February 20, 2025 • 34 mins
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In this episode, Michael Easter and I dissect the fascinating blend of scientific evidence and narrative storytelling, and learn how to navigate the sometimes conflicting realms of expert opinion and personal experience. Michael is the acclaimed author of "The Comfort Crisis" and "Scarcity Brain."
Michael's storytelling prowess paired with my evidence-based approach aims to empower you to step confidently into discomfort and reap the rewards.From the allure of digital distractions to the silent power of solitude, our discussion covers the spectrum of challenges faced when interpreting scientific evidence and applying it to real life.
Discover how venturing beyond the boundaries of comfort can unlock transformative growth in our latest conversation with
Picture this: I'm in Costa Rica, pushing my limits in a Misogi challenge led by Michael, finding new depths of resilience that even my experience with Ironman triathlons hadn't revealed. Michael's journey from a magazine editor to a full-time writer and lecturer is a testament to the power of embracing discomfort for personal evolution and health.
Together, we explore how modern life's conveniences might actually be roadblocks to growth, and how stepping into discomfort can offer profound benefits.
Time Stamps:
(3:03) Let Me Know Your Thoughts
(4:16) Michael’s Accolades and Newsletter
(7:13) Michael’s Background Starting At Men’s Health
(8:58) Short Synopsis of Michael’s Books
(14:37) Pushing Ourselves Outside of Our Comfort Zone
(17:23) Brain Gains
(19:30) Finding Your Sweet Spot
(22:21) The Scientist vs The Storyteller
(26:58) Integrating Expert Opinions
(32:33) The Misogi in Costa Rica
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Check Out "2 Percent with Michael Easter" to Improve your Health and Strengthen Your Mindset
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When you started eating meat.
Only you stopped eating a bunchof butterfingers.
Idiot Right Finding people whoI think trust and are going to
be fair and open and honest andtalk about all the possible ways
that something could be working, how a person could use it,
what type of person mightbenefit from one practice over
(00:20):
another, rather than someone whojust says taking X supplement
leads to release of Y and then Zdefinitely happens.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Hi, I'm Dr Bobby Du Bois and welcome to Live Long
and Well, a podcast where wewill talk about what you can do
to live as long as possible andwith as much energy and vigor
that you wish.
Together, we will explore whatpractical and evidence-supported
(00:59):
steps you can take.
Come join me on this veryimportant journey and I hope
that you feel empowered alongthe way.
I'm a physician, ironman,triathlete and have published
several hundred scientificstudies.
I'm honored to be your guide.
Welcome everyone to episodenumber 30, evidence Meets
(01:26):
Storytelling a discussion withauthor and podcaster Michael
Easter.
Now, this is only the secondtime I've had an interview and I
would really appreciate anyfeedback.
You have to let me know whatyou think.
Any feedback.
You have to let me know whatyou think.
Also, as the ever scientist, Ihave been looking at how long my
(01:49):
podcasts are.
Most of them are about 30minutes.
One recently was 20 minutes andone of them the one on placebo
that I just had so many things Iwanted to talk about was about
40 minutes.
Do tell me what length worksfor you best.
I look at the statistics and itkind of shows a graph of when
(02:11):
people drop off listening.
Obviously, the last 30 seconds.
People don't need to listen tothe ending and so they drop off.
But the 40-minute placebolooked like more people dropped
off earlier than I thought fromother ones.
So do give me feedback.
I love it, I incorporate it andit's very much appreciated.
(02:31):
Well, today I want to welcomeMichael Easter.
He is the New York Timesbestselling author of not just
one book, but of two books theComfort Crisis and Scarcity
Brain.
He also writes 2%, one of thetop newsletters in health and
wellness.
I read it religiously and Iwould recommend signing up for
(02:55):
it.
I'll have a link in the shownotes.
So, michael, welcome and thankyou.
I know you are about to leaveon a long journey to begin
writing your third book, so Ireally, really appreciate your
being with us.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, thanks so much for having me.
I'm looking forward to chatting.
We've had some goodconversations so far and it'll
be great to have another one.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's wonderful.
Well, I got to know Michael, sothis isn't a cold call.
I actually know Michael.
Now.
I didn't actually know Michaelat the beginning because I read
Scarcity Brain.
Obviously, later I went andread the other one too.
(03:38):
But Comfort Crisis, which washis first book that I read,
brought out a concept called amisogy.
So Michael will talk throughwhat comfort crisis was all
about.
But basically we live in acomfortable world so we need to
push ourselves periodically.
Michael ran a misogy.
So this is the first time Iactually got to be with Michael
(03:59):
in person and I have to say itwas the hardest thing I've ever
done.
Now I've done four full Ironmantriathlons and 12 half Ironman
triathlons, and these are sortof six to 16 hour things.
And the misogy, which is toforce you to break out of your
comfort zone, was done in CostaRica in the rainforest, and it
(04:23):
had the four H's it was hot, itwas hilly, it was humid and it
was hard.
But there was one other featurewhich is uncertainty.
I had no idea when it would end, unlike a triathlon where you
know the distances.
So Michael has indelibly etchedhimself into my psyche from
(04:49):
that experience and other ones.
Now I also think Michael and Iare kindred souls.
We have similar goals with ouraudiences.
We want to share what workswith others so that you can live
long and well.
Now, my approach is veryevidence-based.
I focus on studies and I sharethat, in a somewhat nerdy way,
(05:11):
with you.
Michael also focuses onevidence, but he's a writer and
ultimately tells a compellingstory.
We both want the same end point, but we come at it differently,
and I think that's what I'mhoping we will get to hear about
over the next few minutes.
So, michael, maybe begin tellus your background and how you
(05:35):
got to be doing what you'redoing.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, I was a editor at Men's Health Magazine for a
bunch of years.
So I came up through themagazine industry when I was in,
you know, junior high and highschool.
I was always reading, I wasalways a voracious reader of
magazines and that led me towant to work in the magazine
industry.
When I was in grad school I hadjobs at Esquire, gq and
(06:03):
Scientific American, and so thecombination of two men's
magazines and one sciencemagazine.
When a job opened at Men'sHealth, I was a good fit for
that and I worked at thatmagazine for about seven years,
I would say.
And then I ended up taking a jobas a full-time lecturer at UNLV
(06:24):
in the journalism department,because they had just launched a
medical school and they wantedto have some classes on health
journalism, things like that,and in that role half of my job
was teaching and the other halfwas continuing to write.
So I continued to write for abunch of different magazines and
when I was at UNLV I actuallyis when I wrote the Comfort
(06:46):
Crisis I left the full time roleat UNLV maybe two years ago and
the reason for that is becauseI was doing more writing.
The writing was kind of takingoff.
I had started doing the substack, which is three emails a
week that I put a lot of workinto and it was just kind of
time became a thing and so, yeah, now I've been continuing with
(07:10):
books, spending probably most ofmy day to day writing my
newsletter, and it's.
It's been fun, it's been a goodjourney.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
That's wonderful.
So for folks who may not knowabout comfort crisis and
scarcity brain, can you give asort of a synopsis of each one,
because I think that will kindof lead into where we're going
to go with our dialogue time.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So, if you think about the things that most
impact your experience of dailylife today, it's all
technologies that are relativelynew in the grand scheme of time
and space, and they're alldesigned to make your life
easier and more comfortable.
So everything from climatecontrol to how we get to point A
, from point A to point B, tohow we interface with other
humans, to how we get our food,how we spend our time and
attention on and on and on, Iargue that these advances are,
(08:10):
of course, great in the grandscheme of time and space, but,
at the same time, what oftenimproves people are things that
require some level of discomfort.
So the classic example that Iuse, that everyone gets, is that
we've really engineeredphysical activity out of our
lives, and the average person inthe past probably took, if you
(08:35):
look at different studies, maybe20,000 steps a day.
Well, today, because we havesedentary jobs, because we have
escalators, because we have cars, the average person takes 4000
steps a day for 4500 about, andthat's linked to a lot of the
things that impact chronicdisease risks, and so I kind of
(08:56):
apply that same logic across theboard to different things.
We're no longer.
We no longer experience hungerbecause we have easy access to
food, we don't experiencetemperature swings, because we
spend 93% of our time indoors.
We don't get outdoor exposure.
On and on and on.
So that's what that book isabout.
Looks at how some of thedownsides of our modern amazing
(09:20):
world and how adding certainforms of discomfort can improve
your life and health.
And scarcity brain, I think.
Fundamentally it looks at thisquestion of everyone knows that
everything is fine in moderationand yet we all suck at
moderation and so and so why isthat?
(09:42):
And I argue that humans evolvedin these environments where
what we needed to survive andthrive was pretty scarce for all
of time.
And very recently, in the grandscheme of time and space, we
have all these things that wereally evolved to crave, and we
have them in an abundance, andwe don't necessarily have
(10:03):
governors on them.
So everything from food topossessions to information, on
and on and on, we have this justamazing array of it all and we
tend to overdo it and that hurtsus.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Is there a conceptual connection between the two
books, an overarching theme thatpulls them together, or are
they just separate issues thatwe confront in life?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
when I started writing scarcity brain, I didn't
think the two books related toeach other, but I think over
time they are linked and I thinkthe thing that sort of links
them is that in the world todayto improve your life you often
have to embrace short termdiscomfort.
(10:56):
To get a long term benefitcould come from exercise.
Right.
Exercise is hard but by doingit we improve.
In the long term it could befrom.
You know, in scarcity brain Ispent a lot of time.
Spent a lot of time unpackingthe technologies that most take
our attention things like cellphones, media, things like that
(11:20):
and I think that resisting thepull of that can be challenging.
But if you use your time in adifferent way, that can often
improve your life, even thoughit isn't quite as easy as
watching 20 dog videos in a row,or whatever it is, on Instagram
.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yep, all right, let's let's drill in a little bit to
comfort crisis and talk a littlebit about what does it mean to
push ourselves out of ourcomfort zone?
I think the argument you makeis very compelling that life has
been changed compared to wherewe were kind of over the
(11:54):
millennium, and that life isquite easy now and that if we
live in that world all day longand all year long, we may be
losing some of who we are andsome of our self-confidence.
So then the question is what'sthe antidote to it?
And you talk about the misogyor the kind of ultimate
(12:17):
challenge experience to get outof the comfort zone.
And absolutely I sensed it,experienced it and it was really
tough.
So my question is and there maynot be evidence to support this
but does challenging ourself toget out of our comfort zone
(12:37):
does it lead to broader benefits?
No pain, no gain.
Now you're asking me to do pain.
Do I gain something beyond that?
So I talk to people about coldplunges and they're like I don't
want to do it.
That's no, that's awful, and Isay well it's.
It raises dopamine levels.
This is good for you, but thequestion is pushing ourself.
(13:00):
Does it generalize?
Does it carry over into ourlife?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think.
Well, first I'll say it dependson what sort of discomfort
we're talking about.
A lot of things that are reallygood for us are uncomfortable
Exercise, Occasionally goingthrough some hunger in the
context of a world where we'vegot ultra-processed food Time
(13:31):
and silence in the context of aworld where we've increased the
world's loudness fourfold.
There's also forms ofdiscomfort that are just going
to be uncomfortable for the sakeof them, and so the way that I
sort of frame it is I look at alot of things through an
evolutionary lens.
And what were we adapted to inthe past and how have we removed
(13:55):
these things that are good forus?
Now the question of whetherthey generalize.
I think that many things like,for example, exercise, can
generalize over to increaseconfidence.
I think doing something like aMasogi, which is this single
(14:15):
hard task that you're going todo once a year and just really
throw yourself outside of whatyou think you're capable of and
have a moment where maybe yourealize you're capable of far
more, I think that cangeneralize in many ways to
increase confidence in dailylife.
And, of course, I thinkexercise generalizes just over
(14:36):
to being healthier in general.
It's going to help you movebetter, and if you move better,
you're going to be happier,right?
People who are people who haveless mobility are generally have
higher rates of depression,anxiety, all these different
things.
So to sort of unpack, a thingI'll get is you know, people
might say, well, is doing anIronman triathlon really going
(14:58):
to make me better in theboardroom?
It's like well, it's not aone-to-one right.
An Ironman triathlon is notgoing to overhaul your sales
numbers and all these things.
At the same time, I think itcan give a person insight about
themselves, what they're capableof, what they consider hard and
challenging and that canenhance other areas of their
(15:20):
life.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
And I think that's what we would all hope is that
these challenges will carry over.
More broadly, and I'm guessingthere's probably not a lot of
psychological literature on this.
I did a podcast recently on the10 or so items you can do to
reduce your risk of cognitivedecline, and there were obvious
(15:44):
ones, like you know get yourblood pressure under control,
exercise, sauna, those kinds ofthings.
And then I got to the one whichwas the thorniest, which is
brain games, because people aremaking a lot of claims and a lot
of money off of ways to trainyour brain and the theory is, if
(16:09):
you push your brain you willmaintain cognitive function.
But when they actually did thestudies and they looked at
things like, okay, so you docrossword puzzles and you do
Sudoku, and the question then is, if you do that regularly, what
happens a year or two or threelater?
And what they found was yourability at crossword puzzles and
Sudoku improved or maintaineditself.
(16:31):
So by doing that, if your lifewas focused on I really want to
be a good crossword puzzleperson as I get into my 70s and
80s then the answer is it worked, but in terms of, did it kind
of then blend over to generalcognitive abilities?
The answer was no.
So I think the misogyny andpushing our comfort may be very,
(16:54):
very different.
Certainly, I think about kidsdoing athletics as a kid and the
coach basically helping themsee that they've got a lot more
in them than they thought theydid and, when they fall down,
getting them back up again, andI believe that really really
does change who they are ashuman beings.
And so maybe it works in kids.
(17:17):
The question is, does it workin us adult people?
I think that the question isuncertain, but I think your
anecdotes make a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, I think so.
And there is some research froma guy whose name is Mark Seery.
He's in one of the New Yorkhe's I can't remember exactly
what university he's at, buthe's done some work where he's
found that, on one hand, peoplewho have challenge after
challenge after challenge intheir life, like just just
hardships happening over andover and over piling up, they
(17:51):
don't have good rates of mentalhealth.
Over piling up, they don't havegood rates of mental health.
On the other hand, people whohave no challenges at all in
their life, they have equallypoor rates of mental health.
There seems to be a sweet spotwhere going through trials and
especially if you can unpack andlearn about them and analyze
what, what did I take from this?
What did I learn about myself?
What did I learn about, um, howI might behave in the future
(18:15):
those people had some of thebest rates of mental health.
So I think for me, like and ifyou look at it from the concept,
if you look at it from theperspective of a rite of passage
, the most important part of therite of passage was not
necessarily the going out anddoing, the challenging aspect of
it, it was the reintegrationand it was where the person
(18:39):
comes back and we sit the persondown and we go.
What did you learn?
What is this going to tell you?
What is this going to tell youabout the future, what did you
learn about yourself and how areyou going to use this?
And so really kind of makingsure that you analyze that, let
that settle, I think, isimportant.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
That's a really good point and I think probably in my
challenging experiences,probably I didn't go through a
reintegration process as well asI could have.
So I think that's a really goodinsight.
So for those of you who aregoing to do a cold plunge or
something, don't just do it, butreflect on the fact you were
(19:17):
able to do it and that youthought you might not be able to
, but you did so good lesson,thank you, michael.
So I have an inner scientist inme.
As folks are not probably verysurprised to hear, I'm also an
outer scientist.
I'm sort of a scientist throughand through.
(19:37):
Michael, I think you have aninner scientist, but you also
have an inner storyteller.
You're a wonderful storyteller.
I mean, all good writers cancapture people's attention, keep
their attention and have astoryline that carries through
(19:57):
an awful lot.
So which of your two parts yourinner scientist or your inner
storyteller wins out if there'sa conflict?
I mean, I'm about to do apodcast on red light therapy and
there's a lot of argumentsabout red light therapy.
(20:20):
I'm going to talk about whitelight therapy and blue light and
all the rest.
But I went into it trying tohave an open mind because I
didn't think it worked, but then, as a scientist, I was like
well, wait a second, maybethere's something to this in
some circumstances.
And so in the end, I may nothave a compelling story, because
the evidence may be moreconflicting than I would like.
(20:42):
So when you have a conflictbetween evidence and a story,
how do you resolve that conflict?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
That's a great question.
Conflict that's a greatquestion.
So what I?
What I think I do is that if Ihave a story and an experience
or a anecdote of someone elsewho had an experience and they
learned from it and they seem tobenefit from it and it was good
, what I will then do is go okay, well, what does the evidence
(21:13):
say about this?
Is there a good reason for whythis might have benefits for a
person?
And I try to look at both sides.
Right, I'm going to go outlooking for reasons why this
could have benefits.
I'm going to actively searchfor evidence that refutes what I
think, and then I just try andpresent what I found.
(21:36):
So I had this experience.
It helped me and guess what?
The nerds either agree or theydisagree, and you can take that
as you will.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
As a person, so you present it as there are
different ways to think itthrough.
It may not all line up in a row.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, exactly, I had one.
I'll give you an example.
I did a post on 2%.
It was about the benefits ofsilence, and I led that post
with an anecdote about my timein the Arctic where it was so
unbelievably silent up there,like so silent, and I found
(22:15):
myself a lot calmer in thatsilence.
And so that led me to startlooking at the evidence around
noise and the effects of thenoise that we live in, and how
much louder has our world gotten.
And there is a lot of goodevidence that suggests that
people who live in more noisehave worse mental health and
(22:37):
physical health outcomes.
At the same time, people wholive near more noise might have
other things going on.
They may live closer to a road,which, by the way, roads have
more smog.
If they live closer to a noisyroad, they may also live in a
neighborhood that is lessaffluent, so they may have less
(22:58):
money for help.
So there's this myriad ofdifferent things that are
happening.
So I try to account for thatmyriad of things.
But then just look on balanceand say, look, if you live in
the context of noise, probablyspending more time in silence is
going to be good for you.
At the same time it'scomplicated, why don't you give
it a try?
And if it helps you, do more ofwhat helps you.
(23:18):
Do less of what hurts you.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yes, and I'm very big of the end of one trial.
If the evidence doesn't give usthe right answer, or at least
the definitive answer, we cantest it in ourselves and see
what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, and I really, I really appreciate that about
you because you, I mean, you dohave such a deep command of the
science.
You've done a ton of researchyourself, and I think that
sometimes people who are youknow, quote, unquote
evidence-based, can getexceedingly pedantic about the
science and it's like, well,what are you?
(23:54):
What are you going to say?
If this person's like, hey, Ido this and it helps me, what
are you going to do?
Argue with that, right?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Okay.
So we talked about the conflictbetween the evidence and the
story.
I would say one way that wediffer is is that I focus on
what the scientific studies showand oftentimes there may not be
evidence to support one way oranother.
(24:23):
You know, the study hasn't beendone and there's a million
areas like nutrition where goodstudies generally haven't been
done and I sort of leave it atthat.
I sort of say this is what weknow, this is what we don't know
and oh, by the way, you know,this is what we know, this is
what we don't know.
And oh, by the way, you know,this is what I've been doing.
I think a part of your approachis to also talk to experts and
(24:48):
to fold in expert opinion intothe process.
I tend to avoid that.
I'll give you my bias for themoment.
In 1491, if we got the bestscientists and astronomers
together and we said, is theworld flat or round, the experts
(25:11):
would say there's not aquestion, it is flat, obviously.
In 1492, columbus went off theedge and realized it wasn't an
edge and we found the new worldand the rest is history.
So experts I tend to take witha grain of salt.
How do you fold in the expert'sview, knowing that you know
(25:33):
eggs used to be bad.
Now eggs are good.
The latest is seed oils are bad.
My podcast suggests maybe notso much.
How do you deal with expertsand figure out whether to stand
firm on what they say or to takeit with a grain of salt?
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I think that I would differentiate between an expert
and a practitioner.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I think that people who are on the ground and
actually working with people canbe very, very informative.
So we may not have a clue aboutnutrition, right, like we have,
there's a lot of open-endedquestions about nutrition.
Nutrition, right, like we wehave there's a lot of open-ended
questions about nutrition.
It's like, okay, if I just gowith the studies, I'm going to
be like, well, here are allthese complications with the
(26:24):
studies, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah.
It's like, okay, well, maybelet's talk to someone that helps
people lose weight.
What do you have people do?
Why do you think it works?
Based on what you've seen, doesthat make sense?
Is there cases where thatdoesn't?
And so I just ask them a lot ofquestions and I think from that
you can say like, hey, there'suncertainty in the studies.
(26:44):
But I think the the the problemwith many studies is they're
conducted in a vacuum, andhumans don't live in a vacuum.
We don't live in a lab, right,we'll never get a good nutrition
study because we can't lock ababy in a room and you know, you
got a thousand babies and youlock them in a lab for the rest
of their life and you feed someof them this and the others that
(27:04):
, like, we just can't do that.
So there's a lot that we'rejust never going to know, not to
mention that when you put aperson in a free living
environment, a lot of stuff justgoes totally out the window.
And so I think what I try anddo is blend the research with
what people are finding, workson the ground and you know, and
(27:25):
always be open to the fact thatthings change over time, and try
it kind of back to that idea oflike, hey, if it helps you,
great, do more of it.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, and I think that approach makes a lot of
sense, especially if you'redealing with issues that you
could measure fairly soon.
I talk to experts and this iswhat they suggest for improving
your sleep or losing some weight.
And, yes, you can try it.
You can do an NM1 trial inyourself in a week, a month, six
(27:58):
months.
You'll know whether it worksfor you.
Where it gets more challengingfor me is when people are
touting benefits that you won'tsee for 30 years.
So if you take vitamin D,vitamin E, omega-3, you know
whatever and I do this with allmy patients and they feel great
(28:20):
and it will help you live longeryou kind of have to take it on
faith or religion that they'reright.
And because you can't you can'tassess it after a week or a
month, you kind of have to do itfor 30 years.
I mean, I started takingcreatine to see if it would help
my strength training andthere's some pretty good data in
(28:41):
the fitness world and if youtalk to people they say it's
great.
But I wanted to test it inmyself and I did a DEXA scan and
started it and did my strengthtraining and six months later,
you know, retested it and itdefinitely worked for me.
So I'm really big on tryingthings that people might say
(29:03):
works, as long as we can measureit relatively soon.
Otherwise we're just have tohope that it works, and hope to
me is not the same as science.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, and I, I try to .
I try to speak with expertsthat will speak to those
uncertainties and will kind ofask the bigger questions you
know.
So, for example and by the way,I would never do this, but
(29:38):
let's say I talk to a carnivorediet person- Uh-huh.
Oh, carnivore, is this the thing?
And here's all these reasonswhy it works, blah, blah, blah.
It's like I would like to talkto the person who goes here are
all these different diets,here's what people have tried
and why it might work and why itmight not work.
You know, I find the expertthat goes well.
(30:00):
When you started eating meat,only you stopped eating a bunch
of butterfingers, idiot, right.
So I try and find people likeI've had enough background
training being coming up throughmen's health, where I just had
this editor that would justpoint out possible fallacies
that I can.
(30:21):
Now I'm better at findingpeople who I think trust and are
going to be fair and open andhonest and talk about all the
possible ways that somethingcould be working, how a person
could use it, what type ofperson might benefit from one
practice over another, ratherthan someone who just says
(30:43):
taking X supplement leads torelease of Y and then Z
definitely happens.
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yep, mechanism-based medicine not my favorite
approach.
Yeah.
So, michael, as we wrap up, isthere anything I didn't ask you
that I should have, or anythingon your radar that you're
excited about?
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Here's what I'll say.
When we did our Masogi in CostaRica, you were my favorite case
study that survived thesurvivor, you completed it,
which was it was just absolutelyincredible.
But what I think I loved seeingis that when we got there, you
(31:32):
had a lot of questions how manyliters of water do I need to
take?
How long are we going to behiking?
Do I need this thing?
Do I need that thing?
Do I need this thing?
And the answer was yeah.
I don't know, maybe you do,maybe you don't.
And I could see you wereuncomfortable going into that
because the lack of thecertainty and the ability to
(31:55):
control things.
But but you went into theunknown and by doing that, you
kind of kept putting one foot infront of the other and just
doing the thing and then at theend of it, it's almost like I
saw this like shift where you Ithink you even told me wow, I
like I being very um, makingsure all my ducks in a row has
(32:20):
helped me my like entire career.
It's allowed me to get where Iam.
But in this scenario I couldn'tdo that and that was opened up,
this whole new thing, and Ijust thought it was like the
most beautiful example of how,for really anyone, throwing
yourself occasionally into anadventure can be can be
informative.
So I just, I just love that.
(32:41):
I think about that often.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Michael, thank you, that's very sweet.
Yes, it made me confrontuncertainty in ways I'd never
had, and it was good for me.
It really, really was.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
It was awesome.
It was awesome that youfinished.
You crushed that thing it wastruly phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Michael, thank you for joining us today.
For my listeners, please docheck out his newsletter 2%.
Again, I'll have the link foryou.
We come at the issue of livelong and well in slightly
different ways, but we reallyhope the end point is the same
(33:23):
for all of you and until nexttime.
Thank you all for listening.
Thanks so much for listening toLive Long and Well with Dr
Bobby.
If you liked this episode,please provide a review on Apple
or Spotify or wherever youlisten.
If you want to continue thisjourney or want to receive my
(33:47):
newsletter on practical andscientific ways to improve your
health and longevity, pleasevisit me at
drbobbylivelongandwellcom.
That's, doctor, as in D-R Bobby.
Live long and wellcom.
When you started eating meat.
Only you stopped eating a bunchof butterfingers.
Idiot Right Finding people whoI think trust and are going to
be fair and open and honest andtalk about all the possible ways
that something could be working, how a person could use it,
what type of person mightbenefit from one practice over
(00:20):
another, rather than someone whojust says taking X supplement
leads to release of Y and then Zdefinitely happens.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Hi, I'm Dr Bobby Du Bois and welcome to Live Long
and Well, a podcast where wewill talk about what you can do
to live as long as possible andwith as much energy and vigor
that you wish.
Together, we will explore whatpractical and evidence-supported
(00:59):
steps you can take.
Come join me on this veryimportant journey and I hope
that you feel empowered alongthe way.
I'm a physician, ironman,triathlete and have published
several hundred scientificstudies.
I'm honored to be your guide.
Welcome everyone to episodenumber 30, evidence Meets
(01:26):
Storytelling a discussion withauthor and podcaster Michael
Easter.
Now, this is only the secondtime I've had an interview and I
would really appreciate anyfeedback.
You have to let me know whatyou think.
Any feedback.
You have to let me know whatyou think.
Also, as the ever scientist, Ihave been looking at how long my
(01:49):
podcasts are.
Most of them are about 30minutes.
One recently was 20 minutes andone of them the one on placebo
that I just had so many things Iwanted to talk about was about
40 minutes.
Do tell me what length worksfor you best.
I look at the statistics and itkind of shows a graph of when
(02:11):
people drop off listening.
Obviously, the last 30 seconds.
People don't need to listen tothe ending and so they drop off.
But the 40-minute placebolooked like more people dropped
off earlier than I thought fromother ones.
So do give me feedback.
I love it, I incorporate it andit's very much appreciated.
(02:31):
Well, today I want to welcomeMichael Easter.
He is the New York Timesbestselling author of not just
one book, but of two books theComfort Crisis and Scarcity
Brain.
He also writes 2%, one of thetop newsletters in health and
wellness.
I read it religiously and Iwould recommend signing up for
(02:55):
it.
I'll have a link in the shownotes.
So, michael, welcome and thankyou.
I know you are about to leaveon a long journey to begin
writing your third book, so Ireally, really appreciate your
being with us.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, thanks so much for having me.
I'm looking forward to chatting.
We've had some goodconversations so far and it'll
be great to have another one.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's wonderful.
Well, I got to know Michael, sothis isn't a cold call.
I actually know Michael.
Now.
I didn't actually know Michaelat the beginning because I read
Scarcity Brain.
Obviously, later I went andread the other one too.
(03:38):
But Comfort Crisis, which washis first book that I read,
brought out a concept called amisogy.
So Michael will talk throughwhat comfort crisis was all
about.
But basically we live in acomfortable world so we need to
push ourselves periodically.
Michael ran a misogy.
So this is the first time Iactually got to be with Michael
(03:59):
in person and I have to say itwas the hardest thing I've ever
done.
Now I've done four full Ironmantriathlons and 12 half Ironman
triathlons, and these are sortof six to 16 hour things.
And the misogy, which is toforce you to break out of your
comfort zone, was done in CostaRica in the rainforest, and it
(04:23):
had the four H's it was hot, itwas hilly, it was humid and it
was hard.
But there was one other featurewhich is uncertainty.
I had no idea when it would end, unlike a triathlon where you
know the distances.
So Michael has indelibly etchedhimself into my psyche from
(04:49):
that experience and other ones.
Now I also think Michael and Iare kindred souls.
We have similar goals with ouraudiences.
We want to share what workswith others so that you can live
long and well.
Now, my approach is veryevidence-based.
I focus on studies and I sharethat, in a somewhat nerdy way,
(05:11):
with you.
Michael also focuses onevidence, but he's a writer and
ultimately tells a compellingstory.
We both want the same end point, but we come at it differently,
and I think that's what I'mhoping we will get to hear about
over the next few minutes.
So, michael, maybe begin tellus your background and how you
(05:35):
got to be doing what you'redoing.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, I was a editor at Men's Health Magazine for a
bunch of years.
So I came up through themagazine industry when I was in,
you know, junior high and highschool.
I was always reading, I wasalways a voracious reader of
magazines and that led me towant to work in the magazine
industry.
When I was in grad school I hadjobs at Esquire, gq and
(06:03):
Scientific American, and so thecombination of two men's
magazines and one sciencemagazine.
When a job opened at Men'sHealth, I was a good fit for
that and I worked at thatmagazine for about seven years,
I would say.
And then I ended up taking a jobas a full-time lecturer at UNLV
(06:24):
in the journalism department,because they had just launched a
medical school and they wantedto have some classes on health
journalism, things like that,and in that role half of my job
was teaching and the other halfwas continuing to write.
So I continued to write for abunch of different magazines and
when I was at UNLV I actuallyis when I wrote the Comfort
(06:46):
Crisis I left the full time roleat UNLV maybe two years ago and
the reason for that is becauseI was doing more writing.
The writing was kind of takingoff.
I had started doing the substack, which is three emails a
week that I put a lot of workinto and it was just kind of
time became a thing and so, yeah, now I've been continuing with
(07:10):
books, spending probably most ofmy day to day writing my
newsletter, and it's.
It's been fun, it's been a goodjourney.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
That's wonderful.
So for folks who may not knowabout comfort crisis and
scarcity brain, can you give asort of a synopsis of each one,
because I think that will kindof lead into where we're going
to go with our dialogue time.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
So, if you think about the things that most
impact your experience of dailylife today, it's all
technologies that are relativelynew in the grand scheme of time
and space, and they're alldesigned to make your life
easier and more comfortable.
So everything from climatecontrol to how we get to point A
, from point A to point B, tohow we interface with other
humans, to how we get our food,how we spend our time and
attention on and on and on, Iargue that these advances are,
(08:10):
of course, great in the grandscheme of time and space, but,
at the same time, what oftenimproves people are things that
require some level of discomfort.
So the classic example that Iuse, that everyone gets, is that
we've really engineeredphysical activity out of our
lives, and the average person inthe past probably took, if you
(08:35):
look at different studies, maybe20,000 steps a day.
Well, today, because we havesedentary jobs, because we have
escalators, because we have cars, the average person takes 4000
steps a day for 4500 about, andthat's linked to a lot of the
things that impact chronicdisease risks, and so I kind of
(08:56):
apply that same logic across theboard to different things.
We're no longer.
We no longer experience hungerbecause we have easy access to
food, we don't experiencetemperature swings, because we
spend 93% of our time indoors.
We don't get outdoor exposure.
On and on and on.
So that's what that book isabout.
Looks at how some of thedownsides of our modern amazing
(09:20):
world and how adding certainforms of discomfort can improve
your life and health.
And scarcity brain, I think.
Fundamentally it looks at thisquestion of everyone knows that
everything is fine in moderationand yet we all suck at
moderation and so and so why isthat?
(09:42):
And I argue that humans evolvedin these environments where
what we needed to survive andthrive was pretty scarce for all
of time.
And very recently, in the grandscheme of time and space, we
have all these things that wereally evolved to crave, and we
have them in an abundance, andwe don't necessarily have
(10:03):
governors on them.
So everything from food topossessions to information, on
and on and on, we have this justamazing array of it all and we
tend to overdo it and that hurtsus.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Is there a conceptual connection between the two
books, an overarching theme thatpulls them together, or are
they just separate issues thatwe confront in life?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
when I started writing scarcity brain, I didn't
think the two books related toeach other, but I think over
time they are linked and I thinkthe thing that sort of links
them is that in the world todayto improve your life you often
have to embrace short termdiscomfort.
(10:56):
To get a long term benefitcould come from exercise.
Right.
Exercise is hard but by doingit we improve.
In the long term it could befrom.
You know, in scarcity brain Ispent a lot of time.
Spent a lot of time unpackingthe technologies that most take
our attention things like cellphones, media, things like that
(11:20):
and I think that resisting thepull of that can be challenging.
But if you use your time in adifferent way, that can often
improve your life, even thoughit isn't quite as easy as
watching 20 dog videos in a row,or whatever it is, on Instagram
.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yep, all right, let's let's drill in a little bit to
comfort crisis and talk a littlebit about what does it mean to
push ourselves out of ourcomfort zone?
I think the argument you makeis very compelling that life has
been changed compared to wherewe were kind of over the
(11:54):
millennium, and that life isquite easy now and that if we
live in that world all day longand all year long, we may be
losing some of who we are andsome of our self-confidence.
So then the question is what'sthe antidote to it?
And you talk about the misogyor the kind of ultimate
(12:17):
challenge experience to get outof the comfort zone.
And absolutely I sensed it,experienced it and it was really
tough.
So my question is and there maynot be evidence to support this
but does challenging ourself toget out of our comfort zone
(12:37):
does it lead to broader benefits?
No pain, no gain.
Now you're asking me to do pain.
Do I gain something beyond that?
So I talk to people about coldplunges and they're like I don't
want to do it.
That's no, that's awful, and Isay well it's.
It raises dopamine levels.
This is good for you, but thequestion is pushing ourself.
(13:00):
Does it generalize?
Does it carry over into ourlife?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think.
Well, first I'll say it dependson what sort of discomfort
we're talking about.
A lot of things that are reallygood for us are uncomfortable
Exercise, Occasionally goingthrough some hunger in the
context of a world where we'vegot ultra-processed food Time
(13:31):
and silence in the context of aworld where we've increased the
world's loudness fourfold.
There's also forms ofdiscomfort that are just going
to be uncomfortable for the sakeof them, and so the way that I
sort of frame it is I look at alot of things through an
evolutionary lens.
And what were we adapted to inthe past and how have we removed
(13:55):
these things that are good forus?
Now the question of whetherthey generalize.
I think that many things like,for example, exercise, can
generalize over to increaseconfidence.
I think doing something like aMasogi, which is this single
(14:15):
hard task that you're going todo once a year and just really
throw yourself outside of whatyou think you're capable of and
have a moment where maybe yourealize you're capable of far
more, I think that cangeneralize in many ways to
increase confidence in dailylife.
And, of course, I thinkexercise generalizes just over
(14:36):
to being healthier in general.
It's going to help you movebetter, and if you move better,
you're going to be happier,right?
People who are people who haveless mobility are generally have
higher rates of depression,anxiety, all these different
things.
So to sort of unpack, a thingI'll get is you know, people
might say, well, is doing anIronman triathlon really going
(14:58):
to make me better in theboardroom?
It's like well, it's not aone-to-one right.
An Ironman triathlon is notgoing to overhaul your sales
numbers and all these things.
At the same time, I think itcan give a person insight about
themselves, what they're capableof, what they consider hard and
challenging and that canenhance other areas of their
(15:20):
life.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
And I think that's what we would all hope is that
these challenges will carry over.
More broadly, and I'm guessingthere's probably not a lot of
psychological literature on this.
I did a podcast recently on the10 or so items you can do to
reduce your risk of cognitivedecline, and there were obvious
(15:44):
ones, like you know get yourblood pressure under control,
exercise, sauna, those kinds ofthings.
And then I got to the one whichwas the thorniest, which is
brain games, because people aremaking a lot of claims and a lot
of money off of ways to trainyour brain and the theory is, if
(16:09):
you push your brain you willmaintain cognitive function.
But when they actually did thestudies and they looked at
things like, okay, so you docrossword puzzles and you do
Sudoku, and the question then is, if you do that regularly, what
happens a year or two or threelater?
And what they found was yourability at crossword puzzles and
Sudoku improved or maintaineditself.
(16:31):
So by doing that, if your lifewas focused on I really want to
be a good crossword puzzleperson as I get into my 70s and
80s then the answer is it worked, but in terms of, did it kind
of then blend over to generalcognitive abilities?
The answer was no.
So I think the misogyny andpushing our comfort may be very,
(16:54):
very different.
Certainly, I think about kidsdoing athletics as a kid and the
coach basically helping themsee that they've got a lot more
in them than they thought theydid and, when they fall down,
getting them back up again, andI believe that really really
does change who they are ashuman beings.
And so maybe it works in kids.
(17:17):
The question is, does it workin us adult people?
I think that the question isuncertain, but I think your
anecdotes make a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, I think so.
And there is some research froma guy whose name is Mark Seery.
He's in one of the New Yorkhe's I can't remember exactly
what university he's at, buthe's done some work where he's
found that, on one hand, peoplewho have challenge after
challenge after challenge intheir life, like just just
hardships happening over andover and over piling up, they
(17:51):
don't have good rates of mentalhealth.
Over piling up, they don't havegood rates of mental health.
On the other hand, people whohave no challenges at all in
their life, they have equallypoor rates of mental health.
There seems to be a sweet spotwhere going through trials and
especially if you can unpack andlearn about them and analyze
what, what did I take from this?
What did I learn about myself?
What did I learn about, um, howI might behave in the future
(18:15):
those people had some of thebest rates of mental health.
So I think for me, like and ifyou look at it from the concept,
if you look at it from theperspective of a rite of passage
, the most important part of therite of passage was not
necessarily the going out anddoing, the challenging aspect of
it, it was the reintegrationand it was where the person
(18:39):
comes back and we sit the persondown and we go.
What did you learn?
What is this going to tell you?
What is this going to tell youabout the future, what did you
learn about yourself and how areyou going to use this?
And so really kind of makingsure that you analyze that, let
that settle, I think, isimportant.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
That's a really good point and I think probably in my
challenging experiences,probably I didn't go through a
reintegration process as well asI could have.
So I think that's a really goodinsight.
So for those of you who aregoing to do a cold plunge or
something, don't just do it, butreflect on the fact you were
(19:17):
able to do it and that youthought you might not be able to
, but you did so good lesson,thank you, michael.
So I have an inner scientist inme.
As folks are not probably verysurprised to hear, I'm also an
outer scientist.
I'm sort of a scientist throughand through.
(19:37):
Michael, I think you have aninner scientist, but you also
have an inner storyteller.
You're a wonderful storyteller.
I mean, all good writers cancapture people's attention, keep
their attention and have astoryline that carries through
(19:57):
an awful lot.
So which of your two parts yourinner scientist or your inner
storyteller wins out if there'sa conflict?
I mean, I'm about to do apodcast on red light therapy and
there's a lot of argumentsabout red light therapy.
(20:20):
I'm going to talk about whitelight therapy and blue light and
all the rest.
But I went into it trying tohave an open mind because I
didn't think it worked, but then, as a scientist, I was like
well, wait a second, maybethere's something to this in
some circumstances.
And so in the end, I may nothave a compelling story, because
the evidence may be moreconflicting than I would like.
(20:42):
So when you have a conflictbetween evidence and a story,
how do you resolve that conflict?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
That's a great question.
Conflict that's a greatquestion.
So what I?
What I think I do is that if Ihave a story and an experience
or a anecdote of someone elsewho had an experience and they
learned from it and they seem tobenefit from it and it was good
, what I will then do is go okay, well, what does the evidence
(21:13):
say about this?
Is there a good reason for whythis might have benefits for a
person?
And I try to look at both sides.
Right, I'm going to go outlooking for reasons why this
could have benefits.
I'm going to actively searchfor evidence that refutes what I
think, and then I just try andpresent what I found.
(21:36):
So I had this experience.
It helped me and guess what?
The nerds either agree or theydisagree, and you can take that
as you will.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
As a person, so you present it as there are
different ways to think itthrough.
It may not all line up in a row.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, exactly, I had one.
I'll give you an example.
I did a post on 2%.
It was about the benefits ofsilence, and I led that post
with an anecdote about my timein the Arctic where it was so
unbelievably silent up there,like so silent, and I found
(22:15):
myself a lot calmer in thatsilence.
And so that led me to startlooking at the evidence around
noise and the effects of thenoise that we live in, and how
much louder has our world gotten.
And there is a lot of goodevidence that suggests that
people who live in more noisehave worse mental health and
(22:37):
physical health outcomes.
At the same time, people wholive near more noise might have
other things going on.
They may live closer to a road,which, by the way, roads have
more smog.
If they live closer to a noisyroad, they may also live in a
neighborhood that is lessaffluent, so they may have less
(22:58):
money for help.
So there's this myriad ofdifferent things that are
happening.
So I try to account for thatmyriad of things.
But then just look on balanceand say, look, if you live in
the context of noise, probablyspending more time in silence is
going to be good for you.
At the same time it'scomplicated, why don't you give
it a try?
And if it helps you, do more ofwhat helps you.
(23:18):
Do less of what hurts you.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yes, and I'm very big of the end of one trial.
If the evidence doesn't give usthe right answer, or at least
the definitive answer, we cantest it in ourselves and see
what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, and I really, I really appreciate that about
you because you, I mean, you dohave such a deep command of the
science.
You've done a ton of researchyourself, and I think that
sometimes people who are youknow, quote, unquote
evidence-based, can getexceedingly pedantic about the
science and it's like, well,what are you?
(23:54):
What are you going to say?
If this person's like, hey, Ido this and it helps me, what
are you going to do?
Argue with that, right?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Okay.
So we talked about the conflictbetween the evidence and the
story.
I would say one way that wediffer is is that I focus on
what the scientific studies showand oftentimes there may not be
evidence to support one way oranother.
(24:23):
You know, the study hasn't beendone and there's a million
areas like nutrition where goodstudies generally haven't been
done and I sort of leave it atthat.
I sort of say this is what weknow, this is what we don't know
and oh, by the way, you know,this is what we know, this is
what we don't know.
And oh, by the way, you know,this is what I've been doing.
I think a part of your approachis to also talk to experts and
(24:48):
to fold in expert opinion intothe process.
I tend to avoid that.
I'll give you my bias for themoment.
In 1491, if we got the bestscientists and astronomers
together and we said, is theworld flat or round, the experts
(25:11):
would say there's not aquestion, it is flat, obviously.
In 1492, columbus went off theedge and realized it wasn't an
edge and we found the new worldand the rest is history.
So experts I tend to take witha grain of salt.
How do you fold in the expert'sview, knowing that you know
(25:33):
eggs used to be bad.
Now eggs are good.
The latest is seed oils are bad.
My podcast suggests maybe notso much.
How do you deal with expertsand figure out whether to stand
firm on what they say or to takeit with a grain of salt?
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I think that I would differentiate between an expert
and a practitioner.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I think that people who are on the ground and
actually working with people canbe very, very informative.
So we may not have a clue aboutnutrition, right, like we have,
there's a lot of open-endedquestions about nutrition.
Nutrition, right, like we wehave there's a lot of open-ended
questions about nutrition.
It's like, okay, if I just gowith the studies, I'm going to
be like, well, here are allthese complications with the
(26:24):
studies, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah.
It's like, okay, well, maybelet's talk to someone that helps
people lose weight.
What do you have people do?
Why do you think it works?
Based on what you've seen, doesthat make sense?
Is there cases where thatdoesn't?
And so I just ask them a lot ofquestions and I think from that
you can say like, hey, there'suncertainty in the studies.
(26:44):
But I think the the the problemwith many studies is they're
conducted in a vacuum, andhumans don't live in a vacuum.
We don't live in a lab, right,we'll never get a good nutrition
study because we can't lock ababy in a room and you know, you
got a thousand babies and youlock them in a lab for the rest
of their life and you feed someof them this and the others that
(27:04):
, like, we just can't do that.
So there's a lot that we'rejust never going to know, not to
mention that when you put aperson in a free living
environment, a lot of stuff justgoes totally out the window.
And so I think what I try anddo is blend the research with
what people are finding, workson the ground and you know, and
(27:25):
always be open to the fact thatthings change over time, and try
it kind of back to that idea oflike, hey, if it helps you,
great, do more of it.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, and I think that approach makes a lot of
sense, especially if you'redealing with issues that you
could measure fairly soon.
I talk to experts and this iswhat they suggest for improving
your sleep or losing some weight.
And, yes, you can try it.
You can do an NM1 trial inyourself in a week, a month, six
(27:58):
months.
You'll know whether it worksfor you.
Where it gets more challengingfor me is when people are
touting benefits that you won'tsee for 30 years.
So if you take vitamin D,vitamin E, omega-3, you know
whatever and I do this with allmy patients and they feel great
(28:20):
and it will help you live longeryou kind of have to take it on
faith or religion that they'reright.
And because you can't you can'tassess it after a week or a
month, you kind of have to do itfor 30 years.
I mean, I started takingcreatine to see if it would help
my strength training andthere's some pretty good data in
(28:41):
the fitness world and if youtalk to people they say it's
great.
But I wanted to test it inmyself and I did a DEXA scan and
started it and did my strengthtraining and six months later,
you know, retested it and itdefinitely worked for me.
So I'm really big on tryingthings that people might say
(29:03):
works, as long as we can measureit relatively soon.
Otherwise we're just have tohope that it works, and hope to
me is not the same as science.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, and I, I try to .
I try to speak with expertsthat will speak to those
uncertainties and will kind ofask the bigger questions you
know.
So, for example and by the way,I would never do this, but
(29:38):
let's say I talk to a carnivorediet person- Uh-huh.
Oh, carnivore, is this the thing?
And here's all these reasonswhy it works, blah, blah, blah.
It's like I would like to talkto the person who goes here are
all these different diets,here's what people have tried
and why it might work and why itmight not work.
You know, I find the expertthat goes well.
(30:00):
When you started eating meat,only you stopped eating a bunch
of butterfingers, idiot, right.
So I try and find people likeI've had enough background
training being coming up throughmen's health, where I just had
this editor that would justpoint out possible fallacies
that I can.
(30:21):
Now I'm better at findingpeople who I think trust and are
going to be fair and open andhonest and talk about all the
possible ways that somethingcould be working, how a person
could use it, what type ofperson might benefit from one
practice over another, ratherthan someone who just says
(30:43):
taking X supplement leads torelease of Y and then Z
definitely happens.
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yep, mechanism-based medicine not my favorite
approach.
Yeah.
So, michael, as we wrap up, isthere anything I didn't ask you
that I should have, or anythingon your radar that you're
excited about?
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Here's what I'll say.
When we did our Masogi in CostaRica, you were my favorite case
study that survived thesurvivor, you completed it,
which was it was just absolutelyincredible.
But what I think I loved seeingis that when we got there, you
(31:32):
had a lot of questions how manyliters of water do I need to
take?
How long are we going to behiking?
Do I need this thing?
Do I need that thing?
Do I need this thing?
And the answer was yeah.
I don't know, maybe you do,maybe you don't.
And I could see you wereuncomfortable going into that
because the lack of thecertainty and the ability to
(31:55):
control things.
But but you went into theunknown and by doing that, you
kind of kept putting one foot infront of the other and just
doing the thing and then at theend of it, it's almost like I
saw this like shift where you Ithink you even told me wow, I
like I being very um, makingsure all my ducks in a row has
(32:20):
helped me my like entire career.
It's allowed me to get where Iam.
But in this scenario I couldn'tdo that and that was opened up,
this whole new thing, and Ijust thought it was like the
most beautiful example of how,for really anyone, throwing
yourself occasionally into anadventure can be can be
informative.
So I just, I just love that.
(32:41):
I think about that often.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Michael, thank you, that's very sweet.
Yes, it made me confrontuncertainty in ways I'd never
had, and it was good for me.
It really, really was.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
It was awesome.
It was awesome that youfinished.
You crushed that thing it wastruly phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Michael, thank you for joining us today.
For my listeners, please docheck out his newsletter 2%.
Again, I'll have the link foryou.
We come at the issue of livelong and well in slightly
different ways, but we reallyhope the end point is the same
(33:23):
for all of you and until nexttime.
Thank you all for listening.
Thanks so much for listening toLive Long and Well with Dr
Bobby.
If you liked this episode,please provide a review on Apple
or Spotify or wherever youlisten.
If you want to continue thisjourney or want to receive my
(33:47):
newsletter on practical andscientific ways to improve your
health and longevity, pleasevisit me at
drbobbylivelongandwellcom.
That's, doctor, as in D-R Bobby.
Live long and wellcom.
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