#1961 - Peter Attia

The Joe Rogan Experience.

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The sign was made by this company, Rogue House Relics.

They make these beautiful, neon, cool-looking, funky signs.

And my buddy Brigham actually bought it for me when I moved here.

And I was like, wow, what a cool sign.

Wouldn't that be nice if it was in the studio behind me?

And so it wasn't on purpose, it wasn't by design at all.

And so once he did it, but the UFO was his idea.

Yeah, it was before we even decided to call it the mothership, yeah.

But I'm easy to figure out.

I mean, I got a fucking Bob Lazar UFO on the desk.

I got fucking stars on the ceilings.

I have an alien head in the sky.

Yeah, I'm a dork.

It's easy to, I mean, it's not like, wow, how did he know you like UFOs?

I'm fucking obsessed.

I'm absolutely obsessed.

I think it's the only thing that's going to save us.

So, Outlive, the science and art of longevity.

This is a big one, buddy.

Look at this, look at all this.

There's a lot of information in this.

Not a lot of pictures.

No pictures?

No, there's some.

I need pictures.

Yeah, there's some, there's some.

No, it's, is it out now?

Out today.

Today, beautiful.

How long did it take you to write this?

Six years.

Wow, six years.

And I know that's like six years of actual work too.

Yeah, I made a rewrote it twice.

So, there's kind of version one, version two, this is version three.

What did you change?

So, the first version got basically thrown out by the publisher because they said, this is way too technical.

There's no narrative.

There's no story.

It's being written to just a very, you know, tiny sliver of the world.

Basically, it's like the book you would write to scientists or maybe physicians.

So, then there was kind of version two.

So, that version is completely gone.

I don't think there's anything from that that made it into version two.

Version two was the skeleton of this book, but it was about 50% longer.

I mean, it was a massive book.

And that's the kind of version that I'd say was circa 2020.

And this version is just basically better because it's shorter.

A lot of stuff got taken out of it that I think was not absolutely necessary.

And I just sharpened my thinking.

I mean, I think that's what writing is.

I think writing just makes you ask the question, like, is this necessary?

And does this help the reader understand something?

And if not, get it out.

So, the expression is kill your babies.

You've got to be able to, like, read something that you've worked really hard on and put a ton of time into and say, I got to nuke it.

Yeah, I think that's with everything.

Yeah, totally.

It's fiction, with comedy.

I'm sure it's that way with music.

There's a certain point in time you have to edit things and get – with comedians, it's a real issue.

Because some comedians, like, like certain parts of a bit and, like, that bit fucks your bit up.

I know it gets, like, a little bit of a laugh, but it fucks it up because this, like, yeah, I kind of like doing that.

I'm like, listen, don't look at it like it's yours.

Look at it like if you were outside of you.

Like, I edit the shit out of my stuff.

If you look at it like it's outside of you, like, how would you approach that?

But that's very hard to do because if you write something, I mean, six years, right, three different versions.

There's a lot of you invested in this book.

So it's, like, very difficult to just, like, chop stuff up and, you know, just fucking throw it away all the time and all the thinking and –

And there was a whole appendix that never made it in.

So one of the things I wanted to do was pick, like, the 20 most important drugs, hormones, supplements that I think are relevant and write just, quote, unquote, 10 pages on each.

And – or I didn't go into it thinking it would be 10 pages.

I thought I'm just going to write the essentials on these 10 things.

You know, kind of rapamycin, metformin, you know, nicotinamide, riboside, you know, those sorts of things.

But then it turned out it was taking me, like, you know, 8 to 10 pages per.

And the publisher was like, yeah, there's no way you can have a 200-page appendix on a 450-page book.

So, like, all of that work gone, just scrap.

Oh, no.

Have you thought about making that, like, a separate guide?

Yeah.

Maybe down the line I'll just publish it on my website or something like that.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, it seems like it's very valuable information though.

Yeah, I mean, it's – I'm ready to put the book aside for a minute.

It's so burnt out.

Yeah.

Although my wife says, like, the last few weeks, she's like, it feels like the weight of the world is off your shoulders.

Mm.

You know.

Yeah.

Well, it is – when you have something that's a big project, it's very difficult to not let it consume your entire life.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I was watching this clip of you and Huberman.

It was really fascinating because you were talking about self-talk, the way you talk to yourself.

And about how you adjusted that.

I thought that was very, very interesting that you would get – you know, one of the problems with people like yourself,

I guess myself too, people that get, like, really into things, is you get obsessed and then you get very hard on yourself if things aren't going well.

Or if it's not going exactly the way you want it to go, the way – you know, if you're not using proper technique, if you're not doing –

and then for you, you had a real problem where you were, like, very hypercritical of yourself.

Yeah.

And, I mean, it was actually out loud.

I mean, I would just verbally berate myself whenever I made mistakes.

And I don't remember not experiencing this, right?

So this is something that seemed –

Your whole life.

Yeah.

This is, like, seven-year-old Peter was doing this too.

Wow.

Yeah.

Where'd you get that from?

I mean, I know it had to do with sort of, you know, various defects in my, you know, my life as a child.

And I think there was just – I think everybody responds kind of differently to – the word trauma is a bit loaded, so I want to be kind of careful using it.

But I think we all experience trauma.

We're highly adaptable, right?

So everybody adapts to trauma very well, I think, for the most part.

But there are maladaptations.

And I think one of my, you know, issues, I think, growing up was just a total inferiority complex, right?

Like this feeling like not good enough, you know, look down upon constantly, you know, all that sort of stuff.

Like a lot of this is very typical immigrant stuff, by the way.

Like when you're kind of the only non-white person in your middle-class neighborhood, you're different than everybody else.

Like I think that's what drew me into sports like boxing and martial arts at such a young age, right?

It was kind of like the I'll be different, I'll be better, I'll be tougher, all those things.

So somehow I just think that that narrative got harsher and harsher as I got older and older.

And it didn't matter, you know, what sort of accolades came with it because it does produce good results sometimes.

You know, you do get better.

But I think, you know, where I got to was just the benefits were no longer close to compensating for the costs.

And I think the biggest costs were the costs not just on me, which were there all along,

but it's how it kind of spreads into your relationships with other people, most importantly your family.

Yeah, I realized at an early age that there's zero benefit in being hard on yourself because I am no matter what,

I'm a perfectionist and I get very angry at myself.

There's zero benefit to self-talk that's negative.

So I cut that out of my life like very early on.

How did you do that?

Well, I mean from, you know, age 15 on I was very, very active in martial arts competition, right?

So my whole focus was on that and my whole focus was on getting better.

And anything that would somehow or another get in the way of me getting better, I cut it out.

Whether it was partying, drinking, spending too much time with girls, whatever it was.

I'm like, that's got to go because that's getting in the way.

And I found that negative self-talk gets in the way because there's the reason why you have negatives or I have negative self-talk

was because I was insecure and I was very ambitious and I really wanted to be really good and I wanted to be really good immediately.

I didn't want to wait.

But I realized somewhere along the way that the negative in any way, shape or form, I didn't need it because I was so driven like that.

The negative was just getting in the way.

It was like I thought that it was helping me because I was like, come on, you fucking idiot, like get going.

But then I realized like, no, no, no, no, no.

Like that's not, that isn't, there's no benefit to that because all the, you already have like this crazy desire to get better.

So just don't ever be shitty to yourself and instead concentrate all your energy on what you're doing wrong and technique.

And that's why my technique got so good so quickly is because I didn't, I didn't spend any time with self-loathing.

Like I didn't spend any time after losses, loathing myself.

All I wanted to do is get back to the gym, but I just figured it out on my own and I don't know how, you know, there's like,

there's been some moments in my life and in comedy and in martial arts where I realized I have a very, I had an error in thinking and I made adjustments.

And that was one of, that was an adjustment that I made like as a teen, as a young teenager, I made that adjustment.

That's fortunate.

I mean, I look, I'm 47, I'm 50 now, but I was 47 when I figured this out and I didn't necessarily figure it out on my own.

I mean, it had to be sort of made apparently clear to me.

So the, you know, if I'd figured this out when I was 17, I would have saved myself and everybody else a lot of pain.

Yeah.

It's hard, man.

Because if you're, if you're ambitious, if you have goals, if you're very into what you're doing, you're very focused on whatever the endeavor is.

Whenever you have a setback, it's, it's really frustrating and it's infuriating.

And you can, you can get very angry at yourself, especially if you're doing something that you know better.

Like if you make an error, whether it's with archery or whether it's anything that you do that you're really interested in.

If you, you know that it was a lapse of concentration or you're tired or you just weren't focused on it entirely and you fuck something up, it's like, God damn it, you fucking dumbass piece of shit.

Like it's so easy to do that, but you can't let that happen because it's a bad use of fuel.

It really is.

It's a bad use of fuel.

I mean, I'll still occasionally yell if I fuck something like fucking fuck, but I'm not mad at myself.

It's just energy.

I just have to fucking get it out.

You know, I'm just, I just got to fucking let it out.

But, um, I think thinking of yourself as a fucking loser is never good.

Like zero time.

There's no benefit in it ever.

You're always going to have frustration.

But you have to also understand the process.

Like in the, while things are going poorly, it's very difficult to recognize that it's part of the process.

It's so hard.

It's so hard when things are going poorly, whether it's with standup comedy or martial arts or anything.

When things suck, when things aren't going well, it's so difficult to see past that moment.

But you just have to.

And over time, with many, many different instances of this taking place, you recognize like it's okay.

I know you feel like shit.

I know you feel like the world is ending, but it's not.

Not only is it not ending, this is like totally inconsequential.

And this is actually good for you because this frustration will add to your motivation and will add to your inspiration.

And you'll eventually get better.

But tell that to a 16 year old.

It's fucking so hard, man.

It's so hard.

I actually, I tell you, in me it got worse over time.

Like as bad as it was when I was young.

And when I was young, I mean, I was, it was so, I can't imagine what my parents went through.

Like I don't think I went one month without putting my fist through a wall at home.

I mean, I got so good at doing drywall.

I'm serious.

Like, because that's like, my parents were like, well, you're going to have to fix that.

So it's like I basically became like a tradesman on the side.

Why didn't they just get you a punching bag?

I did.

I mean, I had every punching bag.

You just didn't care.

Because if I got pissed while I was in my bedroom, there wasn't a punching bag there.

Wow.

Like even in college, like, you know, writing computer programs and I screw up some line of code,

like I would break my mouse or break my keyboard or whatever.

I mean, it was just like so pathologically destructive.

And, you know, it just, it just got so much worse.

You know, it just, which is really frightening.

Do you think it got so much worse because you accomplished so many things

and your drive just increased with the amount of success that you had

and the different things you accomplished in your life,

whereas when you were younger, it was almost like you experienced fuck-ups and success,

whereas as you've gotten older, when a fuck-up does happen,

it's just so infuriating because you should be past it?

That's a good question.

That might be the case.

My thinking is a little bit different, which is there's an addiction at play here, right?

So if you shift the thinking of this to that addiction mindset,

and it's hard to sometimes think of perfectionism as an addiction

because it doesn't produce immediately the same negative consequences

as the addictions to, you know, alcohol, drugs, and gambling

and sort of the less socially acceptable addictions.

But I think what happens with most people who are addicted to something

is their appetite for that addiction gets higher and higher.

And so, you know, if you're addicted to alcohol,

like an alcoholic habituates to a certain amount of alcohol.

They have to drink more and more and more.

And similarly, the need for achievement grew more and more and more.

And one of my therapists explained this to me so well,

and I was like, that is the most frightening, brilliant analogy I've ever heard.

She said, you know, your entire self-esteem is based on performance.

And anytime you turn to one of your performance, you know, addictions,

and you don't get performance back, you lose your mind, right?

So everything you have to do feeds your sense of self-worth.

So if you go out and shoot the bow, it's got to be great.

If you go out and drive the car or get in the simulator, it's got to be great.

If you're trying to, you know, prepare for a podcast, it's got to be great.

Like all of these things, you have to be great.

And when you don't, it's sort of like an alcoholic who walks into a bar,

asks for vodka and gets water, right?

They're asking for vodka.

They need the thing that feeds their addiction,

but they're being given water instead.

So I'm demanding great performance because that's how I validate my existence,

and instead I get no performance.

I get lousy performance.

But because my appetite has grown, it gets hard.

That's why I think over time it just got worse and worse.

So what did you do to correct that?

Well, I mean, I think there's two things, right?

There's the underlying belief system has to be completely shattered, right?

So that's, you know, I spent a total of five weeks in residential care,

two weeks in 2017, and three weeks in 2020.

So that's, you know, that's as bad as it gets, right?

That's you're doing 12 to 13 hours a day of therapy, seven days a week.

And that's where you're kind of going back to the root of the problems.

Like what is it that is creating or has created this belief system in you?

So you have to go back and look at that.

You then have to figure out what are the strategies

and tools to break these habits and behaviors.

And so to the latter,

there was a very tangible tool put forth by one of the therapists,

which was every time you do something that creates this ire and rage in you,

instead of defaulting into your normal state,

which is yelling at yourself or breaking an arrow over your thigh

or whatever it is you would do,

pull out your phone and audibly speak as though it's your friend that made that mistake, right?

So if I'm shooting horribly and I really feel like I'm going to lose my mind,

I pull out my phone and I pretend it's you that's shooting horribly.

What would I say to you?

I wouldn't yell at you if you're shooting poorly.

I'd be like, Joe, look, man, it's a little windy today.

Let's be honest.

We're not making excuses.

But when it's 20 mile an hour wind, it's hard to shoot well.

Maybe you're tired.

You know, you probably just lifted right before you came out here.

That always makes it harder for you to stabilize the bow.

And look, maybe it's just a bad day.

Like, let's come out and do it again tomorrow.

And so I would record that and I would send that to my therapist every single time.

And this would happen like multiple times a day.

And just doing that four or five times a day, after four or five, six months,

what I called my inner Bobby Knight, which was the name I had for that guy that would scream at me,

like, I just couldn't hear him anymore.

Wow.

That's fascinating.

So you've fixed a lifelong problem in just a few months.

Which, if you had told me up front that was possible, I would have said, it's not.

I was like, there's no way you can undo something so, I thought, so terminal.

But, you know, this speaks to plasticity, right?

The brain is a pretty plastic thing.

It's interesting to think of what started you on this path and why you didn't course correct.

I love this thought process that it's an addiction.

You're addicted to great performance, which totally makes sense.

Totally makes sense.

Because I could feel myself, I could, like, I definitely could have succumbed to that same sort of thinking and behavior.

And it is a dangerous addiction.

Perfectionism is a dangerous addiction in the sense that a lot of people will reward it.

Society generally rewards it.

And in that sense, another fear I had was, because, I mean, it's not like my, it's not like people around me didn't know I was a mess.

But anytime someone tried to suggest, like, back off, I would look at them and say, are you an idiot?

Like, if I back off, I won't be as good.

Like, if I don't, you know, like when I was in residency, I had this obsession with wanting to read every single textbook written in surgery.

And, you know, this is, we were already working like 114 hours a week.

It's not like I had a lot of free time.

And my wife was like, you're so dogmatic in this.

Like, you insist on reading 26 pages of tiny, fonted textbooks every day.

And she's like, you don't need to do this.

And I was like, are you kidding?

Like, of course I need to do this.

Like, what else will my legacy be if I don't do this?

I mean, it's just like this very polluted sense of self-worth.

But again, it's rewarded because then, you know, you know a lot, right?

And so you, people, people are happy with how much you know.

So it feeds on itself in a very destructive way.

There's nobody that's looking at the guy who's losing all his money gambling and saying, good job.

Like, keep doing that.

Legacy is the strangest thing to aspire to because you will never experience it.

Yeah.

It's such a weird one.

It's so ridiculous, isn't it?

You're not even going to be here.

It's so weird.

I'm really glad I don't have any worry about my legacy.

I have zero thought about my legacy.

And I am so glad that I couldn't care less about it now as well.

It is such a remarkable freedom.

It's the driving force behind many people's lives, though.

Yeah.

And I actually like feeling like kind of a good for nothing whatever.

Well, you certainly are not that, though.

That's why you like feeling like a good for nothing because you clearly are not.

Well, I think it's just that I realize, like, outside of my kids, I'll tell you an interesting story.

It's sort of a sad story, but it's so profound, right?

So I had a friend who his wife was pregnant with their first kid, and he's a successful guy.

So he, prior to his wife having kids, I think he goes through the same sort of thoughts everyone is going to go through,

which is, like, how is this going to change my life?

And the day his wife has the baby, he, you know, it's like the next day, I guess, he's still in the hospital.

He steps out to go buy some food, and he still remembers this to this day.

He's like he bought a banana, and he's walking back to the hospital with the banana that he just bought,

and he thinks to himself, I wonder if I'm going to be the kind of guy who now thinks the most important thing in his life is his family,

or is it still going to be, you know, being a venture capitalist?

And he's thinking about it, he's thinking about it, and he goes, you know what?

I actually think it's just going to be my family.

I think all this other stuff is going to be bullshit, and life is going to be my family.

And I'm not making this up.

He gets back to the room, and his wife is dead.

Oh, my God.

She had had a pulmonary embolism, and she died one day after delivering their first child.

And I was just having dinner with him like two weeks ago, and he was like, you know, it's so ironic that I kind of just immediately have that realization just as everything gets taken away from me.

But he feels that way even more now, right?

And I was like, you know, I think that is exactly the right distinction to make.

It's like this is life.

These are the things that are life.

Everything else is bullshit.

The problem is that getting acceptance and getting appreciation for success is a drug.

It really is a drug, right?

And it becomes a thing that you aspire to, and it seems like the only thing in life.

The goal to life really is harmony.

That's the real goal.

The goal to life is not never being uncomfortable or always being uncomfortable.

The goal to life is not never being upset versus always being upset.

The goal to life is like this balance.

It's like enjoyment in the things that you do but also in your occupation.

Having hobbies but also having a family.

Having love and friendship but also having enough people in your life that you've encountered that suck to understand why you appreciate the people that you care for so much.

I think all those are important.

Like even the people that I know that suck, I value those experiences because they've taught me how really cool my other friends are.

When someone is a fucking psycho narcissist and they fucking ruin everything they touch, it's good to see that person.

It's really good to see this one person that doesn't give a shit about anybody but themselves and go, wow, what a weird way to live.

And then it'll make you appreciate this other friend that's super generous and helps everybody.

He's always smiling like, God, I love you so much now.

I appreciate you.

I appreciate that you have this energy because we could all be that guy.

We could all be this fucking psycho who thinks about nothing other than themselves or this psycho who thinks about nothing other than success, which I've been in my life before.

I really like to almost wish I could go back and meet myself when I was 21 because I'm so different from that person then.

I'm almost like I have a distorted understanding of who I was.

I really would like to see that person.

I'd like to see that person operate.

And you wouldn't worry about, because, of course, I play this game all the time, right?

Everything happens for a reason.

You are where you are today.

You are who you are.

If you went back and talked to the 21-year-old you, A, would he even listen to you?

That's question one.

I wouldn't talk to him.

Oh, you just want to observe.

No, I just want to watch.

Oh, OK.

I'm not going to change anything.

I would not want to change anything about my youth.

Because I think that it turned me into who I am.

And I think whatever combination of life experiences and bad feelings and positive feelings, whatever positive feedback that I got from performance and from accomplishments, they drove me to become who I am.

Yeah.

But it's also, it's like, there's also a lot of like being fortunate, right?

Like being fortunate that you found a great occupation and a great group of people and have a great family.

It's like to be happy in life is fucking complicated.

Yeah, there's amazing luck involved.

I mean, you and I were talking about this the other day, right?

Like winning the wife lottery, like when you marry the right person.

It's everything.

Yeah.

And I think I just feel like so lucky that.

Your wife's amazing.

You really are lucky.

And so am I.

And a lot of other people are too.

But you also didn't fucking marry some dumb bitch.

You know, on her case, she didn't marry some fucking dumb asshole.

It's like you get lucky.

But you also, I've dated some monsters, you know, and I got out of it, luckily.

But just Jesus Christ, there's monsters out there.

There's people.

And these people are just human beings.

And you're catching them at whatever stage of their existence where they've had like terrible upbringings and bad family members.

And just a fucking alcoholic dad, abusive mother who's constantly criticizing them.

And then they become this thing.

And then you run into them at the bar.

Hi, nice to meet you.

I'm Peter.

Hi, I'm Debbie.

And then Debbie just fucking, let me look at your phone.

Who are you texting, Peter?

Like, oh, no.

But if Debbie's hot, that's the problem.

You know, your genes are like, listen, listen, shut the fuck up.

Look at her tits.

Look at that ass.

Let's go.

And then next thing you know, Debbie's pregnant.

Next thing you know, Peter has a baby with some monster.

And that can happen.

It's happened to my friends, to good friends of mine.

It's fucking awful to experience.

I've had good friends of mine that got wrapped up in horrendous relationships.

I was thinking about this the other day.

I mean, the role of luck in anyone's life is profound.

The thing that I think gets underappreciated is the luck we have being born where we are.

So my parents are immigrants, right?

So I was born a couple years after they moved to Canada.

And I was talking with my parents two months ago.

They came out to visit.

And I said, like, was there any chance you guys were not going to move?

You stayed in Egypt, right?

Like, was there any chance?

And I think, do you ever think how different my life would be if I was born in Cairo?

And the answer is, like, beyond different.

Beyond.

Beyond different.

Beyond.

There is no single stroke of luck that has impacted my life.

And by the way, like, if we had been born in Egypt, if I had been born in Egypt, you know, because we're not Muslim,

I mean, it's not a great place to be if you're not a Muslim in a country that's obviously majority Muslim.

I wouldn't have had the same educational opportunities, which wouldn't have had any of the opportunities that I had growing up in Canada.

So, you know, something is completely out of my control, but probably had a greater impact on the arc of my life than anything else.

Yeah, that's just dumb luck, right?

Yeah.

You just hit the birth lottery.

Absolutely.

I think that way, too.

I also think that, you know, we are extremely fortunate in human history to be born when we were born.

I'm a little older than you.

I'm 55.

You're 50.

So, you know, you were born in the 70s.

I was born in the late 60s.

And we were born.

Yeah, just go 100 years earlier.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which in evolutionary time is still nothing, right?

Nothing.

That's like .001%.

Yeah.

But yes, 100 years sooner.

Totally different existence.

Yeah, we're fucked.

We're fucked.

Everyone's dying of infections.

And on top of that, we have experienced a very unique time in human history where the birth of the internet has happened while we were adults.

And not too young for us, right?

Right.

Exactly.

So, it's like we got to grow up, I hate to say it, but like normal, right?

Yeah, like normal.

Yeah.

Like a normal human.

I mean, when I was a kid, I remember the answering machine being a big deal.

We were like, whoa.

We never had one at our house.

Someone call you and leave a message?

Yeah.

No, that was advanced.

That was way too advanced.