You're listening to The Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Good to see you, buddy. It's been way too long. It has, Peter. I mean, I loved abundance. I've been in the 360s. I think I've been a member for nine years now. But that's when you're the man of the hour, so we barely get to talk. It sucks when I'm walking by and I'm seeing you in the corner there and I'm like in the middle running to my next meeting.
And it's like, no, stop. Go give Dave a hug because he's your buddy and you have to at least give him a hug. You know, the biohacking conference that's coming up here. uh at the end of may beginning of june same thing like i see so many friends and i just want to stop and say hi and but you know your security guy's like you're on stage in one minute so what are you gonna do right totally yeah and a360 was amazing we had a lot on ai and it really is uh
just a coming wave that's reinventing everything. You and I were talking about this a little bit earlier, and the question is, when can we get AI or humanoid robots to do our work for us, like meditate for us? you know, eat properly for us and work out for us. You know, I think you can get AI to work out for you, at least partially. I mean, I'm doing that. That's part of the Upgrade Labs story.
is there are AI systems that will provide a neurological input to me way better than I can provide myself. And that's been part of my physical transformation over the years, but especially over the last three years. But it's not really doing it for you. It's just making sure that every little ounce of effort doesn't go to waste. And we can probably get it there with food too, right? Where every bite you take does what it's supposed to do and tastes good.
But I'm probably not going to figure that out by myself. It's going to require AI intelligence to do it. I keep on harping on the vision that we're all going to have a version of Jarvis from Iron Man. And it's not too far now. We've got Siri. I won't say ALX, yay. because she'll wake up in the background here. But your Jarvis, if you turn it on to a health autopilot or whatever, some version of that, it'll tell you, don't take the escalators, take the stairs, don't eat that.
Remember, take these medications now. It's measuring your blood micronutrient levels all the time, and it's advising. You can tell it to shut up if you want, but if you really want to turn it on to maximum.
health taskmaster, it can motivate you, support you, and keep you in optimum. Because sometimes, as you well know, at the end of the day, after it's been a hard day and you're exhausted on making decisions um it's just difficult to do the right thing unless you've got someone that'll support you it is and meta trained in AI on 48 million pub bed things and then turned it off after two days and didn't say why. But it's probably because the British Medical Journal talks about the...
the epidemic of irreproducibility. In other words, we think something's real because there was a study, but no one else can replicate the study, maybe because someone with a personal interest or a financial interest might have falsified the study or someone made a mistake. But if AI believes the studies are the Bible of knowledge and it turns out they're wrong, you could get advice to drive off a cliff the way Google Maps used to make you do, right? I had a walk yesterday with Brian Armstrong.
who lives here in LA. He's the founder of Coinbase, and he's also co-founder of New Limit, one of the new billionaire-backed biotech epigenetic... reprogramming companies and we're just having a catch up and he was telling me about that uh and the numbers are pretty staggering in terms of the number of published
journal articles that are not reproduced. And when I was in medical school and when I was in the lab, it was just always gospel that if it appeared in the peer reviewed journal, it was real. Yeah. It's a little bit scary too, because on the same day in two different journals, you can see the exact opposite results. And I think it's causing a little bit of schizophrenia for people who try to get their health information online.
And you're saying, well, how do I know who to believe? Which is how we used to do it. And now it may be which AI engine do I believe? Because... I get different answers, but I find that now if I say, and tell me why, when I make a query, that I get a much better answer. And so I've been able to, especially with the very latest updates on ChudgyBT.
molecular pathways and stuff. It's so much easier than it used to be. But for an average person to say, what should I eat? It's going to tell you, eat a balanced diet. Make sure to exercise in a healthy way. and eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, grains, cereal, meat, eggs, and not too much fat. And you're like, don't forget to breathe. Oh yeah. Don't forget to breathe. Right. And like, it's just, it's vapid.
Do you think we're going to get better? And if the data we're using is corrupt, how do we get better? Yeah, I think, number one, we will get better. And you're right. So one of the things, for example, at Fountain Life we're doing is we're actually... gathering data from pre-symptomatic healthy people, which is really important to then track them and see what were the early signals before they developed something else. Because most of the data that we have
And building models now from hospitals is all sick care versus healthcare, right? The other thing is where actually the whole field of functional medicine is so important, right? Where rather than studying like... disease by organ systems, you're actually studying disease on a cellular level. What's the pathway involved? And so what's the particular supplement or vitamin or mineral required to impact that pathway? And there's a lot of...
And my sister is going through functional medicine training. I mean, all of our physicians at Fountain are functional medicine MDs. And she's an amazing doctor. But she's saying, none of this is taught in medical school today. None of this. And it's like, they're not learning about nutrition. They're not learning about any of the medicine that really cutting edge medicine can provide patients today. It's stuck decades ago.
really sucks they used to teach pretty much a flow chart so like do this then do this and if you do anything but the flow chart you're a bad doctor and the functional people are saying well You know, there is no flow chart that we're aware of because we have 800,000 sites of methylation. So let's just follow the path and see what's there. And it's just, it's a systems thinking versus mechanistic thinking. I don't believe we're meat robots.
And I do think AI, like the way you're using it's going to help. Yeah. But there's, there's other things like. At 40 Years of Zen, which is my brain upgrade neuroscience program. Which I need to do, and I'm remiss of being there. You're on the list. Naveen just went through there, and it was really good. Naveen Jain. Yeah.
What we're launching coming up here, I'm kind of sneak peeking it, is adding ketamine to the program as an optional addition. And so I went through, I have a medical director, of course, but I've... familiar with this area of personal development. And I'm like, what are the mechanisms of neuroplasticity? And I knew three, but there was a fourth one about inhibiting something called GSK3. So GSK3 inhibits...
neuron growth and ketamine inhibits an inhibitor of neuron growth. So I want people super neuroplastic when they're doing deep personal development work so that they can get more benefit in less time.
I wouldn't have known that. And GPT last month wouldn't have done that. So I just feel like it's finally gotten to a point where you can actually answer questions in a good way. Agreed. The challenge in a lot of the AI models today is they are become either... woke or or socially um uh socially conscious or they're just the lawyers are getting involved in protecting what they can or cannot say it makes it
something much worse than 1984 the google wokeness thing i don't trust google's ai until they can certify that it's woke free yeah uh this is one of the points that elon made he said you know the the film 2001 a space odyssey howl went crazy and killed the crew because he was asked to lie um he was told you know
Take the crew to the monoliths in Jupiter, but don't let them know what's going on. And the only solution that the AI had was to kill the crew and take their bodies to Jupiter. And that's what it did. And so the question is, if you're forcing an AI to lie, that sets you up for really bad circumstances. So we're going to see, I mean, x.ai, which is Elon's newest startup, which...
I will never bet against him. He doesn't play for second place. Yeah. His basic premise is an AI system that is maximally truth-seeking and maximally curious, which I find... really good parameters to maximize around. It sounds like a functional AI because right now I would love to be in charge of any of the current AIs and just say, don't let the government lie.
And if it was programmed that when it acted like how that would be bad for the government. So maybe the government would stop lying because like, I've just had enough and all governments of all flavors lie. I just want more transparency. So this isn't a call about one political party or another or one form of government or another. It's just governments are maximally power seeking over time. That's what they do.
And I'm a little tired of where we are now because I'm actually curiosity seeking and freedom seeking. And so I just want a healthy balance. And I think AI should help you and me, Peter. Versus like an army of corporate lawyers who say that it can't tell me, you know, to cut my own hair because I might stab myself with scissors, which I think it's that. Yeah. Not necessarily the topic of our conversation today, but I could not agree with you more.
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Today we're talking about some of the things that are happening in the future itself, like advancements in AI and robots and longevity. And the reason that we're talking about this is... I've been a member of your Abundance 360 Mastermind group for almost 10 years. And I remember in 2014 going with you on the XPRIZE 10th anniversary. And going and visiting JPL and SpaceX and playing with lunar rovers and just really getting a sense for the future.
And then working with you on the Carbon Capture XPRIZE, giving that speech and a small donation that eventually led to you working with Elon. on a hundred million dollar carbon capture prize. And so like, you're just always the most excited, happy guy. You've been on the show with Tony Robbins last time talking about longevity. So I haven't introduced.
my audience in years to what you're doing with Abundance 360 or just to a conversation about AI and robots. Plus we're going to talk about longevity, but I want to share a little bit more about your work because you do many things that people don't know. A lot of times, all the stuff you've done. So tell me, let's start probably with just XPRIZE. How many XPRIZES have there been? Tell me about the most recent big one.
Yeah. So for those who don't know, XPRIZE runs large scale incentive prizes. We don't give out money for a business plan or an idea or something you've done in the past. We put out a big challenge and say, I don't care where you went to school, what you've ever done. If you solve this problem, actually demonstrate it, you win. I started the foundation in 2004. This is our 30th anniversary. And we run.
30 XPRIZES in 30 years. Launched almost $600 million worth of prizes that have driven, wow, you know, over $10 billion in R&D. And we have... $300 million prizes. We've got our $100 million carbon capture prize with Elon. We've got a $101 million health span X prize. We can talk about asking teams to reverse. functional loss in immune muscle and cognition by 10 years minimum 20 years goal um and then we have 120 million dollar desalination prize
And the last prize we just launched with Google is a quantum algorithms prize. Can you use Google's quantum systems to demonstrate an algorithm that can improve one of the UN SDG goals? So that's what's going on. It's amazing. Anusha Ansari is the CEO. I serve as executive chairman and founder. Anusha was our first prize benefactor. She put up $10 million for a private spaceflight prize.
So that's amazing. And Dave, you're welcome to our Visioneering, which is in October as usual. And that's where we debate and we discuss what prizes we should launch next. It's one of the more fun things. I even brought my kids and people listening might not understand how dynamic that is, but it's a group of philanthropists and people who are positively oriented towards the future, trying to figure out like, how do we incent?
people to solve problems that businesses won't solve and then make a price for it and i think it's it's been world changing there would be no spacex had there not been the x prize yeah um is is my take on it maybe there would have been but it would have taken a lot longer We definitely lit the fuse on that industry and looking to do a lot more. And so the conversation, you're right, is where is there a problem that's not being solved or that we need to accelerate? And can we large?
launch a large enterprise and get the smartest people in the world working on it. And what's interesting, going back to the original point you made, is we're entering a very unique period of time where small teams powered by AI, powered by... you know, 3D printing and AR and VR and all the information out there and soon quantum systems and do things that only the largest governments could do before. So small teams.
you know, going after big problems is what we're really trying to incent. It helps to know the right people. One of the coolest things I've seen in a very long time. At the last abundance where you're on stage and your phone rings and I call it guys. It's Elon and it wasn't stage. He was just calling, but he was calling from his jet over his own Starlink network.
Like the ultimate, I did this myself. Yeah. Well, it was even, it was one thing more than that. It was, you know, so I've known you a lot for 24 years and. He's been a friend, a board member at XPRIZE. He's funded two XPRIZES. And he's a big proponent of this idea of abundance. So I reached out and said, hey, I'm having my big event. Would you join? And I said, sure.
And I said, I'll send you a Zoom link because he was in LA. He was in Austin. He goes, I don't do Zoom anymore. He said, I only use X video. Good for him. Which is a video over X, AKA Twitter. And so. He calls me on my phone. I had to hook it up to my computer and then from my computer to the main screen. But it was over X video, over Starlink on his airplane.
Which was definitely baller. I mean, as a former engineer, both of us, actually, we can both just say respect. Whether you like the guy or not, and I do, I think Elon's amazing. And that's noteworthy on a level that's not been done before. Even at the Microsoft level of things, you know, Microsoft and Google have done all sorts of big stuff. But that was just like.
Yeah, that was amazing, Ben. You were there. I mean, you're the guy holding the phone. So just full appreciation for the scope of things you do. Thank you, pal. And I want to go deep on longevity. We touched base on it. You were on your book tour. You're kind of going through what's in the book. But I know because of the conversations we've had, how you and I share this interest in extending life. I mean, healthspan is the first goal, but let's make it longer and extend it.
I want to talk about longevity escape velocity with you. I definitely do. Because when people ask me, how long do you want to live? And when I was in medical school, I set a ridiculous goal of 700 years. And I set that ridiculous goal because I had heard that sea turtles could live that long. And since then, I've tracked bowhead whales can make it to 200 years and Greenland sharks can make it to 500 years. I'm not sure where that 700 number came from.
But on my 50th birthday cake, it said 50 down, 650 to go. I love that. But the reality is what I really want to do is make it to escape velocity. right, to longevity escape velocity. That is the goal. And so do you want to define what longevity escape velocity is for folks? Sure. I mean, it's a concept from Ray Kurzweil, who is a good friend of yours who I actually met through you.
I'm at abundance. And I've been a fan of his work for years, a chief something or another at Google. Yeah, he's the chief futurist at Google. That is probably the most extraordinary success record on. predictions. If you go and you look at Wikipedia, his prediction rate is like 86%. As an example, in 1999, he predicted that we'd have human-level AI by the end of this decade. And everyone laughed. And, you know, Elon was like, yep, Ray got it right.
Yeah, I think Ray might be one year behind schedule on that one. But given the time range, that's well within the window. He also wrote this book that was really... important in silicon valley 20 or so years ago the singularity is near talking about this idea and some other ideas about as long as we can have enough knowledge and techniques to reduce age, as long as they happen faster than you age, you're essentially immortal.
Everything that I see after 20 years almost of running a nonprofit or working in the longevity field in other ways. Like you're investing in these companies with bold ventures and I see them happening all the time and companies going, oh yeah, we're routinely adding 10% to the life of every mammal we can think of. And we're doing trials in humans and the aging clock support it.
So my feeling is that we're like five years out, maybe. Where are you? You know, it's interesting. I go around and ask the top longevity researchers, and I'll share what I get. Again, the idea is there's going to be a moment in time where for every year that you are living, science extends your life for more than a year. And that's just a rapid departure towards infinity.
And I know my 12-year-old boys are going to have that lifespan. The question is, will you and I and everybody listening have access to that? And I think the answer is most definitely yes. Ray's prediction is that we'll reach longevity escape velocity by 2030. And his prediction is based upon AI really making accelerating breakthroughs. And I do believe that.
George Church and David Sinclair, George puts it at circa 2035, as does David. They both scoff at the idea that there is an age limit. Yeah. The reality is everybody in the back of your mind, you've got a number. And that number, it comes from your parents, your grandparents, society, religion, wherever it is. That number is weighing on you all the time. As you well know, Dave, mindset is one of the drivers. There's a great study.
I put out my second longevity book called Longevity Practical Playbook. It's a short version. It's 120 pages instead of the one with Tony at 700 pages. And there's a great study that I quote from the National Academy. of science is that 69,000 women and 1,500 guys were studied and optimists live 15% longer than pessimists. Yes. Amazing, huh?
That's one of the things that makes me feel comfort when trolls come online. Because you know they're living 15% less than people who are kind. Sorry, that's just how the world works. So I always use that to have empathy and compassion for them before I ban them from looking at my content. I love it. I feel good about that. You probably do too, although you don't have to say that out loud. So, you know, longevity, escape, velocity, LEV, when?
I think the answer should be within the next 20 years. Maybe it's within the next five or 10. And so the question for everybody listening is, what are you going to do to make sure you get there? There you go. I'll never forget a dear, dear friend of mine, Todd Hawley, who was my co-founder of my first university, International Space University, died of HIV like six months before the retroviral.
drugs were discovered and released, right? And you just don't want to be the person who misses the breakthroughs in epigenetic reprogramming or whatever it is that gets us to longevity escape velocity. Ever wonder what keeps your body resilient as you age or just recover from injuries? It's your stem cells. These are the heroes behind recovery and renewal.
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provides nitric oxide support for up to 24 hours as measured by an open-label published study. If you're ready to amp up your vascular game and keep your body moving, go to calroy.com slash Dave for a special deal. I see a lot of people, including some listeners of the show, who get a little bit angry. And they say, well, longevity is only for rich people. And I have an answer for that, but I want to know your answer for that. I think that...
Everything, all technology begins with the wealthy using it when it doesn't work so well. Yes. And then by the time it works extremely well, it's cheap and available to everybody. Now, there are a class of medicines like gene therapies that for very narrow orphan diseases are very expensive.
a million bucks in injection, 2 million bucks in injection, and so forth, because there are narrow, you know, there's a population of hundreds of people out of the world. But the nice thing is there are 8 billion people with the disease of aging. And George Church gives the best example. He goes, it's likely to be a gene therapy. And we have an example of a gene therapy that despite the politics and all the ramifications of...
mRNA vaccines, they were gene therapies. And when you manufacture them in the hundreds of millions or billions, they cost 10 bucks. Yep. In fact, Lou Reese came on this show. two years before the pandemic, talking about how mRNA could be used for longevity. And it totally could be. It's all about the payload. It's not about the technology being evil or not evil. The technology is never evil. It's how you use it.
So if I could have an mRNA therapy and I knew what was in it for sure and it was properly tested and it didn't have to be rushed for any reason, I would consider that if the clinical trial showed. improvements in health right now. In fact, I've done gene therapy on myself. I'm now an advisor to mini circle and I've had the fall of statin injection. I'm about to be in the first trial for the next one in two weeks. And so I...
I think there's different pathways to do it, but that is a $25,000 cost today. Just like it was 25 grand for a cell phone in 1989, right? It's going to come down. And it dropped a call every block when you were on that. That's true. You know, so I do think that these therapeutics are going to massively demonetize and democratize. Okay, so we're in agreement there. It's coming and we're doing it as fast as we can because...
Honestly, if you're running one of these companies, do you want to sell $100,000, $5,000 treatments or one $5 million treatment? You make more money with the bigger customer, even if the cost has to come down. So the financial incentives are aligned and the humanitarian incentives are aligned, right? For sure. So one of the things that my HealthSpan XPRIZE, we have 300 teams entered. I hope we'll get to a thousand teams. And we're going to see so many different approaches to...
getting us towards longevity escape velocity? Will it be vaccines or stem cells, cellular medicine? Will it be CRISPR edits, gene therapies? I think that we are... really cracking the code for the first time and it's this decade as i as i say that ai and quantum sciences are going to enable us to understand actually why we age how to slow it how to stop it how to reverse it
The body is a really complex system, right? 40 trillion cells, a billion chemical reactions are on that order of magnitude per cell per second. There's a lot going on. I had... dinner with demis the ceo of deep mind a couple weekends ago and you know deep mind which is google's ai division did something amazing when they came up with their ability to basically predict protein folding. That was a big deal when that happened. It was. I mean, when I was in medical school, God knows, decades ago.
The biggest, you know, supercomputing problem ever imagined was given this amino acid sequence, can you predict how it folds? And, you know, AlphaFold, their program figured it out. What they're going after next is equally audacious. They want to simulate an entire cell in detail.
Right. That's so big. That is. And there's a few different companies going after it, but I have, you know, DeepMind is going to go. And then once you've got a single cell, and by the way, it can be your cell because they can put in your DNA sequence and. then they can go to simulating a tissue and an organ and you, right? And then all of a sudden it's like, what drug works? What drug doesn't work? And we can know it works or doesn't work in specific.
It's a big deal. AI is going to change the game. And of course, where quantum systems and quantum technologies compute, we'll change the game again. So we're both feeling more positive about that than ever before. And you mentioned optimism earlier. And aging. And one of the things that's in my meditation is telling the cells in my body that they're at only 28% of their minimum acceptable duty cycle. This is my minimum acceptable goal is...
lived to at least 180. But it's really to die at a time and by a method of my choosing. On impact on Mars. Oh, no, that is the way to go. All right. So how old do you feel internally, Dave? You know, I've asked a lot of people this and unless you're like really sick, most people who are under 60 in their mind, they're still 35. But at a certain point, somebody's like, I started to feel old. And that's usually when there starts to be.
change in the, it's P300D is the measure of neuroscience, but there's a reaction time on reality. And when they realize they're way slower than everyone else and okay, something's going on. So I identify. as being somewhere in my mid to late thirties. My brain is way better than it was at that age. To be honest, I am leaner. I'm ripped. I have abs.
Like everything is better except my face is pretty lean because I'm so lean. I used to be fat, so I've got a little extra skin, but I don't worry a lot about that. So in my mind, I'm mid-30s. How about you? I probably put myself between 28 and 35, depending on how I feel. I don't feel any different from that. And in fact, I feel like physically, I'm in the best shape I've ever been. Wow.
you know sort of mentally and in terms of energy level you know i keep interestingly enough i have a team around me that's in their 20s um and i have a i usually have a strike force member two Strikeforce members. They're entrepreneurs in residence. They travel with me. They go every place. I think you've met Derek Dolan or AJ Scaramucci or Yannick Saltis and such. And they're typically in their mid...
to late twenties and I will run circles around them usually. And it's like, but it's, and that's, that's kind of a flex, but it's not bragging because. You really do have this, ever since I met you, have this youthful energy. And you and I have both gone through stuff. You know, business is emotionally draining sometimes. And there's a resilience that you can build in. And I've seen you do it and I've done it too. Same thing. I tell people in their mid-twitches, don't try and do everything I do.
Because I've spent 20 years and 2 million bucks on biohacking and just do your own limit and don't copy because it's harmful. And I kind of feel bad if someone tries to stay up as much as I do, which isn't always a good thing. How do you counter that? Do you warn them or? I give them the reality check that a lot of them are doing a lot more than I did when I was in my 20s and 30s. And you're going to get there.
Right. It's like, you know, listen, your way you're, you know, listen, I was doing a lot in my twenties and thirties, but the access you have, the things that you're learning, the things you're having opportunities to work on are incredible. And so don't, you know. don't compare yourself to me you know compare yourself to uh to me 30 years ago or 40 years ago that's fine but we're living in this massively exponential time uh where
there are very few limits on what you're going to be able to achieve. And the most important thing, a young individual who's in your, if you're in your twenties, listening to this, or even your thirties, I think a single most important thing you can do. is understand your massive transformative purpose in life. I think, Dave, you're incredibly effective. And you look like you're in the best shape you've ever been. And I've seen you just...
you know, in your knowledge base and your ability to educate and communicate is extraordinary. And I think you're just so clear in what you want to do and the impact you want to have. You're a very clear signal to the world of this is who I am. This is what I'm going to do. This is where I'm going, right? You've helped. Well, thank you. But I think a lot of people, it's like, what is your massive transformative purpose?
And what is your moonshot? And I think when people get clear about their MTP and they wake up every morning, right? So here's one of the points I make. All of us are getting an extraordinary amount of opportunities, like left, right, and center. You're reading about stuff. You could chase everything. The question is, how do you filter? How do you decide what to do and what not to do? What opportunities to follow, what not to follow?
And for me, it's if you're clear about your massive transformative purpose, if something aligns with it, go for it. If it doesn't, you know, be interested. You can be supportive, whatever, but don't chase it. Martine Rothblatt, who you know, gave me one of the best pieces of advice. And she's an extraordinary entrepreneur. And this is...
One of the people who's just legendary in the world of computer science going back even to the 90s. So just a luminary in the field. So what Martine said was successful people say no to most things. The most successful people say no to everything. It is a monomaniacal focus on what you want to go and do in life. So I'll just mention for those, I built... a large language model for my community to help them language and define their MTP and their moonshot. And it's free.
And it's, I've had some people just go through it and it takes 10 minutes. It's not long. So if you go to purposefinder.ai, it's... It is an extraordinary journey to help you uncover in your heart what is your massive transformative purpose. And then once you know your MTP, you can then build a moonshot. So play with it. It's an amazing, amazing journey. The getting clear thing is something that when I'm coaching entrepreneurs,
A lot of them, they don't really know. And I work with my team across all the different companies in my portfolio, which does not include Bulletproof anymore for anyone who's listening who still thinks I'm involved with that company. it's to upgrade humanity
And the upgrades happen. Sometimes it's hardware, sometimes it's firmware, sometimes it's software, sometimes it's interconnectivity and community building, but it's all around, like, how do we make it better fundamentally? And that's what I do. And anything else, you know, I... I'm just not going to participate in some other thing, even if it might make money, if it's not on that channel. And you and I are kindred souls in that desire.
Yeah. And that's why I think being able to interact with you and your community over the last almost 10 years has really helped. I wrote about you in... In Game Changers, my book on personal development. And it was about, you know, the times where I think I am thinking really big. And then I would hear from you or Naveen.
And it's like, oh, no, no, I was missing it just by an order of a factor of 10 because we're all subject to blind spots. Who points out your blind spots for you? My wife, my kids. That's a really important point. And it's not only just pointing out your blind spots, it's pointing out on the companies you're building or the projects you're running what's not working well. I was on stage interviewing Elon at a Goldman Sachs event.
a decade ago. And he said something I never forgotten. He said, my friends tell me what's great. My best friends tell me what sucks. Right. And so that's really important. So like, for example, I have gone. on a tear for individuals going through fountain life, which is really important to me to build this company as sort of like most advanced diagnostics and therapeutics. And I'm like, I'm following up on everybody who I know.
went through it I said okay don't tell me it's great tell me where you want it improved tell me what didn't work tell me where things failed I need to understand that so I can constantly help the team iterate this And so blind spots are really important. So I have, I call it my board of directors. There's five guys that are. They know me intimately. I mean, it's interesting to have people in your life that know everything about you in intimate detail.
The problems on the family level or in your business or finances or that you feel completely transparent with. And I will go to them and. asked them to tell me this is what's going on what am i missing here wow do you meet with them all together or one at a time um i just recently met with all with four out of the five uh on one particular
personal issue. Um, but it's, I will call them individually and, but they know, they all know each other and they've all given me their vow. I mean, Lou Reese, who you mentioned earlier is the chairman of my board. I like Lou. He's the funniest guy. He's at no bullshit. He'll tell you to your face exactly what he thinks. I love that. And he cares. And he cares. And he's a lovable guy. Yeah. I think that's really inspirational for listeners.
There's data out there. In fact, the current Surgeon General was on this show right before he became the Surgeon General for the second time. And he said our biggest epidemic is... uh loneliness it's lack of of connection and so for a lot of people listening they might have only one or two friends if they're average although if you're listening you're probably not average because average it's a very narrow window at the very middle of average but
Asking one or two or maybe four people, five people to say, will you be on my don't bullshit me board? I like that idea, Peter. It's a good strategy. And by the way, you get that level of closeness. by actually being fully transparent and intimate in that regard. It's letting people know the real struggles going on. And if you can open up that way with somebody and they can open up with you, it's a next level. I mean, you need to ask yourself, is there anybody in your life perhaps?
maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's not, who really knows everything about you and you can be completely open with them, completely open with them on everything. That's a... That's a big deal. It's a big deal. And that number typically is zero to one for most people. And if you can broaden it beyond that, you have to take it. It's risky to do. Oh, it's hugely vulnerable.
Or at least I think it's better to say it feels risky to do. But in all actuality, it isn't that risky to do. Yes, you're right. And it's the benefit to weigh out, you know. outweigh the risks. And that's the blind spot. When I say upgrade humanity, that's what my next book is about, is there's all these different ways that you're fast.
but dumb systems trick you to believing things before you had a chance to think about them. And then like, I don't have to think about it because I already know it to be true. And one of those is, well, it feels really risky to talk about something you're vulnerable about.
And so therefore, it is risky. Therefore, you'd have to think about whether it's risky. And it's that kind of blindness that makes me not notice something I'm doing that isn't good for my health or that kind of blindness that makes people do all sorts of weird stuff.
And it's because we didn't think. So I'm always trying to build systems, always encouraging my team, same as you. Like, tell me the hard stuff. The easy stuff is great, but the most valuable is the hard. But we're also wired in our... In our monkey minds, where, you know, whoever the dominant person is, and that would be the CEO in the room, to act like it's, you know, a father figure or leader of the tribe, and then to not show.
those problems and that's one of the flaws in our species that i think we can hack whether it's a software or hardware fix i don't know but i don't want people to lie anymore because it just doesn't work you know it's it's interesting i uh my next book um that I'm working on is the follow on to abundance. It's called age of abundance, but the book after that, which is two thirds written is called mindset mastery. Ooh, I like it. And you know, one of the things.
i'm passionate about and you and i are very much again kindred souls here is the realization that the single most valuable asset every single person has is their mindset yes and you know i'll say you know you've heard me say this on the abundance 360 stage you know if you look at the greatest leaders on the planet you know whoever you might think they
are or have been Martin Luther King or Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or Dave Asprey, and you say, what made them successful in their life? Was it the tech they had, the money they had, the friends they had, or was it their mindset? You know, most people reflect on it and realize it's their mindset. And if it's your mindset that makes you successful as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as a mom, a dad, whatever it might be.
then what mindset do you have? Where did you get that mindset? And what mindset do you need for the decade ahead? And that honest reflection is really important. Our brains, our mindsets, our neural nets. You know, we all are learning about neural nets from all the large language models and all the discussions on AI. And you train a large...
on a neural net by showing it example after example after example. And the problem is most people are showing your brain's examples from the crisis news network every night, all the murders and all the negative things. or the stuff that they heard in school or all the dystopian information that they're consuming and so the reason you're watching you know uh you know
the upgrade podcast or my podcast, uh, you know, moonshots is to try and rewire your mindset. Yes. And that's, I think it's most important thing that anybody can do. It's the mindset, just the idea that you can control your own biology. You might live longer than you're supposed to. You might be smarter than you're supposed to. You might have a different life than you did. But if you don't imagine it.
because of your mindset. And I think that's your, your superpower in addition to being smart and all that is you just have one of those really, really positive future mindset things that's infectious. So, you know, you come hang out with you for a while at your events.
And all of a sudden you just see things a little different. So it's one of the reasons I like having you on the show and just giving you a chance to hang out and just get to ask you some hard questions. Cause the other thing you do is you always know the guys who are making the really big. things happen on the planet and then you ask them behind closed doors what's really going on and then you have this picture of the future that's more accurate than a lot of people because you have your own
you know, just a rocket scientist and a doctor's little things like that. And then you go from there and then you ask a whole bunch of other smart guys and you sort of ponder about it. And then you're real positive. That's a good signal for me. Cause if you pondered about it and bought a bomb shelter.
I'd want to talk, but that's not your vibe. As a teenager, were you this positive? I was pretty positive coming out of... the late 60s and early 70s and i give the credit to the apollo program in star trek right because those were the drugs i took back then the apollo program showed me what humanity could do
right now. And Star Trek, I like to say that scientific documentary called Star Trek showed us where the world was going. And those were both the really positive visions of the future. And I also, I grew up in a family where my dad uh was born in a small village on the island of lesbos you know tending goats picking olives and then went from there to becoming a successful ob-gyn physician in new york crazy journey that he went through and that
was like, wow, that's amazing he did that. And that's what humans can do. And so I was lucky in that regard. And I worked hard. And then... A lot of the current mindset, a lot of the abundance, exponential, longevity, moonshot mindset really came out of the early days of the XPRIZE and Singularity University. Yeah.
There really isn't anything we can't do. It's really a matter of having the committed and passionate human mind and bringing the technology and capital together. You can do anything within the laws of physics. Elon is the... The exemplar of that by far. Elon, when you read his biography, he has this...
unusual way of thinking about things. He calls it like the idiot ratio, which is how much is the raw materials in something versus how much you pay for it. First principle thinking is a term he uses. Yeah. When you look at it. was there at a conversation he was having with larry page and the ceo fiat talking about the early days of tesla and his decision to get into tesla which he funded
He's now known as the founder and CEO. There was a founder prior to him in that regard. But he looked at how much should lithium-ion batteries cost. compared to what they are. And if you go and you look at the spot price of the lithium and the other metals and components of it, and you say, huh, it's actually probably a hundred times more than it should cost based upon the...
So it's a production problem, right? And then in the early days, they were basing it on a lotus body. And so for the early roadster... And he said, well, the batteries should get a lot cheaper and the Roadster body exists. This should be easy. And he got into it and found out, well, actually, the Lotus is not going to cut it. We've got to redesign it. The batteries aren't. And he was stuck.
And then he had to engineer it. Yeah. And he almost ran out of money then. I think his PayPal money was running a little thin then because he was only doing two or three other companies at the same time. A lot of people have a lot of feelings based on not really having watched his path from the early PayPal stuff. Very few founders take all of the money they make when they make a huge amount of money.
on their first company, put it back into multiple companies. It's like winning at roulette. You know, you put it all on 42 and then you win and you say, you know what? I'm going to put it all on 36 now and I'll put half on 36 and half on 24. Like it takes, it takes huge balls to do that. Oh, honest baby. And, and you're absolutely right. You know, Elon is one of the very few people who keeps betting it all.
yeah and people don't realize unless you actually dug in i was there with him when he was going through this i wish i had invested heavily at the time but in 2008 um he had had three failures of the falcon one launch vehicle And he didn't have enough money for the fourth launch. And he borrowed money. He went into debt. At the same time, Tesla was tanking in the 2008 financial crisis.
And he got a loan from the government, which he repaid, unlike the other car companies. Right. But he went into debt. The fourth attempt of the Falcon 1 succeeded. And because the space shuttle had been shut down, there was a procurement. for a commercial crew and he got a billion dollar contract but the world could have ended for him in 2008 he's also going through a divorce it was a tough time for him yeah
And my question is, how many other gazillionaires are out there betting it all? And there's a few who are betting a lot, but very few do what Elon does over and over again. It feels like Sam Altman might be one of those, like a younger version of that. Sam is building incredible companies. Mark Benioff is doing well.
I think, uh, Yuri Milner, um, Eric Schmidt, but there are a lot of billionaires who are just putting their money to work to make more money or buying bigger yachts. I want to take out a full time, a full page New York times ad. that says on the left-hand side, thank you to all of you who are investing your money to make the world a better place and betting it over and over again. And on the other half, glad you're buying bigger yachts and lots of homes.
There's a difference. And, you know, people who are calling for wealth taxes and things like that. And I'm a little worried that that would take some of the people who are working on funding the next magical thing and just say, well, that's not going to happen now. And so I believe that. If you're putting your money to make the world a better place and what it's going to do if you have a billion dollars, it's more than you can really spend.
So you got to do something and you might as well have fun making things better instead of just making money. But that's just my mindset. I feel like that's only half or maybe a third of the really truly wealthy out there. I don't even think it's that big. I saw... big bill gates last two weekends ago as well and and was saying listen that the giving pledge you're pledging to give away half your money um to philanthropy before you die but you know
You can't take it with you, but why not making an impact pledge versus a giving pledge? And this is where Tony Robbins has done such an extraordinary job, right? And Tony keeps on making huge bets as well. He didn't say, I'm just going to give money. He's like, no, I'm going to feed a billion people and then I'm going to feed a hundred billion people. I'm going to plant, you know, a hundred million trees. It's like.
calling your shot. And I think making it measurable and publicly claiming what you're going to do is such a massive differentiator. And I really, you know, that's what XPRIZE does well. You know, it's like once you make your public shot, like we're going to reverse functional age loss by, you know, functional loss due to aging by 10 or 20 years. We're going to.
extract a gigaton of carbon out of the atmosphere. I mean, it's hard to do, but if it's measurable, you don't give up. The most important thing I did when I claimed I was... I went on stage in St. Louis and I announced a $10 million prize for private space flight and I didn't have the money. And the world is watching. It's like the pressure was on.
I better go find that $10 million and run this competition. And there were so many times that people said, you got to give up. This is ridiculous. It's not going to happen. And it was like, no, I can't give up. Your story about how you did that is truly like hair raising. And you wrote about it in your book. And I think it's in your documentary. And, you know, the idea that you promised it and then you found a funder and Anoush has been on the show.
the CEO of the XPRIZE. And I'm just in awe that that happened. Well, we would not be having this conversation if it didn't. So in some parallel universe... Yeah, some parallel universe, maybe it didn't, but it was also a very big move. So I'm grateful you did that because I think it's changed a lot of things in the world that people don't know about.
Well, I have one more longevity question. And I've got some for you as well. So go ahead. All right. So on the longevity front, what does your current diet look like? I'll share it with you and love the critique. I am focused on minimizing sugar. That's a good plan. That's probably my top priority through the day. Sugar versus starch or just sugar? Sugar and carbs. Okay, sugar and carbs. Yeah, so I am attack vegetables and protein. I am optimizing for 150 grams of protein a day.
Smart. And you're about 150 pounds of target weight. I'm 150 pounds, so a gram per pound. Last year, my goal was to add 10 pounds of muscle, which I did. My goal now is to maintain it. Maybe if I add a little bit more, I will. But I'm 63 next month, right? And so, you know, for me, there's a direct correlation between muscles, muscle you carry, skeletal muscle you carry, and longevity for a number of reasons. Great data supporting that.
For sure. So my protein is, you know, I love cachava. One of my favorite drinks in the world is Nutra 11, which is a zero sugar, high protein chocolate drink that I love. That's a collagen-based drink, right? Yes, collagen-based. Guillermo, the founder of that, is a friend. We'll say it's a Bulletproof-inspired. It's got collagen and MCT in it. It is 100% built on your formulations, my friend.
I know we talked about his formulation when he first came out with it, so I'm happy people are bringing good products into the world. Okay, so you're doing some collagen, some MCT. Yeah, so it's 150 grams of protein, minimized sugar and carbs. I mean, those are the two most important things for me on my diet. How about the types of fat and types of protein? How important are those for you in your current strategy? Well, I am mostly fish and legumes.
and some chicken uh i don't do red meat right now um you know listen being able to make sure i've got organic uh well-fed produce uh is important to me but challenge is i don't necessarily have a great supplier that is mobile with me for beef or for produce
for chicken. Okay. Got it. And, and you're not doing B for lamb for longevity reasons for, yeah. Um, and also taste, but you just don't like them. Okay. That's different. And I'm doing, I'm doing eggs. So those are my protein sources, uh, fat. I'm, you know, avocado, olive oil is probably my main sources of sort of. So mostly mono and some omega-6. Yes. Got it.
And you're not doing any kind of butter, cheese, milk, yogurt? Occasionally some yogurt, but I'm lactose intolerant, so I'm minimizing. That'll limit those, right? What about you? What's your prioritized diet right now? I'm doing one gram of animal protein per pound of body weight. And I've played around at 0.6. And there's a...
some longevity studies that are pretty good that say that 0.6 is the right number, but as you age, you need 0.8 because of sarcopenia. And the evidence is really clear, losing muscle mass or tissue wasting, as you call it in medicine. That's bad, even if it's before you're aging. So I've also seen data around 0.8 and 1.0 being the same. So I tested that and I do best on one gram of animal protein.
I eat a mix of A2 dairy and grass-fed beef as my primary protein sources. Let me ask you one question. I gave up on intermittent fasting. in order to prioritize my protein intake? Oh, here's the answer, Peter. This is exciting. I'm so happy you asked this. Okay. About two years ago, I had the same problem. I'm like, okay.
I'm only eating two meals a day. I need 200 grams of protein. So I'm going to have to do 100 grams of protein. And I thought to myself, well, I've seen studies that say the most you could ever absorb is 50 grams. But that has to be BS. And I have a way of testing it. The way you test it is, have you ever been to like a gym of like hardcore gym goers? Sure. They fart a lot and it smells like death. That's fermenting protein.
So my logic, very scientific here, is if I eat 100 grams of protein and I take digestive enzymes, I'm going to absorb that protein. And if not, I'm going to fart and I'll know. And so I started doing this. And Peter, I didn't fart. got leaner and put on muscle it and it works. So then Maybe three, four months ago, a study came out that proved conclusively that there is no upper limit to protein consumption, that you absorb the amino acids for hours and hours and hours afterwards.
So you can do 100 grams of protein in a meal. It will not overload your kidneys. Just take enzymes with it and have adequate stomach acid. That's my trick. I do two meals a day, sometimes three. And I don't. limit carbs because once I got below 6% body fat, I ate 200 grams of carbs a day, but it's all white rice. It's low toxin things. I control the toxin levels in my veggies. I'm both man-made toxins as well as nature-made ones.
And if I pick the right veggies and the right carbs, I have a lot of blueberries. I am six to six and a half percent body fat effortlessly. I'm never hungry. And all my aging markers, I age 72% the speed of. So what do you believe has reduced your body fat composition? I was traveling. I still travel about 50%.
And I just started paying attention. When I'm on the road, you cannot get enough protein at restaurants. They won't do it. You got to sit down and say, I'll have four main courses, throw away your deep fried side dishes and just give me the meat. And $400 later, you got enough protein. And you had to argue with the waiter and they brought you four plates and it's just a bunch of drama. You go to the sushi place and $900 later, you're still hungry and you had too many carbs.
And so I just said, I'm done. And I formulated a new protein powder that I'm not selling. It just made it for personal use. I'll probably launch it one of these days that I could travel with that all the stuff that I needed. And I just became militant. I'm going to get my protein and I never eat omega-6 fats. I haven't had them in 15 years. And I think it's that combination. So I don't need to go in zero carb. I can eat.
honey and fruit or whatever and rice and my blood sugar will briefly go up and it comes right back down the way it's supposed to. And if I do some air squats after I eat, it goes down even more. And that's from two years of CGM. So it's like you fix your mitochondria. And you do it, I think, manipulating fat ratios and the type of protein is important. Because if you're getting protein that's only 30%, 35% available compared to animal protein, it's a problem.
And a lot of the common plant proteins just don't function as well biologically. Talk to me about red light. What are you doing on red light therapy? Well, one of my companies called True Light was... one of the probably the first two or three red light companies out there it's 10 plus years old and before that i was using stuff designed for horses like racehorses
I had a red laser way back in the infrared thing I bought on Yahoo groups for stimulating the brain. And what I do now is I use one of our, our true light panels, which is. It's got amber as well as red and infrared. There's two different spectrums of red that matter. And I use that whenever I'm traveling. I bring one with me. It's good for circadian resetting as well as just.
turning off inflammation and making blood flow better. Especially after a flight, I just put it over my abdomen and chest. I think it's really important post-air travel to keep blood flowing in microcapillaries and to basically wake up mitochondria. At Upgrade Labs, when people come in, we have a whole body, very high-powered red and infrared.
But it's got embedded frequencies that are clinically studied to do things beyond just what red and infrared light can do. And that's been 10 plus years of work to find frequencies that can change the state of the brain or can increase. mitochondrial respiration beyond just what red and infrared can do. So we're at this point in the realm of light therapy where it's not just what frequency is the light, it's...
What are the patterns of invisible flashes of the light that we're putting in it? And what effect does it have on our biology? And it does have an effect, which is kind of, it means we're missing something about the signaling system in the body, but that's an AI problem for where I'm concerned. So how much red light do you do on a weekly basis? I like to do 10 minutes a day. And I usually do it at bedtime or when I wake up. And if I'm...
Going into an upgrade labs, and we have an opening here in Austin in probably within a month or so, depending on the last electrical panel writing. I'm really sad the upgrade labs across the street shut down here in Santa Monica. I was so bummed. We had some landlord things and just that the street we're on has changed dramatically from when we opened. So we're looking for another franchisee in LA where we can help our members reconnect. And I'm...
working very hard on that because I just love the LA area and Upgrade Labs is fun. Next question. Hair growth. What are you doing for hair growth? So I like to be really transparent with all the things that I do. And I don't want to be like, um, you know, liver King was, you know, I'm just eating liver and, you know, taking $10,000 of secret performance enhancers. That's why I talk about modafinil and testosterone therapy and all that. So a while ago I said, you know, my hair's pretty good, but.
I did testosterone pellets instead of injections and my hair thinned like really quickly. So I went and I got a hair transplant, did a documentary on it. And they moved about 10,000 hairs from the back and sides to the front. I've been using red light on it since right before that. And I also use a mixture of caffeine, aspirin, adenosine, and a few other things like that GHK topically on my head.
I've experimented with minoxidil topically, and I don't think it's necessary with the other stuff. I don't see any difference. Finasteride is dangerous. It has too big of a risk. Even topical finasteride? Even topical. I'll tell you a story about that. After the hair transplant, I found a Russian derivative of finasteride that's more potent than finasteride for hair protection. And I said, I'm going to use this.
And I put it on, and 30 days later, I had erectile dysfunction. I'm like, what just happened? And I realized what it was, and I stopped using the stuff. And it took about nine months for it to go away. But that's the finasteride effect. It was a very similar compound. Do you think that red LED laser caps? Oh, 100% they work. In fact, my former wife, Lana, when I got the laser cap, and I'm using lasers, not LEDs in the cap that I use. You have a particular cap that you like?
yeah it's it's this one you can see if it's charged yep there we go well it's kind of charged so it's a very uh a very cool looking look like you're a burning man what brand is it this is from alan bellman the guy who did my um Did my hair transplant. I know Dr. Bauman, sure. He's a good guy. Yeah, down in Florida. B-A-U-M-A-N. And when my wife or former wife used this, just...
maybe three, four times a week, her hairdresser said, can I just cut off the bottom half of your hair? Because she tripled her hair growth from this thing. And she said, I can't deal with the top being all full and the bottom being all scrawny. It was night and day. It's a mitochondrial problem. for most people, much more so than a testosterone problem or dihydrotestosterone. So that's what I'm doing for it. And of course, I take all the supplements and collagen and eat a low-inflammation diet.
all the other stuff that you and I are both doing. What are you doing for it? I'm using a minoxidil. So I had done a hair transplant guide. uh, five years ago and pretty painless and, uh, work, work great. You know, I have a lot of baldness on both sides of the lineage line. Um, and I've just. really started a minoxidil finasteride topical but i'm ordering a laser cap now so um i haven't seen anything on the you know it's a it's a low percentage of finasteride
So I'm going to pump up the laser so they speak. It's about 5% of people who use finasteride. And topically, it's about 70% as available as it is orally. But if you've used it and you're not having any issues with it. uh then you know awesome i just worry about the five percent of guys because sometimes it's permanent they they just it's like a castration effect not good yeah but you you're in the 95 so thank goodness
On the exercise, you know, one of the things I shifted to was more frequent, shorter endurance. So if I can get into the gym and lift weights for 30 minutes. In a day, I don't miss that. In other words, I don't need to go for an hour. I need to do something and stress my muscle groups on a daily basis. How do you feel about that? It seems to work better.
You remember at the last Abundance 360, the one before the one that just happened, I gave a talk about slope of the curve biology and how the body seems to respond more strongly when you have a very fast onset. stressor and then return to baseline quickly. If you stay in the stress state for longer periods of time, you don't rebound as strongly.
What that means for weightlifting is the faster you can exhaust the muscles. If it's 10 minutes and you can be blown out instead of 30, and then you do some deep breathing or some recovery tech, you'll probably grow muscle more fast or more quickly. So, um, I like the idea of, of more frequent, um, shorter workouts, because if you do a CrossFit exercise every day, you know, we're just going to blow yourself out each day.
It's amazing that you can do that. And it feels really good because adrenaline and cortisol feel really good, but the rate of injury gets really high. So it's like, if you're going to do a one hour.
until you're dead workout that's a once a week thing and the other days are minor workouts yeah i'm at 20 minutes a week from my exercise regimen doing upgrade lab stuff um and The last couple of weeks, I've done some functional movement work that isn't really, I guess it's exercise, but it's more neurological.
I'm amazed at how that works, but it's all AI driven and it's not really using gravity. So again, there's an efficiency metric that we can all monitor. Yeah. Right now I'm trying to track all the cutting edge. longevity therapeutics um it's a lot of work it's a lot of work and i've just you know i have my network including individuals like yourself and it's trying to really do the balance of what is
The risk reward. So I'm on my fourth, you know, TPE, you know, therapeutic plasma exchange. I'm on rapamycin. I'm looking at natural killer cell. argumentation oh i've done that about uh seven eight years ago i had my natural killer cells taken out cultured grew two billion of them and put them back in yeah
I'm not sure it did anything. Yeah. Natural killer cells, for those who don't know, it's your innate immune system. And it's what is fighting cancer and infection in your body. It's the guards at the gate. It's really, really critically important. What else? I know you've done Minicircle, which is basically a plasmid-based therapy. I'm advising them, actually, now.
And yeah, that's a powerful one, the fall of statin gene therapy. And I've spent some time with Dr. Khan on the podcast, as well as with the Minicircle founders. What else is out there that... you think is on the leading edge, so to speak, that you're tracking? You know, the guy from Ignaton, who I introduced you to a while ago, the one where you left me a message and were like, I don't know what to think about this. It's this video.
Give me some science to hang my hat on here. He raised tens of millions of dollars and is going into production. This is one of those things where they're adding subatomic particles using real equipment I've seen with my own eyes. And if the science they've shown me is as good as I think it is, I'm a very small investor, very, very small, just because that was all the cash I have available. So I believe in it, but I have a...
conflict of interest just because I went in for a tiny amount. One of the things I think about is, does something actually have a visceral impact? This one does. I tried it, didn't feel it. For how long? Well, I gave it a week. Okay. So one of the more interesting things, you said it takes most people a couple months.
I went in having no idea what the stuff was. And for listeners, this is just a new kind of supplement. It's called Ignaton. It'll come out. I think the CEO will be at the biohacking conference. We're opening up dinner. Yerka is his name. And his research scientists, one of them is this Russian woman. She goes, I don't believe any of this stuff. And she said, but after two months of using this, he said, I just started waking up and knowing things.
He has a framework for why it might possibly work, but he's got a bunch of trials. And so I played around with it for a good six or nine months and said, wow, this is something that I would recommend. And so I usually invest in things like that. So that's one that's out there. What is the visceral impact you felt on that? Are you waking up and knowing things too? To answer kind of directly, yeah. Like there's a speed to knowing. Uh-huh.
And you know what I'm talking about. When you're figuring out what the future is going to be or like how something works, there's a snappiness to your comprehension. Okay. And I take modafinil. I've taken it for 20 years. I take all the smart drug stuff. Well, I was going to go to modafinil next. It's my favorite augmentation supplement, right? It's so good. Yeah. I feel it.
It's like, it's the closest thing to the limitless drug. Yes. I will typically moderate modafinil because I don't want to become immune to it. But if I haven't slept well, and I'll take 100 milligrams, 200 max, and it's like, I'm alert, I'm awake, and I'm just more energy I could possibly use. I've been taking it since...
2001 right and i'm still not immune to it and i've had it way more days than not and i take a steady dose of 100 and i skip it you know on weekends sometimes i haven't had any downside i've spoke to neurologists about it Because I mean, it's like too good to be true in that regard. So I was on Nightline about 12 years ago. They float to my house like this crazy entrepreneur is taking this smart drug to get your business school and.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm not ashamed of this, guys. Like, it has absolutely changed my life because I didn't have enough blood in my brain at the time. Thank you, toxic mold. And so I've gone really deep on it. About five out of a million people. can have a life-threatening autoimmune skin reaction. Same thing that ibuprofen does, actually. So if you have rare genetics, it could be a problem for you. We're not sure all of its mechanisms of action.
But it does raise histamine in the brain, which is a neurotransmitter, the way it functions there. And it doesn't seem to affect allergies in any way. I've talked to a few people over the years who said I gave them hives. But other than that, for me, it's a dopamine. You know, you feel a dopamine high. You feel a connectedness. You're motivated and everything is easy.
I find that even my meditation is better. You want to stay focused on meditation? Well, have a modafinil and try meditating. Is there anything you've had that's even close to that? Yes. There are certain flavones out there. that work like psychedelics. And also, frankly, ketamine is probably so underappreciated. I just wrote a blog post about this that's about to go up because it's a GSK. three inhibitor. It's also a BDNF enhancer. It's raises mTOR in the brain. mTOR causes tissue development.
And it works via AMPK all at the same time. So we have this well-studied safe drug that when you use it therapeutically under a doctor's care. It causes 72 hours of profound neuroplasticity. So that's why I'm putting on top of neurofeedback at 40 Years of Zen. But doing some of that on a weekend or even a psycholytic dose is really good. Subclinical.
at a dose level that you don't feel? It still works for that. So there's the psychedelic dose where you go in a K-hole or get really loopy. And what we're using or planning to use as we're launching at... at 40 years then is called a psycholytic dose where you're you're entirely lucid you're not high but it's kind of like a little bit of truth serum
and it's good because you need truth serum when you're doing self-inquiry like what are my blind spots of course listen i've done a number of ketamine journeys under an md Where it's intramuscular and it's like 80 milligrams followed by another 60 milligrams 20 minutes later. That's going to be beautiful. It's beautiful. And by the way, with... a audio program and an eye mask on in a great setting. Um, you know, I, I've been very open about the journeys I've taken, um, in, uh,
and with DMT and ketamine. And they're extraordinarily profound. It's not for everybody, but a complete loss of a fear of death from DMT. In fact, Kimball Musk was on the show, and I asked him about DMT, and he just laughed and talked about how he... When he was 36, he broke his neck and was unconscious for three days. He's already had a DMT experience. I tried it, and I've already been there. And it was a really profound conversation.
uh with them i just saw him uh during the eclipse actually and we chatted about that where were you for the eclipse i was in austin texas there's a little uh a little camp outside of town like a glamping setup and You just realize there's a whole spiritual side to things that matters and it's part of longevity. And removing fear of death will make you live longer, unquestionably. And that's something I'm blessed to have experienced.
much earlier in life. And it's one of the reasons that I'm motivated. It's also why In fact, my next book is a lot of it's about this, like the unconscious things your body does to keep you from dying. But if you're not afraid of dying, your body stops doing that stuff and then you can see more clearly and then you can have a bigger impact. So I love it that you're doing that work, Peter, and that you're open about it because.
Almost every billionaire I know has some experiences like this, but because it can be underground, there are predators out there going after wealthy people in a way that's not clean. And I worry about that. Yeah, I think ketamine. caramine therapeutics in a proper fashion is uh i mean the whole legalization and the utilization of these psychoactive medicines against you know PTSD and against depression and so forth is extraordinary. And it's about time. Yeah. Getting rid of the stigma around it.
It's time to get rid of the stigma and also just to acknowledge there can be risks and there are people you're suggestible. And if you're wealthy and powerful, there are people who are going to. you know, act the right way to get you to use it, but you're suggestible. And I've seen people kind of messed up by it. So I exercise caution. And so a lot of, especially if using ayahuasca.
But I think ketamine is now so medically understood. It's much better. Yeah. So just to close on the modafinil, in terms of anything that has that visceral and positive an impact, nothing else? In terms of that stuff, ketamine is really good for that. Yeah, that's fine. I'm just feeling into all this stuff. The other things that can make a really big difference is oxaloacetate.
For a lot of people, this was something I put together for Bulletproof years ago. I don't know if they still make it. There's a company called Benegene that makes it. And it was an orphan drug for glioblastoma from Europe, but it's a nutritional supplement. It's the last step of the Krebs cycle before it restarts. If there's any leaking in your Krebs cycle...
Um, you can take that stuff and it turns your mitochondria back on. And that can be really profound for people. You know, um, one of the things I love doing every year I run these longevity platinum trips and I, I. Go on one year, it's New York. Next year, I mean, one year it's on the East Coast in Cambridge, Boston, New Hampshire, New York. The other year, this year, it's on the West Coast. We'll be in...
San Francisco and the Bay Area and then San Diego. And my job is to line up the most extraordinary scientists and startups and dive deep into what... is on the bleeding edge and what's coming down the line here. So I'm excited to see what comes out of this five-day adventure. Man, missing the first one of those you did in Rome was one of my great annoyances in life. I know that was one of the more epic ones. Well, I need to pull you into this on the West Coast this year. It's going to be...
It's going to be epic. We have 40 people in September and 40 people in October. Oh, my gosh. Let's chat about it. Yeah. And then 40 years is in, baby. All right. Well. We'll get you there and make sure we take really good care of you and we'll get you there after we get the academy in there since you're familiar with it. Peter, I know you're up against a time clock and so am I. I want to say thank you so much for your work in the world, for being on the show.
And just keep doing big stuff. Thank you, buddy. Same, same, same. And I love having you as a kindred spirit out there. And I just feel you're doing such a brilliant job. And consistently communicating your vision and your knowledge. And I love the fact that you've broadened it to upgrading the planet. And that's a beautiful thing. Well, thank you, my friend. I will see you soon. Take care, pal.
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