Latest / The You Project / #1591 You And Your Genes - Dr. Bill Sullivan

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#1591 You And Your Genes - Dr. Bill Sullivan · The You Project

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Speaker 1: I get a team. It's the You Project. It's doctor Bill,
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Speaker 1: our favorite geek, our favorite researcher, our favorite nerd. I
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Speaker 1: hope I didn't offend you with any of that, mate,
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Speaker 1: but you are loved here at the U Project. How
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Speaker 1: are you?
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Speaker 2: I'm gret on my favorite podcast.
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Speaker 1: Ah, good, dude, it's really nice to have you back.
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Speaker 1: You and I just had a deep and meaningful I
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Speaker 1: reckon eight or nine minute connection before we went live.
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Speaker 1: You're always busy. I'm always busy, but it was nice
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Speaker 1: to just chat with you, and you know, I look
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Speaker 1: forward to these talks and I look forward to spending
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Speaker 1: a bit of time from you and learning from you.
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Speaker 1: So just before we get going, everybody. Bill's website is
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Speaker 1: author Bill Sullivan, One word dot com author Bill Sullivan,
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Speaker 1: And if you go into the articles bit or the
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Speaker 1: no you just go straight in there. There's a whole
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Speaker 1: lot of articles, which we're going to talk about a
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Speaker 1: couple today. I didn't realize how prolific you are. You
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Speaker 1: you crank out a fair bit, like with a lot
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Speaker 1: of people who have an article section on there. It's
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Speaker 1: like seven articles written over the last decade, and I'm
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Speaker 1: like the most recent one is twenty nine seen or something.
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Speaker 1: But you've written a lot this year, and you are
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Speaker 1: quite prolific in your writing for various publications.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something I just enjoy doing. I read a
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Speaker 2: lot of science. It's part of my job. And when
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Speaker 2: I come across studies that I just find plain interesting
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Speaker 2: or they relate to my book, please to meet me,
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Speaker 2: you know, the like logical extension or new data related
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Speaker 2: to that topic. I can't help myself but to write
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Speaker 2: about it and put it out there on the various
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Speaker 2: venues that are kind enough to accept my work. And
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Speaker 2: I do a quarterly newsletter too that's associated with the book,
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Speaker 2: so people can go to the website and sign up
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Speaker 2: for that. I don't slam your inbox often, but four
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Speaker 2: times a year you'll get you some links and other
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Speaker 2: bits of writing from me, most of which are related
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Speaker 2: to the book. Because, as you know more than most people,
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Speaker 2: the biology of the self and the biology behind human
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Speaker 2: behaviors constantly changing. We're getting new data all the time,
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Speaker 2: so it's something that you perpetually have to update in
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Speaker 2: order to stay accurate.
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Speaker 1: Isn't it funny how at different times through history, I
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Speaker 1: mean always you know, in the evolutionary and the scientific
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Speaker 1: and the research timeline, Like we're doing stuff now in
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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four and thinking stuff and believing stuff that
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Speaker 1: in one hundred years I'll look back and go, what
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Speaker 1: was wrong with them in twenty twenty What would they even?
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Speaker 1: How did they for a moment think that that was real?
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Speaker 1: Or you know, it's like we you know.
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Speaker 2: If you think about it just just one hundred years ago,
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Speaker 2: you know, we're going back to like nineteen twenty four,
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Speaker 2: there's no such thing as penicillin antibiotics. You know, it's
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Speaker 2: just like these precious medicines that we now just take
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Speaker 2: for granted. It's totally revolutionized things. Back in nineteen twenty four,
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Speaker 2: we had no idea that DNA was the molecule responsible
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Speaker 2: for heredity. Okay, that was still a mystery, much less
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Speaker 2: knowing what it looks like and how it functions. To
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Speaker 2: think that all of that was sorted out in just
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Speaker 2: one hundred years, it really does boggle the mind where
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Speaker 2: we might be in another one hundred years from now,
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Speaker 2: and how remitive we're really going to look one.
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Speaker 1: Hundred percent now, just quickly before we dive in everyone.
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Speaker 1: Bill's book is called Please to Meet me epigenetics, DNA, microbes,
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Speaker 1: and the hidden forces shaping who we are, Jen's germs
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Speaker 1: and the curious forces that make us who we are.
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Speaker 1: So I downloaded your book, and I'm not going to
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Speaker 1: bullshit and say I've listened to it. I've got nine
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Speaker 1: books on my list. It's the next one. So I'm
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Speaker 1: listening to a book at the moment, which is called unfollow.
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Speaker 1: So I've got one hour from the end and then
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Speaker 1: it's sixty minutes to go, and then I'm up to
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Speaker 1: your book, which I will give you a debrief on
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Speaker 1: next time.
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Speaker 2: I'm on the edge of my seat. I can't wait.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to say, I'll give you a review
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Speaker 1: out of five. Have you ever heard of I'm sure
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Speaker 1: you have. This is digressing, but we'll get on topic
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Speaker 1: in a minute. Of the Westbroo Baptist Westboro Baptist Church,
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Speaker 1: those people who protest at soldiers funerals and you know
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Speaker 1: anti gay slogans, and have you you've heard of that?
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Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, they make they make our national news from
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Speaker 2: time to time.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well, so there's a lady who was born
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Speaker 1: in that cult called Megan Phelps Roper, and she wrote
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Speaker 1: a book called unfollow. Oh, it's fucking fascinating. Oh I
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Speaker 1: bet it would be.
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Speaker 2: Rare glimpse into what it would be like to come
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Speaker 2: up this culture of hypocritical heat.
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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. And it's so she is, she's brilliant.
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Speaker 1: I mean, she has got an amazing mind. And for
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Speaker 1: somebody who grew up in this, you know, like it's
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Speaker 1: really hate masquerading us love, right, it was just for
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Speaker 1: me who's fascinated in I'm fascinated and cults. I'm fascinated
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Speaker 1: in the way that we think, the way that we
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Speaker 1: see the world. I'm fascinated with beliefs. I'm fascinated with
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Speaker 1: this need that people have to be right, you know.
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Speaker 1: And oh my god, it's called unfollow everyone, and get
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Speaker 1: that after you get Doctor Bill's book, of course. But
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Speaker 1: it's such a fascinating insight into a culture within a culture,
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Speaker 1: and this we you know, I spoke before about basically
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Speaker 1: while we were off air, the echo chamber, you know,
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Speaker 1: confirmation bias. It's just incredible the way that some people
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Speaker 1: build this reality and this whole kind of paradigm of
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Speaker 1: we are the one, how many people or how many
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Speaker 1: groups like that, we have the hotline to God? And
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Speaker 1: literally they believe that everyone in the world, I mean,
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Speaker 1: on planet Earth who doesn't agree with their doctrine is
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Speaker 1: one going to hell and two wrong.
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Speaker 2: It's like, and that's just the current people alive, right,
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Speaker 2: all the people before us also must be burning in
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Speaker 2: hell now too. Yeah, you're talking about you know, hundreds
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Speaker 2: of billions of souls. So, yeah, it's crazy.
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Speaker 1: I can't.
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Speaker 2: I got to get a little bit of a teaser
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Speaker 2: out of you. What was the spark that led this
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Speaker 2: individual to start questioning this dogma and leave the group?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so they they were, I mean, you know, I'm
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Speaker 1: not even going to say the word, but the homosexuals
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Speaker 1: where God hates homosexual gods and God that all of
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Speaker 1: this placarding hate very hateful and hurtful. But they always
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Speaker 1: told themselves it was coming from a place of love.
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Speaker 1: It was scriptural, it was Bible based, it was all that.
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Speaker 1: And over time some stuff started happening within the church.
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Speaker 1: So there was a very very unified front for a
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Speaker 1: long time. Like this lady at twenty five or twenty six,
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Speaker 1: still lived with her mum and dad, still was very
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Speaker 1: much under their authority, had never kissed a boy, had
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Speaker 1: never been on a date, but at the same time
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Speaker 1: a lawyer and highly intelligent. Most like there was a
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Speaker 1: highly disproportionate number of lawyers within the Phelps Roper clan
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Speaker 1: because they needed to be because they were always in court, right,
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Speaker 1: that's true, but they're just started to be like she's
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Speaker 1: you know, she spoke about the internal struggle of recognizing
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Speaker 1: things that were inconsistent and that you know, like that,
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Speaker 1: you know, especially the New Testament is so much about
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Speaker 1: love and kindness and forgiveness and turning the other cheek
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Speaker 1: and you know, the beam in your own eye and
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Speaker 1: all that kind of like Jesus based a lot more
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Speaker 1: friendly than the Old Testament, you know. But she said
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Speaker 1: she started to see within the context of the church,
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Speaker 1: which was very unified, and then started to fall apart,
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Speaker 1: and then she started to question. So you know, she
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Speaker 1: would get in trouble at twenty five years of age
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Speaker 1: if she reached up to get something off her shelf
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Speaker 1: and somebody saw a slither of her stomach, so she
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Speaker 1: would be punished, right and then and it just yeah,
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Speaker 1: just like she started to have this awareness beyond the
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Speaker 1: programming and that you know, you think about the fact
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Speaker 1: that how we've all been programmed in one way or
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Speaker 1: another doc via media, social media, school, church, synagogue, mom, dad,
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Speaker 1: friend's family, and then you wake up one day and
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Speaker 1: you try to distinguish between where does my programming end?
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Speaker 1: And where am I? Yeah, like where's Craig? Yeah, where's
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Speaker 1: the end of Because you know, I understand objectivity, but
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Speaker 1: I'm not objective for the most part, because I have
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Speaker 1: subjective experiences and views and beliefs, and I have pre
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Speaker 1: existing values and ideas and standards and beliefs and you know,
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Speaker 1: prejudice and all of that shit that I have to
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Speaker 1: acknowledge because I'm human. It's like, the idea of objectivity
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Speaker 1: and open mindedness is nice, but the practice is high.
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Speaker 2: Well, there's been some pretty fascinating studies that have been
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Speaker 2: done on not necessarily religious and non religious, but on
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Speaker 2: like conservative and liberal people, going back into like historical
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Speaker 2: records and looking at personality as a child and how
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Speaker 2: it tracks with whether the individual becomes a conservative or
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Speaker 2: a liberal on the right or left. And there's some
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Speaker 2: really striking parallels there. And one of the things that
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Speaker 2: I think loops into religion because any more conservatives, at
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Speaker 2: least in the US, are of a religious affiliation than
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Speaker 2: the liberals are, okay, And one of the striking personality
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Speaker 2: profiles that you see in the conservatives and the religious
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Speaker 2: is this unquestioning obedience to authority. And I think that
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Speaker 2: is part and parcel of either it's being afraid or
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Speaker 2: you're showing respect, or maybe it's a combination of both
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Speaker 2: of those, but you simply do not question authority. And
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Speaker 2: whether there's like some sort of genetic basis to that
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Speaker 2: or whether it's just a cultural imprint, it's really quite fascinating.
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Speaker 2: But you can find families that are by and large conservative,
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Speaker 2: but then you get, you know, the black sheep of
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Speaker 2: the family, I suppose, wander off and become you know,
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Speaker 2: more progressive and liberal. Yes, And a lot of people
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Speaker 2: chalk that up to things like, well, they had different
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Speaker 2: ex experiences, they had more education, maybe they were exposed
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Speaker 2: to a more culturally diverse group of people, And I
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Speaker 2: think all that could be completely true. There's, interestingly enough,
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Speaker 2: there's some genetic evidence that suggests that variations in the
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Speaker 2: dopamine receptors of your brain also track with whether someone
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Speaker 2: is more liberal or conservative, which I find fascinating.
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Speaker 1: Yes, I for a while, I don't know if I've
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Speaker 1: told you this ione bought my audience. But for I
11:31
Speaker 1: grew up in a very Catholic church, which was just
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Speaker 1: very Catholic environment, i should say, which was not anywhere
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Speaker 1: near the authoritarian, megalomaniacal kind of level of control that
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Speaker 1: these people were experienced to. But after that you might
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Speaker 1: think more or less me out to this doc. But
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Speaker 1: I was involved in a from when I was about
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Speaker 1: nineteen to almost my mid twenties in a quite a
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Speaker 1: strict Pentecostal church, and there was so many, ah, so
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Speaker 1: many familiar concepts in this story. And I'm like, ah,
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Speaker 1: Like I was engaged when I was twenty or twenty
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Speaker 1: one to a girl who was my age. In the church,
12:15
Speaker 1: we weren't allowed to be alone together. Well, it was
12:20
Speaker 1: really frowned upon, So I get it. I'm like, you know,
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Speaker 1: I'm like, oh yeah, And I remember even then. And
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Speaker 1: I came into the game in Verticomma's late and there
12:31
Speaker 1: was so much control and manipulation about you know, you
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Speaker 1: having your own thoughts, and if you questioned anything, literally
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Speaker 1: I was told, you know, that's Satan trying to or
12:42
Speaker 1: that's the devil trying to derail you. You know, It's
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Speaker 1: like you don't not essentially, literally, you need to submit
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Speaker 1: to authority. And the authority is all the people in
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Speaker 1: the church above you.
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Speaker 2: Well, you know a way, if you started questioning things.
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Speaker 1: They can't control you.
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Speaker 2: Well, they can't control and the whole foundation, yes, of
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Speaker 2: what their beliefs are built on, starts to be rue. Yes,
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Speaker 2: what takes is a little critical thinking. It's not hard
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Speaker 2: to disprove a lot of the tenets of religion, or
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Speaker 2: at least it put some put some doubt into that model.
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Speaker 2: So yeah, that's that's why they completely frown upon any
13:20
Speaker 2: inkling or any residue of critical thought. They've got to
13:23
Speaker 2: stamp that out immediately because that could literally burn the
13:26
Speaker 2: whole place down.
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Speaker 1: Yes, And it's funny how when you do think like
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Speaker 1: you think critically, you ask reasonable questions, you're curious, You're
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Speaker 1: that you are not allowed to doubt. You're not allowed
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Speaker 1: to ask questions, not certain questions, you're not allowed to
13:42
Speaker 1: open certain conversational doors. You are It's like your job
13:47
Speaker 1: is to conform. Yeah, and if you're not conforming, you're bad.
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Speaker 1: There's a little more than that, but essentially that's the
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Speaker 1: nuts and bots, Like if you want to belong in
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Speaker 1: this group, then you need to think, like, be like us,
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Speaker 1: agree with us, do not question, do not open it,
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Speaker 1: don't open any of these doors, don't hang out with
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Speaker 1: these people, don't like they, do not do. List was
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Speaker 1: fucking thirteen miles long, and I just got to the
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Speaker 1: point where and I did love the idea. I loved
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Speaker 1: the idea of a compassionate all knowing or loving you know,
14:22
Speaker 1: divine whatever. I loved that idea. But it wasn't even
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Speaker 1: the God thing that got me out of the church.
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Speaker 1: It was the people. It was the control and the coercial.
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Speaker 1: I'm like, this doesn't make sense. You're not even fucking thinking,
14:38
Speaker 1: like you're literally frustreating. Yeah, yeah, anyway, speaking of nothing
14:45
Speaker 1: much to do with that we were going to chat about.
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Speaker 2: But that's a great topic. I love talking about religion.
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Speaker 2: It's a fascinating subject.
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Speaker 1: Well it's really I mean, it's a multi dimensional thing,
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Speaker 1: isn't it, Like, because it's about it's about belief, it's
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Speaker 1: about ideology, it's about thinking, and you are not you know,
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Speaker 1: we spoke about metacognition before. But you're you're encouraged not
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Speaker 1: to think. Yeah, yeah, you're just encouraged to conform.
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Speaker 2: Right, and to have someone tell you not to think
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Speaker 2: or not to question. It's just the antithesis of being
15:23
Speaker 2: a scientist or being curious and learning about the world.
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Speaker 2: So what are these people interested in control? Or do
15:28
Speaker 2: they want to know the truth? And I'm for the
15:32
Speaker 2: truth all the time, you know, I want to figure
15:34
Speaker 2: out what's right and wrong. But I find religion so
15:36
Speaker 2: fascinating because it can bring out the best in people
15:42
Speaker 2: and at the same time bring out the absolute horrors
15:46
Speaker 2: that humanity is capable of as well. So it's one
15:51
Speaker 2: of these very, very unusual things that from my point
15:57
Speaker 2: of view, it's just crazy that people still go for
16:00
Speaker 2: this sort of stuff. But it's it's extremely cemented into
16:08
Speaker 2: our cultural environment.
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Speaker 1: Speaking of your cultural environment and religion, it's an interesting,
16:17
Speaker 1: an interesting time in the States right now, isn't it.
16:19
Speaker 1: As we record this, it's Monday the twenty second in
16:23
Speaker 1: Australia and it's Sunday the twenty first in the US.
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Speaker 1: Not that not that we're a political show at all,
16:31
Speaker 1: but in terms of behavior and human nature and culture
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Speaker 1: and God and religion, Oh my god, it's a bloody
16:38
Speaker 1: pot purre of craziness for you, I tell you.
16:43
Speaker 2: I just don't know what to expect anymore when I
16:45
Speaker 2: wake up and see the notifications on my phone. This
16:49
Speaker 2: has been one of the craziest elections I can think of,
16:55
Speaker 2: not only in my lifetime, but in all the history
16:58
Speaker 2: that I've studied. I mean, there's just every day there's
17:01
Speaker 2: something more and more bizarre that's happening. And as you
17:04
Speaker 2: probably heard just a few hours ago, Joe Biden decided
17:09
Speaker 2: that he's not going to run for re election and
17:12
Speaker 2: that's been pushed by a number of people since he
17:16
Speaker 2: had a very bad performance at that one debate. But
17:21
Speaker 2: it does seem to be more and more people coming
17:24
Speaker 2: around to the idea that, you know, he's lost some
17:27
Speaker 2: of his edge and it's not going to go over
17:30
Speaker 2: well when people go to the polls in November. And
17:34
Speaker 2: that's a very reasonable argument. You know, I watched that
17:38
Speaker 2: debate myself and was just kind of burying my head
17:41
Speaker 2: in my hands, like, oh my god, why did that?
17:46
Speaker 2: Why didn't the Democratic Party prepare for this? People on
17:49
Speaker 2: the inside must have known that this was the state
17:52
Speaker 2: of deterioration that he was facing. You know, all of
17:56
Speaker 2: his accomplishments aside. When you go out on debate, you
17:59
Speaker 2: got to sharp. You know that there's unfortunately a lot
18:03
Speaker 2: to an election that goes off the CV, that goes
18:07
Speaker 2: off the resume, and it deals with you know, like
18:10
Speaker 2: how well you can think on your feet, you know,
18:13
Speaker 2: how witty you can be, how sharp you can be,
18:15
Speaker 2: how few mistakes and you know you can have And yeah,
18:19
Speaker 2: he either he had a really really hard bad night
18:23
Speaker 2: or his age is catching up with him. So I
18:27
Speaker 2: think enough people convinced him that it would behoove the
18:30
Speaker 2: Democratic Party to go with someone else, and that someone
18:34
Speaker 2: else has not been determined yet.
18:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, didn't I announce it was Kamala Harris? Well, they haven't.
18:41
Speaker 2: That that is who Biden offered his support.
18:44
Speaker 1: For Rot Rot Okay, but that.
18:47
Speaker 2: Obviously won't be made official until the Democratic Convention.
18:51
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, Yeah, So I mean I'm fascinated as you are,
18:55
Speaker 1: with the Brian and with you know, psychology and cognition
18:59
Speaker 1: and and yeah, I've been watching President Biden the last
19:04
Speaker 1: whatever month like everybody else, with curiosity. And yeah, I
19:10
Speaker 1: don't mean this to sound how it might, but I
19:13
Speaker 1: actually really feel sorry for him in that, Like I've
19:17
Speaker 1: just you know, seen him struggle, and I just I
19:20
Speaker 1: want him to be okay, and I want him to.
19:23
Speaker 1: I feel like going, hey, you've done a great job.
19:25
Speaker 1: It's time, you know, you've done a great job. Like,
19:29
Speaker 1: let's not let the wheels get any more wobbly. Let's
19:32
Speaker 1: just go. It's been great. I'm Joe Biden, thank you,
19:36
Speaker 1: and you know, good night.
19:38
Speaker 2: But he may have been a victim of his own success.
19:41
Speaker 2: I mean, he's had an incredible four years. And you know,
19:45
Speaker 2: the media will tell you other some media over here
19:48
Speaker 2: will tell you otherwise. But the country is doing amazingly
19:52
Speaker 2: well given what he inherited, you know, coming off of
19:56
Speaker 2: an insurrection, COVID was still nuts over here, and the
20:02
Speaker 2: economy was in the toilet, all because of his predecessor,
20:05
Speaker 2: or due to a large part because of his predecessor,
20:08
Speaker 2: and he had to repair all that damage. He's done
20:10
Speaker 2: a remarkably good job of it, and for understandable reasons,
20:15
Speaker 2: wanted to do another four years and complete the job,
20:18
Speaker 2: you know. And I can understand that, and I feel
20:22
Speaker 2: just like you, I understand your hearts in it. I
20:25
Speaker 2: know mentally you can probably get there, but there's a
20:30
Speaker 2: level of politics that involves showmanship and confidence and things
20:36
Speaker 2: of that source. You can you can come with a
20:39
Speaker 2: really remarkable resume of achievement and accomplishment, which I you know,
20:44
Speaker 2: I think you can make a good case Biden had
20:46
Speaker 2: really good four years turning this country around, and he's
20:50
Speaker 2: got remarkable character, I mean compared to the other guy.
20:53
Speaker 2: Come on, there's no contest. Yeah, but uh but yeah,
20:58
Speaker 2: when you see that debate performance, it just speaks a
21:02
Speaker 2: thousand words as to we really need to reconsider who's
21:06
Speaker 2: going to take the helm.
21:09
Speaker 1: Speaking of genes, not blue gens everyone the other one.
21:15
Speaker 1: Tell me about the relationship between cognitive function performance cognitive decline,
21:21
Speaker 1: and I know that there's no I know there's a
21:24
Speaker 1: bunch of variables around this, but how much of cognitive
21:28
Speaker 1: decline and say, his case and we're just talking is genetic.
21:32
Speaker 1: It's just that's just what was going to happen. And
21:35
Speaker 1: how much of it, Like I think about the stress,
21:38
Speaker 1: the pressure that he is under, the lack of I mean,
21:42
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I know that there's a relationship
21:44
Speaker 1: between stress, physiological stress, lack of physical fitness, lack of sleep,
21:52
Speaker 1: you know, like nervous system, endo, crime system, all of
21:55
Speaker 1: these things that are him. Like, how much of what
22:00
Speaker 1: we're saying do you think is a culmination of four
22:04
Speaker 1: years of chaos and stress or is it all just genetic?
22:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd hesitate to say that there's like some kind
22:12
Speaker 2: of genetic element here. I mean, the guy is over
22:14
Speaker 2: eighty years old, and he has one of the most
22:17
Speaker 2: demanding schedules you can imagine, and he's traveling all over
22:21
Speaker 2: the world constantly. I mean, hell, it takes me a
22:24
Speaker 2: week to recover from one trip jet lag, and this
22:27
Speaker 2: guy's flying across continents like it's like it's nobody's business.
22:32
Speaker 2: And then he's got to get up and perform in
22:36
Speaker 2: front of millions of people. I make mistakes all the time, Okay.
22:40
Speaker 2: Of course, someone who's got that kind of pressure is
22:43
Speaker 2: going to make some simple mistakes. And then your adversary
22:47
Speaker 2: is just constantly lying, okay, and you're trying to refute
22:51
Speaker 2: some of these lies, and it's almost like a whack
22:56
Speaker 2: a mole game. You're sure you guys familiar with that game,
22:58
Speaker 2: or the MOLTI pop and up you whack it comes
23:01
Speaker 2: up in another place. That's how it is. When you're
23:04
Speaker 2: just buried in this avalanche of lies, you're almost paralyzed
23:08
Speaker 2: with which one do I respond to? First? You know,
23:11
Speaker 2: there were so many thrown out there, so I think
23:14
Speaker 2: he was a victim of a whole bunch of other
23:16
Speaker 2: things that may not really have anything to do with
23:19
Speaker 2: like genetic aging. But you know, let's face it, you know,
23:25
Speaker 2: we start to lose it as we get older, and
23:27
Speaker 2: that's going to happen to all of us some sooner
23:29
Speaker 2: rather than later. True, I feel like it's happening already
23:34
Speaker 2: to me. How long do you do if you don't
23:36
Speaker 2: mind me asking? How long are you if you don't
23:37
Speaker 2: mind me asking? I turned fifty four back in April?
23:41
Speaker 1: Yeah? Right? And what do you what do you do?
23:44
Speaker 2: Like?
23:45
Speaker 1: I'm interested, Like, what what does the guy who wrote
23:49
Speaker 1: the manual? You know, or not the manual? But what
23:51
Speaker 1: does what does that guy do to? You know? Optimize?
23:56
Speaker 1: Maximize what you Because you can't get new genes, but
23:58
Speaker 1: you can influence your Jane. You can't get more hours
24:01
Speaker 1: in a day, you can't get more innate talent. What
24:05
Speaker 1: what do you do to optimize you?
24:09
Speaker 2: I would I try to eat as healthy as I
24:11
Speaker 2: can and as little as I can, and I exercise.
24:17
Speaker 2: My go to exercise is running. I try to do
24:19
Speaker 2: five miles a day or at least five or six
24:21
Speaker 2: days out of the week.
24:23
Speaker 1: Wow, what about because I'm a mate head, I'm a buffhead.
24:26
Speaker 1: What about strength stuff?
24:28
Speaker 2: Doc, Yeah, I'm not as big on that, but I
24:31
Speaker 2: do try to do a little bit of strength training.
24:33
Speaker 2: But what I would call strength training you would probably
24:36
Speaker 2: laugh at. But it's just enough to keep, you know,
24:40
Speaker 2: to maintain.
24:42
Speaker 1: I definitely wouldn't. I definitely wouldn't.
24:44
Speaker 2: I enjoy the running so much more than I do
24:47
Speaker 2: the strength strength training because I just love getting outside.
24:52
Speaker 2: I love the feeling of running. You get that runners
24:54
Speaker 2: high at the end. You know, I got my tunes
24:56
Speaker 2: with me when I go. Maybe sometimes I'll put on
25:00
Speaker 2: the You Project, listen to who you talked about last time,
25:03
Speaker 2: And you know, it's just kind of a fun thing
25:06
Speaker 2: for me to do. A lot of people think it's
25:08
Speaker 2: crazy because they don't want to run around the block
25:10
Speaker 2: much less do with several miles. But I genuinely enjoy it.
25:15
Speaker 2: And it's not only great for your body, it's great
25:18
Speaker 2: for your mind, great for your sleep. You know, there's
25:22
Speaker 2: so many benefits associated with it.
25:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've started running again. I used to run a
25:27
Speaker 1: lot as a kid, and I don't know, I'm very
25:32
Speaker 1: lucky I think, like I just I've run on and
25:35
Speaker 1: off over the years, but I've been running consistently the
25:37
Speaker 1: last few months, and so I do waits every day.
25:39
Speaker 1: But I'm doing about four days a week. Not far, definitely,
25:43
Speaker 1: not five miles, which is about eight kilometers in for
25:48
Speaker 1: us over here, but I'm running about probably the equivalent
25:51
Speaker 1: of just two miles. But I just go out. I
25:53
Speaker 1: literally run outside and run like a crazy person for
25:56
Speaker 1: about fifteen minutes. Doc, Yeah, just get my heart rate
26:00
Speaker 1: up high. I run for me. Yeah, quite quick for me.
26:05
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's that even running that fifteen minutes every
26:09
Speaker 1: second day, or you know, four or five out of
26:11
Speaker 1: seven days. Yeah, it feels you for it. When I
26:15
Speaker 1: get home, I feel fucking amazing.
26:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's It's wonderful, isn't it.
26:20
Speaker 1: Yeah.
26:21
Speaker 2: I think you know a lot of my formulas. What
26:24
Speaker 2: I don't do, you know, rather than what I do,
26:27
Speaker 2: because what I do is kind of common sense. It's
26:29
Speaker 2: what any doctor would tell you is good for you.
26:32
Speaker 2: But what I don't do. I've never smoked, never done
26:36
Speaker 2: any hard drugs. I will drink on occasion, okay, but
26:40
Speaker 2: never to excess. I don't eat highly processed foods, very frequently.
26:45
Speaker 2: You know, if it just doesn't I mean, if it's
26:48
Speaker 2: not something our ancestors would have eaten. I usually reserve
26:53
Speaker 2: that as like a treat or a very rare food. Okay,
26:57
Speaker 2: it's just got to be real food. And what about
27:00
Speaker 2: And I don't drink any soda, no sugary drinks. I
27:04
Speaker 2: would drink water sometimes coffee.
27:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, what about managing stress and anxiety. I can't see
27:15
Speaker 1: you as being a person that gets overly stressed too often?
27:19
Speaker 1: I used to.
27:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually went to the emergency room about a
27:26
Speaker 2: decade ago thinking I was having a heart attack, right,
27:30
Speaker 2: because this was when I was trying to get tenure
27:34
Speaker 2: at my university. And for those listeners who don't know,
27:37
Speaker 2: that is an incredibly stressful ordeal to go through. And
27:43
Speaker 2: I had a new, you know, baby girl who was
27:46
Speaker 2: born with colic, and you know, it's just all kinds
27:50
Speaker 2: of stuff going on all at once. It wasn't wasn't
27:54
Speaker 2: a heart problem at all. But it turned out to
27:56
Speaker 2: be acid reflux, a regurgitation of stomach ass into the esophagus,
28:01
Speaker 2: which was eroding it so badly that I had a
28:04
Speaker 2: constant pain in my chest in that heart area. I
28:09
Speaker 2: was mistaking that for a heart time. So it took
28:12
Speaker 2: several months to get that under control. But since that day,
28:16
Speaker 2: I started to engage in a lot of stress reduction
28:19
Speaker 2: type of activities, learning how to do some controlled breathing,
28:23
Speaker 2: how to be mindful, take a small segment of the
28:29
Speaker 2: day and either you know, think about things you're grateful
28:32
Speaker 2: for or think about things that you could improve, but
28:38
Speaker 2: in a non stressful, you know, don't beat yourself up
28:42
Speaker 2: kind of way. And that really helped a lot. A
28:47
Speaker 2: lot of people like journaling. I just kind of like
28:49
Speaker 2: to think it through in my mind, but sometimes people
28:53
Speaker 2: say writing it out actually helps them a lot more.
28:56
Speaker 2: And I started to learn to say no to something.
29:00
Speaker 2: You know, I just had to cut back on what
29:03
Speaker 2: was on my pleat in terms of all the activities
29:06
Speaker 2: and stuff that I kept trying to do. You know,
29:09
Speaker 2: you got to acknowledge your limits, and even if it's
29:13
Speaker 2: stuff that you think would be interesting and fun, for
29:17
Speaker 2: the sake of your health and your sanity, you just
29:19
Speaker 2: got to put reasonable limits on it. Yeah. And I
29:22
Speaker 2: don't take a single supplement, Greg, I don't take anything really, Nope.
29:29
Speaker 1: The only supplement I take is careers and it's the
29:31
Speaker 1: only supplement I take, which there's some some I say,
29:36
Speaker 1: some science around the benefits of that also cognitively, but yeah,
29:40
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm like you, Doc, I've never been high,
29:43
Speaker 1: I've never been well. I've never been drunk. I've never
29:45
Speaker 1: drunk ol khol. I've never had a recreational drug. I've
29:49
Speaker 1: said this on my show before Full Transparency. I might
29:52
Speaker 1: have taken a few things in my early twenties which
29:55
Speaker 1: might have helped me get a bit bigger, which wasn't
29:58
Speaker 1: my proudest smart. But back forty, I mean that was
30:02
Speaker 1: nearly forty years ago. People would use steroids back in
30:06
Speaker 1: those days in the eighties, like people would use protein powder. Now,
30:09
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it wasn't wasn't It wasn't even illegal.
30:12
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, sure, yeah, I don't think some of
30:16
Speaker 2: the health dangers were as acutely known as they became
30:22
Speaker 2: more aware of that, like in the nineties and subsequent decades.
30:25
Speaker 2: But yeah, you're you're talking about the era of Arnold
30:29
Speaker 2: Schwarzenegger and you know some of these others, Charles Atlas
30:34
Speaker 2: ads and the comic books and all that stuff.
30:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lou Farino, Yeah, yeah, all those dudes that that
30:41
Speaker 1: that era of the Mister Olympia, when like bodybuilders started
30:47
Speaker 1: to like it was the first time we'd seen like
30:49
Speaker 1: the early days, you know, with Charles Atlas in the
30:52
Speaker 1: very old days, you know, with the muscle builder on
30:54
Speaker 1: the back of the magazine. They were just guys that
30:56
Speaker 1: were in really good shape. And then we started to
30:59
Speaker 1: see these months disappear on stage, which were like cartoon characters. Yeah,
31:05
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to. So you wrote an article
31:08
Speaker 1: called is our Fate Determined by Genes? And you said
31:12
Speaker 1: something in there that was something like, there are many
31:19
Speaker 1: possible versions of you in your genome. I just wanted
31:24
Speaker 1: you to unpack that idea a little bit because I
31:28
Speaker 1: think most of my listeners kind of we kind of
31:32
Speaker 1: get the idea kind of of epigenetics and genetic variability,
31:38
Speaker 1: but can you unpack that? So there are many possible
31:41
Speaker 1: versions of you in your genome and what determines who
31:45
Speaker 1: we become and how we become?
31:46
Speaker 2: Doc No excellent question, and you'll you'll read about some
31:51
Speaker 2: of this when you listen to Please to Meet Me.
31:54
Speaker 2: But what that statement refers to was it was inspired
31:59
Speaker 2: by studied done on identical twins that looked at this
32:04
Speaker 2: phenomenon called epigenetics. So I think most people understand that
32:10
Speaker 2: genes and code proteins that make us who we are,
32:14
Speaker 2: and most people associate genes with physical characteristics and some
32:19
Speaker 2: behavioral profiling as well. And there's this phenomenon called genetic
32:25
Speaker 2: determinism that you know, you are your genes and you're
32:28
Speaker 2: quite limited by your genes, and there is some truth
32:33
Speaker 2: to that statement. There are some genes where you know,
32:36
Speaker 2: if you have a certain variation, you are going to
32:39
Speaker 2: get a certain disease. Okay, sickle cell is an example.
32:42
Speaker 2: Huntington's is a good example. If you have a certain
32:45
Speaker 2: mutation in that gene, you are going to get this disease.
32:50
Speaker 2: But when you're talking about personality and behavior, that involves
32:53
Speaker 2: the activity, the collaboration of tens of thousands of genes,
32:58
Speaker 2: so it can get extraordinarily implicated, and it's very, very
33:01
Speaker 2: difficult to implicate a handful of genes towards behaviors. So
33:07
Speaker 2: this field of epigenetics, which really only started getting going
33:12
Speaker 2: about twenty four years ago, was the idea that genes
33:17
Speaker 2: are not on or off. Okay, they're more like a
33:20
Speaker 2: dimmer switch, and they can be regulated with exquisite sensitivity.
33:27
Speaker 2: So one of the common epigenetic mechanisms is called DNA methylation,
33:33
Speaker 2: And I don't mean to throw a whole bunch of
33:35
Speaker 2: jargon out at you, but DNA methylation is not like
33:40
Speaker 2: a mutation, which is a change in the genetic sequence.
33:44
Speaker 2: DNA methylation is a chemical modification that takes place on
33:48
Speaker 2: the gene or near the gene, and DNA methylation is
33:53
Speaker 2: one of these modifications. The more a gene gets methylated,
33:58
Speaker 2: the more it gets shut down. Okay, so that's pretty interesting.
34:03
Speaker 2: It's a reversible process, and you can have enough methylation
34:07
Speaker 2: on a gene to completely shut it off, or it
34:10
Speaker 2: can be unmethylated and be completely turned on. So what
34:14
Speaker 2: this amounts to, to make a long story short, is
34:18
Speaker 2: that there's tremendous variety that's possible even in the same genome,
34:25
Speaker 2: because all of those twenty thousand genes could be on
34:28
Speaker 2: at different levels, Okay, at different points in your life.
34:33
Speaker 2: So let me go back to that identical twins study.
34:36
Speaker 2: I think it illustrates this case very nicely. So everyone
34:41
Speaker 2: knows that identical twins have the same exact genome. They're
34:45
Speaker 2: literally clones of one another, so they make really good
34:48
Speaker 2: test subjects to kind of study inheritance and things like DNA.
34:54
Speaker 2: So when scientists compare the chromosomes of ident twins, you
35:02
Speaker 2: know that are very young, okay, less than three years
35:05
Speaker 2: of age, and they have a tool where they can
35:08
Speaker 2: stain for the DNA methylation marks that I talked about
35:12
Speaker 2: that can shut genes down. When they look at all
35:15
Speaker 2: of their chromosomes and stain with this DNA methylation marker,
35:19
Speaker 2: in the very young twins, they're all the same, okay,
35:23
Speaker 2: So not only do they have the same genetic sequence,
35:25
Speaker 2: they have the same DNA methylation patterns as well. When
35:30
Speaker 2: scientists look at twins that are fifty years old or older, again,
35:36
Speaker 2: they still have the same genes, but their DNA methylation
35:39
Speaker 2: patterns are almost completely different. And this explains age old
35:45
Speaker 2: mystery that scientists wondered about regarding identical twins that grow
35:50
Speaker 2: up to be different as they get older. And there's
35:53
Speaker 2: many examples of this. It's called twin discordancy. And what
35:57
Speaker 2: happens is that sometimes identical twins as they get older,
36:03
Speaker 2: they can look difference different in appearance. Okay, sometimes one
36:07
Speaker 2: twin is a little taller than the other, some looks
36:11
Speaker 2: like they're aging faster than the other. There can also
36:15
Speaker 2: be personality differences. As the twins get older, some will
36:19
Speaker 2: go into business, whereas others will go into construction, and
36:23
Speaker 2: yet they have the same exact genome. It raises the question, well,
36:26
Speaker 2: why don't they like the same type of job. And
36:30
Speaker 2: then one of the more striking examples is that some
36:33
Speaker 2: twins can be lean while their other twin is obese.
36:37
Speaker 2: So you can get dramatic differences in physiology, in physical attributes,
36:45
Speaker 2: and in physiological and psychological outcomes. And scientists this boggle
36:50
Speaker 2: the mind. Because they have identical genes, they should be
36:53
Speaker 2: the same exact person carbon copies all throughout their lives.
36:57
Speaker 2: So what this is telling us is that even if
36:59
Speaker 2: they grow up in the same environment, there's nuances in
37:02
Speaker 2: their environment. There's different experiences that they have which can
37:07
Speaker 2: kind of cascade into a very dramatic difference as they
37:12
Speaker 2: get older. And what this study showed was that one
37:15
Speaker 2: of the possible mechanisms to explain these differences in identical
37:19
Speaker 2: twins is the different DNA methylation patterns, the difference in epigenetics.
37:26
Speaker 2: So another helpful analogy that I like to use Craig
37:28
Speaker 2: is that you can think of genes as the piano keys,
37:33
Speaker 2: but the environment plays the song.
37:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm thinking, you know, like to me, the way
37:39
Speaker 1: that that DNA methylation happens all those patterns, it's that
37:46
Speaker 1: I don't know, it seems like logical to me that
37:49
Speaker 1: that twin discordance in that well behavior you know, have
37:54
Speaker 1: its behavior as lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, environment, you know, all
37:59
Speaker 1: of those things are going to influence the way that
38:01
Speaker 1: those genes express. So I don't really understand the surprise,
38:09
Speaker 1: Like why would they think that just because because surely
38:14
Speaker 1: they recognize that diet is going to have an impact
38:16
Speaker 1: on obesity or body composition or that stress. You know,
38:21
Speaker 1: a stressful environment versus a calm environment will have an
38:24
Speaker 1: impact on one's nervous system and anxiety levels and that
38:28
Speaker 1: sleep and that you know, if one exercises and one
38:32
Speaker 1: doesn't exercise. What I don't understand the surprise, Well.
38:37
Speaker 2: What you're what you're you're looking at it in terms
38:40
Speaker 2: of studying the different behaviors that the twins had. But
38:43
Speaker 2: what the mystery was is why should they have different
38:47
Speaker 2: habits at the get go? Because they have identical genes,
38:52
Speaker 2: so they should be having the same appetite the same,
38:56
Speaker 2: you know, right, sires for certain foods or and that's
39:02
Speaker 2: and they grew up in the same environment in most cases, so.
39:06
Speaker 1: The divergence happen once they start to live apart more.
39:11
Speaker 2: That's that varies from case to case, right, So you'll
39:15
Speaker 2: say for people that same environment, right, right, Even if
39:18
Speaker 2: you're in the same environment, though, you're going to be
39:20
Speaker 2: exposed to different things. You know, one twin might get
39:24
Speaker 2: mugged whereas the other did not. The other one might
39:26
Speaker 2: have a bully and the other one doesn't. Sometimes they
39:30
Speaker 2: watch different shows or get exposed to different people, and
39:34
Speaker 2: that can sometimes that can make a very profound difference
39:37
Speaker 2: in a life.
39:39
Speaker 1: So if we could create a simulation doc where until
39:44
Speaker 1: I was, say twenty years old, if everything was identical,
39:49
Speaker 1: everything experiences situation people they met schooling, I wonder if
39:56
Speaker 1: there would be any divergence. Then I wonder if if
40:01
Speaker 1: we would say, any differences if all the stimuli with
40:06
Speaker 1: a sign.
40:08
Speaker 2: Well, in theory, if they were exposed to all the
40:11
Speaker 2: same stimuli and they have the same genes, you should
40:15
Speaker 2: minimize the different epigenetic changes that take place. Because these
40:20
Speaker 2: epigenetic changes that I've been trying to explain come from
40:24
Speaker 2: the environment, and there's been a lot of studies done
40:27
Speaker 2: now that can show how trauma can affect the epigenome,
40:32
Speaker 2: the landscape of these marks, yes, and how exercise can
40:37
Speaker 2: do it, how certain foods can change epigenetics, and even
40:40
Speaker 2: how things like meditation can change the epigenetic landscape on
40:45
Speaker 2: your genes. It's a really remarkable science and I don't
40:49
Speaker 2: want to blow it out of proportion because it is
40:51
Speaker 2: new and there's a lot more research to be done.
40:55
Speaker 2: But what it does tell us is that our environment,
40:58
Speaker 2: our experiences, the things we expose get exposed to affect
41:04
Speaker 2: genetic activity. And I think that's a really important thing
41:07
Speaker 2: to keep in mind because it undermines genetic determinism to
41:10
Speaker 2: a degree. Yes, and it says, you know, our feets
41:14
Speaker 2: really aren't written by putting ourselves in different environment or
41:18
Speaker 2: making changes in our habits. We really can control the
41:22
Speaker 2: activity of our genes and become, you know, either a
41:28
Speaker 2: slightly different person or even a dramatically different person, depending
41:32
Speaker 2: on the nature of the circumstances.
41:34
Speaker 1: You know what else is I love that so interesting,
41:37
Speaker 1: but also it makes me think about I've spoken about
41:41
Speaker 1: this a bit lately where you know, like I've got
41:44
Speaker 1: friends of mine that go to meditation and they love it,
41:47
Speaker 1: and you know, it calms the farm. It's which is
41:49
Speaker 1: on their parasympathetic nervous system, their heart rate, their breathing,
41:52
Speaker 1: their blood pressure, everything comes down and they come out
41:56
Speaker 1: of it like you know, the Dalai Lama or I
41:59
Speaker 1: don't know, some suitable kind of figure. But I've done
42:05
Speaker 1: and I don't hate it, but I just and I'm
42:09
Speaker 1: the problem. It's not the class. But I go in there,
42:12
Speaker 1: I've done quite a few meditations. I'm like, ah, fuck,
42:15
Speaker 1: this is uncomfortable on my back. I better get another cushion.
42:17
Speaker 1: Oh my knees, I can't get in this much inflection.
42:21
Speaker 1: And then it's halfway through and I'm more stressed than
42:24
Speaker 1: when I went in, and I think about the purpose. Yeah,
42:28
Speaker 1: And it's like, for example, I love motorbikes. I've had
42:31
Speaker 1: motorbikes since I was a kid growing up in the country,
42:33
Speaker 1: and most of my travel is done on a motorbike,
42:37
Speaker 1: not in a car. But the funny thing is when
42:40
Speaker 1: I'm riding a bike, most of the time, I'm somewhere
42:42
Speaker 1: between happy and really happy and comfortable and having fun.
42:48
Speaker 1: And relaxed, and I don't know, producing a bit of
42:51
Speaker 1: dopamine because I really enjoy that experience. But the funny
42:55
Speaker 1: thing is I can have someone on the back of
42:57
Speaker 1: the same bike at the same time and they're having
43:00
Speaker 1: the worst experience of all time.
43:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, and you have different DNA methyleation patterns,
43:06
Speaker 2: is what they he Well, you think.
43:08
Speaker 1: About someone who loves dogs versus someone who hates dogs,
43:11
Speaker 1: like the dog lovers on the floor with a dog
43:14
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, they're they're getting licked
43:17
Speaker 1: and they're padding and they're spooning, and they're having the
43:20
Speaker 1: best time ever, and their physiology is a certain way.
43:23
Speaker 1: And then somebody else who hates dogs is sitting on
43:26
Speaker 1: a chair and a dog walks in the room and
43:29
Speaker 1: their physiology goes nuts. But it ain't about whether or
43:32
Speaker 1: not dogs create this or that versus how that individual
43:37
Speaker 1: responds to that exact same.
43:39
Speaker 2: Thing, right right, You know that was part of that Differently.
43:45
Speaker 1: Even though I know I'm really digressing here, but I
43:48
Speaker 1: think about, like I'm interested in the psychology of getting offended, doc.
43:55
Speaker 1: You know, It's like if I'm in a room like
43:58
Speaker 1: the other day, I literally did gig and this lady
44:01
Speaker 1: that employed me, I was about to I was presenting,
44:07
Speaker 1: and I was about to swear, and I said, oh,
44:11
Speaker 1: is this a swearing or a non swearing event? And
44:13
Speaker 1: she goes swear away, right, And I don't swear for effect.
44:18
Speaker 1: I just swear because that's how I talk. And it's
44:21
Speaker 1: probably probably I shouldn't, but I'm a little too sweary.
44:24
Speaker 1: But anyway, the funny thing is you might say, I
44:29
Speaker 1: might say fuck to a room of one hundred people
44:33
Speaker 1: and one person gets offended, but ninety nine people don't.
44:37
Speaker 1: And then I think, ah, so what causes the offense?
44:41
Speaker 1: Is it the word? Well, clearly not, because ninety nine
44:45
Speaker 1: people didn't get offended, So what is that about? And
44:48
Speaker 1: then this whole thing of like, and I'm not trying
44:51
Speaker 1: to get into the political correctness space, but who do
44:55
Speaker 1: we cater to?
44:56
Speaker 2: Like?
44:56
Speaker 1: Do we cater to the one that might get offended?
44:59
Speaker 1: And then the nine none that think it's funny? We
45:01
Speaker 1: discount them? Or you know, like you think about like
45:07
Speaker 1: life is really an ongoing process of how me the
45:10
Speaker 1: individual interacts with the world around me and responds to
45:14
Speaker 1: the world around me. I don't know where I'm going
45:17
Speaker 1: with this, by the way, No, that's quite all right.
45:19
Speaker 2: That's what I love some of these conversations. But yeah, offense,
45:25
Speaker 2: taking offense to something is clearly on the person who
45:27
Speaker 2: took the offense, because they could be a minority in
45:31
Speaker 2: the audience, as you're suggesting, it can sometimes only be
45:34
Speaker 2: one person, and it's because they've had a unique set
45:38
Speaker 2: of experiences that changes how they are perceiving either the
45:44
Speaker 2: word or the act that is creating discomfort in their mind.
45:51
Speaker 1: Yeah.
45:51
Speaker 2: And I'm of the mind where we need to stop
45:58
Speaker 2: being so easily offended. I think we need to educate
46:01
Speaker 2: people to because it's kind of egotistical to be offended, right,
46:06
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of like, well, the world revolves
46:10
Speaker 2: around me. You said something that I don't like, so
46:14
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you I'm offended by it in
46:17
Speaker 2: hopes that you change your behavior, that you be more
46:20
Speaker 2: like me. Yes, I find that egotistical. What you should
46:25
Speaker 2: do is just let these things slide right off you.
46:28
Speaker 2: What's the big deal. They're not physically hurting you in
46:31
Speaker 2: any way, and any psychological damage you incur is what
46:35
Speaker 2: you bring on yourself. Okay, Like you said, it's how
46:39
Speaker 2: you're reacting, and I understand and I sympathize with it.
46:44
Speaker 2: But there are tools out there, There are psychologists out
46:48
Speaker 2: there that can train you to change your perception. Okay, yes,
46:53
Speaker 2: and I think that the onus is on the offended
46:57
Speaker 2: to do that, you know. And it doesn't mean that
47:01
Speaker 2: they can't get behind a cause, you know, to rally
47:05
Speaker 2: to change, yes, whatever it was that offended them. But
47:10
Speaker 2: to sit there and suffer and accuse someone of making
47:14
Speaker 2: you suffer because of your thought patterns, I find that
47:18
Speaker 2: fundamentally wrong.
47:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. I I don't know. Somebody sent me this thing yesterday. Doc.
47:25
Speaker 1: I'm gonna this is not a great thing to do
47:27
Speaker 1: in the middle of a podcast, but I'm going to
47:29
Speaker 1: try and find it quickly. This this American pastor what's
47:37
Speaker 1: his name, Bishop Bronner.
47:40
Speaker 2: Just happened from there.
47:42
Speaker 1: Just happened to me anyway. He said, stay away from
47:45
Speaker 1: people who act like a victim and a problem that
47:47
Speaker 1: they created.
47:49
Speaker 2: Ah. Yeah, So that's kind of speaking to that same point,
47:52
Speaker 2: isn't it. Yeah, And again, I'm not trying to be
47:55
Speaker 2: little in anybody's feelings. They're real, yes, okay, yes, and
47:58
Speaker 2: I sympathize, of course, but by the same token. You
48:02
Speaker 2: can't demand that the world can form to your views.
48:06
Speaker 2: We live in a very diverse population with people who
48:09
Speaker 2: have had incredibly different experiences, and I think it is
48:14
Speaker 2: actually harmful to tell people to stop talking, okay, or
48:20
Speaker 2: expressing an opinion because you're offended. They have every right
48:23
Speaker 2: to say it. They have every right to their opinion.
48:26
Speaker 2: And you know, you're entitled to your feelings. But I
48:29
Speaker 2: do think you're entitled to cancel someone or to shut
48:33
Speaker 2: them down because of the way it made you feel.
48:36
Speaker 2: I think, you know the way you feel is kind
48:38
Speaker 2: of your responsibility.
48:40
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's like an individual response to a particular stimulus.
48:44
Speaker 1: And I think Ricky Gervais says something frequently like, it's
48:49
Speaker 1: not my job to look after your feelings. It's not
48:53
Speaker 1: It's not my job to manage your emotions. That's yours.
48:56
Speaker 1: You know.
48:57
Speaker 2: He's a wonderful comedian, and I think he would. He's
49:00
Speaker 2: giving advice that a lot of psychologists would give one
49:03
Speaker 2: hundred percent.
49:04
Speaker 1: Hey, just quickly, before we move on from twins, I
49:09
Speaker 1: just want to know is there something they kind of
49:13
Speaker 1: infer I've seen a few docos where we're very very close,
49:18
Speaker 1: I mean identical twins who are pretty much intertwined. Their
49:21
Speaker 1: lives are intertwined. You know, these twins that end up
49:25
Speaker 1: marrying two brothers and they live in houses next door
49:28
Speaker 1: to each other or two sisters and whatever. But they
49:32
Speaker 1: they they maintain that they have like basically a form
49:37
Speaker 1: of telepathy. Now you know that that is probably just
49:43
Speaker 1: a byproduct of the fact that they are identical twins.
49:47
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, there's no hookus pocus about that at all.
49:51
Speaker 2: I mean, if you have the same genes and they
49:53
Speaker 2: build roughly the same brain, and let's see, their epigenetic
49:57
Speaker 2: landscape is pretty identical, and yeah, you're going to be
50:01
Speaker 2: thinking the same things. I would presume that in those cases,
50:05
Speaker 2: those sorts of twins had very similar experiences growing up,
50:08
Speaker 2: nothing dramatically different, So it would be yeah, it's not
50:11
Speaker 2: surprising to me that they would be on the same wavelength.
50:14
Speaker 1: If you will. I know, this is like a too
50:18
Speaker 1: big a question for a however many minute answer, But
50:21
Speaker 1: people listening to this now they're getting the head around. Okay,
50:25
Speaker 1: my genetics are my genetics, but the way that those
50:28
Speaker 1: genes are expressed is a variable that I can influence
50:32
Speaker 1: to some extent. And even though Dad had a heart attack.
50:36
Speaker 1: And even though Mum got diabetes, that doesn't mean that
50:39
Speaker 1: I have to have either. If we're interested in opening
50:43
Speaker 1: the door personally on exploring, I mean, well, reading your
50:47
Speaker 1: book is a great start. But other than that, like
50:51
Speaker 1: how to optimize everything? How do I get the best
50:56
Speaker 1: chance of optimizing my genetic potential? Is there a bit
51:00
Speaker 1: of a stepping off point? I Well, you know what
51:05
Speaker 1: I would.
51:05
Speaker 2: Tell my kids, you know, in order to grow up
51:09
Speaker 2: as as healthy and you know, with a with a
51:11
Speaker 2: good well being as possible, you can go a long
51:16
Speaker 2: long way by doing simple, common sense things. And I
51:20
Speaker 2: know this is boring, trite advice, but if you eat
51:24
Speaker 2: right and you exercise, and you don't put toxins into
51:28
Speaker 2: your body, yeah, you know, I talk toxins like hard
51:32
Speaker 2: drugs and smoking and things like that, you're going to
51:37
Speaker 2: you know, by and large, you know, have a very
51:39
Speaker 2: happy life and a state of you know, a good
51:45
Speaker 2: state of well being. Now, that doesn't always work for
51:48
Speaker 2: people who have like some kind of genetic aberration that
51:51
Speaker 2: leads them into clinical depression. I'm not saying that patients
51:55
Speaker 2: who suffer that magnitude of mental health condition can simply
52:01
Speaker 2: eat their way out of it or something like that.
52:03
Speaker 2: But for most most people who are struggling with with
52:08
Speaker 2: happiness and aren't clinically depressed, it's probably just an imbalance
52:13
Speaker 2: in you know, these these processed foods and what they're
52:17
Speaker 2: messing up in your body in terms of gene expression,
52:20
Speaker 2: in terms of microbiome content, and in just in terms
52:25
Speaker 2: of brain health. You know, how they're how they're messing
52:28
Speaker 2: up your brain chemistry. So I always try to think
52:34
Speaker 2: in the context of our ancient ancestors. Okay, not necessarily
52:39
Speaker 2: paleo diet per se, but we evolved for tens of
52:44
Speaker 2: thousands of years as hunter gatherers, eating real food, foraging
52:49
Speaker 2: a lot of plant, a lot of roots, probably insects,
52:53
Speaker 2: but I don't necessarily advocate that, and then occasionally some meat, okay,
52:59
Speaker 2: And that's what we that's what our bodies are programmed
53:03
Speaker 2: to ingest and function off of. You know, for tens
53:07
Speaker 2: of thousands of years. All these processed foods are just
53:09
Speaker 2: a few decades old. We really have no idea what
53:13
Speaker 2: they might be doing long term to our health. We
53:16
Speaker 2: certainly know it isn't helping with the obesity problem. Yeah,
53:20
Speaker 2: so we just got to be really careful about what
53:23
Speaker 2: we're putting into our bodies. So that's that's what I
53:27
Speaker 2: would tell my kids, and that's how I would advise
53:29
Speaker 2: your listeners. I know it's boring, but that's it.
53:32
Speaker 1: I'm boring. That's what I'm boring. We've got to wind
53:35
Speaker 1: it up. But before we go, you wrote another article
53:38
Speaker 1: which I read everyone. That's great. It's called you Don't
53:40
Speaker 1: need a lot of money to read a Rich Life,
53:42
Speaker 1: So go to author Bill Sullivan dot com. But just quickly,
53:47
Speaker 1: one of the takeaways from that was that a lot
53:51
Speaker 1: of global kind of surveys around happiness don't usually include
53:57
Speaker 1: people living in low income communities, which I never even
54:00
Speaker 1: thought about that. And that also one of the studies
54:07
Speaker 1: showed that people from low income indigenous societies often report,
54:14
Speaker 1: you know, higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction, or
54:17
Speaker 1: as high levels as what we would think as people
54:21
Speaker 1: living in a privileged situation. I found that really interesting.
54:26
Speaker 2: I found it interesting too, and I was surprised that
54:28
Speaker 2: a lot of these happiness researchers did not look at
54:34
Speaker 2: happiness levels in other societies. They usually focused on the
54:39
Speaker 2: developed countries. Yes, but there was a study that I
54:42
Speaker 2: wrote about in this article that specifically looked at people
54:46
Speaker 2: who still live either as hunter gatherer tribes or in
54:50
Speaker 2: low income societies, meaning they're making less than one thousand
54:54
Speaker 2: dollars per year. Okay, And the way the happiness scale works,
54:58
Speaker 2: it's out of one to ten being the most happy.
55:01
Speaker 2: A lot of these societies were ranking up there at
55:05
Speaker 2: seven out of ten, which is some of the happiest
55:09
Speaker 2: measurements on that scale ever seen. You know, they're compatible
55:13
Speaker 2: with the Scandinavian countries, you know, like Denmark and Norway
55:17
Speaker 2: that usually score very high. And most people chalk that
55:20
Speaker 2: up to you know, universal healthcare, universal college. You know,
55:25
Speaker 2: the government has a very strong safety net and that's
55:28
Speaker 2: why these countries do so well. And I think that's
55:31
Speaker 2: a good argument to be made. But what this new
55:34
Speaker 2: study tells us is that you don't need a lot
55:37
Speaker 2: of wealth or money to just be happy, okay. So
55:44
Speaker 2: and it kind of makes a lot of sense if
55:46
Speaker 2: you watch any of these documentaries about some of these societies.
55:52
Speaker 2: They don't look sad, they don't look depressed, they're not
55:55
Speaker 2: moping around. They have smiles on their faces. They're laughing,
55:59
Speaker 2: they're joking, they're teasing, they're having fun. They look like
56:01
Speaker 2: they're genuinely enjoying life. Not that I'm going to go
56:05
Speaker 2: join one of these tribes, Greg, but I think it
56:08
Speaker 2: has some important lessons that we are chasing ghosts of
56:12
Speaker 2: happiness in this country. We are going after the wrong things. Now,
56:19
Speaker 2: the study doesn't address what does make these people happy.
56:22
Speaker 2: It just tells us that they are, And it tells
56:24
Speaker 2: us that you don't need a lot of wealth or
56:28
Speaker 2: material things or fancy cars or anything like that in
56:33
Speaker 2: order to be happy. And I think a lot of
56:35
Speaker 2: us could probably by stress reduction, simplify our lives and
56:42
Speaker 2: avoid chasing after some of these things that might make
56:45
Speaker 2: us feel good momentarily okay, but don't sustain happiness. So
56:51
Speaker 2: I think that's what we need to reframe the question
56:55
Speaker 2: around is to what do you really need at the
56:59
Speaker 2: most basic life level and you find out that it's
57:02
Speaker 2: not that much. You know, you need food, shelter, and
57:06
Speaker 2: you know, some community safety and community. Yeah, if you
57:10
Speaker 2: can get, if you can learn to be grateful for that,
57:14
Speaker 2: it goes a long way in building sustained contentment.
57:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's a really good idea to question
57:23
Speaker 1: the stories that we have, like in Australia anyway, success,
57:29
Speaker 1: for the most part, is about what you have and
57:31
Speaker 1: what you earn and what you own and what you
57:33
Speaker 1: drive and where you live and what you look like
57:34
Speaker 1: and what people think are you and your brand and
57:36
Speaker 1: your money, and not that any of those things are
57:40
Speaker 1: bad things, but you know, we have this story that
57:44
Speaker 1: this external thing will give me this internal state.
57:49
Speaker 3: When I have that, I'll be happy when I look
57:52
Speaker 3: like that. I'll be happy when I weigh that. I'll
57:54
Speaker 3: be happy when I've got tenure, I'll be happy when
57:58
Speaker 3: I own another gym. I'll be happy when my biceps
58:01
Speaker 3: are bigger.
58:02
Speaker 1: You know. In my case, like I spent my life
58:05
Speaker 1: trying to find happiness until I was about thirty. And
58:08
Speaker 1: it's not like I've figured it all out now and
58:10
Speaker 1: I'm the bad one, but you know, so much of
58:14
Speaker 1: my belief system was built around this idea that what
58:20
Speaker 1: was going to make me less anxious, more fulfilled, more calm,
58:24
Speaker 1: more happy was all of these external acquisitions and achievements.
58:30
Speaker 1: And the more shit I got, the more stuff I got.
58:34
Speaker 1: It was almost I'm not saying that was the cause,
58:37
Speaker 1: but I think I became more and more despondent because
58:41
Speaker 1: I thought, well, maybe I don't need two motorbikes, maybe
58:45
Speaker 1: I need four. Maybe I don't need a fifty inch TV,
58:49
Speaker 1: I need one hundred inch to or you know, and
58:51
Speaker 1: it wasn't that, but it wasn't far from that. And
58:54
Speaker 1: then you get to the point and you go, oh,
58:56
Speaker 1: maybe what's not Maybe the problem is not what I
59:00
Speaker 1: have or don't have, but rather who I am or
59:02
Speaker 1: who I'm not. Right now, I know that's a bit philosophical,
59:05
Speaker 1: but we're a very externally focused culture. We worry like,
59:10
Speaker 1: we worry about what people who don't even like us
59:14
Speaker 1: think exactly, Like, what's that about? Well, I really like
59:19
Speaker 1: that you mentioned the whole external internal thing, because the
59:23
Speaker 1: way to happiness is, as these studies are suggesting, is
59:26
Speaker 1: to flip that script. Happiness is not going to be
59:29
Speaker 1: found in externals because there's always one more wrong hire
59:33
Speaker 1: on that ladder. Okay, you can't stop claiming you're always
59:36
Speaker 1: going to want more. Whereas if you can train your
59:39
Speaker 1: internal systems, your inner monologue to be grateful for the
59:43
Speaker 1: bounty that you already do have, yeah, you're you're going
59:47
Speaker 1: to be in a much you know, better mental health
59:50
Speaker 1: state than someone who keeps chasing after you know, more
59:55
Speaker 1: of this fool's gold.
59:58
Speaker 2: And then of the I like about these, so is
1:00:01
Speaker 2: the charity aspect, you know, and this stems from internal feelings,
1:00:07
Speaker 2: a lot of studies support that the more you help
1:00:10
Speaker 2: people and the more generous you are, you know, not
1:00:13
Speaker 2: necessarily with your money, but with your time and with
1:00:16
Speaker 2: your compassion, the happier you yourself become.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense. I love
1:00:24
Speaker 1: chatting to you. Author Bill Sullivan dot com. The book
1:00:26
Speaker 1: is called Please to Meet Me. Last question before we go.
1:00:31
Speaker 1: I don't think you're going to like the question, but
1:00:33
Speaker 1: I don't care. Who's going to be the next president?
1:00:37
Speaker 2: The next president of the US? Wow, what a great question,
1:00:42
Speaker 2: Alfred E. Newman. I'm going to rate him.
1:00:44
Speaker 1: There you wish? Hey mate, Well say goodbye, O fair
1:00:49
Speaker 1: but for the moment. Thanks again, I appreciate you.
1:00:52
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure. Greg,