How To Fix Your Life In 4 Simple Steps - Andrew Huberman — Transcript

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1. 0:00People of the UK and Ireland, if you are
2. 0:01coming to see me on tour, I want to hear
3. 0:03from you. I want to know what problems
4. 0:05you're dealing with, your worst first
5. 0:06date, and any questions you've got for
6. 0:08me. And I will be bringing some of you
7. 0:10up on stage to talk about it. So, if
8. 0:12you're coming to see me on tour this
9. 0:13October, go to
10. 0:14chriswilliamson.live/stories,
11. 0:16submit them, and
12. 0:18I might see you with a mic in front of
13. 0:19your face very soon.
14. 0:21chriswilliamson.live/stories.
15. 0:22>> What are the unifying features of how to
16. 0:24have a great life? Let's just start with
17. 0:26how to have a great life.
18. 0:27James Hollis came on my podcast, 84
19. 0:30years old, surprised the [ __ ] out of me
20. 0:31when he said, "Here's how you have a
21. 0:33great life. It involves four things. The
22. 0:36first three are shut up."
23. 0:39That's the first one. I go, "Shut up."
24. 0:40And he goes, "Yeah, someone's always got
25. 0:42it worse than you. Nobody wants to hear
26. 0:45you whine. Have gratitude for what you
27. 0:46do have. If you're alive, you got
28. 0:48something to be grateful for."
29. 0:49>> Mhm.
30. 0:49>> [clears throat]
31. 0:49>> I didn't really expect that from him,
32. 0:51you know? He's like this 85-year-old
33. 0:52Youngian analyst. He talks about the
34. 0:54unconscious mind. He goes, "Shut up.
35. 0:56Your day should start with Huberman,
36. 0:58shut up. Whatever has got you bothered,
37. 1:00shut up. You've got it better than
38. 1:01somebody."
39. 1:02>> I actually wish someone had said that to
40. 1:03you earlier, but that's okay.
41. 1:04>> Thank you. Um second,
42. 1:08>> [laughter]
43. 1:10>> you can keep this in.
44. 1:12>> Is this a continuation of
45. 1:13>> Next, he said, "Chris Williamson, go
46. 1:15[ __ ] yourself."
47. 1:16>> true. Sorry.
48. 1:17>> [laughter]
49. 1:19>> First is shut up. Second is suit up.
50. 1:22What is suit up? Suit up is you have a
51. 1:25role to fulfill each day for other
52. 1:27people and for yourself and for the
53. 1:29world. Suit up is get prepared. Shower,
54. 1:32organize your room. We've heard this
55. 1:33stuff from Jordan and from other people,
56. 1:35but get your act together so that you
57. 1:37can then do the third thing
58. 1:40effectively, which is show up. Go find a
59. 1:43role in life and fulfill it. Might not
60. 1:45be the role you fulfill your entire
61. 1:46life, but if it's a summer camp
62. 1:48counselor, if it's a babysitter, if it's
63. 1:50a a nanny, if it's a firefighter, if
64. 1:53it's whatever you you are doing at some
65. 1:55point in life, you in order to have
66. 1:57confidence and be a healthy happy
67. 1:58person, you need to fulfill roles for
68. 2:01society, meaning for people in your
69. 2:02life, not just for you. You have to be
70. 2:04in service. Now, some people might
71. 2:05think, well, I want to make as much
72. 2:07money in the world as possible. So,
73. 2:08that's not me, but a lot of people feel
74. 2:09that way.
75. 2:10Great, to do what? Go fulfill that role.
76. 2:13So, get dressed properly, do those
77. 2:14things. See, it sounds so basic, right?
78. 2:16So, shut up is about gratitude, suit up
79. 2:18is about prepare and practice. Don't
80. 2:20show up, you know, don't for me I
81. 2:21delayed the publication of the book
82. 2:23three times. Why? Cuz I want the book to
83. 2:26be something I'm truly proud of and that
84. 2:28people will feel that they were honored
85. 2:31as smart people who deserve quality
86. 2:33information. Period, end of story. And I
87. 2:35was willing to tell the publisher and
88. 2:36everyone else, look, I'm so so sorry,
89. 2:38but I'm going back in again and again
90. 2:40and again. Eat the shame because
91. 2:42ultimately I had a higher value, which
92. 2:44was that the book be of
93. 2:47good to extreme value to anyone that
94. 2:49that that read it or even just looked at
95. 2:52a chapter for instance. And then that
96. 2:54last one of show up is actually go do
97. 2:56the work, like chop wood, carry water.
98. 2:58Like, no one gives a [ __ ] that you don't
99. 3:00want to do it today, just do it. Great
100. 3:01confidence comes from those. But, then
101. 3:03he said the fourth thing, the pitfall
102. 3:06is that when we get too much into role
103. 3:10playing these roles and doing these
104. 3:12things, we we don't often enough or
105. 3:16excuse me, many people end up down a
106. 3:18road that they don't
107. 3:20really want to be on.
108. 3:22And everyone fears that. So, he said the
109. 3:23solution to this is very simple. Once a
110. 3:25day, go into your mind and get out of
111. 3:28stimulus response. You either meditate
112. 3:30or just breathe. You draw, you listen to
113. 3:33music, you don't look at your phone, you
114. 3:35don't think about your role in the world
115. 3:37and all you do is you try and listen to
116. 3:39and it sounds real squishy, but when
117. 3:40it's next to shut up, suit up, show up,
118. 3:43I feel comfortable saying it, which is
119. 3:45you ask yourself like, what is my
120. 3:48deeper wish, my heart's desire? What do
121. 3:50I need to be focusing on now? Maybe I
122. 3:52have enough career, enough money, enough
123. 3:55enough
124. 3:56whatever, you know, colleague respect
125. 3:58etc. Maybe now it's time to
126. 4:00uh focus more on
127. 4:02relationships. Maybe it's time to focus
128. 4:04less on one's role as a mother or
129. 4:06father, not completely, but focus more
130. 4:09on an artistic creative side that if you
131. 4:11don't satisfy, you're not going to feel
132. 4:13like you had a good life. So, personal
133. 4:15development, if you look at those bins,
134. 4:17it's not about shut up, suit up, show up
135. 4:20and do this internal practice of getting
136. 4:22out of stimulus response. It's That's
137. 4:24just one example. You look out across
138. 4:26the landscape of personal development
139. 4:28and almost everything slots into one or
140. 4:31two, but usually just one of those.
141. 4:33Entire books are about the first one or
142. 4:35just the the last one or two of the two
143. 4:37of the four.
144. 4:39And I go, that's very satisfying to me
145. 4:41because as my colleague said, putting a
146. 4:43structure on things is is very helpful
147. 4:45because it helps us navigate without
148. 4:47feeling like there's all this
149. 4:48information. Wait, I'm supposed to
150. 4:49journal and I'm supposed to do therapy
151. 4:51and maybe psychedelics, maybe not and
152. 4:53I'm supposed to have social connection
153. 4:54and and like pretty soon you're like,
154. 4:55when am I supposed to do the morning
155. 4:56sunlight thing?
156. 4:57>> It's a lot.
157. 4:58>> So, the idea is that you you understand
158. 5:00the framework. And then when it comes to
159. 5:02the trauma piece, for unlearning, right?
160. 5:04Like there's a tremendous amount of
161. 5:06information in the book on how to focus
162. 5:07and learn better. But then also, what
163. 5:10about unlearning?
164. 5:11>> Mhm.
165. 5:11>> All of getting over bad stuff is four
166. 5:15steps. The process is four steps. The
167. 5:17first thing you need to acknowledge the
168. 5:19bad thing. You can't just deny it
169. 5:21anymore. You can't suppress it. What are
170. 5:23you suppressing? You need to acknowledge
171. 5:25this happened, this sucks.
172. 5:27Two, the second step is you need to feel
173. 5:29the feelings completely. There is no
174. 5:31working around this. There are entire
175. 5:32books and workshops written around
176. 5:34breathing into psychedelic-ing into,
177. 5:37talking into, hugging into, shaking into
178. 5:41>> Yep.
179. 5:42>> feeling the full suck of the horrible
180. 5:45thing that happened or things.
181. 5:49But that's not where it stops. People
182. 5:51will often just end there. The next
183. 5:53piece is feeling calmer, even slightly,
184. 5:57and more peaceful
185. 5:59around the
186. 6:00accurate, detailed memory of the thing.
187. 6:02You're now uncoupling the emotion from
188. 6:04the thing. You can't just live in the
189. 6:06feel your feelings. We have an entire
190. 6:07generation of people and collection of
191. 6:09people online who are only there, and
192. 6:11they wonder why they're still there.
193. 6:13>> At the mercy of their feelings.
194. 6:14>> At the mercy of their feelings, but also
195. 6:16they're not effective in the world.
196. 6:17They're not affecting change. They think
197. 6:20they are, but they're not affecting
198. 6:21change. This is actually why I think
199. 6:22they hate One of the many reasons why
200. 6:25successful people are often hated,
201. 6:27because they're moving along. They're
202. 6:28like, I feel like sometimes online I
203. 6:30look and I'm like, you remind me of
204. 6:32those kids when I would go home, cuz I
205. 6:34left I went to college then came back,
206. 6:36and that scared the [ __ ] out of me. Cuz
207. 6:38I was like, oh my god,
208. 6:40you guys could write a textbook on how
209. 6:42to become a like a world-class loser.
210. 6:45And some of them weren't like drugging
211. 6:46out or anything. I was just like, you
212. 6:47guys are still talking about stuff that
213. 6:49Well, today I talked about stuff that
214. 6:50happened in high school that was helpful
215. 6:51for me, but
216. 6:53you guys are like stuck. It's like these
217. 6:55people that hang out in the parking lot
218. 6:57of bars for years and years talking
219. 6:59about this thing I mean to it's the
220. 7:00saddest thing in the world. And men do
221. 7:03it one way, women do it another way.
222. 7:05It's this fixation on the things that
223. 7:07happened that we feel wronged about, and
224. 7:09we all have them, right? And granted,
225. 7:11some people were genuinely wronged.
226. 7:13That's not the point here. It's not
227. 7:14whether they were wronged or it's that
228. 7:15they're stuck there. And the third piece
229. 7:18is about the uncoupling, and then the
230. 7:19fourth piece is
231. 7:21what we kind of think of as the magic of
232. 7:23life, where people take the hard thing
233. 7:26and the experience and their journey of
234. 7:28moving through it, and they transmute it
235. 7:31into something of beauty and goodness
236. 7:33for the world.
237. 7:35These are the people that go and talk at
238. 7:37bereavement workshops. Talk to people
239. 7:40who've lost a child. Talk to people
240. 7:43um who have experienced horrible things.
241. 7:46Talk to
242. 7:47Maybe they even just plant a flower and
243. 7:49put it in the windowsill and every
244. 7:51morning they appreciate not the pain
245. 7:54they went through, but the pain they
246. 7:55went through that they no longer
247. 7:57experience and the beauty that's there
248. 7:58representing it. A small detail, right?
249. 8:01A small detail in their life. They've
250. 8:02transmuted the pain. But you can't just
251. 8:04go, "Oh, you know what? You had this
252. 8:06horrible thing happen. You know, plant a
253. 8:08flower. Put it in the windowsill and
254. 8:10think about how beautiful it is." You
255. 8:11can't take somebody who's struggling in
256. 8:13number one or two
257. 8:14>> Yep.
258. 8:14>> or three and put them there. So for me
259. 8:17>> Go back through those four for me.
260. 8:18>> What's that?
261. 8:19>> Go back through those four.
262. 8:20>> Acknowledge the thing.
263. 8:21>> Yep.
264. 8:21>> Straight on. Exactly what happened or
265. 8:23how many thing, you know, what is the
266. 8:25thing that sucks, that hurts so much.
267. 8:28Two, you have to in a safe environment.
268. 8:30This is why
269. 8:31there's an interest in clinical trials
270. 8:33on MDMA because it's this empathogen
271. 8:35makes people feel, you know, love and
272. 8:38safe, but you need that's not the only
273. 8:39way. I mean, there's therapy, there's
274. 8:41journaling. I talked about this in Talk
275. 8:42about all the different approaches to
276. 8:44each of these steps. That's the second
277. 8:45step. You have to feel the feelings
278. 8:47completely of the horrible thing that
279. 8:50happened.
280. 8:51The third thing is
281. 8:52once you've done that enough, and we
282. 8:54talk about what enough is, you need to
283. 8:56be able to recall the details and
284. 8:59specifics of the horrible thing that
285. 9:01happened
286. 9:02with less emotional load. The emotional
287. 9:04load starts to peel back.
288. 9:07And it's a hard step to get to, but once
289. 9:09you get there, it's a process. It's not
290. 9:11like you go in and you go, "Okay, today
291. 9:12I'm going to remember everything, but
292. 9:13it's not going to bother me at all."
293. 9:15Little by little you start to uncouple
294. 9:17the
295. 9:17>> memory exposure therapy.
296. 9:19>> Some people do EMDR. That's one way Some
297. 9:21people do hypnosis. Some people do talk
298. 9:23therapy. Pennebaker has people journal
299. 9:25four times for 15 minutes each about the
300. 9:28horrible thing that happened. This takes
301. 9:29them through steps two and three.
302. 9:3315 minutes one day, 15 minutes the next
303. 9:34day, 15 minutes the next day, 15 minutes
304. 9:36the next day. No more, no less. And by
305. 9:38the fourth day, tens of thousands of
306. 9:40data points now. Not just individuals,
307. 9:42but many, many papers, even if you know,
308. 9:44manuscripts, scientific manuscripts. But
309. 9:46even if you tear up the writing
310. 9:47afterward, even if you delete the file,
311. 9:50you find that people move through steps
312. 9:52two and three to a significant degree.
313. 9:54>> Yeah.
314. 9:55>> And then
315. 9:57the fourth step is
316. 9:59not just letting it hover there as this
317. 10:01thing that you got through, but
318. 10:03finding some way or ways, it can be
319. 10:06many, of transmuting that entire
320. 10:08experience, the thing that happened and
321. 10:10the way you moved through it, into some
322. 10:12point of beauty or contribution to your
323. 10:14own well-being and to others'
324. 10:17well-being. Could be
325. 10:19your dog. And the dog represents every
326. 10:22bit of your ability to love
327. 10:23unconditionally and their ability to
328. 10:24love unconditionally. That represents
329. 10:26the unconditional love you didn't get.
330. 10:28Maybe it's the
331. 10:29Someone who has suffered a horrible
332. 10:31trauma
333. 10:32is helping people who suffered similar
334. 10:33traumas, or maybe
335. 10:35it's some just symbol, right? I mean,
336. 10:38you know, in a very Jungian way, it can
337. 10:39just be a symbol of like maybe you have
338. 10:41this paperweight, and that symbol is the
339. 10:43the weight of your your certainty that
340. 10:45you made it through. And you just you
341. 10:47know, the the human mind can assign
342. 10:49symbols to to experiences very easily,
343. 10:51good or bad. So,
344. 10:53those are the four steps. And for me in
345. 10:57thinking about personal development, it
346. 10:58was like, how do I look out on the
347. 10:59entire landscape of all these books and
348. 11:01all these podcasts and think and and
349. 11:03science and think, what's the best way
350. 11:05to move through? You acknowledge that
351. 11:07process. Neuroplasticity is alert,
352. 11:09focus, agitation through genuine errors
353. 11:12to get things right, reinforce through
354. 11:14sleep and self-testing. Those are the
355. 11:16steps.
356. 11:17There's not a fifth step or a sixth
357. 11:19step.
358. 11:19>> Mhm.
359. 11:19>> [clears throat]
360. 11:20>> There's not jump to step three and avoid
361. 11:22steps one and two. So,
362. 11:23these days a lot of my role in in my
363. 11:26public life is to educate about
364. 11:28processes. And when you And this all
365. 11:30comes from my training in neuroscience.
366. 11:32You don't teach people neurons fire
367. 11:35action potentials. That's the first
368. 11:36thing you teach them. Then you tell them
369. 11:38how that happens. And once they
370. 11:40understand how that happens, and you get
371. 11:42the action potential, they have embedded
372. 11:44in their mind an understanding of when a
373. 11:46neuron fires. If a neuron fires, they're
374. 11:48not thinking about all the steps, but
375. 11:50it's all there. That's what we call true
376. 11:52understanding. You have a nuanced um
377. 11:55multi-
378. 11:57level understanding of something. And I
379. 11:59think that all too often in the
380. 12:01optimization space we say, "Hey, this
381. 12:03red light's going to give you better
382. 12:04skin. It's going to improve your
383. 12:05mitochondria." And people, of course,
384. 12:07just want those effects. But if people
385. 12:09are feeling overwhelmed, they should
386. 12:10think, "Well, what's better? Red light
387. 12:12or GHK copper?" I would say, "Well,
388. 12:15what's the best source of of red light?
389. 12:17It's the sun minus UV. When does that
390. 12:19happen? When the sun is low in the sky.
391. 12:21Boom, you got the best red light therapy
392. 12:23that you could ever get minus UV for
393. 12:26zero cost. Congratulations. You want a
394. 12:28red light, too? Cool. Be my guest. I own
395. 12:30one. You might want one, too. But just
396. 12:32We're talking about long wavelength
397. 12:33light minus UV. End of story." So, it's
398. 12:36not complicated. And I think the same is
399. 12:38true in resistance training. Andy Galpin
400. 12:40talks about this or exercise. There are
401. 12:41only like five or six different
402. 12:43adaptations. Better speed, better power,
403. 12:46better you know, I mean, you've added a
404. 12:48seventh of like like you know, forearms,
405. 12:50but for the rest of us, there only six.
406. 12:53And you can get that through CrossFit.
407. 12:56You can get that through sets to
408. 12:57failure. You can get more volume with
409. 12:59near fail like Once you understand
410. 13:02something, you're in a position to make
411. 13:03much better choices around it. And so,
412. 13:05my I'm actually wondering when to retire
413. 13:07right now. I'm kind of thinking, "What's
414. 13:09next?" And I have some ideas about where
415. 13:11that's going, but I think we in 2026,
416. 13:14right heading into 2027, I think we
417. 13:16pretty well understand the principles of
418. 13:19great mental health, physical health,
419. 13:21and performance.
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