281 The Power of the Mind to Create Your Reality with Jason Silva

"Everything we design designs us in return." - Jason Silva If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/281 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 281 with Jason Silva.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to this very special interview, an episode with the one and only Jason Silva. We cover a lot today, but for those that don't know who Jason is, this is a guy you want to make sure you follow online and on TV. Jason is a media artist, futurist, philosopher, keynote speaker, and TV personality. He is the creator of Shots of All, a short film series of trailers for the mind that serve as philosophical espresso shots, exploring innovation, technology, creativity, futurism, and metaphysics of the imagination. He is also the Emmy nominated host of National Geographic's channel hit TV series, Brain Games,

• 1:16Lewis Howes?

  which airs in over 100 countries. And we cover a lot today, including the power of flow state and how to get there at any moment of your life, about cognitive ecstasy, how our relationship with new technology affects our mind and becomes part of it, the idea that we are going to be able to live inside our imaginations, the purpose of life and why we're here, and so much more. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed having Jason on. Make sure to share this with your friends right now, lewishouse.com/281. And also go back to the show notes as we add our own little Shots of All video over there as well.

• 1:59Lewis Howes?

  So without further ado, let me introduce you to the one, the only, Jason Silva.

• 2:08Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast and video if you're watching live on YouTube. Very excited, Jason Silva in the house. What's up, brother?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Hey, thank you for having me, dude.

• 2:17Lewis Howes?

  Good to see you, man.

• 2:18Speaker 01

  I'm honored to be here after we met on that cruise.

• 2:20Lewis Howes?

  I know, it's amazing.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  I was like, we met at Summit Series, but I'd heard about you for a couple of years before then with your videos. They really inspired me and I think-

• 2:29Speaker 01

  I appreciate that.

• 2:30Lewis Howes?

  Your philosophical mind is just like so powerful and rich and full of expression.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Thanks, bro.

• 2:35Lewis Howes?

  And first, I'm like, I'm a lover of art and music and dance and singing and song and songwriting. It's probably because I'm not that good at them, right? But I always appreciate the art. My family is all musically talented, gifted. My brother's the number one jazz violinist in the world.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  So you're, you're almost like related in terms that you are like a jazz speaker.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like that.

• 3:01Lewis Howes?

  You're like a jazz philosopher.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:03Lewis Howes?

  And he is like a musician. So like, you remind me a lot of him and your capability to use language.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 3:09Lewis Howes?

  Uniquely and with improvisation.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Oh, I like that. I do call, I do describe Shots of Oz as a form of like existential jazz.

• 3:17Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Because the episodes are all completely improvised. They're all straight up consciousness, yeah. People often think, do you write them? Do you script them? I remember, this was one of those like surreal moments, I got to meet Ron Howard, who was tweeting a lot of my videos and he's a big fan. And he was asking me about the creative process behind it. He's like, really? You don't script the videos? And I was like, no, I just kind of get in the zone or get in flow state. And we can talk about that later, but you know, I think that any artist or athlete or musician that sort of pushing, pushes the envelope of their genre, so to speak, is because they've been able to tap into that flow state. They're in the pocket, they're in the zone. And that's always been a mystery of, of the creative process.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Like, how does the snowboarder or the jazz musician or the freestyle rapper get to that state of consciousness, that altered state where they can all of a sudden tap into something larger than themselves?

• 4:11Lewis Howes?

  So how do you do it then? When you're getting ready for, to shoot, do you have a film guy or girl or crew that's with you? And you're like, okay, let me just get in the pocket right now, start the camera, I'm in it? Or is it like more like, I'm in the pocket?

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Get the camera like I'm ready. Sure. Well, I, when I initially started doing these videos is because part of what I do in my free time, part of what's interesting to me is to chase experiences that put me in the zone, put me in the flow. Because that's when I'm at my most engaged, that's when I'm inspired, that's when I can be actually present and silence that kind of anxious inner critic or neurotic inner Woody Allen that's like worried about the future or melancholic for the past. And so being in the zone means being in the moment. It's a state of consciousness in which you feel your best and you perform your best, according to Stephen Kotler and Jamie Wiel's definition of flow. And I think since I was in, in, in high school, I used to organize these salons every Friday

• 5:06Speaker 01

  nights, every Friday night with my friends, handpicked people and do these kind of like, inspired by Charles Baudelaire's hashish parties from the 1920s in Paris where all these poets and all these artists would get together and drink wine and smoke hash and just kind of get into that sort of dream space where ideas were flowing and things were being exchanged. And it's almost like, the term that I really like is heterotopia, which is a sort of designed dwelling where a curated audience experiences a sort of state of being that is, or sort of a place that is physical as well as interpsychic. So like you get into the zone together. And, and you know, for people hanging out, that's a really fun vibe to create, the sort of salon vibe.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  And in high school, we used to do that and we used to just really get into this, into this altered state together. And the things that would come out, the ideas that were exchanged felt important, felt special. Even though there's only five or 10 of you talking about it. But it just like, we, it was the collective buzz that was achieved, you know? And, and you know, at the time, what is this, what are we philosophizing? Like, is that what people describe it? Were you guys just like partying? No, it was like, we were like philosophizing. It was like a proper salon. And I've always been obsessed with the video camera, like since I was a little kid. And I think it was because of this anxiety or acute awareness of the passing of the passing of the present moment, that no matter how great the present moment is, no matter how great our ecstasies are, they're sort of tinged by.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Sadness because they are transient, everything is transient. And so the camera gave me some kind of control, some kind of authorship over the present moment, because I was able to say, well, this moment ain't going quietly into that good night. You know, like I'm immortalizing this, I'm capturing this. And so what we would do is we would film the salons, particularly these epiphanies. High school. Yeah, I still have all of it on videos. Yeah, yeah, video eight millimeter. Wow. And so, yeah, we'd get in the zone and whenever some deep insight was exchanged, we'd film it. And that kind of carried through into my, you know, I studied film and philosophy in college. And then when I graduated, I got to work for Al Gore's TV network, Current TV. And I spent many years working on, as a presenter for them. And that was all short form, digital content, do it yourself media.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  And I kind of got comfortable with these tools that allowed one to kind of capture life as it's lived. So it empowered people to tell their own stories in their own voice and from their own point of view. And when I was kind of towards the end of Current, I still, during the weekends, I was kind of going back to that vibe of high school where I was just like, you know, I'd go for a hike with a friend, I'd get into profound philosophical discussion. And then I'd turn around and like want to film it. And then that evolved into this desire. Well, I was like, okay, well, what I'm really interested in is this moment of inspiration or this moment of insight, or this moment in which the dots connect is an intense high. I mean, there's a moment of elation where, when things become clear, so to speak, like Carl Sagan. It's like a philosophical orgasm. Yeah, mindgasm.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Mind. Yeah, so I found a definition for that. A mindgasm is an exhilarating neurostorm of intense intellectual pleasure. Wow. Which I love that definition. And I was once told that I was addicted to cognitive ecstasy. So cognitive ecstasy literally just means that you enjoy the sort of cognitive high of like connecting the dots and understanding something. Carl Sagan, one of my heroes, used to say, "Understanding is a kind of ecstasy." So I'm just somebody that like is addicted to the feeling that he's discovering a new insight. Yeah. It just, that feels good. It's like, oh, I understand, you know? And so.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Because I was filming a lot of these hangouts with my friends and these philosophical, you know, things. I then decided, I was like, I want to film them and then I want to take them and I want to visualize everything that's going on in my head. So how do I do that? You know, so I, if I have like a stream of consciousness, three-minute rant, and I sort of incorporate, you know, that with visual imagery that either is literally or symbolically or metaphorically connected to what I'm saying, then people get to see my thoughts.

• 9:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  So then it's like they're hearing me and they're seeing it and it creates a kind of synesthetic effect. And then you add some music to kind of cue the kind of emotions that I'm interested in conveying in that moment. And the idea was that I could give people a kind of a, like a digital trip, like a digital tour of my head. And, and that's ultimately, all art is that, right? Like when somebody does a painting, when they sing a song, when they write a poem, you're not going for empirical reality, you're going for subjective reality. You're going for an experience from the inside to, to your, you know, to share my intersubjective world with you, right?

• 9:40Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  And, uh, and so that's where the inspiration came from. And, and yeah, I only filmed them when I'm out of my head, when I'm in the zone, when I'm in a flow. And then we take them and we edit them and I started doing those and they kind of blew up. And then I partnered with, uh, some, a production company and now we do them regularly.

• 9:57Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing. How often do they come out now?

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Once a week.

• 10:00Lewis Howes?

  Once a week?

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:01Lewis Howes?

  So you gotta get in the zone at least once a week?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  No, because what happens is we get together, we go to a place like Big Sur. I find that, that getting, it, it, it helps if, if the analogy of what you're doing physically will, tends to correspond with what you're doing mentally. So if I want to get out of my head, I gotta physically get out of my world.

• 10:16Lewis Howes?

  You're not in a studio.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  You're out in nature. And that's what I see in all your videos. I think the first one I saw, you were like sitting on a log in the middle of the woods or something.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:25Lewis Howes?

  I was like, it actually wasn't that well-produced, like film quality-wise, you're like, you have like a...

• 10:30Speaker 01

  The first couple I shot with like a handheld camera, yeah.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you had like a man bag or something. I was like, who is this guy? But it was like, but it's actually amazing, you know?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, totally. Um, I like to go to Big Sur or like Sea Ranch, California, like up and down the coast, San Francisco. You can find these like desolate, majestic places that serve the purpose of making you...

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Contemplative. I'm seeking introspective contemplation.

• 10:54Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, contemplative introspection. And, uh, and what that does is that it makes me think of things I don't normally think of, and then it makes me want to articulate those things that I've.

• 11:04Lewis Howes?

  And connect the dots.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And then, and then it's just about having the camera and capturing that, and yeah.

• 11:10Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  It's, yeah, it's really fun.

• 11:12Lewis Howes?

  What did you think you were gonna be doing growing up, like, now? You're 33, so what did you imagine as a teenager?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  I wanted to be a director. Yeah. And I wanted to be a director because the aesthetic and intellectual power of cinema, from a very young age, to me seemed like the most powerful medium in the world. Like, there was nothing that existed that was better at conveying the human experience, particularly the interior human experience, from the point of view of a character, from the point of view of a person, the intersubjective life world of the other, as cinema. It was just simply the greatest communication technology that had ever been made. You know, you could talk, you could sing, you could paint. Cinema combined all of these, and it put you inside of someone else's world. And so as an engine of empathy, as a way of stepping outside yourself, as a way of witnessing someone else's life, I just,

• 12:00Speaker 01

  I was always moved by cinema, and so I wanted that power. As a director, you know, because I felt like the movie, yes, it's the characters, it's the actors, it's the actresses, but it's really the writer-director's vision.

• 12:11Lewis Howes?

  Story.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And he uses everybody else as a conduit to tell that. And so I identified with the director's role. But then at the same time, there is the sort of face on camera is the one that, as an audience member, you relate to, even though, you know, it's the director's vision told through the face of the person on screen. So I think with digital technology, it kind of blurs those things together, because particularly if you're a vlogger, you're a podcaster, you're kind of like directing the show, but you're also the guy that's speaking. You're also the voice in the face. And, uh, and that's kind of what happened with me in digital video. It was like, well, I want to be like a filmmaker, like a digital filmmaker, but at the same time, I kind of want to be the voice that you, that is, and so that, I think, emerged because these tools allow for it.

• 12:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  And so.

• 12:52Lewis Howes?

  Perfect timing in the internet right now.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I wanted to be a director, and I wanted to be a philosopher, so I studied, you know, I studied film and philosophy, which is exactly what I was doing in those salons and. High school and and I remember in film school I was like wow I just wanna like just wanna like philosophize and like make these like art. I would see Richard Linklater movies like Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight, Waking Life. You've probably seen Waking Life. Um, and I was like, wow, these are films about philosophy. These are like naturalistic, you know, films where characters are talking about life. It seems very unscripted. It seems very real and there doesn't have to be a bunch of explosions for this to be considered cinema. It's just interesting people talking.

• 13:29Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  And I was like, well, what's the digital equivalent of that? Like, what's, what's, what's a film like Waking Life? What's a film like Before Sunrise? Um, you know, I showed you that clip of my recent love affair. I was like, I kind of want naturalistic stream of consciousness exchanges between two people. And I want to turn that into an aesthetic work that can be contemplated and hung on a wall. And that's always kind of what I wanted to do, even if I wasn't able to articulate it. But it weird strangely I've been able to kind of manifest it and that's like kind of what I do now. You know, it's like, yeah, well, technically, yeah, he's a TV presenter on Brain Games. Yeah, sure. And that's great. But really, I think what I am is like a kind of, uh, I don't know, an explorer of consciousness, a seeker and a digital filmmaker who uses that medium to articulate the meanderings of his inner world.

• 14:15Lewis Howes?

  I love it. I love it.

• 14:18Lewis Howes?

  Who would you say is the most influential person in your life growing up? And what was the biggest lesson they taught you that you still think about today?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  I mean, there've been a bunch, but I was, I am and have always been extremely close to my mother. Um, my parents divorced and I'm really close with my dad too, but my dad is more like, uh, the things I learned from my dad were a little bit more about there's a kind of, uh, you know, health and elegance and sort of sophistication, de bonheur quality that he has. It's just kind of about like taking care of yourself and

• 14:52Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  And, and it not to say superficial, but my dad's like a kind of a Latin James Bond. He likes to fly his own Cessna plane and race boats and motorcycles and he's so suave and there's that. But then my mother is like this brilliant artist, poet, sculptor, teacher. She's taught for 35 years internationally. She's published like 10 poetry books. She directs theater and has directed theater for many years in Venezuela and around the world and. You know, I grew up in the environment where the arts were celebrated, where creative expression and expressive discharge was celebrated. And she always used to say, just do what you love, do what you love, do what you love. The only cardinal rule is you have to be kind. So it was like, that was like, you know, in terms of like, the rules, like, you just

• 15:33Speaker 01

  have to, you can't be unkind, you can't mistreat anybody, ever. But aside from that, kind of like, abiding by that, you know, everything else is like, go for it. Like, express yourself, dance like no one's watching, you know, like, just go for it.

• 15:48Lewis Howes?

  Sing in the rain.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I also think the pain of the divorce between her and my dad, she channeled into art that was around me, growing up. You know, like, the sculptures were all about her pain. The poetry books were all about the exquisite aching darkness that she went through and articulated so brilliantly. And I read, as a 13, 14-year-old, and I was like, you know, my mom, I'm connected through like, an umbilical cord to this person. So just to read her pain was to feel her pain. That's a lot for a little kid to think about, you know, and I think it caused a lot of existential anxiety. But I think that that anxiety, at the same time, has been a fuel for my work and my art, you know?

• 16:28Lewis Howes?

  Right, of course, yeah. What do you think it means to be human today?

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Hmm. Well, it's, I did a video recently called Redefined Billionaire, which was inspired by some of the ideas put out there by Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis from the X Prize Foundation, which is that the new definition of billionaire today, on the back of these exponentially emerging technologies, is not somebody who has a billion dollars, but somebody who positively affects a billion people. That's the new definition of billionaire. Like, empowered by smartphones, empowered by the fact that, you know, a young kid in Africa with a smartphone has better communications technology than the US president had 25 years ago. How does that allow us to change the world? When the supercomputers of yesterday now fit in your pocket, how does that allow us to impact the world in a positive way?

• 17:14Speaker 01

  A kid in a garage, a kid with passion, has the communication, has the power, has the technology that only governments and corporations used to have a few decades ago. So, to be human today is to crisscross the skies. To be human today is to communicate instantaneously across the world, to turn our ideas, electrify them at the speed of thought, get them out there, reach other people. I mean, we are miraculous beings, you know, there's these Cognitive philosophers that I love called David Chalmers and Andy Clark, who wrote a thesis called "The Extended Mind Thesis", where they basically put on the notion that iPhone, therefore I am. That are tools, that these technologies are actually cognitive appendages. Like if you drew the Vitruvian Man today,

• 17:58Speaker 01

  you know, and like you're pointing to all of his physiological features of like the ideal human form, that he'd have an iPhone in his hand and you'd point to it and identify it, the same way you point to the neocortex or you point to like his limbs. Like that this is, even though it's outside of our skin tissue, it's very much part of like the mental apparatus of the human being. So we are extended minds. Our intellect, our cognition is distributed between biological and non-biological props and scaffolding. So it's like, that's I think what to be human today is that we are extended.

• 18:30Lewis Howes?

  And it almost never leaves our body, except for when we sleep. And it's maybe an arm's length away.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  A thousand percent, yeah. And then some people like get freaked out. They're like, oh, we're so dependent on our phones. But like dude, we've always been symbiotically codependent on our tools. Like when we started, we discovered fire and started cooking food and using stone tools, our jaws shrank over a couple of generations. Like our physiology has always been transformed and affected by the tools we create. Marshall McLuhan, the media theorist in the seventies, the visionary, he used to say, "We build the tools and the tools build us." Feedback loops. Remember we were talking before about the feedback loops? "Everything we design, designs us in return." And Stephen Johnson, "Our thoughts shape our spaces, our spaces return the favor." You know, like that's us. And so that is, that's what it means to be human today.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  These cameras are extensions of our mindedness and our agency and our will. Like our thoughts, you know, electrochemical activity within our brain goes way beyond the brain. You know, it's going into other brains. It's changing other people's neurochemistry today. So we're becoming a super organism, or we've always have been. But it's like now it's sort of blooming.

• 19:37Lewis Howes?

  I'm just in the jazz pocket.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Awesome, we are in the pocket, I love this.

• 19:43Lewis Howes?

  So what do you think is the master plan? And why do you think we're all here?

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Have you ever heard of Teard de Chardin? No. So he was a Jesuit priest that was kind of banned from the church for some of his ideas about the directionality of evolution. So he was, he believed in evolution, which kind of is not necessarily kosher in church. But his whole thing was that evolution has a directionality, that it moves towards greater complexity and organization. So single-celled organisms became multicellular organisms, became, you know, animals, became primates that got caught in self-awareness, then those primates started inventing biotechnology and tools and technologies that started modifying themselves. And so there's this move towards more sublime complexity and intelligence and creativity that comes from that, right?

• 20:31Speaker 01

  And so he says that we're kind of moving towards this omega point, this like moment where we basically are gonna engender our own godhood. So it's not so much we're gonna be saved by God, but it's like we're gonna become gods. Which is very poetic and very beautiful. And, uh, and, and toward today, Ray Kurzweil, who's a prominent futurist, uh, he's now the head of engineering at Google, um, because Larry Page and Sergey think that he's the man, which, which he is. Kurzweil has popularized the term singularity. The technological singularity is a metaphor borrowed from physics. Singularity is what happens when you go through a black hole, the laws of physics as we know them collapse. And so he's taken that metaphor and he used it to describe the plan, the grand plan for humanity, the directionality that we're going in.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  And basically what he's saying is that emerging transformative technologies in IT, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, you know, like mastering our genetic engineering, synthetic biology, et cetera, and nanotechnology, which is patterning the atoms of the physical world so that we can self, make anything that self-assembles. Like we can print an information file, software that writes its own hardware, we can like design a building on the computer and have it self-assemble. Crazy. That we're moving into a world where we're gonna basically live inside of our imaginations. Like we're gonna be able to like manifest realities at the speed of thought. The Matrix. The Matrix, yeah. And so he says that the singularity is the moment humans transcend biology. And so I think, yeah, I think the grand plan is that we, as a species...

• 21:58Speaker 01

  As a self-aware symbolic species, our enemy is mortality. Our enemy is entropy, the second law of thermodynamics that wants to break everything down. But then life is anti-entropic. You know, Buckminster Fuller, another futurist, used to say, "Life is an anti-entropic phenomenon." Because unlike entropy, which wants to destroy and break everything down to its simpler elements, life wants to incorporate elements and become more complex, more sublime, more sophisticated. And the, you know, one of my favorite writers, this guy Alan Harrington, said, "We must never forget that we are cosmic revolutionaries, not stooges conscripted to advance a natural order that kills everyone. Any philosophy that accepts death must itself be considered dead,

• 22:41Speaker 01

  its questions meaningless, its consolations worn out." In other words, stop trying, stop praying and start engineering. Like, yeah, so I think that's the grand plan for us, basically, to make ourselves supermen.

• 22:56Lewis Howes?

  And do you think it's harder?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  We've already done it, bro. I mean, look at airplanes, look at smartphones, look at video conferencing on, you know, FaceTime.

• 23:03Lewis Howes?

  It's insane. If you could think 100 years ago.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 23:05Lewis Howes?

  1920, if someone had said, you know, we're gonna, there's gonna be big objects flying across the world that could go from one place to another in a few hours, people would have hung you.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Let me, let me read you something very, very nice. So I love the philosopher, um, Alan de Botton, and, uh, on travel. So he says, uh, something that's so amazing. He talks about the fact that we take these marvelous miracles for granted. You know, if we were to show a sort of 747 to somebody 200 years ago, they would think we were gods.

• 23:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  And they would be right.

• 23:41Lewis Howes?

  They would be bowing literally to us, saying, "Whatever you want."

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, exactly. And so he talks about, you know, the sort of the miracle when we're in flight, you know, we're, we're on an airplane and most people close their fricking windows. And so this is what he writes. "There is not much talk about the clouds visible up here. No one thinks it remarkable that somewhere above an ocean we flew past a vast white." Candy Floss Island, which would have made a perfect seat for an angel or even God himself in a painting by Pierro de la Francesca. In the cabin of the airplane, no one stands up to announce with requisite emphasis that out of the window, we are flying over a cloud, a matter that would have detained Leonardo

• 24:29Speaker 01

  and Pusin, Claude and Constable. And I was like, he's absolutely right.

• 24:35Lewis Howes?

  We take it for granted. We're just like, it comes second nature.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Can you imagine Leonardo da Vinci in a 747, looking at a cloud during a sunset at 35,000 feet? Like, we already are moving in that direction of like, making ourselves, you know, something far beyond what we used to be. And I just think that we need to extrapolate from that. And not, and not, not, not, and I'm not, sort of not hide from, from our potential, but like, move towards the light, bro.

• 25:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's almost like, you know, as kids, our first time on an airplane is unbelievable. Like, god, you can't stop like, looking out the window, like, telling your mom and dad, like, can you believe what we're doing? And I guess like, the question I'm, I'm leaning towards is, do you feel like it's harder to experience awe as adults than as it is as children?

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:23Lewis Howes?

  And how do we allow ourselves to be in that childlike state of awe?

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:29Lewis Howes?

  More often, so that we can fully experience gratitude and appreciation?

• 25:32Speaker 01

  Totally, bro.

• 25:33Lewis Howes?

  And put us more in the zone?

• 25:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:35Lewis Howes?

  Because really, if we're not in awe, we're probably not in the zone.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Of course, yeah. I mean, I think it was Henry Miller, even a blade of grass, if given proper attention, becomes a magnificent thing in itself. Charles Darwin also talks about the importance of the knobs and levers of mediating our attention. It's really all about attention. It's all about attention. He said, "Attention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise, and this into astonishment, and this into stupefied amazement." Right? So how do we get there? How do we do that? How do we transcend what Michael Pollan calls "the been there's and done that's of the adult mind"? With our nodding resignations into nothingness, you know? Which is true, the sort of the banality of the everyday, right? And I think that the way we do that is to overwhelm ourselves.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  I think that we, a lot of our communication technologies are all about mediating attention. I mean, an IMAX screen, its sheer size and scope and soundscape is meant to arrest the senses and envelop you completely. I think that the hunger for more and more intense immersive technologies, whether they be virtual realities or IMAX cinemas, to push the envelopes of experience is for that very reason, to arrest the body mind and force us to overcome the been there's and done that's of the adult mind and see something brand new. Because when you see something new, you become the child again.

• 26:58Lewis Howes?

  But then doesn't the IMAX theater become old and boring and been there, done that?

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Hedonic adaptation, yeah. Yeah, that's the problem. I mean, think about it. Why does the honeymoon phase always end with every relationship? And it may sound a little bit controversial in my advocacy for this, but I really love the philosopher David Pearce, who wrote a treatise online called "The Hedonistic Imperative", and he says that we should use advances in biotechnology and nanotechnology to basically engineer superdrugs that allow us to basically author a kind of chemical, neurochemical nirvana for ourselves. So the idea is to figure out what makes something like MDMA so effective, you know, why is MDMA get ecstasy given now to people with PTSD or people with OCD or anxiety disorder? And it seems to dissipate it.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  It seems to have the impact of 10 years of psychotherapy in one afternoon. Because we are made of neurochemistry. And if we can understand that neurochemistry, if we can, if we can understand the sort of the psychology, the technology and the psychopharmacology of ecstatic states, then why not design better living through chemistry? Why not become paradise engineers? I mean, there is a reason why there is a renaissance in sort of the psychotherapeutic use of psychedelic substances. You know, in the 1960s, these things practically changed the world. Steve Jobs says that taking LSD was the greatest experience of his life. Granted, taking LSD in anything less than a perfect set in the setting could be a recipe for Psychological despair as well. These are delicate tools, but these are tools that when

• 28:28Speaker 01

  used responsibly can give us glimpses of what lies beyond our current limitations, our current Darwinian survival mechanism, amygdala, survive, fight or flight mode, and go to that place of the artist, the place of grace, the place of transformation, the place of the numinous. And so, yeah, I mean, I actually think that it is going to be through intervention. You know, whether it's intervention that is, you know, mindfulness meditation or yoga, or whether it's through like reverse engineering MDMA, eliminating any of its adverse effects and making MDMA 2, 3, 4, 5.0. And that's, you know, that's the future, man. It's actually, you know, the famous book Brave New World is a dystopia about this idea. Sure.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  About a future where we have a perfect, perfect designer drugs that make everybody happy, but no one's allowed to fall in love. And I totally respect the author's desire to make a sort of dystopian, you know, warning tale. But I actually think that a lot of what that book talks about is something that doesn't have to be dystopic at all. I do believe that there are realms of the mind yet to be explored, that the new space is inner space, that subjectivity, that consciousness is unexplored territory, and that the knobs and levers approach, as Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal talks about, is where the future lies. Right. That we can be ontological DJs, reality DJs, consciousness DJs, and that just like

• 29:53Speaker 01

  a DJ board or, you know, in a recording studio has a thousand knobs and levers that adjust exactly the kind of sounds you're looking for, why not turn consciousness itself into a project like that? I mean, we're getting heavy, but why not? Yeah, of course. Why not? Like, I think, I think it would be nice if I got to experience the cognitive thrills that Christopher Nolan feels when he writes a film or directs a film like Inception. It would be nice if a filmmaker like Danny Boyle was able to communicate the aesthetic impact of his music neurologically into my brain, you know, like. I mean, I just, I, there's so much art out there and there's so many nuances and sensations

• 30:35Speaker 01

  that art can evoke, but I think they're just, they're like glimmers of where we can go and what we can feel.

• 30:41Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's crazy. Do you wish you were born like in a couple hundred years so you could experience this whole new world?

• 30:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm, I'm banking on the hope that we will be able to quadruple the human lifespan within my lifespan. I mean, there's a lot of-

• 30:54Lewis Howes?

  Well, Peter Thiel's working on that and other people-

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Peter Thiel, Larry Page, California Life Extension Company, Calico, it's a new software to hack life, you know, the Google and the end of death was the Time cover story. Look, I, yeah, man, I mean, yes, we need more time, dude. We can learn the songs that orchestrate the universe. The universe is big, you know, the universe is infinite, so why can't we be?

• 31:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's amazing. In one of your recent videos, I think it was the Brain Games actually trailer, which was beautiful by the way, you say that we're always looking for better answers, but what we should be doing is asking better questions.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:27Lewis Howes?

  So what are the questions you're asking lately?

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 31:31Lewis Howes?

  And what are the better questions we should be asking?

• 31:35Speaker 01

  Whew, that was a question. Why did that girl stop texting me?

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  That's a great question.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  Oh dude, yeah, I think that, um, you know, I fell in love over five days this holiday period. I mean, you know, I, I don't throw the word love out there too loosely, but I, I, I purposefully hypnotized myself. I, I, I went on a few dates with somebody, I allowed the infatuation to take hold and then I anchored it with an aesthetic work by putting her inside one of my videos-

• 32:08Lewis Howes?

  Into the future, too.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Set to music so that I could author future memories whenever I looked at the video of me and her. So yeah, I fell in love over the last couple of days and then, and then when I, when I left Miami, she kind of, she kind of pulled back a little bit and said she needed to sober up from me, um-

• 32:24Lewis Howes?

  From the love drunkness.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  And figure out how she feels. And I don't know what that means. I texted a couple of girlfriends of mine to ask them, what does that mean? She's like, she may be having an intimacy hangover. You may have just gone in too deep, too fast, too intense, and then you left and she, to process that, to be, to either experience such neediness- And such vulnerability without you there, she has two choices. Either go with that neediness and be that needy or close up and say, I need to recover my. My self sustaining identity. Yeah. And so.

• 32:51Lewis Howes?

  She experienced something she'd never experienced before, a guy she'll never experience from again.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. And so a question I've been asking myself is like, oh, man, why? How could she like just go cold turkey like that? That's one question. Another question I ask myself is why haven't we cured cancer yet? You know what I mean?

• 33:08Lewis Howes?

  It seems silly, right?

• 33:08Speaker 01

  We're like engineering, printing organs in the lab and this and that. And like, come on, like fix this already. Let's create like gene therapies that can like turn off the software in a tumor and kill it. I, I want the advances in healthcare, the revolutions that are coming with like biotech to get here really, really, really fast. Like, I want to see, you know, I, I, I remember once I kind of bumped my head a little bit and I told you about this. I got an anxiety attack because I was like, what if I have internal bleeding or something? It wasn't even a bad bump in the head, but I just kept thinking, what if? And I remember I went to the emergency room just in case and I was like, give me a CAT scan. I just, I just want to make sure I'm fine. And the emergency room was so impersonal and so inhuman and so un.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Uncompassionate, you know, and I just found the experience to be like revolting and disgusting. And I just can't believe that's what, that's what medicine is. And I was just like disgusting. And so I just, I just, I feel like we need a sort of change in values and we need to start like having these sort of apps of. That are, you know, the software apps to fix healthcare and we need to, we need to have the Airbnbs and the Ubers and the iOSs for. Biotechnology and, and take the power back from these institutions that just, ugh.

• 34:18Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. What would you say if you could come up with three questions that everyone, everyone should ask themselves? To have a richer, fuller, more expressive, healthy life? What were those three questions? Or maybe a couple of questions, Peter?

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, um.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  You know that great line that says, "Ask not what the world needs, ask instead what makes you come alive, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive." So then the question, of course, is, "What makes you come alive?" And what do I mean by that? Well, what gives you the goosebumps? What gives you the chills? What makes you well up? It's a great line by Alan de Botton, the UK philosopher, where he says, "We don't cry because something is sad, or we cry because something is more beautiful than we expected it to be." So those moments, make note of those moments. When do you find yourself witnessing something that's more beautiful than you expected it to be? What induces that? What are the precursors to that? Right? Because I'm all about control. How can we preconfigure more of those experiences? Preconfigure more of those moments of grace?

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Reverse engineer, author more of those moments for ourselves? Instead of allowing those moments to be haphazard, coincidental moments that just happen, "Oh, it just happens." No! We can make more of that. We can make more inspiration. We can make more flow, more grace, more transformation. And that's what I want, man. I want to just constantly epiphanize myself. And I think people should ask themselves, "How can I epiphanize myself more?" Yeah.

• 35:39Lewis Howes?

  I like that. Okay. What frustrates you about people in life?

• 35:44Speaker 01

  I think something that frustrates me is when, um, when people just settle for an unexamined life. Right? The unexamined life is not worth living. I think a lot of people are afraid of the questions and afraid of the answers, and so they prefer to watch mindless, narcotic, stupefying television. Well, yeah, like it's just an easy job where we don't have to think too much, and an easy, kind of a boring TV series that you watch every night, so it doesn't make you think too much, and just, I guess, killing time. I find that to be the most depressing thing ever. Killing time. I can just kill, let me just kill some time. Hate it.

• 36:24Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  What's the most important skill you think we should all be learning? If there's one skill we could all be learning more of?

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Learn how to say what we feel and feel what we say. You know, I don't know. Learn to be more honest with ourselves and with others. Learn to be more vulnerable. Learn to be much more vulnerable. I mean, one of the things that we had so much fun in when we were at the Subnit's Seaport is that they created a kind of heterotopia, intersubjective, intersychedic space that's similar to kind of what Burning Man seems to be able to achieve, where everybody is present with everybody else. Everybody addresses everybody else with an openness and a transparency and a vulnerability that creates self-reinforcing positive feedback loops. You catch the buzz, right? You design the space, you bring the people, and before you know it, everybody infects everybody else in a self-reinforcing loop.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  And controlling those feedback loops becomes a kind of ontological design, a design of being-ness, designing a new way of being-ness. And that is all about the feedback loops, all about the creative and linguistic choices, right? I design, therefore I become. You become what you behold. And if we were able to curate our spaces, to curate the people we hang out with, to curate the activities we expose ourselves to, we can actually author future versions of ourselves into existence. We can turn ourselves into a dynamic work of art that we're constantly refining. That's such an amazing thing, to treat ourselves as an art project. Like, you are an art project, I am an art project. And when we were on that boat, I mean, I just, oh my god, I just, I remember going to that

• 37:55Speaker 01

  like crazy tea room, and everybody was like lying down and cuddling with everybody else. And I was like, what is happening here? It's all love.

• 38:01Lewis Howes?

  The music, yeah. The chanting and all that stuff, yeah. That's cool.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:06Lewis Howes?

  Would you rather be, this is just a question, it's kind of maybe silly, but I thought it'd be interesting to hear your response. Would you rather be the richest person in the world and have no imagination?

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:14Lewis Howes?

  Or all the imagination in the world, but no one to share it with?

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Ooh, man. Uh, I don't know. I mean, I guess, I guess all the imagination in the world but no one to share it with is probably of those two, the one I would choose, because I would be able to create really realistic imaginary friends. If I had all the imagination in the world. That's the only way that I can come up with a happy medium between those two things. Because to not be able to share with someone is the recipe for insanity. Um, you know, we are, we are social beings. I read this article recently called "The Art of Peopling." Peopling. So, not people, peopling. And he basically says that the way that we come into existence is through the exchanges with others. I come to see myself.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  I am, I am not, I am not who I think I am, I am not who you think I am, I am who I think you think I am.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Which is really trippy, but when you think about it, it's like, the other is required to come to be. Yeah, so I am not who I think I am.

• 39:16Lewis Howes?

  You're who I think you are.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, no, I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am.

• 39:23Lewis Howes?

  Yes, of course, the perception of my perception.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Yes, is what I am.

• 39:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes, okay, interesting.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 39:29Lewis Howes?

  So you are, in a sense, who you think you are.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  You are who you think others think you are, yeah.

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  If you, if you say, well, this is what their perception is of me.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Right, but how do I know that I'm correctly reading the perception? I mean, I think you have a perception of me, but there's two, there's two lines of modeling there. There's, there's what I'm putting out, there's what you're taking in, and the feedback I'm getting from you based on what you're taking in from me, and then there's me making an assessment of what your impression is of me and me trying to be that impression.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  It gets crazy, but it's all about the loops.

• 39:59Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  So.

• 40:01Lewis Howes?

  But you could trick your mind to saying, well, this is who they think I think I am.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  You could, you could.

• 40:08Lewis Howes?

  You could trick your perception.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Yes, well, reality is coupled to perception.

• 40:11Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Reality is only, it's only perception.

• 40:14Lewis Howes?

  It's it, yeah.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  It's only perception. Cultures are reality tunnel, cultures and iOS.

• 40:17Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, exactly. Um, what's the most challenging moment of your life you've had? And what did you create out of that experience?

• 40:28Speaker 01

  I had a terrible panic attack. Um, a panic attack is probably the most horrible thing that I've experienced. I mean, lucky enough, I've never really lost a loved one to like death or anything. My grandfather died, but um, that was, I mean, that was horrible. Well, it was semi, he was a cigarette smoker for many years. It was kind of self-created. That was tragic, but other than that, um, yeah, I remember, uh, I guess it was like one of those days where I just wasn't feeling well. I was fatigued, traveling a lot, went to a restaurant, ate too fast, drank a beer, got really bad gas, caused a stomach ache. Stomach ache wasn't going away. I guess I hyperventilated and I had a brief faint spell.

• 41:06Lewis Howes?

  In the restaurant?

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Well, like, standing outside the restaurant by the car with my brother, and he kind of grabbed me, and it was only for like two seconds, but like, I'd never experienced that before, like, the actual, like, you know.

• 41:14Lewis Howes?

  Losing your consciousness.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, for like a second, and, and kind of two seconds later, when I was there, did I just fall to the floor, you know? It gave me the worst panic attack of my life because I thought I was dying. Like, I thought that the fainting was caused because I was dying. Like, I thought in that moment, hard that, whatever. And it was the scariest thing in my life, and it left a little bit of PTSD. Like, because even after I went to the hospital, they said, "Everything's fine. You're fine. Your vitals are perfect." Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

• 41:39Lewis Howes?

  The anxiety of it happening again and...

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the most horrible experience in my life. And it lasted for days. Like, it let... I was anxious about having another panic attack for days. And, uh, yeah, and that was the scariest thing I've ever experienced.

• 41:54Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Okay. So what did you...

• 41:56Speaker 01

  What did I learn?

• 41:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Ah, the power of breath. You know, sometimes states of mind, you can get into these negative loops. Um, and it's amazing how by changing your physiology, you can then change your emotions. Like, if the loop is so self-reinforcing and negative, and you can't get out of it intellectually, you can change your physiology, which in turn will change your state of mind.

• 42:20Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  So I... It was one of the few times that I learned to take a couple of deep breaths and make myself feel better. That was kinda cool. Um, other than that, just, uh, don't eat too fast. Don't make yourself...

• 42:30Lewis Howes?

  That's my ritual.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Don't hyperventilate.

• 42:31Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. What are some of the rituals you have every single day that you must do? Let's say, when you're, you know, in the zone, when you're not traveling, but like...

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:39Lewis Howes?

  When you're at home.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Sleep is huge.

• 42:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Like, sleep is huge. You know, a lot of people are like, "Yeah, whatever. I'll sleep when I'm dead." And nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Sleep when you're alive, and your life will be much better.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  Yes. I think 50 Cent said, uh, "Sleep is for those who are broke." And I think when I was in my early entrepreneurial days, I used to be like, "Yeah, sleep is for those who are broke. If you wanna, like, make money and build your business, you gotta hustle and do whatever it takes." And then I was just like, "Wow, I'm actually getting fat. I'm exhausted. I'm really angry. I'm passive-aggressive."

• 43:06Speaker 01

  There's a lot of links between sleep and mental illness. A lot of people who don't sleep enough can suffer, can develop anxiety disorder and all these things. Um, so sleep is huge for me, and I like my mornings... I like usually my mornings to be... I like the two or three hours to, like, drink my... Some, some coffee.

• 43:22Lewis Howes?

  Philosophize.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  I like to do some... I like to do some exercise in the morning. Just whatever, like, some push-ups, some pull-ups, just kind of some quick... Get it out of the way. Um, have my breakfast, do email. And then usually after that, like around midday by one, I like to switch from that kind of caffeinated email workout thing. And then after that, I like to switch it and go into free association, creative mode. And that's like, let's go see a film, or let's go for a hike.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  You know, something that is about disconnection. So the morning is connect, focus, and then afternoon is divergent thinking. Morning is convergent thinking, afternoon is divergent thinking. I think that's a good balance for me.

• 44:00Lewis Howes?

  How can we tap into our minds, our intellect more, our imagination more? And also, how much of it are we currently using of our minds?

• 44:10Speaker 01

  How do we tap into our imaginations more?

• 44:13Lewis Howes?

  Because it's probably similar to how to get in the zone, being disconnecting, being in nature.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, you need to practice a kind of stillness, right? Like, in order to induce contemplative introspection, you need to be, you need to quiet your surroundings. You need to be in places, I think, that are serene. You know, I love a sort of an open natural landscape, you know, a snowy landscape, big mountains, you know. I find that the outer reflects the inner. What is without becomes within. It's the power of design spaces. Like, wherever you put yourself, that's who you become, what you behold. You are where you are. So, open spaces, majestic spaces, trigger introspective thoughts, trigger

• 45:02Speaker 01

  inner vastness. Outer vastness triggers inner vastness. And I think, so I think that's huge, huge, huge. And I think people don't, often don't pay attention to the poverty of their surroundings. And I'm not talking about just material poverty, but just the poverty in the choice of what they're surrounding themselves with.

• 45:19Lewis Howes?

  Become your environment, essentially.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, you do. You do.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  How much of it do you think we're using, our minds?

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Well, there's that, there's that urban myth that we only use 10% of our brains and that's incorrect. Like, our whole brain is active. I think the, the, the better question, or the better way of saying that is, are we using our brain to our full potential? Are we using it effectively? It's not about like percentage of actual physical use of the machine of the brain, but it's more like, when you see a savant on the violin, you're like, okay, well, that's like a brain optimized to do something. What is, what is my version of being a savant on the violin? How can I tap into my genius, potentially? And I love, I love witnessing genius. I'm moved by genius. Why? Because genius, I'm not religious, but I think genius is God, so to speak.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  And so when you witness genius, when you witness the numinous, you're witnessing that which exceeds your intellectual capacity. So that is what Joseph Campbell describes as God, right? And in those moments, you stop believing in death. That's what's cool. So when you see the world's most exquisite dancer, when you see the world's most exquisite actor, performer, writer, jazz musician, you're like, wow, that genius can never die.

• 46:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  And that's the best feeling in the world. When you believe something won't die, it's the best.

• 46:42Lewis Howes?

  You had an interesting conversation with, was it Neil, right?

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Neil Tyson, yeah.

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, about death and about his, his perspective on it was pretty interesting.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, his perspective was, look, very beautiful, very romantic.

• 46:54Lewis Howes?

  But the urgency.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  I've heard it a million times.

• 46:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Death is what gives meaning to life. Death is what gives urgency and value to things. We appreciate things because they're temporary. I get it. Look, I get it. And people respond to that because in the face of no other choice, that seems like the healthiest response. They're like, well, because if you really contemplate mortality, dude, you'll drive yourself into a panic attack. So Neil, Neil Tyson and Neil Tyson's answer in that video seems like the most mature and, and noble response. Okay? But I don't know. I prefer the temper tantrum. I prefer saying, fuck, like, I didn't sign up for this. We've committed no crime and we're afflicted with a death sentence. According to who? Who set that standard? And

• 47:39Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  There was once an ocean separating us from the other world and we were like

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  Screw that.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, didn't we say, well, you know, the ocean and that limit, the fact that I can't cross it is what makes it beautiful. The fact that I can't cross the ocean.

• 47:55Lewis Howes?

  You can only imagine what it could be like.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:57Lewis Howes?

  We create bridges.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Airplanes.

• 47:59Lewis Howes?

  To get the things we want.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yes, bro.

• 48:01Lewis Howes?

  And so we just haven't created the bridge yet to have a

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Dude, I think more talent, we'll look back at a time when we used to bury the dead as a, as a kind of, uh, as a kind of Je- uh, horror, a barbaric reality. Dude, poetry and people we love, put them in the dirt?

• 48:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it sucks.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  So that worms can eat them?

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  Sucks.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  I mean, I just, I think it's inhuman.

• 48:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  But what can I say? I'm a romantic who's in love with life.

• 48:28Lewis Howes?

  I love your passion. I love your passion.

• 48:33Lewis Howes?

  What's the most powerful drug on earth?

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Uh, I believe it's DMT, dimethyltryptamine, which is the active chemical in the ayahuasca vine. South America is a psychedelic that they brew from this vine and it's one of the most potent psychedelics on earth. And apparently it opens your third eye. It's the same chemical that your brain secretes before you die. And people who have partaken in ayahuasca rituals describe it as really transcendental. Um, if you think of marijuana as like a kind of a kite that allows you to kind of free flow and float in your imagination a little bit, then ayahuasca is kind of like a rocket ship to Venus. So quite a difference in the orbit, in the nature of the orbit.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Um, I think MDMA, according to Timothy Leary, is the only psychedelic that he would take with his wife. Because there's very little risk involved, assuming you have pure MDMA.

• 49:26Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  But there's very little risk of a bad trip. You know, cause the, the, the, when you, when you amplify feedback loops of mind and world, it could be delicate because an environment that gives you anxiety could give you horrific anxiety.

• 49:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  And your own insecurities and anxieties could manifest in the heaven and hell. But with MDMA, for some reason, it seems to only trigger positive feelings. And so it's a good entry point to altered states of consciousness. And I'm very excited about the research that MAPS is doing, the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies, with government permission to do, to use MDMA with, with people who have suffered from PTSD.

• 50:05Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. For some, for some reason, I thought you'd say love was the most powerful drug.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, okay, so the question wasn't literal.

• 50:11Lewis Howes?

  Well, you can take it any way you want.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Um, okay.

• 50:14Lewis Howes?

  I thought you'd go there.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, look, I think the most powerful feeling in the world is the experience of catharsis. So the neurochemistry of that, like, yeah, that includes love, and it also includes release, and it also includes longing, and it includes a whole range of sensations. But I happen to think that when you actually cry because you're moved by something, there is a transcendental cleansing taking place, and there is also a, a sort of willingness to acknowledge and, and go with the gushing flood-like experience of these feelings and sit with them, you know?

• 50:56Lewis Howes?

  How often do you allow yourself to cry?

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Not enough. Yeah, I cried this morning.

• 51:01Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  I was thinking about-

• 51:02Lewis Howes?

  A girl will do that to you.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I was thinking about her, and then I decided to watch clips from the movie Moulin Rouge. Which I love that movie.

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  It's a great movie.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  I think that director is a, is a marvel, marvelous at creating worlds.

• 51:16Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Worldhoods, like entire worldhoods. And that film is magnificent because it's, it's a fable, it's a fairy tale that uncynically celebrates love. In all of its, like, gushing, intense circus-like one, yeah, and it's just like, oh. And I love it, I love it, I love it. I'm a total romantic for those kinds of things. I don't have a bone, I don't have a cynical bone when it comes to, I mean, that's not true. I'm like, I'm like sometimes a cynic that wishes he could be more romantic, and so he'll drug himself with romantic films, sometimes as a kind of like intellectual masturbatory, like, like, just, like a baptism of, you know, just so I can forget my cynical side, yeah.

• 52:01Lewis Howes?

  I love it, I love it. What's your favorite romantic comedy?

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Romantic comedy, probably Love Actually.

• 52:06Lewis Howes?

  I was just gonna say that's my favorite movie, what you were talking about.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love Love Actually.

• 52:10Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  My favorite scene is the very end where they play God Only Knows by The Beach Boys.

• 52:15Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Which is considered the greatest pop song of all time. And, uh, and all the characters show up again in this beautiful montage sequence. And then we're at the airport, it's an emotional place. And then they cut to all the shots of all the people loving each other, set to God Only Knows. Beautiful. Only Richard Curtis could have done that.

• 52:30Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh, yeah, it's my favorite. I mean, I just watched it like two weeks ago for the holidays. I'm sure you did as well, right?

• 52:35Speaker 01

  I love it, I love it. I also love When Harry Met Sally.

• 52:37Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  I love the ending. New Year's Eve, very, very melancholic moment.

• 52:42Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  You think about the past, you realize you, you, you.

• 52:45Lewis Howes?

  And the future.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  It's prone for emotional revelation, yeah. And, uh, and he goes to the party, they're playing Old Lang Syne, which I love, the New Year's song, Old Lang Syne. And he tells her that he realizes that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. He wants to spend the rest of his life to start as soon as possible. And the music's playing, and ah, it's so beautiful. And then she cries, right? She cries, but she cries from happiness. Again, that's the catharsis. So seeing Meg Ryan's eyes well up to Old Lang Syne, right before they kiss.

• 53:09Lewis Howes?

  Mm.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Kills me every time.

• 53:11Lewis Howes?

  Game changer.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, touches me.

• 53:13Lewis Howes?

  So it sounds like when you were growing up in high school, that you had this vision for yourself to be directing and on film, be able to share your, your, your ideas.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  I wanted to turn myself into a character in a Richard Linklater film.

• 53:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Like, I wanted to be Ethan Hawke in Before Sunrise.

• 53:30Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Like, that character, I felt like, how does somebody write a character that I could relate to so much? Like, this, like, romantic guy on the trains in Europe, looking for a beautiful French girl to open up to? Like, I, that's me.

• 53:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Like, I love going to Amsterdam and riding my bike and looking for a French girl to fall in love with.

• 53:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  It's just, so I just like, I, I guess, yeah, to, to turn my own experiences into aesthetic works.

• 53:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  There is a, there's a desire to kind of, yeah, to take your own experiences and make art out of them. I mean, those are inextricably entwined.

• 54:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Well, it sounds like you've created your vision from earlier days.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:07Lewis Howes?

  And so I'm curious, what's the next, in 10 years, what do you, what's your vision for yourself in the next 10 years?

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 54:12Lewis Howes?

  Like, if you could do anything you want.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  I wanna find, I wanna find a muse, and I want her to willingly be part of my aesthetic universe. Like, I wonder what would happen talking about love when looking at her? What's the next shot of awe about love that's not a, a regurgitation of what I felt with her?

• 54:31Lewis Howes?

  A feeling in the moment. I want to see that.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:34Lewis Howes?

  You almost created a little mini version of it that I saw.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, the video you saw.

• 54:38Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty close to it.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:40Lewis Howes?

  Okay, interesting. I mean, what else in your life? What do you see yourself doing like career-wise besides that one?

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Um, I think it would be really cool to uh have a seat at the table um in in discussing how to implement like radical new technologies that change humanity. Like, I want to be there talking with the decision-makers when we start doing crazy shit.

• 55:04Lewis Howes?

  So in a salon for changing the world?

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, I have this hope that like we're gonna move towards a much more integrated planet, maybe something closer to like a world government, maybe something closer to like just a world beyond your violent conflict, you know?

• 55:20Lewis Howes?

  A world where the rule, the only rule is kindness.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Something like that, and where instead of spending eighty percent of our money on military spending, we start spending eighty percent of our money on building interstellar starships. And I want to be like in the room deciding interstellar starships and talking to those scientists, philosophizing with them about what it means to maybe make a warp drive and can we do that? And go to Proximus Centauri and see other stars? I want, I'm like, I relate to the Jodie Foster character in the movie Contact. Like, I'm, I'm like, I want to be like, I want to feel what she feels, you know? When, when they hear that sound from that other world, you know? Like, I just want to know that there's something more, that there's something else, that there's another chapter, that it doesn't end.

• 56:02Lewis Howes?

  Okay, I love it. Few questions left for you.

• 56:07Lewis Howes?

  Before I ask the final questions that I want to ask, I want to, I want to talk about Brain Games for a second. How could, this is what, the fifth season?

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:15Lewis Howes?

  Fifth season of Brain Games.

• 56:18Lewis Howes?

  When is it? What time? What channel?

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Brain Games, season five premieres on National Geographic Channel globally uh in February. I believe it's February fourteenth, but check your local listings, but it's in a hundred and eighty-one countries now.

• 56:33Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, the Netherlands, Chile, and as well, Mexico, the US. I mean, I've been everywhere. So the, the global success of the show is wonderful. So around the world, February, season five, hour-long episodes, it's gonna be great.

• 56:46Lewis Howes?

  Awesome. And where can they go online to learn about that and?

• 56:49Speaker 01

  So, yeah, if you, to keep up with everything? My Facebook page is where I'm seeing the most traction now.

• 56:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you get a lot of views from your videos there.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, more than YouTube these days. I mean, it's the most active platform. So I would encourage people to just search for my verified page on Facebook, Jason Silva. If you search Jason Silva, it has a little check mark, a little blue check mark, just like yours. And then you click follow, you keep up with everything. The actual URL, I believe, is facebook.com/jasonlsilva. But again, you can just search Jason Silva Facebook, the one with the check mark, click follow, keep up with the videos there. I do a lot of Facebook live posts as well.

• 57:26Lewis Howes?

  You did a video a couple of months ago that blew up with the baby.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, bro.

• 57:32Lewis Howes?

  And I was like, this is amazing. It had like 100 million views or something crazy.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, insane. Most viral video I've ever done.

• 57:38Lewis Howes?

  What was that experience like with this? And just to recap what happened, walk us through what it was.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Sure. So I was at my friend's house in New York and we were hanging out. We were very much in a flow state.

• 57:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  And what happened is him and I were just like whoosh out of our heads. And then his wife brought his little daughter out to the porch. And he was like, oh, Jason, you should hold her. And I was like, oh, God, really? I was like, holding this baby? And I was just like tripping balls, looking into her eyes. You know, she was so interesting and her eye contact was piercing. So I guess when I started to hold her, all I was doing was responding to what I was getting from her. Thing is, my response was verbal. So what I was feeling, I was narrating. And then my friend with his iPhone just filmed 51 seconds of it. And she kept eye contact the entire...

• 58:29Lewis Howes?

  It was amazing, dude.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Entire time. Yeah, it was magic. And the next day, I sent it to a friend. He was like, dude, post that now.

• 58:35Lewis Howes?

  It was huge.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  And I was like, really? You don't think it's weird? And he's like, post it now. Posted it on Facebook, direct video upload, and it went viral immediately. I think over 44 million views, picked up on Time Magazine, Huffington Post, ABC News, blogs in Europe, like insane. Then I shared a 30-second version of it on Twitter and it went viral on Twitter. 22,000 retweets. Something, it's like viral gold.

• 59:02Lewis Howes?

  And something, right?

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Magic, bro. The craziest surrealistic experience was I was in Israel, Jerusalem, shooting for Brain Games. And it was the last day I went to the Dead Sea with a friend of mine. We went swimming in the Dead Sea and then I'm like lying down in the beach chair in this like random hotel in the Dead Sea, like relaxing. And then behind me, two chairs behind me, I hear my own voice and I'm like, oh my God, that sounds like the baby video.

• 59:25Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  And I turn around and I go up to this dude and the guy was on his Facebook browsing BuzzFeed, playing the video that had just been featured in Israel, okay?

• 59:37Lewis Howes?

  You didn't know.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  And two rows behind me. So that's when I was like, oh my God, like I broke the internet, you know?

• 59:44Lewis Howes?

  Holy moly, that's amazing.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  That was crazy.

• 59:47Lewis Howes?

  Awesome. So make sure to check out Brain Games, all the information. We'll have it all linked up on the show notes as well and I'll tell you guys what that link will be here in a second. Also, what's the biggest thing you've learned about the mind over the last five years or five seasons of doing Brain Games?

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  We create the world, bro. Our mind is an apparatus, our brain is an apparatus that only can take in limited information about its environment. That's just, I mean, it's incredibly sophisticated, but it actually only processes a limited amount of information and the rest is inference. It fills in the blanks. It completes the pattern. It's like a sophisticated algorithm that just fills in the blanks. It has enough information that it needs to make a model of the environment. So you shouldn't think of what you see in the world as a window into the world. Your eyes are not a window that you see what actually is there. You should imagine what you're seeing as a projection on an image on a screen in your mind's eye. And what's coming in is like electronic signals that go to like the equivalent of a cable box.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  The cable box like des scrambles it and like processes the image and then sends a rendering of that information that your TV screen in your mind turns into an image. And a lot of that comes from the processing of the information and filling in the blanks to make it legible. So what that means is you bring cognitive biases, you bring stereotypes, you bring your own hopes and dreams and it colors that signal coming in. You don't see the world as it is, you see the world as you are. And so, what does it tell us? It tells us that our creative and linguistic choices matter, that perception, that reality is coupled to perception, and that perception can be modulated, knobs and levers approach.

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  So that means if we know that we don't get to have any empirical reality, if we know that our brain is creating, actively creating our world, and that a lot of that, so that reality is essentially a co-production between subject and object, then what can I bring to the table with purpose and mindfulness and intention? Instead of letting my brain just create the world haphazardly based on prior experiences that happened to me, I like to have an active role in the process of creating my world. We create our world, so why not have an active role in creating our world?

• 1:01:55Lewis Howes?

  Being the author of it, right?

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I love that. Okay, a few final questions.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:02:01Lewis Howes?

  First one, what are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  I'm grateful for health, I'm grateful for cognition, and I'm grateful for all the people that I love that are in my life and wonderfully dependable and love me back. And all the creative opportunities that have come my way.

• 1:02:20Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  And this interview.

• 1:02:22Lewis Howes?

  Thanks, man, appreciate it.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you for giving me a forum to open up so much.

• 1:02:25Lewis Howes?

  Of course, man, this is gonna be great. This is a question I started asking people about six months ago at the end of every episode. It's your last day, let's call it a few hundred years from now, because we've learned how to extend time. And all of your videos and works of art somehow have been erased from time. Short of all, no longer.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 1:02:46Lewis Howes?

  The baby video, gone.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Oh, damn.

• 1:02:48Lewis Howes?

  It's only, it's erased. And you're on your last few breaths, and you're, all your family, the most important people are there, and they say, "Dad, brother, lover, there's a piece of paper we have, and you got a pen, and you can ink your final three truths, the three things that you know to be true about everything you've learned from your experience in life. You get three things to write down that we will remember you by, and these will be the lessons that we take on for the rest of life." What would you write down as three truths?

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Choose love, choose compassion.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  And choose awe.

• 1:03:30Lewis Howes?

  Perfect. I love it. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Jason, for coming on and being so open and vulnerable and sharing and expressing and

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 1:03:41Lewis Howes?

  Opening up your mind because it's such a powerful gift. And I believe that you have this incredible talent and gift and information.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Thanks, man.

• 1:03:51Lewis Howes?

  And skill to share with the world. And so many people out there have their own unique gifts, but are too afraid to share it. And so I want to acknowledge you for constantly committing yourself to extending your own boundaries and expressing what those thoughts and feelings are. So the rest of us can be inspired to extend our own boundaries.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:04:11Lewis Howes?

  So I value you and I value your

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  I value you, bro. Thank you. Thank you. I felt an immediate kinship and connection with you when we met on the cruise. And our friend Aubrey Marcus, I'm actually, might be seeing him tomorrow, actually.

• 1:04:25Lewis Howes?

  I texted him last night and said, hey, he's in town. Make sure you

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, yeah, man, right away, I was like, takes one to know one.

• 1:04:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I appreciate it. Appreciate it.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:04:36Lewis Howes?

  And make sure everyone go follow Jason on Facebook and your website is

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Lewis Howes?

  This is JasonSilva.com.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:43Lewis Howes?

  Instagram, Twitter. Are you on the Snapchat?

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  I don't do Snapchat yet because everything is fleeting. Everything gets erased. It's contrary to my philosophy.

• 1:04:51Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna Snapchat your answer then.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Okay, great.

• 1:04:54Lewis Howes?

  And so people can hear it on Snapchat.

• 1:04:56Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:04:58Lewis Howes?

  So but the final question, and we're gonna extend this too. We're gonna do another video after this. So make sure you guys, we'll have this linked up in the show notes afterwards.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 1:05:05Lewis Howes?

  We're gonna create our own little shots of awe.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:05:07Lewis Howes?

  In a little bit. But my final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  What's my definition of greatness? Wow. Greatness is when we overcome our own boundaries, when we surprise ourselves, when we are moved to the point of tears, when we extend our hands towards one another, when we are able to experience intersubjective mutuality. I get to know the insides of your mind, you get to know the insides of my mind, and we become one. That's greatness.

• 1:05:39Lewis Howes?

  I love it. I love it. Jason Silva, thanks for coming on, my man. Appreciate you.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  Thank you, bro. Thank you for having me, bro. What an honor. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you.

• 1:05:47Lewis Howes?

  Awesome.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  So awesome.

• 1:05:52Lewis Howes?

  And there you have it, greats. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed interviewing Jason. Again, make sure to head back to LewisHowes.com/281 to check out the entire show notes, the full video interview in our studio in LA, and also our own little shots of all with Jason that we shot at my place as well. Go to LewisHowes.com/Organify and get 20% off your first order. And the first 500 people that use that code will also get a free copy of my book as well. Never pay full retail again for organic and natural products. To get started, make sure to go to ThriveMarket.com/Louis.

• 1:06:33Lewis Howes?

  And if this is your first time here, make sure to subscribe over on Stitcher and SoundCloud, and of course, over on iTunes at iTunes.com/SchoolOfGreatness, or right on your app, on the podcast app on your phone. Again, please share this out all over on Twitter, Facebook, social media, everywhere. LewisHowes.com/281. Get the message out about what Jason is up to. Subscribe to him on YouTube and also check out Brain Games on the National Geographic channel. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Thank you so much for being a part of this movement of greatness. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.