The Science & Art of Comedy & Creativity | Tom Segura

My guest is Tom Segura, renowned comedian, writer, actor and director. We discuss the “how-to” of comedy writing and storytelling, and what the science of humor and the creative process reveal about human emotion and memory. We explore why surprise and the act of "saying the unspoken truth" activate the brain’s reward circuits, as well as the subconscious mechanisms that shape our sense of what is funny. The episode also examines the bi-directional influence between comedy and cultural standards. It will interest anyone curious about the science of humor, the art of performance and emotional contagion. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Maui Nui: https://mauinuivenison.com/huberman Helix Sleep: https://helixsleep.com/huberman David Protein: https://davidprotein.com/huberman Function Health: https://functionhealth.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Tom Segura 00:01:45 Family, Sports, Running 00:09:35 Sponsors: Maui Nui & Helix Sleep 00:12:37 Ideas, Running, Sleep & Brain, Tools: Exercise for Energy; Phone Outside Room 00:20:16 Capturing Ideas, Cannabis, Storytelling, Experimentation 00:27:28 Ideas & Set List, Performance 00:31:52 Wife, Jokes, Reframing Content; Cancel Culture, Audience Reaction 00:40:56 Jokes, Self & Amusement; Evolution & New Material 00:48:26 Sponsors: AG1 & David Protein 00:51:24 Surprise, Hidden Thoughts; Acting 00:59:02 Voice Impersonation, Kids, Strength Training, Activities 01:05:40 Repeating Jokes; State Changes, Crowds & Energy 01:13:11 Silly Mindset; Audience, Emotional Contagion; Humor & Subconscious Mind 01:27:44 Sponsor: Function 01:29:32 Crowd Work, Comedy Clubs; Original Comedy 01:38:13 Comedy & Social Context; Dark Comedy 01:47:51 Drugs, Overdose, Comedian Deaths, Mental Health; Cynicism, Hope 01:54:21 Audience, Twin Comics; Vulnerability; Stand-Up & Performance 02:01:49 Comedy & Passion, Complaints; Childhood Struggle, Insecurities, Therapy 02:10:53 “Bad Thoughts” Show, Upcoming Projects 02:14:44 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow & Reviews, Sponsors, YouTube Feedback, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Andrew D. Huberman?

  Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

• 0:09Andrew D. Huberman?

  I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Tom Segura. Tom Segura is a renowned comedian, writer, and director. During today's episode, we explore the neuroscience and psychology behind comedy, and we explore the creative process more generally. Tom shares his approach to capturing and developing ideas into narratives that are once funny and thought-provoking. We discuss the interplay between daily life observations and larger cultural dynamics when developing comedy routines. We spend a fair bit of time discussing the neurobiological basis of humor and what data and brain lesion patients have taught us about why we find certain ideas novel, funny, or exciting. We also talk about how this relates to the activation of reward circuits

• 0:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  in the brain and the seemingly automatic way that things are either funny or not funny to people, suggesting that humor is like taste or smell. You really can't negotiate what works for you or what doesn't. We also discuss emotional contagion and how skilled performers like Tom become masters at reading, shifting, and dancing with the collective energy of crowds, whether in small comedy clubs or large arena shows. So if you're creative, or you're curious about human psychology, or if you simply love to laugh, you'll come away from today's episode having learned a ton of useful information about the creative process and human nature. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public.

• 1:38Andrew D. Huberman?

  In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Tom Segura. Tom Segura, welcome.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me, cuz.

• 1:48Andrew D. Huberman?

  We'll let people know who don't already know. Yes, we are related.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Yes, we are related. People have asked me so many times the details, and I was trying to, like, because I learned about it, obviously, later, that it was like, my mom's great-grandmother and your father's great-grandmother.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Were first cuz they're both Basque, so Northern Spain cousins. And then, you know, generations later, they moved to South America. Yours to Argentina, mine to Peru, and that's how we're cousins. Yeah, I guess distant cousins, but.

• 2:24Andrew D. Huberman?

  And my dad was on the podcast a little while ago.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  How did that go? Cause I remember we talked about him coming on.

• 2:29Andrew D. Huberman?

  It was great. I mean, he's a theoretical physicist by training, so we got to talk about physics. But we also got to talk about life and I learned a lot from him.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 2:37Andrew D. Huberman?

  I learned a lot about him that I never know.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  In that podcast?

• 2:39Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Really?

• 2:40Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah. I'll send it to you if you're ever suffering from insomnia.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  I would love to listen to it. He's a theoretical. I didn't even know that.

• 2:47Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, theorist, chaos theory. And now he's into quantum internet.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Jesus Christ. Where does he reside now?

• 2:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  Northern California, still working.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:56Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, eighty one, still working.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Look at our different sides of the, your dad is a theoretical physicist and my mom fucking plays bridge.

• 3:05Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, but you, but you can make a half, half court shot. I saw the, the clip of you in Lethal Shooter. We'll put, we'll put a link to it.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  Um, I mean, you're excellent basketball player. I'm not.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  High level, very high level.

• 3:19Andrew D. Huberman?

  You know.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Did you play ball growing up at all?

• 3:21Andrew D. Huberman?

  No.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Are you skateboarded?

• 3:23Andrew D. Huberman?

  Foot sports, soccer, skateboarding. I'm pretty coordinated with my feet.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Well, the kid of an Argentine, you gotta give it a shot.

• 3:31Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, every kid where I grew up played soccer.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Really?

• 3:33Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, obsessed.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Were you good at soccer?

• 3:36Andrew D. Huberman?

  I was all right. Played goalie, I like playing goalie or fullback. I like to wait back there and just, and just stick people. That was fun.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Maybe you should got into lacrosse or something.

• 3:43Andrew D. Huberman?

  No, I like running. I ran cross country my senior year.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  You ran cross country?

• 3:46Andrew D. Huberman?

  I did, yeah. I was a little lighter than I am now. I'm like two ten now, it's probably one sixty, one seventy.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, like two mile races were okay.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  I just did a five K.

• 3:58Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, yeah?

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Two days ago, yeah.

• 3:59Andrew D. Huberman?

  How'd that go?

• 4:00Speaker 01

  I hated that I knew I had to do it. And so I just made myself, I was like, you know, you gotta do it, so it's gonna suck.

• 4:08Andrew D. Huberman?

  You trained for it.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Well, the training for me is like, just get in a bunch of three mile runs, right? So, I mean, I would do them purposely at like a slow pace. Like try to stay as close to zone two cardio as possible, just to get like used to the mileage. And then we get there, cause it was, it was our, our five K. Like it was, I, I put it on with Bert and Spartan Race and like it was a.

• 4:32Andrew D. Huberman?

  Bert did a five K? Shirt off, the whole thing?

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Of course. What are you, crazy?

• 4:36Andrew D. Huberman?

  Weight vest, weight belly?

• 4:38Speaker 01

  I mean, sorry for-

• 4:39Andrew D. Huberman?

  Bro.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Dude, yeah, he was, uh-

• 4:41Andrew D. Huberman?

  We give him a hard time because we're still trying to get Bert to quit drinking or reduce his drinking. I think he's reduced his drinking a little bit.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 4:46Andrew D. Huberman?

  No?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Okay. So, uh, yeah, we did, we did one last year in Pasadena. We did the Rose Bowl. And so this time we did Raymond James in Tampa. It was called, it's the Two Bears 5K. We had more than three times the people sign up this year for Tampa. So we had like close to 8,000 people there.

• 5:02Andrew D. Huberman?

  Wow.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  And, uh, you know, Jelly Roll came out, Jason Kelsey, Tristan Wirfs, like the, a bunch of, you know, John Feliciano, like all these football players and-

• 5:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  Fun.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  And, and it was a very fun day, a very fun event. But here's the thing, like the Rose Bowl, the path was like basically through the parking lot and then on these side roads in Pasadena. And, you know, they loop it out and then you cross back basically across this parking lot and you hit the 3.1. At Raymond James, I didn't know. They were like, oh, there's some inclines. I'm like, yeah, all right. Did we get there? It's all in the stadium. And the only way you're running 3.1 miles in a stadium is we're running through the corridors and then up the ramp. Well, the ramp is nine stories up. I mean, you're literally-

• 5:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  One long incline.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Bro, so we're like, you're doing like a quarter mile up. And then it would flatten out. Then you go down. You're like, oh, this is nice. And then you go up again. So, but I was just, I think when you're also running with people-

• 6:05Andrew D. Huberman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  You kind of get tunnel vision.

• 6:08Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  And it call, you know, you see somebody, you're like, that person's ahead of me? Like this pig is in front of me right now?

• 6:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  Are you competitive by nature?

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. And so like, I would, you know, like I definitely was like, I have to beat Bert. I have to be-

• 6:20Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, you have to beat Bert.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  John, my friend Feliciano. I was like, I have to beat these guys. They're both like, you know- Fucking 300 pounds, I'm definitely beating them. And so that was just like in my head every time I would see, like think of them, I was like, you just have to keep going. And then Bert got beat by a guy in a wheelchair. So that was also kind of sweet because I beat both of them. Jerry, what's up? Shout out to Jerry. I think he had a little advantage because those wheels on the way down definitely pick up some speed, but on the way up, it's pretty, pretty badass, you know? But, but yeah, so like getting in those miles like was, was the, just like the training for it and it was, it was a whole thing and I don't like running.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Like it's not, you know, there's some things you like, if you were like, let's go work out, let's go lift, I'd be like, cool, I enjoy that. I don't enjoy running.

• 7:07Andrew D. Huberman?

  But I guess that's the best.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  You like running?

• 7:10Andrew D. Huberman?

  I love working out with weights. I've been doing that since I was 16, but I love running.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  You love running?

• 7:14Andrew D. Huberman?

  Running three times a week, a long run, a medium run and a short run.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  What's a long run?

• 7:18Andrew D. Huberman?

  An hour, hour and a half, long and slow, every Sunday. And then in the middle of the week, a 30 minute run, faster. And then one day a week, I do that kind of max heart rate VO2 thing. Where I go warm up, sprint, walk, sprint, walk, sprint, walk. Sometimes on the air dyn bike, but usually running.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:36Andrew D. Huberman?

  I love running. In fact, I mostly lift so that my body doesn't hurt when I run. I like being strong in the gym.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Have you always been into this?

• 7:44Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, since I was about 16, I started running. And I just found I could just go and go, probably have a lot of slow twitch muscle. And I'm reasonably strong, but I mean, if I train just for endurance, like if I start doing two long runs per week, I just feel like I can just go forever.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Really?

• 8:00Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah. It's probably just a genetic.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  What do you cover in that 60 to 90 minute run?

• 8:04Andrew D. Huberman?

  Depends on how in condition I am, but you know, you were talking about hills when I lived in the Bay area. Used to do this run behind the Berkeley campus, the Strawberry Canyon Trail, and that's all inclined, basically winding up, winding up until you take the long cruise down. I would do that with a weight vest. If I go from there out to Austin. And on a Sunday, and then I can cover a lot of distance in a 60-minute run. But if I just train on the flat, then you get kind of used to just kind of going long and slow.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:29Andrew D. Huberman?

  So I don't know the exact distance, but it was not unusual when I was in graduate school to head out on a Sunday morning, just hydrated caffeine and do 10, 12 miles.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 8:38Andrew D. Huberman?

  But now it's probably more like 6, 8.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:41Andrew D. Huberman?

  6, 8.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  But also with a weighted vest?

• 8:43Andrew D. Huberman?

  Sometimes with a, I use a vest, they're not a sponsor, which is fun to always mention things that aren't a sponsor too.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 8:48Andrew D. Huberman?

  Because I love this weight vest, it's called Namorfo. And it fits pretty snug, it's not like one of these ones that looks like you're a suicide bomber or a cop or something.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:58Andrew D. Huberman?

  It sits really close to the body, it zips up, and it's got these like heavy ball bearings in it, so it's only about 10 to 12 pounds.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:04Andrew D. Huberman?

  So it's not like a super heavy weight vest.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:06Andrew D. Huberman?

  But it's enough that when you take that weight vest off on a separate run, you feel like a god.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  I will say that like, as much as I say I hate, the fact that I made myself keep doing, I was doing like daily runs, almost like five days a week, just of like getting used to the mileage, you know, it obviously becomes easier, and then you kind of go like, okay, I can do this. But yeah, I think I get, I get a lot of like, mental anxiety about the running.

• 9:35Andrew D. Huberman?

  I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, Maui Newey Venison. Maui Newey Venison is the most nutrient-dense and delicious red meat available. It's also ethically sourced. Maui Newey hunts and harvests wild access deer on the island of Maui. This solves the problem of managing an invasive species while also creating an extraordinary source of protein. As I've discussed on this podcast before, most people should aim for getting one gram of quality protein per pound of body weight each day. This allows for optimal muscle protein synthesis while also helping to reduce appetite and support proper metabolic health. Given Maui Newey's exceptional protein to calorie ratio, this protein target is achievable without having to eat too many calories. Their Venison delivers 21 grams of protein

• 10:18Andrew D. Huberman?

  with only 107 grams per serving, which is an ideal ratio for those of us concerned with maintaining or increasing muscle mass while supporting metabolic health. They have Venison steaks, ground Venison, and Venison bone broth. I personally love all of them. In fact, I probably eat a Maui Newey Venison burger pretty much every day. And if I don't do that, I eat one of their steaks. And sometimes I also consume their bone broth. And if you're on the go, they have Maui Newey Venison sticks, which have 10 grams of protein per stick with just 55 calories. I eat at least one of those a day to meet my protein requirements. Right now, Maui Newey is offering Huberman Podcast listeners a limited collection of my favorite cuts and products. It's perfect for anyone looking to improve their diet with delicious, high-quality protein. Supplies are limited, so go to maowinewivenison.com/huberman

• 11:03Andrew D. Huberman?

  to get access to this high-quality meat today. Again, that's maowinewivenison.com/huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by Helix Sleep. Helix Sleep makes mattresses and pillows that are customized to your unique sleep needs. Now, I've spoken many times before on this podcast about the fact that getting a great night's sleep is the foundation of mental health, physical health, and performance. When we aren't doing that on a consistent basis, everything suffers. And when we are sleeping well and enough, our mental health, our physical health, and our performance in all endeavors improves markedly. Now, the mattress you sleep on makes a huge difference in terms of the quality of sleep that you get each night. How soft that mattress is, how firm it is, how breathable it is, all play into how well you'll sleep, how much deep sleep you get, how much rapid eye movement sleep.

• 11:48Andrew D. Huberman?

  And it needs to be tailored to your unique sleep needs. So if you go to the Helix website, you can take a brief two-minute quiz, and it will ask you questions such as, do you sleep on your back, your side, or your stomach? Do you tend to run hot or cold during the night? Things of that sort. Maybe you know the answers to those questions, maybe you don't. Either way, Helix will match you to the ideal mattress for you. For me, that turned out to be the Dusk mattress, D-U-S-K. I started sleeping on a Dusk mattress about three and a half years ago, and it's been far and away the best sleep that I've ever had. So if you'd like to try Helix, you can go to helixsleep.com/huberman, take that two-minute sleep quiz, and Helix will match you to a mattress that is customized for your unique sleep needs. Right now, Helix is giving a special offer to Huberman Podcast listeners of up to 27% off sitewide,

• 12:33Andrew D. Huberman?

  plus free bed sheets with any luxe or elite mattress order. What about the running itself? I was gonna ask you whether or not it changes your mental frame. So that you, I don't know, do you get ideas while you run? Do you get ideas after you run more readily? Or are you just cursing the thing the whole time?

• 12:48Speaker 01

  I feel like it's a goal to let my mind drift. Because sometimes the negative side of it is like you're doing a run and your mind is like, this sucks, right? You're thinking about how much time is left. And that doesn't produce anything. And it's not an enjoyable thing. But like if the mind goes, if you can let your mind drift. It's less about ideas. I feel like in those moments, you're kind of just, you're off thinking about more like life. Not like creative thoughts, more like, you know, people and relationships and different. And like, that's kind of a nice place to be. Because then all of a sudden, you're like, oh, you know, a couple of miles just went by.

• 13:27Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, there's something to be said for these states of wordlessness. Where you're not constructing things in complete sentences. There's no sensory input like through a phone or through even. I do listen to podcasts or books when I run sometimes in the long run. But there's this idea that a lot of learning and creativity is about purging all the noise. And I find that those long runs, they just kind of, I come out of them just feeling like a bunch of clutter just got cleared.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  More than I had some like insight during the run itself.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:56Andrew D. Huberman?

  Incidentally, 90% of the effect of exercise on improving brain function, when it comes to long, slow distance work, is that it raises your level of alertness and arousal. So you can do really great work afterwards.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:10Andrew D. Huberman?

  High intensity stuff has a bunch of other effects. Brain derived nootropic factor, et cetera. But when you see like exercise improves brain function, exercise makes you smarter, exit. Most of that is by way of the way, how exercise increases your level of alertness. It kind of puts you in that nice state like, oh, now I can sit down and focus.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. My busiest days, like sometimes I have, you know, a very busy day. If I.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Start that day with a hard workout. I end up having no problem tackling that day.

• 14:40Andrew D. Huberman?

  Isn't that wild?

• 14:41Speaker 01

  It is wild because like sometimes like I'll have a day where, you know, I have to arrive at my studio. Let's say at 10 a.m. for something and so and it's just like it's going to be recordings, meetings, pitch meeting. Da, da, da, you know, and then leave here, go to this thing like it's going to be the entire day. And if I get myself to the gym and I get in like a good hour lift. I come in and like I'll notice everyone's like, you look like you're in a good mood. And I'm like, yeah, feel great. And I'm ready and then I'm ready for the day. But if I don't do that, it's a it's a different experience.

• 15:17Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, this is one of the real hidden secrets of exercise that I'm trying to make less hidden and less of a secret. That Jaco clearly understands, but with his 4:30 a.m. wakeups.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Jesus Christ.

• 15:28Andrew D. Huberman?

  And workouts.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:29Andrew D. Huberman?

  Um, that you're describing now is that I won't go into too much detail here because I want to ask you questions. But there's this phenomenon where when you move the large musculature of the body. So a resistance training workout, a run, probably any any workout where you're doing some big movements. Are you working hard in that workout? It triggers the release of adrenaline at levels that wake up your body, make it more willing to move.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  So people who don't have energy to exercise, exercise gives your body energy by way of adrenaline. And then that adrenaline acts on this nerve called the vagus nerve, which communicates to the areas of your brain that release dopamine and something called norepinephrine. It basically wakes your brain up also. So that morning workout that you're describing.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:09Andrew D. Huberman?

  Wakes up your brain and body for something like six hours by changing the neurochemical state of your body and your brain. And so it's not a surprise that when you work out before a long day, that long day goes better.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:21Andrew D. Huberman?

  Whereas if you hit the the work of the day, you know, kind of fresh, you're generating the adrenaline during from all that stuff. This is when people feel a bit more anxious, they feel a bit more irritable, they feel a bit more tired. So this whole concept of exercise gives you energy, that's how it gives you energy. It's not caloric energy. You still need to fuel, et cetera. But you're talking about neurochemical energy. It fundamentally changes the way you show up to everything else.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  The way that I always feel like is, um, you know, a lot of times when you wake up, you have what I would describe as like a fog. Sometimes, you know, like.

• 16:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  Good, it's not just me.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So like that fog. Sometimes, you know, you can, you carry it. Like it's just, it's in the day and you're just kinda like, oh, there's this. But I always feel like that, that exercise just completely wipes it out. You know, where you're like, oh, like, I'm actually alert now and I don't feel that post-wakeup just fog that sits there. That's my favorite thing to knock out.

• 17:18Andrew D. Huberman?

  I love that. I've got this crazy thing that I do now. You can try this. I bought a 70-pound kettlebell. It's about a third of my body weight. And I have it set in the hallway. So when I get up, cause I wake up really groggy, really foggy. I grab that thing and I suitcase carry it to the end and back twice. And then I switch hands and I suitcase carry it back to the end and back twice. Just trying to like, teach my body that it can do work right away. And I'm careful how I do it. But I find that now I wake up and I've got, like, I think my body's anticipating that carry. And so I'm more alert from go. And I was like, ah, this is, there's something. Cause your nervous system learns to anticipate things, right?

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:56Andrew D. Huberman?

  Cause that phenomenon of setting your, um, your alarm clock for 7:00 AM. You wake up at 6:59. What happened? Like, your brain is clocking things in your sleep.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  So many times and I always feel like that's such a bizarre, like, also for like, I'm not a big napper. Sometimes I'll be like, I'm gonna lay down, like, I have a hour window before I have to go do something in a hotel, like, I'm on the road. And I'll be like, well, just in case I fall asleep, I'll set the alarm. And I'll lay there, eyes closed, and I'll look as it's one minute before.

• 18:26Andrew D. Huberman?

  Your brain's clocking it. I did a study a couple of years ago, um, where when people are in rapid eye movement sleep, you're basically paralyzed, the brain is very, very active. That's the phenomenon of rapid eye movement sleep. It's a very bizarre brain state. Brain is super active, body paralyzed. But people can blink and they can, um, show some little, like, facial responses. If you ask them to do simple math problems during rapid eye movement sleep, you say, hey, what's two plus two? They'll, um, you know, blink with your, or you know, wink with your right eye if it's four, wink with your other eye if it's five, you know, this kind of, people can do math correctly in their sleep. They can answer not sophisticated questions, but the brain is tracking what's happening all around you. This is why taking the phone and putting it outside the room while you sleep, people

• 19:11Andrew D. Huberman?

  sleep better. People say, oh, it's because of the EMFs. Nobody really knows for sure, but it's because your brain is anticipating picking up the phone even while you're sleeping.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 19:19Andrew D. Huberman?

  So there's, um, I'm hitting with a lot of data here, but it's well-known now that if you give students a test. And their phone is in their bag in the room. They perform less well than if their phone is in their bag in another room. This is true for adults, too. Your brain is tracking sort of potential movements, potential thoughts, potential actions. Like, the way brain circuits work is to create sort of dominoes of circuit sequences. So when you're up, for instance, you've gone on stage so many times to do comedy.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:47Andrew D. Huberman?

  As you walk out, your brain is queuing up a whole library of things related to that without you realizing it.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  Right? It's all context-dependent behavior. And when you get home, it's a different set of context-dependent behaviors. So your brain is, is sort of like a magic library. I always think of this, like, as you get to a particular idea or thought or emotional state, the books change right in front of you to kind of match the set of things that you expect.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:10Andrew D. Huberman?

  So if your phone is in the room, your brain is operating that way even if you're asleep.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  That's insane.

• 20:16Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah. What's your writing process? Let's talk about comedy. That's, I've been, I've got about a gazillion questions. I'm gonna try and make them really succinct. What, what is your typical process of capturing, you call them bits, right?

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, for stand-up, it's a bit, yeah.

• 20:31Andrew D. Huberman?

  What's your typical process of capturing ideas? Like, do you, do you voice memo into the phone? Do you write things down?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  I've done pretty much every, every version of it. Voice notes while high. Sometimes you listen to them later and you're like, holy shit.

• 20:45Andrew D. Huberman?

  Are you a cannabis user?

• 20:46Speaker 01

  I mean, sometimes. I'm not like a heavy user. But a lot of times at night, if you take something and you go to sleep, you're, you're trying to go to sleep, your brain's like, nah, I got ideas.

• 20:55Andrew D. Huberman?

  Is that right?

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:56Andrew D. Huberman?

  I haven't done cannabis since, a long time ago.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then sometimes you listen, because you're convinced, you're like, this is one of the most brilliant ideas.

• 21:04Andrew D. Huberman?

  Have you ever had great ideas that stick?

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've had, I've had, I've had good ones that, that stick. Sometimes the wording's a little off, but yeah, I've had, I've had ones that I actually do enjoy afterwards. And then sometimes you're like, this is, you can hear yourself smiling, like, you know, because you, you can tell someone's emotion by their voice. So I can hear that I'm like, dude, that, like.

• 21:23Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, because you're recording.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  I'm recording into my, in my phone.

• 21:26Andrew D. Huberman?

  So, so let me get the process. So you, you're heading up to sleep and you, you take a, like, an edible.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:31Andrew D. Huberman?

  This is comedy school 101.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:33Andrew D. Huberman?

  Hey, listen, you're, you're the pro. And you, you go to. Voice memos, you're there, eyes closed, and you you start riffing on something?

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like you're, it feels like it's separate from you, right? Because like the, you know, the right kind of, I guess, dosage of THC, it does make your mind run. And sometimes you can, you you have less self-awareness. It's just like, like, the the way I, the nice way to think about it is that your brain always puts things on a shelf for you to get through your day. Like, things that make you uncomfortable even, right? Like, there's things that you go, like, I don't want to think about that. And then THC, I think in the right dosage, just goes, here it is. Like, it puts it in front of you.

• 22:18Andrew D. Huberman?

  Sounds terrible.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  It it can be terrible.

• 22:19Andrew D. Huberman?

  Sounds awful.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  That can be like, often what like, too much is, where you can get into like paranoia. But I think if you have a dosage that is not too strong, so it's not like uncomfortable, it it just lets the mind run. It's like stream of consciousness happens. And so when that's happening, I feel like you go, oh, this is a, this is a, like, it feels like a new thought, a new, or a new perspective on something. And you go, this is, it makes you laugh. You say, this is an idea, I should take this on stage. Because I think for me, a lot of the thing is, here's the kernel of the idea. And then it's not so much I'm going to write out long form how to do it. It's like, that's the idea, take it on stage. So.

• 23:00Andrew D. Huberman?

  You don't actually write things out full form?

• 23:02Speaker 01

  No, don't, I don't write them out full form. And then I just go on stage with the kernel of the idea, that I kind of have a blueprint of like, well, here's what I'm sort of going to try to attack, and then see what happens as I speak it. Because the other way that I, like, my favorite way to write comedy for stand-up is through, is conversations. In other words, we're talking, and I say something, and I either go like, oh, I should say that on stage, or I just find that I'm naturally riffing on it and like, making you laugh. And then I go, I should try that on stage. Because everything is like, it's either, it's funny here, is it funny there? That's kind of like how your mind operates, right?

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Like, I, this is funny in this context, is it funny in the performing context?

• 23:51Andrew D. Huberman?

  But when you're trying new material, you're not doing that for a Netflix special. You're doing that, is the term working out?

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:57Andrew D. Huberman?

  You go to the comedy club on a Tuesday night, and you're you're working out, trying new material, seeing how it lands. You've never. Is what you're saying that you've never actually built out the bit? You're building it out in real time?

• 24:10Speaker 01

  In real time, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:12Andrew D. Huberman?

  Whoa. Is that typical of?

• 24:14Speaker 01

  I think there's like, there's different, you know, camps of it, right? Like, also, there's different, so many different, stand-up is so popular that there's all these different styles. And, and like, you know, there's like, set-up punch guys, like, what you would call almost like pure joke writers. Sam Morril, Dave Attell, Mark Norman, those guys, I feel like, dude, they do a lot of like, here is a, it's, it's the economy of words, it's like, clear premise, setup, and then boom, punchline.

• 24:45Andrew D. Huberman?

  So it'd be like, uh, like, I'm thinking about Norman, right? I won't try and do one of his jokes, but I like, I like Norman's comedy skateboarder, too. Same non-biological first family. So he, I've heard him do things like, so my wife and I were on vacation recently, this kind of thing. Like a setup where it's very clear, I mean, he clearly knows where he's going with this.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:05Andrew D. Huberman?

  On vacation and we're picking out rooms and then, and then at some point, there's a, there's a punchline pivot.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:11Andrew D. Huberman?

  Okay.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  So there's like, some of those are, especially when you, when you feel like they're quite short, if it's like a, it's like, over quickly, that's gonna, a lot of times be something that you knew, I'm gonna say it exactly like this, it's like the most traditional form of a joke. Here's the setup, here's the punchline. And like, I've written jokes like that in, in stand-up, but I do a lot more, you know, long form, I think, like storytelling stuff. And so, you know, to write that all out, I feel like you almost, you almost get in your own way. Cause you're just like, you, you, you, cause then what happens is what you write and what you say, that it's never quite the same.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  So you, you kind of go through what you think is funny about what happened. And then you take that on stage and then. You take that on stage and maybe in a room with like 80 or 100 people. And then, you know, that's the nice thing about stand up is you learn right away if that shit is funny or not. Like, people are laughing hard and you're like, and that's what's such a rush. Because you go, this was an idea, this thing happened, you try it, it works. It's like, it's a really euphoric feeling. And then, if it doesn't, you know, that's when like, kind of the, um, I guess, like, the, the real work of it comes in. Because then you're trying to figure out, you're like, especially if you're like married to the idea. If you're like, this is funny, but it didn't work. So then you start thinking about, did I, is there not enough information for it to work?

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Is that the problem? Is there too much? Because we always say, like, trim the fat. Like, if you, if you have too much stuff in there that is not getting laughs, it's like, maybe just omit some of this information, right? So that becomes like, okay, I'll go back. And instead, instead of saying, this is like useless information. It's not adding to what's funny or whatever. It's not adding to the story I'm telling. You start dropping that. And so you, you start experimenting. And then, and then sometimes you just get into like, okay, is the actual line that I'm saying, the problem, is it, is it that that's not a good enough joke line? And then you start experimenting with that. And then, sometimes you figure it out, which is again, like such an amazing feeling, where you go, this used to not work, and now it works.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  And then sometimes you just gotta go, fuck, man, it's just doesn't work. You just have to abandon it, yeah.

• 27:28Andrew D. Huberman?

  If something works, or you feel like it's, uh, beginning, it's the start of a thread that could work, do you end up writing it down for later? Like, like you're cueing yourself, like, uh, you know, the, the walk with my son bit? Or something like that? Or it's just, or it's all in your head?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Well, you, you kind of have it all in your head. And then, I was gonna show you, like, I have this, that's, I'll, I'll look at this, like, before I go on stage, right? Which is like-

• 27:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  Tom's showing, we can get a, a photo of this if he lets us. It's, it's a bunch of Sharpie-written, single words.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:59Andrew D. Huberman?

  Gitmo, jail, teacher, duck, Huberman, just kidding, Augusta, kill my wife.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, so those like-

• 28:06Andrew D. Huberman?

  Hitler.

• 28:09Andrew D. Huberman?

  Tunisia, make shit. This is amazing.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a set list for an hour.

• 28:16Andrew D. Huberman?

  If you think about the range of things in this relatively short list.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:21Andrew D. Huberman?

  As a partial representation of what goes on in Tom Segura's brain. You get a little.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Well, what's interesting is like, another way like, I think comedians would look at it is you kind of start to go, these are 15 minute chunks. Cause when you do an hour, a lot of comics think of it as four 15 minute chunks. Right? So you go like, okay, this is kind of like setting the table chunk. This is like a kid's family chunk. This is, you know, commentary on social issues or like things that I'm doing or consuming. And then your last chunk is like, I always feel like you want to get into like your, some of your more, I don't know, wilder takes.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Like after the audience has gotten to know you and like trusts you, they're like, okay, is that why you can kind of like, push it more the further into the set you are.

• 29:17Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  So you just kind of break it down.

• 29:18Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, very different, but I've done some lives and I have, you know, four things I'm going to cover and then, but I don't know how I'm going to cover them. Jordan Peterson, when he goes out for his lives, I've been to them, he literally explores a topic in real time, walking back and forth across the stage.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:34Andrew D. Huberman?

  For the first time, I know this because people verify that every night he does something different, even in the same city.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:39Andrew D. Huberman?

  He's exploring it completely in real time. And then other people's lives that I've been to, it's clear it's pretty scripted. They know exactly what they're going to say and when they have a sequence, they have slides. And so I think it can be done any different number of ways.

• 29:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  How long do you go during your waking hours without making or thinking of a joke?

• 29:59Speaker 01

  You know, that's a good question. I really feel like, when you asked me that question, do you know the first person that I think of is actually Rick Rubin? And this is why I was, I remember reading that book he put out, Creative Act. And he was like, there's something about, I'm paraphrasing here, but about like having your antenna up, like, in other words, you still. Put out, some part of you puts out the signal, so to speak, that you're not like going, I need to find something funny. But you're putting your brain in the mode of that, right? And you can also choose not to. And I think there's times where you go like, oh wow, I haven't thought of any, like,

• 30:43Speaker 01

  I haven't looked at anything with like a humorous perspective today, or for whatever, how many hours. And it's almost like that can shift either by you consciously making an effort to do it, or by the company you keep. Because like, obviously, if you're hanging out with comedians, people, it's like, just by being around them, your brain just shifts to like joke mode. You know what I mean? Like, you're just, you're thinking in those terms. Or if you're working on something, like you're writing a script or something, your brain is like actively, even when you're not trying to, it's like thinking of that story and thinking of jokes for the story. So the answer is like, you know, depending on the day, it can be like all day, you're just like joking, joking, joking.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  And like, you're just, in my case, like, you know, saying mostly like awful things, because that's what makes me laugh, I think. You know what I mean? Like, whether it's with friends or family, just like trying to make yourself laugh, really. And then there's days where it's like, you know, you're in like a completely serious mindset, where you're like, nothing humorous is occurring to me at all.

• 31:52Andrew D. Huberman?

  You happen to be married to a comedian?

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:54Andrew D. Huberman?

  Which probably helps your home life in the sense that, you know, has she ever been offended by one of your jokes?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  You know, early on, I remember like, we would have conversations where I was, I'm more, it was more like the fact that I would, I remember I'd pitch like a joke idea, and she would be like, that's fucking awful. And then I would, I told her, I go, you know, whenever you think something is awful, I know it's gonna be good on stage. And she was like, she was like, that's horrible to say. And I was like, no, it's true. Like, if you have disdain for what I said, then I'm pretty confident that it's gonna work. And it was kinda like that. But, um, no, for the most part, no. And she says, Wildly inappropriate and crazy funny things like often way over my line. You know what I mean?

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Not where I'm offended, but I'm like, Jesus Christ. Like, yeah, she says crazy shit, really crazy.

• 32:52Andrew D. Huberman?

  Has she ever offended you to the point where you're like, you can't tell that joke in public? Our family will suffer.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  No, I've never had, we've never had that conversation. Sometimes we have what makes this joke digestible conversations. We're like, we talk about a bit and we're like, and then this is, the punchline is like, in this world. And it's like, okay, you gotta find a way to say that that is gonna be digestible to the, like. So you actually look for like your own advantage. What I mean is like, you know, as a woman, I go like, you can shit on women harder because you're a woman. So like, you should find your way into that bit from the perspective that like, you're actually, you know what I mean? Like, you're actually shit.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Like, I was like, if you're a woman, you can, it's like a black comic can talk about black people, right? Like, that's, you're talking about your own. So like, we'll talk about things like that, like, you can, you can take this angle. And then that, and then the joke becomes digestible. So we'll, we'll talk about like reframing material. And then to me, she's like, yeah, you're just a white guy. You can, apparently you guys can say anything.

• 34:07Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, yeah, really? On the other hand, comedians and what's allowed in comedy at a given time has a powerful influence on culture.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:16Andrew D. Huberman?

  What you can say, what you can't say. Has any comedian ever been canceled for what they said as part of a bit? I mean, we've got these examples of these, I consider them kind of sad instances where people kind of break down on stage, have an interaction with someone in the audience and it really hurts their career and it's super offensive. But that's clearly not part of the bit.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:36Andrew D. Huberman?

  Has a comedian ever been canceled for like, here was the bit and they're done?

• 34:43Speaker 01

  I don't, I can't tell you that it comes to like, the top of my head thinking about that. I know there's been like, I remember there's a Canadian comic that in Canada has some like bizarre, to my experience, free speech rules.

• 34:59Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, okay. I was gonna say comics, I was like, I always think of Canadians as so, you know, kind and well behaved.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  And they have some amazing comedians.

• 35:07Andrew D. Huberman?

  They also have some crazy serial killer stories up there, I discovered, so.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Really?

• 35:10Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, I mean, this idea that Canada is just all like nicer, nicer Americans is not true.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 35:16Andrew D. Huberman?

  There were wonderful Canadians, but, but they're not all nice.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  No, for sure, they're not all nice. No, there's some real fucking pricks up there, yeah. I've, I've met a few, but there's all, there's a amazing, I mean, you know, obviously you think of like Norm MacDonald and like Myers, Ian Bag, like all these, there's really, really funny, um, Canadian comics. Uh, but I remember that there was, not too long ago, I'm sure we could find it, there's a Canadian comic that like, he, uh, he went after some woman in the crowd, like, you know, shut her down, said something offensive, whatever, and he got arrested, you know, had, and like, yeah.

• 35:57Andrew D. Huberman?

  Arrested?

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, arrested and had to pay like substantial fines.

• 36:00Andrew D. Huberman?

  This is like Lenny Bruce days.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really crazy. And this was not, I don't mean like 25 years ago, I mean like sometime in the last five years.

• 36:06Andrew D. Huberman?

  Whoa.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that, I, I know there, there are rules on, so that's like the first thing that I think of when you, when you, when you say that. I also just don't feel like, when people talk about, you know, like cancel culture with comedians, or like Elon's stupid fucking make comedy legal again goofy shit that he said. It's like, what are you talking about? Like, there is no, you can say whatever you want to say. The thing you're pointing, the thing you're really trying to talk about is the fact that like, people react and you know about it, right? Like. 30 years ago, there were people that hated, I'm sure, Robin Williams and, you know, Carlin. Like, they hated him.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  The difference is, they would just tell their friend. And if they really wanted to make a point, they'd get a pen and a paper and buy a fucking stamp and mail them a letter. Like, now, you have social media platforms and people can make videos and like, go crazy. And you just hear the noise. But it's not like humanity has changed. You just hear people telling you that they don't like what you did, or that they don't think you're funny, or whatever. It's not like they didn't, that didn't exist before.

• 37:20Andrew D. Huberman?

  But that's also because, thanks in large part to Rogan, but to others as well. Most comedians seem to control the venues in which they release their information. Podcasts.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:32Andrew D. Huberman?

  You know, I guess you could be thrown out of a club and not be able to present your material there, but there's probably another one that you could open up, and that's happened too.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:41Andrew D. Huberman?

  But podcasts, people will now release their own specials where, you know, it's pay to view. There's Netflix, there's, there are a bunch of different venues where it doesn't seem like comedy is as centralized anymore, controlled by the major media houses.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  That is true. It's in complete control of the comedians themselves. Like, you are, you can put up clips of you doing stand-up, you can make skits, you can do short films, you can do whatever, and you can release it and, and find an audience, like they say, you know, like, make, have an audience come to you. But I just don't buy this whole thing that like, you know, you can't, you can't joke about that. You can joke about whatever you want, man.

• 38:19Andrew D. Huberman?

  But not at work. I mean, if you, if someone makes a joke or repeats a joke.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Oh, well, yeah.

• 38:23Andrew D. Huberman?

  Let's say in academic setting, for instance. The office place.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  No, your guy's world is the worst when it comes to that. The academic world is...

• 38:31Andrew D. Huberman?

  Actually, it's interesting, in the last five to eight years, the academic world has actually... From this, around this topic, has become safer because the rules are very clear. They're what I call thick black lines, right? It's when things are murky that people got themselves in trouble.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 38:48Andrew D. Huberman?

  Right, so if you look 10 years back, it was really complicated. Now, everyone kind of knows what the standard is.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:57Andrew D. Huberman?

  Might be uncomfortable for some, not for others, but they know what the standard is. It's very easy to adhere to a standard if you know where the fences are.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 39:03Andrew D. Huberman?

  Where it seems to be still murky is in the workplace. Like in the boardroom, you'll hear about, you know, like tech companies, or in finance, or startups, right? Because startups, when they're small, typically don't have an HR department. The HR department is kind of the standards that you create around the, you know, the office, which could be a garage, right? So that's typically when, when things aren't well-defined is when there are problems. So, yes, it's rigid in certain areas, like academia, law offices, et cetera, but everyone knows what the rules are.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:34Andrew D. Huberman?

  I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm just saying, you know what it is.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  But I feel like, we're talking about in comedy as a profession. Like, you know, you can joke about whatever you want, dude. What you can't dictate is how people will react to it. And if you're, if you're trying to say, like, because some comedians do this, where they go, "This was the joke, and what I'm mad about, and what I'm going to be vocal about and complain about, is that not everybody liked it." You're like, "Yeah, that's not..." I mean, that's essentially what they're doing.

• 40:04Andrew D. Huberman?

  Right.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  They throw a tantrum over the fact that some people are upset at the joke. You're like, "Yeah, that's how it goes." Like, either it goes really well, or it doesn't. And you can't go, "Oh, see? I can't joke about stuff, because look how they reacted." You're like, "That's, that's how this works." Like, what you can also do is completely ignore that. And if you want, double down on your joke. Keep going. Do it even, do a crazier version of your joke. But just be prepared that not everyone's gonna go, "That was the greatest thing ever." And that's what some comics do, is they go, "I can't believe not everybody is applauding me on this thing." It's, they'll, they'll liken it to cancel culture, which is insane.

• 40:46Andrew D. Huberman?

  Right. Yeah, you have to be a professional, and part of being a professional is how it lands, is as important as...

• 40:52Speaker 01

  You just have no say in that.

• 40:56Andrew D. Huberman?

  I'm always fascinated by comics who will smirk or laugh a little bit at their own joke. And assuming that certain jokes and bits work exceptionally well and you carry them forward from, you know, trying it out to, you know, Netflix specials or big venues, huge venues. You do huge venues, Hubert, you do huge venues. Do you ever get tired of the material and worry that your response is not going to, that your amusement won't be there and therefore they won't respond to it? This is two questions woven, I'm realizing. Do you think your own amusement with a joke has an impact on how it lands? That's question one. And woven in with that is, how do you then work with the idea that every time you tell a joke, it might not be as funny as the previous time?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  No, those are, those are great questions. Yeah, I feel like if I'm smirking or laughing at a joke of mine, it's probably organic. I don't try to like manufacture one. You still want to enjoy the process of performing it. And when you lose that enjoyment of performing it, I do think the audience knows on like an unspoken level. There's something about it that doesn't come across the same way. And yeah, you, you sense it. And I think typically what happens, what's happened to me over time is if you're on tour and you're kind of like, your brain is like walking up to this bit, like you, you know it's next.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  And you start to like internally go like, ah, this fucking bit. Like what happens naturally is you start to drop it. And it's, you're, you're essentially listening to yourself. It's one of those, it's like the same way you go, I should, I don't like this person, right? You go like, I don't think I want to be friends with this person. And you, you kind of like, don't return a text or you go, I'm not going to hang out with you.

• 42:48Andrew D. Huberman?

  Slow exit.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  It's a slow exit. And what happens is you drop it. And the great thing about dropping it is your brain goes, hey, you have room for something now. And that room for something also prompts your brain to start thinking of new things. That's how you kind of come up with new material, is that you, but you have to, this is the danger, by the way, of these comedians. Sometimes there's these comics who are like really funny, really talented people, and they'll do. They'll have a 20 minute set, right? You'll be working in clubs and you see them do a 20 minute set and then they murder, right? They fucking kill so hard. And then like five years later, you see them and they're doing that 20 minute set.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  And what happens is it's like a very natural thing that you just have to deal with is they have this great fear of not killing that hard anymore. So they don't stop doing that 20 minutes. And by not stopping, they just stop evolving and they stop creating and they're just like, they're the 20 minute set guy. You go like, yeah, they have that great 20 minutes. And then it starts to get dated and then, you know what I mean?

• 43:55Andrew D. Huberman?

  MMBop.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  It's exactly.

• 43:58Andrew D. Huberman?

  Only a fraction of the audience will know what I'm talking. There was a song that was like the song for a summer. You could replace MMBop with any, like a song for a summer way back when.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a summer hit.

• 44:07Andrew D. Huberman?

  It was everywhere. And then the band just disappears because the one hit wonder phenomenon.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have to like, because you'll see the very best comics will do this. And like, it's kind of something you have to wrap your head around, but then you, once you do this long enough, you go like, oh shit. The most elite comics are completely willing to bomb at these workout shows. Not like at their hour huge show, but like at workout shows, super elite comics will go up there and be like, I'm just gonna do, because they know that you have to be willing to eat shit to come up with something really good. And sometimes you'll watch them like bomb and your own insecurities flare up. You're like, oh my God, this is, like, I can't believe, like, all these people are gonna be like, you suck, you know?

• 44:57Speaker 01

  And these guys don't care. They don't care because they know that's, they know you have to train to get stronger, basically.

• 45:04Andrew D. Huberman?

  It's so beautiful. You know, when Josh Waitzkin was on this podcast and he also did a conversation with Rogan, which is different, and if somebody's interested in this stuff, they should check out both because they're complimentary conversations. But Josh was this child prodigy chess champion and then went on to do a bunch of other things at extremely high level. He talks about the need and his lack of fear, which is very admirable, for cutting ties with your previous self. Just being willing to say, you know what, like? That was a NBA championship. He works with the Boston Celtics. So this is very relevant right now. Or, but that was last year. We're a new team now. We're not the defending champions.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:38Andrew D. Huberman?

  Or musician had a platinum album. Or, or this was a particularly successful podcast run and just cut ties with it and be willing to just go completely now and future.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 45:47Andrew D. Huberman?

  You mentioned Rick. One of the things that I've benefited so much from being friends with Rick, in addition to the fact that I just adore the guy.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:55Andrew D. Huberman?

  Um, is that he has so many stories about things from the past if you ask him, but he never brings that stuff up. You know, he'll, he'll indulge you if you say, ah, tell me a story about Joe Strummer or something. He'll, he'll tell me.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:06Andrew D. Huberman?

  But he really lives now and forward.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:10Andrew D. Huberman?

  And I think it's the weight skin that says, you know, you want, you don't want to be on the train of life. You want to be strapped to the front end.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 46:16Andrew D. Huberman?

  You know, experiencing space and time as it's unfolding, which is a very philosophical way to put this.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:20Andrew D. Huberman?

  But that challenge of cutting ties with your previous self to continue to evolve your craft is so hard, but it's exactly what you're describing.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  I mean, like, I had this rule, I had this rule early on that I, I think it was, I was just lucky that I told myself this, which is that I recorded an album, um, I think in 2010. And, you know, I, you kind of want to get like a special and a deal, but I, I didn't have one, so I, I've recorded an album and I put out the album. And at that time, you know, people are buying these comedy albums and you start, starting to stream stuff and you also, physical copies are still a thing because this is like 2010. And so this was my work. Like I, from when I started stand up to this album, this was like the best I could do, right? This was all the, all my best stand up.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  And I put it out and like, yeah, I mean, I had some marginal success with it. Like I was selling a lot of copies or whatever. Well, I told myself that even though I was not a ticket selling comedian, that everybody who was at a show had heard that album, like that they all knew it, which is completely not true. But by doing that to myself, it made me go, well, I need a new hour, right? So that, I was lucky that I thought that way because. I could have stayed doing a lot of that album because those were like really like really worked out bits that would just crush. But I was just like, I'll, I knew that like I wouldn't move on and evolve if I just kept doing them.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  And that was the thing that I, and then the next thing I did was another album and I did that again. I was just like, I gotta like drop this stuff and move on. And that's, I think, what helped me and a bunch of other comics who like now we're in the practice of like shooting specials and then you just drop all of it and you go back to square one. But like that helps you to continue being creative in, in standup. You have to just drop stuff.

• 48:20Andrew D. Huberman?

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• 49:05Andrew D. Huberman?

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• 49:49Andrew D. Huberman?

  If you'd like to try AG1, you can go to Drinkag1.com/huberman to claim a special offer. Right now AG1 is giving away an AG1 Welcome Kit with five free travel packs and a free bottle of vitamin D3 K2. Again, go to drinkag1.com/huberman to claim the special Welcome Kit with five free travel packs and a free bottle of vitamin D3 K2. Today's episode is also brought to us by David. David makes a protein bar unlike any other. It has 28 grams of protein, only 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. That's right, 28 grams of protein and 75% of its calories come from protein. This is 50% higher than the next closest protein bar. David Protein Bars also taste amazing. Even the texture is amazing.

• 50:33Andrew D. Huberman?

  My favorite bar is the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, but then again, I also like the new Chocolate Peanut Butter Flavor and the Chocolate Brownie Flavored. Basically, I like all the flavors a lot. They're all incredibly delicious. In fact, the toughest challenge is knowing which ones to eat on which days and how many times per day. I limit myself to two per day, but I absolutely love them. With David, I'm able to get 28 grams of protein in the calories of a snack, which makes it easy to hit my protein goals of one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, and it allows me to do so without ingesting too many calories. I'll eat a David Protein Bar most afternoons as a snack, and I always keep one with me when I'm out of the house or traveling. They're incredibly delicious, and given that they have 28 grams of protein, they're really satisfying for having just 150 calories.

• 51:16Andrew D. Huberman?

  If you'd like to try David, you can go to davidprotein.com/huberman. Again, that's davidprotein.com/huberman. On the topic of the finding the material humorous or being excited about the material being crucial to how it lands with the audience. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna make this very brief. When I was an undergraduate, I was interested in what makes something funny, the psychology and neuroscience of humor. And there wasn't a whole lot of neuroscience on it at that time. But the basic takeaway from the literature, as I recall, was that The listener thinks that a narrative is going one way. And then there's this surprise element, something you didn't anticipate coming. I think that characterizes a lot of bits and a lot of jokes.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 51:58Andrew D. Huberman?

  Whoa, it's the pop. However, I've also seen you do bits and other people do bits where you're headed down a trail. And I'm thinking, oh, no, he's not going there, is he? And you go there and that's hysterical also.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  So is there a name for this or how does it work?

• 52:15Speaker 01

  No, I think, I mean, you're right, Flo. The most basic necessity for, I think, comedy at a very baseline level to explain it or, you know, define it is the element of surprise, right? The surprise is like, so it's that thing. If you go, I know where this is going, you're not going to react the same way. If it gets you, it's, oh, my God. But that second description of like, is that person going somewhere? I think that satisfies something in human beings, which is somebody saying the thing that we all want to say. And, and you can't say it, you can't say it, you can't say it in polite society. You can't say it at a, at a nice dinner function. You can't say it at work.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  And you're just like, God, this is what I think. And you know, other people think it. And then the guy's up there and he's going like, hey, you want to hear some shit? Like, somebody says it and everyone goes, this is, it becomes a release. It's a release of like, oh, he's saying the thing that we all wish we could say. And you're saying it, you know, it's, it's a very particular thing because it, it actually is, it works because you're in that building too. It's, it works because you're, you all have the unspoken agreement that this is a place to do this in, right? It's still different. Like, if I just walk up to you on the street and start saying that shit, you're like, Jesus Christ, dude, like you're a psycho.

• 53:38Andrew D. Huberman?

  Lock him up.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, but like in this context. So both things are satisfy something, I think, in the, in the humor realm, right? The element of surprise will always be something like the unexpected. But there's also this like condition, I think, we live with where we go, we all think this, but we can't say it. And that, that's a very satisfying thing when somebody says it.

• 54:00Andrew D. Huberman?

  Well, I had the great benefit of getting a sneak peek at Bad Thoughts.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, thanks.

• 54:06Andrew D. Huberman?

  And it's amazing. People should definitely check it out. And. I don't want to give anything away, but the second one in the sequence that I watched, I thought, there's no way he's doing this. And it just kept coming at me. I was like, there's no way. Went to sleep last night, and this doesn't happen to me in a long time. I woke up laughing.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:26Andrew D. Huberman?

  Which is a wonderful experience.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 54:29Andrew D. Huberman?

  There are only a few states of mind and body that you wake up in and you're like, well, that was amazing, you know?

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:34Andrew D. Huberman?

  I woke up laughing. So it's seeded into my unconscious. So now I'm worried I'm gonna say some of the things that you said.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  I hope you do.

• 54:42Andrew D. Huberman?

  But one thing that occurred to me in watching Bad Thoughts is that you're not just a phenomenal comedian, but you're also a really good actor.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 54:51Andrew D. Huberman?

  And a number of comedians seem able to act, which is surprising to me for reasons that don't make any sense to me.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  But no.

• 55:00Andrew D. Huberman?

  You know, if you look at, athletes often are terrible actors.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:04Andrew D. Huberman?

  I mean, some of the best acting that athletes have done is when they're playing kind of a buffoon. Or they're supposed to not be able to act well, I think, because some of like the Naked Gun movies.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Shout out to OJ, right?

• 55:15Andrew D. Huberman?

  To OJ, right? I mean, he's not a good actor.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:17Andrew D. Huberman?

  And it worked because he wasn't a good actor.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:20Andrew D. Huberman?

  But you're a very good actor.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 55:22Andrew D. Huberman?

  Like, did you train for it?

• 55:24Speaker 01

  I loved making people laugh. And the first thing I did, like, in performing was, you know, I did like a play as a kid. I did an improv troupe at 14, which is pretty young to be in an improv troupe. I did that for like a summer. And my whole thing was I wanted to make movies. Like, I had a plan. When I was in college, I would, I had the communications track, so we would do TV, radio production. And when we had video projects, I would always do like comedy things. And everybody would be like, what are you doing? Why are you making this? Like, you're supposed to be making like a video about the soccer program? You know, and I'm like, I was like, this is about, like, this is a capsule you put in your ass and it freezes your shit. Like, I would make like diarrhea commercials and they were like, don't do that.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  But this is the stuff that would make, I was like, making me laugh. And I wanted to make movies and I just was like, you know, that was what I wanted to do. And then I moved out here and I had learned, I knew that. At the time, some of these big comedy movie people

• 56:25Speaker 01

  were a product of SNL. And that those people were usually products of Second City or The Groundlings. And since I moved to LA, The Groundlings were big in LA. It's an improv school and a performance block. They put on shows. I was like, that's what I'll do. I'll just go to The Groundlings. And I took some classes there and I got through a few levels. But I got into stand-up shortly thereafter that. Some of my improv friends were like, you should try stand-up. And I got so hooked by stand-up. And I also saw a path because I was also like, well, you have to make a living, right? And the actor's life, to me, is so unsettling with like, you're on a show.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  And then they're like, I don't have a gig anymore. Like, to me, the fact that stand-up, even though it's very, very, very low pay, especially like as you're getting into it, the fact that you can just like, keep doing it, like, to me, like, made sense. It like soothed me. And I feel like, you know, I kind of stopped training as far as. I did another acting class in LA at that time, like, early on. But I always just wanted to keep doing it, you know? And so every once in a while, I would make like a short film. Like, I made a few short films with friends or like, you know, comedy shorts. And I auditioned for some things, you know? I did small parts here and there, but I never really got to do all the types of things I wanted to do.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  So this show became like this incredible opportunity where I was like, we're going to tell this type of story, this type of story, like, because it's essentially a collection of short stories is what the show is, right? And some of them are self-contained, some of them are two-part, three-part. But it allowed me as an actor to play all these different roles, which was like so fun. It felt like I was doing like 20, like the 20 years I didn't really act that much. I got to like throw in all these different characters in the show.

• 58:24Andrew D. Huberman?

  We're a very fine actor.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 58:26Andrew D. Huberman?

  As they say, it was, I was like, oh, he's acting. He's, this isn't just, you know, stand up.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:31Andrew D. Huberman?

  You know, stand up is its own thing. In previous Netflix specials, but I've also seen you do these in, uh, these bits in smaller clubs, like at the Belly Up in Aspen.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:42Andrew D. Huberman?

  Smaller place.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:43Andrew D. Huberman?

  Where we just coincidentally wore the exact.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  The exact same thing.

• 58:46Andrew D. Huberman?

  So we're same flannel, same jeans, same Adidas. That was really weird.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  That's DNA.

• 58:50Andrew D. Huberman?

  We did not coordinate.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  That's DNA.

• 58:51Andrew D. Huberman?

  That's DNA.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  That's DNA.

• 58:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  And the, um, cosmic correspondence of the butterfly effect.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  That's, yes.

• 58:57Andrew D. Huberman?

  I was like, my dad was trying to explain to me at one point.

• 59:02Andrew D. Huberman?

  You do voices very well, in particular, the voices of your kids. And you're able, I always think that, um, when somebody impersonates somebody else, it's about grabbing the key elements, like not the whole piece. They don't like turn around and like come back as, you know, like.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:18Andrew D. Huberman?

  Like, some people can just grab a few key elements of somebody. In this case, someone we've never met.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:24Andrew D. Huberman?

  It was your sons.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:25Andrew D. Huberman?

  And we feel like we know them and we're getting that, like, what clearly are key features of their personality coming through. Do you practice those or you just observe and it just is kind of embedded in you?

• 59:35Speaker 01

  I think it's observed and embedded. And I think in that case in particular, cause with your kids, there's this thing that happens where you talk about your kids a lot, not on stage. In other words, you know, I'm talking to my sisters or I'm talking to a friend about the kids. So you're, you're kind of like, you get this extra practice about them because they are so much something that you, people always are like, how are your kids, right? And so you're just like, oh, I got home, this little shit came in. He was like, hey, fucking pick me up. You know, like, so you start like doing impressions.

• 1:00:07Andrew D. Huberman?

  Which one is that?

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  That's the little guy.

• 1:00:08Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, yeah. He sounds like a piece of work, man.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  He is a piece of work, dude. He is something else. He's like, it's so funny, we call, sometimes we call him little Joe Pesci, cause he's just like, what the fuck? We're like, yo, man. Like, I don't say that in front of him. He's six.

• 1:00:24Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  He's six, and he's like, he's fucking, fucking with me all day, dad.

• 1:00:28Andrew D. Huberman?

  Did he get that from you or from your wife?

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  I feel like it's more her. I feel like she's got those.

• 1:00:32Andrew D. Huberman?

  I'll have to ask her.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  She's got those Hungarian roots where they, like, when I was a kid in our house, there was not a lot of cursing, dude.

• 1:00:39Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, no, I get whacked if I.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:42Andrew D. Huberman?

  No, no, I hit, but, you know, I think if I talk back. It only happened twice in my life.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:46Andrew D. Huberman?

  I spoke back. I won't say to which parent.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:00:49Andrew D. Huberman?

  And I got hit.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:50Andrew D. Huberman?

  Nowadays, people are like, oh, he was beaten up. I'm fine.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Andrew D. Huberman?

  Okay. I didn't, I don't swear at people.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Andrew D. Huberman?

  Very often. It's in an extreme circumstance.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Andrew D. Huberman?

  So, okay, so, but he swears all the time, apparently.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Dude, I mean, to the point where we're, I mean, like, I know people, whenever you talk about this, people are like, you're a bad dad. I'm like, just shut the fuck up. Like, you've never been around, like, these boys are, I have two little wild dudes. They're, by the way, I always share stories of the, of like extremes. Like, they're sweet, adorable, loving, wonderful kids, right? But they're just two little dudes who like, I come home and they're like, it's torture time. They like, they call it torture time, where like, I lay down and then they just get to like, fuck me up. And then they'll think they're stronger than me, and I'm like, bro, like, let me, do you want to feel this? And then I just put them in like, some crazy, you know, rap where they, they go, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm like, yeah, like.

• 1:01:43Andrew D. Huberman?

  How old's the older one?

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  He's nine. He's nine. Dude, I get home every day. He's like, check this out. He takes off his shirt. He's like, he flexes.

• 1:01:51Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  He's like, I'm gonna be so jacked by high school. I'm like, yeah, yes, probably. And he's lean, like, he's got like, he's got the, the body for it. He's going to like, we go to the park, and he's just sitting there doing pull-ups, and he'll bring weights. He'll bring weights to the park, and you see like, other kids.

• 1:02:08Andrew D. Huberman?

  Dude, that's the H to start. There's an Instagram account of this guy. I'll dig it up for the, for the captions. His daughter's probably 11.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:16Andrew D. Huberman?

  And she's doing pull-ups with a 45-pound plate and ankle weights strapped to her waist. Really? And she's doing pull-ups to the chest. She's not, you know, built yet. You know, she's clearly before puberty and she's just butt just. Oh, my goodness, that you just imagine like the tendon strength, the joint strength.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Gonna be.

• 1:02:35Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, a little gymnast perhaps.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  He's so into it, talking about six packs. If you could have a six pack soon, like, yeah, sure, keep going, man. He goes, why don't you have one? Like, just fucking.

• 1:02:46Andrew D. Huberman?

  He's already busting your balls. You told me a story once over dinner about your son learning piano. If you remember that, I think it was the younger one. And it was something like, you know, like, how's piano going? And you're like, and you're saying, he goes, it fucking sucks. You know, like, that's it. It sounds like that's his response. He's just, uh, he's ready to pop back all the time.

• 1:03:06Speaker 01

  Always. No, he's completely ready. He, um, the funniest thing that he did recently was, um, we've, they both go to jujitsu.

• 1:03:14Andrew D. Huberman?

  Okay.

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  And, uh, the older one's really thriving. Like, he's, he has a skill for it, you know? He's, and he's doing it well, moving up. And the younger guy, I mean, you know, he's like a puppy, like, it started when he was five. Like, they're just, it's just different, right? You're pretty young. And so we're, we're at class and he goes, I'm not doing this anymore. And I go, what do you mean? He goes, I'm too busy, man. And I go, what?

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  He goes, he goes, my schedule. I go, your schedule? I go, okay, tell, tell the instructor. So that guy comes over, you know, and he goes, hey, uh, how, you know, how'd you enjoy class today? Julian? And he was like, good, but I'm done. And he goes, what do you mean you're done? And he goes, I'm too busy, man. And he's like, what are you, what are you too busy with? He goes, I have kindergarten, I have Spanish, I have drums, I don't have time for this. And I go, I'm sitting there like, this is insane. And that guy goes, but you know what? You gotta be strong in this world, don't you? And he goes, yeah. He goes, yeah, there's no option for being strong. So because you can't have the option to not be strong, right? And then Julian's like, that's right.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  He's like, great, so I'll see you Thursday. And he goes, I told you, I'm way too busy. And then he just was like, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm like, okay, dude.

• 1:04:35Andrew D. Huberman?

  He's done?

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  He's done. I mean, I also like-

• 1:04:37Andrew D. Huberman?

  He can really advocate for himself.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  He definitely advocates for himself. I just, I've never been the, you know, the type where like, you have to do these, like, I feel like the fun thing about a kid, boy or girl, with sports is expose them to a lot of sports. And I don't wanna like, you know, go, you have to do these, like, whatever sport you like, you can do that one. Clearly, like, this wasn't the one that drew him in enough, and I'm totally fine with it. It's like, cool, you wanna try tennis, you wanna try soccer, you want, like, I'll let him try all the sports. I want them to be in activities, but I'm not gonna be like, you have to do all these sports, you know?

• 1:05:15Andrew D. Huberman?

  Meanwhile, they're becoming comics in their, in their mind.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Oh, they're, yeah.

• 1:05:19Andrew D. Huberman?

  Both parents are comics.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  They're funny dudes. They are very funny, yeah. They, and they, they love to laugh, and it's fun, because you see kids, when a kid says something that's genuinely funny, and you start laughing, you see like, that look in their eye, they're like, oh, that was, that's cool. Then you just try to like, do it again. And if they do it too much, you're like, yeah, it's not funny anymore, you can't do it that much.

• 1:05:38Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, that is a perfect cue for me to ask what I was going to ask earlier, when we were talking about, when you are amused by something, you, you really delight in telling this bit.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:49Andrew D. Huberman?

  It, it impacts the audience and how it lands. There's a very famous patient in neuroscience, probably the most famous patient, his name is H M. It's a, you know, we don't know his real name. He's dead now, but he had a lesion to his hippocampus, this brain area involved in memory. And he was studied extensively for decades, and most of what we know about human memory is from this guy. All the other stuff we know from mouse studies, a little bit from monkey studies.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:06:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  So, there's a very well-known study where you go in and, and he has no retrograde memory. He can't remember anything that, that you told him before. Like, within a matter of seconds, he forgets it completely, and they've tested this every which way, okay?

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  Holy shit.

• 1:06:27Andrew D. Huberman?

  His brain is now in a jar, it's been scanned, et cetera, but, so, the, the study goes something like this. You go in and you tell H M a joke, and he laughs. And he thinks it's very funny. Then you leave, you come back and he doesn't remember who you are.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:06:42Andrew D. Huberman?

  Uh, this has been tested again and again. He's not fibbing, okay? And there are a number of ways that you can, you can measure this, especially if you make it, um, sadly, like, some survival based things like.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:52Andrew D. Huberman?

  You tell him the joke again and he laughs again, but a little less. And the next time, a little less and a little less. And eventually he's like, yeah, that is not really funny.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:01Andrew D. Huberman?

  Same joke. He does not remember the joke, but there seems to be some unconscious memory of the joke, which I always found fascinating. So it's like, it's almost like the, the narrative around something, we, we get saturated to it. We're all familiar with the friend at a dinner party that tells a joke and everybody laughs. And then they make the cardinal mistake, which is to tell the joke again at the same dinner. And it just burns it. It burns it there and it burns it the previous time. So what do you, I mean, I'm not asking you to be a neurologist or a neuroscientist, but,

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:07:32Andrew D. Huberman?

  But what do you think is going on here? Not necessarily in HM, the patient, but there's something about telling that funny punchline twice.

• 1:07:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:40Andrew D. Huberman?

  That you just, I feel like men, like guys seem to do this more. It's like you got it, you nailed it.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:46Andrew D. Huberman?

  Do not tell the joke again.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  Well, every guy thinks he can fight, fuck, is funny and can drive. Those are the four things that every guy thinks he's awesome at. And you're lucky if you're marginal at one. Like every guy thinks, you know what I mean? Every dude's like, I can do, I can drive. I'm hilarious. I can fight chicks. Like every guy has this thing. And then the more self-aware ones go like, I'm not good at these. I'm good at this one.

• 1:08:09Andrew D. Huberman?

  So I'll train.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  I, I, you know what I mean? Like that's.

• 1:08:12Andrew D. Huberman?

  Cross train.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  Cross train, man. You gotta do them all. Um. But the funny thing is when you were talking about HM, what I thought you were gonna, the point you were making is that, you go back in and it's not HM that is not laughing anymore at the funny thing. It's that the person telling is that you lose something. Cause there is this thing in stand-up.

• 1:08:30Andrew D. Huberman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  That is like a phenomenon. Like I don't have the answer to, but any comedian you talk to will, will, will tell you that this is true. Where you go and you say this thing, right? It might be like your opening thing. You, or it could be a couple of minutes in and you, you let, you, you say the joke, you tell the thing. And it kills. And you're like, fuck yeah, this is awesome. You know, like your brain just goes like, lock it in. And then the next night you go. You say it and it gets laughs, but it's like it's a little less. And then this progresses, like you keep doing shows and it's like two months later and you're like, the thing's like not, it doesn't really work. And you go listen to like, I think I'm saying it the same way.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  It's like, there's this like, sometimes there's this thing where it's like, there's like a magical quality of like, if it just streamed out of you once, in this setting, in this room, at this moment, there's something about the way that you said it and the timing with which you said it, that it evoked all this laughter and that for some reason, this thing no longer connects and just it doesn't register. And you, you try to do the analysis of why that is the case. And you, you essentially just end up doing this, just like, I don't know why, but it just stopped being funny. To all new audiences, it killed over here, it doesn't work here.

• 1:09:56Andrew D. Huberman?

  So interesting, I'm obsessed with mainly two things, time perception and state changes in the human brain. We know so much about REM sleep and slow wave sleep, we know very little about waking states. Like alert and focused or like, we have these terms, but like, there's so much more going on there. And so the question is this, we're at a club or a stadium and you're gonna go on, but I go on first, which means my bit sucks. It just sucks because I'm not a comedian. Someone else goes on, let's say, Brian Holtzman, I find very funny.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:29Andrew D. Huberman?

  He's good, right? I mean, when he's, when he's on, he's really on, he's very funny. Holtzman goes on and does really well.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:36Andrew D. Huberman?

  Who do you want to follow?

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Holtzman.

• 1:10:38Andrew D. Huberman?

  Because the crowd is, is in a state of being ready to, to receive the jokes?

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I feel like when you're, when you're newer.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  The, probably the typical answer for most comedians would be like, I want to follow the guy that didn't do well, right? Because then like, I can save the day. But the longer you do it, you realize that's not actually, like, you actually want the guy in front of you to do well, even really well. Because it does generate this thing of like, this is what this is. We're at a place of doing this. It's jokes, it's fun. And, you know, we kind of, you borrow the term, ride their wave. Like, that guy just created a wave. And if you can jump on it. Sometimes you have to reset. You have to like, you know, you're kind of letting the audience know, this is a different thing. Especially if they like, absolutely murder. Like, if they destroy, you're like, whoa.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  Like, you just kind of go, yeah, I'm a, I'm a new person. And the thing is, you don't want to go like, I'm scared that that happened. You just go, this is my thing now, you know? But, but you have them in the state of, this is, we're here to laugh. Whereas the guy who just like, ate shit, they are all like, what the fuck is this? And then, you know, they basically dug a hole. So then you go up there being, you're, you're now the person that has to like, set the table and be like, so I know that last thing felt like a fucking eulogy, so now, I, I will try to get you out of feeling the way you feel, and make you understand that it's joke time. You'll, you'll often start slower by following the person that did poorly, right?

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  You think it's, oh, you're funny, it's now gonna go well. You have to like, cook it back up. So following the, the good comic is always the better choice.

• 1:12:29Speaker 02

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• 1:12:59Andrew D. Huberman?

  I'm thinking of giving toasts at weddings.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:02Andrew D. Huberman?

  Like if somebody gives a really great toast, giving the next toast, you're saying, oh, that's a hard act to follow. No, actually, it's an easy act to follow. Because everyone's just kind of basking in whatever just happened.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:13:11Andrew D. Huberman?

  Sounds similar.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:13:12Andrew D. Huberman?

  State changes, whether or not we're talking about running, or you're talking about cannabis, or you're talking about, whatever it is. I mean, I find that so much of the creative process, or the constructive process, science or comedy or whatever, is about accessing these states. And we learn how to do it through what kind of becomes an unconscious process, but you know how to get there.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:33Andrew D. Huberman?

  Again and again. And so much of becoming a professional is about going through the peaks and valleys of, you know, bombing and coming back.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:13:40Andrew D. Huberman?

  You know, so I'm curious, before you go out on stage now, given the size of the crowds, is just the kind of memory of what's about to happen sufficient to put you in state?

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  So the thing is, the longer you do it, and the more shows you do, you've kind of performed in every state. Sometimes you have to remind, I like to remind myself that I'm at my funniest, and I'm the best version of myself on stage when I have a silly mindset going. Meaning like, just, just like goofing off, like being a kid almost. So if I'm backstage, and I have you in there, and I'm just saying, you know, I'm like poking you, not like roasting you, but like, you know, being silly, right?

• 1:14:26Andrew D. Huberman?

  I can tell you, we're related, I can tell you.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like being silly. I feel like that mindset is like the best version of me to go on stage. And you can forget it, by the way, I forget it all the time, right? Because I've performed tired, upset, sad, anxious, like I've performed in every possible state. But I do like to tell myself, like, oh yeah, don't forget, kind of like, get yourself into this silly state. I also like... Some, like, I'm kind of an introvert, right? Like, there's some, there's some true extrovert comics, like Buddy Burt's like a true extrovert. And like, his green room before a show will have like 80 people in it. And I'm like, what? Like, I like my green room to have either just me, or like, two or three people. And like chill energy, but still like, it's still loose, right?

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  It's not like a serious thing, but like loose fun. And that gets me into the mindset of like, this is gonna be fun. I look over my set list, you know, like I, I'll check in on, you know, you listen to like what the crowds like. And you're like, ooh, they sound, they sound hot. Like, that kind of gets you excited. But I just try to, I try to embrace that mindset of like, let's have, like, let's have fun. Let's have fun. That, that puts me in a, in a good place as a performer onstage. Do you watch a lot of comedy, like the greats, the, like, do you? I don't watch a lot of comedy anymore, I would say. Like, I, as a kid, I mean, I think the reason you kind of follow this path is because you're, you're just such a huge fan of it.

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  So like, growing up, I watched a lot of the, you know, Evening at the Improv, Def Jam specials, like a lot of, you know. It was also like, specials were truly special, right? Cause there was like, there was like six specials, maybe a year. Eddie Murphy? Yeah, Eddie and Chris Rock and Carlin and like, all those guys would like, put out a special. I mean, once every few years, and there was only a few places. You know, HBO was just like, the place. And then Comedy Central became the other place. HBO was premium, like really elite, like huge, huge talent. And then Comedy Central was kind of everybody else. And then now the landscapes changed where, you know, we get, I don't know, man. I feel like there's 300 specials a year, right?

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  Like, cause you can release them on, they're on Netflix, they're on Max, they're on Hulu, they're on Amazon, they're on YouTube. Like, there's just, you're bombarded. It's great in one regard for standup, cause it speaks to how popular standup is. And it's so accessible and it's cool that so many people can put out their stuff. But it's, it's just like overwhelming. So I'll, I'll only check out like, I feel like in the last couple of years, I've maybe seen like two specials, you know? A lot of times I'll start a special, turn it off after like 10 minutes. Kind of want to see like what someone's doing. But I find, I find it personally hard to finish a special. But I also find it hard to watch stand up in the room, like at a club or something. Like I get, I leave. Like, I don't mean like I leave the venue, I just leave the room.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  Like, it's just harder for me to, I feel anxious. I think it's really about me internalizing what I feel like the feeling is on stage. Especially if it's not, like if it's really, really good stand up, then I sit there and I go like, oh my God, and I enjoy it. But if there's like, any bit of it that like, feels like maybe that's not working, or that guy's anxious, or whatever, it reminds me of my own feelings on stage that are like that, and I don't want to be in that space. So I like, I get, I leave the room and I'll just go sit somewhere else.

• 1:17:58Andrew D. Huberman?

  I mean, so much of what we're talking about today, I just realized is emotional contagion. It really introduces this question, this is very reductionist thinking, but how much of the success of a bit or a joke is the emotion that the person telling it is carrying? And how much of it is the actual words and content? It's probably that, plus the rhythm and the timing, there's a lot of things.

• 1:18:18Speaker 01

  It's a combination of those things, yeah.

• 1:18:19Andrew D. Huberman?

  But emotional contagion is real. You're talking about it as a comedian, watching comedy, it kind of permeates you.

• 1:18:26Speaker 01

  Is that what it's called, emotional contagion?

• 1:18:28Andrew D. Huberman?

  Emotional contagion. And some people are more emotional, emotionally permeable than others.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:33Andrew D. Huberman?

  You know, we could put this on a spectrum. We could even put it on the, so what used to be called the autistic spectrum? Like, people who are really contained in their emotions, like, things don't get them. But people who are at the far end of that spectrum, they have a sensory sensitivity, you know? Kids that are really like severely autistic, you know? The amount of noise in a typical room is overwhelming to them.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  It's overwhelming, right.

• 1:18:57Andrew D. Huberman?

  They actually have discovered that that's actually outside the brain, that they, their sensory endings are tuned differently to the world. They're experiencing the world very, very differently. You have these, certain people. Get scared when they watch a movie and they they jump when the when the monster jumps out. Other people are like less of a startle response.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  I get startled.

• 1:19:19Andrew D. Huberman?

  I get startled.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:20Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, I think that it's natural to get startled. I think that some people just have very kind of flat affect and some people can run a riot. It's like a seesaw and for some people the hinge is tight. It doesn't necessarily mean they're calm. Some people are just like pissed off all the time and the hinge is tight. Some people they're happy all the time and the hinge is tight. Most people that hinge can move. And so this thing of emotional contagion is largely, this is what's so interesting. It's largely fed through the way things sound, somewhat through faces, but largely through the way that things sound. And then there seems to be, and not a lot's known about this yet, a kind of a sixth sense where actually that an energy in the room can start to literally cascade from one person to the next. And this has been studied in animals.

• 1:20:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:02Andrew D. Huberman?

  With the fear response. You can literally take an animal, scare it, take it out of that tube, put another animal in there and it'll show a fear response based on something molecular in the air.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:20:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  Absolutely. And and they're fair, I mean, their hormones work within us, pheromones between two members of a species. They're clearly pheromone like effects. We haven't identified what those pheromones are. Same thing can happen in crowds. You can get a kind of a hysteria.

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  We do feel like, you know, the best, the best kind of experience as a comedian performing is where you feel like the audience is one, right? Like they are one.

• 1:20:40Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  It's not 10,000 separate people. It's like this is all together. And that's kind of like, when that's going as well as it can go, that is like an incredible rush. And the feeling is that like, they they do kind of mold. It's like they started as 10,000 people and then they just kind of become this one thing. And you're you're kind of rocking this one entity out there together. Same way that like. The opposite, when it's like, really bad. It doesn't feel like, you know, you can feel like, oh, they're, they're together in, in not liking this. This is one crowd going like, no. You know what I mean?

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Like, that feeling is, is the opposite of like, bombing beyond like emptiness that you feel. But you feel it like, they are together. They're unified in, in how they feel about this.

• 1:21:33Andrew D. Huberman?

  This is why some people, including me, fear going to theater. My sister loves theater. We go to New York in the, in the fall for our birthdays and, cause she loves theater, we go to theater. And if theater is great, it's like, amazing.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:46Andrew D. Huberman?

  If theater is bad, like, it leaves me feeling bad for the people. Like, the, the tone in the room is like, ooh, it's heavy.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  Heavy.

• 1:21:54Andrew D. Huberman?

  It's not like, just like, turn off the special. It's like, it's, it sucks. It takes you to a lower place.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  Well, live is always, it's just such a different experience. You know what I think about, I don't know if there's any science to this, but I always sometimes think about the fact that I feel like comedy, specifically as an art form, might be the most involuntarily subjective, meaning that like, you know, if you look at like a photo or a piece of art, you might go like, I don't like that. And then I might educate you in, in some way about it. And you kind of look at it differently. And then maybe over time, you go, you know, I actually love this painting. Right? Or like, music is definitely one where you have like, kind of an involuntary response.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  But I have not cared for music and then actually started to like it more. But I feel like comedy, it's like, it's not, you're not really thinking when you, like, when you laugh hard at something, you're not like, oh, I thought about it for a while and I'm gonna start laughing now. Right? Like, you just, you laugh. And if you don't laugh, you're just like, yeah, I don't find that funny. You don't usually come back and go, you know, now that you've talked to me about it, I'm gonna start laughing.

• 1:23:09Andrew D. Huberman?

  Right.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  Like, it really is this experience where you just, it, it happens without, so your, your kind of brain is telling you, this is what's funny. Right? Like, it, it's happening like, separate from you. And there's no faking it. Like, you're either laughing or you're not. You, if you laugh really hard, it's like, this, it's this great experience, but you can't. Convince someone to laugh that hard.

• 1:23:32Andrew D. Huberman?

  A very important point that never occurred to me. I love art history. In part because I like art, I've always liked art.

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Andrew D. Huberman?

  But by taking an art history class, I like literally have fallen in love with certain artists and their paintings.

• 1:23:48Andrew D. Huberman?

  And I look at certain paintings completely differently now, as you point out, on the basis of what I know about what the art represents, the history of the artist. Like, if a joke isn't funny to me, or a bit isn't funny, I don't care what the process was.

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:24:03Andrew D. Huberman?

  For that bit, I'm like, it's just not funny.

• 1:24:05Speaker 01

  It's just not.

• 1:24:06Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, it seems like it's one of the purest kind of yum, yuck, or meh kind of things, which is another point of neuroscience. The nervous system has degrees of this, but it basically bins things very quickly into like yum, like this is awesome, or hilarious, or whatever. Yuck, like, ugh, no, and kind of meh.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:25Andrew D. Huberman?

  There's not a lot of very, within each one of those bins, there's a lot of variation.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:30Andrew D. Huberman?

  Love, love, love, hate, hate, hate, but then, you know, but your brain makes a decision really quickly.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  Very quickly.

• 1:24:35Andrew D. Huberman?

  About yum, yuck, or meh.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  Right, right, and like especially with with different arts, right? Like, I mean, literally, you look at the photo and your brain kind of tells you, right? Like, I just don't feel like most of the time, you're not going to go back to that and have a much different response, right? I mean, with comedy, you're not going to do a response. With art, like, I also did, I did Spanish art history when I was studying in Madrid. And they would take us to the Prado Museum and give us like our lectures in front of the pieces of art. And you just, yeah, your brain starts to not just appreciate, you start to fall in love with the paintings. And you go like, oh, I feel this differently.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  That type of experience doesn't really, can't happen with comedy. I'm not going to be like, start laughing, dude, listen to how this, you know what I mean? Like, it's just, it is what it is. Your brain, it's so quick. Whether or not it makes you laugh.

• 1:25:34Andrew D. Huberman?

  And if something's not funny, if you tell me, um, he toiled on this for forty years, I'd be like, well, then it especially sucks.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  It's really shit.

• 1:25:41Andrew D. Huberman?

  Whereas if you show me a sculpture I might not appreciate, then you sort of explain what went into that.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:45Andrew D. Huberman?

  You can develop at least an appreciation for it. You're like, oh, that's interesting.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  You know, version of this happen all the time, especially now because everything's shareable. Where like your friend goes, check this out. And you watch the thing and you're like, okay. And they're like, isn't that the funniest thing you've ever seen? You're like, no. They're like, you didn't like that? No. And that's kind of like how it ends. They're like, yeah, but you know, he's saying like that he's late because he, I'm like, yeah, it's not, I don't, I'm not laughing, dude. I don't know what to tell you. And then they go, okay. But they had a different experience with it that you can't, you can't like articulate and intellectualize the experience to someone where they go, oh, yeah, now I think it's funny.

• 1:26:21Andrew D. Huberman?

  Well, I think this gets back to HM and this idea that there's a subconscious, um, you know, just an unaware process that dictates whether or not something's funny or not.

• 1:26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:31Andrew D. Huberman?

  It tickles our brain below the level of, of like precise understanding.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:26:37Andrew D. Huberman?

  And I'm so fascinated by this because as you point out, there just aren't other things like this. You could say this about people, like, oh, liked this person right away, didn't like them.

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:45Andrew D. Huberman?

  But in general, the more that we learn about people, this is why all the efforts to try and, you know, erase racism, for instance, the more you learn about a culture, the more you tend to like the people of that culture.

• 1:26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:55Andrew D. Huberman?

  Even if you were arch enemies for, for, you know, decades or hundreds of years before. There's just the way the human brain works. Though with comedy, it's like a, um, it's chem, it feels like it's like chemistry.

• 1:27:06Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:27:07Andrew D. Huberman?

  You know, and, and of course, you could say, well, you like or don't like the comic, but I have to imagine that you, that you like it or not, probably represent the, the like bad boyfriend or the abusive dad to somebody or the, uh, or the friend that they loved in college. Let's make it positive too, or the, the guy they like to be around. I mean, you, you don't know that people's relationship to you.

• 1:27:27Speaker 01

  You never know.

• 1:27:28Andrew D. Huberman?

  And so the humor may land or not land depending on like all sorts of unconscious stuff going on in them.

• 1:27:34Speaker 01

  And you realize too that like you could have a joke about a teacher. You know what I mean? Like you're just like, it's part of your bit. You're not thinking of that and like. You saying that has a ripple effect that you don't realize to different people in the audience for dozens of different reasons. You could have just said the word teacher and the person's like, you know, I am a teacher and then that's pleasing to them. They feel seen. The other person hated their teacher. You know what I mean? They start thinking about like all these little things where you go like, I just said one word about this and you don't realize that it it triggers other thoughts in people's minds, you know?

• 1:28:14Andrew D. Huberman?

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• 1:29:42Andrew D. Huberman?

  and I'm thrilled that they're sponsoring the podcast. If you'd like to try Function, you can go to functionhealth.com/huberman. Function currently has a waitlist of over 250,000 people, but they're offering early access to Huberman podcast listeners. Again, that's functionhealth.com/huberman to get early access to Function.

• 1:30:02Andrew D. Huberman?

  Let's talk about crowd work.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:04Andrew D. Huberman?

  Fascinated by it.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:06Andrew D. Huberman?

  Very, very distinct aspect of the comedy experience. You know, I mean, at a big rock concert, I mean, the singer might like put out a fist to someone in the audience, or even let somebody sing for a moment, but maybe let someone up on stage. But crowd work is like, you're really giving up a lot of control.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:21Andrew D. Huberman?

  Right? If you ask a question, I mean, you have to be able to work off whatever comes back. Do you do crowd work?

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I feel like crowd work is just part of the arsenal of skills you have over time as a comedian. You have to be able to improvise, you have to be able to handle crowd work, you have to be able to write material, you have, you know, you have to be able to do all those things. I don't go up and do like crowd work shows. Like some people, they're like, this is a crowd work show. But I've been doing stand up like, you know, 23 years. And especially when you're in the club system, when you're an unknown and you're just doing weekends and people are drunk, like crowd work just becomes part of how you do it. Like you don't have an option to not, you could just not develop the skill set and then just die up there. But like, you know what I mean?

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  It's like, it's a necessity.

• 1:31:14Andrew D. Huberman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  So at this point, like, I feel like I want to go on stage with like, I want to do X, Y, Z. I want to execute these things. I want to get these, these jokes out. I want to say these things. But you're never, ever to the point where you go, and therefore I am removed from having to do any type of crowd, because crowd work is, is usually, it's a response to something happening. You're being heckled, somebody's saying something, you know? There's this thing that like, if you're in a huge venue, you, you don't want to actually go like, hey, what's going on with you, buddy? Right? Because there's somebody up in the 300 section who's like, I don't know what's going on. But the other side of it is, you cannot ignore.

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  The obvious, meaning if a fight breaks out, if like, somebody throws something, if somebody is like screaming, and you just go like, I'm just not gonna, I'm gonna act like that's not happening. I'm gonna keep doing stand-up, like what I wanted to do. Then people go like, this is weird, right? Because this person's ignoring the obvious.

• 1:32:23Andrew D. Huberman?

  Right, you're no longer connected to them in the same way.

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Exactly, they know that like, there's a disconnect now, like you're ignoring that? Like, so that's how like, you stay in kind of having, you have to maintain the skillset. Some people make it more of an emphasis of their show, and there's like, really, really good people at doing that. I feel like it's also like, part, it's more of like, the DNA of New York comics, too. Like, that you'll see, I've always thought that like, the level of proficiency there is really high in that scene, more of a back and forth, you know?

• 1:32:57Andrew D. Huberman?

  Because of small venues? I go to the Comedy Cellar when I'm out there. I don't know if that's, it's still one of the main places.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely.

• 1:33:04Andrew D. Huberman?

  If there's a better one, let me know. But my sister's always like, we're gonna go to the Cellar again?

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, Cellar's fantastic.

• 1:33:08Andrew D. Huberman?

  And we have, our favorite nights there actually were nights where it was pretty bad, and we can laugh about that.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  But there've been a few nights there where it just killed.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:17Andrew D. Huberman?

  And actually, there was one night, and I asked my sister, this happened, Chappelle just like, leaves Radio City Hall, shows up with his entourage, and just like, hops up on stage.

• 1:33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:26Andrew D. Huberman?

  And just, that only happens in New York City.

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:29Andrew D. Huberman?

  I don't think that really happens in Los Angeles terribly often.

• 1:33:31Speaker 01

  He's done that quite a few times.

• 1:33:33Andrew D. Huberman?

  He just like, rolls in?

• 1:33:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's done that in LA a number of times. He's done it in San Francisco a bunch, like, I'm saying like, it's pretty well-known. You know, he'll come into the stories.

• 1:33:41Andrew D. Huberman?

  That's his thing?

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, he like, he loves the stage, and sometimes he'll be up there like, legitimately like, three or four hours.

• 1:33:48Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, he stayed, we ended up going home because

• 1:33:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:50Andrew D. Huberman?

  we eventually just called it a night, and we were leaving, and um, his team was like, you're really gonna leave? We'd had enough, but he, it was just kind of unbelievable.

• 1:33:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:59Andrew D. Huberman?

  To me, that This stage of his career that he was just gonna wander in and start doing comedy. But it speaks, I think it speaks to the intimacy of those small clubs.

• 1:34:08Speaker 01

  It does, yeah.

• 1:34:09Andrew D. Huberman?

  I mean, it's still one of the few venues where like you can see greats. Like, I got to see you at the Belly Up in Aspen. That's a small-ish venue.

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  That was fun, yeah.

• 1:34:18Andrew D. Huberman?

  Or you can go to a stadium. What's the largest stadium crowd you've done? It's more than, you know?

• 1:34:22Speaker 01

  The biggest crowd I did was like a little over seventeen thousand at a climate pledge arena in Seattle.

• 1:34:29Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, so huge difference of scale there.

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:31Andrew D. Huberman?

  Not many public facing things occupy those levels of scale. I have a question about kind of cultural standards.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:39Andrew D. Huberman?

  And what's really funny?

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:34:41Andrew D. Huberman?

  So if you look back to comedians where, at a time where like cursing on stage wasn't allowed, like kind of pre-Lenny Bruce.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:50Andrew D. Huberman?

  Right? Is any of that comedy funny? Meaning, you know, now there's been this kind of expansion of kind of what you can say, even just cursing. And so like, if we look at, earlier we were talking about working out. You know, like bodies looked very, like muscular bodies looked very different in films in the, in the forties. Like you'd say, well, that guy's, that person isn't very big by today's standards, but you'd say they're very fit, right?

• 1:35:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:15Andrew D. Huberman?

  Or she was very beautiful and very sexy in the seventies, but very different look than like nineties and two thousands. So standards change for what's considered ideal.

• 1:35:26Speaker 01

  Yes. The male one, by the way, is hilarious for the leading man of like the forties and fifties.

• 1:35:32Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh yeah, they were very slender. Now they're like superheroes.

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  They'd be like, they'd be like slender and also like not even very well defined. And they'd be like, this is the stud of the, you know what I mean, of the movie? Like a guy who's not wearing a shirt and you're like, this guy's not active. And they're like, no, this is like the stud of the movie. Like, that's just a different time.

• 1:35:52Andrew D. Huberman?

  Just a different time, different standard. And then, of course, you know, standards of women's bodies have changed sometimes more. Well, I'm sure sometimes like in the nineties, it was the kind of waify look. And these things mirror what's going on in society to some degree. But if you listen to comedy pre-Lenny Bruce, pre swearing.

• 1:36:11Andrew D. Huberman?

  Is any of it really funny to you?

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Well, to me, I feel like I would probably listen to most of that with like that mind of, because what happens with comedy too is, to be fair to those people, is you end up hearing so many versions of what they did. Things that are just derivative of other styles and types of jokes and types of performances. That by the time, like if I heard this guy in 1945 doing these jokes, and he's killing in this room, you know, I would go, I'd probably hear the joke and be like, oh yeah, like I know this joke.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Like I know 10 versions of that joke because I've heard them. So I, hearing it just doesn't make me laugh.

• 1:37:04Andrew D. Huberman?

  Even though it's the original?

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  Even though it's the original, yeah. Because I feel like, I feel like that even happens with like well-known comedians. Like if, like I was born in 79. And so like my, like exposure, like I missed, I wasn't like really conscious and aware of like the prior era, right? And like, he's like a god in stand-up.

• 1:37:30Andrew D. Huberman?

  He's considered the, the best comedian ever?

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  I mean-

• 1:37:34Andrew D. Huberman?

  By most, it seems?

• 1:37:35Speaker 01

  By a lot of people.

• 1:37:36Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah. He's on the Mount Rushmore of comedy.

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  He's definitely on the Mount Rushmore. But I felt like by the time that I heard Pryor, I had heard so many people that were influenced by Pryor that hearing the original version wasn't like, it wasn't like I'm doubled over laughing. Like I'm hearing every other version, like they're clearly inspired and, you know, taking from him. But so now I hear the original and I go like, oh, I get that that's the, that's the version of that. It can happen with comedy films too. It's like you watch Animal House. If you hadn't seen it before and you see it now and you've watched a lot of comedies, you might just go like, oh, I get how this is the blueprint. Because I've seen so many people take from this.

• 1:38:22Speaker 01

  That now, when you see the original, you'll be like, oh, you're like, yeah, but you don't realize that's the first time it was done. Like, these jokes were done here originally. Everybody took from them, you know? So I don't think that I would probably end up laughing very hard at the pre-Lenny Bruce comic, just for the reason I said, though. Just because it's been done. I've heard so many versions of it.

• 1:38:43Andrew D. Huberman?

  So it seems with comedy, unlike with music, or poetry, or books, there isn't that much carry forward. So for instance, I mean, I was very, very young, if, and in some cases, not born, when the Rolling Stones were doing their great work, or the Beatles, or Elvis, right? But that music is awesome.

• 1:39:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's different.

• 1:39:03Andrew D. Huberman?

  The fact that many people have taken bits and pieces from those, like, you can't create an amazing Clash song the way that Clash did. Like, they did it best.

• 1:39:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:39:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  And it will always, like, Death or Glory will be like, I don't care how many songs who are derivatives of that, that song still kills.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  That's the song, yeah.

• 1:39:20Andrew D. Huberman?

  And so comedy seems different.

• 1:39:22Speaker 01

  I think it's different in that regard. I definitely think it's different. I think that, you know, it's one of those things where like, it's always shifting. Also, like, what's funny has, it really is directly related to what's happening in the real time, like, in the time you're living in. You can see, whether it's from stand-up or movies, jokes that aren't fun, that were like, very funny in 1982, and 1995, and 2007, that you go, it just kinda shifted, right? It's like, it's not, it's not funny anymore. Like, and I don't just mean because it's not like politically correct.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  I just mean, like, there's this unspoken thing that happens, right? Where like, you're laughing at something and then you kinda go like, hey, we collectively are, don't find, this is just not funny anymore. So. Actually, a lot of those things might even strike you as not only like not great, you might just be like, that is, that's not funny at all.

• 1:40:25Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, I once went to this thing in San Francisco around New Year's and they, they literally wheeled out, is it like Henny Youngman or Benny Youngman or something? He was doing these knock, knock jokes. He was probably in his late nineties. He was forgetting the punchlines, but occasionally he'd nail one.

• 1:40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:38Andrew D. Huberman?

  It was not funny.

• 1:40:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:39Andrew D. Huberman?

  It was almost embarrassing, you know, but, but you were like, wow, this guy's still like thinks it's funny. He was still going, so there was some amusement, but you looked at the older people in the crowd.

• 1:40:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:47Andrew D. Huberman?

  And they were like, oh my God, it's bringing me back.

• 1:40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so some people.

• 1:40:51Andrew D. Huberman?

  And you're like, oh my goodness, but you know, um, no one else was laughing.

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:55Andrew D. Huberman?

  But as you're describing, some people might look at some comedy, I'm not gonna name names cause I'm not versed enough in, in comedy, but from the seventies or eighties and be like, yeah, that's just kinda like raw, but like it's not, it doesn't really do anything for me anymore.

• 1:41:07Speaker 01

  I'll tell you, like, this is a very simple, like, example, but like, I, I can recall that like, 20 years ago, if a guy was in a club and there was two guys sitting there in the front row together or whatever, a lot of comics would be like, what are you guys, a couple?

• 1:41:22Andrew D. Huberman?

  Hmm.

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  And that, that would sometimes prompt laughs. People would laugh. They would be like, oh, they're a couple. And like today, if somebody was like, what are you guys, a couple? They'd be like, yeah. And everyone would be like, okay. Right? Like, it would be like, like, it was considered like, oh, it's funny. You're implying that they're a romantic couple. And like, I feel like just the way society evolves, today, people would be like, and?

• 1:41:47Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, yeah, I mean, growing up, when you, I mean, I'm a little bit older than you are.

• 1:41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:51Andrew D. Huberman?

  I remember like the first gay characters showing up in film and reality TV. It was like a huge deal.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:57Andrew D. Huberman?

  Right? And then, so, things have really changed. So what, what is, yeah, things have really changed.

• 1:42:02Speaker 01

  Like, no one's ever been funnier than Eddie Murphy, ever. They, I think he's, like, him in his prime of just being funny, like, there's just nothing. He's, he's a total prodigy, once in a lifetime type of talent, right? Like, so funny. If you put like Delirious on for a 21-year-old today, they would be like, what the fuck is happening? Like, it's, there's things in it that are just, they're just too dated now.

• 1:42:28Andrew D. Huberman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like, it's just concepts that are, he's still funny as shit, but like, those bits would not land like they would in 83. They just wouldn't.

• 1:42:38Andrew D. Huberman?

  Let's talk about the darkness of comedy. I once had the experience of going to the Comedy Cellar with some friends. And this guy got up there, I don't remember his name, and it was super dark. I mean, it was like clowns with vans doing terrible. I mean, it was just like so dark. And the only thing that was hysterical about it was the fact that he seemed freaked out by it, too. Like, what he was saying was like horrible. He was saying horrible? Horrible things that had gone through his mind. Yeah. But the fact that he thought it was horrible was what was funny. Sure. And we're like, whoa. Like, we walked out of there just like we felt like we'd been transported to someplace really unhealthy. Yeah. And I was like, man, I feel like I need a shower after that. That was intense and scary and like.

• 1:43:23Andrew D. Huberman?

  This is my favorite thing, by the way. Whoa. And then we had the experience of running into him and his girlfriend later that night. And we were like, oh, my God. And he just took off. He just like could not handle the reflection about what had just happened in there. Really? Oh, yeah, no, he just, I'm sure he enjoyed the attention, right? He's a performer, so. But two things occurred to me around that example. One is a guy who's really dark on stage, seemed like a very loving guy, at least out in public with his girlfriend. Almost always the case. Yeah. And the other one is that where he took us and where he went was so down in the dungeon. Like, I still kind of get a weird feeling in my body thinking about it. Yeah.

• 1:44:07Andrew D. Huberman?

  But his shock at his own words. Yeah. Was absolutely hysterical and brilliant. And it was like, hey, let's go down into the darkness of human nature. Yeah. I'm gonna show you how dark it really is, and I'm gonna leave. And you're just like left spinning. And it still sits in my body. We're talking about that visceral experience, it still sits in my body. I don't know what to make of it. It's incredible, A, that, first of all, that he can access it is great. It is.

• 1:44:34Speaker 01

  As if you're talking about just like as the art form. Like, the the best thing to do as an artist, any type of artist, is, I think, acknowledge and produce with the dark thoughts. In other words, don't act like they're not there because they're in everyone. And then put it into your art. In other words, it's if you go like, I want to fucking rob a bank. Like, it's better if you're an artist to channel that into art. Whether you write a story about it, you paint a painting, you write a song, you talk about, you know, as a comedian, you're like your fantasy of doing it than to actually do it. So it's actually you're channeling it in the healthier option. And I also feel like 20 some years of doing this.

• 1:45:20Speaker 01

  Dude, the best people as people that I've ever met are the darkest comedians on stage. And the absolute most terrifying people are the super clean guys. Like, really? Yeah, dude, because they don't acknowledge the darkness. The darkness exists in all of us. The Dalai Lama has dark thoughts. Like, it's just. Jung said this. I mean, it's just the way it is. It's humans. It's human beings. Like, we all now, some of us have not as, you know, present and overwhelming dark sides and thoughts, but there is darkness in everybody. The thing is, I feel like what some of the clean comics do

• 1:46:03Speaker 01

  is the lack of acknowledging it means that that darkness has to come out in some other way. It just does. So how does it come out? Well, it might come out in their personal life. Not good. Yeah. I mean, there's very famous cases of, uh, don't, don't curse. And then, you know, you're doing some pretty dark things. Like, that's, that's a real thing, man, that like, hey, I'm gonna talk about cookies and where do you put your socks? I can't find my other sock. Like, that's your fucking bit? Talking about socks? Okay, what are you actually really up to? Because the thing is, those guys, some of those guys, look, I'm not saying they're not funny. There's very, very funny clean comics. Some of those guys. I'm right on the line of like, man, if you would just acknowledge some of this

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  stuff, it would be even funnier. Like, you're just... And then you don't know how that darkness is going to show itself, because it's probably going to show itself in a way that's not so pleasant.

• 1:47:01Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, I completely agree with you. I have a friend who's a very, very well-known musician. I won't say what genre. And what I love about his music is it encompasses every range of emotion.

• 1:47:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  Every range. And I've seen him play to huge crowds and just get so pissed. And I've seen him do love songs, hate songs, revenge songs, like, just everything.

• 1:47:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:26Andrew D. Huberman?

  But in person, he's like, the kindest

• 1:47:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:29Andrew D. Huberman?

  dude ever.

• 1:47:30Speaker 01

  I mean, that's-

• 1:47:31Andrew D. Huberman?

  And it's, uh, he's so grounded. He and his, he and his partner are like, the sweetest people. And she's got it, too. She's an artist, too.

• 1:47:40Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47:41Andrew D. Huberman?

  And some of her art, you're like, oh, my God. And then you meet her, and you're like, it's so kind, so trustworthy.

• 1:47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:48Andrew D. Huberman?

  So exactly, exactly what you're describing. They're in touch with it. They know how to channel it.

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's, I think it's about doing that. And I think some, look, I think it's also a natural, human instinct to not want to acknowledge or play with the dark thoughts that you have, right? Like, it's, you don't want to sometimes, because you go, that's an ugly side. And I don't want to, I don't want to use that for my art, or even acknowledge that it's there. But I think it's definitely the better way to go is to actually work with it.

• 1:48:21Speaker 02

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• 1:48:52Andrew D. Huberman?

  A lot of comics die of drug overdoses. It's like, not these days as much. It seems like there's now like the, the healthy comics.

• 1:48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:01Andrew D. Huberman?

  And I don't know what the numbers are compared to music, like rock, rock musicians or something. But if I compare to like science, or I compare to like law, okay, one could say, you know, in law offices, there used to be a lot of drug use, especially in big cities and this kind of stimulants. But let's just focus on comedy for the moment. Do you think that comedy pulls from a, a group that has a larger percentage of people that are just struggling with inner turmoil and they rely on substances to kind of manage? Or are the substances part of the creative process for people? Writers too, I mean, it used to be that many writers were drinkers. If you ever want to like, like a voyage through alcoholism, read about the habits of writers.

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:43Andrew D. Huberman?

  Not all of them, but many of them drank a lot.

• 1:49:45Speaker 01

  A lot.

• 1:49:46Andrew D. Huberman?

  A lot, a lot.

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:47Andrew D. Huberman?

  Amphetamines sometimes, but it was like drinking, it was like part and parcel with the writer's life, sadly. That's not the case now, but yeah, what are your thoughts about?

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  I mean, I-

• 1:49:57Andrew D. Huberman?

  Substances and comedy and comics?

• 1:49:59Speaker 01

  I think it's a, it's a combination of things. I feel like, you know, a lot of comedians, like that world pulls from certainly people with traumatic backgrounds. There's a lot of mental health issues with comedians. There's a lot of clinically depressed comedians. There's comedians that come into it with like severe anxiety, for instance, severe depression, different mental health things. So usually even outside of comedy, if you're talking about people with this type of mindset, you know, these, these issues, you know, substances kind of come with that. People trying to regulate and deal with, with those issues. To, to also, you know, throw some more gas on that, you're talking about-

• 1:50:47Speaker 01

  An environment that is a nightlife environment, where these things are kind of readily available. And it can, you know, it can be fun. It can, it can make you feel like you're, you're helping your, your art form by partaking in these things. And then it's really just like with most things, you just kind of, you see that some people go, oh, it's getting, right now it's getting in the way. And they kind of acknowledge that like, I'm better off without this. And then some people are just too far gone in it, right? Where they just, they, they're addicts. They become, we have a lot of addicts in, in comedy. It's just one of those factors. Like you just, you see it a lot. People that are, are complete hardcore addicts.

• 1:51:31Speaker 01

  So that coupled with mental health things and, and the fact that we're, we're, we're up late and we're with people that are also into nightlife. I think all that together, you get a lot of substance abuse. A lot.

• 1:51:43Andrew D. Huberman?

  Why is cynicism so unfunny?

• 1:51:47Speaker 01

  Is it? I mean, I feel like cynicism,

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  presented in the right way, like a cynical person can be funny. I think what problem with, with cynicism is that it's,

• 1:52:05Speaker 01

  it's really not, ultimately, there's nothing hopeful in it. Cynicism takes away any feeling that like, things could get better.

• 1:52:15Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, like in the world of improv, the yes and.

• 1:52:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's true.

• 1:52:18Andrew D. Huberman?

  I feel like cynicism like shuts it down.

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Well, that's true. In, in, in the, in the case of improv, I'm just saying like, some people have this cynical kind of take on things that are still like funny people. Yeah, if you negate a thought in improv, the whole thing is over. It just dies. You know, if you're like, it's hot and like, I'm cold. You're like, okay, like, we're not really gonna do this then, huh? Like, you kind of have to like add to it. But that's interesting. Yeah, I mean, if you're, if you're cynical, like a truly a cynical person. So I guess the thing you find in comedy is there's a lot of like faux emotion, right? Like the faux angry, the, you know what I mean? Like you put on this thing to sell your bit. But you, you sell an emotion with it too.

• 1:53:02Speaker 01

  So somebody can like manipulate that cynicism with humor. But I think if you're genuinely. A cynical person, what you are really is usually someone that like actually people don't want to be around, right? Like the very genuinely cynical person, another way to describe them is just negative.

• 1:53:21Andrew D. Huberman?

  A total buzzkill.

• 1:53:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you just kind of go like, I don't want to be around that. I think ultimately, the best mode to be in for comedy is like, you kind of actually want to be like inclusive. You want, you know what I mean? You're kind of like, right? You're saying things that people want to nod along with. And if you're just like, shit's not going to work out, it never does. No one's like, this is fucking fun, man. Like, this is really funny. So that, that probably has some factor in it. I mean, yeah, you, you learn early on, at least I felt like it, that there's these really cynical comics. But the thing is, I'm not talking about like the faux thing in a performance, like they're

• 1:54:07Speaker 01

  just like that. And you can feel the energy vortex that they are. And you kind of go like, I got, I gotta like, not be around this guy.

• 1:54:17Andrew D. Huberman?

  Right.

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  Because early on especially, you rely so much on hope. The fact that you signed up to do this thing that, you know, on paper, it seems insane. Like, you're going to tell jokes for a living? Are you out of your mind? That's what people would say to me, like, they're like, are you crazy?

• 1:54:34Andrew D. Huberman?

  I would say it worked out.

• 1:54:35Speaker 01

  I mean, I got very lucky in that it worked out.

• 1:54:38Andrew D. Huberman?

  And you worked very hard. You worked extremely hard.

• 1:54:41Speaker 01

  I worked, I did work very hard at it, but that, that is a thing where you go like, oh, this is an insane path kind of to, to go down. Like, I can't have the guy who's next to me, who's also a comedian, being like, this shit, you know? They're never going to pick us, they're never going to, this shit never works out. You're like, I can't have that mantra in my head all the time. And you have to like, part ways with those people, because they, they are like a virus, you know? They're a virus. Like, so, yeah, you're, you're right in observing, like, it's not funny. I think it's more like that it's just, it's not productive to be around truly cynical people.

• 1:55:21Andrew D. Huberman?

  Along the lines of what we're calling emotional contagion. I realized, I'm not aware of any. Kind of like duet comics. I know it sounds kind of silly, but in every other genre, like with music, right? People play alone, they play with a band, they play like together, like you offset voices. I mean, but maybe in comedy, stage comedy, that is, the audience is the other member of the, of calling it a duet, which sounds so silly, but you get the idea.

• 1:55:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:50Andrew D. Huberman?

  That they're the one that you're, you're resonating with and that you're, you're playing off of and they're, they're riding with you. Because I'm, I've had the experience of going to the Comedy Store. I was there last year. Tim Dillon did a bit. Well, he, he went out for like 20, he came out for 20 minutes.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:07Andrew D. Huberman?

  And just murdered.

• 1:56:08Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:56:09Andrew D. Huberman?

  And some of that's in his, his recent special.

• 1:56:12Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:56:12Andrew D. Huberman?

  Just murdered. It was just, and he like crescendoed the whole crowd and then just like, in typical Tim, when I was like walked out, you're like, whoa. And you, you feel like you were part of something.

• 1:56:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:22Andrew D. Huberman?

  Even though you were a passive recipient of what was going on or participant. So maybe that's where it is. Have there ever been two people that get up there and kind of like riff?

• 1:56:30Speaker 01

  Together?

• 1:56:31Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:56:31Andrew D. Huberman?

  And do it well?

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a couple of twins that do that.

• 1:56:34Andrew D. Huberman?

  Okay.

• 1:56:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's a good observation that it, it is like the audience is the other, you know, participant, right? It's you and the, but then like the Lucas Brothers and the Sklar Brothers are, they're both, they're twin brothers. And they go up there and, because I'm, I'm, you've probably done something about the twin phenomena. Like how these guys operate, both of these sets of twins together is, it is like an experience where you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. The way, they don't go like, always like setup punch, like the setup sentence can come half out of one brother and the, and it's seamless. Like it's like, it's like when you hang out with, you ever hang out with twins?

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  And they really answer in unison, even though they're not looking at each other and they're saying like the same thing. Like that's how these guys work on stage and it is. You know, it gets you where you're like, you have questions afterwards. Like, wait a minute, did you guys, like, how did you set that up? Because it's so seamless and they're literally like going back, back, like back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And it feels like you had to go, hey, when I say, "and," make sure you... But it's another level beyond that. Like, they really flow. Even their talk over each other feels like it's perfectly done. Like this, you're hearing the end of this guy's sentence, the next guy steps on top of it, but you hear him clearly and back and forth.

• 1:57:59Andrew D. Huberman?

  I have to check it out.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  Those guys are like, it is like a phenomenon to watch them, to watch them work. It's, it actually is really, really cool.

• 1:58:06Andrew D. Huberman?

  I'm coming to the conclusion that by being an audience member in comedy, you, one, is experiencing a kind of an empathy with what the comic is experiencing. And that's kind of where we're getting here. Like, I didn't plan this out, but, you know, you have to feel it. It's got to be real for the comic. The audience can sense that. The delight, the silliness that you're bringing to it, like so much of that is in the audience's nervous system as they're getting it. And it's clear to me that like comedy is the one way. I mean, you could say this about music, but like you said, so different because so much of it seems spontaneous.

• 1:58:50Speaker 01

  It does. And I also feel like, you know, my buddy Kirk Fox, he always, he's a great comedian. He always says this thing, like, when he's on stage, he's like, "I plan on being open, inviting, you know, hoping to leave the stage a better, you know, leave the room a better place." Like, but this thing about being open, inviting, vulnerable is like, it's a very real thing. Like, you learn it as you do it. You start off pretty much operating in fear as a stand-up, right? You're terrified. You're terrified that it's, you're not going to do well. The longer you do it, you get more comfortable being up there. You realize that... If you're vulnerable, if you're willing to be vulnerable, which takes like effort and some, you know, some like courage.

• 1:59:35Speaker 01

  The audience senses this on an unspoken level and will go with you more places and will definitely laugh more and will be like, basically be on your side. Right? If you don't learn to do that, it's a different type of performance. You're basically like going up there with like, I'm the boss. You know, like if you're going up there like, I'm telling you what's up. They still might laugh at things, but they don't leave going like, I care for this guy. Right? I empathize with him. And if you can learn to be vulnerable on stage, your performances will get exponentially better. And honestly, you'll, you'll get way crazier laughs.

• 2:00:15Andrew D. Huberman?

  So interesting. The reason I love comedy so much is that A, it lets me forget about the outside world.

• 2:00:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:00:21Andrew D. Huberman?

  While hearing about the outside world. And I think stage comedy is especially powerful. And before we sat down and had this conversation, we were talking about how like some people think, you know, they're like, oh, my friend is super funny, way funnier than any of the comics. But like a professional athlete or a non-professional athlete in this case, can they do it on stage? Can they, can they do the dance?

• 2:00:45Speaker 01

  That's the thing.

• 2:00:46Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:46Speaker 01

  That is, that is the, the, the main question is, uh, cause sometimes, like I told you, people will be like, you know, my friend Greg is hilarious. He's like one of the five, he's funnier than any of those guys on stage. And you're like, I believe you. And you might hang out with him and be like, this dude is hilarious. Like he's really funny. The difference is that can he do, can he be that funny? When it's just him with a microphone in front of people? And, and, and take who he is in real life and be that on stage. That's ultimately the goal for every comedian. Like they say that like, the longer you do stand up,

• 2:01:28Speaker 01

  your goal is to be who you are offstage, on stage. Right? Like it's, cause you, it's impossible when you start. When you start, you are funny with your friends. And then you get on stage and you know, you kind of freeze and you're, you're trying to like convey, this is who I am. Cause you're, what you're doing is you're going, this is how I see things. That's what your, that's what your performance is. Like this is funny to me. I'm going to tell you how I see it and that's why it's funny. Some guys that are women, I'm telling you, like just people that are very, very funny offstage, just they can't do that to an audience. They're just, they're funny to be around in life, but they're not performers.

• 2:02:07Speaker 01

  I mean, there's an element to it that is like, can you get up in front of strangers and make them laugh? They don't know you. You have to convey who you are in a moment and make them laugh. That's a different thing. It's, it's not unlike a guy that kills it at the YMCA when you play ball. And it's like, okay, well, like let's put you in an NBA arena, right? Like, can you actually play with these guys? It's a, it's a totally different thing. Look, some can't. Everybody who ends up being a good, a good stand-up was super funny to somebody offstage years ago, right? They just worked at it and they were able to translate it. Some people just can't translate.

• 2:02:48Andrew D. Huberman?

  Do you think it helps to really like people? As, as a general group, you know, like you're trying to entertain people. You're trying to be entertained by your own entertainment. Like, do you think you need to like humans?

• 2:03:03Speaker 01

  That's an interesting question. I thought I could answer that quicker and I started to think about it. Cause I started to think about the fact that like so many comedians I know, like so many go like, God, I hate people so much, you know?

• 2:03:15Andrew D. Huberman?

  I mean, to put, I'll frame it a little differently than my theory as to one of the, one of the main reasons why Rogan is the top podcast in the world. There are several reasons, I believe, his work ethic, et cetera, but is because he has lots of different kinds of friends. And he can sit down with intellectuals. He can sit down with comics. He can sit down with criminals.

• 2:03:39Speaker 01

  MMA fighters, yeah.

• 2:03:39Andrew D. Huberman?

  He likes the understanding and communication with different kinds of people. And when you know a little bit about him, like his, his life is filled with these people outside of the studio. So he's very comfortable in the presence of like anyone. You put anyone in front of him.

• 2:03:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:54Andrew D. Huberman?

  And he can be genuinely interested in learning from them.

• 2:03:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:58Andrew D. Huberman?

  And sharing with them in dialogue.

• 2:03:59Speaker 01

  He's genuinely a curious guy, too.

• 2:04:00Andrew D. Huberman?

  You can't fabricate that. You can't manufacture that.

• 2:04:02Speaker 01

  I agree. I agree.

• 2:04:03Andrew D. Huberman?

  Whereas some podcasters, they're not that interested in what other people have to say. So they're not the best interviewers unless it's someone like directly within their genre of interest.

• 2:04:11Speaker 01

  That's a good observation.

• 2:04:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  So as a comic, I guess it depends on the range of topics that you explore in your comedy, perhaps.

• 2:04:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think you can hate humanity and be a good comedian, right? I think what like for sure, you have to genuinely love making people laugh. If you're gonna be like successful at it, you have to have an obsession with doing that. Like a literal obsession, because you go through these periods on your journey of stand-up of being like, hey, I don't have rent money. I can't, you know, I can't pay for anything. And you have the option, you wanna go get a job? And you're like, no, I'm gonna keep doing, like, you're obsessed. You're obsessed with it so much that you're giving up things that people would otherwise in your position be doing in life because you just are so in love with writing and performing jokes. Like, you know, you have an obsession.

• 2:05:02Speaker 01

  I do think you have to on some level, though, like I'm thinking about it, love people, because if you love making people laugh, you enjoy people, you know? You could still be, because so many comics are so bothered by so many things that people do, you know? That's like a very normal, like, I'm very much like, I fucking can't stand these, you know what I mean? Like, always just like, look at this dipshit, he's bringing fucking eggs on the plane, like, you know? Like, you're just like.

• 2:05:28Andrew D. Huberman?

  Tuna.

• 2:05:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's like, you asshole. You're like Tupperware on the plane.

• 2:05:32Andrew D. Huberman?

  Eat that shit at the gate.

• 2:05:33Speaker 01

  So like, you know, we're always like. You know what I mean? You're always just like complaining. Complaining is part of being a stand-up. You're funny. If you never complain about anything, you're probably not funny. You know what I mean?

• 2:05:45Andrew D. Huberman?

  If you like humanity too much.

• 2:05:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel like if, here's the thing, if you go, I'm good with whatever, you're not a funny person. You can, you're funny if you have a, you either love or hate something, that can be funny. You can love this and it can be funny. You can hate it and that'd be funny. If you're like, I mean, I'm fine. That's not funny.

• 2:06:06Andrew D. Huberman?

  The me response doesn't do too much.

• 2:06:08Speaker 01

  It doesn't do anything in stand-up, yeah. So, but like. I think somebody that complains about people can be very funny. You just, you can't be like, "All people everywhere, I can't stand." Like, that, that would be too extreme.

• 2:06:23Andrew D. Huberman?

  There are all sorts of theories about how people's kind of childhood issues or just their fundamental struggle feeds their art in incredible ways. I think I saw an interview with Jim Carrey, who admittedly, I don't know much about his comedy. I was so busy in school when he was kind of through his reign of physical comedy movies. I've never seen Dumb and Dumber. I've never seen The Matrix. I've never seen Goonies. Sorry, I just haven't. I love Stand By Me, I love other movies, but I need to see those movies. I just, I'm busy, I got a lot I want to do.

• 2:06:55Speaker 01

  Last night at dinner, I just admitted that I've never seen Braveheart and I've never seen Gladiator.

• 2:06:59Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, those are amazing.

• 2:07:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then guess what? I'm not gonna see them.

• 2:07:02Andrew D. Huberman?

  Really?

• 2:07:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:07:03Andrew D. Huberman?

  All right.

• 2:07:04Speaker 01

  I'm just not.

• 2:07:06Speaker 01

  Not gonna see them.

• 2:07:07Andrew D. Huberman?

  Well, clearly, just knowing a little bit about your children and the fact that they're related to you, I'm not gonna try and push you to do anything because clearly you guys are stubborn.

• 2:07:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:16Andrew D. Huberman?

  So, the question I have, after seeing this Jim Carrey thing, he said, you know, his, the reason he did comedy is he wanted to make people laugh, to forget about their, their struggles. He had a chronically ill mother and he used to like throw himself down the stairs as a kid. Like, I believe him. I mean, so, physical comedy became his thing. How much do you think that really successful comedians tap into sort of a fundamental quest to resolve something? You know, you're trying to, whatever it is, fill in the blank. I don't want to fill in blanks for you.

• 2:07:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's, I mean, I could speak for myself. I think in my own, in my own case, I was the new kid a lot, right? I was, I was the, I went to one school for first grade, one for second and third, a different one for fourth, a different one for fifth and sixth, a different one for seventh and eighth, a different one for ninth, and I switched again in ninth grade. So I was a new kid all those times. And I felt like whenever I arrived and I, you kind of like over time go like, you start to develop this muscle for like, how am I gonna get someone to like me? And it was like, try to make them laugh, right? Like, that became a thing, was try to make them laugh.

• 2:08:31Speaker 01

  I think for me personally, there's also this, just my own insecurities. I think I felt like... Uh, if I got enough people to laugh, and if I became successful at making people laugh, and like people acknowledged it, that I would no longer feel these insecurities. And it doesn't happen. They stick with you.

• 2:08:54Andrew D. Huberman?

  And thank goodness, because it sounds like it's the, it's the fuel for your art.

• 2:08:58Speaker 01

  I think it probably is. I mean, I just remember thinking like, you know, if I were to be like, had a special and I got paid well, then I wouldn't have any self doubts anymore. Or like, you know what I mean? Like, you think that, like, then I'll be, I'll feel fulfilled. And then you get the thing and you're like, yeah, no, it's, it's the same. It's, it didn't go. I mean, you, you start to address it in other ways, because you just realize that the accomplishment or whatever, isn't the answer to that thing. But it is a thing that makes you, you think that it will make you feel complete. Right? And it's not the case.

• 2:09:39Speaker 01

  And I think, I do think that like, being a new kid a lot is something that I'll probably never shake that kind of memory of just, it's, you know, when you're a kid, your social acceptance is so dominating. It's different as you get older, I think. You know, you're not, you're not like so concerned with like being socially accepted everywhere. And you have a family and you're just like, this is my, my group. But as a kid, it's like, it's kind of everything, you know? And being new every time, like every new school year is like, that's kind of, it's kind of traumatizing, yeah.

• 2:10:15Andrew D. Huberman?

  So it's the friction that creates the spark?

• 2:10:18Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 2:10:19Andrew D. Huberman?

  And so you don't want to do too much therapy and resolve it?

• 2:10:21Speaker 01

  I mean, I've

• 2:10:22Andrew D. Huberman?

  Seriously speaking?

• 2:10:23Speaker 01

  I mean, I've done so much.

• 2:10:24Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah, same. It doesn't ever go away.

• 2:10:26Speaker 01

  I, yeah, it helps. You know, it helps in that like, you have certain awareness of things now, certain dots get connected. I love, I think therapy is phenomenal. I would not have traded any of the therapy that I had. And I'm a huge advocate for it. I think it's great. Yeah, it doesn't, you don't go like, same thing. Like, now I'm done, everything's fine. Like, it doesn't work like that.

• 2:10:48Andrew D. Huberman?

  Well, it's like taking Jordan's competitive nature away. You wouldn't want that.

• 2:10:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:10:52Andrew D. Huberman?

  That was, that was the friction that created the

• 2:10:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:54Andrew D. Huberman?

  The phenomenon that is

• 2:10:56Speaker 01

  A lot of comedian, I'm speaking, I spoke of myself. I think a lot of us fall under the, like, the banner of, to put it simply, please like me. You know what I mean? Like, you just go, please, please like, I want you to like me. Because that's what you are when you're a new kid, and that's what you are when you walk into a room and, you know, you just go like, I just want people to like me. And, and a lot of comics might not admit it like that, but it's definitely the case. You're just, you want to be liked. Sounds pathetic, I think, but it's true.

• 2:11:28Andrew D. Huberman?

  No, I don't think it sounds pathetic. It, it sounds incredibly open and honest, and I think it's going to be very helpful for people who seek to be comedians and just for people generally trying to think about how their, their challenge, that inner friction can, can create amazing things.

• 2:11:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:44Andrew D. Huberman?

  And you've managed to do it over and over again. So maybe.

• 2:11:48Speaker 01

  You almost got me to cry. We talked about, you almost got me to cry.

• 2:11:50Andrew D. Huberman?

  I can keep going.

• 2:11:51Speaker 01

  No, no, no, keep, change the topic.

• 2:11:52Andrew D. Huberman?

  What's happening now? What's next?

• 2:11:55Speaker 01

  Well, uh, it really, like, I, I know people use this expression, but it really, truly was a dream come true to make the series. Like, uh, for real.

• 2:12:09Speaker 01

  You know, I made no, uh, secret about it, that like, the reason I moved to LA was not to be a stand-up comedian. It was to like, make movies and stuff. Like, that's what I wanted to do. So like, getting the opportunity to make the show, it felt like I got paid to make like 15 mini-movies for the series. And, I, I mean, I've never had a more fulfilling kind of creative experience, like from writing to producing it to, you know, being in the edits and, and seeing this thing come together. So for me, it's like, it's such a thrill to have that experience. And to be able to put that out as like, um, something that, that I made with, with a bunch of great people, the difference, stand-up is like, you're alone and like, on a show

• 2:12:54Speaker 01

  or a movie, you're with like. A hundred other people. And it was, it was an awesome experience and I get to do some more of it. So I, I get to do like a movie this summer and another show I got asked to, to develop. So I'm, I mean, I'm like over the moon that I get to do these things. It really, it's like, I get to do them 20 years after I thought I would do them. But it's, I'm super grateful to have the experience. So yeah, I'm most excited that I get to keep pursuing that because I feel like it's been in my head this whole time and now I actually get to act on it.

• 2:13:28Andrew D. Huberman?

  Oh, listen, I'm so grateful that you came here to share with us about your process. I mean, we talked about the art and science of comedy and humor.

• 2:13:34Speaker 01

  I hope it was good, man.

• 2:13:36Andrew D. Huberman?

  I, I loved it. It was excellent because you share so openly and you, you know, pull, pull back the curtain on your process and, and comedy in general. And I love what a deep thinker you are. And at the same time, how much you just pour yourself into your craft and enjoy it.

• 2:13:52Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 2:13:53Andrew D. Huberman?

  And your reflections are really appreciated and I'm a fan. I'm also proud to have you as a cousin. I, and look, I, I look to you as somebody who really understands how to also balance work and family and merge the, the insanity of life into a craft. And, and people really, I can just say, I, I speak for many, many people very confidently on this, people can really feel your benevolence, even when you're pointing out like, like the darkness and the, and the ridiculousness of, of the, the human experience. So you make our lives better and I'm so grateful you came out here today.

• 2:14:32Speaker 01

  That's very kind of you. I'm also like, I should say, I'm, you know, I'm, I don't know if enough people tell you, but I'm also very honestly proud of you for like what you've done.

• 2:14:40Andrew D. Huberman?

  Thank you.

• 2:14:41Speaker 01

  And, you know, being a, a, a teacher is one thing, but being able to teach so many people and share, like, I always feel like the most generous person is the person who doesn't hoard information. It's a natural human instinct where people have information about something and they just go, I'll keep this to myself. And so the fact that you share. You teach so much, you know, I pick up things for you, from you all the time and so many people do. And then it's become this thing where, you know, now people are like, what are you fucking listening to, Huberman? And you're like, actually, yeah. Like, my wife's like, what did Huberman tell you to fucking take a shit right now? And I'm like, yes. No, but I mean, it's, it is great that you, you don't, you don't hoard information, you, you share it. And I think it helps a lot of people.

• 2:15:21Andrew D. Huberman?

  Thank you. It's a labor of love and for people that know me as you do, that's the same on camera and off camera. So you're a great role model to me. I'd love to have you back to continue the conversation.

• 2:15:32Speaker 01

  I would love to. We'll do a five hour one next time.

• 2:15:34Andrew D. Huberman?

  Yeah. And I'm going to finish the rest of Bad Thoughts.

• 2:15:39Speaker 01

  Please do.

• 2:15:40Andrew D. Huberman?

  It's amazing.

• 2:15:42Speaker 01

  Yep. Thanks so much.

• 2:15:44Andrew D. Huberman?

  All right, Tom, thanks so much. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Tom Segura. To find links to Tom's work, please see the show note captions. I should point out that Bad Thoughts is not suitable for children. If you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific, zero cost way to support us. In addition, please follow the podcast by clicking the follow button on both Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five star review. And you can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple. Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode. That's the best way to support this podcast. If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast, or guests or topics that you'd like me to consider for the Huberman Lab podcast, please put those in the comments section on YouTube.

• 2:16:28Andrew D. Huberman?

  I do read all the comments. For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out. It's my very first book. It's entitled Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body. This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years and that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience. And it covers protocols for everything from sleep to exercise to stress control, protocols related to focus and motivation. And of course, I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols that are included. The book is now available by pre-sale at protocolsbook.com. There you can find links to various vendors. You can pick the one that you like best. Again, the book is called Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body. And if you're not already following me on social media, I am Huberman Lab on all

• 2:17:13Andrew D. Huberman?

  social media platforms. So that's Instagram, X, Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And on all those platforms, I discuss science and science-related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the information on the Huberman Lab podcast. Again, it's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms. And if you haven't already subscribed to our Neural Network Newsletter, the Neural Network Newsletter is a zero-cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries, as well as what we call protocols, in the form of one- to three-page PDFs that cover everything from how to optimize your sleep, how to optimize dopamine, deliberate cold exposure. We have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training. All of that is available completely zero cost.

• 2:17:56Andrew D. Huberman?

  You simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the menu tab in the top right corner, scroll down to Newsletter, and enter your email. And I should emphasize that we do not share your email with anybody. Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Tom Segura. And last, but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.

• 2:18:18Speaker 03

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• 2:18:29Speaker 04

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• 2:18:35Speaker 03

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• 2:18:39Speaker 04

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 2:18:42Speaker 03

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 2:18:43Speaker 04

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.