Speaker 1: I get a team. It's the You Project. It's doctor Bill,
Speaker 1: our favorite geek, our favorite researcher, our favorite nerd. I
Speaker 1: hope I didn't offend you with any of that, mate,
Speaker 1: but you are loved here at the U Project. How
Speaker 1: are you?
Speaker 2: I'm gret on my favorite podcast.
Speaker 1: Ah, good, dude, it's really nice to have you back.
Speaker 1: You and I just had a deep and meaningful I
Speaker 1: reckon eight or nine minute connection before we went live.
Speaker 1: You're always busy. I'm always busy, but it was nice
Speaker 1: to just chat with you, and you know, I look
Speaker 1: forward to these talks and I look forward to spending
Speaker 1: a bit of time from you and learning from you.
Speaker 1: So just before we get going, everybody. Bill's website is
Speaker 1: author Bill Sullivan, One word dot com author Bill Sullivan,
Speaker 1: And if you go into the articles bit or the
Speaker 1: no you just go straight in there. There's a whole
Speaker 1: lot of articles, which we're going to talk about a
Speaker 1: couple today. I didn't realize how prolific you are. You
Speaker 1: you crank out a fair bit, like with a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have an article section on there. It's
Speaker 1: like seven articles written over the last decade, and I'm
Speaker 1: like the most recent one is twenty nine seen or something.
Speaker 1: But you've written a lot this year, and you are
Speaker 1: quite prolific in your writing for various publications.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something I just enjoy doing. I read a
Speaker 2: lot of science. It's part of my job. And when
Speaker 2: I come across studies that I just find plain interesting
Speaker 2: or they relate to my book, please to meet me,
Speaker 2: you know, the like logical extension or new data related
Speaker 2: to that topic. I can't help myself but to write
Speaker 2: about it and put it out there on the various
Speaker 2: venues that are kind enough to accept my work. And
Speaker 2: I do a quarterly newsletter too that's associated with the book,
Speaker 2: so people can go to the website and sign up
Speaker 2: for that. I don't slam your inbox often, but four
Speaker 2: times a year you'll get some links and other bits
Speaker 2: of writing from me, most of which are related to
Speaker 2: the book. Because, as you know more than most people,
Speaker 2: the biology of the self and the biology behind human
Speaker 2: behaviors constantly changing. We're getting new data all the time,
Speaker 2: so it's something that you perpetually have to update in
Speaker 2: order to stay accurate.
Speaker 1: Isn't it funny how at different times through history, I
Speaker 1: mean always you know, in the evolutionary and the scientific
Speaker 1: and the research timeline, Like we're doing stuff now in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four and thinking stuff and believing stuff that
Speaker 1: in one hundred years I'll look back and go, what
Speaker 1: was wrong with them in twenty twenty What would they even?
Speaker 1: How did they for a moment think that that was real?
Speaker 1: Or you know, it's like we you know.
Speaker 2: If you think about it just just one hundred years ago,
Speaker 2: you know, we're going back to like nineteen twenty four,
Speaker 2: there's no such thing as penicillin antibiotics. You know, it's
Speaker 2: just like these precious medicines that we now just take
Speaker 2: for granted. It's totally revolutionized things. Back in nineteen twenty four,
Speaker 2: we had no idea that DNA was the molecule responsible
Speaker 2: for heredity. Okay, that was still a mystery, much less
Speaker 2: knowing what it looks like and how it functions. To
Speaker 2: think that all of that was sorted out in just
Speaker 2: one hundred years, it really does boggle the mind where
Speaker 2: we might be in another one hundred years from now,
Speaker 2: and how remitive we're really going to look one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent now, just quickly before we dive in everyone.
Speaker 1: Bill's book is called Please to Meet me epigenetics, DNA, microbes,
Speaker 1: and the hidden forces shaping who we are, Jen's germs
Speaker 1: and the curious forces that make us who we are.
Speaker 1: So I downloaded your book, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: bullshit and say I've listened to it. I've got nine
Speaker 1: books on my list. It's the next one. So I'm
Speaker 1: listening to a book at the moment, which is called Unfollow.
Speaker 1: So I've got one hour from the end and then
Speaker 1: it's sixty minutes to go, and then I'm up to
Speaker 1: your book, which I will give you a debrief on
Speaker 1: next time.
Speaker 2: I'm on the edge of my seat. I can't wait.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to say, I'll give you a review
Speaker 1: out of five. Have you ever heard of I'm sure
Speaker 1: you have. This is digressing, but we'll get on topic
Speaker 1: in a minute. Of the Westbroo Baptist Westboro Baptist Church,
Speaker 1: those people who protest at soldiers funerals and you know
Speaker 1: anti gay slogans, and have you you've heard of that?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, they make our national news from time to time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, so there's a lady who was born in
Speaker 1: that cult called Megan Phelps Roper, and she wrote a
Speaker 1: book called Unfollow. Oh, it's fucking fascinating. Oh I bet
Speaker 1: it would be.
Speaker 2: Rare glimpse into what it would be like to come
Speaker 2: up this culture of hypocritical heat.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. And it's so she is. She's brilliant.
Speaker 1: I mean, she has got an amazing mind. And for
Speaker 1: somebody who grew up in this, you know, like it's
Speaker 1: really hate masquerading us love, right, it was just for
Speaker 1: me who's fascinated in I'm fascinated and cults. I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: in the way that we think, the way that we
Speaker 1: see the world. I'm fascinated with beliefs. I'm fascinated with
Speaker 1: this need that people have to be right, you know.
Speaker 1: And oh my god, it's called unfollow everyone and get
Speaker 1: that after you get doctor Bill's book, of course. But
Speaker 1: it's such a fascinating insight into a culture within a culture,
Speaker 1: and this we you know, I spoke before about basically
Speaker 1: while we were off air, the echo chamber, you know,
Speaker 1: confirmation bias. It's just incredible the way that some people
Speaker 1: build this reality and this whole kind of paradigm of
Speaker 1: we are the one, how many people or how many
Speaker 1: groups like that we have the hotline to God and
Speaker 1: literally they believe that everyone in the world, I mean
Speaker 1: on planet Earth who doesn't agree with their doctrine is
Speaker 1: one going to hell and two wrong.
Speaker 2: It's like, and that's just the current people alive, right,
Speaker 2: all the people before us also must be burning in
Speaker 2: hell now too. Yeah, you're talking about you know, hundreds
Speaker 2: of billions of souls. So, yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 2: I got to get a little bit of a teaser
Speaker 2: out of you. What was the spark that led this
Speaker 2: individual to start questioning this dogma and leave the group?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they were I mean, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: even going to say the word, but the homosexuals where
Speaker 1: God hates homosexual gods and God that all of this
Speaker 1: placarding hate very hateful and hurtful. But they always told
Speaker 1: themselves it was coming from a place of love. It
Speaker 1: was scriptural, it was Bible based, it was all that.
Speaker 1: And over time some stuff started happening within the church.
Speaker 1: So there was a very very unified front for a
Speaker 1: long time. Like this lady at twenty five or twenty six,
Speaker 1: still lived with her mum and dad, still was very
Speaker 1: much under their authority, had never kissed a boy, had
Speaker 1: never been on a date, but at the same time
Speaker 1: a lawyer and highly intelligent. Most like there was a
Speaker 1: highly disproportionate number of lawyers within the Phelps Roper clan
Speaker 1: because they needed to be because they were always in court, right,
Speaker 1: that's true, but they're just started to be like she's
Speaker 1: you know, she spoke about the internal struggle of recognizing
Speaker 1: things that were inconsistent and that you know, like that,
Speaker 1: you know, especially the New Testament is so much about
Speaker 1: love and kindness and forgiveness and turning the other cheek
Speaker 1: and you know, the beam in your own eye and
Speaker 1: all that kind of like Jesus based a lot more
Speaker 1: friendly than the Old Testament, you know. But she said
Speaker 1: she started to see within the context of the church,
Speaker 1: which was very unified, and then started to fall apart,
Speaker 1: and then she started to question. So you know, she
Speaker 1: would get in trouble at twenty five years of age
Speaker 1: if she reached up to get something off her shelf
Speaker 1: and somebody saw a slither of her stomach, so she
Speaker 1: would be punished, right and then and it just y
Speaker 1: just like she started to have this awareness beyond the
Speaker 1: programming and that you know, you think about the fact
Speaker 1: that how we've all been programmed in one way or
Speaker 1: another doc via media, social media, school, church, synagogue, mom, dad,
Speaker 1: friend's family, and then you wake up one day and
Speaker 1: you try to distinguish between where does my programming end?
Speaker 1: And where am I? Yeah, like where's Craig? Yeah, where's
Speaker 1: the end of Because you know, I understand objectivity, but
Speaker 1: I'm not objective for the most part, because I have
Speaker 1: subjective experiences and views and beliefs, and I have pre
Speaker 1: existing values and ideas and standards and beliefs, and you know,
Speaker 1: prejudice and all of that shit that I have to
Speaker 1: acknowledge because I'm human. It's like, the idea of objectivity
Speaker 1: and open mindedness is nice, but the practice is high.
Speaker 2: Well, there's been some pretty fascinating studies that have been
Speaker 2: done on not necessarily religious and non religious, but on
Speaker 2: like conservative and liberal people, going back into like historical
Speaker 2: records and looking at personality as a child and how
Speaker 2: it tracks with whether the individual becomes a conservative or
Speaker 2: a liberal on the right or left. And there's some
Speaker 2: really striking parallels there. And one of the things that
Speaker 2: I think loops into religion, because any more conservatives, at
Speaker 2: least in the US, are of a religious affiliation than
Speaker 2: the liberals are okay, And one of the striking personality
Speaker 2: profiles that you see in the conservatives and the religious
Speaker 2: is this unquestioning obedience to authority. And I think that
Speaker 2: is part and parcel of either it's being afraid or
Speaker 2: you're showing respect, or maybe it's a combination of both
Speaker 2: of those, but you simply do not question authority. And
Speaker 2: whether there's like some sort of genetic basis to that
Speaker 2: or whether it's just a cultural imprint, it's really quite fascinating.
Speaker 2: But you can find families that are by and large conservative,
Speaker 2: but then you get, you know, the black sheep of
Speaker 2: the family, I suppose, wander off and become you know,
Speaker 2: more progressive and liberal. Yes, And a lot of people
Speaker 2: chalk that up to things like, well, they had different
Speaker 2: ex experiences, they had more education, maybe they were exposed
Speaker 2: to a more culturally diverse group of people. And I
Speaker 2: think all that could be completely true. There's, interestingly enough,
Speaker 2: there's some genetic evidence that suggests that variations in the
Speaker 2: dopamine receptors of your brain also track with whether someone
Speaker 2: is more liberal or conservative, which I find fascinating.
Speaker 1: Yes, I for a while, I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: told you this, ione bought my audience. But for I
Speaker 1: grew up in a very Catholic church, which was just
Speaker 1: very Catholic environment, I should say, which was not anywhere
Speaker 1: near the authoritarian, megalomaniacal kind of level of control that
Speaker 1: these people were experienced to. But after that, you might
Speaker 1: think more or less me out to this doc. But
Speaker 1: I was involved in a from when I was about
Speaker 1: nineteen to almost my mid twenties in a quite a
Speaker 1: strict Pentecostal church, and there was so many, ah, so
Speaker 1: many familiar concepts in this story. And I'm like, ah,
Speaker 1: Like I was engaged when I was twenty or twenty
Speaker 1: one to a girl who was my age. In the church,
Speaker 1: we weren't allowed to be alone together. Well, it was
Speaker 1: really frowned upon. So I get it. I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh yeah, And I remember even then. And
Speaker 1: I came into the game in Verticomma's late and there
Speaker 1: was so much control and manipulation about you know, you
Speaker 1: having your own thoughts and if you questioned anything, literally
Speaker 1: I was told, you know, that's Satan trying to or
Speaker 1: that's the devil trying to derail you. You know, It's
Speaker 1: like you don't not Essentially, literally, you need to submit
Speaker 1: to authority, and the authority is all the people in
Speaker 1: the church above you.
Speaker 2: Well, you know a way, if you started questioning things.
Speaker 1: They can't control you.
Speaker 2: Well, they can't control and the whole foundation, yes, of
Speaker 2: what their beliefs are built on, starts to be rue. Yes,
Speaker 2: what takes is a little critical thinking. It's not hard
Speaker 2: to disprove a lot of the tenets of religion, or
Speaker 2: at least it put some put some doubt into that model.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's that's why they completely frown upon any
Speaker 2: inkling or any residue of critical thought. They've got to
Speaker 2: stamp that out immediately because that could literally burn the
Speaker 2: whole place down.
Speaker 1: Yes, And it's funny how when you do think like
Speaker 1: you think critically, you ask reasonable questions, you're curious, You're
Speaker 1: that you are not allowed to doubt. You're not allowed
Speaker 1: to ask questions, not certain questions, you're not allowed to
Speaker 1: open certain conversational doors. You are It's like your job
Speaker 1: is to conform. Yeah, and if you're not conforming, you're bad.
Speaker 1: There's a little more than that, but essentially that's the
Speaker 1: nuts and bolts, Like, if you want to belong in
Speaker 1: this group, then you need to think, like, be like us,
Speaker 1: agree with us, do not question, do not open it,
Speaker 1: don't open any of these doors, don't hang out with
Speaker 1: these people, don't like they, do not do. List was
Speaker 1: fucking thirteen miles long, and I just got to the
Speaker 1: point where and I did love the idea. I loved
Speaker 1: the idea of a compassionate, all knowing or loving you know,
Speaker 1: divine whatever. I loved that idea. But it wasn't even
Speaker 1: the God thing that got me out of the church.
Speaker 1: It was the people. It was the control and the coercial.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this doesn't make sense. You're not even fucking thinking,
Speaker 1: like you're literally frustreating. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, speaking of nothing
Speaker 1: much to do with that we were going to chat about.
Speaker 2: But that's a great topic. I love talking about religion.
Speaker 2: It's a fascinating subject.
Speaker 1: Well it's really I mean, it's a multi dimensional thing,
Speaker 1: isn't it, Like, because it's about it's about belief, it's
Speaker 1: about ideology, it's about thinking. And you are not you know,
Speaker 1: we spoke about metacognition before. But you're you're encouraged not
Speaker 1: to think. Yeah yeah, you're just encouraged to conform.
Speaker 2: Right and to have someone tell you not to think
Speaker 2: or not to question. It's just the antithesis of being
Speaker 2: a scientist or being curious and learning about the world.
Speaker 2: So what are these people interested in control? Or do
Speaker 2: they want to know the truth? And I'm for the
Speaker 2: truth all the time, you know, I want to figure
Speaker 2: out what's right and wrong. But I find religion so
Speaker 2: fascinating because it can bring out the best in people
Speaker 2: and at the same time bring out the absolute horrors
Speaker 2: that humanity is capable of as well. So it's one
Speaker 2: of these very very unusual things that from my point
Speaker 2: of view, it's just crazy that people still go for
Speaker 2: this sort of stuff. But it's it's extremely cemented into
Speaker 2: our cultural environment.
Speaker 1: Speaking of your cultural environment and religion, it's an interesting,
Speaker 1: an interesting time in the States right now, isn't it.
Speaker 1: As we record this, it's Monday the twenty second in
Speaker 1: Australia and it's Sunday the twenty first in the US.
Speaker 1: Not that not that we're a political show at all,
Speaker 1: but in terms of behavior and human nature and culture
Speaker 1: and God and religion, Oh my god, it's a bloody
Speaker 1: pot purre of craziness for you, I tell you.
Speaker 2: I just don't know what to expect anymore when I
Speaker 2: wake up and see the notifications on my phone. This
Speaker 2: has been one of the craziest elections I can think of,
Speaker 2: not only in my lifetime, but in all the history
Speaker 2: that I've studied. I mean, there's just every day there's
Speaker 2: something more and more bizarre that's happening. And as you
Speaker 2: probably heard just a few hours ago, Joe Biden decided
Speaker 2: that he's not going to run for re election and
Speaker 2: that's been pushed by a number of people since he
Speaker 2: had a very bad performance at that one debate. But
Speaker 2: it does seem to be more and more people coming
Speaker 2: around to the idea that, you know, he's lost some
Speaker 2: of his edge and it's not going to go over
Speaker 2: well when people go to the polls in November. And
Speaker 2: that's a very reasonable argument. You know, I watched that
Speaker 2: debate myself and was just kind of burying my head
Speaker 2: in my hands, like, oh my god, why did that?
Speaker 2: Why didn't the Democratic Party prepare for this? People on
Speaker 2: the inside must have known that this was the state
Speaker 2: of deterioration that he was facing. You know, all of
Speaker 2: his accomplishments aside. When you go out on debate, you
Speaker 2: got to sharp, you know that there's unfortunately a lot
Speaker 2: to an election that goes off the CV, that goes
Speaker 2: off the resume, and it deals with you know, like
Speaker 2: how well you can think on your feet, you know,
Speaker 2: how witty you can be, how sharp you can be,
Speaker 2: how few mistakes and you know you can have And yeah,
Speaker 2: he either he had a really really hard bad night
Speaker 2: or his age is catching up with him. So I
Speaker 2: think enough people convinced him that it would behoove the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party to go with someone else, and that someone
Speaker 2: else has not been determined yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, didn't I announce it was Kamala Harris? Well, they haven't.
Speaker 2: That that is who Biden offered his support for rot
Speaker 2: rot Okay, but that obviously won't be made official until
Speaker 2: the Democratic Convention.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay. Yeah, So I mean I'm fascinated as you are,
Speaker 1: with the Brian and with you know, psychology and cognition
Speaker 1: and and yeah, I've been watching President Biden the last
Speaker 1: whatever month like everybody else, with curiosity and yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't mean this to sound how it might, but I
Speaker 1: actually really feel sorry for him in that, like I've
Speaker 1: just you know, seen him struggle, and I just I
Speaker 1: want him to be okay, and I want him to.
Speaker 1: I feel like going, hey, you've done a great job.
Speaker 1: It's time. You know, you've done a great job. Like,
Speaker 1: let's not let the wheels get any more wobbly. Let's
Speaker 1: just go. It's been great. I'm Joe Biden, thank you,
Speaker 1: and you know, good night.
Speaker 2: But he may have been a victim of his own success.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's had an incredible four years. And you know,
Speaker 2: the media will tell you other some media over here
Speaker 2: will tell you otherwise. But the country is doing amazingly
Speaker 2: well given what he inherited, you know, coming off of
Speaker 2: an insurrection, COVID was still nuts over here, and the
Speaker 2: economy was in the toilet, all because of his predecessor,
Speaker 2: or due to a large part because of his predecessor,
Speaker 2: and he had to repair all that damage. He's done
Speaker 2: a remarkably good job of it, and for understandable reasons,
Speaker 2: wanted to do another four years and complete the job,
Speaker 2: you know. And I can understand that, and I feel,
Speaker 2: just like you, I understand your hearts in it. I
Speaker 2: know mentally you can probably get there, but there's a
Speaker 2: level of politics that involves showmanship and confidence and things
Speaker 2: of that source. You can you can come with a
Speaker 2: really remarkable resume of achievement and accomplishment, which I you know,
Speaker 2: I think you can make a good case Biden had
Speaker 2: really good four years turning this country around, and he's
Speaker 2: got remarkable character, I mean compared to the other guy.
Speaker 2: Come on, there's no contest. Yeah, but uh but yeah,
Speaker 2: when you see that debate performance, it just speaks a
Speaker 2: thousand words as to we really need to reconsider who's
Speaker 2: going to take the helm.
Speaker 1: Speaking of genes, not blue gens everyone the other one.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the relationship between cognitive function performance cognitive decline.
Speaker 1: And I know that there's no I know there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of variables around this, but how much of cognitive
Speaker 1: decline and say, his case and we're just talking is genetic.
Speaker 1: It's just that's just what was going to happen. And
Speaker 1: how much of it, Like I think about the stress,
Speaker 1: the pressure that he is under, the lack of I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I know that there's a relationship
Speaker 1: between stress, physiological stress, lack of physical fitness, lack of sleep,
Speaker 1: you know, like nervous system, endo, crime system, all of
Speaker 1: these things that are him. Like, how much of what
Speaker 1: we're saying do you think is a culmination of four
Speaker 1: years of chaos and stress or is it all just genetic?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd hesitate to say that there's like some kind
Speaker 2: of genetic element here. I mean, the guy is over
Speaker 2: eighty years old, and he has one of the most
Speaker 2: demanding schedules you can imagine, and he's traveling all over
Speaker 2: the world constantly. I mean, hell, it takes me a
Speaker 2: week to recover from one trip jet lag, and this
Speaker 2: guy's flying across continents like it's like it's nobody's business.
Speaker 2: And then he's got to get up and perform in
Speaker 2: front of millions of people. I make mistakes all the time, Okay.
Speaker 2: Of course, someone who's got that kind of pressure is
Speaker 2: going to make some simple mistakes. And then your adversary
Speaker 2: is just constantly lying, okay, and you're trying to refute
Speaker 2: some of these lies, and it's almost like a whack
Speaker 2: a Mole game. You're sure you guys familiar with that game,
Speaker 2: or the MOLTI pop up you whack it comes up
Speaker 2: in another place. That's how it is. When you're just
Speaker 2: buried in this avalanche of lies, you're almost paralyzed with
Speaker 2: which one do I respond to first? You know, there
Speaker 2: were so many thrown out there, So I think he
Speaker 2: was a victim of a whole bunch of other things
Speaker 2: that may not really have anything to do with like
Speaker 2: genetic aging. But you know, let's face it, you know,
Speaker 2: we start to lose it as we get older, and
Speaker 2: that's going to happen to all of us some sooner
Speaker 2: rather than later. True, I feel like it's happening already
Speaker 2: to me. How long do you do if you don't
Speaker 2: mind me asking? How long are you if you don't
Speaker 2: mind me asking? I turned fifty four back in April?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Right? And what do you what do you do?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: I'm interested, like, what what does the guy who wrote
Speaker 1: the manual? You know? Or not the manual? But what
Speaker 1: does what does that guy do to? You know? Optimize?
Speaker 1: Maximize what you Because you can't get new genes, but
Speaker 1: you can influence your Jane. You can't get more hours
Speaker 1: in a day, you can't get more innate talent. What
Speaker 1: what do you do to optimize you?
Speaker 2: I would I try to eat as healthy as I
Speaker 2: can and as little as I can, and I exercise.
Speaker 2: My go to exercise is running. I try to do
Speaker 2: five miles a day, or at least five or six
Speaker 2: days out of the week.
Speaker 1: Wow, what about because I'm a mate head, I'm a buffhead.
Speaker 1: What about strength stuff.
Speaker 2: Doc, Yeah, I'm not as big on that, but I
Speaker 2: do try to do a little bit of strength training.
Speaker 2: But what I would call strength training you would probably
Speaker 2: laugh at. But it's just enough to keep, you know,
Speaker 2: to maintain.
Speaker 1: I definitely wouldn't. I definitely wouldn't.
Speaker 2: I enjoy the running so much more than I do
Speaker 2: the strength strength training because I just love getting outside.
Speaker 2: I love the feeling of running. You get that runners
Speaker 2: high at the end. You know. I got my tunes
Speaker 2: with me when I go. Maybe sometimes I'll put on
Speaker 2: the You Project, listen to who you talked about last time,
Speaker 2: And you know, it's just kind of a fun thing
Speaker 2: for me to do. A lot of people think it's
Speaker 2: crazy because they don't want to run around the block,
Speaker 2: much less do with several miles. But I genuinely enjoy it.
Speaker 2: And it's not only great for your body, it's great
Speaker 2: for your mind, great for your sleep. You know, there's
Speaker 2: so many benefits associated with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've started running again. I used to run a
Speaker 1: lot as a kid, and I don't know, I'm very lucky.
Speaker 1: I think like I just I've run on and off
Speaker 1: over the years, but I've been running consistently the last
Speaker 1: few months, and so I do waits every day. But
Speaker 1: I'm doing about four days a week. Not far, definitely,
Speaker 1: not five miles, which is about eight kilometers in for
Speaker 1: us over here, but I'm running about probably the equivalent
Speaker 1: of just two miles. But I just go out. I
Speaker 1: literally run outside and run like a crazy person for
Speaker 1: about fifteen minutes. Doc, Yeah, just get my heart rate
Speaker 1: up high. I run for me. Yeah, quite quick for me.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's that even running that fifteen minutes every
Speaker 1: second day, or you know, four or five out of
Speaker 1: seven days. Yeah, it feels you for it. When I
Speaker 1: get home, I feel fucking amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's It's wonderful, isn't it. Yeah, I think you
Speaker 2: know a lot of my formulas. What I don't do,
Speaker 2: you know, rather than what I do, because what I
Speaker 2: do is kind of common sense. It's what any doctor
Speaker 2: would tell you is good for you. But what I
Speaker 2: don't do. I've never smoked, never done any hard drugs.
Speaker 2: I will drink on occasion, okay, but never to excess.
Speaker 2: I don't eat highly processed foods very frequently, you know,
Speaker 2: if it just doesn't, I mean, if it's not something
Speaker 2: our ancestors would have eaten. I usually reserve that as
Speaker 2: like a treat or a very rare food. Okay, it's
Speaker 2: just got to be real food. And what about and
Speaker 2: I don't drink any soda, no sugary drinks. I would
Speaker 2: drink water sometimes coffee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what about managing stress and anxiety? I can't see
Speaker 1: you as being a person that gets overly stressed too often?
Speaker 1: I used to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually went to the emergency room about a
Speaker 2: decade ago, thinking I was having a heart attack, right,
Speaker 2: because this was when I was trying to get tenure
Speaker 2: at my university. And for those listeners who don't know,
Speaker 2: that is an incredibly stressful ordeal to go through. And
Speaker 2: I had a new, you know, baby girl who was
Speaker 2: born with colic, and you know, it's just all kinds
Speaker 2: of stuff going on all at once. It wasn't wasn't
Speaker 2: a heart problem at all. But it turned out to
Speaker 2: be acid reflux, a regurgitation of stomach ass into the esophagus,
Speaker 2: which was eroding it so badly that I had a
Speaker 2: constant pain in my chest in that heart area. I
Speaker 2: was mistaking that for a heart time, So it took
Speaker 2: several months to get that under control. But since that day,
Speaker 2: I started to engage in a lot of stress reduction
Speaker 2: type of activities, learning how to do some controlled breathing,
Speaker 2: how to be mindful, take a small segment of the
Speaker 2: day and either you know, think about things you're grateful
Speaker 2: for or think about things that you could improve, but
Speaker 2: in a non stressful, you know, don't beat yourself up
Speaker 2: kind of way. And that really helped a lot. A
Speaker 2: lot of people like journaling. I just kind of like
Speaker 2: to think it through in my mind, but sometimes people
Speaker 2: say writing it out actually helps them a lot more.
Speaker 2: And I started to learn to say no to something.
Speaker 2: You know, I just had to cut back on what
Speaker 2: was on my pleat in terms of all the activities
Speaker 2: and stuff that I kept trying to do. You know,
Speaker 2: you got to acknowledge your limits, and even if it's
Speaker 2: stuff that you think would be interesting and fun, for
Speaker 2: the sake of your health and your sanity, you just
Speaker 2: got to put reasonable limits on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I don't take a single supplement, Greg, I don't
Speaker 2: take anything really, Nope.
Speaker 1: The only supplement I take is careers and it's the
Speaker 1: only supplement I take which there's some some i say,
Speaker 1: some science around the benefits of that also cognitively, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm like you, Doc, I've never been high,
Speaker 1: I've never been well. I've never been drunk. I've never
Speaker 1: drunk ol khol. I've never had a recreational drug. I've
Speaker 1: said this on my show before Full Transparency. I might
Speaker 1: have taken a few things in my early twenties which
Speaker 1: might have helped me get a bit bigger, which wasn't
Speaker 1: my proudest smart But back forty, I mean that was
Speaker 1: nearly forty years ago. People would use steroids back in
Speaker 1: those days in the eighties, like people would use protein powder. Now,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't It wasn't even illegal.
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, sure, yeah, I don't think some of
Speaker 2: the health dangers were as acutely known as they became
Speaker 2: more aware of that, like in the nineties and subsequent decades.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you're you're talking about the era of Arnold
Speaker 2: Schwarzenegger and you know some of these others, Charles Atlas
Speaker 2: ads and the comic books and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lou Farino, Yeah, yeah, all those dudes that that
Speaker 1: that era of the mister Olympia when like bodybuilders started
Speaker 1: to like it was the first time we'd seen like
Speaker 1: the early days, you know, with Charles Atlas, in the
Speaker 1: very old days, you know, with the muscle builder on
Speaker 1: the back of the magazine. They were just guys that
Speaker 1: were in really good shape. And then we started to
Speaker 1: see these months disappear on stage, which were like cartoon characters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to. So you wrote an article
Speaker 1: called is our Fate Determined by Genes? And you said
Speaker 1: something in there that was something like, there are many
Speaker 1: possible versions of you in your genome. I just wanted
Speaker 1: you to unpack that idea a little bit because I
Speaker 1: think most of my listeners kind of we kind of
Speaker 1: get the idea kind of of epigenetics and genetic variability,
Speaker 1: but can you unpack that? So there are many possible
Speaker 1: versions of you in your genome and what determines who
Speaker 1: we become and how we become?
Speaker 2: Doc No excellent question, and you'll you'll read about some
Speaker 2: of this when you listen to Please to Meet Me.
Speaker 2: But what that statement refers to was it was inspired
Speaker 2: by studied done on identical twins that looked at this
Speaker 2: phenomenon called epigenetics. So I think most people understand that
Speaker 2: genes and code proteins that make us who we are,
Speaker 2: and most people associate genes with physical characteristics and some
Speaker 2: behavioral profiling as well. And there's this phenomenon called genetic
Speaker 2: determinism that you know, you are your genes and you're
Speaker 2: quite limited by your genes, and there is some truth
Speaker 2: to that statement. There are some genes where you know,
Speaker 2: if you have a certain variation, you are going to
Speaker 2: get a certain disease. Okay, sickle cell is an example.
Speaker 2: Huntington's is a good example. If you have a certain
Speaker 2: mutation in that gene, you are going to get this disease.
Speaker 2: But when you're talking about personality and behavior, that involves
Speaker 2: the activity the collaboration of tens of thousands of genes,
Speaker 2: so it can get extraordinarily implicated, and it's very very
Speaker 2: difficult to implicate a handful of genes towards behaviors. So
Speaker 2: this field of epigenetics, which really only started getting going
Speaker 2: about twenty four years ago, was the idea that genes
Speaker 2: are not on or off. Okay, they're more like a
Speaker 2: dimmer switch, and they can be regulated with exquisite sensitivity.
Speaker 2: So One of the common epigenetic mechanisms is called DNA methylation.
Speaker 2: And I don't mean to throw a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: jargon out at you, but DNA methylation is not like
Speaker 2: a mutation, which is a change in the genetic sequence.
Speaker 2: DNA methylation is a chemical modification that takes place on
Speaker 2: the gene or near the gene, and DNA methylation is
Speaker 2: one of these modifications. The more a gene gets methylated,
Speaker 2: the more it gets shut down. Okay, so that's pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: It's a reversible process, and you can have enough methylation
Speaker 2: on a gene to completely shut it off, or it
Speaker 2: can be unmethylated and be completely turned on. So what
Speaker 2: this amounts to, to make a long story short, is
Speaker 2: that there's tremendous variety that's possible even in the same genome,
Speaker 2: because all of those twenty thousand genes could be on
Speaker 2: at different levels, Okay, at different points in your life.
Speaker 2: So let me go back to that identical twins study.
Speaker 2: I think it illustrates this case very nicely. So everyone
Speaker 2: knows that identical twins have the same exact genome. They're
Speaker 2: literally clones of one another, so they make really good
Speaker 2: test subjects to kind of study inheritance and things like DNA.
Speaker 2: So when scientists compare the chromosomes of ident twins, you
Speaker 2: know that are very young okay, less than three years
Speaker 2: of age, and they have a tool where they can
Speaker 2: stain for the DNA methylation marks that I talked about
Speaker 2: that can shut genes down. When they look at all
Speaker 2: of their chromosomes and stain with this DNA methylation marker,
Speaker 2: in the very young twins, they're all the same, okay,
Speaker 2: So not only do they have the same genetic sequence,
Speaker 2: they have the same DNA methylation patterns as well. When
Speaker 2: scientists look at twins that are fifty years old or older, again,
Speaker 2: they still have the same genes, but their DNA methylation
Speaker 2: patterns are almost completely different. And this explains age old
Speaker 2: mystery that scientists wondered about regarding identical twins that grow
Speaker 2: up to be different as they get older. And there's
Speaker 2: many examples of this. It's called twin discordancy. And what
Speaker 2: happens is that sometimes identical twins as they get older,
Speaker 2: they can look difference different in appearance. Okay, sometimes one
Speaker 2: twin is a little taller than the other, some looks
Speaker 2: like they're aging faster. Than the other. There can also
Speaker 2: be personality differences. As the twins get older, some will
Speaker 2: go into business, whereas others will go into construction, and
Speaker 2: yet they have the same exact genome. It raises the question, well,
Speaker 2: why don't they like the same type of job. And
Speaker 2: then one of the more striking examples is that some
Speaker 2: twins can be lean while their other twin is obese.
Speaker 2: So you can get dramatic differences in physiology, in physical attributes,
Speaker 2: and in physiological and psychological outcomes. And scientists this boggle
Speaker 2: the mind. Because they have identical genes, they should be
Speaker 2: the same exact person carbon copies all throughout their lives.
Speaker 2: So what this is telling us is that even if
Speaker 2: they grow up in the same environment, there's nuances in
Speaker 2: their environment. There's different experiences that they have which can
Speaker 2: kind of cascade into a very dramatic difference as they
Speaker 2: get older. And what this study showed was that one
Speaker 2: of the possible mechanisms to explain these differences in identical
Speaker 2: twins is the different DNA methylation patterns, the difference in epigenetics.
Speaker 2: So another helpful analogy that I like to use Craig
Speaker 2: is that you can think of genes as the piano keys,
Speaker 2: but the environment plays the song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm thinking, you know, like to me, the way
Speaker 1: that that DNA methylation happens, all those patterns, it's that
Speaker 1: I don't know, it seems like logical to me that
Speaker 1: that twin discordance in that well behavior you know, have
Speaker 1: its behavior as lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, environment, you know, all
Speaker 1: of those things are going to influence the way that
Speaker 1: those genes express. So I don't really understand the surprise,
Speaker 1: Like why would they think that just because because surely
Speaker 1: they recognize that diet is going to have an impact
Speaker 1: on obesity or body composition or that stress. You know,
Speaker 1: a stressful environment versus a calm environment will have an
Speaker 1: impact on one's nervous system and anxiety levels and that
Speaker 1: sleep and that you know, if one exercises and one
Speaker 1: doesn't exercise. What I don't understand the surprise, Well.
Speaker 2: What you're what you're you're looking at it in terms
Speaker 2: of studying the different behaviors that the twins had. But
Speaker 2: what the mystery was is why should they have different
Speaker 2: habits at the get go? Because they have identical genes,
Speaker 2: so they should be having the same appetite, the same
Speaker 2: you know, right, sires for certain foods or and that's
Speaker 2: and they grew up in the same environment in most cases, so.
Speaker 1: The divergence happen once they start to live apart more.
Speaker 2: That's that varies from case to case, right, So you'll
Speaker 2: say for people that same environment, right, right, Even if
Speaker 2: you're in the same environment, though, you're going to be
Speaker 2: exposed to different things. You know, one twin might get
Speaker 2: mugged whereas the other did not. The other one might
Speaker 2: have a bully and the other one doesn't. Sometimes they
Speaker 2: watch different shows or get exposed to different people, and
Speaker 2: that can sometimes that can make a very profound difference
Speaker 2: in a life.
Speaker 1: So if we could create a simulation doc where until
Speaker 1: I was say twenty years old, if everything was identical,
Speaker 1: everything experiences situation people they met schooling, I wonder if
Speaker 1: there would be any divergence. Then I wonder if if
Speaker 1: we would say, any differences if all the stimuli with
Speaker 1: a sign.
Speaker 2: Well, in theory, if they were exposed to all the
Speaker 2: same stimuli and they have the same genes, you should
Speaker 2: minimize the different epigenetic changes that take place. Because these
Speaker 2: epigenetic changes that I've been trying to explain come from
Speaker 2: the environment, and there's been a lot of studies done
Speaker 2: now that can show how trauma can affect the epigenome
Speaker 2: the landscape of these marks, yes, and how exercise can
Speaker 2: do it, how certain foods can change epigenetics, and even
Speaker 2: how things like meditation can change the epigenetic landscape on
Speaker 2: your genes. It's a really remarkable science and I don't
Speaker 2: want to blow it out of proportion because it is
Speaker 2: new and there's a lot more research to be done.
Speaker 2: But what it does tell us is that our environment,
Speaker 2: our experiences, the things we expose get exposed to affect
Speaker 2: genetic activity. And I think that's a really important thing
Speaker 2: to keep in mind because it undermines genetic determinism to
Speaker 2: a degree. Yes, and it says, you know, our feets
Speaker 2: really aren't written by putting ourselves in different environment or
Speaker 2: making changes in our habits. We really can control the
Speaker 2: activity of our genes and become, you know, either a
Speaker 2: slightly different person or even a dramatically different person, depending
Speaker 2: on the nature of the circumstances.
Speaker 1: You know what else is I love that so interesting,
Speaker 1: But also it makes me think about I've spoken about
Speaker 1: this a bit lately, where you know, like I've got
Speaker 1: friends of mine that go to meditation and they love it,
Speaker 1: and you know, it calms the farm.
Speaker 3: It's which is on their parasympathetic nervous system, their heart rate,
Speaker 3: their breathing, their blood pressure, everything comes down and they
Speaker 3: come out of it like you know, the Dalai Lama
Speaker 3: or I don't know, some suitable kind of figure. But
Speaker 3: I've done and I don't hate it, but I just
Speaker 3: and I'm the problem.
Speaker 1: It's not the class. But I go in there, I've
Speaker 1: done quite a few meditations. I'm like, oh fuck, this
Speaker 1: is uncomfortable on my back. I better get another cushion.
Speaker 1: Oh my knees, I can't get in this much inflection.
Speaker 1: And then it's halfway through and I'm more stressed than
Speaker 1: when I went in, and I think about the purpose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's like, for example, I love motorbikes. I've had
Speaker 1: motorbikes since I was a kid growing up in the country,
Speaker 1: and most of my travel is done on a motorbike,
Speaker 1: not in a car. But the funny thing is when
Speaker 1: I'm riding a bike, most of the time, I'm somewhere
Speaker 1: between happy and really happy and comfortable and having fun
Speaker 1: and relaxed. And I don't know, producing a bit of
Speaker 1: dopamine because I really enjoy that experience. But the funny
Speaker 1: thing is I can have someone on the back of
Speaker 1: the same bike at the same time and they're having
Speaker 1: the worst experience of all time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, and you have different DNA methyleation patterns,
Speaker 2: is what they he Well, you think.
Speaker 1: About someone who loves dogs versus someone who hates dogs,
Speaker 1: like the dog lovers on the floor with a dog.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, you know, they're they're getting licked
Speaker 1: and they're padding and they're spooning, and they're having the
Speaker 1: best time ever, and their physiology is a certain way.
Speaker 1: And then somebody else who hates dogs is sitting on
Speaker 1: a chair and a dog walks in the room and
Speaker 1: their physiology goes nuts. But it ain't about whether or
Speaker 1: not dogs create this or that versus how that individual
Speaker 1: responds to that exact same.
Speaker 2: Thing, right right, You know that was part of that.
Speaker 1: Differently, even though I know I'm really digressing here, but
Speaker 1: I think about, like I'm interested in the psychology of
Speaker 1: getting offended, doc. You know, It's like if I'm in
Speaker 1: a room like the other day, I literally did gig
Speaker 1: and this lady that employed me. I was about to
Speaker 1: I was presenting, and I was about to swear, and
Speaker 1: I said, oh, is this a swearing or a non
Speaker 1: swearing event? And she goes swear away, right, And I
Speaker 1: don't swear for effect. I just swear because that's how
Speaker 1: I talk. And it's probably probably I shouldn't, but I'm
Speaker 1: a little too sweary. But anyway, the funny thing is
Speaker 1: you might say, I might say fuck to a room
Speaker 1: of one hundred people and one person gets offended, but
Speaker 1: ninety nine people don't. And then I think, ah, so
Speaker 1: what causes the offense? Is it the word? Well, clearly not,
Speaker 1: because ninety nine people didn't get offended, So what is
Speaker 1: that about? And then this whole thing of like, and
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to get into the political correctness space,
Speaker 1: but who do we cater to?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Do we cater to the one that might get offended
Speaker 1: and then the nine none that think it's funny? We
Speaker 1: discount them? Or you know, like you think about like
Speaker 1: life is really an ongoing process of how me, the individual,
Speaker 1: interacts with the world around me and responds to the
Speaker 1: world around me. I don't know where I'm going with this.
Speaker 1: By the way.
Speaker 2: No, that's quite all right. That's what I love some
Speaker 2: of these conversations. But yeah, offense, taking offense to something
Speaker 2: is clearly on the person who took the offense, because
Speaker 2: they could be a minority in the audience, as you're suggesting,
Speaker 2: it can sometimes only be one person, and it's because
Speaker 2: they've had a unique set of experiences that changes how
Speaker 2: they are perceiving either the word or the act that
Speaker 2: is creating discomfort in their mind. Yeah, and I'm of
Speaker 2: the mind where we need to stop being so easily offended.
Speaker 2: I think we need to educate people to because it's
Speaker 2: kind of egotistical to be offended, right, you know, it's
Speaker 2: kind of like, well, the world revolves around me. You
Speaker 2: said something that I don't like, so I'm going to
Speaker 2: tell you I'm offended by it in hopes that you
Speaker 2: change your behavior, that you be more like me. Yes,
Speaker 2: I find that egotistical. What you should do is just
Speaker 2: let these things slide right off you. What's the big deal.
Speaker 2: They're not physically hurting you in any way, and any
Speaker 2: psychological damage you incur is what you bring on yourself. Okay,
Speaker 2: Like you said, it's how you're reacting. And I understand,
Speaker 2: and I sympathize with it. But there are tools out there,
Speaker 2: There are psychologists out there that can train you to
Speaker 2: change your perception. Okay, yes, and I think that the
Speaker 2: onus is on the offended to do that, you know.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't mean that they can't get behind a cause,
Speaker 2: you know, to rally to change, yes, whatever it was
Speaker 2: that offended them. But to sit there and suffer and
Speaker 2: accuse someone of making you suffer because of your thought patterns,
Speaker 2: I find that fundamentally wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I don't know. Somebody sent me this thing yesterday. Doc.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna this is not a great thing to do
Speaker 1: in the middle of a podcast, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: try and find it quickly. This this American pastor what's
Speaker 1: his name, Bishop Bronner.
Speaker 2: Just happened from there.
Speaker 1: Just happened to me anyway. He said, stay away from
Speaker 1: people who act like a victim and a problem that
Speaker 1: they created.
Speaker 2: Ah. Yeah, So that's kind of speaking to that same point,
Speaker 2: isn't it. Yeah, And again I'm not trying to be
Speaker 2: little in anybody's feelings. They're real, yes, okay, Yes, and
Speaker 2: I sympathize, of course, But by the same token, you
Speaker 2: can't demand that the world can form to your views.
Speaker 2: We live in a very diverse population with people who
Speaker 2: have had incredibly different experiences, and I think it is
Speaker 2: actually harmful to tell people to stop talking, okay, or
Speaker 2: expressing an opinion because you're offended. They have every right
Speaker 2: to say it. They have every right to their opinion,
Speaker 2: and you know, you're entitled to your feelings. But I
Speaker 2: do think you're entitled to cancel someone or to shut
Speaker 2: them down because of the way it made you feel.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, the way you feel is kind
Speaker 2: of your responsibility.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's like an individual response to a particular stimulus.
Speaker 1: And I think Ricky Gervais says something frequently like, it's
Speaker 1: not my job to look after your feelings. It's not
Speaker 1: It's not my job to manage your emotions. That's yours.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: He's a wonderful comedian, and I think he would. He's
Speaker 2: giving advice that a lot of psychologists would give one
Speaker 2: hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Hey, just quickly, before we move on from twins, I
Speaker 1: just want to know is there something they kind of
Speaker 1: infer I've seen a few docos where we're very very close,
Speaker 1: I mean identical twins who are pretty much intertwined. Their
Speaker 1: lives are intertwined. You know, these twins that end up
Speaker 1: marrying two brothers and they live in houses next door
Speaker 1: to each other or two sisters and whatever. But they
Speaker 1: they they maintain that they have like basically a form
Speaker 1: of telepathy. Now you know that that is probably just
Speaker 1: a byproduct of the fact that they are identical twins.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, there's no hookus pocus about that at all.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you have the same genes and they
Speaker 2: build roughly the same brain, and let's see, their epigenetic
Speaker 2: landscape is pretty identical, and yeah, you're going to be
Speaker 2: thinking the same things. I would presume that in those cases,
Speaker 2: those sorts of twins had very similar experiences growing up,
Speaker 2: nothing dramatically different, So it would be yeah, it's not
Speaker 2: surprising to me that they would be on the same wavelength,
Speaker 2: if you will.
Speaker 1: I know, this is like a too big a question
Speaker 1: for a however many minute answer, But people listening to
Speaker 1: this now they're getting the head around. Okay, my genetics
Speaker 1: are my genetics, but the way that those genes are
Speaker 1: expressed is a variable that I can influence to some extent.
Speaker 1: And even though Dad had a heart attack and even
Speaker 1: though mum got diabetes, that doesn't mean that I have
Speaker 1: to have either. If we're interested in opening the door
Speaker 1: personally on exploring, I mean, well, reading your book is
Speaker 1: a great start. But other than that, like how to
Speaker 1: optimize everything? How do I get the best chance of
Speaker 1: optimizing my genetic potential? Is there a bit of a
Speaker 1: stepping off point? I well, you know what I would.
Speaker 2: Tell my kids, you know, in order to grow up
Speaker 2: as as healthy and you know, with a with a
Speaker 2: good well being as possible, you can go a long
Speaker 2: long way by doing simple, common sense things. And I
Speaker 2: know this is boring, trite advice, but if you eat
Speaker 2: right and you exercise, and you don't put toxins into
Speaker 2: your body, yeah, you know, I talk toxins like hard
Speaker 2: drugs and smoking and things like that, you're going to
Speaker 2: you know, by and large, you know, have a very
Speaker 2: happy life and a state of you know, a good
Speaker 2: state of well being. Now, that doesn't always work for
Speaker 2: people who have like some kind of genetic aberration that
Speaker 2: leads them into clinical depression. I'm not saying that patients
Speaker 2: who suffer that magnitude of mental health condition can simply
Speaker 2: eat their way out of it or something like that.
Speaker 2: But for most most people who are struggling with with
Speaker 2: happiness and aren't clinically depressed, it's probably just an imbalance
Speaker 2: in you know, these these processed foods and what they're
Speaker 2: messing up in your body in terms of gene expression,
Speaker 2: in terms of microbiome content, and in just in terms
Speaker 2: of brain health. You know, how they're how they're messing
Speaker 2: up your brain chemistry. So I always try to think
Speaker 2: in the context of our ancient ancestors. Okay, not necessarily
Speaker 2: paleo diet per se, but we evolved for tens of
Speaker 2: thousands of years as hunter gatherers, eating real food, foraging
Speaker 2: a lot of plant, a lot of roots, probably insects,
Speaker 2: but I don't necessarily advocate that, and then occasionally some meat, okay,
Speaker 2: And that's what we that's what our bodies are programmed
Speaker 2: to ingest and function off of. You know, for tens
Speaker 2: of thousands of years. All these processed foods are just
Speaker 2: a few decades old. We really have no idea what
Speaker 2: they might be doing long term to our health. We
Speaker 2: certainly know it isn't helping with the obesity problem. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So we just got to be really careful about what
Speaker 2: we're putting into our bodies. So that's that's what I
Speaker 2: would tell my kids, and that's how I would advise
Speaker 2: your listeners. I know it's boring, but that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm boring. That's what I'm boring. We've got to wind
Speaker 1: it up. But before we go, you wrote another article
Speaker 1: which I read everyone. That's great. It's called you Don't
Speaker 1: need a lot of money to read a Rich Life,
Speaker 1: So go to author Bill Sullivan dot com. But just quickly,
Speaker 1: one of the takeaways from that was that a lot
Speaker 1: of global kind of surveys around happiness don't usually include
Speaker 1: people living in low income communities, which I never even
Speaker 1: thought about that. And that also one of the studies
Speaker 1: showed that people from low income indigenous societies often report,
Speaker 1: you know, higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction, or
Speaker 1: as high levels as what we would think as people
Speaker 1: living in a privileged situation. I found that really interesting.
Speaker 2: I found it interesting too, and I was surprised that
Speaker 2: a lot of these happiness researchers did not look at
Speaker 2: happiness levels in other societies. They usually focused on the
Speaker 2: developed countries. Yes, but there was a study that I
Speaker 2: wrote about in this article that specifically looked at people
Speaker 2: who still live either as hunter gatherer tribes or in
Speaker 2: low income societies, meaning they're making less than one thousand
Speaker 2: dollars per year. Okay, And the way the happiness scale works,
Speaker 2: it's out of one to ten being the most happy.
Speaker 2: A lot of these societies were ranking up there at
Speaker 2: seven out of ten, which is some of the happiest
Speaker 2: measurements on that scale ever seen. You know, they're compatible
Speaker 2: with the Scandinavian countries, you know, like Denmark and Norway
Speaker 2: that usually score very high. And most people chalk that
Speaker 2: up to you know, universal healthcare, universal college. You know,
Speaker 2: the government has a very strong safety net, and that's
Speaker 2: why these countries do so well. And I think that's
Speaker 2: a good argument to be made. But what this new
Speaker 2: study tells us is that you don't need a lot
Speaker 2: of wealth or money to just be happy. Okay. So
Speaker 2: and it kind of makes a lot of sense if
Speaker 2: you watch any of these documentaries about some of these societies.
Speaker 2: They don't look sad, they don't look depressed, they're not
Speaker 2: moping around. They have smiles on their faces. They're laughing,
Speaker 2: they're joking, they're teasing, they're having fun. They look like
Speaker 2: they're genuinely enjoying life. Not that I'm going to go
Speaker 2: join one of these tribes, Greg, but I think it
Speaker 2: has some important lessons that we are chasing ghosts of
Speaker 2: happiness in this country. We are going after the wrong things. Now,
Speaker 2: the study doesn't address what does make these people happy.
Speaker 2: It just tells us that they are, And it tells
Speaker 2: us that you don't need a lot of wealth or
Speaker 2: material things or fancy cars or anything like that in
Speaker 2: order to be happy. And I think a lot of
Speaker 2: us could probably by stress reduction, simplify our lives and
Speaker 2: avoid chasing after some of these things that might make
Speaker 2: us feel good momentarily okay, but don't sustain happiness. So
Speaker 2: I think that's what we need to reframe the question
Speaker 2: around is to what do you really need at the
Speaker 2: most basic life level and you find out that it's
Speaker 2: not that much. You know, you need food, shelter, and
Speaker 2: you know, some community safety and community. Yeah, if you
Speaker 2: can get, if you can learn to be grateful for that,
Speaker 2: it goes a long way in building sustained contentment.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's a really good idea to question
Speaker 1: the stories that we have, like in Australia anyway, success
Speaker 1: for the most part is about what you have and
Speaker 1: what you earn and what you own and what you
Speaker 1: drive and where you live and what you look like
Speaker 1: and what people think are you and your brand and
Speaker 1: your money, and not that any of those things are
Speaker 1: bad things, but you know, we have this story that
Speaker 1: this external thing will give me this internal state.
Speaker 4: When I have that, I'll be happy when I look
Speaker 4: like that. I'll be happy when I weigh that. I'll
Speaker 4: be happy when I've got tenure. I'll be happy when
Speaker 4: I own another gym. I'll be happy when my biceps
Speaker 4: are bigger.
Speaker 1: You know. In my case, like I spent my life
Speaker 1: trying to find happiness until I was about thirty. And
Speaker 1: it's not like I've figured it all out now and
Speaker 1: I'm the bad one, but you know, so much of
Speaker 1: my belief system was built around this idea that what
Speaker 1: was going to make me less anxious, more fulfilled, more calm,
Speaker 1: more happy was all of these external acquisitions and achievements.
Speaker 1: And the more shit I got, the more stuff I got,
Speaker 1: it was almost I'm not saying that was the cause,
Speaker 1: but I think I became more and more despondent because
Speaker 1: I thought, well, maybe I don't need two motorbikes. Maybe
Speaker 1: I need four. Maybe I don't need a fifty inch TV,
Speaker 1: I need one hundred inch to or you know, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't that, but it wasn't far from that. And
Speaker 1: then you get to the point and you go, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe what's not Maybe the problem is not what I
Speaker 1: have or don't have, but rather who I am or
Speaker 1: who I'm not.
Speaker 2: Right now.
Speaker 1: I know that's a bit philosophical, but we're a very
Speaker 1: externally focused culture. We worry like, we worry about what
Speaker 1: people who don't even like us think exactly, Like, what's
Speaker 1: that about? Well, I really like that.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the whole external internal thing, because the way
Speaker 2: to happiness is, as these studies are suggesting, is to
Speaker 2: flip that script. Happiness is not going to be found
Speaker 2: in externals because there's always one more wrong hire on
Speaker 2: that ladder. Okay, you can't stop claiming you're always going
Speaker 2: to want more. Whereas if you can train your internal systems,
Speaker 2: your inner monologue to be grateful for the bounty that
Speaker 2: you already do have, yeah, you're you're going to be
Speaker 2: in a much you know, better mental health state than
Speaker 2: someone who keeps chasing after you know, more of this
Speaker 2: fool's gold and then I like about these So is
Speaker 2: the charity aspect, you know, and this stems from internal feelings.
Speaker 2: A lot of studies support that the more you help
Speaker 2: people and the more generous you are, you know, not
Speaker 2: necessarily with your money, but with your time and with
Speaker 2: your compassion, the happier you yourself become.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense. I love
Speaker 1: chatting to you. Author Bill Sullivan dot com. The book
Speaker 1: is called Please to Meet Me. Last question before we go.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're going to like the question, but
Speaker 1: I don't care. Who's going to be the next president?
Speaker 2: The next president of the US. Wow, what a great question,
Speaker 2: Alfred E. Newman. I'm going to rate him.
Speaker 1: There you wish? Hey, mate, Well say goodbye O fair
Speaker 1: but for the moment. Thanks again, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure. Greg