Our Episode

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast
where we discuss science and
science-based tools for everyday
[Music]
life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a
professor of neurobiology and
Opthalmology at Stanford School of
Medicine my guest today is Josh
whiteskin Josh whiteskin is a former
child prodigy who began playing the game
of chess at 6 years old and by time he
was 16 years old had become a national
champion many times over as well as an
International Champion in fact he
achieved the level of international
Master which is one of the highest
levels of achievement in the game of
chess for anyone of any age his early
life achievements were the topic and
focus of the book and movie Searching
for Bobby fiser he then quit playing the
game of chess and moved on to martial
arts the study of philosophy at Columbia
University in New York and eventually
foiling which is essentially surfing
over the water Josh is not only a high
performer he has now become perhaps the
most sought-after professional coach in
the domains of Finance in the domains of
creative Endeavors professional sports
and Military today's episode is one of
my favorite hubman Lab podcast episodes
ever I know as a podcast host you're not
supposed to say that but it's absolutely
true because not only is Josh whiteskin
so highly accomplished but he is an
exceptional teacher of the learning
process he took what he learned in chess
and about learning chess and applied
that to martial arts to foiling Etc and
from participating in all those
Endeavors he was able to distill out the
Essential Elements of learning and how
to tailor one's learning process to
one's own unique personality and style
flaws and tendency to make mistakes and
how to leverage all of that in order to
be able to learn better in fact
throughout today's episode I promise
that you will constantly be reflecting
on where you experience things like
tension and fear both in your personal
life your professional life your
educational life whatever it is that
you're trying to learn and pursue in
life today's conversation thanks to Josh
will allow you to look at that
understand it better and know where to
apply work when to relax when to push
forward and in effect how to become a
better learner both of yourself and
whatever it is that you happen to be
pursuing in life we have a saying in
science which is that sometimes you
encounter somebody who is truly n of one
meaning a sample size of one in a
category all by themselves Joshua skin
is truly an N of one I know of no other
person like him or even close to him in
terms of his ability to live a unique
life path and to take what he learns and
to put it out into the world so That
Others May benefit he lives with a
tremendous amount of intentionality for
the people he loves for the things he
loves and with the intention of helping
others learn how to learn better I must
say it was a true honor to sit down with
Josh I've been a huge fan of his work
for a very long time you'll also learn
that he he's a really nice person before
we begin I'd like to emphasize that this
podcast is separate from my teaching and
research roles at Stanford it is however
part of my desire and effort to bring
zero cost to Consumer information about
science and science related tools to the
general public in keeping with that
theme this podcast episode does include
sponsors and now for my discussion with
Josh whiteskin Josh whiteskin welcome
thank you man great to be here feel like
I've known you a long time because I saw
the search for Bobby Fischer and I
learned about the real human that was
about you and I read the art of learning
and I must say I'm a fan and somewhat
obsessed with the uniqueness of your Arc
and the choices you've made and your
understanding of learning as a process
and its Universal properties it's
specific properties in different
contexts so I'm excited to dive in I
think for people that perhaps are not
familiar with you maybe you could just
give us a broad overview of your
backstory like the things that you've
really focused on in kind of chunks if
you will um just for a couple of minutes
so that people can get familiar with the
incredible things you've done and I
think that reflects the uniqueness of
your choic making process which then
we'll get into yeah sure well thank you
man it's an honor I appreciate what you
said um yeah so I started playing chess
I grew up in New York City downtown
Manhattan I started playing chess when I
was 6 years old and and I I discovered
chess walking through Washington Square
Park with my mom and I remember watching
a day or two and then at one point I
broke away from her I was going to play
on monkey bars and I ran over and I
asked an old man if I could play and he
said yes and my mom was surprised and we
started playing I played my first game
of chess and it I remember the very
distinct feeling
of it was as if I was dis discovering or
rediscovering a lost m
memory it wasn't like I was learning
something new it was like I was wiping
away the dust or the cobwebs between
something between me and something I had
known very deeply at one point very
strange feeling for a six-year-old boy
and then I just fell in love with the
game I got really intensely into it my
first teachers were the hustlers in
Washington Square so it was just like a
rockus crowd of guys who took me under
their wings started teaching me the
Tactical Street side of the game and um
I was just unhindered as a learner which
is interesting from my perspective now
as a dad because I my my little boy
Charlie is is taking on surfing with
that same kind of Freedom just that
liberated uncomplicated out of his own
way kind of vibe yeah and then by the
time I was seven I started competing and
then I was a top rated player for my age
in the country from my from most of the
years from age 7 to 23 my whole chess
career so it was a very
strange upbringing in some ways which
has led to some quirky elements in my
psychology which was that I was living
in a pressure cooker of competition from
age six on and my whole childhood was
spent was spent as the Target and so
like if you're if you're competing in
national championships and you know I
would compete in in youth National and
World Championships then otherwise I'd
be competing against adults everything
else but then you're the target so any
mistake you make and kids make mistakes
all the time we all do my rivals and
their coaches who are strong Masters and
international Masters and Grandmasters
would be able to study and adult strong
players can see very easily the
weaknesses in a child and so they would
be prepared for them so if I didn't take
on a weakness it would be exploited and
I would experience pain and so from a
very young age not taking on my
weaknesses became outside of was outside
of my conceptual scheme which is a
really interesting thing to grow up with
and it's in many ways like lay the
foundation for um a lot of what I've
done since and there are lots of things
about that upbringing which could be
unhealthy I being in the public eye very
bizarre luckily it was before social
media yeah super yeah I and I have never
been on social media in any way which
has been a choice yes so when I was 11
the the book searching for Robbie fer
came out and when I was 15 the movie
came out and at that point I was you
know completely in love with chess it
was my first love I was an unobstructed
learner I was loved competition a lot of
my opponents were trying to control the
game memorize openings figure out how to
win by force but I love the battle my
style was to create chaos like like in
Washington Square Park um find hidden
harmonies and chaos and I love that so
as the game went on and they moved away
from their opening preparation and
controlling things we moved into my
power Zone which was the fight I love
the fight and then a my chest life in
many ways was was free flowing and then
the movie came out when I was 15 and
then you can imagine what that was like
as as a you know a young teenager all
the attention the media cameras
everywhere groupies all the Temptations
and I didn't ask for it and it was a
really it was an
alienating period for me relative to
chest and around the same time I started
training with a Russian chess trainer
who started urging me to move away from
my self-expression as a chess player and
to study the the players who were the
opposite of me I was a attacking player
aggressive I played kind of in the style
not at the level but in the style of
like Bobby fiser or Gary Kasparov or M
tall world champions who were like hot
blooded and I was being urged to study
the more cold-blooded prophylactic side
of chest petan carpov more conservative
defensive players so I was being told
instead of saying like what what does
Josh feel here what would karpov play
here who's the opposite of me and so the
combination of that public eye and then
the movement away from my
self-expression led to a period of
obstructed and self-consciousness and
what an interesting theme we could talk
about at one point is that passage from
a preconscious to a postcon competitor
in many ways I went from like that
freedom of preconscious competition into
the tunnel of existential crisis and um
and I grappled with it for over a lot of
years and when I was 18 when I graduated
high school I and and during that
grappling I was still the top rated
player in the country I was winning the
national championships every year so
like from the outside it looked good but
from the inside I was in turmoil I was
fighting with myself I had all these
demons and then I left the US I spent a
number of years after high school
studying East Asian philosophy
meditating reflecting um and then my
study of Chess in those years and I was
deeply in love with chess still it
became much more of of an introspective
process it became I was competing as
intensely as ever but chess became
connected to life and then when I was 19
years old I started training at the
human performance Institute at the time
it was called LGE um lir grapple and
eter and eberry it was a
um it was a performance training cross
disciplinary Performance Training Center
that Jim Lair opened up and now then it
became the hbi later on and it I never
forget the moment that I was I was
working with these performance
psychologists and I was and I was at gym
and I was working with nutritionists and
I was on I was doing this intense
workout I looked next to me and there
was Jim Harbaugh who was the head coach
at the time of the who was the um
quarterback of the time of of the Cults
NFL team and we got into this amazing
dialogue about performance and it was a
real eye- openening moment for me
because I realized that we spoke the
same language I like holy this
guy's a he's an NFL quarterback and I'm
this crazy chess player but we're doing
the same thing and it was this
crystallization moment where I realized
that all of these Arts are fundamentally
connected
at the highest levels and what we're
doing is much more similar like if
you're at the like I observe that people
who are at the Pinnacles of different
Arts are often doing things that are
much more similar than people who are in
the same art from them but at lower
levels there's something in that
qualitative experience and then then I
began studying the principles that
connected these things and then then I
had this interesting
experience I'm going to I'm kind of
compressing a life into a minute or two
but I
um in my early 20s when I I I ultimately
moved away from chess and I'm happy to
talk about why and that journey and then
I I moved into the martial arts the my
study of East Asian philosophy moved me
into the study of DSM and taii and then
into the into into um taii Push Hands
and I had this really interesting
experience where at that point I'd been
the introspective process of studying
chess had become much more about
studying life and so I was dis I was I
was in an exploration of
interconnectedness but I was I was not
playing chess anymore and I was all in
on the martial arts but I was giving a
simultaneous chess exhibition which I
did every year for many years for Duan
distri research and I was playing 50
chess games at once and I was walking
around this this big Square playing
against 50 you know young upand
cominging strong players at the same
time and I realized at one point like I
wasn't playing chess I was moving chess
pieces but I was thinking in taii
language I was you know feeling flow
feeling space left behind riding
energetic waves of the game
and it was like I was winning all these
chess games but I hadn't played chess in
a long time and I wasn't playing
chess and and and it became like and
then my study of taichi became extremely
accelerated and then I started winning
competing and then I won in the fighting
application and I started winning
national championships and then and then
I began to think about like like or
become more and more deeply involved in
the study and the exploration of
thematic interconnectedness which has
really become a life's work um and then
my martial arts life ended up and you
know and Tak me all over the world and
won some World Championships and I moved
into Brazilian jiu-jitsu and um trained
in that art for many years and um was
training for the world championship for
Brazilian jiu-jitsu this is after
winning um worlds in the in the TA Chi
Chuan and I broke my back in in a
training camp I own a school with
Marcelo Garcia who's a dear friend who's
nine-time world champion perhaps the
greatest Grappler pound-for-pound to
ever live and I was training at a really
high level and I um and I was thinking
about this like I was getting ready to
run begin my surge toward black belt
World Championships in Jiu-Jitsu and I
ruptured my L 405 disc and um and it was
the first time I'd been moved away from
an
art not on my own
terms and it was a um it was you know
brutal injury then I ended up as we do
when we're mad men you know coming back
and training for a year and a half on
with the broken the busted up back and
then the doctors told me I had to I had
to let this one go um or I'd be crippled
for life and around that period is where
I started to go all in on the art of
training others and I said okay if I
can't be all in training as a competitor
as an athlete myself I I've been train
I've been training Elite competitors in
mental and physical performance for some
time then but I wanted to take on the
challenge of loving training others with
the same intensity that I love training
myself and I I I went all in on on that
art and I'm still all in on that art but
I never actually got to the place where
I love not being in the the arena myself
as much as being in the arena myself and
and then in this chapter of my life now
I I I fall in love with the ocean arts
initially surfing and now foiling and
for the last um eight years I've been
living in the jungles of Costa Rica with
my family um and I train three to five
hours a day uh in foiling and so I've
I'm in my my you know really intense
training lifestyle myself and and I
train Elite mental and physical
competitors around the world in um in in
Finance in science technology and in
sports I've been doing some amazing work
with the Boston Celtics for the last few
years um so that's a nut the journey in
a nutshell happy to dig into any of it
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risk yeah thank you we'll definitely
revisit um certain time points and
themes there I can imagine as a young
boy playing
chess you you have your own strategies
you're um developing an understanding of
what works for you but of course you as
a young kid are also getting into the
mind of the other player you actually
described that your your coach or
coaches were encouraging you to get into
a different mindset one that was not
your default or trained up mindset less
focused on chaos and aggression um uh
and more in this uh this other mode of
playing by thinking about these other
types of
of chess players and and ways to play
chess so I can imagine that you know
most kids are not weaned they brain
isn't developing around a game right it
seems that your brain was built the the
developmental neuroplasticity that's so
robust in early childhood was built
around this game that we call
chess and it seems to me that you were
were encouraged to develop a theory of
mind that wasn't just your own which is
itself I think is really uh unique right
I mean most six seven 8 nine 10 12 year
olds might be told Hey listen you know
the reason they were mean to you at
school is like they just hate themselves
or you know I they they just didn't
think about whether or not to pick you
you know first or last for the game or
whatever it is right you know that you
get told to do that but for you it
became a seems an intense practice of
trying to learn to get into the mind of
another while holding on to your
own sense of what's you versus them and
and so as a developmental neurobiologist
I understand this is like perhaps one of
the most important events in our the
development of our brain seems that your
brain was built up around that Dynamic
and so now you coach Peak performers and
so much of coaching and teaching or
being a parent is to get into the mind
of another the difference is when you're
a parent you can think back to being a
child and at least get some general
sense of what that's like stepping back
from what I just said and I realized
that there's a lot of uh words there
but do you think that what you're doing
when you
approach a practice
like taii or Brazilian jiu-jitsu or
science or math or music from the
perspective of of a performer or a
teacher is that you're getting into the
mind of someone
else you're getting it you're trying to
or you're trying to stay in your own
mindset I'm sorry I'm not being more
succinct with this but I think you know
as humans we do this like I'm sure our
dogs look up at us and say oh like they
they're happy with me or they're sad
with me or but but they're you know the
algorithms they're running are more
simplistic I we we as um the most
sophisticated Old World primates do this
so spectacularly well and it seems that
much of your career in your life has
been built around these kinds of
Dynamics so put simply what is your
mindset when you approach a practice
that's just you in the practice versus
your mindset when you approach your
practice when it's you and another a
competitor versus when you're trying to
teach something you and a bunch of
different minds but there's a common
goal okay so there's really three big
questions wrapped in there and now
there's sort of like 15 really big
questions really big questions and my
audience gets upset at the at the the
length of these questions but I think
for me it's important to just kind of
set this out there as a buffet from
which you can select anything or discard
anything that you like there are some
many delectable things to select there
yeah so I mean first of all one-on-one
competition is so interesting in in in
mental and physical Arenas so if we
think about Brazilian jiu-jitsu or chess
as two of them but let's Zone in on
chess because that's when I was a kid
you you you're thinking about what your
plan is and you're also thinking about
what your opponent's plan is and you
have to every move your opponent makes
you have to think why did he do that
what's his plan what what what is his
what is his tactical land what is his
strategic plan shortterm and long term
so you're trying to unpack his strategy
always and you're assuming that he had
or she has a strategy well if they don't
have a strategy then they're not going
to be a good chess player and so then
very quickly if you're if you're
evolving in that art you're only playing
against people who are at your level or
better if you're growing if you're
always playing down then you're not
improving and there's a beautiful
filtration process in like the people
who accelerate in their growth curve in
the Chess World are ones who are
challenging themselves all the time
playing up pushing their limits and so
like I spent my life against you know
playing as strong players and um and I
always I always played a little up
except for when I was in Youth
competition I always played up which was
important for me and so people had a
plan and they had and they were very
deceptive about their plans and they
their layers to the plans there's like
there's the tactics they're trying to
set up there's their long-term strategy
but then there's what they want me to
think their strategy is which it isn't
and in fact their strategy is to be Mis
to be have
misdirection around what their strategy
and their tactics are and they layers to
it and it can go many many layers deep
same thing in the martial arts right so
obviously you need to have a theory of
mind to play that game at least the way
I played chess at a high level because
you you're con and there's this very
interesting shared Consciousness between
players like you and I are sitting a
little further apart than we would sit
if we were playing chess so if we were
like half the distance we are from one
another and we're just sitting for 6
hours with like a three- foot chess
board at 3 feet between us studying this
thing our minds become connected MH we
often will share the same illusion we'll
you might see something and then I see
it when you see it if we have this same
um we might have the same blind spot we
might have the same Insight the the
connectedness of mind is fascinating and
it's through chess it's directly like
energetic it it's through eye contact
it's through body language it's by
seeing micro Expressions it's everything
so you're always reading the opponent
and as you get really good you learn
like what your tells are what your
opponent's tails are then you also learn
like I often would have tells on purpose
and I'd have predictable tails that I
would let people lean on for a long time
until I didn't let them lean on it
anymore it's like in the martial arts
where you you know you you you give
someone comfort in a lean right and you
give them a rep of something they can
lean on here they can lean here then
they can lean here very comfortably five
or six or eight or 10 times in a row
until they can then they're on the floor
right so you're this is happening in
chest it's happening in all of these
things and one-on-one competition is a
Relentless truth teller you know if you
have a weakness it will be exposed if
your opponent has a weakness you will
expose it if you go into a chess game
and you've got huge opening repertoire
that's extremely complex but there's
like one little place that I just hope
he doesn't go there he always goes there
it's so Bonkers you can't hope your
opponent's not going to see it you can't
make the second best move because maybe
he'll blunder and I'll win that never
works if you're playing as real
competition and so like you need to
understand your mind you need to
understand your opponent's mind you need
to understand your opponent's
understanding of your mind right that's
a lot of plates to spin and what I guess
what I said before not so clear clearly
um is that for a young mind to be able
to learn to spin all those plates is
incredible it's clearly possible it's
Unique but it's possible you did
that but it takes a young mind or an
adult mind out of its own unique
experience so this is eventually how
we'll Circle back to preconsciousness
versus postc Consciousness um but in the
meantime um when was it that you first
recall thinking not oh I'm gonna beat
this guy but sensing you know he's
getting nervous or he's confident or he
can sense that I'm nervous or I'm going
to set a trap and just you know feeling
out you know whether or not they detect
the Trap I mean that it's just a lot
right away when I was I mean I us to
keep in mind my my my first teachers
were Hustlers were chess hustlers in
Washington Square so they would they
would mess with my mind all the time and
then they would teach me what they were
doing and they would do it again at a
higher level right so you're distracting
they're distracting they're setting
traps they're using Jedi Mind Tricks of
every sort they didn't kid gloves you at
all I wouldn't say at all I mean this
was a rough and tumble crowd you know
there were a lot of drugs in the park
there was a lot of like you know fights
in the park I mean they these guys took
me under their wing I mean there were
moments where like some guy would be
going off and the guy was like hey Josh
is here you know cut that out like they
I was their prote so they did they they
did but they also you know did not wear
thick gloves and they the th gloves were
thinning out all the time and I was
getting better fast then we go to
war um they were my teachers they were
my friends um I'm super grateful for
like they and then and then what's
interesting is that my first classical
chess teacher Bruce pendini saw me
playing in the park and asked my father
if I could work with him and then we
started training together and um one of
the things that that um I feel really
badly about is the way he was portrayed
in the film Searching for Bobby fer
because Bruce is still a dear friend of
mine he's Ben Kingsley played him as a
as a a much more severe person than he
was he he was a beautiful teacher and he
really he wanted me to express myself as
did the guys in the park but he was also
filling in the holes and teaching me a
classical chess foundation and we were
studying chess from the endgame first
principles
studying positions of reduced complexity
to touch high level principles and then
learn to apply them to more and more
complex positions so my early chess
education had both the classical study
with Bruce and it had the street smart
game with the hustlers at the park and
and But to answer your question right
away when I was six years old like my my
opponents would would mess with my mind
and trap me and trick me and make me
think here and then they go there and
then I would learn to do that and then I
remember there was one like youth
competition where I made a move in had a
trap went oh I mean it was like that
obvious right it's like the worst like
and then it gets increasingly subtle
right but like and my opponent said oh
he's unhappy took the pawn then you and
then your opponent see it and then you
learn you know those things keep on the
circles get smaller and smaller and
Tighter and Tighter and more and more
refined this is the opposite of
Asbergers or Autism by the way what
you're describing as a a hypertrophied
set of circuits for theory of mind in a
very young kid so to be able to
understand what's happening around you
and I think for many people the joys of
childhood are really about not being
aware of what's going on around you uh
the psychologist would refer to uh the
know this is like um a lack of
impingement impingement is when like a
kid is playing and they're really
enjoying something and then suddenly
they decide they they don't want to play
anymore and the and the parent doesn't
want to be bothered so they say no no no
no like keep playing you know they're
like impinging on the kids reflexive
desire to do something or not do
something this isn't about keeping them
safe this is in the domain of safety but
um at least within the channel of Chess
seems that you developed your entire
understanding of the psychology of human
beings except for of course you had a
experience at home of of family and
friends but chess certainly um cut a
wide trough through uh through your your
development well I'm really grateful for
my early chess life and I also would
never choose to put that on my
children I mean I it worked out really
well for me I mean I'm I'm I have my
wounds right I mean there's lots of
things that I've had to Grapple with um
but I think if you put a lot of children
through the pressures that I that I went
through it wouldn't work out well and I
watched a lot of my young I mean almost
all my young rivals or I mean like very
close to all of my young Rivals ended up
quitting and falling into crisis and and
um you know then you you have parents
and coaches who are expressing their own
egoic needs through the children and the
children are shouldering that and then
that becomes very difficult to deal with
and then um you're dealing with
heartbreak and you're putting your
everything on the line and you're losing
and you're dealing with your own
self-doubts and the the Heartbreak of
your mother and your father and your
coach and then your friends and I mean
there are so many and then as the
pressures get more and more intense in
chess like you really are putting your
heart and soul in the line through that
chess board in in casual games let alone
in in National and World Championships
and you're being shattered when you lose
I was shattered many times over I mean I
lost last rounds of National Chess
championships and World
Championships multiple times over and I
had and those were the greatest moments
of my life in retrospect they taught me
the most important lessons of my life I
would never take it back it's been and
that's a pattern in my chess life and my
fight life and everything I've gone
through um the most heartbreaking
devastating moments ultimately were the
ones that catalyzed the most growth and
they were
beautiful um and I really relate to them
that way but they also can be brutal for
young minds and they can destroy people
yeah what do you think it is about um
failure or missing the mark in some way
that catalyzes change I mean I always
say that you know your brain has no
reason to change if you're just in
trying to learn something and you're in
flow you're getting you know most people
associate being quote unquote in flow
with getting everything correct doing
everything correctly um I don't think
that was the original definition the
cheeks some high intended but um the
Neuroscience of brain plasticity tells
us that it's only under conditions in
which there's some mismatch between what
you're trying to do like even you know
like this has been studied in terms of
reaching for an object and there's a
mirror displacement or a prism
displacement or something you eventually
can learn to error correct um because
the cup is actually over there as
opposed to where you see it um but it is
the deployment of these chemicals inside
of us adrenaline noradrenaline and
dopamine in particular those three their
cousins the catac colomines that tells
the at a neurochemical level tells the
synapses wait something needs to change
I mean the brain doesn't have any reason
to change unless there's frustration
agitation or at least some neurochemical
change associated with those things that
we call frustration and agitation so do
you think these big what feel like cat
cataclysmic fails
set a like a sort of window of
plasticity in which we can change I
often think that that it's only through
like the devastation of a huge loss that
the brain is now set up for a bunch of
new
learning certainly we wouldn't want to
design the system that way but as I
always joke you know I wasn't consulted
at the design phase and you weren't
either we just had to work with what's
there yeah like big failure why why do
you think that sets a wavefront of of
change yeah it's it's a great it's a
great
question
um well I think I think the the study
you sent me yesterday speaks to this
yeah maybe we should talk about that
yeah yeah maybe I'll answer that
question experientially maybe you could
then talk about the study and we can
Riff on a little bit this is so much fun
by the way because I've lived my life in
in the arena just like pushing myself
like I'm My Own I'm not a scientist but
I'm like my own laboratory you said to
me yesterday at the game like you said
I'm not a scientist but I'm looking
forward to tomorrow and I said trust me
you're a scientist yeah you know I I do
science through the lens of a certain
understanding of mechanism and structure
function and uh some processes and you
do science through the through the lens
of experience and uh
drawing
core parallels and principles in
different domains and at different
levels of uh from unskilled all the way
up to virtuosity that's kind of how I
see it I think the way that I like if I
think about the most painful losses of
my life the most devastating injuries of
my life I think about dying drowning I
drowned on the bottom of doing hypoxic
breath work in a pool on the bottom of
the pool four half minutes after that it
was you led to the arguably the mo the
best decision of my life to move into
the jungle um I think about the losing
the last round of the under 18 World
Chess Championship on the first board
um that's a very interesting story I
could describe a little bit or I think
about like my first national
championship I lost when I was I was um
seven eight first board last round just
unobstructed learning until then and
then I lost the last round of the on the
on the um you know for the title F into
an opening trap like that's the loss
that was the greatest thing that ever
happened to me you were how old I think
I just turned eight or may I was late
seven and like that was it it was
because if I had won that game I would I
I easily could have Associated winning
with just no pain no heart just just
cruising up into the end that was the
moment that like I got my ass kicked I
had to go back you know deal with these
demons come back train for the next year
and then I won the next year and then it
was Off to the Races I my life might
look very different if I'd won that game
that and actually the kid who beat me in
that game David Arnette became two years
later we became best friends and for all
of our childhood we were on the same
chess team and best friends and I think
he gave me the greatest gift of my
competitive Life by kicking my ass that
game the most devastating loss of my
chess
life was was so I was 17 years old I was
competing in the world under 18 Chess
Championship in SE
Hungary um every so every year there's
an Under 12 14 16 18 21 world
championship and I was always
representing the US in those tournaments
around the world and you know I you know
travel to India or Brazil or Hungary or
Germany or somewhere and compete in the
world championship and under 18 worlds I
played the tournament I just was playing
very inspired chess I had just picked up
um on the road three weeks before Jack
kowak I had become I was just on fire
with kowak vision and I was just so like
appreciating life with this freshness
and intensity than I'd ever had more
than I'd ever had I was I was like
totally on fire in chess in life in love
in everything and
I I was paired against Peter Sidler who
was the Russian we were on the on the
first board last round we were we come
you know we were playing for the world
championship every country sends their
National Champion so it's a long
tournament to get there um early in the
game I think it was move 12 he offered
me a
draw so if ID accepted the draw offer um
it would have gone the tie breaks I
didn't know exactly what was happening
but I thought that he was slightly
favored in tie breaks I wasn't sure but
basically the world championship would
be determined or the gold medal would be
determined by how our opponents in
previous rounds did in the last round
but I had a but I I hadn't calculated it
out before but I had a feeling it it
it was like maybe it was like 40 60 or
3070 against me but I it was my style I
never accept a draw off first that
wasn't my St I always wanted to fight so
I declined pushed for a win now the
beauty of his decision was also he
offered me a draw in the critical
position where I had to make a very
specific decision which is a trick that
chess players play on one another which
is that like if you're we should talk
about tension at one point it's a it's a
really beautiful theme to explore in
different sports so one thing that
happens in chess games is that you have
this building tension between mines and
often the tension on the chessboard and
the tension on the mines are mounting
together and the urge the need to
release psychological tension often
leads to the decision to release chest
tension in the chest chest pieces and
when you release chess tension usually
the person who releases the tension will
be on the wrong side of tactics so a lot
of chess the chess game is about putting
mental pressure on the opponent to force
them to break the tension on the chess
board so in that game he offered me a
draw so you think about it we're 17
years
old we're 10 days into a world
championship
battle we even no matter how much we
love the battle some piece of ourselves
wants a way out like we want to release
the tension right it's just Elemental to
who we are when we're living with that
much pressure so all I have to do then
is like accept the draw shake hands and
the tournament's over and then it's out
of our hands what happens so in that
moment I have to also make a critical
chest position so the the urge to
release the tension is subtly entering
into my chess decision and in that move
I declined the draw and I made a
slightly over aggressive move which
turned and he ended up um playing a
beautiful game big attack beating me I
lose to the world championship just like
this close to like your
dream and you're shattered right um I
then went and hitchhiked across Eastern
Europe to meet my girlfriend at the time
in a little town in Slovenia and let and
we broke up and all then I ended up
meeting again at a street corner in
Brazil the world under 21 Championship 3
weeks later lots of drama you know being
a 17-year-old kid I didn't study that
chess loss
for two and a half months it was so
painful to me I always studied games
immediately afterwards and I always you
might study a chess game for anywhere
between three and 15 hours studying one
chess game and that's that say 10 hours
is focused on the two or three critical
positions of the game and this was
before chess computers were ramp into a
chess engines that could always just
tell you the answer to um the move
that's also something we should talk
about later how chess engines and AI
chess engines change the nature of who
chess players are because you can have
the answer right away versus having to
sit in cognitive and emotional distance
for sometimes weeks or months at a time
without knowing the answer but we'll
come back to that maybe so I didn't
study that loss
for two and a half months because it was
so painful to me then I was my family
spent a lot of time at se um which was
an interesting part of my my life and my
chest life living on a little boat
catching our own food doing our own
engine work um and I was I was at C
after competing in both of those World
Championships and some other things and
I sat down to study that game and I
spent you know dozen Plus hours studying
that one critical position of the game
and then I realized what the like the
move I should have made was outside of
my conceptual scheme in that critical
position I wasn't ready to make that the
move I had to make and he was also I
think a slightly stronger chess player
than me I was a great fighter I I love
the battle but I think if objectively he
was a better his name is Peter schidler
he ended up becoming a world- class
Grandmaster and is and is just an
incredible chess player today at the
time he was just amazingly brilliant um
beautiful fluid mind but I was confident
going into the
game so I had to make this move that
would essentially be his attack was on
the king's side my expansion was on the
queen side I had to remove my final
defensive peace from in front of my king
away from my King's side which is super
counterintuitive because you think you
wanted to defend your king what I didn't
realize is like harnessing the power of
empty space against aggression his
attack needed my defense like fire needs
fuel to burn moving my last defense of
piece his attack couldn't break through
but that principle was something I
didn't understand at all and so it's not
like I I would have found that move
um but it was was a real pop in my mind
right so
then I was 17 18 years old then a year
later I started studying taii start
stting DST meditation DST philosophy the
daing Chang laa the inner chapters
um and then I get in taii I start moving
meditation I start in taii Chan Push
Hands without making the connection Push
Hands is the martial art which is the
ESS which is like the essence of Push
Hands is learning to utilize empty space
against aggression but I hadn't
connected it to that moment then you
fast forward to 2004 World Championship
which is what the art of learning ended
with the final chapter of that is the
world championship finals I'm playing
I'm fighting this guy bigger than me
stronger than me he's been training
since
childhood um final fight in a big
Stadium everyone wanting me to be
destroyed in the biggest fight of my
life and I won that fight by harnessing
the power of empty space by letting him
feel my weakness by leaning on him by
letting him by let and then I just and
then disappearing so it's it's very
interesting how there was no mental proc
there's no conscious processing of that
connection but the biggest loss of my
chess life and then the principle which
I wasn't ready to understand
yet was how I won the World Championship
in the martial arts so many years later
and it's a completely different
discipline right so it's an example of
like and of course that principle is
Manifest in every part of my life today
but like that's one of many stories in
my life where like a law Spurs an
Insight which might consciously or often
unconsciously lead to something
incredible down the road and I think
that one of the biggest challenges that
we have but so interesting that the loss
of a World Chess Championship final is
leads to the win direct lesson ISS the
win of a world championship in in a
fighting
realm and how common that is and one of
the things that I I think about like
when you when you sit down with great
competitors again and again when you
hear their inner Journey the
the most heartbreaking losses lead to
the transformational change which leads
to the biggest wins of their
life um whether it's in basketball
whether it's in in fighting whether it's
in business it's in finance it's in it's
in in writing love in oh in love oh my
God In Love yeah I mean breakups are
devastating they're they're a death of
sorts yeah I'd like to take a quick
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have a friend who's a um trauma
therapist addiction expert and you know
occasionally you'll hear these tragedies
of uh typically it's young guys who uh
the girlfriend breaks up with them and
they commit
suicide and for years he would work with
families of these people these these
young guys and he finally connected the
dots and he realized that in every case
it was as if there was no future
whatsoever because it was their first
relationship and it it when you hear it
you just go oh it makes so much sense
but you know the 16-year-old 18-year-old
brain however old these kids were it's
it's devastating I I want to make sure
that I ask about Devastation because you
you said that you were devastated you
experienced a tremendous amount of pain
from these losses in particular the one
that you just described if you don't
mind I'd like to ask you about what that
was like um I don't want to spin off
into a discussion about the the science
of grief but I did an episode about
grief and it was really surprising to
learn that most of what you hear about
in pop culture that you know there are
these uh very specific stages of grief
and you progress through them linearly
none of that is true all of modern
research says that it's not disbelief
anger acceptance It's like a hodg podge
of different emotions Depending on time
of day and middle of the night and but
the core feature and I find this so
interesting is that grief whether or not
it's what I would consider kind of
trivial grief like losing your favorite
pen or a watch that you really love okay
an object versus somebody extremely
close to you a parent a loved one a
child God forbid that the brain systems
that map memory onto
action are disrupted in grief such that
you know you wake up each day and you
want to go see the person or call them
and so it's a what grief really
represents is a remapping of your
understanding about what you can do with
your physical body to create action and
interaction with this person that's now
gone and so that the remapping is one of
the the nervous system having to do all
this no-go we talk in terms of in action
systems and the basil gangly of the
brain it's you have go go programs and
no-go programs there's some other stuff
too but it's mostly go or noo and
basically grief is this taking of a
depending on how long and How Deeply you
knew the person a tremendous amount of
neural real estate and algorithms that
were all go you could text them you
could call them you could hug them you
could kiss them you could listen to them
you could smell them and now it's all
noo and that we think is what we
experience as as grief now in terms of
losing a very important chess
match when you talk about being in pain
and in grief what was that like was it
did that mean sleepless nights disbelief
and at what point do you think you were
able to say okay you know what I'm going
to start thinking about this
constructively I'm going to turn this
into a go as opposed to just trying to
you know get in your time machine and
travel back in time which of course is
impossible what was what was that early
experience of of Devastation like and
and how did it transmute into growth
yeah well even think even sitting with
you now thinking about it it seems
ridiculous to for a chess game to be
losing a chess game to be anywhere near
like the absolute heartbreak of losing a
loved one um and yet we can make things
very large in our minds and in our
beings right I think that human I mean
one thing I I I think about is how hard
we fight to maintain our conceptual
schemes our identities even if they're
torturing us and loss isn't relative you
know I mean the fact that we're sitting
right now not far from you know hundreds
if not th thousands of homes that have
been been wiped away doesn't change
other losses like we we sometimes will
say well at least we're you know I know
I have a lot of friends that lost their
homes they'll say well at least we have
our health we have our things you know
okay and then so we can do this but it's
but it's um it's not how the human
emotions system responds reflexively to
our own losses so I don't think it's
like um dismissive or sociopathic to to
experience a big loss in one's life um
as a big loss even if it's not the worst
possible loss right it's just not how
we're wired right and one of the things
that I reflect on and that I've
cultivated it's very hard um but that I
work to cultivate is when you're in
those moments of
rupture to both be in the rupture and
have the perspective that we will have
later about the rupture which is not to
say not being in the rupture one of the
things I feel badly about in in like
when I wrote the art of learning I spoke
a lot about process and outcome and it
had a big impact on the Chess World and
then what happened is there were
generations of parents who were who had
young kid chess players who their kids
would go to compete and the parents
would say it doesn't matter if you win
or lose all that matters is the process
it doesn't matter if you win or lose and
the kids are like putting on their armor
to go to battle mental battle and it
chess is intense like when
you're playing chess you're putting your
mind your body your psyche everything
like you on the line and if you lose you
feel shattered like that's just how you
feel if you're not trying your hardest
then we can't we shouldn't even be
talking about you so you let's say you
you are trying your hardest you're
putting it all on the line it's on the
line and you lose and you're shattered
like every part of you didn't didn't you
you just you feel destroyed
so the kids are putting on their armor
to go to battle and the parent tells
them it doesn't matter if I win or lose
it's deeply confusing and the kids
actually usually know that the parents
are full of the parents actually
care so much and they feel guilty about
how much they care about their kids's
result they're telling their kid that to
feel less guilty about the fact that
they're putting their own egoic needs on
their child and it's all like and the
kids see it all that's the hilarious
thing is an 8 10 11 year old like they
see it all and they're like Mom give me
a break and the parents are just stuck
in their guilt and absurdity seen this
so many times s so like the discussion
of process and
outcome is so subtle right because yes
it's about the process it's about the
journey it's about the long-term process
but if we don't care about the results
the process won't work so we need to put
ourselves on the line enough to be
shattered and the process is what really
matters but it's not that we
can liberate ourselves from caring
enough to be shattered because then
we're not engaged and it is something
about putting our egos on the line that
is what leads to the growth surges that
great competitors have the ones who
become
virtuosas right and so then that stated
how can we have experience the
simultaneity of being shattered and
having the perspective that this is
probably the greatest thing that ever
happened to me you have to be uh in a
mode of theory of mind with yourself
about your future self somehow and this
is what I think losses are so beneficial
for is that if you've had a couple of
breakups you realize that you can fall
in love again if you've only had
breakups perhaps you think well it
always leads to a breakup but you know
that the process of moving forward is
the only way to test that hypothesis
again right and so I think repeated
failure
um is essential right because with
repeated failure means that there was a
also repeated fighting one ways back
after failure so yeah I think sometimes
uh not to take us into a different
course of story but just very briefly my
the first manuscript I ever submitted in
graduate school took
forever to get published and it went
from the highest of journals down to a
good Journal solid
Journal but it took forever and that was
so beneficial I was crushing at the time
but my reward circuitry is built up
around very long latency between effort
and Final outcome I'm just used to Long
weights between figuring out what's
going to happen and uh actually one of
the weirdest things about podcasting or
social media is that I feel like you go
to quote unquote to publication so fast
it's like whoa like things used to
projects used to take two years and then
you get reviews and then this you know
so I think um your early devastating
failure or failures because you had a
few of them in there at least L more
than a few probably set you up for
tremendous frustration in tolerance um
and this not just hearing I mean the
words this to Shall
Pass they're helpful but it that's
really something that needs to be
experienced in in my view it's a very
interesting thing when you're talking
about competitors is what is the right
balance between like playing up and
playing down right like how much do you
want to build the confidence of a young
competitor artist or person or any of us
young whatever age and how much do you
want to be stretched a little bit beyond
your ability so that your weaknesses are
exposed you have to take them on and you
have to grow and getting that balance
right is hugely important and and and
it's not simple like a lot of boxing
training camps are based around the
boxer's confidence being everything and
you want them to feel Invincible going
into the ring right and then from
another perspective it's something very
powerful about having a training camp
that's so intense that all your
weaknesses are exposed you have to take
them on if you're not sparring against
people who can expose your weaknesses
then you don't know what they are and
you don't have the chance to grow right
I mean I I I live at this point with a
trying to be at Max
stretch um pre without
snapping right like for example if if I
look at my foiling like if I'm not
falling enough during a a foil session
that I'm not pushing my turns hard
enough um and if I'm yeah if you're just
if you're just succeeding all the time
then you're not pushing yourself enough
do you believe in optimal uh levels of
arousal for different aspects of
practice or game um autonomic arousal is
something that I've worked on for many
years and and one of the most impressive
features I think of our brains as humans
first would be our ability to think into
the past present or future or
combination of those two if other
animals do that they don't do it nearly
as well and they certainly don't um
create Technologies to bridge those
different time scales that's number one
but the other one is our Visual and um
temporal
aperture of focus so when we are in a
state of elevated arousal our visual
aperture shrinks I'm sure you're
familiar with this and we slice time
more finely much you know it's like a
higher frame rate right which is why
people who for instance see a a
devastating traumatic car crash report
seeing experiencing things in slow
motion right because their frame rate is
high like a slow motion video um whereas
when we are relaxed our frame rate is
lar larger bins of time and I feel like
so much of the discussion around things
like flow and um uh optimal States for
learning have to do
with assuming that there's one optimal
state of arousal but I feel like in
every Endeavor I've ever been involved
in an um it's about learning the
transitions between the arousal states
that allows us to you know pull back a
little bit as things as you said like
get tense just relax just a little bit
to be able to maybe see see a different
perspective or ratchet up our level of
of tension or AKA arousal in order to be
able to F slice the the you know the
micro expressions of a competitor yeah
um I mean this these two cameras on the
fronts of our skull and the rest of our
brain are really devoted to this process
of of you know shrinking or expanding
the aperture of our Consciousness and it
could be talked about in terms of space
just Vision like tunnel vision versus
panoramic Vision yep can be talked about
it SpaceTime you know tunnel vision fine
slice panoramic Vision broader
slice but then when you start getting
into like the then you map that onto the
past present and future mapping and
that's where I feel like we're into the
game of of uh skill learning and chess
and
strategy so forgive me for the kind of
you know top Contour Neuroscience discri
but that's how I see the human primate
as is so different than all the other
creatures in the world that's that's how
we're different because uh we can learn
chess or ballet foil you know Gibbons
are pretty amazing at what Gibbons do
but if they're trying to learn other
stuff that they've been failing so far I
spent a lot of time um playing with
frame rates and I had this experience
that I wrote about that slowing down
Time chapter of the art of learning
where
I when I had these experience both in in
chess and in fighting but it was one
time I was I was fighting in a against a
super heavyweight dude in a competition
and my hand shattered and like I I broke
my hand right here and it
was it was it was interesting because
the fight was was very intense
reasonably hard and my hand broke and
instantly time slowed down and he was he
was moving in slow motion and I was able
to just so easily play with someone with
with like a broken hand compared to what
had been a war before we know what that
is right we do know adrenaline
adrenaline yeah adrenaline and that and
that tunnel vision and then the frames
are fat are so if I inject you with just
a little bit of adrenaline it it stays
in your periphery but it activates
systems in your brain in parallel to
that and um you're going to experience
an immediate dilation of your
pupil your you'll have more tunnel
vision I mean every process is sped up
in the direction of higher frame rate so
then the question then came for me and
this would be fun to talk I've never
spoken to a scientist about this process
like how do I learn to do that it will
MH right and then how can I train
because I can't just pump myself with
adrenaline all the time although maybe I
or maybe I can learn to have that
physiological deploy it right so then
how how can I deploy it right what are
triggers for having that chemical change
and then also how can I train so that um
I have the experience of more frames
than my opponent and so Marcelo Garcia
who I he's known as the king of the
scramble he spends his whole time in
transition so if you're training
Jiu-Jitsu with most people they're
always finding a position and holding it
Marcelo one of the unique things about
his training life for most of his life
was that he never held positions he was
always moving he was always in the in
between and it's true in most Arts is
that people think that the art is the
positions that they see but the real
high level art is the space in between
the
positions so if you have this position
leads to this position that's going to
be like there's going to be no frames in
between for most people for some people
there might be four frames but if I have
100 frames then I can play In Pockets
That You Don't See and so if you're
living your life in the training process
in the in between in the transition if
you're always the way that manifests in
actual like for example Jiu-Jitsu
training or submission grappling
training is if you're not holding
positions you're always moving and
you're spending all of your time in the
in between while people who are holding
position are always static so if you go
to a Judicial school and you sit and
watch it's interesting to look for this
one thing notice the amount of time
static versus in motion Marcelo was
always in motion there's a beautiful
clip of him that you got people can look
up it's in Suave was an old documentary
back in the day like 25 years ago I
think it was it's on YouTube it's like
an 8 minute clip of him training as an I
think an 18-year-old and you watch him
just like in the early days of him
learning this transitional approach and
he's just never stopping he's always
allowing the person but you have to get
past the egoic Dynamics because you
can't like you're you're giving up on
dominating people all the time because
when you're in a dominant position in
Jiu-Jitsu you want to hold it cuz you've
won and there's all this
passing between men who are fighting or
women who are fighting each other want
to dominate but if you release that and
you're think about the learning process
then and you stop holding then you're
moving and you're getting non-stop
exposure to the in between so if you
spend your life training in the in
between then you have more frames than
other people do that's what a lot of
what illusionists are doing right they
spend all of their time training in the
spaces that other people don't look at
and so it's not magic it's brilliant
training it's the art of Illusion at the
in between right and a lot of the things
that you can do high level martialart
artist can do to a lower level martial
artist or someone who doesn't train that
feels mystical it's all about that
principle manifest an interesting ways
but and in general like for me and this
goes back to the question you asked two
or three brilliant expansive questions
ago around um intense moments I a lot of
what my training has been is having some
serendipitous intense moment and then
learning and that becomes a beacon so
for example there was a moment I was
playing in a World Chess Championship in
Calicut India and I was deep into a
calculation couldn't find the solution
and there was an
earthquake and everything started like
in the actual world everything started
shaking right but I experienced the
earthquake from within inside of the
chest position and I knew there was an
earthquake but I also was lost my brain
was lost in in The
Labyrinth and and I found the solution
and then I got up and left vacated
because we had to leave the playing Hall
and we came back and I made my move and
went on to win and it was so interesting
because it was like and then the
earthquake like my and a lot of what
happens in chess is that you're reaching
so deep into the complexity like into
the cupboard but the solution is right
here at the front and all you have to do
is come back out in surface one of the
best ways by the way to prevent to to
minimize chest
blunders with like talented young
players or players of any level any age
is to shift the order of decide make the
move and then write it down because you
notate your chess games
two decide write it down and then make
the move the write it down is a
resurfacing and you have common sense
look at the position almost all chest
blunders you realize You' blundered
instantly you can think for 20 minutes
make your move you know instantly you
blundered because there's not that
surfacing right but then you can learn
to just do the surfacing before making
the actual move it's true with human
decision- making in general right we
realize that the scrub right as we yeah
complete it yeah because like we're
we're caught up in all of our
we make the move and then we've left our
thought process and like oh that was
just absurd right and we we see it and
mean you think about I mean you think
about the the heartbreaking literature
you know studies and in how people who
have jumped off a bridge relate to it
the moment after they've jumped off the
bridge those who have survived right the
interviews afterwards yeah they report
wishing they hadn't jumped right
immediately like they jump and then they
wish they hadn't jumped such an
important message you we hear all this
stuff about suicide prevention and you
know but just that knowledge I mean I
don't know how conscious of that sort of
thing people are as they're headed down
the the trench I mean what um of of
suicidal depression but um these
apertures that we're talking about these
time space apertures where frame rate is
set and visual aperture is set I think
for most people um we experience them as
uh sort of notches so it's like you know
you're in a high state of arousal and
you have high frame rate you know and
then um and just like being like a ball
bearing down in a trench you can't
really see out the other sides you're
literally in there at a certain frame
rate of let's say an argument an intense
argument with somebody where you want to
win and you're frustrated with them and
the whole situation and you're in the
trench the um whereas when you're
relaxed it's more you know a broad
concave or a flat table where the ball
bearing can move around at at will if um
it sounds like Marcelo and people that
train um these different transition
States as you're really um learning to
access the uh the different frame rates
but from a place of like kind of like a
little dimple in a um in a table and
then being able to move to the next one
as a dimple and kind of moving from from
Dimple to Dimple as opposed to like
these trenches of of brain States and I
think that um I think about this a lot a
lot because I feel like most bad
decisions are made from a high frame
rate high arousal State most of the
terrible things that humans have done to
one
another you know I suppose their
sociopathy and like you know PR
pre-planned things but it tends to they
tend to be associated with with high
arousal States where people regret what
they did all second deegree murder for
instance yeah um in any event I think
the ability to move through these
different arousal States at will is
possible uh you asked earlier like how
would one do that well the beautiful
thing about the visual system in these
different frame rates and states of
arousal is that it works in both
directions so when you're in a higher
state of arousal your visual aperture
shrinks you go to a higher frame rate
but it's also true that if you shrink
your visual aperture you go to a higher
frame rate the converse is also true if
you deliberately for instance as we're
looking across one another right now if
I start to take in the fullness of the
picture here the walls Etc there's a
natural relaxation of the autonomic
arousal system so parasympathetic
activity goes up and what's incredible
is that anytime we view a
horizon that naturally happens because
you're not setting to a single fixation
point so anytime you see a horizon you
relax and it's not a coincidence so the
the visual system can drive it Inward
and your autonomic rousel can drive it
toward your your uh visual system the
other thing is there's a really
beautiful paper that came out about two
years ago would show that people who do
a bio feedback game where they're
watching a little you know it's like a
more kind of like a sine wave and
they're deliberately trying to increase
their level of arousal as the as the
curve goes up for those that are just
listening within a few days they can
learn to control their pupil size which
sets their arousal and their aperture
for a segmenting time so you can learn
this through bio feedback and I think
that the script for that is available
online I haven't tried it yet but have
you ever heard of these yogis that could
control their pupil sizes even
independently of one another that's
amazing because the it's not supposed to
be able to occur but they but you can so
you can learn to you know I guess the
poor men's version of this would be look
in the mirror stare at yourself and try
and ramp up your level of autonomic RS
and watch your pupils get bigger and
then try and relax yourself and make
them smaller that practice it seems in
biof feedback allows people to do it
without staring into the mirror so to
speak so it can be done it's just that
it hasn't been parsed by science that
finely until recently it's interesting I
I um so I have this term I use called
firew Walking which for me what it means
is is cultivating the ability
to learn from from experiences one
doesn't have with the same somatic
intensity that one learns from really
intense experiences that we have so for
example let's just say you're a
jiu-jitsu fighter and you overextend
your arm and you're in a world
championship and you get your arm broken
or your shoulder ripped off or something
so you've lost the world championship
and you got a shattered arm you're not
going to overextend your arm that way
again you've learned that that lesson is
burned in but like if you're watching a
ji- Jitsu fight and someone overs arm
gets armar and then Taps out
you it it's very very different
experience how can we cultivate the
ability to study other people's like
worst most heartbreaking blunders worst
moment Etc and learn from that with the
same somatic intensity that they learned
from it right so much of that is
physiological so I've I spent a lot of
time doing bio feedback and a lot of
time doing visualization practices and
doing very intense visualization
practices and a lot many many years
working with triggers for my own
Psychology and Physiology in so that I
can get my physiology primed to have an
intense learning experience while
studying something that might otherwise
just feel intellectual and then
combining that with my own experience of
things and it's it's it's such a I mean
if we can we can 100x or THX or 10,000 x
our learning curve by being able to
learn from other things with the same
intensity that we can learn from our own
things but people don't harness that why
do you think they they don't is it just
it takes time and it doesn't seem as in
um intuitive as going out and shooting
free throws or something like the I
think people are are really amazingly
unreflective about the training process
the I I I told you like I'm I'm working
I I haven't written a book since the art
of learning and I'm I'm a couple years
into this beautiful process of of
writing um my next book which is going
to be called I think the art of training
which is really what I've been
cultivating for the last decades and um
and I'm deconstructing my you know my
approach to training in mental and
physical disciplines and it's it's
interesting to go through that process
myself like what have I what do I do
what have I done and what have I helped
others do um I I and it's it's a
interesting like the art of learning
kind of was a birthing process that's
what it felt like to me I I I took notes
to it for five years and then after 2004
worlds I wrote it in nine months it just
kind of came out of me and I'm kind of
in that process now with this so it
feels really organic and intrinsic the
creative process and I I I don't know
it's very interesting when you talk to
people who were really playing at Elite
levels of different fields or who are
just below like full self-expression or
like they're they're just in the edge of
virtuosity but not quite there and you
start to deconstruct what they do
there's so much low hanging fruit that
they can do why I I don't know I think
in many ways people I mean there's lots
of reasons I think of for one thing
people who are very um talented in arts
don't have to be so deliberate about
their training often to reach a certain
level often people have other people
building their training process and
they're not reflective about their own
training process because they have big
teams of coaches who are creating it for
them um people haven't cultivated the
art of
deconstruction um which is an art that's
very important people haven't cultivated
The Art of Loving training which is a
hugely important like meta skill to
learn um people haven't taken on like
all of the skills around physiological
triggers around P changing one's
physiological State at will people
haven't practiced visualization very
intensely there all of these
like these skills that we can put
together in order to train at a world-
class level but it takes patience and um
creativity and you know not just being
subject to what everyone else does but
being able to look expansively at
everything I'd like to take a quick
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we had a guest on this podcast um Jim
Hollis uh he 84 year old probably 85y
old yian analyst um on and he uh just
brilliant guy he's written some really
important books um under Saturn Shadow
and uh Etc and he said you know so he
has a real kind of like suitup show up
you know get to work kind of mentality
but he also
um is a very reflective person and he
said you know if there's one simple key
to life it's that one understand that
most of our daily lives our waking lives
are in stimulus response but that it's
so critical to take 10 to 15 minutes
each day to just get out of stimulus and
response and either to just let stuff
geyser up out of our unconscious
subconscious
mind or to just put some real thought to
something that you know most everybody
is stimulus response I I wonder these
days with social media and so many
things filling the space between walking
to the car or with the you know Pro
players that you work with you know I'm
guessing the moment they they're on the
plane they're on their phones and
texting and all these things are
wonderful Technologies but they fill all
the space with stimulus response yeah
they fill all the space with stimulus
response and um you know it's not unless
you go to a place with no Wi-Fi
accessibility that you suddenly realize
like wow wow like in most of Modern Life
we're just constantly in this tennis or
pingpong match with this trivial thing
and that trivial thing and some of it's
essential but that there's no quote
unquote space anymore many ways my life
is built around creating that space and
it it's interesting when I was playing
chess I experimented from with studying
chess from everywhere between 45 minutes
a day to 16 hours a day to see where the
Sweet Spot was and what I came to was
about 4 and a half hours a day MH
um but that four and a half hours a day
was like a 10 out of 10 like
just on fire and then the rest of the
day became about cultivating those four
and a half hours and my life today has
that kind of Rhythm as well and you know
training like I've spent many years
working with people who are just
brilliant in the investment space has
been a really interesting W because it's
a great laboratory because people are
very driven they want they're all in
they're motivated um they'll take
themselves on and it's a great place for
me to over the last couple decades to to
like refine the art of
training um because I don't like solving
for motivation that's one thing and I
think part of that relates to that
quirky Dynamic from when I was seven
that I described of always being the
Target and so never having like not
taking on my weaknesses out was outside
of my conceptual scheme and so in many
ways I I don't I haven't really had to
struggle with motivation
myself um for better or worse and I love
working with people partnering with
people be who are all in who want to
take themselves on I don't love having
to motivate people and so a great
laboratory for me is with people who who
who have all sorts of problems who might
be obstructed but who who are all in and
um and like you're working with
world-class investors and what you know
they're they're grinding themselves out
14 15 16 hours a day doing less is is a
huge part of doing much more and then
you you you start to see like they might
be at like if you think about a 10 out
of 10 as being like in terms of like
when they're at their very best
creatively they could slip from like a
10 to a two and not even
notice um and then you begin to
cultivate an awareness of of where one
is in one's creative Spectrum right and
then you start to cultivate the art of
stress and recovery and like amping
oneself up and then releasing and you
see that the ability to turn it on is
directly connected to the ability to
turn it off as as you know if you walk
into a fight gym and you study a budg of
Fighters and the mats one great read you
can make is looking at the the depth of
physiological relaxation when the guys
aren't fighting and you'll see who the
highest level Fighters are the best guys
man they can turn it on with wild
intensity but their bodies are so mellow
when they're not going and then man like
they're so efficient it's so it it that
oscillation that range is so huge right
but people don't cultivate the art of
turning it off in order to learn how to
turn it on uh you know I've for for many
many years decades I've been practicing
what I call now the miq process most
important question process and the
essence of it is it it's what I came to
as the most potent way so far that I've
found to to train analysts or thinkers
in um in in mental Arenas you're you're
training people in the art of of what of
discovering what matters most if you
look at if you talk to like a a great
chess player actually looks at less than
a lower level chess player but they look
in the right direction so you might
think a great chess player people often
think like oh yeah I can calculate 50
moves deep 100 moves deep it's all
irrelevant move two was was inaccurate
so it was just all an illusion the great
chess players might look it much less
but they're looking in the most potent
directions the lower level chess players
are lost in a sea of complexity right so
if you're working with with like a let's
say an a scientist or an investor or
whatever them straining their mind for
what is the most important question
ideally to begin the practice toward the
end of their workday with with like
release recovery period with full
intensity in a Peak Performance State f
stretch one's mind for what matters most
and then release it release the work day
completely don't work all night grinding
yourself out at a low level release and
then first thing in the morning waking
up pre- input return one's mind to the
critical question and brainstorm on it
it's very powerful because you're
opening up the the the you're
systematically opening the channel
between the conscious and the
unconscious mind you're feeding critical
questions to the unconscious which is
processing overnight and like I know you
know all this like the the consistency
with which you come up with an Insight
in the morning is incredible
interestingly and you'll probably know
why much more than me improved dream
recall often
happens in simultaneously when one
starts to have more and more insights
about the miq in the morning which is
fascinating then over time you can have
Micro manifestations of this throughout
the day before going for a workout
before taking a walk before taking a
break before taking a piss instead of
going when you're going to go to the
bathroom in the day instead of like
checking your phone while taking a piss
you pose yourself in miq you release it
you do not do anything but piss in the
bathroom and breathe and then return to
the question and you'll have an Insight
right so you're you're learning to just
oscillate between the conscious and
unconscious States and your you're
opening up that channel and you're
practicing stress and Recovery then your
physiological workouts are also stress
and Recovery all the time so you're
building that theme in everything that
you do and you realize that like when
you're at your very best for four or
five hours a day you're doing multiples
of the work that you're doing if you're
just grinding yourself at you know what
I've called in the past a simmering six
or whatever at you know for 15 or 16
hours a day and so people can do so much
more in less time and my life's my life
my lifestyle is based on that you know
I'm training very intensely physically
and I'm doing really intense mental work
and I oscillate between them in
beautiful ways and I have a lot of empty
space for reflection for meditation for
for like zoning my mind on on what
matters most it's it's about quality not
quantity but it's so interesting how we
live in this in this culture where just
quantity is just consuming everyone yeah
it's well it's as Hollis said you know
the stimulus response thing um dominates
and it dominates I think because well I
have several Reflections first of all I
I just have to
say you're absolutely a scientist you
just you just proved it to us um through
a description of this process which I
might ask you to describe once again
yeah um because I think there's so much
value in each of the pieces and how it's
put together um three things come to
mind um first of all yes indeed as you
know and listeners of this podcast uh
will know that yet is the it is during
sleep that we reorganize our neural
connections and actual neuroplasticity
occurs the stimulus is provided in
wakefulness and focus and attention and
but the actual rewiring occurs during
sleep deep sleep and rapid eye movement
sleep uh one little
fun I think but also
powerful um tool that I learned from
maybe you know him as well I'm blessed
to have Rick Rubin as a very good friend
oh yeah Rick and have had beautiful gems
amazing wonderful such a wise I've
spending more and more time with with
Rick um and but he taught me something
extremely valuable which was the process
of taking some time to just lie
completely still and let your mind go as
wild as it needs to or as calm as it
needs to while keeping the body
completely
still this mimics rapid eye movement
sleep when we're paralyzed and the mind
is very very active and I actually think
that um practices such as Yoga Nidra
non-sleep deep rest are are also mimics
of rapid eye movement sleep and there
are data starting to emerge now that it
mimics rapid eye movement sleep but in
wakefulness so put simply lying still
relaxing the body as much as possible
and letting the mind be extremely active
um Rick also taught me a little trick
for which I don't know any science but
it certainly seems to work for me which
is that if you uh wake up from a dream
and you want to continue having that
dream keep your body completely still
whereas if you wake up from a dream and
it was a troubling or or
anxiety-provoking dream move your body
and seems to work extremely well and I'm
I I have my theories about why this
works um I have to ask about this
process of of reflecting on one's own
mistakes deliberately kind of addressing
one's own pain points or shame points as
such a key feature of your your
upbringing and and your practice around
learning forgive me for um going a
little bit longer here but recently
somebody taught me something extremely
useful she said
you know our Consciousness is sort of
like a like a lighthouse and and we have
this beam of light sweeping around 360
degrees but where we have places of
Shame about whatever things that were
done to us things that we've done
whatever just points of Shame things
that we don't want people to know about
us that we don't even like to think
about it's like a stain on that
Lighthouse and when that light passes
through that stain it casts a a a wedge
a shadow in the shape of a wedge
and she described it in somewhat
mystical terms she said you know it's
through that shadow that evil things
enter us and that the world can hurt us
and that the process of getting over our
shame but also experiencing life in much
more fullness and and being able to
cultivate our craft and be more present
for ourselves than for others is a
process of going right up to that
Lighthouse window and looking at the
stain and going that's what it is and
that's the process of wiping it off now
that's all you know that that's just a
an illustration for us to understand
what I think is the process you're
describing which is that you get right
up next to your worst nightmares your
worst um mistakes the things you don't
want to think about and in doing so you
learn to relax in their presence and
they sort of disappear as points of
Shame yeah it's interesting when I when
I wrote the art of learning it was in
many ways is cathartic for me because
there were parts of my life
that that I had felt like I had let
myself down like there were there were
Parts like like my chess life I I I
moved away from and um like there were
certain moments of it where I felt like
I hadn't fully expressed my potential
and I just wrote them all I just shared
it all and it was it was so beautiful it
was so cathartic when I think about
leadership I think that it's so
important to like leading with
vulnerability is such an Exquisite I
spent um Joe moula and I spent today a
couple days ago with sha McVey who's the
head coach of LA Rams who just um just a
few days after this big the big loss
against the Eagles and we had this we
actually ended up watching the tape it
was his first watching of the tape of
this heartbreaking playoff loss he had
and um and watching him process it and
you know he's such a great
leader um both Joe and um um and Sean
like lead they both take themselves on
more intensely than anything but they
lead with vulnerability like they go up
against their
stains and and like being authentic
there as opposed to being a leader or a
father or a mother or a coach who just
keeps it in the pocket as if they're
perfect there's something so inauthentic
about that I think in in in human
relationship and in the cultivation of
oneself as an artist going right at
one's
weakness is so powerful now of course
there's also the the tender balance of
how much we should how much we should
cultivate our strengths and how much we
should be spent Shoring up our
weaknesses and one of the most important
principles which I learned too late in
my chess life is that we can take on our
weaknesses through the lens of our
strengths right remember this brilliant
Sage Russian coach Yori ravv said to me
at one point you can learn karpov
through Kasparov his point at being you
can learn about the great defense
defensive chess through the great
defense of great aggressors like you as
opposed to just studying kpov and
thinking what should I what would karpov
do here which was urged to do by other
people like learn defense through
offense right so it was part of my
self-expression I I learned that
principle too late for my chest life but
it's manifest everywhere else right so
while we're cultivating our strength
which I think we should do as a way of
life how do we go up against our stains
but in ways that we're not fundamentally
it's not shame I don't I don't relate to
personally like I don't that's a word I
don't like shame it's not shame it's
like like when it becomes just like a
like a breath pattern like we lose we we
go we put oursel in the line we lose we
go at it we study it we you know we we
study how we look we we study about what
the other thing that's incredible to me
is that when you study your losses when
you go up against what you're calling
like that that that that's a beautiful
image like the like where like the
shadow of the lighthouse right the
the
interconnectedness of the technical the
psychological and the Thematic is so
powerful in the learning process almost
every technical mistake that we make in
an art if we're pushing ourselves to our
limits if we're like if you and I are
are like around the same level and we're
competing in something where we're about
in anything like any technical mistake I
made will have a psychological Dimension
because I most likely my technical
weakness was emerged because I was so
psychologically pressured that I wasn't
able to solve the technical position
right or if you if I make a
psychological error it's often because I
was a little technically out of my water
and so it put pressure extra pressure on
my psyche that then you were able to
exploit right and every
technical mistake is local right but
there's themes there's like a theme that
that houses hundreds of those technical
manifestations so if we are always
thinking about the technical the
Thematic the psychological and we have
what I call a six-dimensional
introspective process right and we're
looking at all these the
interconnectedness of those different
parts of of The Human Experience of an
art or anything else then the growth
curve is is incredibly explosive because
we recognize we make a technical mistake
and we learn the theme we take on the
theme that housed that one but also
houses dozens of others and so as we
turn that theme into a strength into a
power Zone then that technical mistake
goes away but as do the other
manifestations of that theme and if
we're also studying the psychological
weakness that allowed that technical
weakness to manifest to like une Earth
itself then that psychological Dimension
becomes something we take on and then
we're studying thematic
interconnectedness as a way of life
because then that lesson we learned
through that chest that like I I made a
subtle chess mistake but that connects
to my love life it connects to my
fatherhood it connects to my like my
foiling my Jiu-Jitsu my everything
because it connects to the theme and it
connects to my psychology and and it
manifests I don't believe in
compartmentalization I believe in
thematic
interconnectedness right and like like
the the core themes of my life I would
say if if I had to boil it down would be
love interconnectedness and
receptivity I only do what I love and I
spend time with people who I love and
that's how I
live the study of interconnectedness is
my way of life in some of the ways I've
been describing and receptivity is is
what I cultivate every day in my life
and the ocean with people with humans
um and but we always get get isolated we
get like siloed oh yeah is this chess
mistake like one of the things I've I
found so
confusing is why don't more great chess
players who try successfully translate
their level from chess to other
things because chess is so hard and
chess is such a relentlessly
truth-telling art if you become a world
class chess player you're good
cuz there's no lock in chess as
especially if you become very good very
young I mean I think this is true of
most prodigies I don't want to um name
them but I have a colleague very smart
guy I His science is very solid and I
remember I met with him and I said Is it
true that you're sure's going to love
that you refer solid yeah that's okay
he's done nice work I I just wouldn't
say that it's like transformed our
understanding of like everything in that
field but he's made some very important
contributions he's a fabulous teacher
and a nice person um but he's said I I
one day I was meeting with him and I
said I I you're a child prodigy I heard
and and he said former child prodigy and
I was like okay well here we're getting
technical but yeah okay I think we're
and I I asked my dad um because he my
dad lived um in the same building as
Daniel Baron bomb the the musician who
if you've ever seen the movie Hillary
and Jackie was one of the world's most
accomplished uh piano players at a very
young age and um and my dad used to hear
him playing when he was a kid and like
they wouldn't let him play with other
kids and he was like I mean Baron bomb
is a Ser for classical musicians and
penis in particular it's like serious
stuff and I so I asked my dad I was like
what's the deal with this child prodigy
thing and he said um yeah very few of
them go on to do much in their adult
careers in any field right and I was
like Wow and
um I thought okay so what's missing
there is clearly not a lack of ability
Focus I mean you could just say raw
talent but you still have to kids L to
focus so what's missing is this uh
transfer of of understanding um it seems
or or what you're talk talking about the
interconnectedness of things um and so
yeah I probably will get myself in
trouble with this colleague but Hey
listen maybe he'll take on something new
and and uh do do something addition
additionally spectacular uh he's got a
lot of things on his plate um but you
know that struck me I was like oh you
know it's not clear that being a quote
unquote child prodigy is such a good
thing for the long Arc of one's life but
you have seemed to bring in these other
elements uh love I'd like to talk more
about that and I would also add at least
from an outsider's perspective of um you
seem to have broken the mold with like
kind of what's expected of you you know
based on your prior accomplishments in
just speak I have no identity in being a
prodigy just to be clear so I don't
relate to that word at all I mean words
has been put on me from the outside but
I have I just don't associate with it I
don't relate to it at all because I I
was you know maybe
somewhat talented in chess compared to
most people but then very early in my
like by the time I was like six and
something I
was only competing against people who
were better than me and kids who were as
talented as me and then on the world
stage kids who are more talented than me
and I couldn't rely on my talent at all
because every I mean I I had to work my
ass off and I won and I lost and I got
my ass kicked and so for me it was all
about the Battle and taking myself on
and like I think what happens it's funny
many years ago I was giving us a simal
and simultaneous chess exhibition and I
showed up at this place and all these
kids were there and they were all
excited to play against me and then the
organizer of it said my son hasn't lost
a chess game in two
years and like that's all you need to
know because it's just like that means
you're just and of course he was the one
kid who didn't want to play against me
right because if you're not if you
haven't lost a chess game in two years
you're not taking your on you're
finding people who you can beat and
you're only playing against them right
so there's a couple levels to this let's
let's dig into it so I think that people
who have identity in being a prodigy
develop a brittleness often because they
associate their level of Mastery with
Talent with something innate with being
smarter more brilliant more more gifted
whatever and then that is you think
about Carol D's work in entity
incremental Theories of Intelligence
right that's an entity theory of
intelligence um so I think there's that
and there's something fundamentally
brittle about that and then what what
then one doesn't take risk one doesn't
expose oneself One Associates one's
Great Moments with something ingrained
or inate versus the hard work that it
took to get there and there's all sorts
of paralyzing Dynamics there oh there's
also a tendency to lie Carol's for sure
early papers referred to this in the
discussion section you have to read deep
into those papers but um she describes
how the students who did not have growth
mindset that really um ident identified
and held so much of their ego uh with
their
performance were at a significantly
greater uh tendency to lie about their
performance when they didn't do well to
themselves and to others that's right
but the lying to oneself is the really
interesting part right um so there's
that Dimension right which you and I
have both seen just countless
manifestations of and believe me like
when when you're competing against
someone who you see has that kind of
psychological construction they're done
you can just break them right you can f
there's so many chins in the armor you
can it's like so and so there's a
brittleness there like you can just find
where the their mind stops with in false
constructs where the energy stops where
where their body is crimped right like
you can just find their connection to
the ground and explode through it and
mental and physical disciplines if
someone has that kind of of of identity
in being the more brilliant one the more
gifted one whatever they're their their
prey um from a competitive perspective
which you know is ultimately good for
them if they expose themselves to it
because then they have to take
themselves on um but the the the dynamic
that I was reflecting on in chess
players is is a is a little next door to
this which is that I think that like if
you're learning how to play chess and
let's just say I was teaching you do you
play
chess trivially okay so let's say I was
teaching you to play chess right I could
teach you to play chess with a language
that is that is chess specific I can
teach you chess principles I can teach
you very effectively with chess
principles but I could also teach you
just as effectively or maybe somewhat
more effectively but it's to say just as
effectively with chess principles that
are also life principles right and it's
interesting when you watch most chess
teachers they teach in a localized
manner so people can spend 20 years
inside of Chess but never break beyond
the 64 squares or they can from the age
of six or seven on be learning that
Principle as it connects to chest but
also seeing how it connects to life
could you give me an example of one such
principle because I love in biology
teaching not names um not using nouns
but instead teaching verbs because
ultimately if you want to understand for
instance how the nervous system works or
the immune system you teach the verb
actions of yeah molecules and the names
of the molecules are important if you
decide to go into that field
professionally but otherwise the
principles and verbs are what's most
important so what's an example of a
principle of chess or a mode of action
on on the board that you think transfers
everything transfers first of all okay
like I mean if we're open to it then
everything in chess connects so when
people ask me do you still play chess I
say metaphorically I mean I play chess
all the time I just have not moved a
piece in a l many many many years right
so but okay to be specific so I could
give you many examples but um all right
so so in chess there's a bishop and
there's a knight right they're both
worth about three pawns now I could
teach
okay so the Knight moves like an l and
can jump over pieces the bishop moves
diagonally and is stuck on one color for
its whole life um they're both worth
about three pawns but Knights are and I
can just say to you but like Knights are
a little bit better in closed positions
because they can jump over things
Bishops are a little better if the pawns
if your pawns are on the opposite color
from from them right but you should also
know that that that Rooks and Bishops
are are Bishops and knights are about
the same Rooks and Bishops are much
stronger than Rooks and knights and you
should also know that queens and knights
are a bit stronger than queens and
Bishops so The Bishop's value is a
Little Bit Stronger compared with a rook
and the queen Knight's value a little
bit stronger with a queen and pawn
structure influences them right so I
could teach you a very simple set of
principles through which you can
understand how to evaluate Bishops and
knights right and there's many other
layers to that but like that's some of
it right I could also teach you the same
thing and be teaching you like the
nature of
relativity I could be teaching you the
nature of of like of
interdependence right I could teach you
the nature of like I could teach you the
pawn structure play that dict like the
way you can play with Pawn structure
that influences Bishops and knights in
ways that are chess specific or in ways
that just allow you to understand
Dynamic quality and static quality you
know what leaps to mind when you made
that description and I was didn't follow
all of it to memorization was um Family
Feud you I just imagine two families in
a feud right you get two brothers
together they can do certain things but
you get a brother and sister together I
have a sister she can do certain things
that are powerful and diabolical in ways
that two brothers can't right yes you
get two two big strong Brothers but
maybe one that can't you know creep
through small places and so you can map
to different you know that's sort of
more of an just kind of an analogy for
it all but I started to immediately
think about like oh it's like a Family
Feud if I were to view the pieces as uh
as sibling Dynamics and parent sibling
cousin Dynamics um it's like matchups
with humans or or in basketball like
this team is better than this team and
this team but against there's some
matchups that are much are hugely
favorable a lot of like the inside game
of basketball is around is around which
teams Thrive against which other teams
even though they might be inferior
because of the nature of the
construction of the team and you have
networks of those teams then how do you
deal with lineups how do you deal with
rotation patterns like the inner game of
basketball is all based on the same
stuff that dictates the bishop and the
KN and the rook and the Queen and how
they influence it right it's
interdependence beautiful it's
relativity it's Dynamic quality then you
could think about Robert PK's work and
and there Motorcycle Maintenance and lla
around Dynamic quality versus static
quality and you can be teaching a
student while you're teaching about rook
and Bishop and rook and Knight or
Knights and Bishops you can be teaching
them about Dynamic
quality right and then you can and then
you can like expand into the study of
the metaphysics of quality and then you
have a seven-year-old student who's
learning chess or 12-year-old who's
learning chess or who's learning about
life and philos ophy and everything and
you can do it in the same amount of time
but you're just you're you're trapping a
mind inside of 64 squares or you're
teaching a mind about life through the
64 squares and I think so many of the
reasons that people who become excellent
in one thing can't translate it into
other places it's not will later on in
life they have the will it's because
they didn't learn with universal
principles they didn't study their art
with a presence to the importance of
interconnectedness which is a lot of
what my life's work is
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huberman when I think about
interconnectedness I think the word
mapping comes to mind and I Define a map
of any kind as a transformation of one
set of points into another set of points
right points along the Earth transferred
onto a page or an electronic map you
know and um what's missing from a kind
of basic understanding of a
transformation of points into another
transformation of points are these verb
actions like it's the the algorithm if
you will um that's not present uh in how
we map one context onto another context
it requires a lot of thinking to do what
you describe it's it I don't think it's
reflexive for most people to say watch a
game of basketball and think about the
uh the emotional Dynamics and the
consistencies of the emotional Dynamics
like last night I had the great gift of
Josh brought me to a Celtics game so
brought me to a Celtics game and they
were playing the Clippers so I was you
know cheering against the hometown crowd
here in Los Angeles and uh um but it was
friendly and you were describing the
players and their recent history and the
kind of last season the season and you
said something about um the difference
between preconscious effort and postc
conscious effort yes maybe we could talk
about that as a Gateway into ego which
is like a term that the moment you
throughout the word ego it's like saying
sex it's like people make all sorts of
assumptions about what it is and what it
isn't but let's talk about pre-conscious
and postcon yeah um because
we'll get back to the Celtics and and
and the game that was played last night
by the way the Celtics won in overtime
um by a good siiz margin so um there's
something very
beautiful that I think all of us are
drawn to as observers but hopefully
everyone gets to experience this at some
point in their life as well
firsthand when somebody in art music
sport or whatever is just being
themselves and
this seeming virtuosity comes out I if I
think about kind of what Rick Rubin does
a lot of what Rick has done
historically is to find artists and work
with artists
and just bring out what they're already
doing like the core elements like when
BC boy started it was it was like a joke
he said and they were kind of making fun
of had wrestling elements and hardcore
and punk and all this stuff and Hip-Hop
and you know but he tends to work with
artists early on when they're in that
really like pure state of not thinking
about the Returns on their investment
and all that and you know he said many
times before to me and and publicly that
you know after people achieve a certain
level of Fame it's much harder to get
back to that just pure picture of
oneself preconscious expression just
Josh being Josh as an eight-year-old you
just happen to be in Washington Square
Park learning chess or you know pick any
number of different examples so very
different than when people now reflect
on their trophies on the wall or their
platinum records or the fact that they
won and lost or that there's another
champion in the house that you know that
um and the
real
virtuosos seem to be people that um can
get back to that over and over again the
yo-yo Mas the you know um and people
live longer now so it used to be the the
mozarts the Box you know they could make
their contribution and and then uh they
died yeah now we live longer lives so
um people have many more chances but
there's also that longer window for uh
lack of productivity this is a a a
really important theme and it's a
Gateway into so much like we can we can
explore a lot through this this tunnel
when I use this term pre-conscious and
postc conscious artist or competitor
it's it's it's my own language so I'll
describe what I what I mean by it um
like you think about myself in the in
the Chess World right like they like one
discovers an art one feels a passion for
it one it's beautiful it's joyous it's
self-expressive I love the battle I'm
winning I'm losing I'm having fun I'm
just letting it rip right there's this
there's a navit to that there's a a
there's a freedom there's a playfulness
right there's there's a lack of
complexity a lack of self-awareness a
lack of awareness of my own mutability a
lack of awareness that I can be
shattered or I can die a lack of
awareness of the existential absurdity
of the fact that I'm devoting my life to
64 squares and 32 pieces of wood on top
of 64 squares I haven't reflected on the
fact that this is
ridiculous right or if if you're
fighting like what am I doing I'm
spending my life in combat like what
about what about love what about saving
the planet what about everything else
like what I I haven't reflected on the
fact that this is just a joke and its
absurdity right and one's liberated from
those kinds of
things and then there Comes This Moment
and for me it was you know triggered by
the movie by um by losing that sense of
self-expression by thinking what would
someone else do here instead of what
what would what's my you know Freedom my
playfulness tell me to do um it can
happen when one has a near-death
experience right it can happen when one
has one one's heart broken it can happen
when one um starts Reading existentials
literature and reflecting on the
absurdity of things or one has a friend
who starts pointing out over and over
like this is ridiculous you're
just playing chess what are you doing
right or it can happen when one wins the
world championship or the NBA Finals
because suddenly the thing that you have
oriented yourself around your whole life
the goal you had your whole life you've
now
accomplished and now you're on the other
side of it and so suddenly your world is
shifted the things that motivated you no
longer motivate you the things that felt
so important to you now seem somewhat
trivial because you've already
accomplished that like where's the
intrinsic motivation where's the like
the Deep self-expression right you think
about um like as a as we gain complexity
in our psychology and we can gain that
complexity in many different ways we hit
this Tunnel right and and often when
someone becomes
self-aware um or when someone becomes
less
liberated um or like the chain sit in or
when one like gu just say you're an
extreme athlete but you feel invincible
and then suddenly you have a terrible
accident you realize holy I could
actually die I can break then how do you
get back to that freedom of taking the
wild risks that you've been taking as
that extreme athlete with an awareness
of the fact that you can you can die
like for me I had you know I I I foil
now in the biggest waves that I can find
in in
in where I live in Costa Rica and you
know you have big hold Downs you can
have you're foiling on top of a of a
long Mass which is a carbon Mass which
is very sharp and then a wing which is
sharp so you're basically going 40 45
miles on top of a guillotine and if
you're trying to you know you're you're
really cultivating high performance
foiling you're pushing turns really hard
you're breaching wing tips like you can
taco and have the thing come right at
your head or your neck like you can die
at any minute if you get something wrong
which is very different like foiling
straight or EF foiling talking about
high performance training like you by
definition have to be risking these
things in order to push the limits of
what's possible and if you're not you're
not at that stretch point right and but
then suddenly like you have a terrible
injury or let's just say you're like I
drown in the bottom of a pool um some 11
years ago 10 11 years ago I heard about
this yeah it was a I was doing um
hypoxic breath work I did not realize
which maybe if I you could have taught
me if if I'd known you that carbon
dioxide what gives you the urge to
breathe I didn't realize that so I had
all the CO2 flushed out of my body I
felt blissful swimming underwater um
yeah exhale I guess we should save a few
lives here or prevent a few deaths
rather anytime you emphasize the
duration or intensity of your exhales
you're going to blow out more carbon
dioxide carbon dioxide is the trigger
for the gasp reflex so yes you'll be
able to hold your breath longer above or
below water if you first do cyclic
hyperventilation and then a long and
dump all your air but never ever ever do
cyclic hyperventilation folks or any
long exhale emphasized breathing even
standing in a puddle
because that gasp reflex is the thing
that makes you shoot for the surface and
if you don't do that you feel pretty
peaceful until lights out or drive a car
don't do it while driving a car I know
people who have done that actually
rather exceptional people who I know
have done don't yeah dumping carbon
dioxide is let you hold your breath
longer but that that's part of the
problem and shallow water blackout
usually happens to very high level
athletes Navy Seals right because
they're training at pushing their limits
they're learning to to suppress the urge
to breathe that and know if you're
flushing CO2 you're learning you're
training yourself not to feel it and
I've been a free diver my whole life I
grew up free diving spear fishing in the
in the southern Bahamas but I wasn't I
wasn't doing hypoxic breath work while
free diving here I was at the NYU pool I
I drowned I was in the bottom of the
pool for four and a half minutes after
blacking out which four and a half
minutes yeah I should have which I know
because it I should be dead or brain
damaged in a big way uh the I know the
time it was because there was an old man
who I knew who was in the locker room
who saw me in the bottom of the pool
lying there and he timed his laps and he
did four laps and he said after the
third one I'm going to check on him and
then he did his fourth lap pulled me and
his lip laps for a little bit over a
minute and um I was unconscious for 25
minutes I was totally blue except my
face was blown out red my eyes my body
my
training almost killed me and also saved
me my body handled it really well I had
no water in my lungs I spent that night
in the hospital of course um and I was
like testing I remember doing like
remembering old chest variations like
testing my mind in any way like was I
ruined um and I somehow survived and I
survived intact and that's one of those
moments shattering moments which I'm
ultimately grateful for because it's
what catalyzed me to I emerged with more
of a commitment and I've had this kind
of commitment in my life for most for
many years but a more intense commitment
to live life as truly and beautifully
and authentically as conceivable and
then soon after we move to the jungle
and we live life we live now which is
awesome with my family um but but I
bring that up
now because like imagine how one relates
to big wave surfing or big wave foiling
pre and post
drowning right there's like one has to
have an integrated sense for one's own
mortality
versus being naive to the fact that it
can happen right so that tunnel from the
the preconscious to the postc conscious
per former is a passage where during
that passage most people are locked up
they underperform where they were when
they were more naive and I don't
personally relate to it as a return to
the pre-conscious state I relate to it
as an
integration of one's mortality of the
existential absurdity um into one's
Consciousness and then a discovery of a
deeper sense of liberation of freedom
but that is not in denial of what we've
learned in that tunnel or what triggered
that tunnel but that is is more more
complex yeah trying to be our previous
selves is not a great strategy trying to
integrate our previous experiences in
our current and future selves seems like
a good strategy I I feel that way and I
think it's also pretty you can't go back
you can't pretend you're not that dying
is impossible you can't pretend that
you're unbreakable we are breakable some
people do it without being really
reflective but I think that if if you
ask anyone who really has been in life
and death situations as a way of life
for a long time whether they relate to
the idea of fearlessness if they really
reflect on it they'll say no because
fearlessness isn't a thing it's how one
works with fear usually what locks
people up isn't fear it's the fear of
fear right we're afraid of our fear
we're afraid of being afraid but like
you ask like a great Navy SEAL they work
with their fear you ask like a a great
MMA fighter they're not without fear of
course they have fear if they don't have
fear they have a problem right and there
are some examples of people who might be
wired a little bit differently right
like but the integration of the more
complex worldview into one's Liberation
is the postc conscious performer right
and it can be it can play in lots of
ways right it can also play and so like
one thing that when you think about a
sports team that has accomplished like
everyone's dreams and now we want to win
a championship again we can't go back to
what worked before because we're they're
different
men right one needs to find a different
kind of mission a different kind of
internal relationship to the mission a
different kind of Freedom how important
do you think it is to attach language to
these things of identity and source of
motivation in other words let's say okay
you're working with the Celtics they won
the championship last year this year
they are in a completely different
mental frame as a
consequence they're quote unquote
dominant in the sense that they hold the
they hold the crown they hold the trophy
but they're more vulnerable too because
the only place to go from there is
either stay or you're you're going down
a notch or more so do you think it's
important for them to create a verbal
label for where they're at like we're
the Champs and we're going to hold on to
the Belt we're going to hold on to I
realize there's not a belt in basketball
that by the way that they're going to
hold on to the their status or is that
the wrong way to think about it because
the game is played through verbs it's
not uh played through um adjectives I
don't think we ever want to hold on to
like that's static like we need to we we
want to like you think about predator
and prey Dynamics in in the world or in
competition or in anything like you want
to be competing now there's a fusion of
the predator and prey you want to have
the awareness that that prey has but one
wants to have be be playing to win not
not to lose the moment we're we're
trying to hold on to something we
already have we're falling into the
static quality right or or you think
about for example brilliant investors
right they'll they'll have success then
they'll try to figure out how to
replicate their success so they'll build
mental models Frameworks to replicate
their success and those become grooves
like neural Pathways so then they follow
those grooves but then the grooves
become a rut and the water stops and
they get stuck in an old like so they
they they succeeded they built mental
models they recreated the patterns it
was beautiful but then it it got static
and then it's got stuck energy and it
doesn't apply to the world cuz the
world's changing and what actually made
them succeed was Dynamic quality was
being at the like what Robert persk
would call the front of the freight
train driving through SpaceTime pre-int
tellectual
Consciousness right and then they're
trying to recreat they're getting too
stuck in things and they create mental
models that are stale and then other
people replicate those stale mental
models and you have huge industries that
emerge from static quality later on top
of static quality which is most of
humanity right so I think that as a
world-class competitor who's trying to
win after winning one needs to have the
same Dynamic mindset one had when one
was hunting forth in the first place
rediscovery
Marcelo Garcia one of my most one of my
favorite moments of Marcelo was um so we
were so Marcelo nine-time world champion
in the grappling Arts five time
ADCC five time Brazilian Jitsu four time
ADCC ADCC is when Abu combat
Championship when all the different
grappling Arts come together it happens
every two years so Russian Judo
wrestling Jud um Jiu-Jitsu right
everything comes together and you see
what's who's the strongest Grappler in
all the different Arts um he he's known
by by many as um the greatest
pound-for-pound Grappler to ever live
just for context Marcelo is um one of my
dearest friends we own a school together
in New York um we trained together for
very very long time he and his he's in
an amazing moment right now um he and
his wife Tachi who's also one of my
dearest friends had a terrible tragedy
years ago they lost a baby um and the
just devastating period and then Marcelo
had cancer he had stomach cancer he had
surgery eight rounds of chemotherapy he
hasn't competed in 13 years and he's
actually competing tomorrow for the
first time in I think it's 13 years in
Bangkok um it was going to be in Denver
and I was going to fly there between the
Lakers and the Mavs games but it's in
Bangkok so I can't get there but he's
weighed in he's doing great he's feeling
awesome so um the story I'm about to
tell is about this epic beautiful human
being who in many ways created he's he's
the innovator that led to much of what
is modern grappling today so back in I
think it was I think it was 2005 and
2007 this story or maybe it's 2007 2009
I think it's 2005 and 2007 chronology is
not a strong point for me in terms of my
my recollection in general um we were in
a training camp um we were you know
training all the time he had this
Innovative repertoire he goes into ADCC
dominates it and it's a very specific
repertoire backt repertoire Guillotines
um just dominates blows the grappling
world away for the two years that
followed him winning that ADCC the en
entire grappling world was studying what
he had just done or a lot of the
grappling world was studying what he had
just recreated it was so beautiful
Innovative powerful playing upweight
classes just unbelievable I was on the
mats with Marcel the next day the Monday
after he fought
Sunday I also want to say Marcelo never
I never in all the years I had of
training with Marcelo I never saw him
miss a Monday training after winning a
major competition on Sunday wow everyone
takes time off I never saw him miss a
Monday you talk about Dynamic quality
and humility and a way of life right the
Monday he he was on the mats he shed the
entire repertoire so he just won the
World Championship he he everyone spent
the next two years chasing his quality
which was dynamic they turned it static
he shed the whole repertoire and created
a whole new repertoire and he was
playing this om plaed game which he then
went on the the next ADC two years later
and one again with this brand new thing
just shedding the the snake skin or
shedding the the old Shell right it's
it's such a beautiful example of like
pushing one's limits as a way of life
not being stuck in Old mental models
right breaking new ground as a way of
life Dynamic quality that's what it
takes and so hard for people to do I
mean I think about Michael Jordan and
the fact that he wanted to be a pro
baseball player so he had a brief stint
at that and it was underwhelming
certainly compared to his basketball
career but of course his b basketball
career was
you know so spectacular that you know
the expectation wasn't there but um
nonetheless you know it's so rare to
find people that are super successful
repeatedly within domain let alone
across domains it's just yeah you know
Richard Fineman yeah he could paint a
little bit and draw a little bit but I
don't know I've seen those pictures of
the roosters and they're they're they're
they're kind of first year art school
yeah so it's cool like cool you learned
to draw in paint but you weren't like if
if his name wasn't on them like no one
would care well Jordan had an Inc just
an incredible competitive Drive
incredible competitive drive and like
the amount of like there it's very hard
to replicate success in an art because
one that shouldn't replicate one should
drive to recre to to ReDiscover right
it's like a recreation of something new
not old right um I think the impulse
once one wins is to do what one did
before but the world changes like one of
the gifts the Celtics have this year is
that everyone is targeting us right
because we're the Champions like we won
it last year and so everyone brings like
an extra 30% every night every team and
the NBA is stacked with brilliant
athletes even the lower level teams from
the outside in are filled with amazing
athletes who if you if you're the game
of the week or the month for them they
bring it all so all of our weaknesses
are being exposed which is what we want
right and so you have there's a there's
grown pains you work through it all um
and so the good thing about the
competitive truth-telling world is that
is that our competitors our Rivals help
Force us to take our on which makes
it very hard to sit in static quality
unless we're we're happy with mediocrity
the the Celtics have you know one of the
the most Joe moua is the head coach of
the of the Boston Celtics and he's one
of he and I are dear friends and for the
last two and a half years or so we've
been thought partners and and um and
brothers in this journey and I've I've
never seen anyone in my life better at
turning weaknesses into strengths than
Joe which is a huge statement because I
spent my life with these with all in
performers not taking weaknesses and
like making them less weak or like
leveling them out but turning like an
area of core weakness into a Core Power
Zone that's a superpower and that's
something that Jo Joe trains harder than
anybody else and he leads by example and
he leads with vulnerability and there's
some he EMB body's Dynamic quality and
that's really special and that's
something I have unbelievable respect
for and you look at Joe now like Joe
just has learned to just thrive in pain
and discomfort in in his limits in
living at his limits and and that's
that's like the leadership which I think
will lead to beautiful
things so I feel like there are at least
three components to what you're
describing one is that you know maybe in
this preconscious
phase people are thinking about what
they have to gain from this process that
they're in and the process is natural at
least to the extent that they're
motivated to do it it comes from some
Source this seems to be the the stage
and the thing that Rick Rubin is trying
to tap into in the artists that he works
with whether or not they're established
or new it's that it's the identification
of that preconscious energy which is so
pure and So Beautiful by
definition as opposed to the second
thing which is when people have
something to lose you know they went
from poverty to having a really nice
home they bought their mom a home
they're loving this life they don't want
to lose it they don't want to go back to
where they were before even though where
they were before probably played a key
role in that preconscious state that
allowed them to get to that next
level versus something to
protect and you know trying to not lose
everything you've got is very different
than trying to protect certain elements
of what you one has so like in in terms
of the Celtics they they hold the
championship title now so they have you
know something to lose frankly they
could not get it again but it's it's in
the record books so so it's it's nuanced
right it's not like um in in a fight you
can get knocked out or worse but you
know they you're still a champion if you
were a champion once I mean certain
fields are like that well going back to
back is a is a is an approach way of
framing that mhm like going back to back
is if from protecting the title right
cuz then you the words like reigning
Champions you know it's like even though
you're already the reigning Champion you
know or um you think about dynasties
like I grew up in the when the 49ers
were like kind of in multiple dynasties
it was like the Joe Montana era and the
Steve Young era and like you know like
these dynasties where they were just
considered such an important
team overall because of how long they
were able to do what they did the Bulls
right you know um so Tiger Woods
right and there seems to be a kind of
obsession with this process at least in
the United States where we love to see
the rise of somebody from uh you know
ignominy to fame or rags to riches and
then but there also seems to be this
kind of obsession with their fall their
demise and then coming back again and I
think the the the most um you know
prominent example of this in my mind is
Mike Tyson whose life is like as a
friend described it is almost
Shakespearean and the way they came from
nothing thing then youngest heavyweight
champion then all these issues you know
legal and financial then back again and
and now he seems to be in kind of he's
at least of a level of status where he
can wear his own shirt and no one thinks
it's weird it actually looks cool he's
probably the only only guy that who can
wear a shirt with his own name on it and
he just and it just seems right like he
earned that one you know and I think it
ironically it was The Hangover it was
him pretending to have a you know act as
an actor that kind of brought him back
as a lovable character it's kind of
interesting like he he seems to now be
on the Mount Rushmore
of famous American athlet who you know
like I only wish the best for him but
whatever happens
next like that that he it's cemented his
legacy is cemented at some point
people's Legacy is cemented and I I
wonder how that feels too so maybe we
could talk about these different stages
of the the sine wave that hopefully is
upward and drifting right one of the
things that I that's that's very
difficult in in in modern society and in
the life of a professional athlete or
team in modern society is that you know
you think about NBA players they're
always being interviewed by the media
and the they're all and the media is
always trying to drum up drama and
always trying to ask if you like the the
media always asks the question that is
exactly what the performance
psychologist of the player would not
want the player to think about so for
example like they might ask something
about like how do you feel knowing you
can the expect ations for of you are so
large you can never live up to them
right like or is it shameful do you feel
ashamed about your performance now
because of the expectations on you the
questions like that will be or your wife
is eight months pregnant like how do you
feel being you know uh 5,000 miles away
right now that would be pretty benign
right yeah it's like thanks you know
right there's something because like you
want a player to be liberated from
self-consciousness you don't want a
player to be playing with an awareness
or a fixation on external expectations
or the external eye one like I remember
the feeling in my chest life when I
transitioned from losing myself in
thought to thinking about how I looked
thinking to the cameras or the groupies
or whatever on the outside like wildly
different mindsets as a chess player
right and and so you have all these
pressures that are trying to pull you
out of an ideal performance State and so
one needs to learn develop thick skin or
a way of integrating it or be playful
with it and I really believe in
embracing
adversity we have this theme hunting
adversity on the team which is like like
these things that could be um seen as
detrimental or you know problems or or
things that could get in the way of our
Liberation as like we welcome them like
cold water right getting in cold water
every day is a very important I think
it's a beautiful opportunity to train it
so much like but we don't want to get in
cold water gritting our teeth and hating
it no we want to like love the fact that
we're about to suffer in that cold water
I've been cold plunging for you know
many many years maybe 15 years and like
I it's not like you get into 34 degree
water even if you've been training for a
very long time you're thrilled about
this 5 minute or 10minute plunge you're
about to do most consistent stimulus for
adrenaline release and noradrenaline
release in the brain that is safe if
done properly right and you never really
habituate I maybe we just really quickly
double click on this thing of coal
plunging I don't go for time I think
only in terms of walls of adrenaline so
some days like just getting in the thing
is a big wall I think of that just for
lack of a better word is a wall on on a
hot day I'm happy to get into the cold
plunge yeah but then what I think is so
valuable about cold plunging is that if
you start to focus on what what
neuroscientists call interoception
everything our perception of everything
from our skin inward you can start to
feel the deployment of adrenaline in
your body or at least its effects and
you can see here's another wall of
adrenaline you watch your frame rate go
up the impulse to stay still because as
you move you break up that thermal layer
gets even colder but then you also want
to get out and then that wall passes and
then you start to notice that the
distance between the walls changes and
then playing with that in one's mind as
you know when I when I distract myself
the walls come you know suddenly or when
I'm focused on the walls they they seem
like big swells as opposed to um when I
relax myself they seem like just like
kind of more sharp Peaks and and
learning that those dynamics of of how
adrenaline impacts us cognitively and
frame rate and all that I think is an
immensely valuable practice and I can't
think of anything else not sprinting not
lifting weights you know not real life
arguments because that can be
destructive I can't think of any other
kind of venue for exploring one's
ability to work through stress and
tension than the cold plunge I I agree
and I have this principle I call living
on the other side of pain and I think
that like pain one can like mental
discomfort physical discomfort or
confronting some issue one doesn't want
to think about or taking on one's bias
pattern or if you're let's say like a
decision professional decision maker
taking on like what the network of your
cognitive biases tends to lead to like
these are all forms of pain right I
think that cold water training is such
an Exquisite way to practice living on
the other side of pain in a way that is
thematically resonant and you can train
at that doing that physical practice can
liberate you in your mental Arenas to um
to take on you don't want to take
on one thing I found is that when you're
training Peak performers there can be
the impulse to go right at their
weakness in the place they're they're
making the error but it's usually much
less potent to do it that way because
they're well calloused over in that area
so if you're like a poker player who has
like some control issue right it's you
could like take on the control issue in
poker but there so brilliant at poker
like they've built calluses around it
they've built ways of dealing with it
and they're able to play at a high level
despite but like but they're probably
very controlling at home as well with
their with their spouse or their kids or
whatever and if you take on the control
issues in places they're much less
developed it'll be much easier to take
it on because it's less callous and it
will be massively liberating in their
poker game so I have like this is this
connect this idea of interconnectedness
and thematic interconnectedness I'll
identify a theme someone needs to work
with but then we'll practice that theme
in other of their life and then you
could have core habits which manifest
that theme and then there comes this
amazing moment where the theme just
becomes like internalized because one
practices it in things that are away
from where it manifests professionally
and then it just releases and then all
the manifestations of that theme just
become your way of life so for example
like if if one wants to take on one's
resistance to to discomfort to pain to
pushing one's limits right one can
practice things like cold plunging like
cardiovascular interval training like
you know other things like withholding
orgasm whatever you can have ways of
practicing like the theme that are
completely separate from where it's
manifesting or hindering you in your
professional life where you're probably
very good at dealing with it and then
the unlock will just happen and you'll
be liberated from it right this is one
of the most powerful ways that I've
found to to train I also find Cold
plunging is just unbelievable for for
Sleep Quality for I do you know I do
contrast training now and I I agree with
you like I've spent a lot for years I
was doing like really long cold Like 36°
Water for 11 or 12 minutes and I pushed
myself really hard um and man 11 minutes
is so different from 9 minutes oh
different world and then and now I don't
now I I I found that like I have a
practice of you I'll do three to four
rounds of you know 42 to 44 degrees
between that and the sauna and I I'll do
like one longer plunge a week but like
I'm daily practice I don't feel the urge
to do very long breath holds or very
long cold plunges I don't necessar yeah
same I'll I'll do cold plunge for one to
three minutes yeah and I love contrast
with heat so I'm very heat tolerant I I
love I love love love the sauna um I
don't love the cold but I love the long
Arc of dopamine that comes after the
cold I always say no no one really
enjoys being in the thing I you be feel
10 is there a better sleep hack I'm
asking you cuz you know stuff well there
are supplements that could support sleep
and that kind of thing and people
learning how to deliberately relax their
body can help with transition to sleep
and back to sleep but you know One Core
principle that I haven't really talked
about in the podcast is that if you the
more adrenaline nor epinephrine nor
adrenaline and dopamine that you
experience early in the day as well as
cortisol from bright light exercise
caffeine and cold the better you're
going to sleep at night it also sets
your circadian rhythm around kind of
like a a big uh you know instead of
arousal promoting stimula early in the
day and then you know last third of your
day you're very parasympathetic for lack
of a better way to put it and that eases
the transition of sleep I mean you know
dimming the lights parasympathetic
Bright Lights increases the amount of
cortisol with your morning cortisol
pulse by 50% 5 Z which is great keeps
you less susceptible to infection all
day these kinds of things and we're
meant to be in oscillation obviously
across the 24-hour cycle but even within
the day uh it's a little bit tougher
when people have evening activities or
you like last night I was watching these
guys play a hard game of basketball at
you know 8 to 10 p.m. that's that's a
lot of late night work so and we're on
the west coast you can think what time
that is East Coast time middle of the
night right so is there a better sleep
stack not really I mean and if you want
to increase your rapid ey movement sleep
non-pharmacologically yeah I would say
meaning not exogenous pharmacology um
yeah the cold Plunge in the morning
early part of the day for evening um
anything that moves uh blood out to your
periphery so
sauna uh hot shower that sort of thing
is going to drop your core body
temperature when you get out right it's
a little paradoxical to people but you
know you warm up to then cool off at the
level of core body temperature and it'll
ease the transition as sleep yeah it's
it's it's a wonderful practice and
people who pick at Cold plunging they're
like well it blocks hypertrophy okay
yeah okay that's true so in the six
hours after you're trying to get your
you know a little more Peak on your
biceps or something it's going to block
that but most people have not
experienced control over their
physiology at the level that comes from
doing consistent cold punching in the
early part of the day warming up and
becoming more parasympathetic uh later
in the day it's like they start to feel
a level of control over their mood and
energy that's that's so striking with
basically zero cost tools I agree yeah
sorry to Riff on that but people will
probably
wonder about specifics I I want to make
sure that we talk about two things
and you can decide which one uh to talk
about first one is ego and then the
second one is earlier you described a um
a set of Dynamics across the day and
some concrete things about you know how
one picks the most important question
like what am I working on
today and how to kind of push that into
certain portions of the day how long to
do that and then how to you know stay
out of stimulus and response and the
transition points so that you can make
the most of that work or or extract the
most from that work as you head into the
evening dinner with your family sleep
and then wake up repeat which one do you
think would be most valuable games go
wherever you want to go where should we
go all right let let's before we get
practical um let's get a little bit more
um theoretical and then uh get back to
practical
ego like the constriction is what comes
to mind like the idea that like I want
to impose my will on something uh I want
a certain outcome and if I don't get it
it's going to hurt in some way there's
some punishment mechanism internally
like that might drive me to work even
harder it's not always bad but how how
do you frame ego and and uh I will say
that the words I
am um seem very important like when
people identify as I am the champion in
the I'm part of a champion team in the
NBA I'm a Celtic you know I'm a a player
you know I'm a Celtics player
um clearly I'm not but you know when we
attach
identity to
Ego um that's also where it seems like
it kind of deepens the trench a bit but
maybe it can be more relaxed than the
way I'm describing it how do you think
about ego we we had so gram Duncan my
dear friend joined us at the game last
night and um Grandma I consider to be in
the realm of like Elite mental Talent
mapping and assessment to just be in a
league of his own he's such a genius in
the realm of um of of just finding
and like like identifying people who
have world-class potential and mental
Arenas and really quirky ways he he's a
he's a beautiful soul and one of the the
the ways he frames this in the
investment space when he's looking at at
high potential investors is like he
doesn't want to find people who have too
specific an identity in the way that
they relate to um to what they do to
make money to invest to whatever he that
like because it like there's something
static in like I am a x y or Z versus I
am something more Broad and it which
leads to one's relationship to like d
Dynamic quality to rediscovery to
changing as the world changes right
um I think that that um this relates a
little bit to what I was describing in
terms of learning chess locally versus
learning chess in a way that connects to
all of life which is so
Dynamic I think you know I spent many
years studying mamaka Buddhist
philosophy and and so I I come from both
a western and Eastern perspective when I
think about the question of ego and I
think that one of the things that that
happens in the west when we talk about
East Asian philosophy is that we
oversimplify it and we we create we kind
of polarize things and I I I think so
it's easy to people talk so quickly
about being egoless right or say someone
is low ego and when they say they're low
ego they don't actually mean that
they're low ego they mean that they have
a sound egoic structure like they're
they're not inse like if they say
they're low ego they're usually saying
that that they are
um they're not expressing insecurity all
the time which means that it's not that
they have a low ego it's that their ego
is is is not like is not fundamentally
like there's not a rupture in the
structure that's leaking all the time um
so the way I I relate to Ego from like a
a competitive perspective or from a like
a artistic perspective or a self
cultivation perspective is
that I relate to it around Dynamic
versus static constant exploration as
opposed to being stuck in how one
relates to Old patterns I relate to
understanding The Emptiness of our our
egoic
Dynamics understanding the the
non-absolute nature of our ego the
relational nature of things the
interconnectedness and the and the
interdependence of all things I think
it's so easy to have an identity which
we think is like I am this
but we're not this this doesn't exist
out of relation to that and that doesn't
relate in Rel in relation to this other
thing so understanding the chain of
relationality and then how our ego
manifests in all of that so having the
ability to both dissolve one's
relationship to like static egoic
Dynamics but also um having a sense of
identity and having a sense of what one
self- expression is and having like when
we are there is this thing about Will
when you're competing like you can feel
when someone has an unbreakable will
like when you're matching up against
somebody and they're and they're and
they're wishy-washy you can just blow
through them um but you when their when
their will is just like like I I'll
never forget Marcelo Garcia against K
kisan in a big in a big world
championship match putting kisan was
wrist locking everybody and Marcel put
his hand right into the wrist lock and
looked into his eyes it's like try it
just put his hand into it and there like
you can break someone by being unbre
breakable you can see a lot of fights
where somebody tries to submit someone
and
someone is unsubmitted and the person
who has the huge Advantage gets broken
because they realize holy this guy
is unbreakable and so they become broken
right so there's having the ability to
have that
like when you when you touch a fighter
like body Fighters all rub up against
each other like you learn a lot like
feeling someone so if you meet like
Fighters that hug they'll give you you
learn so much on the touch you know and
like you can feel when someone is is is
brittle you touch them you can feel you
can feel how much contact they've taken
how much they've been hit how much
they've absorbed how much they've been
abused how much like they've received
and you can feel like where their energy
stops you can feel if there's like like
just just static things in them and then
you can also feel when the earth is
moving inside of them when it's just
like this molten energy just moving in
them and then and and when you feel a
body that like like it just can envelop
you um and it can be a mountain or it
can be like water so I relate to Ego and
that you want to be able to be like
water and be like a
mountain um I've never answered that
question before I just Rift on that but
that's like the essence of how Rel to I
mean and um and as I walked in here to
take a seat at my chair I got a good
hard slap on the back from you and I was
wondering if you were testing me um I
felt you last night too yeah I I I I
won't I won't ask what what your read of
my ego was but um I I felt it as a slap
of camaraderie like like let's do this
um which felt great and I was also
thinking about my good friend Lex
fredman who is a black Bel in Brazilian
jiu-jitsu and a very intense guy who
wears his heart on his sleeve publicly
and people sometimes will take um shots
at him for that which really upsets me I
really respect Lex I think what he does
is awesome I I love his podcast and the
way he in really prickly issues has got
it got people on both sides of things
and welcomes everyone in and has
dialogue I have a huge amount of respect
for how Lex handles himself in the
public world yeah you guys are a fun
conversation he uh he's going to be uh
jealous that we got a chance to sit down
here but um you
know Lex's uh at home and with his
friends exactly how he appears to be
like all that that intense um self-
torture around what to do and how to
frame something who to talk to how to
talk to them and um that's that's the
world he lives in and and um and but in
terms of his physicality like I think PE
it's hard to understand like just how
um like he's like dense like dark matter
you know like it's the it's the and I
think a lot of guys that roll Jiu-Jitsu
like you shake their hands and like the
there there's a there's a solidity there
that's very very different um than uh
just muscle it's like people that are
just like um they're used to being up
against bodies apparently you know so
it's an experience you know um these are
subtle things but clearly they matter um
and as you've pointed out one brings
them to their professional life you
bring it to friendships you know I can't
think of I have many super quote unquote
solid friends but Lex is among the most
solid of them he's just beauti his
presence yeah he has a courageousness
with which he in my observation from
afar comports itself in the world that I
have a lot of respect for and Rick Ruben
you know uh we both know Rick and people
know Rick as this bearded uh icon of
create creativity and and he he is
indeed that um the fluidity that he
moves through life with is just it's
like it's astonishing I've spent a lot
of time with him and I I don't want to
like get into my observations of Rick
the Rick isms uh if you will but um it's
astonishing how much
attention and uh he puts into creating
this thing that we're talking about
space like getting out of stimulus and
response it's I don't think he'd mind me
sharing this it's not uncommon for me to
like go over to hang out with him and
he'll just say like hey like before we
like talk you want to just like do this
meditation we just like sit there and
meditate and you quickly go into a
mindset of like oh my goodness like this
is like a thing where and then but like
nope you just get into being present and
then I don't know then you hang out and
you talk about if you're us you know the
the Ramones because we both love the
Ramon yeah so um I love the way you
frame ego I think that that's very
helpful um because a physical embodiment
of something that is largely
psychological to most people at least
the concept I think is is very helpful K
do you ever um just as a practice just
look at how people walk or how they they
interact or um oh yeah yeah I mean of
course that's my way of life I mean it's
funny as a as a chess player even like I
used to study people off the board all
the time I'd watch them like you watch I
remember used to play these tournaments
in Bermuda and once a year Invitational
like high level tournament and then like
you'd watch someone walking and they'd
get caught in the rain and you watching
someone in the rain you learn so much
like would they just stand and embrace
it would they put something over their
head and run away what would they do
right like and and in general like I If
someone if someone has a static like
like negative relation to the Rain
they're usually pretty controlling and
then you you have a feel for how to
handle them on the board create Chaos on
the board like just just like mix it up
make it uncontrollable and then or if
someone is like full free spirit on the
in the rain like me like maybe you want
to make the game
like a little bit more quiet
conservative like strategic not so
chaotic like where one has to find exact
precise Solutions in specific kinds of
positions where like you you can't
improvise you you're not finding hidden
harmonies and Chaos you're finding
specific thing right control and reain
and and then in the the fight game man
you're watching people all the time I
mean you watch Fighters watching one
another you see a lot feeling one
another watching one another and I ow
love watching people away from what they
do cuz all those themes are are are much
more visible than in when they're doing
what what they do what about in
non-competitive Endeavors like ballet
Opera um uh music where certainly it's
competitive in that you know you're
competing for people's attention time
and money but you're not it's not direct
competition uh do you spend time working
with P performers in in these domains
where um you know like just I heard from
someone recently who uh she said you
know I'm a good dancer but then I went
to New York and I discovered that I'm
not such a good dancer like like the
level of of who gets to actually dance
in some of the Premier venues there is
like so unbelievably high that um and by
the way that shouldn't discourage anyone
that should encourage people it's uh
show them what's possible do you work
with people like that or is it usually
competitive Arenas I've utilized
competitive Fields as beautiful
Laboratories for refin
my relationship to the training process
because of how relentlessly
truth-telling they are but I also come
from a family of artists my grandmother
was a brilliant abstract expressionist
painter and sculptor Stella waitzkin
amazing woman um she was in the she was
good friends with Hans Hoffman and
tuning and Jackson Pollock I mean that
was her crowd she was part of the like
the early Beat Generation back in the
day and I come from a family of artists
and
um yeah I mean one of the you know a lot
of what I'm thinking about in recent
years is how to channel my life's work
into making the biggest positive impact
possible on the world and I I'm really
worried In This Moment around what's
happening in human consciousness the
depths of
distraction um how can we enhance the
human ability to make decisions in an
increasingly complex world where there's
so much
misinformation um and also you know how
can we how can we take on Humanity's
biggest challenges and so for example
one of the projects that I'm really
excited about that I've been working on
for the last couple years is called Lila
science and these aren't competitors
these are scientists and we're we're
essentially we've so I I was sitting
with this question for two or three
years like who should I partner with to
to try to take on Humanity's biggest
challenges and I met this guy um he
ended up renting Graham's house who we
at the game with yesterday next door to
mine in Costa Rica and um his name is
Jeff v monel um and Jeff is a a just a
brilliant scientific Visionary and
Creator
and um we ended up having three weeks of
dialogue and I incidentally like
invested one of his companies years
before which was interesting but we had
like this incredible three weeks of
dialogue while he was standing next door
and then we looked at each other
realized we should be teaming up and
we've and and I've also been think very
close close to and observing the world
of artificial intelligence for a long
time um partially because Demis hbus was
a childhood friend of mine we grew up
playing chess together from when you're
like 11 years old and so I've OB I
observed his journey and
um and I think that it's very
interesting in in chess like the the
seat that I had watching the impact on
chess of first computers increasingly
powerful machine and then artificial
intelligence was fascinating because if
you if you imagine like what it's like
to see one's life's work be overcome in
three hours of experimentation like what
Alpha zero did just
breathtaking um and to give some
perspective on things there's an ELO
system in chess right there's the a
ranking system the highest rated chess
players in the world human chess players
are rated you know from Gary Kasparov
Magnus Carlson Bobby Fisher all the
world champions are rated somewhere in
the 2800 to 29 00 level right
ELO the strongest AI engines now are
north of 3800 ELO and just for context
of how Wild that Gap is when I was 8
years old my rating was
1,800 right so the gap between me at8
which is like I was ridiculous and the
world champion human is the same Gap as
the world champion and the strongest AI
engines in the world and so like it's
very hard for humans to conceive of
being the
ants right relative to the human we are
the ants now in terms of or we soon will
be what is possible and I I think that
that could be channeled for the good or
could be channeled for the Bad and the
question what are the motivations of the
people who are really driving these
companies so I've been thinking for a
long time of how to combine like what's
the light side of the force of the
artificial intelligence world and what
Jeff and I and and a dear friend um
Chris Fussell who is a brilliant man who
um he wrote team of teams in one Mission
he was a elite Navy SEAL and then he
ended up running joint Special
Operations Command jck with Stan
mccristal then he was president of the
mccristal group and now he's president
of ly of science um Jeff Chris and I and
a brilliant man named Jack Milwood who's
the chief cultural officer have been
teaming up and I brought I brought
together this tribe of a few different
brilliant friends um who are part of
this and
um it's basically taking Cutting Edge
science and taking Cutting Edge AI bring
them together to create scientific super
intelligence focused on and we're
creating these AI science factories
where the entire s scientific process
can be replicated can be driven non-stop
the way Alpha zero was driving non-stop
iteration in the Chess World what if
this is happening in the scientific
process from so pose a hypothesis exper
study isolate variables test hypothesis
feedback to hypothesis confirm or deny
hypothesis and and just an experimental
design and experimental execution and
then study of experimental results and
then and study of the entire scient
scientific literature and imagine all
that happening with robotics with with
3,800 ELO rated scientists AI scientists
and then millions of them
networked and now if you have this from
my perspective the most important thing
is the safety right and I think that a
lot of these AI companies aren't
prioritizing safety first we are and I
think for me it's been a really
important thing thinking about this
because I've been sitting with this
question for a lot of years like in
order to do something like this you have
to trust that the people who are driving
it if they have Max
temptation but something could be like
the Manhattan Project could be
potentially negative for Humanity that
they would not push the button they
would lead to the satisfaction of all
their dreams if it would be taking an
existential risk for Humanity and this
team I really believe in that way and so
like what's most exciting to me about
this is the material science side I mean
the life sciences we could you know the
eradication of disease it's unbelievable
what could happen I think we'll be blown
away by what happens in the coming years
but the material science part of it for
me personally is what matters most
because I really don't think it matters
if humans are all living for 150 200
years if we have no climate to live
on right and and we the material
innovations that could be emerging in
the coming years um to take on the
climate crisis are are breathtaking so
it's a project I'm deeply involved in
and it has nothing to do with
competition I mean I guess everything is
competitive from one perspective but
this is about um driving Discovery
driving Innovation I love it it also
reflects your uh clearly repeating
pattern of um being willing to segment
your life life into different goals and
different um different
Pursuits uh applying what you've learned
previously learning new things and
incorporating those it brings me back to
two things that we touched on earlier uh
one that if we don't close the hatch on
we're going to we're going to get it
from the listeners uh which is this
paper that we both read I just want to
um or or took a look at before the paper
let me just say one important thing to
me what you just said really hits home
like but I think while one is taking on
all these different things for me
personally it's important to always be
in the fight
like I need to be training myself like
what I'm doing on the ocean every day in
my own training like the thing that
drives me crazy are armchair
quarterbacks or what Robert persk used
to call philosophists
right which are like or like the
literary critics verus the writer or the
philosophist versus the philosopher or
the armchair quarterback versus the
quarterback so for me like my way of
life like I I just don't know I it's
hard for me to believe in anybody in
these things who isn't putting
themselves on the line as a way of life
so like my own ocean training
um and my own competitive training and
like being immersed in the truth-telling
nature of the competitive world is
something that I I feel is really like
like we never have the truth nailed
we're never liberated from our egoic
Dynamics we're always susceptible to
becoming static that's I I've really
come to feel that and I don't believe so
so like I it's a big value system for me
and the daily physical interactions with
the ocean with fear with uh uncertainty
with the just variables that you can't
control yeah and trying to identify what
are the variables I can control in this
context and work with those um to try
and tease out new learning um
uh that running those algorithms every
day seems absolutely essential there's
nothing like the ocean to expose any
little micro inkling of like the
illusion of control because you cannot
control the ocean you can't overcome the
ocean the ocean's going to kick your ass
so you need to blend with her and
receive her and honor
her um yeah like that's where I I do my
inner work out there okay your study go
ahead do it well so it's not my study
but this paper that I sent you I I think
is really interesting um It's Paper
published in the journal neuron very
fine Journal excellent paper we'll post
a link to it but um has many interesting
features about it's really about the
study of surprise and the dopamine
system but they use uh as the
experimental context um people watching
a game of basketball and they observe
that the the reset on um sort of the
Interval Timer of is essentially said
anytime there's been a reversal of which
team has the ball so a drive down Court
you know um uh by one team then the
other team and you know if there's a you
know rebound and then it switches
Direction whatever might not switch
Direction Ian basketball provides the
the perfect Dynamic to study this while
people are being um uh while there's
some detection of brain activity going
on and one of I think the most
interesting questions about this paper
and implications are
that just as we can set the aperture of
our of our vision or the frame rate of
our of how well we're clocking time how
finally we're clocking time or how coely
we're clocking time there's this big
question which is kind of a
philosophical question really which is
how do we segment time in our life
earlier you mentioned that one of the
major kind of uh timestamps if you will
is
a bad event like a oh like the
things went completely differently than
I would have preferred them to it could
be the death of another could be the
death of a dream could be a a you know a
setback a re whatever that it it marks
time and we just had these fires I mean
La will be before and after the fires of
2025 yeah um you know I remember uh
early in 2020 Kobe Bryant dying right so
so these things I remember the
Challenger explosion like negative
events you know occupy a uh a certain
place in our memory more easily than
positive events but no one will forget
the birth of their first child or
hopefully their second child too if they
had a second child or their wedding day
right these things segment
time you seem to be able to segment your
life into a series of Pursuits where you
cut ties with the practice of something
like chess and you take what you learned
and move it forward into to what seems
to be a very different lifestyle and way
of being I I think one of the major
challenges for a lot of people it seems
is how to thread the different elements
of their life forward in a way that
feels um
contiguous and I think
it's probably true that most people
would prefer to not have loss major
losses be necessary in order to segment
their life in the most um fulfilling way
uh so how do you think about the
segmentation of time and maybe we'll run
this backward from the scale of your
lifetime we don't know how long you'll
live but hopefully a long time let's
assume by way of standard genetics
somewhere in the neighborhood of between
90 and 110 if you take good care of
yourself which you seem to sounds good
okay um and then let's compare that to
how one structures a day that will allow
us to bring us back to what you talked
about before with this most important
question Dynamic and focus and and and
replenishing and dynamic between
conscious and unconscious mind so when
you think about your life you're 48
years old yeah okay I'm 49 so we're more
or less the same uh Point uh Looking
Backward anyway um our Liv is very
different but same age roughly if you
think you're going to live to be about a
hundred how are you thinking about your
time frame are you thinking okay here's
what I'm going to do for the next five
years 10 I'll allow the whatever is
happening in my life to to dictate what
I do next I mean how are you running
this
analysis that's an awesome question I
mean you so we have to we're basically
taking all the macro and all the micro
and we're going to boil it down right
here it's
beautiful
[Music]
um that was a very expansive elegant
question I think the true
answer it's interesting there's I find
this distinction between how like when I
think about a question like that between
how I actually relate to the question
and how I might deconstruct how I
actually rate to the question to make it
relatable but is the deconstructed
version actually true to how I really
relate to the
question
right
um because accurate deconstruction is
so nuanced and difficult right so if I
how I experientially relate to that
question is that I'm living I want to
live my life with just Relentless truth
to myself with
authenticity with love with
receptivity I want to deepen my my
connection to what I'm doing the Arts
I'm practicing in
specifically and in utiliz and and
tapping into my relationship to the
universe through the artistic
exploration I have not planned out the
next 10 20 40 50 60
years um I do have a long time Horizon
on how I think about plans and
developments and projects I'm working on
um but it's like this this Fusion
of the cultivation of full presence
right now and um and playing the long
game but I don't I'm not clear on where
the long game is going one of my dear
friends Boyd vardy you know Boyd I know
of him and I'm a huge admirer of his
work oh you should have him on he's
awesome he's a beautiful or you should
go to South South Africa and go
connected oh sorry I didn't mean to yeah
so he's an awesome I've been connected
to him through Martha Beck a previous
guest on this podcast and she spent a
they're good friends they've spent a lot
of times in L A lot of time in leli
together and I'd love to get Boyd V
vardy on here he's a beautiful soul he's
a he's a he's a real brother he's a
kindred spirit like every once in a
while you run into someone you're like
um he in his his book lion tracker's
Guide to Life he has this gorgeous
quote um which is the words of a of a
master tracker
reneas I have no idea where I'm going
but I know exactly how to get
there when I read those words I was just
like they resonated very deeply in my
soul I think those words are a really
good I would take out the exactly I
don't know anything exactly so I don't
know where I'm going but I have a really
beautiful sense that I'm I'm tracking my
way
there you've got a process that seems to
work very well at least up until this
point there's no reason to think it
wouldn't work well especially given that
you said not exactly leaving that
openness to changes in our biology life
events in in and for people around us I
I have a big part of me and it's a
strength and a weakness and I I I think
a lot when I meet people I think a lot
about the entanglement of their
Brilliance and their eccentricity or
their genius and their dysfunction and
when you're working with Peak performers
you need to understand it and it's
entanglement is often very very complex
and people can think oh I can make this
person more efficient by just removing
this but that will be connected to their
genius and you'll be like cutting some
of it away right and so when you're
working with like crazy brilliant anyone
who's really a virtuoso is has some
craziness built into what they're doing
um and the entanglement of their
Brilliance and their dysfunction
is is so complex and nuanced and one
should be very careful to not do
anything until one understands that
entanglement with huge nuance and so the
art of coaching people of that nature is
like 99.9% listening observing not doing
and one of the biggest mistakes that
coaches make is doing doing too much
because they need to show that they're
valuable right and so I think a lot
about like we need to really understand
the nature of that entanglement and in
me um that entanglement is complex
and I have a profound
allergy to being untrue to
myself why well I think a big part of
the reason is that period when I was 15
16 17 18 years old that I described
where I got pulled into this
externalized thing from the film in the
public scrutiny when I wasn't ready for
it and being urged and not having the
maturity to resist it because that's
ultimately on me to take on chest
outside of my self- expression like what
would kpov do here not what would Josh
do here and I didn't have the
understanding of learning karpov through
Kasparov right and so I I moved into
like my first love was taken away from
me or I allowed myself to have it taken
away from me which is how i' would
actually frame it and it was made static
and stale and corrupted and externalized
and there's so much existential
heartbreak in me about the loss of that
first
love that I'm I have the gift of being
just allergic
to being untrue to
myself and so that's part of how I track
through life is is I I if I don't love
someone I don't work with them no matter
what the Temptation is if something
feels untrue to me I don't do it now
sometimes we have to sit in the
unknowing for a while and something can
be can be off for a while right so like
there's like there's Peaks and valleys
of everything right or so in in the
learning process right we can have long
long plateaus like when I when I stopped
playing chess I felt like I'd lost the
love but I sat for two years with the
question to be clear on whether I was in
a plateau of the love or if I'd lost the
love and then I gained Clarity no no you
you've lost the love and then I was done
never played again never played a chess
game again um so that that factored in
like I I have this
um this it's so interesting how our like
some of the like our our most
powerful
guiding principles or or voices in us
they come from our deepest wounds
right they absolutely do I mean I think
it it's a because I think you know that
this concept of energy is a is a
complicated one and there's no clear
definition anyway but when I think about
energy I don't think about caloric
energy I think of neural energy and I
think about certain neural circuits like
that um like if if you uh like I love
the feeling of um excitement and tension
that then is funneled into a specific
activity that then yield some New Vista
repeat you know it's just that's science
and that's learning the day I realize
that I'll never you know saturate all
the knowledge that I could gather
organize and disseminate through the
podcast I was
like FPS like that's just great because
there's but I realize also that thing we
can saturate ourselves internally we can
drop Drive ourselves to the point of no
replenishment we can you know get so
narrow Focus that's why I think so much
about aperture in time and space we can
get so narrow focused that we we end up
you know like a like a gopher that you
know dug our way into a desert and then
we're like uh or you're just far from
your family or far from home you know
because you just dig dig dig dig dig so
you know I I think uh what is it you
know like Eagle Vision you know um what
I would I think that the DI the diving
birds are probably the the ultimate in
terms of having panoramic Vision do you
know this they have a a horizon viewing
density of cells so they can view the
Horizon and they have a pupil to view
the the fish so that they can dive and
grab the fish despite the the refraction
of the of light under the water because
the fish isn't actually we they see when
people say Eagle Vision uh versus you
know like uh you know what's it what you
know like Predator Vision up close or
something like comant like they so
they're they're like the diving birds
those birds yeah yeah so they're they're
they're flying and they're tracking The
Horizon and they're also tracking things
right below them simultaneously that to
me is the ultimate state to try and
achieve in terms of space and time
tracking that's a beautiful metaphor and
they have to also adjust for right the
refractory and if you've tried like
archery from above water underwater
which I I used to paddle board while
playing with a like while I spear
fishing above water with a bow that
refraction is hard to calculate yeah
diving seabirds are the are the the ones
that really just like they're the
they're the ultimate I'm going to do a
study there I I I I want to learn about
them okay great beautiful yeah I can
send you some literature there love it
the time unit of a day is is what most
people can manage in their minds um
maybe you could return to this like
cycle of uh conscious Focus um stimulus
response and getting out of that you I
love the example of going to take a piss
because everyone does it
um I do think too many people do it
holding a phone yeah oh my god um can't
be good for a number of
reasons um maybe just you walk us
through that so um do you think it's let
me ask a series of short question so
when I wake up in the morning for
instance like many people I'm not I
don't feel immediately alert like I
don't feel like I could just dive into
writing if writing is the most important
thing I need to do that day or or I I
have some transition time do you think
that people should embrace natural
transition times on the time scale of a
day or that they should train themselves
to like you know bounce into effort like
go with the flow or um or Force oneself
through through the door well how I
relate to that personally I've spent a
lot of time thinking about day
architecture well I call it I call day
architecture and and
um and there there's I think there's
some very systematic things we can do
and I think but I think like anything
they should be individualized right I
don't think that everyone should follow
a certain model because we're all very
different one of you know that old book
that Tim actually produced the audio
book um daily rituals oh yeah like one
of the best things about daily rituals
is how few patterns there are through
them it's just I love that book put a
link to it such a good book so good I'm
so glad that Tim Ferris is who we
referring to collected all these habits
of different writers and like some of
them are so quirky and crazy and some
are downright dangerous well he
published the audio book of it right and
I think I I think I told Tim he'll
remind me I think I might have I think I
told Tim about that book like many many
years ago when he did the audio book and
it's so good it's so good but and it
just follows the daily routine it breaks
Downs the daily routine it's like two to
three to four page chapters on like 100
some brilliant artists and scientists
and creators and they're just so Random
how they live some are out partying all
night drugs alcohol caffeine others are
super regimented and monkik it's the
range of daily architectures is is so
vast so I think we need to have like
that awareness and that sense of humor
and humility about it and we can get
systematic and structured at the same
time I think it's important to hold both
of those I mean what you just asked I I
do believe that that that beautiful
period when we first wake up and that
dream state is so powerful and I think
that people almost almost all people
immediately pick up their phone and
start checking messages which just shuts
down one's awareness of what's been
happening beneath the surface all night
so I think that that that's a real lost
opportunity I remember year when I was
11 years old I read this my dad actually
gave me this this Hemingway um essay on
his creative process and there's a one
of my favorite one of the most sometimes
there's like an insanely potent book
that's put together and it's two two
that come to mind are lessons of History
which is the short compilation of Will
and Ariel Durant um two of the greatest
historians whove published tens of
thousands of pages this is a short
compilation of of a handful of thematic
essays it's only like a 100 pages of of
all their life's work boiled down to a
few themes it's unbelievably potent and
Hemingway on writing is another book of
that nature which takes all of
Hemingways from from his from his books
from his letters private letters from
his articles and essays and notebooks
like everything he's written about the
creative process and boils it into this
like short book on his principles of
creativity just unbelievable but before
that book came out I read this piece
this short thing he'd written about the
creative process which was essentially
he'd always leave a sentence Unwritten
he'd end his workday with a sentence
like half written so leaving with a
sense of direction and then he would let
it go you know he would go out drinking
he would do all the things that
Hemingway did and then he would return
to it first thing in the morning and
that like Unwritten sentence it would
become a paragraph and a page in his
mind and it would be a way to hit the
ground running and that's what really
spurred me to start creating this
process in my chess life of always
ending my chess study with something
left like posing my unconscious question
like studying the complexity and then
releasing it which later became and then
tapping into it first thing in the
morning pre- input which later became my
miq process and then I developed team
wide miq processes the teams that I work
with all have versions of the miq that
they utilize as individuals but then as
teams and it's an amazing way to develop
a shared Consciousness in a team to have
everybody be able to tap into the
question that's top of mind for every
member of their team or for a leader to
be able to be aware of what is the most
important question for every one of my
scientists or my analysts or anything
it's a really powerful way to cultivate
shared Consciousness and it becomes our
game tape because if we have an M if
we're tracking our miqs let's say I'm
studying something for three weeks or
for four
weeks um and what do I think is Mo if
I'm tracking the questions that I think
are most critical for that thing and I'm
deepening my analysis of it what I
arrive at what I think in day one will
be very different from the miq in day 14
and then we can study the gap and then
we can set the patterns of the Gap the
gaps and this is what I call miq Gap
analysis so if I'm setting a chess
position like if I play a chess game
against you and it's incredibly complex
um and I don't quite understand this
position and then I do a deep deep
analysis of it what I'll arrive at after
14 or 16 or 18 hours of study will be
different from what I felt during the
game now what's interesting is this is a
cool thing about Chess study if we if my
understanding was here during the chess
game after like a few hours I might be
like really far away from that but after
I've completed the study I'll usually be
like very similar but deeper so it's
often like deeper like closer than where
you were after a few hours of study but
it's like a deeper level in but what's
the gap between that and that between
where I was in the game and what are the
patterns in the gaps and then if you
think about those patterns in the gaps
through those lenses of the technical
the thematic and the
psychological right we deconstruct it in
that way then that becomes our game tape
right one of the hardest things for
mental athletes is to actually have game
tape the way basketball players do or
foilers do or Fighters do where you can
see the actual game tape we need to
create our mental game tape so this is a
way that I it both enhances the creative
process and creates the game tape for
the training process and then studying
the the Gap analysis we do reveals what
we need to to focus our deliberate
practice on this um difference between
physical Endeavors and cognitive
Endeavors I think is so key nowadays
most people are involved in cognitive
Endeavors and there's so much um it's
it's basically like being in a glass
house with with with Windows everywhere
I mean social media texting um Windows
uh internet connection on the computer
there's just so many points of entry and
um where one can become distracted
whereas if you paddle out to Ocean you
know sure you could bring your phone
perhaps but you're you're limited by um
the the environment and the need for
safety of the number of things that you
can think about it's funny I I wore an
Apple Watch training a little bit on the
ocean and it and I it was good for me
cuz I wanted to like align my intuition
on speed with what actually it was
showing and it was good to calibrate
myself but man it I took it off it's so
much better being on the ocean without
technology yeah like being liberated
from it tracking but yeah I'm learning
to turn stuff off while I work um I mean
I I've had to learn to just fight things
back because when I started in science I
mean I didn't have a SmartPhone I didn't
any of that and um yeah one really has
to fight nowadays for their uh freedom
from from these interruptions so it's
something that people really have to
cultivate um so in terms of the the
structure of that day you pose a
question for the day the most important
question would it be like let's say like
I'm working on a revision of this book
um that I delayed release on because I
wanted to add a bunch of things to it so
would one say you know the most
important question is you know how do I
finish this book today or is there I'm
guessing it's more conceptual than that
I think that I think that you can I mean
it's a tool that one can utilize
tactically or strategically right so it
can be like if you're in Creative flow
just leaving yourself with a sense of
direction or it can actually be zooming
out and thinking about like what is the
highest order
question that I that I should that that
I'm grappling with right but I think it
it's like one wants to stretch for the
qu if one is doing the
latter the higher order of strategic
thinking it's like you can think of like
one is stretching for the question that
matters most with the same kind of
intellectual ual or cognitive intensity
that one is experiencing for example
pushing yourself from like 168 to 176 in
cardiovascular interval training right
like you're really stretching mentally
so you need to be at your stretch Point
growth comes at the point of resistance
right so we like but intellectually
we're not used to really feeling when
we're at our stretch point so we're
thinking about a question but that's a
question what's the higher order
question what's the higher order
question what's the question that really
matters and one way to frame it is like
our mind if we're good at something
slices like like a knife through butter
through most most things but then
there's a place we're stuck like those
stuck points are are the miqs those
stuck points are like right like we
don't need to wait we don't need like B
will just get there like oh that's the
thing and then we explore there like
what how do that stretch within that
stuck point and that's usually where
people including myself pivot away I'm
thinking outside of the work domain now
like like H like I don't want to think
about like it's when we tend to I notice
that um there's an infinite amount of uh
distraction of available nowadays if we
want it and you know audio books and
podcasts and I think podcasts are
wonderful but you know they can be a
source of distraction from the critical
question we need to be asking or they
can be a source of answers for perhaps
the critical questions we're we're
asking
but there's just so there's so many of
these opportunities to just look away
from from something that is like a it's
like a emotional infection it's
different than than an infection in your
skin that just nagging because you can
feel it there and you want to get that
thing out right very very Primal
Instinct like get that thing out get the
infection out this is like an emotional
infection that you can just kind of not
see if you CH choose to turn away but
those are the things that really get you
over time that's why we do our cold
water training like that's where we like
we we train at at living on the other
side of pain of enjoying it like that
place that place that like itches like
bounce away from that but that's where
you need to
sit right right but we can practice that
thematically like loving that discomfort
wanting it hunting for it finding the
place where we're stuck and then then
letting it sit and then not bouncing
away from it but just releasing it and
then returning to it and we have
insights right because often in those
moments like where we have our insights
are like when we wake up in the morning
are in those stuck points and and I find
this very interesting I'm sure you've
done this like I I I've I've had I've
done like hundreds of Diagnostics with
people on my teams like where do they
have most of their creative
breakthroughs and so many of them are in
the shower it's really interesting I
think a big part of that is that like
the full body somatic immersion moves
them out of conscious thinking into like
because their their mind is experiencing
and then the release of the conscious
mind allows the unconscious to to run
and then they tap into it first thing in
the morning is when I get my insights or
understanding or when the truth hits me
Square in the face like there's no
avoiding I wake up I think about like
okay that's the thing I got to deal with
and I tend to write it down right away
try not write it down on my phone I
think having a point of capture that
doesn't offer any other dist ractions
dude that's why I'm a big believer in
pen and paper I 100% agree with you and
and like what's so first of all I agree
first thing in the morning that's the
juice and the whole miq process is
geared toward harnessing that like
tapping into that right like feeding the
because that just happened to me so many
dozens of times where I would just have
the Insight in the morning but then I
realized I should be finding the areas
of stuckness and feeding it to myself to
have the insight about so it's like it's
like directing that creative process but
then if we open up our phones like if
the moment we start to see emails
without reading them or see anything
we're unconsciously solving for what's
in the emails yeah it's it's all
stimulus response you're going into stim
I if people can start to think about
being reflective versus in stimulus
response I think that's sort of like the
widest binning of all this um I have to
say the shower I've talked about this
thing about why people have insights in
the shower with my friend I'd love to
introduce you to him at some point we've
been friends since we were 7 years old
my friend Dr Eddie Chang he's a
neurosurgeon and the chair of
neurosurgery at UCSF and he studies
speech and language and he's taken
people with locked in syndrome and
developed AI algorithm so that they can
speak through a screen with their face
moving in real time by decoding human
speech for human uh Speech cortex and a
truly brilliant individual he's been on
this podcast he'll come back again ask
him about the shower thing because he
used to work on neuroplasticity of the
auditory
system we think we wonder if it's the
kind of white noise of the shower as
well yeah because uh Eddie's done
beautiful work showing that it's the
signal to noise in the auditory system
that defines whether or not a certain uh
pattern of speech or or auditory cue
gets remembered so when you have this in
the background let's just put this in
the terms that we've been referring to
this up until now the thoughts that
surface above that noise have a big
sharp Peak relative to the background so
it's the signal to noise whereas
certainly the opposite would be when
you're on your phone and you're
scrolling through and you're looking at
all the thoughts and feelings and and
stuff of other people so how do you
capture your own thoughts in terms of
which are and filter them through what's
meaningful and what's not meaningful is
a is I think a actually really important
question to begin with and white noise
background with
very deprived you know visual
stimulation most showers aren't that
interesting it's white noise blank walls
a few things that are familiar to you so
they basically disappear from your
visual field and the ideas that thoughts
then can that are constantly geysering
up through your unconscious mind can be
captured because everything else is
noise perhaps this is a hypothesis and
uh maybe I'll put you an Edy together
sometime and just be an observer love
that sounds that's powerful yeah so I
mean that's how we learn language it's
the error signals against the background
noise it's all that's just how you fix
stutter it's a it's a you create
background noise you increase noise to
which actually elevates signal in the
auditory system oddly um in any case so
you found that 4 and a half half hours
was The Sweet Spot of a focused work but
for some people it might be an hour they
might need to train up that level of
focus well and if it's four and a half
hours it's not like that's like a lot
the rest of the day is is feeding into
like those being brilliant right so if
it's four and a half hours of creative
output time then there are other periods
where one can do have inputs that feed
it right I think it's very good for
people to have an awareness of what
their energy like what their peaks and
valleys are of their energy throughout
the day and then align their Peak
creativity work with their Peak energy
periods think it's really important to
not be in a constantly reactive State
one of the things I find fascinating is
how people will have meetings scheduled
everywhere and then fit their thinking
between meetings and how liberating it
is for them when they actually know
block out their time for Creative output
time right it might be colorcoded in
their calendar and then have meetings
fit around there um so their day is
driven by their self-expression as
opposed to by a conens of reactivity and
just more and more and more and more
right I think harnessing the undulation
of stress and Recovery throughout the
day is hugely important I think having
workouts throughout the day even micro
workouts during the day meditation
periods during the work day everything
being quality over quantity right we can
get so much more done if and and if you
think about it like I mean you talk
about like Elite performing competitive
teams um it's all about like if you saw
how much video analysis and time that
the Boston Celtics coaching staff puts
into what ends up being like a 35 second
clip that's shown to a player or the
team like it's it's so much work to then
the most potent thing right it's like
when you're an elite because because
like like the players are doing
something so intense right like they
it's all about quality not quantity
they're not training basketball 17 hours
a day they could not possibly play then
or they're they're training brilliantly
for like you know maybe an hour and a
half a day brilliantly but at like with
scientifically right or if they're
compete if they're playing for a two and
a half to three hour game right then
what's the way to optimize for that you
don't stack six hours of training in
before three-hour game no so much of it
is you know bodyw work and setting some
tape and then being primed in the right
way to remember what you're looking at
on tape and then taking breaks and
returning to it and then like
understanding exactly how much load is
in your body and your mind and getting
your sleep right and your nutrition
right and getting everything optimized
and then being a peak performer when
it's on right but we don't have that
discipline as mental beings very often
but we should in our creative process in
our relationships right in the art of
being a mom or a dad or a husband or a
wife or a friend like why wouldn't we be
cultivating ourselves and being
brilliant at that like I really believe
in quality as a way of life that's
another very important principle for me
if we're either practicing sloppiness or
practicing quality if we do something
shitty then we're practicing shitty and
that will just how like we can harness
the like thematic inter connectedness on
the positive side we can also really
harness it brilliantly on the negative
side every time we practice being
sloppiness we're using thematic
interconnectedness to be sloppy in
everything I really believe that so
quality is a way of life is a beautiful
way to practice quality everywhere
because it will manifest
everywhere right not in a way that's
like robotic or constrictive no in a way
that's self-expressive and beautiful
living one's life like a work of art yes
beautiful amen let's do it well clearly
you are
uh I'm in the fight man you're in the
fight and you're setting an incredible
example um and you have your entire life
which is uh remarkable and and so deeply
appreciated I have to say and now I will
reveal this that when I started this
podcast I had a a short list of people
that uh would be kind of like Pinch Me
guest not because I want the guest to
pinch me but like wow like I can't
believe I'm sitting down with blank and
uh you were on that list
I've read the art of learning I've you
know I watched and read everything I
could about your your work and um I did
see the the search for Bobby fiser with
the understanding that that's accurate
about certain things and probably
inaccurate about others so if people
choose to watch that they should keep
that in mind it is Hollywood yep um more
importantly um we've had this chance to
sit down and do this and I I have to say
I I uh I gained so much from your
incredible Precision but also um scope
of observation in the world um because
I'm not a basketball player I don't know
how to play chess and um uh and yet I've
learned so much from you in your
writings and your teachings and just the
chance to sit down here and to learn
from you I I know I'm speaking on behalf
of myself and and literally millions of
people I just want to say thank you for
living your life like a work of art and
for uh
incorporating you know public
education which is what we're doing here
uh into this set of Pursuits that you
know you've been after one after the
other after the other but that are bound
by this uh set of core themes so without
getting too abstract I just want to say
thank you so much for coming here for
educating us for making us think I know
it's going to change people's thoughts
and behavior for the better and the only
question left is to say uh would you
please come back and talk to us again
more absolutely man thank you for what
you've just said it's it's an honor and
I and i' I've learned so much from this
this jam it feels like the beginning of
a beautiful friendship so just the
beginning I feel the same way I look
forward to thank you man thank you thank
you for joining me for today's
discussion with Josh whiteskin to learn
more about Josh's work and to find a
link to his book The Art of learning
which by the way I highly recommend
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