0:00 So, Sisyphus was one of the uh the cleverest humans who ever existed in ancient mythology. Uh he was able to outsmart the gods, and he even chained up death at one point, which made the gods really angry because basically people were fighting wars, and there were no no one was dying. So, there was no souls going to the underworld, so Hades was really pissed off. Anyway, eventually he dies, and the gods are just livid. So, they're like, "Look, we're going to we're going to punish you. And what we're going to do is we're going to make you roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, and just as it gets to the top of the hill, it's going to roll back down, and you're just going to do that for eternity, just this like absurd like completely thankless task." But then it was Albert Camus, the philosopher, who said he was able to outsmart the gods one more time, and that's if you imagine that Sisyphus was smiling. And this is the part I love. He said, "Because the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart." And I
0:45 think for me, they've even coined the phrase that that Sisyphus was the absurd hero. And I I I think for me, swimming sometimes, I'm like, "This is Sisyphus. This is my boulder, you know, it's not going anywhere, but the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart." >> Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Ross Edgley. Ross Edgley is a British ultra-endurance athlete who has accomplished such feats as swimming around Great Britain, which by the way is nearly 2,000 mi in distance, and it took him nearly 157 days. He also swam 317 mi of the Yukon River continuously,
1:33 meaning non-stop for 56 hours. He's run a full marathon pulling a car, a full-size car, by the way, and he's done 30 marathons in 30 days, and much more. All of that is, of course, super impressive. But the reason Ross is a guest on this podcast in particular is because both he and I wanted to discuss brain circuits and the psychology that allow humans, any humans, to engage and build up their mindset for motivation. So, today we explore and develop in real time what we really can say is a new model of motivation to do hard things. One that includes all the possible sources of drive to prove others wrong, to celebrate life, out of love, out of anger, to honor those who can't, to fight mental stagnation, and on and on. What's so special about Ross, and again,
2:19 another reason why he's here on this podcast in particular, is because not only has he accomplished all these incredible things, but he has the most incredible level of curiosity. He absolutely wants to understand the underlying neural machinery and psychology of motivation. What's allowed him to do hard things, what can allow you to do hard things in different contexts of life, and in doing that, Ross brings forward new ways of thinking about brain plasticity and how to reshape your brain in order to make yourself better. I should also mention that Ross has a new book out, one that I am personally excited to read and to listen to, and it's entitled How to Hero: Find Strength, Forge Resilience, and Fulfill Your Purpose. You can find a link to that in the show note caption. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
3:05 It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my conversation with Ross Edgley. Ross Edgley, welcome. Thank you so much. We're going to need a bigger chair. >> >> This feels surreal. we were just talking off air, weren't we, that so much of your teachings helped me across the Arctic Circle. Just jellyfish bouncing off my face, tongue coming off. This feels very weird. I'm honored that you're here. I'm very curious about you and what you do and how we can hopefully translate some of that into actions that people can take, thoughts, thought patterns, control of their own thoughts, that people can explore and perhaps adopt to
3:51 have a better, more enriched life, which is obviously the purpose of it all. Take me back because I I've read about you. I've read about your accomplishments. I have smatterings of things that you've done and why, but you're 41 years old now, right? >> I am. >> Yep. >> Let's do this in snapshot-ish fashion. 10-year-old Ross, what's he doing? What's he thinking? What's his strength and where's he struggling? >> I think even as as far back as 10, I was aware that I was just wired a little bit weirdly. You know, my dopamine kind of works a bit differently. My family, we love going on hikes and I never forget at 10 years old, my dad he was taking me and my two brothers on this huge hike and it just wasn't enough for me this
4:36 hike. I was just like, you know, I kind of want to make it harder. So, dad caught me putting rocks in my backpack and just putting it on my back and then walking up cuz I just I needed more of a challenge. Otherwise, it just kind of wasn't fulfilling something inside of me and I think even now, looking ahead, fast forward, you know, 30 years, and I'm still doing the same thing. When I come up with an idea for a swim, if I tell someone this idea and they go, "Oh yeah, that that sounds quite good." I go, "All right, that's terrible." You know, you're not shocked by it. But if I tell someone a swim and they go, "Well, that's impossible. That's ridiculous." Like swimming around Great Britain, swimming around Iceland, I'm like, "That's the one." But you know, if people are just like, "That's absurd." I'm like, "Then that's the idea." So, I think even as far back as 10, I was aware that my brain was wired slightly
5:22 differently. >> If you don't mind me asking, was the idea of putting rocks in your backpack in part to show others that you could do more? Like and and no no shame if it was. I mean, I think we all have an ego and we all want to test ourselves, but the feedback that we get is often important, too. So, as a calibration point if nothing else. So, let's say you were hiking alone. Hopefully, you weren't hiking alone at 10. But, if you could imagine you were to the best of your abilities, do you think that you would have been loading those rocks in just for you? >> Yeah, I think I would. I think for for me, again, being so self-analytical, it was always an intrinsic motivation. The process was its own reward. There wasn't
6:07 really anything extrinsic. If anything, I was keeping the rocks secret. I didn't want my dad finding out. When he found them, he was just like, "All right, take them out. I'll give you some food or something that's actually functional." So, so I was actually hiding them from that. Like, it was just something that that I wanted to do. That when I got home, I'd be like, "Right, I was able to do that." And I think it's changed a lot though as well. I I I think again, sort of jumping a little bit to to swimming around Great Britain. I did that when I was 32 years old. And and I spoke about it at the time that for me, it was very much ego-driven. I I talked about Captain Webb, 1875, first guy to swim across the English Channel. Did it on beef broth and brandy, and swam breaststroke cuz front crawl was ungentlemanly, like. So, he just crushed it all the way across the English Channel. Wasn't for charity, wasn't for anything like that. He just
6:52 wanted to pioneer our understanding of swimming and human endurance. And for me, swimming around Great Britain was exactly that. It was looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It was feelings of accomplishment, prestige, recognition. It was all of those things, ego-driven. After that, it that that then felt a little bit shallow. I was a bit like, "Ah, you know, to just do it for records." That feels a bit fragile, a bit shallow, feels a bit strange. And then and then it was the swim around Iceland, where the University of Iceland said, "We want to do something to to raise awareness around our ocean conservation efforts, but also as well, if we could collect eDNA samples, so environmental DNA samples, that just basically pick up if there's been a whale in the water, a seal, a rough-legged, whatever it is, we could track the biodiversity in a
7:38 level of detail around Iceland that we'd never seen before." Upon hearing that, I was like, "Right, that feels like a better reason. It's not just records. That feels better." And that I did when I was was 40. So, it has been interesting. I think quite often sometimes it is intrinsically motivated, but but then a little bit later it told my hands off it was ego-driven. It was extrinsic. Um I wanted to be the guy, the first person to swim around Great Britain. And then now for various things that have changed in my life, I think it's like almost moving up Maslow's hierarchy there. I'm not going to quite say self-actualization, but we're looking for something a little bit more than records, I think. >> Staying with the 10 roughly 10-year-old uh Ross actually, were you always very expressive? You had
8:23 a lot of uh spontaneous energy. You like And have you always woken up uh like ready to roll? Or are you kind of like a a slow slow grind into the morning? Or is it let's go, you know? >> just let's go. I've always just been like that. I think as well like I I kind of got a handle on it now, but like when I was younger I was so competitive and and such a bad loser. There was um >> >> my dad, I remember, he he was one of the very few people who actually under- stood how to to manage me. And I I remember I did a a school cross country. I think I was about 13 years old. And um the guy that I came second, the guy that beat me deserved to win. He was a better athlete. He beat me fair and square. But I was livid. And afterwards, I just wouldn't speak to anyone. And I stormed
9:09 off. I refused to go and pick up my medal. I said, "Second place is the first loser." And I started to run home. And my dad just slowly got in the car and just followed me all the way home just to make sure I was safe. But he was like, "I'm just going to have to let it get it out of his system." I think it was 10 miles when I got back home. This was after the cross country. I had blisters. I was tired. I was exhausted. But by the time I got home, I was like, "Maybe I'd overreacted there, Dad. I'm I'm so sorry." >> >> And he just let me realize that on my own. Like I said, I think I've got a bit more of a handle on it, but equally, and this is something I actually wanted to to quiz you about because I love your your work that you've been talking about um you know, broadcasting the the anterior mid-cingulate cortex. For me, and this is a massive oversimplification, so I'm going to apologize on where I'm speaking to you,
9:55 but as a coping mechanism upon hearing that and the the podcast that you did with David Goggins, I thought about the anterior mid-cingulate cortex almost like grit and quit, pain and purpose, like weighing scales, constantly like this. And for anyone listening, I hope it helps as well that if you've got these weighing scales, pain and purpose, if it's really painful, if your tongue is falling off from swimming across the Arctic Circle, 114 days at sea, then you need a lot of purpose to tip those scales. But equally, sometimes you can, you know, talk about ocean conservation, all the amazing things that we were doing it for. But equally, there can be um Carl Jung talked about your shadow self, you know, part of your psyche that you keep away from the public. Maybe you're aggressive, hyper-competitive, jealous,
10:40 and you kind of like tuck that away. Whereas Carl Jung and Jordan Peterson talking about, you know, that is a monster, you know, it it can be useful. It's not bad having a monster inside of you. It's bad when you can't put him back in the cage. And so, when swimming around Iceland, again going back to that anterior mid-cingulate cortex, pain and purpose, there was some people online who were just like, this is stupid, he's never going to do it. I even had media partners as well just going, "Oh, Ross, this has been good, but maybe we wrap this up now. You know, I don't think this is possible." And so then, that 10-year-old, that hyper-competitive like side of me, ended up coming out as like, "I'm now just going to do this because people don't think I can." So it's it's really strange that, you know, I'll use different parts of motivation. I suppose
11:26 my question to you that I wanted to ask since crossing Iceland is does the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, does that respond sometimes to your shadow self? Can you have a darker form of energy? I know Goggins, for instance, will speak to himself and be like, "Man up, you know, who's going to carry the boats over there?" Whereas me, sometimes I try to do it through gratitude, but but sometimes I do find that form of fuel >> Mhm. >> useful. For those that might not have uh heard me talk about it before or the David Goggins episode, just very briefly for our listeners, the anterior mid-cingulate cortex is this brain region that my colleague at Stanford, Joe Parvizi, discovered when he was stimulating in humans. He's a neurosurgeon. When stimulated, people report verbally, cuz these experiments, they literally have a piece of the skull
12:12 removed, they're stimulating with an electrode. I've seen these sorts of experiments, not those exact ones, but and they can talk, they're awake. Head is fixed in a stereotax, so they're not moving around it, but and they'll say, "It feels as if there's a storm coming, but I am going to lean into it. I feel like there's a major challenge of some sort coming, and but I'm going to fight this challenge." Okay, so it's tenacity, willpower, etc. And there's a lot more to it, but that's just in case um anyone hasn't heard us talk about it or others talk about it before. The anterior mid-cingulate cortex is a very interesting structure because it receives inputs and outputs from many, many brain areas, including the amygdala, including the memory centers, including the dopamine reward system, the nigrostriatal pathway, and on and on. And so, despite what we know about it, it
12:59 enlarges when people do hard things, it shrinks when people tend to shy away from hard things. Its activity and size correlates with success in doing hard things. You can build it up by doing hard things that you don't want to do, etc., etc. We still don't really know, no, I think it's fair to say we don't know the computations, the math that it's doing. We're not yet at the place in neuroscience where we can say, "Ah, the anterior mid-cingulate the computes prior notion of self with goal, with purpose, with fear, with anger, with love, and this is the computation that leads to persistence versus quitting, deliberation versus assuredness. We don't know yet. >> Mhm. >> So, it's not a total black box, as we say, but there's still a lot that's not
13:45 known. And in fact, I think we can start to understand more about tenacity and willpower, at least at this point in history, by talking to people like you. In particular to you, about the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, then the anterior mid-cingulate cortex recordings can tell us about you. Does that make sense? >> It does, yeah. >> So, in the future at some point, we will have the technologies to be able to unpack the the computations with a lot of precision. There are people developing those technologies, but they're not there yet. So, I want to be careful to not say things that we don't know, but here's what I was thinking coming into this podcast today. So, we can find posts on Instagram, full podcasts, books, and historical records, and on and on,
14:31 of people that did very, very hard things for just about every different reason. And so, rather than a teeter-totter that goes from quitting versus persistence, I have this mental model that I'm wondering if you'll be willing to entertain with me today through your story, whereby, let's imagine a a beam of wood balanced in the middle, but another beam of wood that's at a right angle to that. So, it looks like a cross, also balanced in the middle. And then another beam of wood, another beam of wood. You can just imagine this is like spokes on a wheel, and it's balancing. And as long as no side touches the ground for too long, you persist. >> Mhm. >> And so, what I came up with is a name assignment for each of those spokes. And
15:16 so, if you're willing, I thought it might be informative and fun for me to just call out each one of these one by one. >> This is awesome. >> Take the time you need to recall a time when if and only if you were calling on that particular emotion set, that motivation, and paint a picture for us. >> This is awesome. So, you've taken my modeling and just literally like like two-dimensional, you've made it like four-dimensional. This is I'm >> Well, three-dimensional, you're going to add the fourth dimension. >> >> So, no pressure. No pressure. Um so, this is a little bit like a qualifying exam and and obviously No, it's not an exam. This is >> >> This is for informative and entertainment purposes, but the cool part here is it's not a movie. It's
16:01 real. It's your life and the incredible things you've done. So, let's start with doing something because you said you would. No other reason, just because you said you would, either to yourself or to the world. Forget what they're saying in response. Forget who it's for, but just Why? Because you said you would. Have there ever been times when you've done something simply because you said you would? >> 100%. That That was Iceland. Yeah, that that I was just like You said you were going to do this. You You know. Or even And And the Great British Swim, I think more so because I told sponsors and everybody I was going to do it. And it was my older brother as well. He's amazing in that he can just kind of like take a complex situation and just really
16:46 simplify it. We broke the record as we went around Scotland um for the longest uh stage sea swim. And everyone celebrated. They were like, "This is amazing." And Scott was just like, "Yeah, but it's going to count for nothing unless you actually finish it." And I was like, "Do you know what? You're right." And so, I think yeah, that so often it it just came down to that. Void of records and everything, it's like, "You'll look like an idiot if you don't finish this. You said you were going to do it. It's important to yourself." And also as well, void of anything extrinsic, looking yourself in the mirror. I think um Einstein when he said adversity introduces you to you, I think you know, you realize the most honest version of yourself when you were in an absolute hole. And I think um self-respect that I would know
17:31 if I had quit and I actually could have finished it. So, yeah, I yeah, I think probably all of them. I've done it because I said I would, not because of how I'd be perceived publicly, how I would think of myself when I looked in the mirror. >> I'd like to take a quick break to acknowledge one of our sponsors, David. David makes protein bars unlike any other. Their newest bar, the bronze bar, has 20 g of protein, only 150 calories, and 0 g of sugar. I have to say, these are the best-tasting protein bars I've ever had, and I've tried a lot of protein bars over the years. These new David bars have a marshmallow base, and they're covered in chocolate coating, and they're absolutely incredible. I of course eat regular whole foods. I eat meat, chicken, fish, eggs, fruits,
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19:49 listeners in the US and UK can save 10% on a 4-week plan. Just visit hellolingo.com/huberman for more information. Terms and conditions apply. Again, that's hellolingo.com/huberman. On that swim or other times when you were pushing forward simply because you said you would, is that looping in your head? I mean, I realize along these very long journeys and and and expeditions, whatever you want to call them, these super challenges, that your mind must go to all sorts of places, dark and light and everything in between. When you're getting into the water, is it cold? Does it feel cold, or you like, "Oh, I've been here before, this isn't cold." >> It gets easier the longer it goes on. By the end of Iceland, I think I'd just
20:34 habituated that form of stress. Almost like stress inoculation training. At first, when you're trying to habituate like the the sleep deprivation, the cold, uh you wake up and if you've left your wetsuit out, you have to crack the ice off the wetsuit before you can even put it on and then get in. It it By the end, you are just numb to it, you know. And and and what whatever's happened there, that habituation of the stress, uh whether my anterior midcingulate cortex has grown, whatever it is, it it By the end, it still registers, but you're you don't have an emotional response to it anymore. >> So, let's pick a different one. Not just because you said you would but because you don't want to disappoint which is different right? You don't want to carry the shame of someone else mirroring to you
21:20 that you said you would do something and you didn't. So we could call this fear fear of shame. And you know no one likes to talk about these darker energies that can drive people but we'd be lying if these weren't powerful motivators for people throughout history. So um do you recall a time um could be any time when fear of shame was a driving force? >> Absolutely. Iceland, this is the easiest one to answer. So to towards the end we had 100 miles to finish basically and I was basically the baby was due the first the birth of my first child was due in a week's time. We had 100 miles still to cover. We had Hurricane Erin coming through the Atlantic. Over in Grindavik on the west coast there was a volcano that went off that basically was spewing poisonous gas
22:06 so we couldn't get close to that and over here we had one of Europe's largest glaciers that was just sending shards of ice as big as this table. And the team and everyone was just like Russ I'm I'm so sorry we're going to be here for 2 weeks in the harbor and I was like no no no I'm so sorry we need to go out. I need to be back for the birth of my child. Not not only for my girlfriend she's amazing I've been with her 13 years. The the look on her face the disappointment that was going through my head but then also as well just knowing that I wasn't going to be there to welcome my son into this world. So that one 100% fear of failure fear of letting people down Iceland and I gunned it and finished the final 100 miles. Purely fueled on that. The the University of Iceland everything and the that was important the EDNA samples tracking biodiversity
22:52 paled in comparison to you're not going to be there to welcome your son into the world. So I just gunned it. >> I notice you say we whenever you talk about these expeditions not I. Is that just your nature or is it I realize these are probably team efforts, but that's it. I think it's an important point. >> I do you know, I'm glad you picked up on that just because I think especially with sea swims that they are such a team event and in no way am I, you know, saying that to self-deprecate. It genuinely is in that if we read the tides wrong or the weather or whatever, then then I'm going backwards. You can be the best swimmer in the world. You get the tides wrong in an ice swim you're going backwards. And it happened a few times. >> Actually backwards? >> Actually backwards. Yeah, yeah. Up up at the Pentland Firth on the on the Great British Swim for instance. That's in the top of Scotland. You can be traveling at 10 knots if you
23:39 get it right. That is almost the cruising speed of a dolphin. But you get it wrong, you're going backwards at 10. You could you could be Michael Phelps >> >> and you're still going backwards. So it genuinely is just like such a team event. Or the Yukon for instance as well. It was amazing just kind of of these counter-currents, whirlpools, logjams. There was a time when I was swimming and a log came back the other way. And the team in the Yukon were just amazing at just reading the river. So so I genuinely I say we because it's a team event. I'm just the one who has to get in the water. Genuinely. >> Yeah, cuz you can't be thinking about whether or not you're headed into certain danger beyond what you're already in. I mean you need to be able to concentrate on your stroke, your breathing, um your mental frame, like
24:25 whether or not your toes are falling off. Have you been frostbitten on these? >> Yeah, yeah. I've Yeah, I've picked up loads. This is strange from, you know, hypothermia, hypothermia, rhabdomyolysis, cellulitis. You know, picked up a fair >> What's cellulitis? >> Oh, cellulitis is a >> Sounds like infection. >> Exactly that. Yeah, a skin infection. But basically I picked that up in Loch Ness cuz it was fresh water. Basically that the wetsuit was chafing. It got so deep, it turned infected. And then if that gets in your lymph nodes or bloodstream, it can be fatal. It was a really strange position to be in as well cuz it was a 56-hour nonstop swim. The water was about 4° barely above freezing. >> for sleep? >> No, no, no. So, nonstop swim, you can't touch anybody, no one can touch you, you can't touch the boat, you just you just swim 56 hours. And towards the end, it
25:11 was so strange cuz I had hypothermia, so my core temperature I could feel just I was shaking from the inside. It was in my bones, but my skin was on fire from the cellulitis. So, it was this strange attack on my physiology. But yeah, to answer your question, picking up a fair few of those, it's really strange that it recalibrates your perception to pain. And swimming around Iceland, there were times when I was really cold and I was like, "It's not as bad as Loch Ness." I'm still okay. I'd look at wounds around my neck and everything and I'd go, "Oh, that's that's not too bad. It doesn't It doesn't smell infected. We're good." >> Trophies um for a sicko like you. Um, do do you believe in the Loch Ness Monster? >> Mhm, something touched my leg. >> >> I love all of It was so interesting. I
25:56 got so sort of I was I don't want Yeah, probably was. It was like a spiritual experience. And I think by, you know, that point, was it Nietzsche who said, you know, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he doesn't become a monster himself. For if you gaze into the abyss too long, the abyss gazes back into you." And I think for me, swimming through Loch Ness, that was going through my head. And I definitely stared into the abyss too long. Um, it was going well up until 56 hours and then I just remember I must say, it was very gradual, but you were like looking and your tunnel vision just got narrower and narrower until you were looking through the the eye of a needle. And then it just went black. And I remember waking up and my girlfriend and my mom were at the head of my hospital bed. And I just looked up and I just went, "Ah,
26:41 it's not gone well, has it?" And they were like, "No, Ross." >> >> It's not gone well at all. So, I think uh learning from that, to go back to what you're saying about hypothermia thing, it's nice now knowing that with the Iceland swim, having graduated in Loch Ness, I was like, "Look, let's not Let's not become a monster. Let's not stare into the abyss too long." >> Did you go back and do and do that one? >> Loch Ness, I want to. I've got unfinished business there. >> I keep wondering, since I was a kid, why don't they just drain Loch Ness and solve this Loch Ness Monster thing once and for all? >> I know. >> It's not good for the tourist trade, though, you know? I mean, I always think if it's real, how cool is that? And if it's not, um what a what a remarkable way to increase tourist traffic to a location. You create a a myth and a
27:27 mystique, something that's dangerous, but not so dangerous that people are afraid to go. >> For sure. >> Uh you know, you see the world with a few photo Like that's what they clearly One or the other happened, right? Or some combination. >> Yeah. But I love that you brought that up as well, because swimming around Iceland, at the start, I you know, I heard about, you know, elves and trolls and mountains with trolls that didn't make it back before sunset and sunup. >> All of these stories. >> I was like, "Oh, that that's cool. That's a cool story." Swimming around it, there is something in the water. There were events. So, I I got a blood ceremony. So, basically, it's almost like a an ancient chief, um a modern-day form of of that, and he basically gave me a blood ceremony where he blessed the swim. And it was just amazing speaking to him. He said like, "Ross, you know, I I I think you'll die, you
28:14 know, but um you know, it'll be a good saga." You know, the the Icelandic sense of humor. >> the send-off? >> That was the send-off. >> Dark. >> Even at the start as well, I remember I did a swim and afterwards, I'm looking up at the northern lights, and I'm I'm sort of toweling myself down. I'm like, "This is unbelievable." And this old Icelandic fisherman just comes out of nowhere, and I just hear his voice, and the first thing he says to me is, "They're probably deciding if you're going to live or die." And I turned around, I went, "I'm I'm I'm sorry." And he goes, "The Valkyries." I said, "I'm sorry, you've lost me. Please explain." And he said, "Well, we believe that the Northern Lights are the Valkyries, Odin's warriors, female warriors, and they're riding through the sky, and the shimmering is their shields and their swords, and they're taking the fallen back to Valhalla." And I was like, "That's deep."
28:59 >> >> Okay. Then, like I said, starting the swim on the blood ceremony, they again and and sorry if you know this, but they were talking about the guardians of Iceland. >> I don't know anything about I I know very little about Iceland. >> Oh, I said, "This this story was amazing." So, they we basically started on the west coast, and they said, "Ross, you're aware that you're swimming in the kingdom of the bull." I said, "What do you mean?" And they said, "Well, the story goes that basically there was a king, a foreign king, who sent a sorcerer dressed as a whale to come and invade Iceland. Came over to the west coast, and there was this massive bull, and they said, 'Right, you can't attack there.' And that represented strength and power. Went over to the north coast, that was the kingdom of the eagle. They turned up, the eagle saw them from miles off, the sorcerer was like, 'You can't attack there.' Went over to the east coast, over the east coast, that is the
29:44 realm of the dragon, mainly because there's loads of waterfalls, and dragons like fast-flowing water. And then, bang, on the south coast, the realm of the giant. The whale, the sorcerer came there and was like, 'Woah, you can't attack there either.' And then disappeared. So, when you look on the crest of Iceland, so often they have the bull, the eagle, the dragon, and the giant. And again, upon hearing that, I was like, "Well, that's that's a cool story." But it's a little bit deeper, and they're saying really it's about respecting, you know, nature and everything. And and I think going around Iceland, you know, that was just a shot of adrenaline. And and I think what was weird, and I wanted to quiz you on this, actually, because upon hearing stories of this, I don't know, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is it is it the the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that deals with strategy? And it's almost the story that
30:30 you're telling yourself. So, when I'm swimming around, I'm like, "This is the kingdom of the bull." And I almost made it poetic in my head. And that actually got me through a few swims. And then even towards the end as well, like I said about trying to make it back home, the story of Odin. So, in ancient Norse mythology, they believe in fate. They believe that, you know, you're you can't control your destiny, and the only thing you control is your attitude towards it. So, Odin, basically Ragnarok being the the Norse apocalypse, where the basically the the gods fight the giants this huge battle, and Odin basically traded his eye for wisdom. So, he knew, spoiler alert, that he was going to be eaten by a giant wolf, but he just charges into battle anyway. And I think what was really interesting upon hearing
31:15 this, certainly by the time I finished the swim after 114 days, I was sat there thinking, "You need to finish. You need to get back for the birth of your son. But equally, if the ancient Nordic gods are watching, this is what they would want." Again, Nietzsche, what is it? There I know of no greater life purpose than to perish in attempting the impossible. And all of that was going through my head. >> You asked about the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex. >> Yeah. >> So, there there is a set of studies that, since you have an interest in neuroscience and the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, that I did return to. I haven't talked about it on the on my podcast ever, but um that it's a it's a solid literature in in neuroscience, and um has to do with an experiment called the tube test. Do you know what the tube test is? You might like this. Some years
32:00 ago, people were interested in what drives persistence and winning in competition. So, they developed uh something called the tube test, and it's done on mice, but then we'll talk about the human analog. And basically, you put two male mice into a tube, and they want to fight. It's just what male mice want to do. Female mice will do it, too, by the way. Uh female male pairings will do it, too, but they tend to do this with males, um male male pairings. Put them in the tube, but these fights are not such that the tube is small enough so they can't really scratch or bite at each other. >> Got it. >> And one pushes the other one out of the territory. You know, space, who gets the most space is a is a very primitive but important feature of competition among animals, dogs, etc., right? You know, who gets space. So, you put two mice in and one tends to
32:46 win and one tends to lose. And there's some interesting statistics that fall out whereby prior winning leads to future winning on average, right? So, winners tend to be winners and losers tend to be losers over time in a way, and this is where it gets interesting, that's independent of testosterone levels, independent of things like nutritional status. I mean, at the extremes, these things fall away, like one is starved or one is castrated, okay, right? Um body weight, these sorts of things. So, there's something else there. So, a bunch of different laboratories have worked on this, measured brain activity in a broad-scale way, and and pinpointed this region of the the prefrontal cortex, which in mice you can't really say is like equivalent to our dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, but at least has components of it. And then they do the following experiment. You take a mouse that was
33:33 consistently a winner, and you silence this particular region of the brain, or you quiet its its activity, you lessen its activity, and it becomes the loser. You take the loser and you in real time increase the amount of activity in this particular brain region, and now it wins every time. Here's what's wild. The amount of cortisol, the amount of testosterone, the amount like none of that stuff speaks to what could really be going on. It seems that this top-down circuit from the prefrontal cortex to a bunch of other stuff, these are clearly circuits, not just one location in the brain, is driving persistence to win under any realistic condition. Like, again, you can't take a fetal mouse and have it beat an adult mouse, right? But all
34:19 other things being more or less equal, activity in this area drives persistence and winning. And there are equivalent experiments in humans using virtual reality and brain scanners and this kind of thing. It's hard to do the experiment. You're clearly physically stronger than I am. I'm reasonably strong. But No, you absolutely are, right? So, there's no way that you're going to stimulate my prefrontal cortex and I'm going to beat you in a in a deadlift. I just know that. So, it's okay. We don't even have to like entertain the other possibility. But but there's a world where if we are otherwise within, you know, 10 or 20% of each other's abilities in something, >> >> that whoever has the most activity in this brain region wins over and over and
35:05 over again. And the converse is true, too. So, I find this amazing because the analog in human is that this is a brain area that's involved in conscious strategy setting. >> Mhm. >> Conscious strategy setting and the particular strategy could be anger, >> Mhm. >> could be love, could be you want to get home to see your child born, could be you're hungry and you want to eat, you want others to eat so they can serve you, you know. I the beauty of the prefrontal cortex is that it can learn a lots of different strategies in lots of different contexts. It's a unique circuit in that component of circuitry in that way. So, when people tell me, "Yeah, I'm in mile 200 of the of a race in the desert and I want to quit and I just have this
35:50 thought and I push." Clearly that's a prefrontal cortical top-down type thing. That's a real thing. There's a physical substrate to it from mice. And it's been shown in other species, too, but it's clearly there in us. >> But what I love about what you said there and also as well, for those losing then as well, there was somebody recent was talking about Roger Federer and they said if you watched his matches and turned the sound off and couldn't see the score, you wouldn't know if you won the point or lost the point. He was so stoic about it. So, do you think it's the same as well if you're losing, that if you don't react to it, you'll maybe able to buck that trend? Does that make sense? >> Yeah, no, it totally makes sense. So, I think that there are several big macros today that are going to emerge, but one of them that clearly will emerge is this notion of energy.
36:36 >> Mhm. >> Right, the reason I asked about the 10-year-old Ross Edgley is I I I had a sneaking suspicion that he had a lot of energy. You know, some people just have a lot of energy, right? Having a lot of energy is great. Energy management on a backdrop of having a lot of energy, that's where things start getting impressive, right? Poor energy management on a backdrop of a lot of energy is I think what leads to the 27 club. People who do incredible things and die. >> Mhm. >> Whether by virtue of their particular activity or by virtue of I heard this in this wonderful documentary that everyone should see, which is um The Defiant Ones, which is about Dre and Jimmy Iovine and development of like Beats and the story of hip-hop. And And there was a guy in in N.W.A. who we don't hear
37:21 about much anymore, who clearly was extremely talented. But he had a really bad accident. And you ask And he's talking about how it happened and it involved wildness and And you ask him uh you know, they were like, "What do you think happened?" And he just goes, "The excesses." It was the excesses of all that energy pouring in, money and drugs and >> Mhm. >> fast cars and being famous and it and and it wasn't well managed in him. And he's still alive, but the excesses. So, energy management is is clearly a piece of the ability to be the 10-year-old you and load more and more rocks, but you're not burning unnecessary energy. So, the efficiency piece is I think where these
38:06 stories that we tell ourselves, like I'm doing this for so-and-so. You're able to like separate out all the other possible motivations, at least for some period of time. Like just being motivated is like a dysregulated system. So, motivated to do blank because blank, That's a well-managed energy system. So, most people would die for your levels of raw energy. But, in keeping with this theme about how you regulate, dynamically regulate your energy, have there ever been moments along any of your conquests when you thought, "That's it. I'm done." But, you had told somebody, "Don't let me quit." You outsourced the management. >> I'm really glad you asked that cuz it's almost the opposite. So, so looking at Tim Noakes central governor theory or psychobiological model of fatigue, you
38:52 know, this idea how the brain and the body interact and will pull the physiological handbrake to stop you from going to complete exhaustion. Upon hearing this and studying this, this was before Loch Ness. And also, I did it at a swimming lecture seminar in Italy. We got caught in a freak heatwave. Temperatures over 40° C, water temperature up to 34°. It was bath water. It was rhabdomyolysis waiting to happen. 37 hours in, approaching 100 km, exactly the same happened. My body just started to shut down. I am just swimming. I'm so stubborn. And I think what's really strange is looking at that psychobiological model of fatigue. I know that as soon as my brain that's a hypochondriac starts pulling the physiological handbrake, I just go, "Nah, nah, nah, nah." I'll just put my
39:37 foot down on the gas. So, actually, with my team, we talk about outsourcing common sense. I say, "Look, you know, and I don't and I don't say this proudly. It's a personality defect. I'm well aware of that. But, I know I will swim till I put myself in hospital." And that's that's a bad thing, especially now as a dad. >> >> So, I have I outsource that to my team and I go, "Okay, guys, if you tell me that that you need to pull me out, and you play that card, I will listen because I can't keep putting myself in hospital." And I think that that's one thing. It's almost the opposite now that I need to be saved from myself. Again, I don't say that proudly at all. But, I'm just very aware now from metrics they have with my blood work and various things. I'm like, "Look, I I can't I can't do that again, not now as
40:22 a dad. I need to be more responsible." Yeah. And that that's trusting the team who are amazing as well because they are well aware that what we're trying to achieve is so ambitious, so they will allow me to sort of play with the boundaries of common sense and sports science. Um Joe Kennedy, great friend of mine, uh one of the greatest ice swimmers ever. Uh so he just understands hypothermia and cold. And there's so many times me and him have conversations and he's just like, "He's still good. He's still coherent." But there's other times where, you know, I wish I'd had Joe there just to go, "Ross, you're done." >> It's interesting the uh talk a little bit about addiction later, but you know, in um I have some friends, couple have been on this podcast, who've talked openly about the fact that they were bad addicts and they needed to literally
41:07 assign somebody the job of don't let them talk their way out of a, you know, an isolation or don't let them talk their way back to their phone or don't let them talk their way back to a casino and this kind of thing and um with huge cash rewards if the person doesn't allow them to do it. That's pretty much you have to create an incentive on the other side, too, right? Cuz um some of these folks are really persuasive. And and >> That's me. >> Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I mean, we can be honest about who we're talking about here cuz he's talked about it openly. David Choe was on this podcast some years ago, extremely talented artist, amazing human being, blessed to call him a friend. And uh he's had a gambling addiction many times over in his in his life. Fortunately, he's he's uh not in it now and hopefully never will
41:52 be again, but there were times when he had to offer his team tremendous amounts of money to not let him convince them to let him out of a like an isolation cabin for a couple months while he was, you know, sobering up or give him his phone, in which time he became viciously addicted to playing Angry Birds 23 hours a day. >> Good game. >> Yeah, exactly. Or Pokémon or whatever, you know? So, what you describe, because it's a elected um endeavor, and because uh provided you survive and make it home to your your girlfriend and and uh child, it's all good, right? But it has a component of addiction, right? I mean, it's like if you didn't if you don't add the rocks, if you don't have the next swim, if you
42:37 you know, so how do you gauge what's too much? I mean, every high achiever has to answer at some point the question how much money, how many miles, how much fame, how how many blanks before I'm satisfied? And the answer isn't clearly not concrete. It's it's like a dynamic thing. >> 100% yeah. >> how close to dying do you have to get before you're like, you know what? I'm going to chill and paint or something? >> is such a good question, cuz I'm I'm literally as of only the last year, so my son's now 1 year old, and so he's really kind of forced me to ask those questions. Now, when I'm proposed swims, the 21-year-old self, if somebody said,
43:22 "Oh, you know, go do swim through a volcano down in Antarctica." I'll be like, "Yeah, hold my beard, done." Whereas now I've got I've got to ask myself, you know, is is this worth it? Is it enough? Is it worth doing? Um I don't know. The only thing I know is with um you know, Victor Frankl talking about you know, the meaning of life is to give life meaning. Uh Jordan Peterson saying the purpose of life is to pick up the heaviest load and carry it. All of those things resonated so much with me that I I do need purpose, and Victor Frankl says that over fame, money, just a human needs to wake up. What is your reason for getting up in the morning? And when I don't have a swim or something to train for, my girlfriend just says I'm just like a caged animal. She sees me at home. And so so when people I mean, she's amazing. And when I left for
44:10 Iceland, she's, you know, pregnant, quite heavily pregnant, waving me off. And they said, "How are you letting him do this?" And she goes, "Ah, he would be terrible if he was still at home. So, I know he's happiest when he's out there." Even swimming around Great Britain as well. So many people back on land when Hester would come and see me. And I was 100 days in, I looked like a sea yeti werewolf. You know, my tongue was falling off. I was chafing all over. And people would say, "Ah, how's he doing? I've I've I've seen the wounds. I've seen his neck." And Hester would just always reply, "I've never seen him so happy. Like, he's having the best time." And again, I don't say that necessarily in a proud way, but I just know I just need purpose. Whatever it is, give me something to train for. >> And she met you when you were already like this. >> Yeah. >> And doing this. That's important. >> It It's so important.
44:55 >> you didn't like you didn't like spring this on her 3 years into a relationship. >> No, no, no. No, no. And she's incredible. Like, the Yukon swim, for instance. So, that was 510 km nonstop, 56 hours. Although, the entire expedition was about 70 hours. So, the entire team, including myself, didn't sleep for 70 hours cuz we had to actually get the boat to the starting point. And I just remember like just swimming, and there's just the silhouette of my girlfriend. And every 20 minutes, she throws me a banana. And I'm just like, "Thanks, babe." And she's just like, "No problem." >> >> And I think it was that, you know, that that I feel so fortunate, you know, just swimming with gratitude, realizing that I'm just like, "Ah, thanks for accepting me. I know I'm a feral weird boyfriend." So, I really appreciate it. >> You seem, as I would describe, and sometimes describe myself, um you know,
45:41 only partially domesticated. So, >> That is absolutely Yeah. >> Yeah. >> That is so When I turned up as well, I mean, I was still I was hairy from Iceland. I had like jellyfish tentacles. I was like just literally chafing wounds. And I arrived at the hospital. So, I made it back by 3 days for the birth of my son. So, whereas I arrived into the hospital, nurses and everyone was like, "Oh my god, who is that?" And Hester was like, "Oh, no, no, no. Unfortunately, that is the father of my child. >> >> He's feral, but he's safe." >> Is she a warrior by nature? >> Yes, but she said since, you know, we've been together 13 years, and she says now she just has to let go. And I think it's really interesting cuz she now her barometer of of worrying is completely changed because when you have, I mean, the Yukon was a great
46:26 example. And I want I wanted to actually This is great cuz I wanted to chat to you about this in great but just uh your perceptions of danger. So, there was so many times on the swim where, you know, black bears were fine, you know, in the Yukon in Canada. They're a bit skittish, and they look at you, and I can almost feel my amygdala or circuitry, whatever it was, was looking going, "That's okay." When the brown bears appeared on the site, they are just look at They are not skittish. They're just like looking at you going, "You're not a salmon, but you're not a bear. I wonder what you taste like." And I I'm just swimming. I turned to the guys in the Yukon, and they were amazing, the support team. And I said, "Guys, am I Am I okay here cuz that that brown bear is is looking at me like I'm a dessert." And they pulled out, Andrew, it wasn't even a gun. It was a cannon. And they went, "Ross, if it gets too close, it'll end up in my freezer." And I was like,
47:12 "Right. That's the response I wanted. Great." Carried on swimming. >> Yeah. But but you experienced that as well with shark diving. >> Yeah, I don't >> As well. That's changed. That rewired you. Is it fair to say? >> Yeah, I don't want to shift this to a story of any of my adventures and and they're in no no way, shape, or form as bold and as and as enduring as as yours. So, but yeah, a few years back for my lab, we decided to record these great white sharks in the wild, bring it to the VR lab, and a friend of mine, a very accomplished photographer, videographer, Michael Muller, convinced me to get dive certified and exit the cage and swim towards the sharks. And there There's a skill to doing this. It's not like, you know, you're not just cowboying it, but but you know, I had an
47:57 air failure not out of the cage on the hookah line the day before and there's a whole story there. So, um 2017 marked the end of the deliberate end of me taking risks with my physical uh life. Um but, what I learned there and what I've learned um from people like Cam Haines and from spending time in Australia and from people who live in Montana like Andy Stumpf is that you know, our our perception of what's dangerous in the wild is often a little bit cryptic and we can easily be misled. Like, oh that little spider looks friendly and that's the deadly one. Or that bear looks very large and looming, but it turns out that's not the one that will actively hunt you. It's actually the somewhat smaller one that is uh just
48:43 likes to hunt humans, you know, this kind of thing. And so, the key takeaway being whether it's jellyfish, spiders, snakes, uh birds or in some cases people for that matter, locals have the key knowledge and and our ideas about what's dangerous or not um are often wrong. So, best to err on it's all dangerous. >> It's 100% right. >> And I love what you said there as well because again, diving with great whites and I and also tiger sharks myself, they they have them the ampullae of Lorenzini where they pick up electrical impulses. And I think exactly to your point, what was so strange is the first time I dived with them, I'm always comfortable in the water, but it was so strange how like the tigers and the great whites knew that I was the weakest diver. And
49:30 whether that was like I was flinching, I acted like prey, whether my heartbeat or whether I was breathing, it knew. And it was so interesting on the the audio they were like, Ross, control your breathing. Ross, slow your heart rate. And I was like, how does it know? And sure enough, they just all just came straight for me. And they were like, Ross, I'm not saying square up to it, but I'm not saying flinch and back away as well. So, as it came towards me, there was there I was like, "Well, can I help you?" You know, and it sort of was like it looked at me and there was a real form of communication that's obviously nonverbal and it sort of looked at me and was like, "All right. Okay, you know what you're doing. I'll I'll leave you alone." You know, and it was it was so strange. Exactly the same with the bears in the Yukon. That that it they were looking and if there was a weakness, that is the laws of the jungle, you
50:16 know, I would have been charged. >> Yeah, I mean, all animals have their own sophisticated forms of intelligence. What you learn with the great whites before you go down there is that they're going to come looming in slowly. There are a lot of tuna out there, there are a lot of seals and and other things for them to eat, so they're not actively trying to hunt you. But, if you swim away from them, they perceive you as prey. They're making a binary decision, right? And it this is actually an important thing in terms of brain circuitry again. I had a student who then went off and did a post-doc, she now has her own laboratory in Switzerland, Lindsey Shiley, who published some papers on threat assessment and response. How fear can turn to pausing can turn to aggression. It's very very interesting work and she really deserves the credit. We can put a link to those papers, but they're these areas of the midline
51:02 thalamus, like basically square in the middle of the brain, that basically make the decision among three choices. You can go forward, you can stay in the same place, or you can retreat. And predators are also assessing, are they moving forward toward me, are they staying still, or are they retreating? You know, the brain is very of all species is sophisticated in air quotes, but it has to make these decisions often with limited amounts of information. So, these are more like switches than a continuum. And Lindsey has identified a number of those switches in the brain, she and others. And so, the bears are probably paying attention to, you know, is he moving forward toward me or something else? Is he staying still or is he retreating from me? They have to know if it has something to do with them. And you have to do the same. You encounter a mountain
51:47 lion along a trail, people will say, "Well, don't run. Get large." Okay. But, at some point, if it gets close enough, you've got to make a decision. Are you going to fight or are you going to run? Right? Or you could lay and play dead. So, these are These are life life-altering decisions, so to speak. And the computations are not super sophisticated. And this is no doubt relevant to everything we've been talking about, whether it's anterior mid-cingulate cortex or prefrontal cortexes that brain areas will ramp up their activity and cross thresholds, after which circuits are set in motion. Right? So, there's this kind of build-up. There's a There's Names that don't matter right now for it for this, but there's this kind of like build-up of chatter that exceeds a threshold, and then in a certain action is taken or withheld. And so, the thoughts about I just said I would,
52:33 so I'm going to do it. I want to get back and see my kid being born. Gosh, I would feel such shame if I didn't do this. These are different paths into the same sets of Do I go forward? Do I stop? Or do I retre- Or do I quit? Retreating in this case would be quitting. And so, there's not It's sometimes fun to break things that are somewhat sophisticated, the psychological and the neurobiological, into ultimately, you got three choices. You can go forward in life, or at any moment, you can stop, or you can retreat. Or quit, as the case may may be. And sometimes that's the life-saving decision. >> Yeah, 100%. >> I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, AG1. I'm excited to share that AG1 has just launched their newest formulation, AG1 Pro. AG1 Pro takes the clinically backed
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54:07 to get a special offer. AG1 is giving away a free bottle of omega-3 coenzyme Q10 with your first subscription. Again, go to drinkag1.com/huberman to get a free bottle of omega-3 coenzyme Q10 with your first AG1 subscription. Let's get back on the spokes >> Yes. >> for a moment >> And we did we've done three spokes already. >> Then we'll plow forward. Yeah, so I said I would. >> Mhm. >> Um I don't want to disappoint. >> Yep. >> And I've got something I really want to be there for. So that's sort of what we touched on so far. >> Mhm. >> How about I'm going to do this? I'm going to continue to do this because you said I couldn't, because they thought I couldn't. >> >> You know, I find this one to be very prominent in the online space. But it's also one that as people get better
54:54 and better and achieve more and more, they hear less and less. So it's you know, this is the this is the great you know, gift to the underdog. Right? You have you have fuel they're handing you fuel. >> Mhm. >> But when you win they're no longer you've obviously done it. Then it turns to well, they had all the right resources or something. But what How about this? Has anyone ever said to you there's just no way and that sparked something in you you're like now it absolutely like thank you. They just handed you a blank check. >> >> Is the best way to put it. Exactly that. And and I I love what you said there because throughout my career, that's become less and less useful because less people doubt me. And I'm almost like ah. So when the the swim around Great Britain was probably the biggest one,
55:40 and I loved that because it went on YouTube. Uh we were doing weekly vlogs. The very first vlog that we put out there, the comments, and I read through all of them uh cuz I was so excited. I was like, "Oh, this is going to be brilliant." Comments were just like, "He's far too big to be a swimmer. I think he's going to give up after 100 km. He's not going to even make it on the South Coast." All of them, and I read them. What's What's actually interesting is I think it was like 5 years ago I ended up going back, and somebody had commented on all of these comments and gone, "Well, this didn't age very well, did it?" And I was like, "That made me feel so good." But what's so interesting is once we swam around Great Britain, people stopped doubting me. And so, I miss that. >> >> When we said we were going to swim around Iceland, everyone was like, "Ah, I think he can do it this time." And I'm like, "Where are the Where are the guys who were trolling me? I need them back."
56:25 But yeah, yeah, certainly around Great Britain, uh the 100% Going back to the spokes, that was a big one. >> So, are you moving dynamically between these things because one sort of loses its potency to keep keep you going? >> That is exactly the word I use as well. It it Anything that stimulates you. It's almost like going through your head like when you're changing the TV channel. And sometimes something can work, and it becomes so potent and you're swimming and you're like, "I'm swimming cuz people said I couldn't. This is amazing." But then the very next day you go, "Right, I'm going to tap into that again." You go, "Well, maybe maybe they've got a point." >> >> Now, do I do I need to finish this? You need something else. And I think it's just like I would say your reasons to continue need to be bigger than your reasons to stop. And I love this conversation because we're identifying those different categories, those
57:10 different spokes. Um and it's just knowing that what might work one day might not work the other. You know, and then and then sometimes for instance, one of the most potent was um I had some of my girlfriend, she ended up sending me uh a picture of the scan. You know, and it was one of the first scans that I ever saw of my son. That I just woke up 2:00 in the morning, cracked ice off my wetsuit, dived in, and I was like, "Oh, we're getting this done." So, it was different and and knowing knowing which one to go and I think as a coach as well, sometimes some of my friends who are amazing like I said Joe Kennedy, Chris Morgan, Olympic swimming coach as well, they'll know which buttons to push of mine in the right moments. I think all great coaches do that and then sometimes I have to do it myself as well.
57:55 >> So, you've got a FU, I'm going to do this. >> Yep. >> FU, you said I couldn't. >> Yep. >> I'm going to do it. Let's talk about the other one that Doggins talks about sometimes, but even he talks about a little bit differently than F me. Like F me, I'm going to do this. Like so, what I'm doing here is going to the polar opposite. FU is like, you don't think I can do this? Watch. >> Mhm. >> Like I'll die trying. But then at some point if that potency runs down, wouldn't it be wonderful to run to our like move to our love for something as motivation, but sometimes F me. Like I am weak for even considering stopping. F me for even to like So, it's not a pleasant
58:40 thought, but does it have potency for you? Do you Is that a source of continual pushing on the gas pedal? >> I think it is and to take that some probably slightly further, but slightly more specific, but I don't know if it is this, but but sometimes there'll even be a part of my body that is failing. So, it's not necessarily me, it'll be like you right shoulder. And I think so, it's that that I'll get angry at my body failing me and I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no, I'm taking you for a swim across the Arctic Circle. You're not stopping on me now." So, so it's like not just me, but there will be parts of me that I get really angry at if it's failing me. Is that the same do you think? >> Yeah, well, no and and you teed up beautifully what I was going to get to which it it's going to sit in a kind of uncomfortable place for some people
59:25 listening. I just want to give that warning, but it's reality. Cuz what you're talking about when you see a scan an ultrasound of your unborn son and you want to meet the newborn son that is him, uh you're talking about somebody that's of you, half of you. Let's be fair, your wife did significantly more of the work. She gestated him, but you know, but but it's of the two of you and it's of you, right? I could imagine that if you saw a picture of your a family member's child that you told you would do this also. But at some point if I just show you a picture of a baby and I go do it for this baby, I imagine it's not going to do a whole lot. Okay? Unless there's some other story attached to that about you're raising
1:00:11 charity for that child, etc., etc. >> Right, right. >> So this gets to a very important and I don't think dark, but it an important to acknowledge aspect of our wiring, which is one of the most fundamental aspects of our brain and our biology is we have to know the difference between us and not us. >> Mhm. >> And us it starts with us as the individual, then it extends to our kin. It extends to who we decide, you know, you can adopt, you can have friends, you can have a community, but it's the the ability to tap into motivation for us versus not us, even in the absence of competition, is extremely powerful. And it's rooted in the hypothalamus, like what this primitive brain structure that's essentially
1:00:56 a set of switches. There's not a lot of thinking down there. It's it's forward, stop, or retreat. >> Mhm. Okay. >> It's mate or don't mate. It's fight or don't fight. It's quit or okay, and and you got eat or don't eat, right? You don't really have a lot of options that kind of eat, right? So So this is most visible, I think, in a We'll put a link to this. There's a beautiful illustration of this that's very brutal, which is a nature documentary where there's a lion being attacked by a pack of hyenas. This is real. And they're trying to tear its testicles off. They have a an awareness that if they tear off its testicles, it's unlikely to mate in the future and potentially limit the lion population. And they're not doing the math into the future. They've just learned this from each other or
1:01:41 it's hardwired. Okay? Um many animals do this, right? And there's another lion who comes along and enters the fight to protect its its other lion, right? To Yeah. But the amazing thing is And then they ward off these hyenas and it's brutal and they're getting shredded up and they protect their testicles as they're doing it. But the amazing thing is just prior to this scene, those two lions were fighting. They were trying to kill each other and rip off each other's testicles. So there's a switch in the brain from me just guarding the self to us versus them. And And it's very dynamic. You can expand this out. Now humans have this ability to say, you know, my country, my team, my whatever, you know? Um and it can transcend all sorts of
1:02:27 boundaries. And you can make it purely cognitive. But when you get down to the real like hardwired stuff, it's your DNA. It's your child or it's a child that you chose to adopt and raise. And so therefore it's your kid. And you would die before you would quit. >> >> And so the strength of motivation, I would argue, is not We have this mental model of these spokes on balance. on a balance. But the the interesting thing about your example of your shoulder is you're like, "Uh-uh. You're not going to quit on me. In fact, you're not really of me right now, but you're enough of me that I'm going to keep you. You're not going to saw off your shoulder, but you're like You're kind of like, 'F you. I'm going and you're coming with me.'" And it your language, I'm not capturing it exactly right,
1:03:12 actually encapsulates this this idea that the dynamic, and it is dynamic, concept of me versus us versus them is kind of what allows us to push through anything, whether it's a PhD thesis in neuroscience, which is not, as you described, but is it's long in a different way. It lasts years. It's uncertain. Probably won't kill you, as long as you have good lab technique, but it can it, you know, it can do its damage psychologically. And it's Pick any effort, medical school, parenting, whatever it is. The us not versus them, but us with a little bit of not us. That is the stuff that drove human evolution, exploration, technology development. And this is true for men and for women. I don't want to cast this in a purely Y chromosome framework. So,
1:03:58 anyway, those are some thoughts and reflections. And I think your description of your shoulder is like, "Fuck you. You're coming with me." is pretty telling. >> Oh, sure. I Do you know, I I love what you said there as well. Do Do you find it's also the other way? The reason I bring that up is, you know, I lost my dad 4 years ago. And then the Iceland swim existed in this strange world of, you know, it wasn't just my dad. He was my mentor. He was my coach. And then, so I've lost my dad, and then I'm becoming a dad myself. And on the Iceland swim as well, as well as trying to get back for the birth of my son, I I I said when I when I wrote my book about Iceland, I said I want this to be almost a tribute to everything that my dad taught me and a letter to my future son. And certainly swimming as well, not to get too deep or spiritual religious,
1:04:44 but I was in my head this got me through so many dark times. I just imagined that dad was sitting up there. He was a tennis coach. So, he's playing tennis on the tennis court in the sky up in heaven. And he's looking down. And And in me, it was just I would get goosebumps. It would invoke something visceral inside of me, primitive, that I would imagine my dad up in heaven just looking down. And just to everyone else up there just going to be like, "Yeah, that that that one right there. Swimming around Iceland, that one's mine. Yeah." And that just Oh, I just even now I could just swim for another 100 miles thinking of that. So that was something I I used as well. So would you say with that exact yeah, it goes both ways. >> those just listening I am nodding with big nods. I mean I've heard you describe on other podcasts, you know, your your running running running you're exhausted
1:05:30 exhausted you see your son at the finish line. No caffeine, no injection of saline and all of a sudden you've got a jetpack on. Another cute baby at the finish line, probably not the same effect. Probably not the same effect, but what you're talking about here is the ability for humans to pull on this transgenerational understanding of of us. Is so it's like the me piece is important, but the us that really is an an affiliative us is again, it's it's the the most potent fuel in the universe. Now the the sad side of this and I it sounds like you had a good relationship to your father on balance. You you you light up when you when you
1:06:16 when you talk about him. You know, that the the sad thing and actually I think there's been some remedy in the online sphere is that a lot of people have a very complicated relationship with their parents. And or even horrible relationship with one or both of their parents. And under those conditions they have to look elsewhere to not just be a lone wolf. It's important to be able to be a lone wolf, but it doesn't take you the full distance. And I know there are a number of sayings about this like, you know, and people be like there's no I in team and these kinds of thing yeah, that's and those phrases are important, but what we're talking about here is very primitive circuitry. Like if you think about the driving force of evolution, right? It's like every species is trying to make more of
1:07:01 itself and protect its young. In particular it's young. Your young. And once that's okay, then you can focus on other things. So, yeah, this is the this is the deep reality of the primate brain of which of which we are. Perhaps you a little bit more than the rest. I'm just kidding I'm just kidding man. >> >> You earned that joke by being so damn fit in the endurance and strength stuff so I can I can jab a tiny bit. But there's another piece of this, right? Which is if people don't have that transgenerational pride and excitement and love to pull on, they have to look elsewhere. And you know, for a long while I've thought that, you know, Jocko Willink has kind of been the football coach to a lot of guys that didn't play football. >> That's a great way to put it.
1:07:47 >> commander. I mean, dude is First of all, he's a good friend of mine and he's every bit as kind and driven and cool as he comes across, even more so in person. Um, but he does not disappoint. But not everyone was in the military or played football and yet he's there for you encouraging you to be at your best through discipline and other things. And and there are other examples and Goggins and you and and and on and on and I think that uh it's really helped a generation of of men and women uh to like believe in themselves and have an affiliative sense of drive, not just be a lone wolf. And for that I think we we owe a debt of gratitude to to all those folks. Andy Stumpf, DJ Shipley, too many names to to rattle off and I forgive me cuz I'm missing a bunch
1:08:32 of them. Cam Haynes and Rich Roll, you know, and on and on. But I I really think that deep in our brains below our our unconscious, it's like we're trying to check off these boxes of be okay. Once we're okay, who close to us or that we consider close to us can we bring along? In your case it was your shoulder. And then and then layer up from there. So, these days you're sitting uh, at a pretty high apex of what you do. And uh, Josh Waitzkin who has been on this podcast, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guy, you know, incredible chess champion and performance coach for the Boston Celtics. He said, you know, when they're trying to become the champion, you're trying to become the champion. But when
1:09:18 you're a champion, you're trying to defend the championship. And the mindset is completely different. So, where are you at right now? What what's like the next peak or do you feel like you're defending something or do you feel like you're looking for the next big challenge that will raise you up? What's the next rock to put in your backpack? >> I I'm searching for it at the moment and it's just it's got to tick a a few different boxes, I I think. Cuz it it it does feel like that. I think my my 21-year-old self, like I said, Maslow's hierarchy, I just needed feelings of accomplishment, prestige. Even if someone said, "You're not going to earn any money from this, Ross." At 21, I'd just go, "Yeah, but I get the record, right?" And they go, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Well, that's enough. That's all I need." And well, I actually lost money. So, looking back, really irresponsible.
1:10:04 I I didn't have a house and I had, you know, enough money to put down for a deposit on a house and the opportunity to to swim around Great Britain came up, but the the boat crew were like, "Look, we need a deposit on the boat. We need the crew and everything." And I remember I turned to Hester, I mean, again, this is how lucky I am. And I said, "Look, I should probably do the responsible thing, right? Uh, I'm 32 years old, get a house, get a mortgage. That would be the smart thing to do. Or do I take that money, put it on a boat and a crew and I try and swim around Great Britain?" And she looked at me and she just sort of went, "Ah, I hate to say it, but you you know, you might be old, 80 years old with loads of money and everything. You can buy loads of houses, but you're not going to be 31, 32 with the ability to swim around Great Britain. So, I think you need to put it on the boat." That was my girlfriend. And I was just like,
1:10:49 "Thank you. I think you're right." So, we did. It paid off. But I lost money swimming around Great Britain. Whereas now, not to sound like a commercial mercenary, but I'm like, you want me to do a swim, I need to be paid. I can't just keep doing this. I've always It's a very expensive hobby. And I think now, it is so lucky that I have got to a point where you could call it a career in inverted commas. And I think that's interesting as well, cuz I think sometimes the idea of talking about money with these sorts of events, it's almost it's a bit, you know, a dirty word. Whereas I I always like you know, your ikigai, that the Japanese concept, saying, you know, your ikigai is your reason for being. Why do you get up in the morning? Make up of four things, what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. But it needs to be all four. And I think so often, people will do
1:11:34 these and they forget the what you can be paid for. And you almost become like a martyr, as well, you know, and you're not making any money. Whereas with me, I'm really, really fortunate. So, to answer your question as well, just to be so, so honest, you know, if someone came along and do this swim, and here's a check, I'm like, right, going back to the us, then I'm like, amazing. That helps my my son and any future kids that we want to have as well. So, it's so money It's It sounds bad, but that's become a thing as well. Yeah. >> Yeah, I mean, I don't think money is a dirty word, especially not in the context you're talking about, earned honestly through incredible endeavors, and it to serve your family, and I've been living in Los Angeles for a few years now. It's an interesting place, you know, there are a lot of success stories here. There are a lot of broken dreams here, too. And it's not
1:12:19 uncommon to encounter somebody who's still so driven to make it, and has not made it, that they essentially cashed in everything else. You know, I've tremendous respect for the endurance community, and also for the strength training community, but one of the saddest things I ever ever saw it was I love this movie about Westside Barbell, but there's this one scene where a guy who was doing the who's training with with Louie and those guys, talks about missing something of like a his son's event, because it was bench press night. And the regret that he still lives with I don't know if his son I can't remember if his son passed or if they're out of touch. I don't know. But in any case, he was so driven by this particular goal
1:13:06 that he missed some critical moment in his child's life and it still haunts him. And no one wants to be that guy or gal. Nobody wants to be that. Nobody wants to be that. And I think that you know, it it money is a tool to, you know, to allow, if I may, your son to be able to pursue what he finds most enriching. Something tells me he may be swimming with you at some point, but you'd hate for him to have feel the pressure. >> Yeah. My dad's a scientist. >> And I loved science as a kid and then when we had some friction, I resisted becoming a scientist and then at one point I'm like, this is ridiculous. I'm like, I'm going to destroy my life for all the wrong reason. I decided to become a scientist and now we we have a great relationship and we talk about
1:13:51 science all the time. But the core component that we're talking about here is our our biological understanding of us and once we are well enough, then we can take care of others that are in our closest spheres and then it can radiate out. Like so if you can check the box of being okay and then some, you can do more and more and more for more and more and more people. >> 100% yeah. >> Right? Like martyring oneself for everybody and not being able to take care of your family or yourself, that's not good. >> No. >> So, I don't think you should feel any shame about your desire to make money. >> Okay. So that that can be a spoke on the thing. >> you make, the more people you'll be able to be able to take care of well. There's this implicit assumption that with more money you're just going to buy more stuff for you. But what about you can do more stuff for the rest of the world? >> 100% yeah, yeah. So I would put that
1:14:37 down as one of the spokes. Certainly swimming around Iceland, it was like, look, you complete this, you make money. So sometimes that got me through a few swims. Not as much as the other spokes that we've been talking about, but it was there to identify. It was like you finish this, that's another world record, you can monetize that. So, yeah, that was let's put that down as one spoke as well. >> Great. I've said this before and I'll say it again that money cannot buy happiness. It's true, but it can certainly buffer certain kinds of stress. And anyone who says different probably has a lot of it. So, you know, that's just reality. And and depending on where one lives and what their basic needs are and extravagant needs are, etc., that those numbers differ, but it can certainly buffer certain kinds of stress. Um end of story. And that that's always been
1:15:22 true, it will always be true. Um you should be paid for the work you love and that serves the world. That's the that's the goal. You've talked before and I'm very interested in this notion of dark energy versus light energy. You know, FU energy is powerful, but there's this assumption that it drains us more quickly than I love you energy. And I think that's true because of the relationship to dopamine and and other chemicals to love and positive like generative things versus just FU energy. These are some of my favorite experiments, but their their outcome is kind of dark, but telling about human nature. Robert Heath was a neurosurgeon um and he had patients with electrodes embedded in many different places in their brain and they could
1:16:07 self-stimulate. And some stimulation areas would lead to feelings of drunkenness, others sexual arousal, others would make them giddy, others would make them tired. And so, he let them basically self-stimulate at will. And it wasn't a ton of patients that had this as you can imagine, but across all of them, the area of the brain that they preferred to stimulate the most by a pretty impressive margin was the area of the brain that turns out to be the midline thalamus where they would experience mild frustration and anger. They found it to be incredibly arousing. Incredibly motivating, incredibly useful in a way that sitting in the chair with their head in a stereotax was totally
1:16:52 useless, except they just really liked it. >> >> And it's telling, a little dark, but telling because it speaks to humans desire to have a me versus them kind of feeling. >> Mhm. >> Like >> >> frustration. That arousal again, drives all sorts of things whereby maybe otherwise we would become complacent. >> That's fascinating. See, I love what you said there because I think when you look at the the anthropology of us humans, the history of us humans, it's it's so interesting that people sometimes go to me, "Why why do you do these swims? Like why just put yourself through that?" And I go, "Well, I think humans have always had this idea of kind of self-discipline for self-discovery." You look for across different cultures, whether it was the Yamabushi monks of Japan, for instance,
1:17:38 I actually live with them for a little bit. We went on a It's called an Okugake. It's a pilgrimage. You meditate under ice cold waterfalls, drink green tea, and basically do a marathon a day in the mountains. was their church. You know, it was brutal, blisters, and yet you wear basically these like sort of wooden sandals, as well. It was horrible. You look at the Aborigines going walkabout. You know, there's the Masai tribe. This We've always been doing something. So, I think that's so strange that were they just hitting the button, you know, on frustration and stuff? Like this Do you think that is Do you think that's tapping into exactly the same experiment? >> I do. I mean, I I picked a hard career for me, you know, uh you know, science is hard, it's slow, it's grueling, and then you have breakthrough. And you know, and like so
1:18:23 I got very accustomed to that. But, I think that we all kind of crave that, but shy away from it, too. It's exhausting if there isn't some sort of reward loop in there to kind of re-up us. And so, I think all cultures have it, all careers have it. Uh my friends who are visual artists, they certainly have it. Their torment is part of their fuel. And they run this dial that we're talking about, this uh the spokes on this thing that we haven't yet named that maybe we'll name at the end. Um you'll name at the end. I think it's what we're talking about is is tapping into drive and motivation, but with a purpose. >> Mhm. >> The purpose can vary in in time. And I think all cultures have understood this.
1:19:09 I mean, to some extent, we're all sort of neuroscientists. It's just that some people look with a like with a with more precise tools, right? And and give things names. But I consider you a neuroscientist from the perspective of like what your level of self-analysis as you you do these things. >> On that note, very quickly as well, there was another one and I wanted to say to get your opinion on this because I again, this is going to sound so strange, but I lived with the German hour tribe in in the Amazon jungle for a while. We did ayahuasca for an entire week. It was this ceremony. Um I was 21 at the time. Uh just finished kind of professional sports. I've never touched drugs, anything like that. Um very much adhered to the water band substance list. And then for this documentary, they dropped me in the middle of the Amazon jungle and they're like, "Here you go. This is
1:19:54 ayahuasca." I didn't even know what it was. And I was like, "What? So, it's kind of like makes me giddy? Is it like alcohol?" And they were like, "Uh a bit stronger than that." I take it. Basically, throughout the entire week as well. My my first was like the the worst trip like ever. I did everything wrong. And and it was actually explained to me. My friend, for instance, um Ruben, he works at Glastonbury, so he's done all sorts of drugs. And I remember I was sitting there. First of all, I was sweating as like somebody had thrown a bucket of water over me. I was sweating like that. Then my tongue swelled so it was bigger than my mouth. I was speaking like this. And then you projectile vomit, so it just purges my system. At this point, I'm like, "Right, I need out of this." So, I turn and I look at Ruben to my right. He's found a feather on the floor and he's licking it to taste the colors. I
1:20:40 was like, "Ah! I was like, you can't help me, can you?" >> >> It went so wrong. That was the first night. It was then It was later explained to me, it's like getting on a roller coaster, Ross. You can't get off. You know, there's no You can't fight it. Just You've got to just sit it out. Fast forward for the entire week, and then it Basically, it was this again, sort of self-discipline through self-discovery. So, there was various tasks that we had to do. We basically had to We We caught a snake. It's going to sound so weird. I'm so sorry. I apologize now. You had to bite the tongue of the snake out of its mouth. They then explained to us that you have now got the wisdom of the snake, but you cannot speak. If you speak, the spirit of the snake will hunt you for the rest of your life. So, the next 48 hours, you cannot speak. >> Live snake?
1:21:25 >> Yeah, yeah. Live snake. Yeah, they open its mouth, and you just You basically just tongue it. >> I hate snakes. But I I But I respect them and their right to live, but I do not like snakes. >> I get I get it. I'm not proud of this. But then, when you're taking this vow of of silence, you then have to go through various different tasks. So, I had to climb a tree. I'm holding onto this tree, maybe 4 m in the air, and they just smack the bottom of the tree, and then fire ants just disappear up the tree, and they just start biting you. So, you've done a week of ayahuasca. You've bitten the tongue out of a snake, and then you're holding onto a tree as fire ants are biting you. You get down, they immediately take you to another tree. There's a hornet's nest. You see where this is going. Bang, hit the hornet's nest. You just have to sit there and just take the stings and not make a
1:22:10 sound. But what was so strange, so strange, and I love that you've brought up this study, is having completed all of that and been initiated with the Jamamaru tribe, the feeling that I had afterwards, whether it was ayahuasca induced, whether it was the pain, I don't know, but it was just cathartic. It felt good that at the end of the ceremony, there was a I don't know, not euphoria, but I was like, "Wow, you know, we did it." And it's so strange. I'm not >> >> I'm not advocating or recommending it to anyone, but it was weird that maybe I was just pushing that button in the brain. Listening to that study, there are so many times in my life when I was pushing the button. >> I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Element. Element is an electrolyte drink
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1:23:42 dissolved in it. I also drink Element dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. Element has a bunch of great tasting flavors. In fact, I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor. So, if you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement.com/huberman to claim a free Element sample pack with any purchase. Again, that's drinkelement.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack. >> I mean, I think a lot of people are more or less addicted to social media because of its ability to tap into mild anger and frustration-provoking circuitry, drama. >> Mhm. Us them. I mean is it you know that
1:24:28 not to be, you know, ultra repetitive, but this us them thing is is like it's at our core of our circuitry. And the more you can tap into it, the more engagement you can get from the brain. It's very, very powerful. I mean I mean and it can be used to benevolent ends, you know, fighting evil, you know, this kind of thing, but it's interesting because the the psychedelics I've never done ayahuasca, but certainly psilocybin and others like the ego dissolution that's supposed to occur with those is supposed to make you feel less of self versus other boundary, you know, connected to other beings, the universe, etc. It's supposed to dissolve these, you know, the the me us versus them boundary, including humans to animals, humans to plants. I
1:25:14 mean, that's a lot of the the theory anyway. Maybe I just need to do more psychedelics. >> >> And maybe not. These are powerful tools. Um I want to talk about something um for a moment, which is stakes. Not beef steaks, although those are wonderful, too. So, there's a really cool study that came out in the last couple of years about why we choke. Why we choke. It's a study in a non-human primate, but it certainly has relevance to humans cuz there's an analog study done in humans. So, here's the idea. Let's say you're throwing darts and we bet 2 lb per round of darts. I don't actually know the details of the game darts, so forgive me, but let's let's or
1:25:59 billiards, but let's make it simpler. Let's hit billiards and and we say 2 lb, okay. You'll perform your best, I'll perform my best, depending on how competitive we are, depending on your our skill level, relative skill level, somebody will win, somebody will not win, etc. Okay, now we bet 100,000 lb. Okay, well, now we're paying a lot more attention to how we're playing. It will likely bring out your best and my best. We'll see who wins. But, let's say we bet 2 million lbs. At some point, what happens and they've done the brain recordings to support what I'm about to say, at some point when the stakes are extremely high, the motor cortex starts to recruit too much circuitry and we can't perform well. It's not that we can't do the thing, it's that too many commands are
1:26:45 being sent into the system. And we start incorporating musculature and a connective tissue that normally needs to be excluded in order to have the precision of the the shot. When you're doing these long endurance events, it's slightly different because you can afford to have an imperfect stroke now and again or pretty often and you'll still continue. But, how much attention are you paying to A, your form and your desire to do things {quote} perfectly in a moment and how much attention are you paying to the stakes? Like, what's at stake here? Your reputation, your ego, your family, your whatever. How much in mind are the stakes? >> What's so interesting about what you said, I think for me, like on the Yukon
1:27:30 swim for instance, it's almost um anticlimactic when you start it. It was the same with the Iceland one as well actually in the it's not a heroic start. There's no like dive. It's not There's no fine motor skills. It's not like a 50 m to swim where everything has to be completely dialed in and if something goes wrong because the stakes are too high and you're hyper-aroused, it it's not like that. It's kind of knowing this isn't going to be over quickly, you know, even if I have a bad start, it's fine. I've got 100 days, you know. So, for me, when it's ultra-endurance, less so. However, with that said, there's definitely times where the stakes are high, there's all these reasons, both negative and positive, and things aren't going well. And there's times where I've gone, "Do
1:28:15 you know what? Just swim for the enjoyment of it, Ross. Do you Do you know Let's Let's just remove everything else." And I And only now speaking to you, I realize that it's maybe because it was just bubbling away, bubbling away, you know, and then and we were getting close to that threshold where I would start to just recruit my And it would become deteriorating in terms of my technique. There was times when I just went, "I'm I'm not even looking at my watch." I'd say to the crew, "Don't even tell me what speeds I'm doing. Just I'm just going to swim. I'm just going to enjoy being out here." Because it is a privilege to be swimming over the Arctic Circle with dolphins, you know, chasing me and stuff. And And that's where I'd go, "Ross, stop caring." Just, you know, "We'll care tomorrow, but now just stop caring." Yeah. So, it's reduce the stakes in your head. >> Interesting. It These swims um are very
1:29:02 long, and as you said, can can continue 50-plus hours. Do you notice that your motivation, your energy waxes and wanes according to your circadian rhythm? >> So much so. Certainly at the start of the Iceland swim, because it was in the summer, we had almost 24 hours of daylight. And it was crazy how I just I never got that deep restorative sleep. Also as well, we were doing 6 hours on, 6 hours off. So, you you're working with the tide as well. So, it doesn't matter if it's 2:00 in the morning, 2:00 in the afternoon. When the tide changes, you get in. And I think just understanding that motivation was so closely linked to my circadian rhythm. And where where I was wasn't getting restorative sleep, sometimes if we got storm-bound, I had the privilege of sleeping for 8 hours,
1:29:47 you know, 10 hours. And the next day, it was like somebody just dialed up the brightness on the world again. And I was like, "Oh, things aren't Things aren't so bad, you know? This is okay. I can do this." But But sometimes, again, if you're not sleeping circadian rhythm, 24 hours of daylight, tide on, tide off, I was so aware that I couldn't trust my own brain. And that that neurotransmitters, chemicals, things that were all against me, depleting serotonin, dopamine. And that was just you now have no motivation, hormonally, chemically, biochemistry. It was It was something else. Maybe it was the anterior mid-cingulate cortex. I don't know, but it's like it's discipline. Motor You have no motivation today, Ross. This is disgusting. Your tongue's falling off. It's gray. I'm getting smashed by jellyfish.
1:30:33 And then there was the odd time where it was nice to swim. I mean, you'd wake up, there would be, you know, rainbow, the fjord, frozen fjord. And I'd be like, "Ah, this is, you know, the northern lights, swimming under the northern lights, looking up at the Valkyries. This is amazing." But 90% of the time it wasn't as well. >> They should have told us all in the third grade that don't believe any of your thoughts that occur between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m. That's one I tell myself all the time. Just don't believe it. I now I don't believe anything my brain tells me between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m. And I think they also should have told us that one of the great reasons to get to a point with something, anything, physical, cognitive, emotional, etc., where you feel like what's the point is so that you can experience the point
1:31:18 coming back into your mind. And you realize, "Oh, there going to be moments in life where I just think like what's the point?" But there will be this moment ahead of it that the the the logic of it, the the positive emotions associated come back. And then you realize the brain it tricks itself into thinking that what's happening right now is going to go on forever. And and that to me was like the the like the biggest insight. It came not from me, but from my friend Ryan Soave, who's um this incredible trauma therapist. And he helps addicts. And he's been on this podcast before. And he said, "If you can tolerate a certain amount of emotional discomfort for 1 second, then you can tolerate it for 10 seconds. And if you can tolerate it for 10 seconds, you can do it for a minute, and so on, and so on. He said, "But the problem is negative emotions
1:32:05 make us feel, for some reason, like they're going to go on forever. Positive emotions don't have the same effect. We tend to think, "This is going to stop at some point." And then we lose It's like grasping fog, and it goes away. I don't know what that is. I don't have an explanation for it, but it is a diabolical feature of our wiring. >> It is. And and and it's that is such a skill in that moment, when the dark clouds are over you, to be like, "I can't trust myself." And also, even as a team as well, there was times where, you know, we're caught in a storm. I didn't swim as far as I needed to that day. I'm angry at the team cuz they put me in against the tide. All sorts of things. And we almost like had a rule that, exactly to your point, between those periods, you don't argue. You don't try to have a We'll just go, "Do you know what? I'm going to sleep. I'll see you in the morning." You know, it's there's just there's no point in arguing about it now
1:32:51 because we can't trust ourselves. And so, I think that was just to be really logical, rational. I talk a lot about stoicism because I found on my swim, sports psychology can only take you so far. But when I started reading about Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, I was like, "Well, this is this is more applicable." You know, control the controllables, accept the uncontrollables. This this feels better. You know, because with sports psychology, it's prehab, rehab, conditions are perfect. And that's easy. But what are you doing when your tendons in your shoulder are falling off, your tongue's falling off? And I'm like, stoicism helps me a little bit more. >> You said your tongue's falling off. What What are you referring to? Your actual tongue falling off? >> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> You shouldn't have bit that snake, dude.
1:33:36 >> >> See, that's what it is. No, you see, it's salt water exposure, basically. You know, the human body is not meant to be in salt water for that long. So, it extracts all the moisture from your tongue. Um on the the GB swim, for instance, we we sat It was about a week in, and I remember they made this amazing soup. It was just this rich vegetable soup. All the team were tucking into it. It was amazing, so full of vegetables, nutrients. But I looked over and I noticed that mine had I didn't know if it was pork or chicken. So I turned to the captain and said, "Why why haven't you got any pork or chicken? It's only in mine." And he just lent over and he went, "Ross, that's not pork or chicken. That's your tongue." >> >> And it was falling off in the soup. I know. But coconut oil, for those for anyone listening who find yourself in a similar situation, coconut oil acts as a
1:34:21 barrier, maintains the moisture. You keep yourself And it grows back. It it did grow back as well. So >> All right, let's get real honest here, Ross. Um is there anything in everyday life that you have to absolutely scruff yourself and and and you know, badger yourself into doing that is absolutely trivial in somebody else's eyes? And if the answer is no, that's fine. If you if you just like show up to Do you brush your teeth twice a day? They're nice and white. So, you know, >> >> do you ever feel like I don't want to do this again? Or you just Do you just Do you ever think I don't want to do this like and you can't tell why? >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm Yeah. I think certainly if you spoke to my girlfriend, you know, house chores and things like that. I'm tell I'm so messy. >> >> I'm so bad. I'm so bad. I'm really messy. And and for me again, maybe it's related to doping, but
1:35:06 I just need those big, grand goals. So it's just yes, swim around Iceland, swim world's longest non-stop river swim. Yeah. Take out the trash. Do the do the washing up. >> Is it because it's too easy or it's too hard? >> I'm not sure. I'm just really bad at like admin and basic >> stuff. >> It goes goes back to what I said. If someone said, "Oh, swim the English Channel." I'm like, "It's been done." You know, it doesn't doesn't really appeal. So and I think it's the same in in like If you said there's a record for taking out the trash. No one's ever taken two tons of trash to the I'll be like, "Aha! >> >> Hold my beer." So my girlfriend knows this, you know, she knows how to push my buttons. So she might do that. >> That's so good. If there was a competition
1:35:52 >> >> Significant others everywhere are taking note. A few minutes ago you mentioned something that told me that there are times when you can no longer advocate for yourself as like let's do this. I've got this. Okay, like your arm gives out. Let's go. Come on. You're going to bring the arm along like a member of your team. But in the moments where you're really down in the pit it sounded as if and I don't want to put words or thoughts into your mind, but it sounded as if you get outside of yourself and you're like we're going because this is the middle of the night and you know you don't like this, but you now become you sort of third person yourself and now you bring you along. And I think that's such an important tool for the times when there's no coach,
1:36:37 there's no team, there's no goal in mind, it hurts like hell you don't see the point, you've run out of yous, you've run out of me's, you know you've just run out and you just have to transcend or exit yourself and just go let's go. >> 100%. Yeah, and and and I love that you asked that as well because again, certainly on the Iceland swim I took such inspiration from the berserkers. You know, so so for those who don't know, you know, the berserkers it literally means bear shirts. They would be wearing sort of these bear shirts. These ancient Nordic warriors who would enter into a battle frenzied state where they were impervious to pain and fear. Um there was even as well uh wolf warriors as well. So there was the
1:37:22 berserkers but the wolf warriors uh embodied the spirit of the wolf. They would bite down on their shields when running to battle as well. Now historians some think they might have been using you know hallucinogenic mushrooms, others think it was maybe uh ritualistic chanting, breathing to get into this state. But whatever it was, they were no longer themselves. They were the spirit of that particular animal that they were embodying. And I think certainly towards the end of of the Iceland swim, I was lucky enough to to speak to this again, a sort of like a an old chief, and he said, "Ross, you need to stop thinking like a swimmer. You need to become a berserker. You need to just get in there and just think entirely differently." Again, it's Samuel Johnson, 17th century English writer, "Whoever makes a beast of himself gets
1:38:08 rid of the pain of being a man." And I think for me, certainly on that South Coast, I was like, "Got to get rid of pain of being a man. Just become a beast." And I think it was that as well. Just no longer thinking of yourself, becoming that but also just becoming wolf warrior berserker. >> Amazing. >> Mhm. >> Do you like to read? It seems like you know a lot about these ancient traditions and tribes and >> I loved it. Yeah, I think cuz this is going to sound really strange as well. So, I lived in Namibia with the San Bushmen for a while. Amazing endurance athletes. We were covering a marathon a day, barely any water for an entire week. I remember all we had, we shared a porcupine between us as well. Just amazing athletes. But there was there was one particular guy in the the tribe and he he was part
1:38:54 Namibian but he's also part of the the Kalenjin tribe, which I hope I'm getting this right, but it's basically an ethnic group that's that's specific to Kenya. And they produce more marathon runners, just elite marathon runners than than anywhere else. And he turned to me, we were sitting around this fireplace at one point, and he said, "Ross, do you know why people from the Kalenjin tribe are so good? Do you know why we're such great runners?" And I was like, "Yeah, like, you know, altitude training." He went, "Nope." And I was like, "Your diet?" And he goes, "Nope." And I was like, "Mhm, barefoot running, beautiful biomechanics, and you drill that from an early age." And he went, "No." And I was like, "Right, go on then, tell me." He says, "It's our pain tolerance. So, we have a tradition that when a boy is basically going into adulthood, we have him in front of the entire tribe. We
1:39:39 take some mud, like clay, and we put it on his face. And then he has to stand in front of the entire tribe. The chief comes out, takes his tackle in his hand, circumcises him, which is essentially with like a bamboo shoot, you know, blood. >> penis. >> His penis. Circumcises him in front of the entire tribe. He cannot flinch. Cannot flinch, make any sounds. If the mud cracks on his face, then all of a sudden everyone in the tribe will be like, "Mhm, he's not desirable." So, he doesn't pass on his genes. So, it's this idea that he said that just generation after generation knowing that those where the mud doesn't crack are then considered desirable, then mate, then pass on their genes, and their offspring do exactly the same, exactly the same, exactly the same. And what you're left with is just this
1:40:25 incredible group of people with their pain tolerance. I mean, with that as we were sat around the fire, he pulled out a knife and was like, "Ross, do you want to run faster?" I was like, "I'm good." >> >> I'm I'm good. >> >> But it I I think I'm fascinated to answer your question. I love looking back through history and just will take inspiration from anywhere and everywhere, even that if that is ritualistic circumcision. I've not done it with mud on my face, but I do find that stuff fascinating. >> Wow. >> >> The the uh the alternate response would have been, "Look, I totally respect your tradition. I spend a lot of time in cold water. I need all the insulation I can get." >> >> But but hey, uh you know, the your reply is up to you. >> Wow. Is there anything like that that
1:41:11 you found with pain tolerance as well? Are there studies around that? >> Yeah, so I mean, on my list of things to discuss with you is the generalizability of of resilience training. You know, this is a fascinating and and still somewhat opaque area of science. I mean, you know, let me put this way. On the one hand, we know that there's a very limited and well-defined list of chemicals. Epinephrine, adrenaline released in the body. Norepinephrine released in the brain from the locus coeruleus. We can even get specific about locations and circuits. Dopamine, and if the stress is long enough, cortisol, that are associated with a higher arousal painful stimulus and other things, too. Right, dynorphin, which is sort of the opposite of endorphin. In any case, you'll experience a a rise in those whether you're getting into uncomfortably cold
1:41:56 water, you're getting stung by hornets, or God forbid, you're you're experiencing a public circumcision and and you can't flinch. It's true, right? I mean, among other things, right? There are many, many other molecules and things happening there, but those but those undoubtedly are involved. So, then the question becomes can our memory system, our prefrontal cortex, and our memory system apply a set of rules whereby in a different stressor this thing, this arou this like negative arousal pain pain, can it is it familiar to us and can we then walk ourselves through it in a way that we understand, okay, this pain makes it feel like it's going to go on forever, but this too shall pass, right? And to some extent, the data say yes, in particular about deliberate cold
1:42:41 water exposure, but that's a unique one because first of all, unless the water is very, very cold, and God forbid, ple people don't jump into an ice hole. I'm so tired of seeing people either do hyperventilation and then go into cold water and die, water of any kind and die, or videos of people jumping into ice holes and getting swept under. It's really It happens and it's awful, but deliberate cold exposure with a shower or a cold plunge done safely people can get familiar with the experience of being flooded with adrenaline and the fact that the mind is in complete disarray for the first 20 or 30 seconds and then they can slow their breathing and grab hold of their mind and create a strategy to get through it or get out of it, whatever. This is This is stress inoculation training, right?
1:43:26 The neurochemicals that are released don't change, but >> the inoculation piece is the familiarity and the ability to not further increase adrenaline through panic. So, in that sense, yes. But it's also true that if you look at the cognitive behavioral therapies around phobias, for instance, public speaking phobia, people can use cognitive behavioral therapy or a beta blocker for that matter to successfully overcome that. >> Mhm. >> Progressive exposure to the thing with you know, which basically means like not that much adrenaline. Okay, that's too much. Let's repeat this a few times and just kind of let them move through that, but it doesn't seem to translate to other stressful circumstances. Perhaps because the adrenaline is kept that be beneath a
1:44:13 certain threshold. >> Mhm. >> So, I believe and based on my limited amount of work with, but certainly conversations with the you know, the tier one operator community and the the the use of cold water in all military branches, at least in the US, as a as a tool for building up stress tolerance, that yeah, it translates. Pain tolerance translates. But people are coming in with a with a sort of set um probably genetic and experiential um predisposition. >> Mhm. >> And and we see this, you know, I knew kids growing up whose pain tolerance was too high and they did really dumb stuff. And they're missing fingers or they're dead, right? Or they needed extreme consequences before they adjusted their behavior. Other people,
1:44:58 they were around the corner when the discussion of a firecracker came up and they probably experienced too much anxiety in too many different domains of life. So, it I'm not trying to dodge the question, but I think we should be very careful about the idea that any one particular type of training makes us tough. >> Mhm. >> The the cold water swimmer might have a hard time listening in a hard conversation where the feedback they're getting is not pleasant. But they might be completely stoic and just think, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks, but I can calm myself through this. I can do this. If they can understand that the same underlying mechanisms are taking place. >> I see. >> Is that Is that I don't know if that's satisfactory >> no, that sounds Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> But if I were to answer any other way, it wouldn't be um true to the data. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of
1:45:43 sense. >> You know, and I think cold water is a great training tool if done safely. I want to ask you about your training, uh your physical training. One thing that's peculiar about you, at least to me, is that you're you're pretty heavily muscled for a guy that's supposed to float in the water. So, um like uh what's that about? I mean, you do strength stuff, too. What What does your training look like now when you're in between sort of um these super events? >> I I love the strength training cuz I think it's so interesting that when doing the sort of swims I do, these ultra marathons, you know, around countries, it's you're taking swimming and conventional sports science and you're just moving outside of those realms. For instance, a lot of friends of mine who are amazing swimmers, Olympians, sometimes I'll ask questions like, "Oh,
1:46:28 well, around Iceland, was it a two-beat leg kick or a four-beat leg kick? Are you bilaterally breathing? What's your VO2? What's your lactate threshold?" I'm like, "No, no, no, no." When you're caught in an Arctic storm and you are just windmilling, none of that matters. Strength training, especially with mechanotransduction, this idea that people think of strength training is just improving the strength of the muscles, but actually connective tissue, ligaments, tendons, they all get stronger as well. For me, that's why I strength train so much because on my swims, it's not my lactate threshold, VO2, technique, it will be a ligament or a tendon, something that gives up that will stop the swim physically. >> Got it. The chassis. >> Exactly, exactly. >> have the chassis break down. >> Exactly that. So, it's almost um I yeah, I joke, but friends of mine at Loughborough University, Adam Peaty, the
1:47:13 greatest breaststroker the world has ever seen, he is amazing. He is poetic in the water. He is a mako shark. It's just beautiful to watch him. I am a chubby whale at best, you know, I am just there, you know, I'm just migrating basically. That That is what I'm doing. I'm not poetic in the water, but I just I won't stop. So, I think strength training, and it's only now cuz for so long in endurance it was a dirty word, you know, strength training. Whereas now we're understanding that certainly the idea of general physical preparedness or in your preseason, making the body physically robust enough to then endure the the intensity or the volume that you subject it to later. Um friend of mine at the English Institute of Sport had a great saying, it was like sometimes you need to train to train. You know, before I can subject you to 150 km in the pool
1:48:00 a week, we need to make sure the connective tissue and everything there's no weak part of that kinetic chain. So, I think at the moment that that's kind of where we're at, that general physical preparedness. >> I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge our sponsor, Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity. Eight Sleep just launched the Pod Six, which is their most advanced sleep system. The Pod Six is half the size of their previous models. It's 20% faster with its cooling and heating, and it has nine times as many sensors for tracking your sleep. The reason why Eight Sleep is so effective at improving your sleep quality and duration is because it helps control your core body temperature. And the reason for that is that in order to fall and stay deeply asleep, your core body temperature has to drop by about 1
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1:49:30 worldwide, including Mexico and the UAE. Again, that's eightsleep.com/huberman to save up to $200. I don't have anything even close to your physical abilities, but a few years ago I decided that I would do two kinds of training. I'd love your thoughts and how I can improve this. Um in addition to doing strength and endurance training and some sprints in the sun kind of thing. It It is more about the mental side. I was on a camping trip with my girlfriend for her birthday and we we did a a hike up Clouds Rest, which is one of my favorite hikes in Yosemite. It's about 14 mi up and back and and most anyone can do it with some level of endurance and physical ability. It's not grueling, but I had a sinus infection and it was her birthday and I'd been there before. She hadn't been there before and I wanted to like really show her a great time and she's really physically robust and and
1:50:15 she was just motoring up and I was carrying a lot of water, granted, but I was struggling that day. And I decided at some point that I would I knew I was going to get to the top cuz the the hike is actually not that awesome along the way, but at the top it's just majestic. You're above Half Dome. It's so awesome. Uh you could run it. Uh I've run it in the past and I highly recommend it. It's just a fantastic fantastic hike for anybody. But along the way I realized I was really struggling. So I decided I would just watch I had this thing where I like I'm just going to watch the process and see what the what the cycles are. And I noticed the cycles went from something like "F this. This really sucks. I'm going to just push against that." to I would distract myself. I would think about something else. And then I would just sort of go
1:51:00 into this kind of like liminal state and then it would repeat. It would go back to F this. And sometimes the time scale of those would be minutes and sometimes it would be like tens of minutes and so on. I thought this is kind of interesting. It's like three things, it's not 20. It's not It's not like all the spokes. It's like three and they're on repeat. >> Mhm. >> I was like, this is pretty useful. Like, I'm going to try and do this. And so I, you know, I in other areas. So now, when I run my longer runs, I think, okay, I'm either going to listen to something and distract myself, music, et cetera, pay attention to what's around, or there are some runs now that I do where I try and concentrate on every step and just try and make it as painful as possible. To just try and like build a resilience for each. >> Mhm. >> Cuz in a hard conversation, distracting
1:51:45 yourself is actually not useful. So this may be where the translatability or non-translatability of of stress inoculation needs more of a fine point. The reason I'm bringing this up here like this is I I I feel like the sports performance and the psychological performance community needs like more refined tools. So maybe it should be go out, do the thing, and really just concentrate on just how much it sucks for as many seconds as possible. And every time you forget it sucks, you failed, right? For a moment. And then the other one would be learn how to distract yourself because there are conditions that are stressful where you want to distract yourself. And then like I've got a friend who's a neurosurgeon, and distracting himself during a stressful moment is like the exact wrong thing to do. Does that make sense? >> It makes complete sense. >> Okay. All right, cool. So maybe my hope
1:52:31 is that people listen to you around performance, and they should listen to you because you actually do the stuff. My runs are trivial for you and for most people, but I feel like more specific tools with more aimed at specific outcomes, I feel like it's kind of what the general public needs. >> Mhm. >> So to become a better listener, learn to concentrate on the pain for long periods of time and not flinch. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. But but I love what you said there as well, because this is something with the the Royal Marines, a friend of mine who's a psychologist there. And he was just saying, and then everyone listening will understand this, but when you're focusing on the outcome, if you're looking at the clock, if you're like, "How much further have I got to walk? Oh my god, is it You know, we've still got 10 hours of walking stuff." You're thinking of the outcome, and he said,
1:53:16 "You have to just focus on the process. For you, Ross, when you're swimming, it's putting one arm in front of the other as efficiently as possible. Is it a high elbow catch? Are you finishing your stroke?" And if you focus on that, the outcome becomes inevitable, but by focusing on the outcome, you're not focusing on the process. And I think for me, when my mind drifts sometimes, I come straight back to focus on the process as well. But, I love what you said there, because sometimes I just tune out, and I want to be anywhere but there. And I'll be thinking of some the weirdest things. Like my I'll do my shopping list for my Christmas shopping in my head, you know, and I'll just go somewhere completely different. But, sometimes I do really find just drilling back. Don't watch the clock. Don't look at the outcome. Don't ask how far you've got. I don't want to know. And that's that's quite easy to do sometimes when sea swimming, because you have no point
1:54:01 of reference. You can't see land. So, you are just swimming immersed in your own thoughts. And some of the weirdest swims I did, um, under the northern lights, and you also get this uh phosphorescent algae. So, as you're swimming, the only way I can describe it is like you're swimming in a black hole. Like you turn to breathe, you see the northern lights, the Valkyries, their shimmering shields, and then you pull, and as you pull, this phosphorescent algae just lights up in your face. And there's moments like that where I'm like, "I don't want to be anywhere. I want to be so present. This is amazing." And then other times where I'm just like, "I want to be anywhere but here." >> And and it's and it's having that sort of you know, psychological adaptability to just flick between all of them. Use whichever one you need at that moment in time. >> The spokes. >> Mhm. >> Just go to whichever one's going to get
1:54:47 you through it, and you need loads of different ones. >> We don't yet have a name for it, but maybe we're sort of veering towards something kind of akin to sort of like the the different spokes on the tire of resilience or something like that. It's exactly that. Something like that. I'm not I'm not to be poetic here. I'm not a Brit, nor am I Scottish, so I can't seem to nail the nail the nomenclature, but um I want to talk about vision and share with you something. Again, I came in like really excited to be able to share some of my favorite studies that hopefully would be of interest and perhaps of use to you and the listeners. So, be familiar with the myth of the Cyclops? >> No. >> Like the the guy with the one one eye in the middle of his head. So, there's this wild thing where um animals with the with their eyes on the side of their head tend to be prey animals and they
1:55:33 have panoramic vision. >> Mhm. >> And animals with their eyes in the front can generate depth perception much better stereopsis and so on and they tend to be the predators. And there are some animals that can translocate their eyes to go from kind of panoramic to like more focused vision. There are a lot of ideas about the myth of the Cyclops, but when we move our vision, even though our eyes are fixed in our head towards a particular virgins point, like a target, it raises our arousal and our our ability to recruit energy, physical energy and mental energy. People in the fight game know this. When we dilate our gaze, we relax. We we come off the gas pedal a little bit. We can still do things, but we are actually because of the way that vision and time perception are linked, we can actually see more. Motion
1:56:20 perception at the periphery gets better, obviously, cuz you're not looking through a soda straw, you're looking through in kind of panorama. But you are less able to recruit a lot of energy to one one location. There are a lot of examples of this in the animal world that I could spell out in this this scenario focused on for a long time, but we we won't go there. The myth of the Cyclops is in part, okay, is in part about a creature who only has soda straw vision and therefore is constantly angry and that anger is actually what leads to its demise. It can't see the big picture and so So can be defeated by something from the periphery. >> this. >> And so yeah, I thought you might like this. I thought you might like this. So what I'd like to know is even with your head under water, but maybe even in the routines of daily
1:57:05 life, do you ever find yourself thinking about big picture, >> Mhm. >> soda straw view, tunnel vision versus kind of dialing as a dynamic process because people in martial arts use this as a way to um slow time perception down in order to or speed it up in order to control aspects of the fight? You're somewhat limited under water into what you can see, but like you said that focusing just on the stroke in the moment is sort of the mental equivalent of the soda straw view, but if you don't keep the big picture in mind, that pain in your shoulder and the perception of it can grow to the point where it can become disabling. So there's some utility in being able to dynamically switch back and forth. >> Now that you said that, I've never thought about it like that. I love the
1:57:50 Cyclops myth. I love I'm using that. That's amazing. But I I absolutely do that. So on the Yukon swim, for instance, that was the the world's longest non-stop river swim just down the Yukon and there were times where I just wanted to take everything in and I sat there and I'm eating a banana. I'm like, "Wow." And I don't know whether that's switching on the parasympathetic nervous system. You're relaxing, enjoying it. This is all amazing. And then there was other times like for instance, like during the night and the temperature just plummeted, I was like, "That is sympathetic nervous. That is fight or flight and I am not taking in anything." Like these amazing scenes, people would go to me, "Oh my god, Ross, did you see the moose? Did you see the bear?" You know, so I'm just like, "No. I am just staring at the bottom of the river and at best out of my peripheral
1:58:36 vision, I'm just making sure that I've got a high elbow catch and I'm ripping through the water. I've just gone full Cyclops mode." Like that is what I'm doing. And I've never thought about it, but that's exactly what I was doing. Yeah. And I don't know I'm trying to think of another example I've done that, but certainly swimming, that is exactly what I do. You know, that there's times when I look head above the water having a banana taking it all in in Iceland looking at the fjords and then there's times where it's just like no no no no. It is just you are dialed in Cyclops mode. >> Yeah, a friend of mine who's from a military group overseas, I won't say which, told me that part of the training that they receive in close quarter combat where they encounter somebody and they realize that it's it's going to be close quarter combat and it's life or death on the line is that the mental set
1:59:22 that's required to do that is recruited immediately, right? In the presence of a real threat. But in training it, they have them actually like contract their gaze and he he showed me it was actually really eerie. Like he stared right at me and he brought his eyes into it and you could see his you could feel his entire autonomic tone change. And then he stopped and he said, "I don't like that feeling." I'm like, "Why?" He's like, "Because it's He said, 'I I'm not going to kill you, but it's it's this moment where you you crossed you deliberately crossed over to a point where you're like you're going to you're you're going to try and kill this person." And so it has a you know, it's it's a risky endeavor to go into these trenches, right? But it seems to be a hardwired aspect of animal visual systems, human visual systems. I often think about how media is trying to recruit our absolute
2:00:09 focus and get us to forget everything else so that we are like mindlessly trudge forward in anger and and how to overcome that. It's But then again, this is powerful. It's led to self and protection of affiliate self. >> But it is that. It's the same with sharks as well when just about to attack and then they roll back their eyes protecting. But it's the I suppose similar in that their physiology when they're dialed in, you can see certainly with the great whites there was behavior where you were like, "We're okay." And then there was times where the the much more experienced divers were like, "Ross, head on a swivel. I don't like that tiger shark." I'm like, "What do you mean?" >> Every other behavior is excluded in favor of of just predation. And then >> the most the most dramatic and and in my opinion cool example of this is that in a species that
2:00:54 you no doubt swam with millions of them in the English Channel, which are the cuttlefish. Cuttlefish are cephalopods like octopuses. I used to have these in my lab and they swim around with their eyes on the sides of their heads in this kind of like benevolent but a little bit paranoid state where they have near 360° vision. They can see very far back because they are a prey animal. They have no skeleton to protect them, right? They have their cuttlebone to allow them to float. But they're basically a a protein snack. But if they see something that they want to eat, their eyes translocate to the front. They completely change in their patterns on of of it's not not even camouflage any longer, the chromophores, and they become depth perception dependent hunters. I used to study this in my lab in San Diego and
2:01:39 and it's just a remarkable thing to see this like sweet little hubble pod of an underwater little benevolent monkey turn into a like a vicious vicious killer. And the translocation of the eyes happens first. And so this is it's a real thing. >> Yeah. >> It it recruits all sorts of machinery in the brain and body and it also just shuts down like, "Nope. This is not time to do anything else except >> I love that. Yeah, I what I love about this is that it's again, it's the berserker. It's this idea of like nature leaves clues and you know, success leaves clues. Biomimicry and just going, "Right, but we've lost that." I think, you know, we humans have lost certain things. But this is amazing just to go, "I'm going to switch this on." Like, you know, the cuttlefish, that's what I'm going to do. Yeah, I love that. I'm actually I'm going to next time I swim, I'm going to I'll message you. I'm going to purposely do that as well. I always
2:02:24 control all the variables on my swim. So I know exactly, you know, I've got my lane. I know the distance. I know the water temp everything. And I'm just going to start experimenting with this. Maybe as well, I love like for me, and this is a whole other discussion, but even playing with like caffeine on the Yukon swim, we were getting into the grams towards the end, you know, of the swim. And that again, it just enabled me to just be so much happier doing such a mundane task and looking at the bottom of the sea. But if I punch like just dark clouds, I'm struggling, my shoulders are hurting. 400 mg of caffeine, 15 minutes later, life's not so bad. This is I'm just ripping through the water. Do you do you find that that you can almost Yeah, you can biohack. You could Yeah, okay. >> There are stimulants like caffeine that
2:03:10 are incredibly powerful in that way. I love caffeine. I have a high caffeine tolerance, so I can do that. You know, things like nicotine which I've experimented with the problem I have is that it really sets up a very quick dependence. >> Mhm. >> Like I start to crave it and it's a quick up and down for me. Some people don't mind that. For me, it's it's not a great tool. >> Faster than caffeine, so short half life. >> faster. >> And and maybe it's the way I'm doing it or the way I metabolize it and so on. Occasionally, I'll take like a a milligram or two in a workout, but then I notice I get very tired post-workout >> Mhm. >> in a way that I don't if I don't take it. So I I prefer to keep nicotine as a oral nicotine, you know, so not smoking or vaping, dipping, or snuffing, but you know, like the the the lozenges or something or as a every once in a while every once in a great while tool as
2:03:56 opposed to an everyday tool. Caffeine's an everyday thing unless I'm carrying some sort of like respiratory infection or something which case I cut it out which is probably half of the misery I experience while on that respiratory >> Yeah. >> infection which just makes it so much better when you come back. Caffeine is a beautiful thing. I I I I back it and it backs me. So >> I agree. Any anything else? I I think I heard you you talk about alpha GPC as well. >> Yeah, as a as a milder alternative to nicotine. The one advantage of alpha GPC is that is if you're going to work out late in the day >> Yeah. >> and you need to sleep a few hours later, it does have a sort of quote unquote stimulant effect, but it actually can increase the amount of REM sleep you get as opposed to mess with your sleep like a lot of stimulants. >> Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> If I do it too early in the day, then I
2:04:42 notice I get that late afternoon crash. And so it's kind of quick up, quick down. I mean, I've played around with all the various things. Modafinil is too stimulating for me. It It keeps me up for days. There's some other things that seem to work better. There's this prescription drug Sunosi in small amounts. But again, these are it I find that if I use any of these regularly besides caffeine, >> Mhm. >> it creates more problems than solutions. So I I keep them as when really needed tools. >> Yeah, and and some good studies as well around, you know, creatine. It's It's this I've become fascinated with this idea of almost um discipline and motivation is something you can supplement almost if you know what to do with the right amounts. And I think with creatine, there's some good studies with sleep deprivation at the moment. Do you Do you back those? >> The best evidence says that creatine
2:05:28 puts water in your muscles, makes you stronger as a consequence. I've been taking it since I was like 17 with the occasional wash out of a week or so for whatever reason and then and then back on it 10 g a day, you know, for so many years now. But in addition to those strength increasing effects due to water volume in the muscles, as at least my understanding, is that if you're mildly or severely sleep deprived, you can partially partially rescue some cognitive function and some maybe even some physical vigor by taking 10 or even 20 g of creatine the next morning. But of course, you need to sleep at some point. >> Mhm. >> And and it's not a replacement for sleep. But yeah, I think creatine's great. I I don't think there's evidence that it um you know, makes hair fall out or anything like that. Um and it's
2:06:14 inexpensive and seems safe, so I don't see any reason not to. You Do you take >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although I didn't on the the Yukon swim. And then the study came out with I certainly read it much later. And so that's why I'm even fascinated now with, you know, the next um non-stop swim. I just I think we can go further. You know, we we did 500 >> >> 510 km and I'm like, "Oh, there's things now that I've learned that um whether it's the tunnel vision as well with 20 mg of cat with creatine. I think there's there's a bit of me that is just fascinating. I I like to think of myself as like a human guinea pig. And and now like I said, we didn't do creatine on the Yukon so not to say I raw dogged it, but you know, I certainly there are things that I could do in addition cuz we mainly did it on on caffeine. I think you know, Alpha-GPC, Cognizin as well, acetyl-choline. I think I I I I get on
2:07:00 really well with that. I find it's um a nicer focus, not just kind of getting all jittery. Tyrosine, L-tyrosine. >> Yeah. As a precursor to dopamine, huperzine, and the cholinergic pathway. You're clearly illustrating a very important point, which is one that has been hard for me to get out into the world because people tend to just grab onto whatever is going to satisfy their like desire to do or feel something. And here's what I mean. I think it's important and wonderful to find what one can do with just great behaviors. Right? Just great behaviors. Trying to get the best sleep you can, nutrition, training, social all social connection, sunlight, all the things that now are kind of commonplace out there and people know. Then perhaps one experiments with
2:07:45 caffeine and no caffeine. I tried caffeine, I'm never going back. Okay? Maybe creatine n- first time in forever, maybe only as a tool to use later when you want to level up. I mean, figuring out what you can do without these sup- these literally supplements, I think can be very useful. And then at some point and and this is also true for PEDs, right? For just being really honest, you know, I've been honest about this for years although some people argue I've only been coming clean about this recently, but since since I started the podcast and I had a podcast with Derek from More Plates More Dates, I've said, "Yeah, until age 45 I didn't touch any any ex- uh exogenous hormones whatsoever." And I got to a certain point and felt great, but then I wanted to experiment, so I started with what is for me a true
2:08:30 micro dose. Plus taking HCG to maintain fertility and it's been great. And I haven't had to increase that dose much. I've played around with it a little bit, but I found that lower is better for me. Okay? To each their own. Work with a doctor. But when I hear about people immediately getting on gear at age 20, 30, 40 in the absence of a clinical need, I'm like, you'll never really know what you can do without it. You know, setting aside drug-tested sport where there are clear rules and regulations people should abide by. Like, I just feel like to really have confidence in one's ability to train, to do things, you need to figure out what you what you can do with just behaviors. You're pretty heavily muscled, so people are going to default to that. They're going to assume that it came about
2:09:15 through gear. And that's just as it's an unfortunate thing that people do that. So, you want to talk about that for a moment? What's your response to that? >> Yeah, yeah. It's actually interesting. We can go through my blood work as well. I'd actually, whether we do it on air or off, it would be amazing to get your opinion on it. Um but I think for me, I'm just well aware that I'm a really strange swimmer. So, I started swimming really early on. I think at the age of like 13, 14 at the English Institute of Sport, they look at your parents and they just sort of go, You're not going to grow anymore. >> They look at your parents? >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. >> believe in genetics? >> For sure, yeah. My my parents weren't very tall. And I'm 41 now, I'm still waiting for my growth spurt. And so, they were like, "Look, Ross, it's it's not going to happen for you as a competitive swimmer, competitive pool swimmer." I was like, "Okay, fine." So, I ended up playing water polo. I played
2:10:00 for England schoolboys. I played internationally. Loved that as well because it allowed me to use swimming, but also not to say I like to fight, but it was just it was nice that in swimming if I lost, I'd just be like, "Oh, well done, you beat me." Whereas in water polo, you can do something about it. You can get into a fight. You can kind of grab >> You scratch each other with your toenails. I heard they do that. >> Yeah, I mean, famously, it was Hungary versus the Soviet Union. I want to say Melbourne Olympics and famous event. It was called Blood in the Water and they were basically at war. Drew each other in the semi-final and honestly, Andrew, like some of the pictures just people coming out covered in blood. The water turned red cuz they just went in there. Hungary won, I
2:10:45 believe it was 4-0, but just brutal. >> Now these days they'd probably stop it because it would offend people's sensibilities. >> Yeah, it's I mean, it's still bad. It's yeah, well, but but I loved it again, that stress inoculation training. But but to go back to the examples, and then I played water polo and I remember I was playing for England schoolboys under 18 at the age of 13. So I was the wrong side of puberty. So I just got beaten up. Coach was just like, "Look, you need to get bigger, Ross. You need to get stronger." So I've been weight training since I was 13 and I think that coupled with a period as well where I was fortunate so many of my friends compete in World's Strongest Man. So I went through a period as well of just getting crazy strong, looking into that. I was lifting with the Stoltman brothers, world's strongest brothers, Tom Stoltman, three
2:11:30 times world's strongest man, Eddie Hall, first guy to deadlift, you know, half a ton, world's strongest man. So it was really interesting how I then went through years and years of strength training, hypertrophy, but then came back into swimming so much later. So I think that is partly why I've got the strange physique that I do and it confuses lots of people cuz they they're like, "You're not built like I'm swimming." I'm like, "No, no, no, I'm not, but I'm 41 and if you look back over my sporting career, my strange resume, there's a reason for my strange physique." >> And so you do a fair amount of strength training. Does that mean pure strength, like training in the, you know, one to four rep range, not trying to grow your muscles, not going to failure, but going close to it, lot of volume? This is how I understand sort of optimal strength training protocols, frequent sessions, and so on.
2:12:15 >> Exactly that as well. And and a huge fan of Cam McEvoy. So he's the current 50 meter freestyle world record holder. It was London 2012. He was the the golden boy of Australian swimming. Didn't quite perform how he wanted to. So fell out of love with swimming. Then COVID happened and he was just like, ah, you know, I I don't think I'm going to go back to swimming, but I like calisthenics. I like rock climbing. He started doing that, got really strong as well. And now we know there's a direct correlation between your one rep max on pull-ups and your swim sprint speed as well. So Cam now, he was drilling technique and doing honestly, Andrew, like speed reps with 80 kilos between his legs. And he just got crazy strong, even holding like a front lever as well cuz he was like, that's kind of the same as swimming. So he taught himself this.
2:13:00 Basically coming out of COVID, somebody then joked and went, ah, there's a local swim gala. You should You should dust off the goggles and the speedo just get in and see how good you are. And so for a joke, he was like, ah, look, I'm going to turn up and see if I still got it. He got in and ripped a personal best. Everyone was like, oh. So he basically completely changed his training where there was a huge emphasis on strength, speed and power. Now he's a 50 meter specialist, recently got into the 100 as well. But I think the one thing that I have taken from that is that idea of your strength reserve. So now I'm drilling my one rep max on pull-ups knowing that as that improves, then all of a sudden when I'm swimming, swimming almost being a unilateral form of a lat pull-down with each arm, every single stroke and the force that I
2:13:45 generate is a smaller percentage of what I'm capable of because I have a larger one rep max on pull-ups as well. >> Got it. >> One of the best examples of strength reserve, I was talking about this earlier, but but but Eddie Hall. So Eddie went into a CrossFit competition. I forget the name of the award, but there was a record and it was basically 60 kilos on the bar. When you look at CrossFit as a poetic and technique sort of clean to the chest and then it was a push press. But because Eddie is Eddie Hall, and because he's so strong, it was more akin to just a front delt raise. >> >> Maybe an upright row, but he just like picked up the bar and just went one, two, and just did it like that. And again, it was because he just had a crazy strength reserve. 60 kilos for him was so light because he was so strong.
2:14:31 So, that's the reason I still strength train now. It's this idea very much inspired by, you know, Eddie Hall, Cam McEvoy, the strength reserve. When I'm training mechanotransduction, my connective tissue is really, really strong, but also because my one-rep max on pull-ups is so strong, every single stroke is a smaller percentage of what I'm capable of. >> Interesting. Um I love to run, and I love to lift, and I find that if I'm lifting in sort of middle rep range, so 6 to 12 repetitions, uh close to or to failure, I find that my runs suffer. >> Mhm. >> Um the recovery suffers, but I'm playing with the idea that pure strength training and endurance training might actually fit pretty well together. Is that your experience, or am I going to am I setting myself up for additional
2:15:17 frustration? >> I personally think yes, like absolutely. I I I I think, even when you're looking now, um uh like Michael Johnson, can you remember he had that amazing running technique? But we now understand that even though that was potentially shortening his stride, it was increasing the amount of force he could generate through each foot. And we now know that's a greater predictor of of speed as well. So, I think that's so interesting that drilling down into your strength, I think, one will help you generate more force per stride, but but also as well, even hold efficient biomechanics. >> Mhm. >> I think that's overlooked as well. Yeah, so I personally think they complement each other really well. >> How many days a week are you doing are you lifting? >> At the moment, because I'm sort of off-season, uh pretty much like 5 days a week. >> Okay. And um are you doing the same
2:16:04 lifts on multiple days? So, or same muscle groups on multiple days. >> Quite similar. Yeah, yeah. So, I'm almost trying to do like the Bulgarian training method but for swimming with with one rep max on pull-ups, if that makes sense. So, I'm very aware that the Bulgarian training method, you know, they broke more champions than they made. You know, they were like, "You are going to lift heavy 365 days of the year, 7 hours a day." You know, and they were just breaking kids and go, "All right, that one's broken. That one's broken." But, the one who could tolerate it was a world champion, was a world record holder. I, through so many years now, I I am quite lucky that I do have quite a high work capacity. So, work capacity, your your body's ability to perform and positively tolerate training at a given intensity or duration. And so, I just respond really well to just being
2:16:50 flogged with volume. And so, I'm almost doing these still long aerobic sessions when swimming, but also almost spamming it with a Bulgarian-inspired training method of of strength training, as well. >> How long are those workouts in the gym from when you walk in until you walk out? >> The strength session itself can be 45 minutes long because it is just pure strength, your body's ability to generate force. And even when we're doing plyometrics, you don't want to be doing a lot. A great friend of mine, Linford Christie, I still believe he's the oldest 100-meter champion. It took me a while when learning about speed and plyometrics because I always thought more was better, as is my nature. And Linford would be like, "Go home, Ross. You're actually drilling bad technique now. You're done." And so, it's very much inspired by that on my
2:17:35 strength sessions, I'm making sure that everything is dialed in and they're perfect they're 45 minutes long. Any longer and you're just drilling bad technique, you're not actually training strength anymore, certainly not speed and power, as well. And I think one of the biggest things that I found recently, as well, is a supra-isometric maximal holds, as well. So, before my heavier lifts, let's take pull-ups, for example. I'm doing about 60 kilos at the moment, clean. And so, what I'll sometimes put anywhere between 80, 90, 100 kilos on the weight, hold in an active hang, only 3 seconds. So, you're not trying to fatigue yourself. You're trying to switch on the central nervous system, neural priming. Then jump down, take off the weight, put 60 kilos on, wait 2 minutes, so you're
2:18:20 not fatigued, you're just switched on. And what I found is then when I rip, I will just pull through 60 kilos. And that's been one of the biggest things that I've found has has has really helped. And I'm lucky cuz I can train at home, so I'm able to do that. I think doing it at a commercial gym, they're like, "Why has he got all that weight and he's dangling and then waiting 2 minutes and then doing" But I'm very fortunate that I can do that cuz I can train at home. >> Yeah, I feel like the the Russians and the Eastern Europeans uh certainly were aware of the importance of the nervous system for training, but I think it's only in recent years that people like Pavel Tsatsouline and others have really brought to the United States and to Western Europe and Australia, et cetera, that this idea that the neural piece is so important. We think strength, we think muscles, we might think connective
2:19:05 tissue, but the neural piece uh being so vital. Do you Do you mind if I ask um if your split is uh such that on those five 45-minute um workouts per week right now, anyway, are you doing pull-up work every day of those five? Are you pressing every day? Are you squatting every day? >> So bad, I do skip leg day. I just I just don't need them for my swimming style I'm doing. Uh so often I say, you know, make your body an instrument, not an ornament. And you know, sometimes people are like, "Oh, he skips leg day." I'm like, "Yeah, I do. I I don't need them." >> have you have tree trunk legs, so you don't You and Dorian, I mean, he obviously trained them for years. You've trained them before. Yeah, so yeah, it's really frustrating to those of us that actually have to train our legs, but um any direct grip work or not so much? >> Yeah, yeah. And I think also what's really important for me is when people
2:19:51 understand they go, "Oh, so you train pull-ups 5 days a week." And it's like, "Yeah, but but we're changing the stimulus as well." So, some days it'll be really heavy. The goal is to do a a heavy one rep max or, you know, two to three rep max on pull-ups. That is the goal. And then equally, the next day we'll do medicine ball slams, neural priming, and then speed pull-ups for instance. And then equally, we might do slightly bigger volume. So, it's never just drilling the same thing. You're just playing around with the different stimulus. The movements, the biomechanics are the same, but you're acquiring a different training stimulus. >> I have a question about your significant other. It's interesting and wonderful that she supports you in these arguably somewhat or very much dangerous endeavors, and you
2:20:37 guys have a child together. So, she's vested clearly. But, a friend of mine who had a very high-risk, high-consequence uh a job for many years said that um his wife, who's been his wife throughout all of that and now into the current phase of his life, which is a lot less high-risk, high-consequence, um said that if she didn't have to worry about him, she'd have to worry about a lot of other things. So, I you can't answer for her, uh but I wonder whether when you don't have one of these dangerous pursuits, uh does her anxiety tend to subside or does it tend to then like wick out to other things? Because the brain I say this for ask for multiple reasons because the brain likes to if we need to worry, we need to worry about something. And if we
2:21:22 need to worry about something, it's we can't worry about a lot of other things. So, I could imagine it would there's a certain advantageous piece to this. >> I think there is. And cuz I I love the work of Jordan Peterson when he's just like, "Life is suffering. Life is going to be horrible, so you might as well pick your suffering." You know, with Sisyphus, pick up the boulder. Do you know what I mean? That that that I think is is absolutely true. And I don't I don't want to say that I'm, you know, I'm a pleasant headache for her. >> >> But, I do think I certainly for me as well on the swims, people are like, "Oh, you know, it sounds brutal, you know, 157 days at sea swimming around Great Britain." But I'm like, "But you got to understand, I think I'm living like humans were always meant to live." Like in that I'm not spiking cortisol throughout the entire day. I'm not thinking, "Oh, have I paid
2:22:07 the mortgage? Have I taxed the car? I've got an email. Oh god, you know." None of that. I wake up and life is so simple. I just wake up and I've got two questions. What is the tide doing and what's for breakfast? That is it. And then I get in and every 20 minutes throws a banana over the boat and I eat it. Life is so good. So I do think sometimes for me, yeah, it's it's really nice. And may maybe maybe for Hester as well in that she wakes up and just go, "Okay, he's still afloat." She looks on the marine tracker like when I was going around Iceland cuz she couldn't come out to the boat. Obviously, she was heavily pregnant. So she would just see the on the marine tracker that the boat was moving. So she'd wake up in the middle of the night and go, "Okay, he's moving." And then she'd go back to sleep. God bless her. God bless her indeed. >> >> So, we've got different spokes on the on the wheel of
2:22:55 motivation, tenacity, and throughput. Uh we've got because I said I would, simply because I said I would. We've got for others, in particular for others that you affiliate with strongly first and once that box is checked, you can think about the other others. We've got in out of love, the pure joy of doing the thing. >> Yep. >> And maybe also the love of your your people or life, you know, we could extend that in any way. F you, like anger. >> Yep. Yep. >> Because you or they said I couldn't. We covered that one. You sometimes hear that people can be very motivated to do something because others can't. Mhm. Right? Yeah, uh you often see this on social media in
2:23:40 fact and it's a it's a it's a very um moving thing to see somebody who's, you know, climbing a mountain because their child is sick and they just, you know, running the doing the triathlon because somebody is impaired in some way and they want to there's something there. Is that one that you've touched into? >> I would say that's probably less so out of the space, but it is there. Yeah, it's it is definitely there. Um that you can do it because others can't. That's that's the sentiment. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I think um on on that note, I remember and then maybe this is tied to us as well. And I I can talk about it now without getting upset, I think touch wood, but my dad, like I said um 4 5 years ago now
2:24:26 when we lost him, it was uh stage 4 cancer. So it was um uh melanoma skin melanoma and I remember he had been diagnosed and he was an amazing tennis coach. He he basically built tennis centers up and down the UK. Uh he taught uh wheelchair tennis, uh visually impaired tennis. Sometimes he would take to the tennis court and blindfold himself he could play visually impaired tennis. And when he was diagnosed with with cancer that it had spread so much in his legs um that it was basically stopping him from running and and and coaching. And I got a phone call and I was like, you know, dad's dad's fallen over uh he's taken a really bad fall, come to the hospital. So I ran to the hospital and he was there, blood all down his face. I am you know, choking back the
2:25:12 tears, trying to be strong and I was like, "Dad, what have you done?" And he goes, "No, no, no, don't be upset. I won the point." >> >> And I was like, "Right, okay. Amazing." An hour later they then said, "Look, I'm so sorry, Richard. The the the the tumors have spread. Um you Now you can't coach. We don't want you out on the tennis court on your feet for 12 hours a day coaching. You can't." And he literally like did not skip a beat. He just looked the doctor straight in the eye and he just went, "That's not a problem at all. We've got a great wheelchair tennis coaching system down there. I'll just get one of the wheelchairs. >> Wow. >> And the very next day just bandaged up his tumors and then just took to the court and just played and continued to coach in a wheelchair. >> My goodness. >> And I so I think to answer your question, that having stories and examples and mentors and heroes like
2:25:58 that, it was swimming going, there will be a time maybe where I'm not able to do this, but like my dad, you will find a way to keep going. So I don't I don't know if that's one of the spokes, but that that was always a really really powerful story that I always take with me. You know, that that no matter how bad things are, like my dad just took to the tennis court just in a wheelchair, just didn't skip a beat. >> Yeah, so based on what you said and it's a beautiful example, for those who can't it's really about gratitude. It's the beneath that parenthetically, it's I can and therefore I will. It's like a gratitude for what we can do. Because if we're dead, can't do these things. >> percent. Yeah, I love what you said about gratitude as well. So when we did
2:26:43 the Yukon swim for instance, the river team that we had in the Yukon, basically there's a there's a famous kayak race that goes down the Yukon, River Quest it's called. And I, upon hearing about this, that's when I reached out to the team who do the safety for this particular thing. I said, "Look, if you can kayak it, you can swim it, right?" And this team, just amazing Canadians, were just like, "Yeah, in theory if you can escape the rapids, the bears, the wolves, yeah, in theory." So anyway, I was like, "Right, okay, let's put together a team." They put together a team, but they were missing a few boats. And there was one guy, Larry, who was amazing. He basically turned around and said, "Look, I'll come, but but you can have my boat, but I'm going to be on it." And they said, "Look, you are terminally ill. This is a terrible idea. The doctors have said, you know, you've literally got weeks to live."
2:27:28 And he said, "No, no, no, no, no, I've I've lived on this river for years." He said, "You can have my boat, but I'm going to be on it. I'm going going steering the boat." So everyone reluctantly was like, "Fine." Again, Larry had weeks to live. He then jumped on the boat. I was told this story. He's on the boat with his son, and for the next 70 hours we're swimming down the Yukon. I am swimming, hurting, shoulders are hurting, hypothermia seeping into my bones, everything. And every time I look, I just see the silhouette of Larry, and he is just cheering me on, just going, "Let's go!" And I look over, I was just like, "Ah! Like, how can I stop when I've got Larry out here?" We finished the swim, broke the record, we celebrated. And then it was it was a few we we put the documentary out on YouTube. Um his son messaged me and was just like, "Just so you're aware, Larry's in in in hospital. Uh every
2:28:14 single doctor and nurse has been made to watch the documentary on YouTube. He's so proud." And I was just like, "Aw." I had tears in my eyes, like a lump in my throat, goose bumps. I was just like that. And they just said, "You you don't know. You gave him, you know, the last great adventure of his career." Um and he passed away shortly afterwards. And again, I suppose it's that particular sport that when I was swimming, I was like, "Yeah, I'm I'm doing How can I How can I stop when Larry's over there?" And like, he was he was ah just an absolute legend, yeah. >> He's not genetically related to you, but he becomes of you, like you guys are a team. >> Oh, yeah. And this is like the >> Anyway, I don't have a like a really well-developed framework for this, but I'm going to try and take some notes and diagram this, and we
2:29:00 can kick it back and forth after this, and come up with something, cuz I feel like you're this uh the shining example of all these different moments of of accessing the different spokes on this wheel of resilience. Um I put a big question mark on one spoke. Like, I kind of wonder, just for entertainment purposes, is there ever a moment you're like, "I actually don't know why I'm doing this right now, but I'm just going to keep going." Like Like I don't have an answer. Everything is great, or everything's Like just the absurdity of it all. Like if you really step back, like what you do, Ross, with all due respect, is pretty absurd. It's absurd. You don't have to do it. You can do any number of different things, but you feel compelled to do it. And it's a beautiful, inspiring, and it and I'll even say an important thing that you do
2:29:46 what what you in particular do. It really is. But, do you ever step back and just go like, I have no idea, but I'm just going to keep pedaling here. >> Do you know what? I love what you said there because kind of I don't know if this answers your question, but you're aware of the myth of Sisyphus? Yeah, so so for those listening you don't so so so Sisyphus was one of the the cleverest humans who ever existed in ancient mythology. I was able to outsmart the gods, and he even chained up death at one point, which made the gods really angry because basically people were fighting wars, and there were no no one was dying. So, there was no souls going to the underworld, so Hades was really pissed off. Anyway, eventually he dies, and the gods are just livid. They're like, look, we're going to we're going to punish you. And what we're going to do is we're going to make you roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. And just as it gets to the top of the hill, it's going to roll back down. And you're just going to
2:30:31 do that for eternity, just this like absurd, like completely thankless task. But, then it was Albert Camus, the philosopher, who said he was able to outsmart the gods one more time. And that's if you imagine that Sisyphus was smiling. And this is the part I love. He said, because the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart. And I think for me, they've even coined the phrase that that Sisyphus was the absurd hero. And I I I think for me, swimming sometimes I'm like, this is Sisyphus. This is my boulder. You know, it's not going anywhere. But, the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart. Does that answer the question? Does one of the spokes? >> Perfectly. >> Right. Sisyphus. Swimming Sisyphus. >> >> So, you identify with Sisyphus. It makes
2:31:16 perfect sense. Um, what about your animal spirit? Uh, not to get woo here, but uh, you smile a lot. I don't know if that was always the case. I mean, you've you've had some dark moments in your life. >> Oh, for sure. Yeah, I just I think I love what you said earlier. Although it's made me rethink it with the studies that you mentioned, but I just think, you know, the science of a smile. There was one particular study where they had cyclists cycle to complete exhaustion and then they showed them these cues and they were almost subliminal as well cuz they were so quick at people smiling or frowning. >> familiar with that study. >> And they they basically found that those who were shown people of pictures of people smiling were able to go to exhaustion so much longer. So I think upon hearing that, you know, I was like I try to swim with the smile as much as possible cuz otherwise I just find it's
2:32:01 just like I said, I think Chris Williamson, you know, a mutual friend of ours like he he said it best because I'm a huge fan of Goggins. And I've heard his stuff and I've tried it. So when I'm swimming I'm like, you're a little Ross. You know, man what you doing? But after like 114 days I'm like, >> >> don't be so mean. So I've tried and Chris Williamson said it almost like, you know, what you putting in your car? Both work. Is it diesel or is it petrol? Which one? And so I've tried that and I still do use some of that Goggins esque motivation, but but sometimes I just need something that's a bit gentler. Yeah. >> I've known David a while. I don't know him very well, but I've known him since before his book, the first book. And so I can tell you he's always been exactly
2:32:47 the same outwardly, very kind, unbelievably driven. You know, he sat in that very chair and you know, he shared a bit of what his inner process is, but you know, it's a it's a bit of a mystery what drives him internally or anyone for that matter in the moment to moment, right? But clearly the uh he talked about the me, but also the you being a powerful tool. Dorian Yates talked about you motivation being powerful and he's in a very different place in his life now, but >> That's a great example. When they talked about he was saying and and I know he's a great friend of yours. So please correct me if I'm wrong here, but it was certainly during the period was it like the 1980s, 1990s when it was Gold's Beach, string vests, sunglasses on and these bodybuilders, whereas he was in Birmingham trudging through the snow.
2:33:34 And he was just like, "Oh, if I've got to do this, I'm going to make sure that I win." Is Is that the case? There was that >> Yeah, I don't want to speak for him, but there was that, but but I think he learned to tap into it much earlier. I mean, he he had a a less than perfect childhood, so to speak. I mean, his dad died early. He had uh ended up in a youth detention center, wrong place, wrong time kind of thing, and he was like, "I don't want to be like the rest of the people in here who seem to accept this fate." Um and he had a big, you know, strong like you energy to people who told him that he wasn't going to be anything, just the whole notion of these oppressive forces, real or imagined. It sounds like they were very real in many cases. Um and he just decided like that's the fuel. And he, you know, became a six-time Mr. Olympia and and and equally importantly a happy person
2:34:20 post-Olympia, mobile and healthy and all the rest. He's a wonderful person and and he's almost two different people. When you look at Is it Blood and Guts is is D.D.R. The amount of times I used to watch that before I went training. Oh my god, his training partners, the intensity. It was, you know, it was animalistic. It was incredible. You know, but but now he is almost like a shaman. He's just like spiritually like It's just amazing seeing the two different people. >> He's definitely got it in balance, I will tell you. He's still got some you energy. >> Oh, yeah, yeah. >> You just need to hit the right topic. He's still got it. He's still got it. Believe me, it's still very alive in him. >> But sometimes it's like what makes a great champion can make a bad human. You know, and I say that sometimes with some of my swims. I'm like, "Look, I I know
2:35:06 it's bad for my health, but it's good for my soul." And I think sometimes as well but looking at some champions, I think it was Brendan Schaub when he was talking about Jon Jones and he was just like, "Jon Jones is incredible. Like, he's unbelievable, but there's not enough money to fill that void, you know, in in his life." But but that also driven to to greatness. It's so strange, isn't it? >> Yeah, I mean, I I don't know Jon and I'd not familiar I'm not that um versed in in MMA, but certainly Dorian has the past victories plus life in balance. It really is a it's a felt thing. It's not just a spoken thing. It's really a felt thing. And I spent a decent amount of time with him and I in the context of his everyday life. And he's he's definitely winning the whole picture as they say. And he works at it. He works at it. It's not like a default, right?
2:35:52 He works at it. Resisting negative forces and still keeping some you energy in there. So, it's good. >> Just in the back of >> Yeah, you know, I grew up in the South Bay where it's like every you know, it was like Stanford's right there and Silicon Valley's right there. And you see this in the in the realm of um you know, science, entrepreneurship, technology. You see it in every domain. You see it in every domain. You see it in dance. We had Twyla Tharp on here, the great choreographer. You see it that you She'll tell you stories of people that were incredible dancers and not balanced as humans. You'll see people who are both and you'll see the people who quit because it was just too hard and they wanted balance. It's like uh you you smile a lot. What what's your spirit animal, man? Or do you have five of them? All right, let's do this. I like this game. I like this game. I'm not into astrology, but I
2:36:37 like this game. If you're willing, what aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic animal do you Do you Do you would just like and admire? You don't have to be like them. Don't worry. If you say you like the minnow, it's okay, you know? Yeah, we we're no one's going to think you less the man, no matter what the answer is. >> I'm People often say I'm like a Labrador on amphetamines. >> >> So, that that fits. >> seem very cheerful. Okay, so that's your terrestrial animal. Let's just say the Labrador. You don't need the amphetamines. >> Yeah, yeah. I think uh orcas, especially when I bulk up for a swim, cuz orcas are so big and chunky, but mildly athletic as well. So, an orca in the water >> Mhm. >> and in the air >> Oh, that's a great one. >> Mhm.
2:37:22 >> I Mhm. I think crows are misunderstood. And again, ancient Nordic mythology, when Floki found Iceland as well, using crows, he would send them off. And then all of a sudden, if they came back, there was no land. He'd send another crow off. It came back, there was no land. Send another one, it doesn't come back. There's land that way. >> It's a crows. Yeah. >> Beautiful. These are These are great examples. And And the the speed of your response tells me that this is true. I I often think about this with people in my life. I need to spend a lot of time with them before I I go that's their terrestrial animal. And And And always, always, always, people want to know, and if it's an animal that they don't want to look like, for whatever reason, or that isn't like tough enough if they're a guy, or, you know, graceful enough if they're a woman, is often the the response. Then
2:38:08 they're like, "Oh, no, I wanted to be like a damselfish." And I'm like, "No, but But don't you understand like the parrotfish?" And they're like, "I look like a parrot." I'm like, "No, you Have you ever seen the parrotfish?" You know, so you can You can really get yourself into trouble with this one. So, it's always best to let them answer. >> I think you're spot-on. And I I do claim authority on this. I've been doing this since I was a kid. So. Ross, actually, you are a remarkable human for certainly the physical feats that you've accomplished. I will ask you in a moment what's next, but equally important for the teachings that you provide the world, not just by example, but you you're a real intellectual. An intellectual is, by definition, someone who can parse and communicate things at multiple levels of granularity.
2:38:53 That's an intellectual. You're an intellectual. I love your um your command of literature and philosophy and and just ideas and the natural world and the brain. I I mean, this is I will go on record saying this is one of the most delightful and awesome for me conversations I've ever had on this podcast because you are so full of life. No surprise there. You are like mitochondria in action and it's infectious >> >> and I drank a little caffeine here and this morning but man, like caffeine nicotine get yourself some Ross Edgley people and and here today you've given us that. I this is a conversation I'm going to return to many times over and I'd love to roll out the the the opportunity maybe like
2:39:39 create some visuals. We've never done this before but create some visuals that maybe could accompany some of the social posts and and on the podcast cuz like you get the credit for doing all these things but I really appreciate your ability and willingness to kind of like meet in the middle on these things and and then run with these ideas. You are one hell of a human being. God bless your parents. God bless your wife Esther. Your son's a lucky kid and uh and I'm guessing that he moves a lot and and and the the future is bright. What's next? What are you going to do and not swim in the Amazon? >> >> Yeah, so for those listening we've been we've been talking about various of the swims. I was running them by Andrew and we've identified I believe we called it dick eating
2:40:24 bacteria. >> No, so these bacteria go in through the urethra. So that's the the entry point and then they live No, they're not bacteria, they're parasites and they and they'll eat your nervous system and every one of your organs. Please don't do a swim down the Amazon. Paul Rosolie's going to kill me for saying this. Sorry Paul. He's not going. >> >> He's not going. >> Penis penis eating parasite. >> Your penis will go first but then all the rest and you won't be sitting there stoic with mud on your face. >> >> You'll be wondering why the heck you did this and apologizing to everybody. >> Amazing. We've got we've we've got a few. I think it's so interesting. I'm almost like a a mercenary, a hired mercenary for an amazing cause. So so we've got so many different swims all over the world. And as soon as somebody says, we need to raise awareness, ocean conservation,
2:41:09 raise money, then I'm like, "Look, hold my beer. I know a guy." So, I So, I think, you know, you'll be the first to know, but we've got a few a few different ones. And as soon as they say, "Let's go." then then I put my goggles on. You know, load up on caffeine and we're going to go and do it. >> I love it. Well, we had Greek mythology and now we've got Ross Edgley, so thanks for expanding my consciousness and awareness of what's possible. Yeah. You're the man, Ross. Come back. >> so much. This has been awesome. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Ross Edgley. To learn more about him and to find a link to his new book, How to Hero: Find Strength, Forge Resilience, and Fulfill Your Purpose, please see the links in the show note caption. If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero-cost way to
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