Why Brutal Honesty Is The Secret To Living A Happier, More Authentic Life | Mark Manson

What if the path to happiness isn’t positivity, but honest reflection? Mark Manson, the bestselling author of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,” joins me to talk about why accepting life’s imperfections is the secret to true growth. Mark recounts his journey through fame, burnout, and a health crisis that forced him to confront the unhealthy beliefs he’d accepted about himself. In this episode, we discuss: The Impact of Success on Mental Health Self-Help Myths Growth Through Embracing Discomfort The Role of Scarcity in Creating Meaning The Role of Feedback in Self-Improvement Redefining Happiness and Success Tune in for a refreshingly real look at self-improvement, mental health, and the power of embracing the uncomfortable truths. View Show Notes From This Episode Get Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hyman Sign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journal Which diet really gives you the best shot at optimal health? On Wednesday December 4th, Mark Hyman, MD will answer that question during The Diet Wars, a LIVE digital experience. Joined by Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, they’ll break down the science, debunk the myths, and share their expert perspectives to help you make the best choices for your health. Find out more and get tickets now at https://www.moment.co/markhyman This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health, ButcherBox, BIOptimizers, and Beekeeper’s Naturals. Streamline your lab orders with Rupa Health. Access more than 3,500 specialty lab tests and register for a FREE live demo at RupaHealth.com. ButcherBox is giving new members two pounds of ground beef for FREE in every box. Visit ButcherBox.com/Farmacy and use code FARMACY. During November, BIOptimizers is offering $100 with of free gifts with purchase at Bioptimizers.com/Hyman with code Hyman10. Head to BeekeepersNaturals.com/HYMAN and use the code ‘HYMAN’ to get 20% off sitewide.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  And I think this is a problem with a lot of people who are very unhealthy. My idea of like a healthy meal was just anything with a vegetable in it. You know, when I drank tonight, I only had two drinks instead of five, so that's healthy. So like, so you know, it's just like your definition.

• 0:17Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I only had like half a pizza instead of a whole pizza.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 0:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone via my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at this scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function Health for real-time lab insights. If you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, Hyman Hive. And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your routine, visit my website, Supplement Store, for a summary of my favorite and tested products.

• 0:59Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Hey, everyone, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. Everyone wanted to ask me your health and wellness questions directly. Well, here's your chance. I have an exciting exclusive event coming up that you could be part of as a thank you for being a loyal listener on The Doctor's Pharmacy. On Wednesday, December 4th, I'm hosting a live digital experience called The Diet Wars, and I want you to join me. I'll be chatting with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, a board-certified family doc and New York Times bestselling author, as we tackle one of the biggest wellness questions out there. Which diet really gives you the best shot at optimal health? Should you be a vegan? Should you be a carnivore? Or somewhere in between? From paleo to vegan to carnivore and GLP-1s, we'll break down the science, debunk the myths, and share our expert perspectives to help you make the best choices for your health.

• 1:42Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And here's the best part, you'll be able to interact with me and chat with our amazing community in real time during the event. Plus, if you're a VIP ticket holder, you'll get to join an exclusive Q and A after-party where you can ask us all your questions directly. The Diet Wars is a one-time-only experience that you don't want to miss, including limited edition merch. It's all happening live on Moment by Patreon, so mark your calendars for Wednesday, December 4th, at 9:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Pacific, and head over to moment.co/markhyman to get your tickets. I can't wait to see you there.

• 2:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Welcome to Doctor's Pharmacy. This is Dr. Mark Hyman, a place for conversations that matter. And if you care about living a good life and maybe learning why some of the self-help material out there is not so helpful in a counterintuitive approach, you're going to love this conversation with an extraordinary man, my friend and author, Mark Manson, who is a three times New York Times number one bestselling author. His most well-known work is called, and I'm not saying this to just say profanity, but it's actually the title of the book, is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life. He reached number one in 14 different countries. His books have been translated into over 65 languages, sold over 20 million copies, which is no

• 3:05Dr. Mark Hyman?

  small feat as an author. He runs one of the largest personal growth websites in the world, markmanson.net, and a blog with more than 15 million yearly readers and half a million subscribers. And he's just an awesome dude. His writing is often described as self-help for people who hate self-help. A no BS brand of life advice and cultural commentary that struck a chord with people around the globe. His writing has appeared everywhere, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Forbes, BBC, CNN, Vox, and so many others. And he's become a good friend. We're going to talk about his life story and what happened and some of the interesting things that we discussed today in terms of what are the five simple ideas to change your life. We're going to get into those. We're going to get

• 3:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  into the work that he's done around rethinking our approach to self-help. And we're going to get into some great personal and intimate conversations about my life and his life. I think you're going to love this conversation. So let's dive right into this podcast with Mark Manson. Hey, Mark, it's so great to have you on the Doctor's Pharmacy Podcast and see you again. It's been a while and you've gone through some massive life changes. Pretty amazing. And you know, for those of you who don't know Mark, he kind of at 32 hit this wild success point, writing this book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, which stirred up a lot of controversy. It was hard to get published with that title.

• 4:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I actually wanted to read, write a book called What the Fuck Should I Eat? But they, they wouldn't let me. They made me call it What the Heck Should I Eat? So the whole premise of your work has really been sort of contrary to a lot of what generally has been out there around self-development, self-help, what we believe about ourselves, how we live our lives, how we think about creating a vision for our lives. And, and it's really, you know, I just try to understand the origins of this because, you know, looking back to your history, you were a young kid, you were kind of struggling, you kind of had a blog, you were learning how to kind of deal with women and, you know, part of this whole pick-up artist scene. That was kind of, is kind of a strange scene.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 5:15Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and, you know, you kind of morphed into kind of an awakening that allowed you to kind of think about how to be happy without focusing on being happy or something like that.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Well, the way I would, if I had to, if I had to give an elevator pitch for my philosophy or my work, it would essentially be that I felt very strongly, say 15 years ago, that the personal development, self-help industry over-indexed for positivity. It was all about feeling good all the time.

• 5:48Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  And I think it began the mistake that feeling good meant you were feeling better. Whereas you can easily delude yourself into feeling good when you're actually not better, you're actually worse. And so I, I strongly believe, and I've strongly felt my entire life, that getting better means getting more honest, getting more honest about yourself, getting more honest about the world, getting more honest about your relationships. And getting honest is not always, does not always feel good.

• 6:16Dr. Mark Hyman?

  No, it's not always easy.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  It's not always easy. In the short term, it, it often hurts. But in the long term, it makes both you, other people, and everybody better. So that's like the crux of my philosophy.

• 6:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Don't lie to yourself for others.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, just don't, don't, just try, don't lie to yourself.

• 6:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  And, um, you know, I, I think I have a line in one of my books that it's like self-improvement is just like a constant process of lying to yourself less.

• 6:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  And, um, and we all lie to ourselves. We all bullshit ourselves. We all, you know, buy into beliefs and stories that make ourselves feel better. Like, it's just human nature. It's part of it. And, um, so I, I kind of see, I'm like on this constant crusade.

• 7:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Not lie.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  To fight, fight that back, yeah.

• 7:02Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, what you're saying is so important. It's so true. And, and, and the most pernicious lies are the ones we tell to ourselves.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The fact that we can't look honestly at ourselves, look in the mirror at our behaviors, our choices, that our thinking, not question our thoughts. I mean, it's, it's really remarkable how locked into lying our society is. It's just a continuous parade of lies to ourselves and others without, without realizing the consequences to our happiness and our well being.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:32Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, I have a friend, Lauren Xander, who's basically is a, is a life coach, started the Hendel Group, and she really helped me kind of stop being a liar.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  It's hard.

• 7:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's really freaking hard.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's the, I think it was the Nobel Prize winning psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, he said, he said, as a species, we did not evolve to perceive truth. We evolved to perceive what helped us survive.

• 7:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  And, and so on a very fundamental basis, our brain lies to us.

• 7:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  Because it's, it helps us survive and reproduce. So it's, but it's, it doesn't make us psychologically healthy.

• 8:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  No.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  So.

• 8:08Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, it's interesting, I, I've been kind of reading this book, which is literally the opposite of what you're talking about. It's called 48 Rules of Power, which is basically looking historically at, you know, societies and cultures that have, you know, had to deal with intrigue and courtesies and hierarchy and monarchies and currying favor and, you know, rising up in the ranks. And it's, it's from Machiavelli to, you know, who knows who. And it's, it's fascinating because, you know, there, there is something to be said for understanding human nature and how to work with human nature. And the book's not about power over people. It's about how to not be powerless in your life and understand how people and humans actually engage most of the time. But, you know, one of the things that it struck me when I first met you was a story

• 8:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  that your wife told when I said, so how did you guys meet? How did you fall in love? What's your story? You know, we had dinner in New York and Fernando, your wife was, was, you call her Fay, I guess, was, was, said something really striking to me. She says, well, he was like the first honest man I'd ever met. And and he was honest when he was honest with me, it was what I didn't want to hear. It was something that I was like, you know, I wanted to hang out and be together. And he was like, I'm out of here. I'm in New York and I don't, this is my life and I'm not sure. And like, we'll see how it goes.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I was like, wow, you know, that's sexy.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, and and that's, that's, it's a very different tack than we normally take. Like the whole pick up artist thing is the opposite that has.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's more Machiavellian. How do you kind of contort yourself and shape yourself into somebody or something? And the way you look and the way you speak and how you talk to people to get what you want out of somebody, right?

• 9:46Speaker 01

  That's, there's actually, yeah, there's a really nice connection between all those things because the, the pick up artist community, industry, it optimizes for power and optimizing for power means you're not optimizing for healthy relationships and you're not optimizing for happiness. And and you're often being dishonest in the process, whereas, you know, my belief very fundamentally in that industry, I just felt very disgusted by the whole thing. And I was like, you know, that being honest, maybe it doesn't always get you the girl you want.

• 10:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  But the ones you get, you end up being so much happier with them.

• 10:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  And it ends up being such a better relationship.

• 10:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  And you actually are compatible with each other and she actually understands you and you actually understand her.

• 10:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  But, you know, going through that process, it isn't always pleasant. The example, the example I often use in talks is is that it's, you know, when I started dating my wife, you know, like most women, she would, we'd be going out for a date night or whatever, and she put on an outfit and she'd walk out and she'd be like, how do I look?

• 10:48Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And you're like, you don't look good in that outfit.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Exactly. I would like, I would tell her that and she would get so pissed off and.

• 10:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But don't ask me.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  But, but, but it's, but it's funny because it's, you know, early in our relationship, she really hated that.

• 11:03Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  And she was like, why, why do you have to like, can't you just lie and say like, I look great? And I was, I was like, no, I'm not going to do that. But now it's, if she walks out and we're about to go out and she looks amazing, and I tell her, you look amazing tonight. You're absolutely gorgeous. She knows I'm being honest. She knows I'm not bullshitting her, right? And so it's like that compliment hits, you know, 10 times as hard. And so I just think that like, that's just a fundamental aspect of life that like, you can't really fully appreciate or enjoy the good things in life without. Being honest and, and open to the bad things.

• 11:37Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I think it's, it's, we're often afraid of the outcome. I know for me, you know, as a kid and my stepfather was a rageaholic. I mean, I, I, the story, I don't know if I've told this on the podcast, I might have, but I was like, my mother married, my stepfather moved to Canada, I was seven years old and he was like a clean freak. And it back in those days in the sixties, I'm really old, sorry. We didn't have those kitchen sink, you know, you know, garburators or whatever you call them, disposals. And, and so I had to throw out some like soup and the way we would do it is like throw it down the toilet. And my mom said, go take this pot of whatever leftover soup and throw it down the toilet. And so I went in there and I threw it down the toilet, I flushed the toilet, I came out, he was standing there, he was like, big barrel chested guy, booming voice, he's like,

• 12:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  did you wash your hands? And I'm like, no. Cause I didn't go to the bathroom. And he went into a rage and he like threw me against the wall, like literally threw me across the room, like, like almost like a football, smashed against the wall.

• 12:37Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It was the most terrifying experience, a little seven year old kid, I was really little, I'm not, I'm like six foot three now, but I was like a little shrimpy kid. And, and then my mother, sort of in order to keep the peace, would always say to me, don't tell your father this. Don't tell your, and my grandmother would do it, just like, I gave you five dollars, don't tell your mother I gave you five dollars, like, so it was like this embedded thing growing up in order, in order to manage people's emotions and not have to deal with the effects on you. In other words, their reaction, which you can't control.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Don't tell them the truth, manipulate them to try to keep the peace. And I became a people pleaser, which is a liar, basically.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely.

• 13:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's just being a liar. Oh, I'm a nice guy, I'm helping everybody, I'm saying yes. I'm like, no, I'm just, I'm just a liar to myself, because I don't want to do this frigging thing. I'm a liar to whoever I'm talking to. And, and it was really, you know, embedded in, in sort of who I was and, and learning, unlearning that was not easy.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:37Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and for you, I'm wondering, how did you get that epiphany where you were like, this isn't the way to go? Like, cause you went from basically being trained in how to lie.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  By one culture to like flipping to going.

• 13:51Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I'm gonna be involved in medical honesty.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting because I think my childhood was kind of the inversion of yours. I grew up in a dysfunctional family of people pleasers, so.

• 14:02Dr. Mark Hyman?

  People pleasers?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Yes, so both of my parents are extremely non-confrontational. Both my parents are people pleasers. And there would be situations in my house when I was a kid where it was like, clearly mom is pissed off at dad and clearly dad can't stand mom, but nobody's saying anything. Everybody's just smiling.

• 14:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And you can smell it in the air.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Everybody's smiling and pretending everything's okay. And the amount of tension and discomfort that there was. And so I became, and this is, my dad has told me this much later, but you know, I became the truth-sayer in the family. So I would be the one in the family who'd walk into the room and be like.

• 14:39Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You had a little shit disturber.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was like, why are you mad? Like, why are you mad at her?

• 14:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I'm not mad.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  I'm not mad, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm like, no, clearly you're mad, you're not talking to her. You know, so I would be the one who'd stir up all the shit. And I think, you know, as a kid, I was trying to adapt to my family, like keep my family together and functioning.

• 14:59Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah. It's existential, because if you're a kid and, you know, your survival depends on these two grownups and they're a shit show.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Who are burying their heads in the sand and ignoring everything, you know? So it was a survival mechanism, but I think it has served me well. I mean, essentially, my career is being that truth-sayer of being like, you know, going into the pickup industry and being like, hey, guys, you're a bunch of manipulative fucks, like you need to be honest. Like, not only is this like questionably unethical, but like, if you want to ever have a happy, healthy relationship and not be a raging misogynist, like you need to start being honest with women.

• 15:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  And I went to the self-help industry, I'm like, guys, you can't, it's not gonna be unicorns and rainbows all the time. Like, I don't care how many meditations you do or like.

• 15:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The amount of shit you say.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, how much you fucking microdose, like, life's gonna suck sometimes and we should actually be honest about that. And.

• 15:51Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Even in the full lotus position.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's still, it's still fucking sucks. So, you know, it's like, that's essentially what I get paid for.

• 16:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But, you know, the truth is that like, life for all of us has its moments.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:05Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Ups and downs, joys, peaks and valleys. And you're not saying it's not about having all of that. You're just saying like, just don't pretend that everything is perfect all the time and deny yourself the experience of reality, which actually is. Kind of better. I had, I had a friend once when I was, I was in college and we were walking along in this beautiful country road and she says, Mark, sometimes you're happy and the rest of the time you're growing.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  That's a nice way to put it.

• 16:32Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I'm like, oh.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And you know, the, the lying thing is so key. I, I, I really did that consciously and unconsciously in all my relationships until the last one. And literally the first, I, I was so committed after, you know, my last divorce to kind of really get honest. And when I met my current wife, I literally, day one, I just said everything. I'm like, here's what I am. Here's what I got. Here's what I own, God. Here's what's working. Here's what's not working. Here's what I'm like, here's my crazies. Here's my family. Here's like, all the skeletons. Like, this is just what it is.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Here it all is. Take it or leave it.

• 17:02Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, and good thing is she stuck around.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and she knows that I'm, I'm straight. And it's, it's a, it's such a relief because I don't have to pretend anything.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Well, the way, the way I talked about it in my dating book is I said that it, what it does is it polarizes responses. So what most people do when they date is they try to be middle of the road in everything. They try to not, never have a controversial opinion because they want everybody they date to like them. But because they don't have anything that stands out or that is any, like, is exceptional or unique about them, they, they don't develop strong attraction with anybody that they go out with. Whereas when you introduce honesty, like you did with your current wife, and you lay everything out on the table.

• 17:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And it's vulnerable.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  It's completely vulnerable. And what you do is you polarize the reactions. So a certain percentage of women are going to look at what you laid out on the table and they're like, ooh, that's not.

• 17:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I'm out of here.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  That's not for me.

• 17:54Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I'm out of here.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Thanks, but no thanks. And, but a small percentage of women are going to be like, oh, wow. No, this is exactly what I want. And then, and so then the attraction actually becomes so much stronger and, and it's a very authentic attraction. You're not, you're not trying to, there's no gamesmanship. There's no one-upping. There's no, you know, people pleasing.

• 18:14Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah. So, so you kind of recognized this in, in your late twenties and you kind of, kind of woke up to kind of the bullshit that you were living in your life. And, um, and you started to kind of just write this blog and it kind of took off. And, and a lot of people resonated with this message, which was sort of counterintuitive.

• 18:37Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But you've been extremely successful doing it and have helped a lot of people think differently about how to look at, you know, making their lives better in a kind of a contrary way. I kind of followed your trajectory and, you know, being young and having that much success can kind of fuck with your head a little bit.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 18:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And you went to a period of burnout. You kind of had this kind of meteoric rise. Everybody on the planet was reading your book. I was actually very mad because I would walk into every airport and see it everywhere. And when I was writing my, you know, 15 New York Times bestsellers, like just struggling to get them to get stay on the list. And I'm like, what's going on with this guy? And then, and yet, there was a dark side to it for you.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 19:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, you know, you got unhealthy. You weren't taking care of yourself. You were living a life that, you know, wasn't actually what you wanted. And I wonder kind of what it took for you to kind of look at yourself and see where you were kind of asleep and maybe even sort of lying to yourself about what was going on.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. So there's, there's two aspects to this. There's kind of like the professional side of it. And then there's like the, the health side of it.

• 19:46Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  I'll start with the professional, we can go into the.

• 19:48Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, I want to get to the health side.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  So, because they are very related. So on the professional side, I think it was just too much, too fast. You know, like I think our, the way our brains seem to function is like, we, we tend to feel best, like, I think most people, if they get a 10% raise each year, you know, they're like, oh, that was a good year, you know? And if it's 20% or 25%, like, wow, this is a really good year.

• 20:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You went from living your mom's house to being in a penthouse in New York.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Right. And when it, when it's 10,000% in one year, your, your brain just kind of explodes. Like, you don't really know. It, it, it takes, it takes multiple years for your brain, your identity to catch up to the reality of like, okay, this has happened. And I think the result is a lot of things, you know, like imposter syndrome.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Insecurity, um, you know, I, I definitely kind of felt like, okay, this, this thing just really took off like a rocket. I don't totally understand why this might be my 15 minutes. So let me, let me just say yes to everything because I'm young. I don't have kids, like, what else am I gonna do? So I did say yes to everything and, and I ended up burning myself out. I ended up doing a lot of things that like I didn't totally love doing.

• 21:03Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So you were lying and you were saying yes and you meant no.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Exactly. I, I did not, I was not aware of my, it, it's ironic because all these things are in the book itself. I lost sight of my own values and what I cared about.

• 21:16Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  And I didn't know what to not give a fuck about. And, uh, and so I started saying yes to everything. I started people pleasing within the industry.

• 21:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Giving a fuck.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  I started giving too many fucks and, uh, and, and it got me into a lot of trouble. So like, that was kind of the, the professional side and, and I burnt myself out and I, I ended up reaching a point where I'm like, you know what? I really just need to like, stop everything for a while and like, get back in touch with myself and what I want to do and what I enjoy doing and what I care about. So that, that was kind of a wild ride professionally. On kind of like a personal side and a health side.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  I think what, you know, there, there's this question that people ask all the time is like, does money change you? And I don't, I don't think money changes you. What, what money does is it, it takes the, the guardrails off who you already are. So if you have, if you have self-destructive tendencies, but you're, you're kind of broke or you depend on a corporate job and you need to make your boss happy. Like those are guardrails that kind of like maybe.

• 22:18Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Keep you a little bit in line because it's, it's, there's like really bad repercussions if you, if you get out of line. Soon as a bunch of money falls on you, it's like those guardrails are gone.

• 22:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  You can kind of do whatever you want. I had a lot of bad habits, bad lifestyle habits, some self-destructive tendencies. And it like.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  The guardrails were gone. And so I got, started going out all the time, ate all the things, drank almost all the time, traveled way too much, partied way too much. And like, don't get me wrong, some of that, I don't, there's a certain amount of that I don't regret. But I think the thing was is that I lost control and back to the lying thing, I was lying to myself about not being in control about it. So I became extremely unhealthy and I actually hit a point, I was writing two books in 2018, was it 2018? Yeah, 2018, I was writing two books simultaneously.

• 23:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Everything's Fucked and the Will Smith book?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, which I don't ever recommend doing.

• 23:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Doing two books at once or writing somebody else's book?

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Doing two books at once. And I had speaking tours, I was just like overloaded, I was incredibly unhealthy, I gained a ton of weight, I was drinking all the time. And I was sitting in my office writing one day and I started getting chest pains. And my family has a long history of heart disease.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  And so I was like, I'm 35, I can't be having, like this can't be happening now.

• 23:51Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Can't be having a heart attack.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm like, this is too early, like this is too soon. And so I went to some doctors, I got tests, you know, it turned out everything was fine. But, you know, the doctor, being a good doctor, was like, you know, have you been stressed lately? Like, what are your lifestyle habits like? And he kind of just gave me a wake up call. Like, he was like, you know, this, the trajectory you're on is like not a good one, right? Especially given your family history.

• 24:15Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  And so I had a little bit of a wake up call around my health and

• 24:25Speaker 01

  and realizing that like, I need to get this shit figured out. Cause it's like, there is a lot of stuff in my family. I ended up doing like a Genetic test discovered I have hemochromatosis. I have a double E4 gene.

• 24:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Oh.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  The APOE.

• 24:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  E4, that's Alzheimer's risk gene.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's like.

• 24:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And hemochromatosis is where you store too much iron. It can over time just basically cause all your organs to rust. So it's not a good thing.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  No, no, not it's not. And then all, you know, at that point I got, I got a bunch of blood work done as well. You know, I was like prediabetic. I was like massively overweight. I think I was like 42% body fat or something like that.

• 25:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Men should be 10 to 20.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:09Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So. Just for those listening.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was, I was a train wreck. And so that, that started a long, a long process of kind of like getting my, my shit together healthwise.

• 25:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And what was that like for you? Because all of a sudden you kind of, you know, had a set of beliefs you had to change, you know?

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And changing beliefs is not hard. And then part of your work is really about how do we look at our beliefs?

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:33Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and see where they're leading us. Cause our beliefs are the things that make us make the choices we make.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:39Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And believe it and do the things we do and act the way we act. And they're often interrupted, interrupting the values we have.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Like, so. Totally.

• 25:46Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Our beliefs and values don't always kind of align.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  It, it, the hardest part was not only did I have, I guess, bad beliefs or inaccurate beliefs around health. It was, I was also unaware of how bad or inaccurate my beliefs were. So, and I think this is something that like.

• 26:03Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You could have called me, Mark.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  I, I should have, well, I didn't know you at that point, but in hindsight I should have. I think looking back, and I think this is a problem with a lot of people who are very unhealthy and that they struggle with to, to get, to get healthy is that like their baseline understanding of what is healthy is just completely skewed or off, right? So it's like my idea of like a healthy meal was just anything with a vegetable in it. You know, like in my head, I was like, well, I ate a salad for dinner, even though that, that salad had probably 1,500 calories, right? You know, but in my head, I didn't understand anything about calories. I didn't understand anything about macros. All I understood was I ate a salad, so that's healthy. And, uh, you know, when I drank tonight, I only had two drinks instead of five, so that's healthy.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  So like, so you know, it's just like your definition.

• 26:53Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Like half a pizza instead of a whole pizza.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. So it's, it's, it, a lot of it is just like a very skewed.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Expectation of like, or understanding of like, just what is healthy in the first place.

• 27:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  And it's, and it's hard to, you know, like, I grew up in Texas. I grew up.

• 27:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Bubba's and barbecue?

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Bubba's and barbecue, fast food every other night. Like, you know, so in my head, I'm like, looking at the people I grew up with and the people in my family. I'm like, well, I'm healthier than that person. Like.

• 27:22Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Well, that person was only 450 pounds. I'm like, only 350, so I must be good.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  It's exactly, that's exactly what it is, right? And it's, and it was the same with the drinking too. It's like, well, you know, my friend over there is like face down in a ditch and I'm still like standing upright. So I must, I'm like, I'm not that bad, right? So a lot of it is just like, what is your reference point? And my reference points were so bad that I, again, I lied to myself. It made it easy to lie to myself and be like, well, I'm being healthy, right?

• 27:54Speaker 01

  So I, you know, initially I, I kinda like, I did like the half-assed, uneducated version of getting in shape. You know, I started going to the gym, started eating 1500 calorie salads, started having three drinks instead of five.

• 28:08Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  You know, and that, I lost like five or 10 pounds or whatever, but like, and then I plateaued and I got stuck. And of course I like felt completely lost and like,

• 28:16Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  I don't understand. Why am I, like, why am I not losing more weight? I'm being healthy. So there was, there was definitely a, there was, there was, early on, there, there needed to be like an education process.

• 28:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  In terms of just getting good reference points.

• 28:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And how did you get there?

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Uh, I eventually, so a, a friend of mine, actually a friend of a friend was, is a health coach. And so I should, they connected me to him and he just, I mean, he, he just told me the blatantly obvious, which is, you know, he'd be like, so, you know, take me through your weekend. What did you, what did you do? What did you eat? What did you drink? You know, and I went through everything and he was like, okay, well, yeah, that's not health. Like, what was on the salad? Yeah, that's not healthy, dude. Like, that's not a healthy, that's not a healthy meal. You know, so he kinda set me straight with that. The other thing he did is, which was huge, was he got me tracking.

• 29:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, sure.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  And, and it's. Coming back to lying thing.

• 29:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right, like can't lie, it's all I ate 14 cookies from the.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, yeah, you're like, well, this has protein. I think it's healthy, you know? And then you load it into your macro tracker and you're like, oh, my God, what did I do? You know, so, um, so tracking was, was a huge.

• 29:27Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Support, tracking, accountability, getting basic, basic fundamental knowledge that you might not have had. You think, you know, you know, most of us, you know, you're educated, you went to college, you think.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It should be kind of common, common sense and common knowledge, but most people have no clue about what it takes to create health.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  It is, I mean, I don't envy you in your industry because the, the, I think the, the message that gets to people ends up so skewed. Like, I think the, the message that gets to people is like, I gotta do this crazy diet. I gotta like, you know, work out six times a week. I gotta like, you know, hire all these people and do all these things. And it's actually, there's just some like very fundamental, basic things that if you, if you do them every single day.

• 30:09Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Disconsistency, yeah.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that it kind of like 80% of it takes care of itself and.

• 30:15Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And you lost 65 pounds, so.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was, it was, that was over five years, so it was fits and starts and, you know.

• 30:22Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And no Zempic, so that's.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  And rebounds and then, you know, back again and.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  The thing I tell people, because, you know, people always ask me, they're like, oh, what did you do? As if I did one thing and it, I will say that the, the struggle, the biggest struggle is the mental side. It's, it's the knowing when I was bullshitting myself, knowing when I was deluding myself.

• 30:48Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Hmm.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Knowing, uh, you know, knowing when I was cutting corners and being honest with myself about that. And then trying to understand why I was doing those things, like, why was I lying to myself so I could eat more pizza?

• 31:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And do you have a process for that? Cause you know, most of us have extremely thick armor against.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Being able to kind of have insight about our own behavior, our own lies and our own self deceptions. It's, it's very hard to kind of turn the mirror on yourself.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:17Dr. Mark Hyman?

  How, how did you do that?

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Again, accountability is huge, you know, having some sort of coach or trainer.

• 31:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Electric shock collar.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Shock collar, partner, you know, it's, I gotta give credit to my wife, like, she's much better about the food side of things than I am. And there are many, many times where she was like, you realize that's not healthy, right? You know, and I'm like, ah, come on, it's got some green in it, like, you know, it.

• 31:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's mint chocolate chip ice cream, it's green.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  It's green, there must be a vegetable, mint's a vegetable, right? So like, you know, and then, then I'd load it up into the tracker and, you know, it, it's way more about systems than it is willpower. Like, if you're relying on willpower, you're just kind of fucked, because willpower is, it's very finite and it comes and goes. And, uh, but if you have the systems in place, you know, it's like, if you're, if the only groceries that are showing up to the house are like, good ingredients, right? Like, if the, the meals that you have planned for the week are, like, the macros are already counted before you plan them.

• 32:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You just make it hard to make a mistake, because you're, you change your environment.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. You just, you, you just put like, you know, you just put like, kids gloves on everything, like, just make it make it so easy a five-year-old could do it. That's.

• 32:32Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, I think it's actually, I, I, I wrote a book called The 10 Day Detox that in there, I talked about how behavior change happens. And part of it is, you know, really focusing on changing your default environment. So house has to be a safe zone. Like, the other night, I had a lot of stress happen and something was like, really a big deal. And I was like, I want to pint of ice cream right now. And I'm like, in this, and there was no ice cream in the freezer.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I'm like, oh, I don't know what to, or I went to order it online. And then it said, you had to order a salt and straw, you had to order five pints of ice cream. And I'm like, no, I'm not gonna do it.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Not worth it, not worth it.

• 33:10Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But like, if the home was a safe zone, you know, and you have your workout equipment, you have your tennis shoes, whatever, like,

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 33:16Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You make it so that it's, it's automatic. I think that's really important. But the, you know, the, the bigger issue really is, is, is the sort of, I always say to my patients, not what are you eating, it's what's eating you. So, you know, what was driving you to that behavior? And how did you tackle that demon? Because that's the mental part.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:30Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, because I went to eat, exercise, I mean, that, that, you know. Despite all the nutrition controversies and all the sort of diet books, it's pretty basic what works.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I can diet as a doctor for years.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 33:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Eat real food. Move your body.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Move your body.

• 33:46Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Get enough sleep.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Know how to relax, don't panic. All works out.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  I noticed, so, and I'm glad you asked that because this, you know, it took probably two or three years into this process for me to even get to the point where I could like reasonably have an answer to that question. Because it was, I think what I didn't appreciate is that how unconscious, like food is such a primal thing. And it's like such an unconsciously driven thing. Like, I never stopped, my whole life, I never stopped and thought like, why do I crave pizza right now? Or like, why do I, you know, want to have a drink? And what I noticed is that the two, the two big drivers for me were anxiety and boredom.

• 34:27Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Hmm.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  That I tended to eat junk or drink if I was bored, or I would eat junk or drink if I was anxious about something and worried about something.

• 34:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  And the, the anxiety was actually kind of the easier thing to deal with. You know, once I was aware of it, I could like kind of channel it a little bit better. The boredom was, was actually harder for me because that started to get into social life and identity. I realized that a lot of my social life was built around food and alcohol.

• 35:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  And to decouple that meant I had to give up a significant part of my social life, which meant that like, I didn't see certain friends as often. I, you know, I, I, I very much, I took a lot of pride, I kind of had the identity of like the party guy. You know, if you invited me to the wedding, I'd be the first on the dance floor and the last one off, and it's because I was fucking drunk. And, and like, when I stopped drinking, I was like, I had to give that up. I'm like, okay, I'm not the party guy. I'm not going to be the guy who closes the bar with you every night. Like, I'm, I'm, I'm the guy who's going to go home at 10:30 because he's tired.

• 35:37Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  And that sucked. Like, that, that was, there was a little bit of an ego.

• 35:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Death sort of thing that had to happen there. So the boredom was actually a much harder solve for me.

• 35:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, because it's like you're, you're filling empty space that, you know, where you have to be with yourself.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:52Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and, and.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Well, it made me realize too, Mark, that like. Like this was, this like fucking hurt when I realized it. So I was like, you know, if I need to eat and get drunk with this person to have fun, then I don't like this person.

• 36:08Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Like, they're not actually my friend.

• 36:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's true.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Like, that was very upsetting to realize.

• 36:16Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And it's really true. It's like, you know, because you're only as healthy as the five healthiest, of five friends you're hanging out with the most, right?

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 36:22Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I think, you know, what are their behaviors? What are their habits? So I was at a wedding, for example, this weekend, and there was no alcohol. It was an alcohol-free wedding.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And the food was amazing. And there was yoga classes, and we danced, and we played, and we did all kinds of great stuff. But it, you know, it didn't require us to kind of rely on all that stuff to actually have an extraordinary time.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  We had like cake contests.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And all kinds of fun, you know, things that people engaged in that were really beautiful, that were bonding, that weren't about being checked out, or zoned out, or drunk.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Or fucked up.

• 36:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Or fucked up, right? And, and, and I think, you know, so for example, you could have, you know, a dinner party at your house where you control the food, where there's no alcohol, where, you know, you have a different experience. So I think there's ways for people to kind of still kind of have the things that they care about, right?

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The social connections. And I say, well, you know, I can't go out. But maybe, you know, being in a bar every night is not, is not going to end up well for you in your life.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  It's, it is true. But I will say that that transition, that was one of the most difficult things. It's interesting. I did a YouTube video a couple of years ago about quitting drinking, because I

• 37:31Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Did you completely quit?

• 37:32Speaker 01

  I completely quit. I originally quit as part of the weight loss.

• 37:35Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  You know, I was just going to do a couple of months to lose some extra pounds. And it was such a profound shift, mentally, emotionally, physically, that I just kept going. And I haven't, I now wonder if maybe I was like a highly functional alcoholic for a number of years. I don't, I don't know the answer to that question. But I did, I did a YouTube video maybe a year ago about quitting. And, you know, it went viral and got a few million views. And the most common comment was from people saying, was from former alcoholics saying, "I quit drinking. It's the best thing I ever did." I I've I still have not found a social life outside of it like it's the it's the one

• 38:20Speaker 01

  thing I miss is like I used to have all these friends I used to go out with them all the time I'd go to the bar I knew half the people there and they don't know it's very hard to recreate that outside of it and I part of it for me too that I've noticed is that like my my person without alcohol my personality is different I'm much more introverted I my interests are narrower which was completely like a total curveball completely unexpected it actually caused marriage problems

• 38:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Really

• 38:50Speaker 01

  because I stopped enjoying things that I used to enjoy that had nothing to do with alcohol and I became interested in other things so we used to go to a lot of shows and I kinda

• 39:01Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You like concerts or

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Shows concerts plays musicals and I kinda realized

• 39:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You didn't like them unless you were drunk

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Yeah I was like I think I I think I used to just go have a couple whiskies and and think I liked it you know or I'm much more into like physical activity now and and like I don't really enjoy sitting around and watching a TV show binging a TV show like the way I used to and you know so it's just like yeah it just it it disrupts

• 39:35Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You just have to recreate though I mean you have to recreate that because there's fans who you want to do fun stuff with like go on a ski trip or

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Hundred percent

• 39:42Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Go hiking or go play pickleball or which is a big thing in Austin

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Yeah yeah it's everywhere but I guess I guess what I'm doing I I'm just putting out a PSA to people like this is an unexpected thing that happened like this was actually a very unexpected challenge related to this

• 39:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah

• 39:59Speaker 01

  To to the health journey

• 40:01Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah because you do if you if you drop the friends and the people who are actually harming you in your life by you know kind of encouraging to engaging behaviors that let's go eat that sheet cake for tonight and watch those you know six hours of Netflix that's not exactly good for you and it and it does leave a gap and I can imagine it's painful but but on the other side of it I think it's really about Being intentional in terms of how you rethink what's possible. I want to kind of take a little bit of different direction, challenge you a little bit because, you know, your whole shtick is like, I'm not really into self-help. It's all kind of bullshit. And, you know, like there's, you know, it all gives the wrong messages. And I think rather than being against self-help, you're just saying the typical help,

• 40:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  self-help advice isn't that helpful. And then your work is really is about self-help, but in a different way, with kind of a contrarian view. And for example, you have like these five ideas that can change your life, which are, which sound super depressing and are kind of like, you know, like, humans suck, so try to suck less, or pain is inevitable.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 41:06Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, like, suffering is optional. There's embedded in these five things, though, there's a lot of wisdom.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 41:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And it's kind of tongue in cheek. And it kind of gets you to take a funny look at, at the, that the, sort of the beliefs that we're attached to that keep us suffering.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right? So can you kind of unpack that a little bit?

• 41:23Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 41:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And kind of tell us really how we can help ourselves as opposed to the, the current sort of positive, everything's great. And if you just meditate and say enough mantras and, you know, have enough.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Have your kale smoothie in the morning. Yeah, then everything will be perfect. It, so I often joke that I write self-help for people who hate self-help. So it is still self-help, but it is, you know, it's kind of the contrarian self-help. So those five ideas, I might get them wrong. You know, first ones is humans suck, try to suck less. I think this, there's in traditional self-help, there's kind of this false idea that we're born perfect and we are corrupted through the tragedy of life and that it's, it's about getting back to our, you know, healing our inner child and getting back to our perfect nature and all this stuff. And it's like, actually, if you. Look at any biology or evolutionary psychology.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  It's like, humans are a fucking mess and we are an incomplete project. And a lot of our, our suffering and pain and imperfections are very much baked in by evolution. Like they're, they're a feature, not a bug of our psychology. And so we just need to accept that and accept that we are fundamentally imperfect. Our minds are imperfect, our bodies are imperfect. And we're just doing the best that we can to like adapt to our environment. Right? So I think that's a much healthier starting place of like, okay, how can you adapt better to your environment? Or be a more adaptable and functional human being rather than like rediscovering your inner perfection or whatever.

• 43:01Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I mean, it's kind of like the wabi-sabi idea, right? Like the imperfection, the perfection and the imperfection.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Is in the imperfection, totally.

• 43:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The thing was, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Suffering is optional. So this, this is, this is just like Buddhism 101.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  That life is pain essentially, that any sort of attachment or desire is, there's a pain associated with it. And the minute you, you, you deny that that pain exists or try to avoid that pain or try to pretend that that pain shouldn't be there, you, that's when you create suffering. The, there's an allegory from the Buddha that I love, which is the, it's called the two arrows. So he said that whenever you were struck by an arrow, you're actually struck, struck twice. So there's the, the first strike is the arrow piercing your skin and the physical pain that's associated with it. But the second pain is the, when you ask yourself, why was I the one struck with the arrow? What did I do to deserve this?

• 43:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Psychological, yeah. It's kind of like a cold plunge, right? You get in and it's a, it's a sensation, right? It's, it's a sensation. And, and there's an idea we attach to that sensation that it's bad.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:10Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And that it's going to hurt us. I mean, if you're standing there long enough, yes, you'll die of hypothermia. But, but basically I took one yesterday night and I've got me there. I'm like, okay, this is a sensation.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  It is.

• 44:22Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And my, my choice to suffer from the sensation is a choice.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 44:27Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right? And, and I think that's a really empowering thing because, you know, whatever happens through your life.

• 44:35Dr. Mark Hyman?

  We all, I mean, I think I do this, I mean, most people does, you, you, you end up in a sense of, of sort of a deeper level of suffering than you need to because you're stuck in sort of a belief about the meaning you attach to what happens.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 44:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So, oh, you know, um, my ex-wife Mia, who you met and, um, you know, we split up and you wrote a book called Love is Not Enough. We deeply loved each other, but, you know, we just weren't a fit.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:01Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and, you know, and I ended up having all these beliefs that were causing me to, to suffer. I mean, it was painful to split up, but the suffering went on for a lot longer than needed because I held on to all these beliefs about it. I wasn't good enough. I'm never gonna find anybody again. I'm too old. I'm whatever, you know, like I, she was the person who had the best, you know, relationship with my, my life to, to date. You know, like all these things kind of were, and I'm never gonna find this again.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:27Dr. Mark Hyman?

  All these things kind of caused this unnecessary suffering, which turned out to be completely untrue. And I would have saved myself so much misery if I'd have just kind of realized that.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  You just stopped telling yourself stories.

• 45:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But it's, it's the meaning we attach to things and events that cause the suffering. And then the question is, what causes us to attach that meaning? And how do we get to the root of that? And the beliefs that are underneath that meaning we create, the meaning-making machines that we are.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  What's, what's also so dangerous is that we, we often forget that we, like you spun up a bunch of stories about a painful event in your life. We all, we all do that. It's human nature. But what most, what happens most of the time, especially when we're young and we haven't developed enough self-awareness, is that we spin up these stories that cause us to suffer, and then we forget that they're stories. We just live with them for decades, assuming that that's just, that's just the way the world is.

• 46:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's right. It gets written in ink, not pencil.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. And we, and so, you know, I think the kind of, the fundamental thing that therapy does is help people realize that their stories are just that, stories.

• 46:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And breaking that pattern is what sets you free.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:37Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's getting free of those constraining beliefs, the limiting beliefs that actually are are the reason you suffer. It's not the event itself.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 46:46Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Gabriel Maté has been on the podcast, said, it's not the trauma that causes the problem, it's the meaning we make from what happens to us, right?

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 46:54Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So the same event can happen to two different people and have totally different effects on them throughout their whole life because of the meaning we attach to it. And that's a very powerful thing. I actually once heard this anthropologist talk about these societies where they had really incredible cultures, where there was a lot of love, where they were highly functional, where it kind of worked. And they had four criteria that she noticed they all adhere to. First was to show up, like, everybody showed up. Two is to be present. Those aren't that hard, but harder than ever now.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  These days, it's getting pretty hard.

• 47:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Our attention robbing culture.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:30Dr. Mark Hyman?

  The third was, and this is kind of goes along with your honesty thing, tell the truth without blame or judgment.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 47:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So that's a harder one to do, but telling the truth is hard. And then doing it without blaming somebody or judging somebody is also really hard.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Extremely, yeah.

• 47:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And the fourth one is the hardest, and this goes to the suffering part, which is be open to the outcome. So if you told this woman who you thought was amazing, that you met in Brazil, that is now your wife, that gee, you weren't really that available in this moment, you kind of liked her, but you had to be open to the outcome. She goes and, you know, see you later, buddy, go, you know, that's your jerk.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Or she was like, oh, my God, I fell in love with this guy. He told the truth, you know? But you didn't know which one was going to happen.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:17Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And the reality is that when you tell the truth, you always meet reality as opposed to some fantasy or imaginary thing that's happening that's not really true.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And you have a much more authentic life because you're actually meeting what is as opposed to what you're trying to construct to be or how you're going to try to control that outcome. So it's really powerful. So I think getting that is important. The next of the five rules here is everything you believe will one day fail you, this is how you grow.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  This is very similar.

• 48:52Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That sounds very friggin depressing.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  But this is very similar to what you were just talking about, right?

• 48:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You're happier, you're growing.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  I mean, every belief is a story and every story is incomplete and slightly inaccurate. And really what knowledge is and growth is, is just replacing inaccurate stories with slightly less inaccurate stories, you know? It's, it's the, the stories that you and I believe today that have helped us so much get through our past struggles will one day fail and create our future struggles and then we'll have to update our stories again. And so that's just kind of.

• 49:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And we're gonna need constant software updates?

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. We just need to be patched all the time.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  But I, I truly believe that that is like, you never figure out the capital T truth in life. You just become slightly less wrong.

• 49:42Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and so having this kind of perspective, you think,

• 49:48Dr. Mark Hyman?

  you know, does it help you avoid the, the pain of the disappointment of failure?

• 49:54Speaker 01

  I think so, because failure just illuminates the areas of your life that you were wrong, that your stories were inaccurate, so you can update them. But also I think it's, it's just a much better starting point to assume that everything you believe in your life is already wrong and that you, they just need to be updated with better, more accurate versions of the story. But also, when you believe that, you don't, you're not gonna hold on to a story as like being, you know, irrefutable, capital T, true, because that's when the real suffering starts, is when you like refuse to update one of your stories or one of your beliefs.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Cause you're like, no, this has to be true. This is like, there's nothing else can be more right than this. And now, now you're, you, that forces you to lie.

• 50:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  How do you update the software? Cause you know, it's really hard to do that. And, and are there practical ways that you found to actually help people do this? Cause it sounds great when we're talking about it. Oh yeah, great. You know, everything you can, is gonna fail. You gotta update your beliefs, you know, you're gonna grow as a result. You know, we've all experienced that, but it's usually with a lot of misery. So you're talking about somehow recognizing this is gonna take the misery out of it and help you just kind of, you know, seize an opportunity. I think, you know, I, I found that, you know, even though things are rough sometimes when shitty things happen, I go, okay. This is a moment for me to pay attention.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I can either keep repeating the same stupid shit or update my, update my software.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I think dialogue with smart and open people who care about you and who don't judge you, I think is, is absolutely crucial. Cause it's like, the thing about stories is that they, they, um, they're, they're verbal in nature. Like you, at the very least, I think journaling or like writing out your thoughts and feelings on a subject and, and kind of playing with what could be true or what might not be true. I think that's kind of a minimum starting place. Cause you, you need to play with the language around your beliefs and, and discover the language around your beliefs.

• 51:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  But I think having really good, open, compassionate people in your life is, is, is absolutely fundamental. Ideally, it's a, a partner, a friend, a family member. But at, at a minimum, it's a therapist or a coach, you know, somebody who can kind of look at your story and be like, well, you know, like, what if this was true and not that, right?

• 52:18Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's really, it's so true. Like I, I, I think this is critical because if you don't have a process, it's hard to get there. And the first process you mentioned was something that actually I did because after, you know, I left my last marriage, I was like, I'm never going to do this again. And I don't care what I have to do, even if it means never being with anybody again.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I, and I worked with a coach and what I had, she made me do was every day I had to write down all this stupid shit my head was saying. My, my lower self.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Just all the drivel that goes on between my ears that I just had to be fully honest about that I embarrassed to even say out loud. Nonetheless, you know, write it down.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And send it to somebody to read. I had to do that and religiously kind of investigate my own beliefs and thinking and, and lower self. And then at the same time, I had to try, which wasn't always easy, to call in my higher self to tell a different story.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 53:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  About the truth.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  To try to get to the truth. And sometimes it was my. Higher, lower self, which is the trickster that thinks it's the higher self.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Your lower self that thinks it's the higher self.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, I do like breathwork and yoga and I'm enlightened or whatever, you know. And I mean, listen, I'm a, I was a yoga teacher before I was a doctor, so I'm not disparaging yoga teachers. So just to be clear, but I love yoga.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  It happens a lot. It happens a lot.

• 53:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But, but the second thing was really, um, in addition, doing that was, was I recently started working with an, another coach and I, and I, I asked for a three sixty, which is, for those who don't know what it is, is basically I picked 10 people in my life from work, personal life. And it was all anonymous and they got to talk to my coach and they got to completely unload all their perceptions of me, their views of me, their beliefs about me, their experiences, interactions with me, what it meant, how it occurred to them. And, you know, it's, it was amazing. It was, was a little bit painful for me, actually. Cause I, I didn't realize how I occurred to other people.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and one of the feedback I got was that people didn't feel like I was interested in them.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 54:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and I started, and they, they felt like I was more kind of obsessed with myself. And, and I would talk about myself and, and, and they were right. And I, and I, and I, and I kind of looked at what that was and I kind of went all the way back into when I was about,

• 54:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  18 and I had, I really had no friends growing up. I mean, I was one kid that I think had, was autistic that was my friend.

• 54:45Dr. Mark Hyman?

  He had like Asperger's or something.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:46Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and another guy who was, you know, we played cards and stuff, but it, it, basically I was pretty lonely and isolated and disconnected. And, and I thought nobody liked me because I wasn't interesting. And, and then I decided that in order to be liked and be accepted, I had to become interesting.

• 55:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And what I realized it did was it made me talk more about myself in a way that made me look good.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:15Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I went on this great trip. I had this great experience. Look who I met, you know, look.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  This fun shit I'm doing, whatever, right?

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And it really like occurred to me that I really was very, I'm very interested in people and I really do care. And I have relationships where that shows up, but you know, I realized that I needed to focus on being interested.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  More than interesting.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But that's what was driving and I wouldn't have really, I wouldn't have really known that unless I'd gotten all this feedback from all these people that I care about and love. And it was really helpful in changing that belief.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  That's a great example of, yeah, updating a story. It's funny, I did a seminar years and years ago where they had us do this exercise, which has stuck with me ever since. Like whenever you have kind of like that negative drivel, you know, or just self-loathing going on in your head.

• 56:04Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I call my inner asshole.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  The inner asshole. So it was a really cool exercise. I honestly, I forget who, who taught it to me or where it came from, but it's basically you take three sheets of paper. First sheet of paper, you just write out all of those horrible things that you're feeling about yourself, or it could, it could work with somebody else as well. If you're really pissed off at somebody else. So you just, first sheet of paper is just like all the negative awful shit. Second sheet of paper is you write all of the counter arguments and the positive things and the like, the sunny side and like, you know, hey, he didn't mean it, or you didn't mean it. You have good intentions, you know, you're just, you're misunderstood. You're actually very compassionate, all this stuff.

• 56:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Like try to take the opposite position.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  Take the complete.

• 56:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Kind of like Byron Katie talks about, right?

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Take the complete opposite position. And then the third sheet of paper is the truth.

• 56:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's good. That's good. That's good.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  You try to, try to find where the truth is between the first two sheets.

• 57:04Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's good. I mean, in a way, what you're saying to people is like inquire about yourself in a, in a disciplined regimented way. And two, find people who you can, who love you, who know you, who you can ask to be fully honest with you and you will, you can say to them, like, I really want your feedback and no matter how difficult it might be, I'm here to listen to it. I'm not going to react.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:30Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I'm going to just try to receive it. And it's a scary thing to do.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  It is.

• 57:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But it's so friggin liberating. Cause then you go, wow, I didn't know that I was acting like that or doing that or seeming like this or

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:42Dr. Mark Hyman?

  People thought I was this or that. I'm like, you know, and of course, you know, people are going to project whatever they project and meeting whatever they make on you based on their own sets of beliefs and attitudes. And I think I've learned that a long time ago. You've got to be cautious about when people give you feedback because it's coming from their own, you know, stuff, right? And that doesn't, I think, I had it when I was eighteen. I was backpacking in Canada and I was, I was by myself and I was, I was sleeping on the river camping out by, in the Spray River in Banff and working the gas station, walking six miles each way back and forth to work every day to pump gas and get some groceries. And I found this other camp with this guy. And this is an older British guy

• 58:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  who was just kind of mean and he would just make fun of me and kind of insult me and ridicule me and and I, and I was, it was devastating. And I, and I realized in that moment, it was like an epiphany. I said, okay, either when people are doing that, it's because it's their shit that they're projecting onto me. Or there may be something I should look at and I should be grateful for that feedback, even though it comes in a nasty package.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And then it's an opportunity for me to look at myself and grow. And that really helped me kind of shift and not be so much at the whim of what everybody was thinking. But, but, but this process is really, I really love it. Okay. Next, next one is something called, you deserve happiness. I'm sorry.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  You don't deserve happiness.

• 59:08Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Let's redo that. The, the, the next one of your, you know, five, five, uh, uh, simple ideas to change your life is you do not deserve happiness. In fact, you don't deserve anything.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That doesn't seem right.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Well, the most, I would say the most, you know, you and I, we're having this whole conversation around stories, the way we spin up stories, the way we suffer because of our stories, the way we need to update our stories. I would say the most common story that our brain naturally spins up is you deserve this or you don't deserve that, right? And it goes both ways, it goes, you know, and I think this, it tends, the strength of the deserving story tends to be proportional to the intensity of the emotion. So it's like, the more we're hurt, the more intense the story we tell ourselves of either I didn't deserve this, or I did deserve this, or this person deserves that.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  And the truth is, is that in most cases, like, the deserving thing is, it's a very, like, I think in a legal construct, it makes a lot of sense, right? It's like, you rob a gas station, then you deserve some sort of punishment. But on an emotional basis-

• 1:00:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But if you rob a drugstore in California, you don't deserve punishment? Is that how the law is now?

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know what the fuck the law is these days.

• 1:00:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Shoplift, you know, it's fine.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the point I'm making is that there's like a legal level that you can make, there's the deserving story or the deserving argument. But I think on a personal level, it's just, over the years, what I've, the conclusion I've come to is, is to just eliminate as many of these deserving stories as possible.

• 1:00:54Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Entitlement.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's, you can, if you spin up stories saying that you deserve great things, sure, that can motivate you, can make you feel good, but it can also make you entitled, it can make you narcissistic, it can make you, you know, it can justify a lot of bad behavior towards other people. If you spin up stories saying that you don't deserve things, well, now you're minimizing yourself, you're limiting yourself, you're making yourself more insecure, you know, it's like- How about just don't have the story in the first place? Like, do I deserve to be happy? I don't know.

• 1:01:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Right.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Like, some days I'm happy, some days I'm not. Do I deserve that? I don't, who the fuck knows, right?

• 1:01:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Does it matter? No, just do, do the, do the good thing.

• 1:01:33Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, I mean, I think, I think, you know, it reminds me of when I was in college. And I don't know, at least all these stories are coming to me when you're talking, so I don't know.

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  We're revisiting your, your, your forlorn youth.

• 1:01:43Dr. Mark Hyman?

  No, it was really, it was like, form things. And I was sitting, I was sitting on the floor of my best friend's apartment, like, get a little, you know, room in college. And he's, he, you know, we were both kind of hippies and, you know, backpacking. He says, Mark, you know, if you have a place to sleep, if you have some clothes to wear and you have some food to eat, everything else is gravy.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I'm like, you know, you're kind of right.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:05Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and, and so anything else that comes is just a gift or a blessing and not entitlement.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Totally. And, and it's, I think that's

• 1:02:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's very liberating.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  It's very important too, because this kind of gets back to the Condon thing, is that, and this gets back to the, the reference point thing, is that human psychology is such that our reference point for what is good or bad is, is always changing. It's always shifting upward. Like, the more our life improves, the more our baseline of what we expect of ourselves increases, right? And so that's a perfect example of like, you know, you've got food, you got shelter, you know, you're healthy, you're young. Like, why do you need anything else?

• 1:02:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Why are you whining?

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, why are you whining? Like, why do you, why do you feel like you deserve anything else, right? And, and it's, again, it's, it's, the deserving story is a dangerous story because often our set points of what is a good life and what is bad life are just completely irrational and based on status games, power struggles,

• 1:03:04Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  silly, frivolous shit that doesn't really matter.

• 1:03:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, it's so true. Okay, your last, you know, your last simple idea to change your life is everything you love will one day be lost. This is what makes life meaningful.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, you know, I wrote a book called Young Forever about longevity. And in the research for the book, there's a lot of scientists talking about this idea of longevity, escape velocity.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:03:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Which means that the science will continue to evolve so fast that we'll keep extending our life faster than our rate of aging, which means we will never die.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and, you know, I'm actually having dinner tonight with Brian Johnson.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  How funny.

• 1:03:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Who is whole, whose whole mission in life is don't die. Literally, he's got a whole brand called Don't Die. And when I think about that, I mean, yes, I would love to have another 60, I don't know, 100 years of incredibly vigorous, healthy life.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:04:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And do whatever I want to do, as long as I can be healthy skiing at 100, I'm good. But it's that sense that it's all going to go away that makes it so precious. Like every morning I wake up with my wife.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I'm like so excited to see her. And every day I'm like, oh my God, this is a gift because I know how precious and fleeting this is. And one day it's not going to be there.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And so it makes me value and savor every moment in a way that, you know, actually makes life way more enjoyable.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:33Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So I'm, I don't like the idea of not dying.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  I don't, I'm glad to hear you say that. I'm actually curious because I.

• 1:04:39Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I want to be long, long-lived and healthy, but I want to, I think I want to die.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  I'm on the same, I'm 100% on the same page. Like I would be, I would love to live to 200. That sounds great, but like, you know, at some point I want to get off the boat. And, and it's, and it's because of this. It's because I, I, meaning and value is driven by scarcity. And if, as soon as something stops being scarce, we stop appreciating and it stops feeling meaningful. And I, so I just, I don't think our, our psychological mechanisms are like built to live in a post scarce existence. Like I feel like this is, so this is the, this is when like the writer in me starts getting really excited. I start imagining like a sci-fi novel of like a person who like realistically can't

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  die. Like to me that it's, it's.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  It seems to me that that would be an incredibly bleak existence.

• 1:05:38Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  Like, nothing would seem worthwhile. Nothing would seem important. No relationships would seem worth like he that person would not feel inclined to speak to anybody because everybody you speak to is gonna die at some point. So why create a relationship if you're just gonna lose it?

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  And there's just gonna be an infinite amount of future relationships. Like, there's no, there's nothing special or unique about that. So I think like it, it calls in the question is like, what, what becomes scarce if death is solved? And can anything be meaningful and like a post-death existence? And I'm not sure that it can.

• 1:06:15Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, we don't know. Who knows? Maybe.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Do you, do you think, I'm curious, do you think that a longevity escape velocity is possible?

• 1:06:25Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, listen, if, if you talk to my grandmother who was born in 1900 and you told her there were gonna be men walking on the moon and we were gonna have these super computers in her pockets that, you know, had all the features that our iPhone has, that we could interact with an intelligent source like ChatGPT that would tell us anything about anything.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:46Dr. Mark Hyman?

  In three seconds.

• 1:06:49Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, she would probably go, uh, there is no frickin' way that's possible. I mean, there weren't even cars or telephones or electricity or toy, flush toilets when she was born, right?

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, and, and so I don't know is the answer. There, there are certain things scientifically that I've talked about and then they're in my book. Certain, you know, things that allow us to do epigenetic reprogramming, essentially taking your cells that are old and reprogramming back to a younger you through something called Yamanaka factors. And there's a lot of research going on around this. Aging research is in its infancy around longevity because it's, it wasn't even considered something worthy of research or study.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Uh, the only reason it's getting any attention now is because a lot of billionaires are just really wanting to live a long time.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  So they're like, yeah, they don't wanna die.

• 1:07:36Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Or they, or they just wanna like figure it out. And so there's like literally billions of dollars, you know? Uh, from Google and Altoslab and Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman and all these guys are just pouring billions of dollars, which I think is great because we're learning so much. But I, I think it may happen. Uh, but listen, if I could, if I could, uh, you know, take a, a pill or get a gene in, insert into me that would, uh, take me back to, you know, my mid thirties when I, you know, when I was the peak of my mental and physical performance.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Sure.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  Like, that would be great.

• 1:08:14Dr. Mark Hyman?

  If I could, if I could, you know, my biological age is thirty nine now, but my back age is like a hundred and thirty nine.

• 1:08:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:19Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So if I could get my back to be back to thirty nine, I'd be great.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  I'm with you there.

• 1:08:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, I'm, I'm all for all that stuff, but I think, but I think it's more about the meaning and, and I think the values we have. So, you know, just to kind of close up a little bit, I, I, I think, you know, I'm going to put you on this about a little bit because, you know, your work is about kind of poking fun at all the positive psychology, self-help stuff and how, how it's not really that helpful. But you're not against people actually thinking about how to create a philosophy and, and a values that, um, it creates meaning in their life that's different from the typical self-help advice. So how do we, how do we, as, as human beings, start to create kind of a, a value system for ourself that we can live through and with and in that allows us to be fully expressed?

• 1:09:07Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Cause, cause for me, you know, I don't know what your philosophy is on this, but my belief is that, is that, you know, our souls, uh, came here to get free. You know, that we, we came here to be fully expressed human beings in a purest expression. You know, like, like, like Dalai Lama, I don't know if he's enlightened or not enlightened, but like, I was at a conference with him on longevity and he was on stage and he was all these muckety mucks and Nobel Prize winners and this and that. And he just was like, looking around, he's like, I gotta pee. And he like gets up, he like runs off the stage and goes and pees, you know, like not trying to be anybody, pretend to be anything.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:39Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And just fully expressed, present human being.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I, I, that, that question about like, what do we value? What is worth improving? I feel like that's the question of our time. And, and I think, as you accurately put it, you know, my, my goal isn't to overthrow the self-help industry or debunk the self-help industry. It's really just to like realign it around healthier questions, you know? And analogous to what we were talking about with like the, the diet stuff. It's like, you know, I, most of what gets sold in my industry is the equivalent of a fad diet.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  And I'm trying to be the guy who's like, no, no, it's actually just really basic questions that philosophers and, and religions have been asking for 2,000 years that we all need to ask ourselves. And, and even if you're not religious, even if you don't want to meditate like tons of hours, like, these are really simple questions that I think in this day and age, we should all be asking ourselves and, and thinking really hard about.

• 1:10:35Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, and you didn't pull this out of your ass. I mean, you, you, you were deeply steeped in the research around a lot of this. And you talk about a lot of the studies that reflect the underlying reasoning behind your thinking, like the marshmallow test or the Stanford prison experiment, or studies by Marty Segman about learned helplessness, or the happiness research by Daniel Kahneman, the paradox of choice by Barry Schwartz. So flow theory and all these attachment theory and the list goes on, but you're, you're not just kind of just randomly like kind of being a dick and saying, all you self-help people are idiots.

• 1:11:08Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But it, but it is, there's a lot of great science.

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:11:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And often the science contradicts common sense.

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  It does. It does. It does. It's, it's a, we are, again, this comes back to, you know, humans suck, try to suck less. It's, it's, we're not optimized for, for real, like truth, we're optimized for self-preservation. And part of that self-preservation is ego preservation.

• 1:11:29Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  And so being aware of those mechanisms is extremely important to, to maintain our mental health and, and our, our happiness. So, so yeah, and I just try to find fun and creative ways to, to express those ideas to people.

• 1:11:44Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, what's really kind of cool in this moment in history is Is the psychedelic revolution.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:51Dr. Mark Hyman?

  You know, there was this psychedelic revolution in the 60s and actually the CIA was responsible for it.

• 1:11:58Dr. Mark Hyman?

  They were literally doing, I don't know if you know the story, but

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:12:00Dr. Mark Hyman?

  There's a great book called, I mean, a movie called The Magic Bus and it was basically about Ken Kesey, who was a, who had one from the Kugoo's Nest and he got a grant to go write this book at Stanford in Palo Alto. And he didn't have any money and there was ongoing experiments there by the CIA on LSD. And so they would pay him to go take acid and other people take acid and then they'd put them in a lab and they'd watch what happens. He's like, man, this stuff is great. And so he basically, you know, basically thought it was the next greatest thing. So he took a bus around the country and basically gave everybody LSD and went to, you know, out and met Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, who became Ram Dass and then

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and then came back and, you know, kind of created the liquid truculite acid test in, in Menlo Park where the Grateful Dead, basically was the house band and they had

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  I didn't realize it started that way.

• 1:12:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah, it was basically a CIA started the psychedelic revolution. And that's pretty funny. And, and, and now we're undergoing the second renaissance where there's real research going on. And a lot of the things you're talking about are, are based on, and the suffering that we have is based on the beliefs that we have about our ego and our small self and the survivalist sort of software that's programmed into us.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:13:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That has, it has us as separate entities, as separate beings that have to protect and defend ourself and have to lie and steal, do whatever the hell we have to do to get ahead and to make sure we don't die.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:32Dr. Mark Hyman?

  But psychedelics are really an interesting compound because, set of compounds, because they, they basically shut off the ego.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's what they do. Like when they look at brains of meditators who've been meditating for 40 years on MRI and they look at brains of people who are on psychedelics, the same part of the brain gets shut off, which is this ego part that is, it's called the default mode network.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:13:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I'm actually having Michael Pollan on tomorrow.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 1:13:57Dr. Mark Hyman?

  On the podcast.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:13:59Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Well, not tomorrow. You guys listening, it's not really tomorrow. It's just tomorrow I'm recording.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:04Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Mark gets how it goes. Anyway, it's, it's, to me, it's really exciting because it's, it's a way to shortcut a lot of the, the suffering that people have. And we're seeing it as a far more effective treatment for depression, for anxiety, for PTSD, for all kinds of addiction, many, many things that people are suffering with on a mental level that prevent them from actually even being able

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:24Dr. Mark Hyman?

  to get to do the things you're talking about. So I think I, I love your, your kind of actually optimistic nihilistic philosophy.

• 1:14:33Speaker 01

  Yes. Good way to put it, yeah.

• 1:14:35Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And I like that combined with some of the new tools and, and treatments that are going to be available that really help people get free. And that's, that's really, I think to me, what, what your work was been about was about, geez, you know, all of these things that people are trying to get free and be happy, they don't fricking work.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:51Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And, yeah, people are selling a lot of books, but the reason your book caught on is because it, it hit a chord in people that they kind of realized it was all BS and they need to think about it differently. So it's, it's just, it's so great that you're out there doing this. You, you, you didn't mean to be you, you know?

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  Do any of us.

• 1:15:11Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And you kind of, you got side, you got sideways a little bit, caught up in it. And I'm glad to see you back healthy and fit and looking amazing. I, I would love, you know, to help people learn how they can kind of connect more to your work.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:15:22Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I mean, there's your book, obviously, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. There's your other book, which is Everything is Fucked, but it actually has a hopeful title in it as well, which is

• 1:15:31Speaker 01

  A book about hope.

• 1:15:32Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yes. It's like, okay, everything's fucked, but let's be hopeful. But you also have a lot of online content.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  MarkManson.net. But you've got courses and podcasts. And so tell us where, where people can learn more, how to kind of get into what you're doing.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  Sure. So obviously the books, I have a podcast called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Podcast, comes out every Wednesday and a free newsletter every Monday morning. I just share, it's called Your Next Breakthrough, and I just share a couple of ideas, a question and a challenge for all, all the readers each Monday. And then I share

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  I invite readers to send their experiences from the challenge in and then we post them in the next Monday's newsletter. And so we were up over a million people now.

• 1:16:21Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's amazing.

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  We've had over 11,000 breakthroughs. So check it out. It's free newsletter. Just go to markmanson.net.

• 1:16:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Like a midwife for transformation. I love that. Okay, so last question is, what are you most excited about now in your life?

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  So I'm doing, I'm actually doing a series of kind of documentary style YouTube videos around the intersection of culture and mental health. So we've shot four of them. We're going to start releasing them. I don't know when this is coming out, but we're going to start releasing them in October of this year.

• 1:16:52Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  So it was just out in Hungary. Hungary has the most alcoholics per capita in the world.

• 1:16:59Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Really?

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  So we did a whole investigation of like, what are the historical and cultural reasons behind that? Portugal has the highest.

• 1:17:05Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Paprika causes alcoholism?

• 1:17:07Speaker 01

  Paprika. It's all the goulash.

• 1:17:09Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Goulash. Who knew?

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  Portugal has the highest rate of anxiety disorders in the world. So we, we went to Lisbon and spent a week there and talked to a bunch of psychiatrists, Portuguese psychiatrists.

• 1:17:23Dr. Mark Hyman?

  They have those fried donuts that everybody eats.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  I love how your mind just immediately goes to food.

• 1:17:27Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Their brains are playing.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Your brain is just immediately like, what do they eat in that country? And then we've already posted one of South Korea. South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the developed world. So we did one on that as well.

• 1:17:41Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So this is like the opposite of the blue zones. These are the like the gray zones.

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it's, you know, every, every culture, I mean, everywhere has its mental health issues, right? Every country has its mental health crisis. But what's interesting is that it manifests in different ways in different cultures. So what's so exciting about this project is, is just going and trying to understand why it manifests in this way in this country. Like, what is it about the, the history, the politics, the economics?

• 1:18:13Dr. Mark Hyman?

  And are you figuring it out? And then, and then are you hoping to kind of provide insights about how they can get some relief?

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  I mean, I developed theories and, and ultimately it's like it.

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  There are practical takeaways for everybody, right? So, you know, in the case of South Korea, there the wars that happened throughout the 20th century generated in like a pressure cooker of a culture that resulted in this like mental health crisis. And so it's like it, people can draw parallels to their own life, right? Because it's like, we all have pressures on us for certain things. And there's all like, we all have traumas or catastrophes in our own lives. So, you know, ultimately, the goal is to give people takeaways. But for me, it just is like a psych nerd and somebody who loves to travel has just been like, so much fun.

• 1:19:01Dr. Mark Hyman?

  That's so great. I love that. I love it. It's like, let me go on a trip around the world and look at people's mental health and do cool shit about it.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:19:10Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I actually want to create a show like that, called Food is Medicine Show, where I go around the world and like kind of Anthony Bourdain meets Dr. Hyman.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, that'd be great.

• 1:19:20Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's, I'm excited about thinking about how we kind of show what's going on in the world and people learn.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  Food wise, yeah.

• 1:19:28Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Because, I mean, just America is so ethnocentric in every particular way. So, I think half, I think more than half the population doesn't even have a passport.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:35Dr. Mark Hyman?

  So, Mark, it's really great to have you on the podcast. I could talk to you forever.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:40Dr. Mark Hyman?

  I think we'll continue talking for a long time.

• 1:19:42Speaker 01

  Forever, maybe. If we solve, if we solve, in a, if we get longevity.

• 1:19:47Dr. Mark Hyman?

  If everybody's thin and happy, then we don't have any work to do. We can just sit on the beach in Malibu and watch the sunset.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  Works for me, man.

• 1:19:55Dr. Mark Hyman?

  All right. Well, thanks for being here and everybody check out Mark's work and thanks for listening to the podcast.

• 1:20:02Dr. Mark Hyman?

  Thanks for listening today. If you love this podcast, please share it with your friends and family. Leave a comment on your own best practices on how you upgrade your health and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And follow me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman and we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm always getting questions about my favorite books, podcasts, gadgets, supplements, recipes and lots more. And now you can have access to all of this information by signing up for my free Mark's Picks newsletter at drhyman.com/marks picks. I promise I'll only email you once a week on Fridays and I'll never share your email address or send you anything else besides my recommendations. These are things that have helped me on my health journey and I hope they'll help you too. Again, that's drhyman.com/marks picks. Thank you again and we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy.

• 1:20:50Dr. Mark Hyman?

  This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center and my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health, where I'm the Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions, and neither myself nor the podcast endorse the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for your help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. You can come see us at the Ultra Wellness Center in Lenox, Massachusetts. Just go to ultrawellnesscenter.com. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner near you, you can visit ifm.org and search "Find a Practitioner Database."

• 1:21:34Dr. Mark Hyman?

  It's important that you have someone in your corner who is trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. Keeping this podcast free is part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to express gratitude to the sponsors that made today's podcast possible. When it comes to supplements, you only want the best for your body, the kind with the highest quality, cleanest, and most potent ingredients you can get. That's exactly what you'll find at my supplement store, where I've hand-selected each and every product to meet the most rigorous standards for safety, purity, and effectiveness. These are the only supplements I recommend to my patients, and they're also what I use myself. Whether you want to optimize longevity or reduce your disease risk, or you're looking

• 1:22:18Dr. Mark Hyman?

  to improve your sleep, blood sugar, metabolism, gut health, you name it, drhyman.com has the world's best selection of top-quality, premium supplements, all backed by science and expertly vetted by me, Dr. Mark Hyman. So check out drhyman.com, because when it comes to your health, nothing less than the very best will do. That's drhyman.com, D-R-H-Y-M-A-N dot com.