sam Parr

the company it is very punk rock but

Shaan Puri

we would to sell you their token and their currency and why it's yeah

Sam Parr

just wait till you say something

Shaan Puri

Tell you about it because they are... we are all, you know, selling our own holdings basically. Interesting.

Sam Parr

wait until you say something bad about them though

Andrew Huberman

Okay, well, I tend... I hope not to do that, at least not by accident. But I just noticed that there's a... I love the DIY spirit. Look, I'm a patriot too. I'm sure you have an international audience, but look, my dad's a first-generation immigrant. This country is amazing.

Sam Parr

from where

Andrew Huberman

From Argentina, so he's not, you know, he wasn't from some place where he was stricken. But he came here on a navy scholarship. He's a physicist. You know, this is a country where you can make lateral moves; it's hard to ascend. Alright, and we should acknowledge that not everyone starts in the same place. The slope is different for different people, no question. But you can make lateral moves here. Think about this: the Nobel Prize is given each year. For instance, the world is big; the world of science is big. Most Nobel Prizes are given to people in the U.S., and we have one of the most difficult funding schemes for getting money to do research in this country. Now, compared to third-world countries, we're very wealthy in the research realm. But compared to other countries where they basically stock the laboratories with money, it's incredible. Here, we have these individual labs doing little startup-style workshop stuff. It's that grind, that leaning into friction, that I really believe is the hallmark of future development. Science doesn't have that. We didn't have a podcast platform or information platform, and I'm hoping that my podcast and others like David's, and the other ones that come out through our company, will soon populate. I'd love to see more of this done out there. There's, you know, some smart guy or gal out there thinking, "I'm gonna do the podcast on amphibians because I love frogs, and I'm gonna tell people which terrarium to get." It's gonna be the terrarium podcast. You never know what's gonna work, but I love that spirit—the entrepreneurial spirit. So that's what we're trying to bring.

Sam Parr

Well, dude, thanks for coming on. This is badass! We haven't done a podcast this long in a long time. By the way, I'll tell you really quick, we had Rob Dyrdek on recently.

Andrew Huberman

oh yeah

Sam Parr

And he is... I forget what we were talking about. Skateboarding and like wealth or something, but he's like the wealthiest.

Andrew Huberman

Yeah, Rob wouldn't know me, but he's tight with Mike Blayback because Rob and Big... Big unfortunately passed away, and Mike did all the photos for that. And yeah, look, skateboarders, if you want to know what's really cool and how to do the real DIY spirit, you just look at skateboarders. They just...

Sam Parr

I'm gonna I'm gonna brag I'm gonna brag after this I'm gonna send you a video of my latest

Andrew Huberman

Oh, and yeah, I can't do a tray flip. But I ride a pool. I'm not that good.

Sam Parr

dude you're you're badass man I'm I'm so excited

Andrew Huberman

to have to

Sam Parr

Talk to you... I feel inspired after having a conversation with you. You're very... you're a much bigger deal. Oh well, we got to speak.

Andrew Huberman

Oh, well, I want to say **genuine thanks** for having me on. I felt immediate resonance. I'm very much like a consensus, so I think it'd be great to get together in person sometime. Do people still do that? I don't know, how about we do coffee?

Sam Parr

are you in california can you're in northern california

Andrew Huberman

I split my time now between the Bay Area and Southern California. So, where are you guys?

Shaan Puri

I'm in the bay area

Sam Parr

Yeah, we both live there. I lived in San Francisco for 8 or 9 years. I just bought a house in Texas, and so I'm in Austin as of now. But I'm a little bit nomadic, so...

Andrew Huberman

Well, I'm going to be in Austin a bunch because I hang out with Lex there. He's going to take me to Jujitsu again. Last time...

Shaan Puri

then did

Andrew Huberman

a rear naked choke

Sam Parr

he lives in austin

Andrew Huberman

I've never done it before he's a black belt

Sam Parr

So, I don't know... he lived in Austin, but dude, I have a gym here at my house. Like, a really nice gym. I have people come over and we can lift heavy. I lift heavy and also we could box. I beat people up all the time.

Shaan Puri

so if

Sam Parr

you wanna like fucking fight we could do that we could we could bro

Andrew Huberman

I do everything. This is not... this is not a... we probably shouldn't box. So, I boxed. I had my boxing card and boxed pretty consistently at various times. I'm not very good. You don't get a nose like this doing yoga, so let's not box.

Sam Parr

come on man I got a rower we could do anything you want I'm fit

Andrew Huberman

this this is the this is the trt speaking folks yeah

Sam Parr

yes

Andrew Huberman

It'd be great fun! I'll pass you guys my number by email. Just let's text that we're in the real world, and we'll take it into the real world.

Sam Parr

thank you man talk soon

Shaan Puri

great to see you

Andrew Huberman

you thanks so much