0:00

I do think that people are

0:02

sort of innately wired differently. And

0:05

that kind of restlessness, if

0:07

channeled, can lead to

0:09

intense productivity. In some

0:12

ways, those folks are the lucky ones, right?

0:14

Because there's a lot of discontent

0:16

and restlessness that people never

0:19

learn to channel or never learn to harness.

0:22

And so they just are left with that

0:24

and don't found

0:26

companies and have this kind of

0:28

success. But I

0:31

think the illusion for people who are

0:33

able to channel their restlessness and

0:36

discontent is that

0:38

through achievement and validation,

0:41

they will someday get to the place where

0:43

they're no longer restless and no longer discontent.

0:46

And that's actually the part that's

0:48

not true. That's the myth. Because

0:51

really, it's just part of

0:53

human nature and part

0:56

of life that

0:58

we're always a little bit dissatisfied.

1:01

And that really, there's no external achievement

1:03

that's going to get rid of that,

1:06

as my one patient called it, pilot light

1:08

of anxiety. It's just

1:10

part of being human. Welcome

1:14

to the Home Service Expert, where

1:16

each week, Tommy chats with world-class

1:18

entrepreneurs and experts in various fields,

1:21

like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership

1:23

to find out what's really behind

1:26

their success in business. Now,

1:28

your host, the Home Service

1:30

Millionaire, Tommy Mello. Before

1:35

we get started, I wanted to share two important

1:37

things with you. First, I want you to implement

1:40

what you learn today. To do that, you'll have

1:42

to take a lot of notes. But I

1:44

also want you to fully concentrate on the interview.

1:46

So I ask the team to take notes

1:48

for you. Just text, notes,

1:50

N-O-T-E-S, to 888-526-1299. That's

1:56

888-526-1299. and

2:00

you'll receive a link to download the notes

2:02

from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got

2:04

your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please

2:06

go check it out. I'll share with you

2:09

how I attracted and developed a winning team

2:11

that helped me build a $200 million company

2:13

in 22 states. Just go

2:15

to elevateandwin.com/podcast to get your copy.

2:17

Now let's go back into the

2:20

interview. Okay, here

2:22

we go. Welcome back to the home service

2:24

expert. I've got a really special treat for

2:26

us today. Dr. Anna

2:28

Lemke is a

2:31

clinical psychiatry, addiction, psychology

2:33

and mental illness. She's based

2:35

in Stanford, California, professional

2:38

education, medical education, Stanford University.

2:40

She'd been practicing in this

2:42

University School of Medicine at

2:44

Stanford since 1995. She

2:47

did her residency in her internship. She's

2:50

a professor of psychiatry

2:52

at Stanford University School of

2:55

Medicine and chief of Stanford

2:57

addiction medicine, dual diagnosis clinic.

3:00

As a clinician scholar,

3:02

she has published more than

3:04

100 peer reviewed papers and

3:06

commentaries. She sits on

3:08

a board of several state and

3:10

national addiction focused organizations, keeping an

3:13

active speaking calendar and maintains a

3:15

thriving clinical practice. Dr.

3:17

Lemke appeared in the Netflix documentary,

3:19

The Social Dilemma. An unvarnished look

3:22

at the impact of social media

3:24

on our lives. She is

3:26

also the author of Dopamine Nation, Finding

3:28

Balance in the Age of Indulgence,

3:31

an instant New York seller, bestseller,

3:33

New York Times bestseller. Listen,

3:36

it's an honor to have you on here. The

3:38

reason I really wanted to take a deep dive

3:40

into this is we're all addicts. Some

3:43

of us are into physical fitness. Some of us love food.

3:46

Some of us love to read. Some of us love social

3:48

media. Some of us love the news. Some

3:50

of us like smoking marijuana. Some

3:52

of us might like hard drugs. A

3:54

lot of us enjoy alcohol

3:57

and it's become a problem. So...

4:00

especially, you know, my heart belongs to

4:02

the blue collar industry. And

4:05

some of us didn't get raised with a

4:07

mom or dad. And some

4:09

of us never were taught to manage

4:14

our checkbook. Some

4:16

of us never were taught

4:18

about discipline and delayed gratification. And,

4:21

you know, that's what this podcast is

4:23

for, is to just help out everybody.

4:26

A lot of us here, and I say

4:28

us because, you know, I fit into some of those buckets.

4:31

I've definitely drank way too much. I've

4:34

definitely eaten the

4:36

worst foods possible and made excuses for

4:38

it. I've definitely been not very good

4:41

with my financials and my credit in

4:43

the past. And here we are. But

4:47

I think it's going to be really good because it's not only home

4:49

service. It has a lot to do with just how

4:51

to better our lives and how to

4:53

become the best we could be for ourselves. Because if we're

4:55

not good for ourselves, we're not good for anybody. So

4:58

do you want to just start out? Do

5:01

you want me to just call you Dr. Lemke? Sure.

5:04

Whatever that works. That's my professional

5:06

title, but you feel free to

5:08

call me Ana too. That's also

5:10

fine. Listen, you

5:13

are the doctor. You've got the

5:17

history here. Nobody that's ever

5:19

been on the podcast. But I'd love

5:21

to just tell the listeners a little bit about you.

5:24

And why you got into the School

5:26

of Medicine with psychiatry

5:28

and addiction psychology. And

5:31

just what you're doing today and where you're looking

5:33

forward to headed in the future. Yeah,

5:35

thank you. Well, first of

5:37

all, let me just say that I

5:39

agree with you that we're all in

5:41

this day and age, a little bit

5:43

addicted to something. We

5:46

used to think of addiction as something

5:48

that only happens to those

5:50

people over there. Or

5:52

was something that had to

5:55

do with somebody's sort of weakness

5:57

of character or what you're doing. used

6:00

to be called moral turpitude. But

6:03

now we have a much

6:05

better understanding of addiction as

6:07

an actual brain disease that

6:09

really is in many ways a

6:11

mismatch between our ancient

6:14

wiring for processing pleasure and

6:16

pain and the world that

6:18

we find ourselves in now, which is really a

6:20

world in which almost every human activity has become

6:23

drugified. So as you really

6:25

nicely pointed out, sure there are

6:27

traditional drugs like alcohol and cannabis.

6:31

There are also behaviors that can

6:33

be addictive, like masturbation,

6:36

pornography, gambling, video

6:38

games, social media, the

6:41

internet in general. So

6:44

even healthy behaviors nowadays, things

6:47

like reading and other forms of

6:49

games and even human

6:52

connection because of social media has

6:54

the potential now for addiction. We're living in

6:57

a time and place where it really

6:59

is possible to get addicted to just

7:01

about anything. And in our

7:03

clinic here, we see a very

7:06

wide range of things that people get

7:09

addicted to. So

7:11

I think it's really dispelling this idea

7:15

that addiction is something

7:17

that is unique or

7:19

something that is

7:22

in somebody's brain. It

7:25

is true that we see brain changes

7:27

when people become addicted, but really we

7:29

all have a motivational reward system. And

7:32

if exposed sufficiently to

7:35

our particular drug of choice, we're

7:37

really all vulnerable to the problem of addiction.

7:40

So it's really kind of a new

7:42

way to think about addiction as

7:45

sort of, let's

7:48

say, endemic in human nature.

7:52

When I think about humans living in

7:54

millions of years ago,

7:57

when it was a very different way. difficult

8:00

to survive and you had to sort

8:02

of work all day long just to find a little bit of

8:04

food and water. I imagine that

8:06

people with sort of

8:08

this innate what we sometimes call the

8:11

addictive personality or an addictive temperament,

8:13

they were probably the most valuable people

8:15

in the human tribe because they were

8:17

willing to work harder and walk

8:19

further and do more to get scarce

8:22

resources. So

8:24

it is true that, you know, there's a

8:26

spectrum of vulnerability to the problem of addiction.

8:29

It's just interesting to think about how it's

8:32

really the interaction between our wiring

8:34

and the environment. And now

8:36

that we have this environment of

8:38

drugification and kind of overwhelming

8:41

overabundance, everybody's more

8:43

vulnerable to the problem. Anyway, you asked

8:45

who I am. I'm a professor of

8:47

psychiatry and addiction medicine here at

8:49

Stanford University School of Medicine. I

8:51

see patients, I do research and I do a lot

8:54

of teaching of medical students and

8:56

residents. How

9:00

much of what you do

9:02

is clinical psychiatry versus addiction or

9:04

are they just intertwined? So

9:08

my practice is almost entirely

9:10

addiction now. It wasn't originally.

9:12

Originally, I was sort of

9:14

trained across the board to

9:16

treat all different types of

9:18

mental health disorders. But

9:21

I kind of got into addiction because the

9:23

need was so great. There

9:25

were so many people that

9:27

I was seeing who were struggling with addiction

9:29

who really weren't getting better because I wasn't

9:32

addressing the addiction piece. And

9:35

then when I pivoted in my clinical care and

9:37

started to really pay attention to the addiction problems,

9:39

lo and behold, their anxiety got better, their

9:41

depression got better, their, you

9:44

know, psychotic disorders got better. And it really made

9:46

me see the power of

9:48

addiction treatment, how I could transform

9:51

not just the

9:53

lives of my patients, but also the lives of the people

9:55

around them. So that amazing, amazing thing

9:57

about addiction is it really has this powerful. ripple

10:00

effect that when we ourselves change

10:03

our consumptive behaviors for

10:05

the better, the people around us

10:08

are also more likely to change those behaviors.

10:12

You know, I recently had Geno Wickman, he

10:14

wrote the book, he wrote all about EOS

10:17

and how to run

10:19

a business. And it's in every

10:21

continent, it's in every country. And

10:24

he said, I've

10:26

literally worked so hard for so

10:28

long. I sold 87.5% of my

10:31

business. I had a pile of gold, so much money, and

10:37

I still felt incomplete. People

10:39

are always running towards this goal.

10:41

When you hit it, it doesn't

10:43

satisfy. And a lot

10:46

of us are workaholics where we'll work

10:49

just nonstop, like 5% of the world

10:52

is entrepreneurial hunters. And

10:56

he said, until I realized and

10:58

I became content. And

11:01

it's just a really weird thing to think

11:03

about, like, man, you work your life off,

11:05

you all these years, this hard work, and

11:08

then the payoff comes and you're still. And

11:10

he goes, I was always worried that this

11:12

fight or flight, this discontent

11:14

was my edge. But I

11:16

didn't really understand that when

11:18

I became, I actually became

11:20

fulfilled. And that took a lot of psychology,

11:23

he went to a lot of counseling. And

11:26

he says there's ways, there's a lot of

11:28

different ways to get there.

11:30

Some people actually could explore their brain

11:32

that a different dimension by being on

11:34

shrooms or YOS or

11:36

whatever it's called. And some people have

11:38

this awakening. And some people just they

11:41

need to learn what that thing is

11:43

that's causing that behavior, that

11:45

they kind of sealed up and they shut down. And

11:50

who was it? You might know her

11:52

name, Marilyn, the Marilyn

11:54

Method. Does

11:58

that ring a bell for you? No. Anyway,

12:03

I just want to first talk about, because a lot

12:05

of the people own a company that are listening. And

12:08

a lot of us, we don't stop our

12:10

brains. We're ADHD. I say every

12:13

entrepreneur's got a touch of ADHD. And

12:16

we've got so much going on. And

12:18

we never really feel content. We never really

12:20

live in the moment. What,

12:22

why is that? Well,

12:24

I mean, I do think that

12:26

people are sort of innately wired

12:29

differently. That kind

12:31

of restlessness, if channeled,

12:33

can lead to intense

12:35

productivity. In some ways, those

12:37

folks are the lucky ones, right? Because there's

12:39

a lot of discontent and

12:42

restlessness that people never

12:44

learn to channel or never learn to harness. And

12:47

so they just are left with that and

12:49

don't found companies

12:51

and have this kind of success.

12:55

But I think the illusion for people

12:57

who are able to channel their restlessness

13:00

and discontent is

13:02

that through achievement and

13:04

validation, they will someday get

13:07

to the place where they're no longer restless

13:09

and no longer discontent. And

13:11

that's actually the part that's not

13:13

true. That's the myth. Because

13:16

really, it's just part of

13:18

human nature and part of

13:21

life that

13:23

we're always a little bit dissatisfied.

13:26

And that really, there's no external achievement

13:28

that's going to get rid of that,

13:31

as my one patient called it, pilot light

13:33

of anxiety. It's just

13:35

part of being human. And

13:38

then when we realize that, that's when

13:40

we, I think, begin to cross over

13:43

into the possibility of some

13:45

kind of serenity when we

13:47

stop trying to outrun that feeling. OK,

13:51

here's a personal question that I always

13:53

confuse the two. And I

13:55

know they're very similar. And

13:57

we're going to jump into dopamine nation questions.

14:00

But can you just tell me a little

14:02

bit about the difference between this is going

14:04

to sound really probably an

14:07

ignorant question, but dopamine and serotonin. Sure.

14:10

So both dopamine

14:12

and serotonin are neurotransmitters.

14:16

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that

14:18

we make in our

14:20

brain that allow for fine

14:22

tuning of the electrical circuits

14:24

that make up our brains. So our

14:26

brain is composed of a number

14:28

of different types of cells. One of those cells

14:31

is the long spindly cells

14:33

that we call neurons that have

14:35

these axons. And

14:37

they conduct electrical impulses from one

14:39

neuron to another to make

14:41

up electrical circuits that makes up our

14:44

brain activity. But the

14:46

neurons don't actually touch end to end. There's

14:48

a little gap between them. That

14:51

gap is called the synapse. And

14:53

neurotransmitters are the molecules that

14:55

bridge that gap, allowing for

14:57

fine tuned control of

15:00

the electrical circuits. Dopamine

15:02

and serotonin are just two

15:04

of many brain neurotransmitters. They

15:06

have different but related functions.

15:09

Dopamine is especially important

15:11

for pleasure, reward, motivation,

15:14

and also movement. Serotonin

15:16

tends to be important for mood,

15:19

sleep, appetite, and

15:22

social connection. So

15:24

they just they're they're

15:27

both kind of in the broader

15:30

category of sort of quote unquote

15:32

feel good neurotransmitters generally, at least

15:35

initially when we have more of them, we

15:37

feel better. And that they qualitatively

15:41

have different roles or different functions in the

15:43

brain. And I've

15:45

heard you speak on stage a little bit

15:47

about dopamine. And I

15:50

think you've mentioned that you

15:52

could rewire your brain at any age. That

15:56

just because you have and

15:59

it might be off here. But

16:01

I think you've done a lot. Have you done a

16:03

lot of study with like, was it rats or mice?

16:06

So I haven't done those studies, but

16:08

I often talk about those studies done

16:10

by my neuroscience colleagues. You're remembering correctly.

16:13

I did talk about a variety

16:15

of different studies in rats and mice,

16:17

but I myself don't do those studies.

16:20

What was the most profound couple studies

16:22

that you discuss most often that you've

16:25

seen with behavioral studies

16:28

about addiction and dopamine? Well,

16:31

one really important series of studies,

16:33

it wasn't just one study, it's

16:35

a series of multiple studies

16:38

done over many decades now where

16:40

a probe was stuck

16:43

into a rat's brain right

16:45

in the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens

16:47

is an area of the brain that's

16:50

rich in dopamine releasing

16:52

neurons, and it's part of the reward

16:54

circuitry. And the

16:56

experiment is to measure dopamine release

16:58

in response to different substances. So

17:00

we're always releasing dopamine at a

17:02

kind of tonic baseline level

17:04

in the brain. When we

17:06

do something that's reinforcing that our

17:09

brain recognizes as important for survival,

17:11

we temporarily increase dopamine above baseline

17:14

and that's what feels good. And

17:16

because it feels good, we want

17:19

to do it again. So then we're willing to invest

17:22

energy and work into finding more of

17:24

whatever that is. So

17:26

this series of experiments looked at how

17:29

much dopamine is released in response to

17:31

different types of rewards and

17:33

found that chocolate increases dopamine firing

17:35

about 50% above baseline, sex is

17:37

100% above baseline, nicotine

17:42

is 150% above baseline, nicotine is 200%, and

17:47

amphetamine is 1,000%. So

17:50

what that tells us is that, at

17:52

least in rats and mice, all

17:55

of those things are reinforcing, but sex

17:58

is more than chocolate. chocolate,

18:00

nicotine is more than sex, cocaine

18:03

and amphetamine are more than nicotine.

18:06

And indeed it's true that behaviorally, one

18:09

of the ways to measure addiction in a

18:11

rat is to see how hard is that

18:13

animal willing to work to get

18:16

their drug of choice, which is a nice

18:18

animal model for human behavior because one of

18:20

the things that we see in addiction is

18:22

that people will work very, very hard to

18:24

get their drug. Indeed,

18:27

if you give a rat or a

18:30

mouse access to intravenous

18:32

cocaine, for example, and a

18:34

lever they can press to deliver that cocaine,

18:36

what you find is that the animal will

18:39

press the lever till exhaustion or even

18:41

death. So it's not very hard

18:44

to get a rat addicted to

18:46

cocaine and they will get

18:48

addicted to cocaine more easily than they

18:51

will get addicted to something like chocolate

18:53

or other reinforcers. And

18:55

indeed it's very difficult to get a

18:57

rat addicted to alcohol for whatever reason,

19:00

unless you genetically engineer a

19:02

particular strain of rats to get

19:04

addicted to alcohol. Rats generally don't

19:06

like alcohol, but they love stimulants,

19:08

which is different from humans. Humans

19:11

generally love alcohol and stimulants and

19:13

chocolate and sex and nicotine. So

19:15

we kind of like everything. But

19:18

it does raise an important concept of

19:20

drug of choice, which is

19:22

that we're all wired a little bit differently.

19:24

And what releases a lot of dopamine in

19:26

my brain, for example, may not

19:28

release a lot of dopamine in your brain

19:30

and vice versa. And although

19:33

clinically what we see today is polypharmacy,

19:37

meaning that generally people

19:39

who are vulnerable to

19:41

addiction, and again, I said it's all of

19:43

us, but certainly some are more vulnerable than

19:45

others. They might have one

19:47

drug of choice like alcohol or cocaine

19:50

or cannabis, but they're often also

19:52

using other drugs, so kind of

19:55

multiple drugs in

19:57

consecutive days or even simultaneously. So,

20:01

but even when they're using multiple drugs, most

20:03

people have what they would call their drug

20:05

of choice. That is their one go-to drug

20:07

or their preferred drug or the

20:09

drug that is sort of the one that really does it

20:12

for them. And that's really different

20:14

across different humans, which

20:16

from an evolutionary perspective makes a lot of

20:19

sense, right? Like when you're thinking about the

20:21

sort of primordial tribe,

20:24

you wouldn't want everybody going for the same

20:27

berry bush. You would want some

20:29

people really like berries, some people want to

20:31

hunt meat, some people want to look for

20:33

partners. And that way as a group,

20:36

everybody gets what they need. So I

20:38

think that's also part of like the

20:40

innate built-in mechanism to get people to

20:43

go for different rewards,

20:45

right? That inter-individual variability

20:47

is something that mother

20:49

nature probably intentionally programmed

20:51

for. Hmm. That's

20:54

really interesting. You

20:57

mentioned earlier, anything could

20:59

be in addiction, something

21:01

as simple as reading

21:03

sex novels. Yeah. Yeah,

21:06

yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So

21:10

that's, you know, that's what I talk

21:12

about in my book, Dopamine Nation, how

21:14

I got addicted to romance novels and... Romance

21:17

novels, I'm sorry. You

21:20

know what? I went, I graduated

21:22

from romance novels to sex novels.

21:25

So for sure, you know, I

21:27

thought that progression was

21:29

there for me. And it

21:32

started out with Twilight, which is a

21:34

vampire romance novel written for teenagers. Have

21:36

you read it? I doubt you have,

21:39

but... I watch all the movies, but I've not

21:41

read... I don't read novels, unfortunately. I'm trying to

21:43

get into fiction. Yeah.

21:46

Anyway, reading has always been my drug of

21:48

choice. And I read the romance novels and

21:50

that was like, you know, very

21:52

reinforcing. I read the series multiple

21:54

times and then I graduated

21:57

from that to werewolf romance

21:59

novels. and magician romance

22:01

novels and all kinds of romance novels.

22:04

And after a while that wasn't really potent enough for

22:06

me. So then I graduated or

22:08

progressed to novels that had more

22:11

graphic sex scenes and eventually found

22:13

myself reading Frank Erotica over

22:16

the course of about a year or a year and a

22:18

half. What was so interesting

22:20

about that process was that

22:22

even though I'm an addiction psychiatrist,

22:24

I really didn't see the progression

22:26

as it was happening. I

22:29

would occasionally joke, aha, I'm addicted to romance

22:31

novels, but really I did get a little

22:33

bit addicted to romance novels. How

22:35

do we define addiction? It's the continued

22:38

compulsive use of a

22:40

substance or a behavior despite harm

22:42

to self and or others.

22:46

Sometimes we look for the three

22:48

Cs, control, compulsion, consequences, out of

22:50

control use, compulsive use, or continued

22:52

use despite consequences, as

22:55

well as tolerance and withdrawal. Tolerance is

22:57

needing more of the drug or

22:59

more potent forms over time to get the

23:01

same effect. Withdrawal is finding

23:04

that when you cut back or stop,

23:06

you have a

23:09

physiologic reaction to that. And

23:11

I really met all of those criteria. So

23:13

I'd be reading a romance novel as I

23:15

went to bed on a

23:17

weeknight telling myself, I was just gonna read one

23:20

chapter and go to sleep. And four hours later,

23:22

two in the morning, I was still reading, which

23:25

was impairing my ability to sleep, which

23:28

was impairing my ability to function at work or be present for

23:30

my family. So they were, it was

23:32

a subtle impact, but it definitely was a real

23:34

impact. I repeatedly said

23:36

I wasn't gonna cut back and wasn't

23:38

gonna read romance novels tonight, but the

23:40

nighttime came, my willpower was diminished. I

23:43

read romance novels. And

23:46

I also developed tolerance. The tolerance being needing

23:48

more potent forms. As I said, I eventually

23:51

kind of progressed to something really

23:53

quite a bit beyond your average

23:56

sort of Twilight saga type of romance

23:58

novel. So the point being that I

24:00

had sort of thought that I was immune

24:02

to addiction, even though it runs in

24:05

my family, because traditional drugs just

24:07

never were reinforcing. But the truth is

24:09

I just hadn't met my drug of

24:11

choice. And when I did, which turned

24:13

out to be not just romance novels,

24:15

but online romance novels, which meant that

24:17

I could get them very easily and

24:19

quickly, I essentially became a

24:21

chain reader of romance novels. Didn't

24:24

see the progression happening, which is very common

24:26

in addiction that we don't see our behaviors

24:28

when we're in them. And

24:30

then discovered when I tried

24:32

to stop, that I actually had a physical

24:35

withdrawal characterized by insomnia and

24:37

irritability. And that lasted about a

24:39

couple of weeks. So that's a

24:41

very typical kind

24:43

of progression for any addiction. And

24:46

the point being is really anybody can get

24:48

addicted. Even if you think you're immune,

24:50

there's probably a drug out there for you. And

24:53

again, in this day and age, almost

24:56

everything has been made to be

24:58

addictive or reinforcing. Yeah,

25:00

one of the things I always say on

25:02

this podcast is I think the FDA is

25:05

bond paid for. And

25:07

a lot of the foods we eat

25:09

cause us to do things that we normally

25:11

wouldn't do. And I kind of had this debate

25:13

this week, kind of with myself, because I

25:15

always say the most important thing is sleep.

25:17

Because without sleep, you made bad decisions. Without

25:20

the food, whether you're drinking your

25:23

carbs and whatever substance in

25:25

the food, or you're eating

25:27

it, that'll

25:29

cause you not to sleep too. If you drink a

25:31

lot, you're probably not going to get great sleep. And

25:34

so they kind of go hand in hand. And I don't know

25:36

which one's more important. I don't think if you

25:38

had to pick the food and

25:41

nutrients we eat, the sleep, the water

25:43

intake, or the

25:45

movement so

25:49

that could be working out or cardio or whatever, do you

25:51

have a rank? Well,

25:54

I think it's important to acknowledge

25:57

that our food supply has become

25:59

drugified. with the addition of salt,

26:01

fat, sugar, and flavorants.

26:04

And what I mean by that is

26:07

that now when we eat food, in

26:10

particular, ultra-processed food, of which there

26:12

is an abundance in our world today, two

26:16

things are happening. We are getting

26:18

calories and nutrients, which we need

26:20

to live, but we're

26:22

also getting a hit of dopamine in

26:24

our brain's reward pathway. And

26:27

that is problematic in the sense

26:29

that because we are

26:32

getting that hit of dopamine, we

26:34

won't want to, or even be

26:36

able to stop eating, even

26:39

once we've reached satiety or the point

26:41

at which our body is telling us,

26:44

okay, that's enough food. Instead,

26:47

what will happen is we will repeatedly

26:49

eat past that point because

26:51

the food is also a

26:53

drug that's causing this release of dopamine

26:56

that leads us into this sort

26:58

of addiction vortex where we're getting in

27:00

sort of the dopamine

27:02

spike, followed by dopamine

27:04

freefall, which is a state of

27:06

craving, which then drives the compulsive

27:08

reuse. So there is a

27:11

movement now within the field of mental health,

27:13

and I'm a part, you know, peripherally a

27:15

part of that movement, which

27:17

is to actually get ultra-processed

27:19

food addiction into the Diagnostic

27:21

and Statistical Manual of Mental

27:23

Disorders, meaning to get it

27:25

recognized as a mental illness. There

27:29

are a number of eating disorders

27:32

that are already considered

27:34

mental illnesses, bulimia, binge eating

27:36

characterized by purging, often vomiting

27:39

or the use of laxatives

27:41

or compulsive exercise, anorexia, which

27:43

is excessive restriction, various

27:46

body dysmorphia. But

27:50

there is, again, a movement to

27:52

have a whole new category that is

27:54

simply food addiction or food

27:56

use disorder, because what we're seeing

27:58

now is more and more people. who

28:01

are not in fact meeting criteria for

28:04

the classic eating disorders because they don't,

28:06

for example, have a distorted

28:08

view of their own bodies. Like they

28:10

see their bodies as they are. And

28:13

they're not necessarily dealing

28:15

even with obesity, right? Which

28:19

is often how we approach sort

28:21

of the binge eating folks who

28:24

gain a lot of weight, because

28:26

they're not doing the compensatory

28:29

compulsive exercise or purging or things.

28:32

But instead, we think

28:35

that there should be a category that

28:37

just acknowledges that food has become a

28:39

drug and that even

28:41

your average person, eating

28:44

these ultra-processed foods is going

28:46

to struggle to moderate

28:48

their consumption because the food is

28:51

addictive. And that's, I

28:53

think, a really important acknowledgement. And

28:56

again, we're seeing more and more people

28:58

who are actually not obese, who

29:00

have severe food addictions, who

29:03

will, for example, order DoorDash all

29:05

night long and eat DoorDash processed

29:07

food and gallons of ice cream

29:10

and really use food as a kind

29:12

of narcotic to the point

29:14

where they literally pass out the way some

29:16

people will use alcohol. And of

29:18

course, alcohol and food

29:20

are both working on our carbohydrate system.

29:23

So there's a lot of analogy between

29:25

those two. Interestingly,

29:27

we're also finding that the

29:29

medications that are often effective

29:32

for alcohol use disorder are

29:35

also often medications that help with

29:37

a pettative control around food. So

29:40

for example, the Ozempic and Wagovi

29:42

that are coming out now, really

29:44

were originally used to help people

29:46

with type 2 diabetes manage

29:48

their blood sugars and manage a pettative control.

29:51

Now we're seeing that it can be helpful to

29:53

some people with alcohol use disorder. So it's the

29:55

same kind of carbohydrate-mediated

29:58

pettative control mechanism. And

32:00

we know that, you know, osempic

32:03

and other others in

32:05

that class are causing bowel

32:07

obstructions, you know,

32:09

decreased peristalsis or gut motility

32:12

can lead to, in some cases,

32:15

depression, not to mention, as you point

32:17

out, that as soon as people stop taking it, they

32:19

can have a kind of a rebound

32:22

phenomenon. Having said that,

32:24

I have a really healthy respect

32:28

for the power of the human brain

32:30

once it's in this

32:32

addiction cycle to be very

32:34

difficult to break out of. So

32:37

I am in favor of

32:39

non-addictive medications that can help

32:41

people, you know,

32:43

get a handle on that and get some kind

32:46

of sense of a pettative control. Even

32:48

if it's just short term, I guess

32:51

what I would hope is that if people

32:53

are using osempic to

32:55

manage unhealthy eating habits, that they

32:58

would use the time in which osempic

33:01

and other similar drugs decrease

33:05

their cravings as

33:08

a golden window of opportunity

33:10

to introduce healthier eating

33:13

habits and other important

33:15

lifestyle changes like movement, right? It's

33:17

really important for our bodies to

33:20

move so that when

33:22

they get off of the osempic, they have some

33:24

really good habits in place that will allow them

33:26

to perpetuate, you know,

33:28

the benefits. Yeah,

33:31

it's interesting. One of my good buddies is like,

33:33

it's weird, I started taking osempic just a few

33:35

weeks ago. And

33:37

he's not what I would consider by any means an

33:39

alcoholic, but he drinks. Any

33:43

drinks when he drinks, he'll have four or five drinks. He's

33:45

like, I just I don't feel like drinking at

33:47

all. And I'm like, I

33:49

don't know necessarily if I've ever felt like

33:52

man, I need a vodka tonic or I

33:54

need a beer right now. Because

33:56

we're not to that but when we're like

33:58

Friday comes and we're just on top of the

34:01

world were like, man, let's go have a drink. Let's

34:03

have a glass of wine. And he's like, I just

34:05

don't even want it. And I

34:07

didn't even think that it was that big was built.

34:10

I thought it was like, like from what we see

34:12

now, I thought it was like a weight loss. But

34:14

really what it does prevent alcohol as

34:17

well, I'm hearing. Well, I

34:19

mean, again, there are some early

34:21

trials looking at it. Anecdotally in

34:23

our clinic, we have some patients

34:26

with treatment refractory alcohol use disorder,

34:29

who have tried everything and haven't

34:31

responded, who have then tried

34:33

these agents like Ozempic and

34:35

Wagovi and found it very

34:37

helpful. Not everybody, but

34:39

I think it's just, it's important for us

34:42

to yeah,

34:44

explore options, especially in

34:46

cases where people have tried everything

34:48

else. You know, they've

34:50

been to Alcoholics Anonymous, they've taken

34:52

Naltrexone, you name it, and they

34:55

haven't really been able to stop the

34:57

behavior. I mean, what a relief that must

35:00

be for them to be

35:02

able to be free of that state of

35:04

craving. I want

35:06

to dive into dopamine nation here and

35:08

in the business, the

35:11

business world, from a business perspective, what

35:13

are the ethical considerations

35:15

companies should prioritize when

35:17

designing products or services

35:19

that tap into our dopamine systems.

35:23

And the keyword here is ethical because I

35:26

happen to know Robert Czardini, he wrote

35:28

the book, Influence, Presuasion, and one of

35:30

his statements in

35:32

the book is use these things for good,

35:35

because I'm sure there's a lot of ways to use these for bad.

35:39

Yeah, I mean, so the classic example

35:41

of this is the social media

35:44

companies, who may not have intended

35:47

to harm young

35:49

people, but it's very clear

35:51

now that, you know,

35:53

although social media can be a powerful

35:56

positive tool, it's also

35:58

potentially harmful. to

40:00

process what's happened, to spend time doing

40:03

other things and prepare for the week

40:05

to come. So what's

40:07

happened in the modern world is that work

40:09

itself has become drugified. What

40:12

does that mean? It means it's more

40:14

potent and reinforcing with all the kind

40:16

of stock options and bonuses and rankings.

40:20

It's become more accessible.

40:22

Work never ends. It's

40:24

infinite. There's no place we

40:27

can go now where we

40:29

can't access work. So there's no natural

40:31

stopping point for work, which again,

40:33

if you think about work as a potential drug,

40:36

now you've got sort of like an infinite amount

40:38

of cocaine that never runs out. That can't possibly

40:40

be good for our cocaine habit.

40:43

So I think what places a work

40:45

cannon should do is to really try

40:47

hard to make sure that workers get

40:50

a break. You

40:52

know, that there are sort of sacred

40:55

days of the week or times of

40:57

the day when people really should disengage

40:59

from work, focus on other

41:02

things. You asked me earlier about

41:04

animal experiments that I think are really

41:07

powerful. There's a set

41:09

of experiments that George Coob did

41:11

with his co-researchers,

41:14

where they exposed rats to

41:16

pressing a lever for

41:19

cocaine for two hours a day,

41:22

and they compared that to rats in

41:24

which they were allowed to press the lever essentially

41:26

all day long. And what they

41:29

found was that in the rats who only

41:31

had access to cocaine for two hours a

41:33

day, that their rate of lever press was

41:35

constant. So over the course of seven

41:38

days, they pressed that lever for

41:40

cocaine the same amount of time every day. But

41:43

in the rats where they exposed them to unlimited

41:46

cocaine, those rats increased their

41:49

lever pressing rate every day. So

41:51

the first day, maybe they pressed it 50 times.

41:53

The next day, maybe it was,

41:56

you know, 100 times. The

41:58

day after that, it was 200 times. what

46:00

notifications we got or whatever. Check

46:02

our stock portfolio. Who knows how

46:04

many likes we got on Instagram.

46:07

But if we can just write out that

46:09

discomfort, what we find is that the brain

46:12

slowly adjusts. And then we

46:14

not only feel less craving

46:17

to look at our devices, but actually start to

46:19

feel really, really good. And I

46:21

think this is just so important for people

46:23

to experiment with, for families to experiment with

46:25

together, couples. Yeah,

46:28

taking a break from these devices is super

46:30

important. I want to jump

46:32

in and just a few more questions

46:34

here. You know, I'm

46:36

sure there's a lot of ways to prevent

46:38

addiction, but what do we

46:40

do when we already have something? And I think

46:43

most people, if we look in the mirror, we

46:45

could admit there's, we might have a problem. You

46:47

said porn, masturbation, sex, all

46:49

the way to a drug of choice. It could be alcohol, it

46:51

could be tobacco, it could be

46:54

nicotine. When

46:56

we do have something, and you know

46:58

what's so funny is, I talked

47:00

to my mom one time, and she used to

47:02

smoke a pre-month salt, she switched to a vape.

47:05

And she goes, you know, she had

47:07

a lump in her throat, it was non-cancerous, thank

47:09

God. And you would think after,

47:11

it was a close call. And

47:13

I said, mom, why do you even

47:16

want to do it? And the answer

47:18

I got was less than

47:20

satisfactory. She goes, this

47:22

is my time, this is what I want to do. This

47:26

is the only time I get

47:28

to be with my own thoughts and it's my

47:30

getaway. And I look at

47:32

things, if I know it's not good for me, I just, and

47:35

I've seen doctors do cocaine before. You've heard

47:38

about them dying of an overdose, that know

47:40

better. But there's

47:43

a lot of people that I think they just kind of

47:45

lie to themselves and they say, it's not a problem or

47:47

it's my time or this is what I get to do

47:49

by myself and this is the only time I get to

47:51

release or whatever it is. I

47:54

don't know what the answer is. That's why I wanted

47:56

to ask you, what's the best? For

47:59

people that are listening. that might have some type of

48:01

addiction that they know is not good for them. What's

48:04

the best way to address that and move on from

48:06

it or try to get it under control? Well,

48:09

first of all, just to speak to your

48:12

mother's response, I mean, part

48:14

of why people use drugs is because

48:16

they work and

48:18

they wouldn't go back if they didn't have

48:20

some positive quality for

48:22

them. So your

48:25

mom saying, this is me time or this is

48:27

how I kind of take care of myself, that

48:30

is very common when people get addicted. They

48:33

often tend to be avoidant

48:36

copers, so they

48:38

don't, it's very hard for them to

48:40

get their needs met in

48:42

other ways or by asking for

48:44

help or asking for things. They don't like to

48:46

do that. And so they then

48:49

sort of take care of themselves over here with

48:51

their drug of choice. The

48:53

other thing is that although drugs initially

48:56

might work to solve a problem and

48:58

take care of us over time, they

49:01

don't take care of us, right? They're harmful, but

49:04

we still have the experience that

49:06

they're working because they get us out of that place

49:08

of craving. So what initially

49:11

starts out as maybe self-medicating

49:13

or self-care becomes

49:15

self-harm and becomes just

49:17

medicating the withdrawal from the last dose. So

49:21

one of the important

49:23

interventions, when

49:26

we're trying to help people stop their

49:28

addictive behaviors is to help them

49:30

find ways to escape

49:32

or take care

49:34

of themselves in other ways without

49:36

using that drug. So I just want to say

49:39

that for folks out there who are

49:41

struggling with an addiction or think they

49:43

might be, it's a very serious addiction.

49:46

I recommend that they go see a

49:48

mental health care provider who has expertise

49:50

in treating addiction. If they're

49:53

not sure or not able to do that, they

49:55

might consider exploring 12-step

49:57

groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics.

50:01

cannabis anonymous, sex addicts anonymous, sexaholics

50:04

anonymous, internet and social media addicts

50:06

anonymous. I mean, there's really a

50:08

group for almost every addiction you

50:11

can imagine. These are

50:13

people who come together and help each other

50:15

when they're struggling with the same or similar

50:17

problem. And they can

50:19

be very, very effective and they're also evidence-based.

50:21

So we have evidence showing that

50:24

alcoholics anonymous is as good as

50:26

professionally mediated treatment and

50:28

probably works better for certain

50:31

populations. What if they don't want help?

50:33

I mean, a lot of people they're like, I know, yeah, I

50:36

drink, but it's not a problem. But

50:39

they know in the deep down pits, yeah,

50:41

yeah, I know, I eat, I binge eat

50:43

and I love Twinkies and I eat 10

50:45

of them in a row and I can't

50:47

live without ice cream and chocolate chip cookies

50:49

or whatever it might be, or

50:51

don't take me away from my phone. This is

50:54

my happy spot. But you look at your day

50:56

yesterday and you go, is there anything good

50:58

that came out of that? Is there anything

51:00

that you're like, man, that yesterday when I

51:03

got to scroll through TikTok for four hours,

51:05

you know, the double means gone and you've

51:07

used it, it's not like, wow, that was

51:09

really that paid off. But

51:12

I just don't think that, I just don't think a lot of

51:14

people are to the point where it's gotten to the point where

51:16

they feel like they need help. They feel like it's under control.

51:19

Yeah, I agree. Most of

51:22

us, we feel like it's under control and we feel

51:24

like it's not doing any real harm. And

51:26

that's the situation where I invite people

51:28

to try something called the dopamine

51:31

fast or an abstinence trial, where

51:33

they give up their drug of choice for

51:35

four weeks as an

51:37

experiment. And typically I'll

51:39

warn them that they're gonna feel worse before they feel better,

51:42

but if they can make it to weeks three or four,

51:44

it will often feel very, very good,

51:46

better than they have in a really long time.

51:48

And that can be a moment

51:50

of insight where people realize, oh wow,

51:53

this thing that I thought was harmless actually

51:56

was causing harm. Or this

51:58

thing that I thought I wasn't addicted to, I wasn't. I

52:00

really was addicted to it. Or

52:02

this thing that I thought was helping me

52:04

with my depression, anxiety, insomnia and attention was

52:07

actually making those things worse. So

52:09

I really like that as an early intervention,

52:13

as a way to give people their

52:15

own data on which they can then

52:17

make better informed choices. One

52:20

of the things that I've been talking a

52:22

lot about lately is doing something hard. And

52:25

for me, it would be getting into a 32 degrees

52:29

Fahrenheit. Nice

52:31

plunge. But there are times

52:34

after three months where your body's like, you're just used to

52:36

it, you go right in there. It's not hard anymore. It

52:38

still might be great for you. But flexing

52:41

those do something hard muscles like

52:44

abstinence of dessert

52:47

for a month, or turning off your cell phone

52:49

for two days in a row. I

52:51

mean, some of us, you

52:54

know, maybe even getting a flip phone and transferring to

52:56

that so you don't scroll. Like, I've

52:58

always been in the position to where I

53:01

kind of like accountability and I like

53:03

to give myself no other way. Because

53:06

if it's right there, it's easy to do it. Like you

53:08

said, if they just if the rats could just hit it

53:10

whenever they want, they just but if

53:12

you build like conditions like if I miss my

53:14

trainer today, he's gonna call me up.

53:17

And he's gonna be very disappointed. Because I

53:19

wasted his time and my time. I've created

53:22

that. Now I know he's

53:24

gonna work me out harder than I'd work out myself.

53:27

Like I know he's gonna push an extra level. But I

53:29

know he's not gonna push me too hard that I'm not

53:31

gonna that I'm gonna quit the next day. And

53:33

that's that's a skill. But I think just

53:36

doing something hard, that's hard for

53:38

you, maybe easy for other

53:41

people. But I think

53:43

that that's something that very few people in this

53:46

day and age have done in a long time. Yeah,

53:48

I mean, the message that we get from

53:51

the culture today is that if you're uncomfortable,

53:53

if you're not comfortable, or if you're

53:56

in pain, or if you're anxious,

53:58

make yourself more comfortable. You know, make

54:01

your life easier. But really, we

54:03

were wired over millions of years of

54:05

evolution for pain. We

54:08

are strivers. We need friction in

54:10

order to feel in balance. And

54:13

it turns out that when we intentionally do things that

54:16

are hard or even painful, our

54:19

body senses injury and then upregulates

54:22

production of our feel-good neurotransmitters like

54:25

dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, you name

54:27

it. So that it's

54:29

actually a really nice way to get

54:31

dopamine indirectly by paying for it up front. And

54:33

that's really how we were meant to get our

54:36

dopamine. We weren't meant to have easy access to

54:38

these intoxicants that release a lot of dopamine all at

54:41

once with no work. We were

54:43

meant to have to do something hard to get

54:45

a little bit of dopamine to kind of

54:47

reset us and put us back into balance.

54:50

So I think that's an important message,

54:53

especially in this culture of sort

54:55

of a quick fix. And

54:58

it's a really important message for children, you

55:00

know, that it's actually

55:02

good for you to do

55:04

something challenging, something

55:06

that you don't want to do, but

55:09

you feel better afterwards. And really drawing

55:11

our attention to be

55:13

able to observe that, that

55:16

reluctance to enter into a difficult

55:19

task, the kind of

55:22

psychological and or physical pain we have

55:24

during the task. And then, you

55:27

know, the sort of release of those chemicals

55:30

that give us that post-task

55:32

high. That's really important

55:35

to watch that cycle, to not overuse

55:37

that cycle. Like we do have people

55:39

who get addicted to things like exercise.

55:41

I've talked about that, actually, addicted to

55:43

work. So you can overdo that. The

55:46

other thing that we see more and more of is this kind

55:48

of work hard, play hard mentality, where I

55:51

worked hard all day and now I get

55:53

to reward myself. Right. So that's

55:55

not good either, because then there's no

55:57

kind of restful in between. It's all.

56:00

my will exerted on the world to

56:02

change the way I feel, whether it's

56:04

to feel bad or feel good, instead

56:07

of being at a place

56:09

of rest and letting the world

56:11

unfold, which is something that modern

56:13

humans are not good at at all, but

56:15

which I think is really important to finding

56:18

that kind of angle of repose where

56:21

we're able to experience joy and

56:23

beauty, but not necessarily of our

56:25

own making, but that

56:27

occurs spontaneously as life

56:29

unfolds. Love that.

56:32

If you were to tell

56:35

a business owner or a manager

56:38

how to create an environment, obviously

56:40

making sure that people have time,

56:42

I've always kind of mandated PTO.

56:47

But other than like the seventh day

56:49

of rest and was leaders, is

56:53

there anything else that we should be looking to do to

56:56

lead to the right way and to really

56:58

show up for the people? Well, I

57:00

mean, practice what you preach is important. Don't

57:04

expect from the

57:07

folks who work with you something that you

57:09

wouldn't do. FOMO is

57:11

really real now. I

57:14

mean, it's always been to some extent a

57:17

source of human suffering, but that fear of

57:19

missing out, if you can create systems

57:22

where people can take time off and

57:24

away from their work without feeling like

57:26

they're gonna be missing something important. Don't

57:28

quite know how to do that. I

57:31

mean, probably it's different for every kind of work. So

57:34

this might be also communal time

57:36

off that's synchronized with other people off. So

57:38

again, you don't have that sense, well, I'm

57:41

taking off today, but I'm missing a lot

57:43

of really important things. And when I go

57:45

in tomorrow, I'm gonna have 200 emails and

57:48

my boss is gonna be mad and I'm gonna be behind

57:50

and everybody's gonna know what was going on. Creating

57:53

a system where people

57:56

are together, taking

57:58

time off or... somehow

58:02

it's more of a communal experience. What

58:05

is your take? I'm curious. What

58:08

is your take on Jordan Peterson as far

58:10

as, he

58:13

talks a lot of men or women are two

58:15

different things. And they

58:17

had a lot of debates, and this is an

58:19

interesting one. And there's a

58:21

lot of different takes for him, but he says,

58:24

men are the most incarcerated. Men

58:26

are the most likely to get a job outside. Men

58:28

are the first one to go to war. Men's life

58:30

expectancy is less. I do

58:32

think men and women are different by

58:34

a long shot. I can't have babies. I

58:36

don't have any reproductive organs. And

58:39

I don't really know what kind of question I'm asking here.

58:41

I just think it's it. I was sitting down with a

58:43

private equity, like all the limited

58:45

partners that invested in this company. And

58:47

they did a women's panel. And

58:51

the women were up there saying, I

58:54

think it's very important that we have a family. We

58:56

wanna have kids. And

58:59

I heard some kind of whispers in the

59:01

audience of like, you know, if

59:03

you're gonna take three or four months off in

59:06

the middle of the, that's very tough

59:08

for bankers and financial bankers. But

59:11

the women said it's a lot easier

59:15

when the founder

59:17

has daughters, because

59:19

they understood, because those are the grand babies they're

59:21

having. You know what I mean? Like it's going,

59:24

and they have a grandchild is what they said. And

59:27

I don't necessarily know. I think it's

59:30

very, this day

59:32

and age, everybody wants this equal

59:34

rights of everything. And

59:36

I wouldn't say

59:39

necessarily in old fashioned, I think women should have great

59:41

jobs. And I'm not trying to be a misogynist

59:43

pig here. I don't really know where I'm going

59:45

with this question, but I'm just curious your point of

59:47

view when it comes to this

59:49

day and age where you could be a cat

59:51

in second grade and not answer any questions and

59:54

lick on milk. I

59:56

don't know where it stops. And like this, it's

59:58

like. No, there's a

1:00:01

society, you got to do your part.

1:00:03

And you don't need to fit in necessarily, but

1:00:06

you're not that special. I

1:00:09

don't know. What is your take? It's not

1:00:11

a very direct question. Yeah, yeah, there's

1:00:13

a lot there. I mean, I guess

1:00:16

a lot comes to mind. What

1:00:19

I'd say is that I

1:00:21

do think for all the

1:00:23

chatter about how

1:00:25

vulnerable young girls are

1:00:28

today, we're not talking

1:00:30

enough about how

1:00:32

vulnerable boys and men are today. I

1:00:34

actually think this is a really incredibly

1:00:37

difficult time to be a man in

1:00:40

terms of addiction to

1:00:42

pornography and sex, addiction

1:00:44

to video games. We're

1:00:47

seeing a huge dropout in the workforce

1:00:49

among young men. I mean, this is

1:00:52

not an opinion. There

1:00:54

are numbers to show that. Along

1:00:56

with some data

1:00:59

to suggest that they're dropping out

1:01:02

because they're at home playing video

1:01:04

games and viewing pornography. So

1:01:08

we're seeing, I think, a

1:01:11

very dangerous trend of

1:01:13

this sort of withdrawal from society

1:01:15

and a disengagement among

1:01:18

young men and boys. And

1:01:20

it's super concerning. And

1:01:23

then just in terms of women

1:01:25

taking time for family and

1:01:27

to raise their kids, I

1:01:30

mean, there are certain biological imperatives. Like

1:01:33

if you don't take the

1:01:36

time to be there when your child

1:01:38

is young, you can't ever get

1:01:40

that time back. You will miss it. And

1:01:43

I feel badly for anybody who misses that

1:01:45

time, man or woman. And

1:01:48

I think it would be really good

1:01:50

and very, very

1:01:52

wise for our societies

1:01:54

to do more to accommodate

1:01:56

thriving families and to allow

1:01:59

both mothers and mothers to be there. and fathers to

1:02:01

have extended periods of time

1:02:03

when their children are young because that's

1:02:05

when they really need us and

1:02:07

you can't get that back. There's not

1:02:10

really a way to make it up later.

1:02:12

It's a myth that you can

1:02:14

just have quality and

1:02:16

quantity doesn't matter. I don't think

1:02:18

that's true. I think quantity does matter because

1:02:21

children operate according to child

1:02:23

time. They need

1:02:26

large swaths of time with

1:02:29

consistent caregivers. You

1:02:31

can't just kind of show up and do a song

1:02:33

and dance and hope that you'll

1:02:35

have a strong attachment. Well,

1:02:39

this is kind of, if you were, I

1:02:43

went to Australia and

1:02:45

I spent a lot of time there. And

1:02:48

what I noticed is there's like an extra 55

1:02:50

holidays. Yep.

1:02:55

They give like eight months if you have a

1:02:57

baby to the men and the

1:02:59

women. And I

1:03:01

was just thinking like, wait a minute, if

1:03:05

I owed a business and I

1:03:07

already have like a million holidays, look,

1:03:10

and this is the dilemma is you

1:03:12

also have bills to pay, right? I

1:03:15

mean, realistically, you gotta keep the rent, you gotta

1:03:17

keep the lights on and they're in conditioning going in

1:03:19

the summer there. And you've also got to pay for

1:03:21

insurance and trucks. I

1:03:23

think we're getting to the point where business owners are attacked

1:03:25

for not doing a lot of things. And I'm going, well,

1:03:28

if the business goes out of business then

1:03:30

everybody loses, all the jobs are lost. So

1:03:33

what's a fair way of saying, there's

1:03:36

a 26 year old woman and a 26 year

1:03:38

old man, they plan on having five to six kids.

1:03:40

And I agree with you wholeheartedly, I do. But

1:03:42

I'm trying to think on a society basis, how

1:03:45

does this work? How is there not some type of

1:03:48

free judge that

1:03:50

this person, if you're taking eight months off and

1:03:52

you want five kids over

1:03:54

the next six years, that

1:03:56

means you're working a minimum of a third of

1:03:58

the time. That means

1:04:00

that. Yeah, I agree with you.

1:04:02

It's very disruptive to running any kind

1:04:04

of business operation and

1:04:07

have people stop out for

1:04:09

attorney leave or child leave. I mean,

1:04:11

I manage my clinic. We have lots of

1:04:13

trainees. And when I have

1:04:15

a trainee who gets pregnant and then it's gone

1:04:17

for three months, it's incredibly disruptive. I can't just

1:04:19

make a training, materialize out

1:04:22

of thin air to start seeing their

1:04:24

patients. It is disruptive.

1:04:26

There's no doubt about it. I

1:04:28

don't know exactly what the answer is. I

1:04:30

think that one possibility

1:04:33

might be to make workplaces

1:04:35

more kid friendly. So,

1:04:37

you know, and you see this

1:04:39

sometimes when you go to Utah, you know, where

1:04:42

as you know, many

1:04:45

people have very large families, they'll

1:04:48

often bring their kids to work if

1:04:51

it's a job that allows, that makes

1:04:53

that possible. They're not all jobs. You

1:04:55

can't bring, you know, your

1:04:57

kid to work. But little babies, you know, or

1:04:59

maybe a kid who could go on a little

1:05:01

playpen. I mean, some, there are some jobs where

1:05:04

that would actually be possible if it were culturally

1:05:06

acceptable to do that. Really

1:05:08

good idea. And I, you know, that's

1:05:10

what gyms are starting to do is bring your kid to the

1:05:12

gym. Right. So

1:05:14

what would you say, Doba Me

1:05:17

Nation, if the whole

1:05:20

crowd of people listening right now go

1:05:22

by that? What's some of the largest

1:05:24

takeaways? Well,

1:05:26

I just think it's a way

1:05:29

to understand how we process

1:05:31

pleasure and pain and how the

1:05:33

relentless pursuit of these

1:05:36

high dopamine rewards actually makes

1:05:38

us anhedonic or unable

1:05:40

to experience any pleasure at all. How

1:05:43

doing things that are hard upregulates

1:05:45

dopamine and makes us feel better.

1:05:48

And also, you know, just how we're living

1:05:51

in a world of abundance, which

1:05:54

itself is a human stressor. You

1:05:57

know, as soon as I talk about it as the plenty

1:05:59

paradox. that actually this is a very

1:06:01

difficult time to be human because

1:06:04

we have everything, because our lives

1:06:06

are so convenient, because our lives

1:06:09

are so fast and so full of

1:06:11

these sources of dopamine

1:06:13

and other fast chemicals.

1:06:15

So kind of trying

1:06:17

to think about how can we make,

1:06:20

how can we be in balance

1:06:22

in physiologic and neurologic and

1:06:25

moral and spiritual balance in a world that's

1:06:27

really not encouraging

1:06:29

that. I'm gonna say

1:06:31

a statement real quick and I want you to react

1:06:33

if this, what's your feelings

1:06:35

are. And when I say men, it can be men

1:06:37

or women. Hard times make strong

1:06:41

men, easy times make

1:06:43

weak men. I

1:06:45

mean, I would say that generally I

1:06:48

would agree with that. Again,

1:06:50

I think we evolved for

1:06:53

striving and that

1:06:56

when we don't have something to

1:06:58

strive for or against, we're

1:07:00

kind of a little bit lost, especially

1:07:03

if we're also then

1:07:05

surrounded by this very overwhelming

1:07:08

supply of sort of

1:07:10

drugified forms of escapism.

1:07:14

You know, I don't know necessarily if I,

1:07:17

you're very familiar, I'm sure with Darwinism, survival

1:07:19

of the fittest. And I think that that

1:07:21

was kind of an ancestral thing that took

1:07:24

place that just

1:07:27

the humans have the evolution of

1:07:29

like the camouflage of

1:07:32

certain things. Like they

1:07:34

do that to survive, but now it's like you could

1:07:36

survive. And I'm not talking, sounds

1:07:38

like inhumane, but

1:07:41

bring the inhumane out of it is like,

1:07:45

if you could not run

1:07:47

faster and do things in

1:07:49

your village, there's

1:07:51

a good chance. Like if you still

1:07:53

look at like safaris in

1:07:56

Africa, like the animal kingdom, like the

1:07:58

weak ones just don't survive. And

1:08:01

now it seems like the

1:08:04

population has a lot of weak people surviving

1:08:07

that are breeding and making more weak

1:08:09

people. And I'm not just talking about

1:08:11

physical strength. I'm talking about everything. IQ.

1:08:13

I'm talking about everything. What

1:08:16

is your thought on that? Well,

1:08:18

I mean, I think that a marker

1:08:20

of a civilized society is

1:08:23

that we take care of our weak.

1:08:26

So I do think that that

1:08:28

is an important quality that

1:08:31

we can't and shouldn't want to

1:08:33

get away from. On

1:08:36

the other hand, I do think that we have

1:08:38

reached some kind of tipping point in

1:08:40

the sense that we are no longer

1:08:42

really having to do anything in order

1:08:45

to survive. All our survival

1:08:47

needs are basically met and

1:08:49

we have more leisure time than ever

1:08:51

before in human history, more

1:08:53

disposable income, more access to

1:08:56

leisure goods. And, you know,

1:08:58

we probably thought that when we reached

1:09:00

this point in human civilization, we would

1:09:02

all be sort of in

1:09:05

a kind of state of nirvana

1:09:08

and doing good and maybe reading philosophy

1:09:11

and helping each other and learning. And instead what

1:09:13

we're doing is we're watching a whole lot of

1:09:15

pornography shopping and playing video

1:09:17

games. So I do think

1:09:19

that we are very challenged

1:09:21

in unprecedented ways and we're trying to

1:09:24

figure out how to handle it. How

1:09:28

to unscrew ourselves. I'm just

1:09:30

going to ask you, Dr.

1:09:33

Lemke, if someone wants

1:09:35

to reach out and they've got some questions

1:09:37

and I know you're a busy, busy woman,

1:09:40

what's the best way to get a hold of you? Boy,

1:09:42

that's a loaded, a loaded question because I get

1:09:45

a ton of emails and it's really hard for

1:09:47

me to respond to all of them. So

1:09:50

I'm very reluctant to say reach out.

1:09:52

I would say to folks, you

1:09:54

know, if you're really struggling,

1:09:57

look in your area for an addiction.

1:10:00

psychiatrist and go

1:10:02

ask them, even if you're not sure, if that's

1:10:05

what you need, go ask them to do an assessment

1:10:07

and see what they say. And

1:10:10

finally, here's how I close out. I

1:10:13

do this, I bounce around and just make it

1:10:15

interesting. It must be working because there's a lot

1:10:17

of listeners. But I'll let

1:10:19

you close us out. Any topic, maybe something

1:10:21

that the audience seems to hear, maybe something

1:10:24

we didn't talk about, whatever you want to take us

1:10:26

to close us out. Oh, gosh, I

1:10:28

don't know. You've asked a lot of good

1:10:30

questions. I leave that to you. You

1:10:34

know, maybe real quick, but to close us out. Yeah,

1:10:36

I told you, and we didn't really

1:10:38

talk about this, but the last three, four weeks, I said,

1:10:40

Okay, I'm cutting out the booze. I'm

1:10:42

and breeze doing it with me, which was

1:10:44

a big piece. And I

1:10:46

got baptized. And, you know, I've always been

1:10:48

a man of faith. I went to a

1:10:50

private Christian school growing up. But

1:10:52

my parents didn't remember me getting baptized. And

1:10:55

I started taking it very seriously, and

1:10:59

started getting crazy

1:11:01

amounts of steps a day working

1:11:03

out harder, eating healthier, organic

1:11:06

foods. And literally,

1:11:09

like the way I feel, as I told you

1:11:11

before we started this podcast, I wish I could

1:11:13

have done this 10 years, 20 years ago, I

1:11:16

didn't realize it, like I didn't realize that the

1:11:18

FDA was just bought and paid for. I didn't

1:11:20

realize that the water was so bad and the

1:11:22

contaminants in the water we shower with without water

1:11:25

purification. I didn't realize that, you

1:11:28

know, the air quality and I put myself

1:11:30

in the right position to fill the greatest

1:11:32

I can, because I do believe I believe

1:11:35

I'm a Ferrari, I believe I'm a Bugatti. And I

1:11:37

want to put the right fuel in to make sure

1:11:39

it's running at the top. And

1:11:42

when I'm running good, my thoughts are

1:11:44

good. And I sleep

1:11:46

really good. And my dreams are good. And

1:11:49

I wake up with energy without an alarm clock. And

1:11:52

I'm happy. And I'm kind of euphoric.

1:11:54

Like I walk around here, my decision

1:11:56

making the fogginess is gone, everything.

1:11:59

And I'm not just saying that either. I'm not just

1:12:01

saying that because of the podcast. I

1:12:04

don't know if people would

1:12:06

even try this because

1:12:08

I always say, is it one day, one day I'm going to do

1:12:11

that? Or is today day one? And

1:12:13

there's nothing that really sparked this that me and

1:12:15

Bree just said, let's go for this. And I

1:12:18

made it known to everybody that by September 25th,

1:12:20

I will be 10% body fat and

1:12:22

healthier than I've ever been. And

1:12:25

I love to hold myself accountable and put deadlines

1:12:27

on things. And I

1:12:30

told you I stopped watching so much news at night.

1:12:33

And I stopped the blue light. And

1:12:35

I stopped the, everything's just, isn't that

1:12:37

crazy though, how you

1:12:41

get on the right path and all of a sudden

1:12:43

I'm brushing my teeth twice a day, I'm flossing twice

1:12:45

a day. Everything,

1:12:47

I'm waking up and doing pushups,

1:12:49

I'm making the bed. It's like

1:12:52

all these things kind of have this domino

1:12:54

effect in the best direction possible for me

1:12:56

to take care of myself. I've

1:12:59

never put on lotion twice a day. I've

1:13:01

never put on sunscreen on my face. I'm doing it every

1:13:04

single day. I

1:13:07

don't understand. And I'm not bragging

1:13:09

about it. I'm just saying, like I wish more people would

1:13:12

have this experience. I'm not,

1:13:14

I don't even crave fast food. Like

1:13:16

I used to drive by Taco Bell and be like,

1:13:18

I mean, my will started to turn towards

1:13:20

it. And now I'm like, yeah, disgusting. It's

1:13:24

weird. Yeah, it sounds

1:13:26

like you've done a kind of a global

1:13:28

dopamine fast where you've eliminated all the kinds

1:13:30

of escapist behaviors,

1:13:32

high dopamine substances, and

1:13:36

you're feeling great. And that's honestly what

1:13:38

we see when people eliminate

1:13:40

these types of substances and behaviors

1:13:43

that feel very good in the

1:13:45

moment, but the cumulative effect

1:13:47

of which is really to make us unhealthy.

1:13:50

I mean, you know, if you're

1:13:52

a, what do you call

1:13:55

yourself? Ferrari or a Pagotti or something?

1:13:57

Pagotti. I'm

1:14:00

probably a Toyota Sienna, but

1:14:03

no matter what you are, you still got

1:14:05

to put in the right gas, right? You

1:14:07

still got to change your oil. You

1:14:10

got to really sort of have a healthy

1:14:12

respect for how

1:14:14

the body was meant to, what

1:14:16

fuel it was meant to run on. And

1:14:19

yeah, I mean, our, the modern

1:14:21

life really conspires against us. It's

1:14:23

really, it's effortful and

1:14:25

hard to be healthy now, but

1:14:28

it's worth it because when we do that,

1:14:31

we do feel so much better. And then

1:14:33

that increased energy and mood contributes to

1:14:35

other people feeling better and then to

1:14:37

more healthy habits. So good for

1:14:39

you. I mean, I'm really glad you're feeling so

1:14:42

good. And also you also

1:14:44

mentioned spirituality. I think people are really

1:14:46

hungry for spirituality and kind

1:14:48

of don't respect that part

1:14:50

and not that part of their lives and

1:14:53

their selves enough. So good

1:14:55

for you that you're kind of bringing

1:14:57

it all together. Well, thank you. And

1:14:59

I really, really enjoyed this.

1:15:02

It's a different look. I think we're all

1:15:04

addicts. And like I said, either you're an

1:15:06

addict and you've got the routine

1:15:10

of good things or

1:15:13

opposite. And

1:15:16

I think if people just are more of a, if

1:15:18

anything, this is an

1:15:21

awareness podcast. Just be

1:15:23

aware. And some of

1:15:25

you guys, this might not appeal to you. It's

1:15:27

like, I don't need any help. I don't need

1:15:29

this shit. Some of you guys might say, this

1:15:31

is exactly what I needed today. This is time

1:15:33

for me to at least acknowledge this and whether

1:15:35

it's get help or get your significant other or

1:15:37

get your kid help or whatever it is. Thank

1:15:40

you for listening. And thank you, Dr. Lemke for doing

1:15:43

this today. I really, really appreciate you. You're welcome. When

1:15:45

I had one more thing, one more thing. I'd love

1:15:47

for you to add one more thing. So,

1:15:49

you know, when people think about the dopamine

1:15:51

fast and giving something up for four weeks,

1:15:54

knowing they'll feel worse before they feel better,

1:15:56

we really encourage people

1:15:58

to start small. Just. Choose one

1:16:00

thing, give up alcohol or

1:16:02

just give up sugar or

1:16:04

just give up video games. You,

1:16:07

Tommy, kind of went whole hog and gave

1:16:09

up a bunch of stuff all at once.

1:16:12

And that's usually hard for most people.

1:16:14

So just want to encourage folks to

1:16:16

experiment. Choose one thing, give up that

1:16:18

one thing. Maybe you're a smoker and

1:16:20

a drinker and maybe just give up

1:16:23

the smoking or just give up the

1:16:25

drinking. Try not to increase one

1:16:27

as you give up the other. That's a

1:16:29

dangerous whack-a-mole situation. But

1:16:33

it's okay to just choose one small thing

1:16:35

and just give that up because we find that

1:16:37

even just giving up one thing can really

1:16:39

help. Yeah, I

1:16:41

mean, I'll tell you and I,

1:16:43

with that we're gonna end, but real quick, I stopped

1:16:45

drinking for 100 days. I started being super

1:16:48

healthy, but I didn't have Brie alongside of

1:16:50

me. And when I went back

1:16:53

in, went to the bar, had a few shots,

1:16:55

whatever it was, I kind

1:16:57

of just unwound all that forward progress.

1:17:00

And it wasn't in one day, but

1:17:02

it was like then all the habits started coming back. And

1:17:04

then it wasn't like I was drinking all day at work

1:17:06

or anything. It's not like I got a bottle, just

1:17:09

that one binge drink caught this

1:17:11

domino effect of like,

1:17:13

okay, it's okay. Then of course we're having first

1:17:15

class for drinking on the plank. And then of

1:17:17

course, hey, I could go for a drink. And

1:17:19

it's like, I don't know, I think

1:17:23

I got to be very careful because I

1:17:25

do have an addictive personality. And

1:17:27

you know, So I

1:17:29

was just gonna say, I was just gonna say,

1:17:31

thanks for sharing that because I think many people

1:17:34

will be able to relate to that giving up

1:17:36

something for a period of time, trying to go

1:17:38

back to using in moderation, and then finding that

1:17:40

they very quickly slip back. And

1:17:42

then that your point about Brie doing it with you, it

1:17:45

is so much easier to do these things

1:17:48

if we do them with the people we

1:17:50

live with people we love. Other

1:17:53

people are enormous for our ability

1:17:55

to co-regulate our consumption, which

1:17:57

is why AA works, right? Because we're being

1:18:00

basically joining a group of other people

1:18:02

who have the same goal, which is to abstain.

1:18:05

But yeah, doing it with your spouse

1:18:07

partner, just so much

1:18:09

better building those healthy habits together,

1:18:12

where that's huge, right?

1:18:14

In terms of our ability to

1:18:17

sustain those positive changes. Well,

1:18:20

listen, I am super jacked. I'm

1:18:22

excited, I'm gonna go work out.

1:18:24

Yeah, don't just call me a trainer. You

1:18:26

told your trainer you'd be there. I'm

1:18:28

gonna go and I

1:18:30

look forward to meeting you in person. Again, I

1:18:33

saw you at Joe Paul's event. And

1:18:35

I was like, Joe, dude, I really would love to have

1:18:37

her on the podcast. So I'm glad we made this happen.

1:18:40

And I hope you have a wonderful week and I

1:18:42

truly do appreciate it. Yeah, me too. Thanks so much

1:18:44

and say hi to Joe for me. I

1:18:47

will. Thank you. I'll see you

1:18:49

soon. Hey

1:18:54

there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before

1:18:56

I let you go, I wanna let everybody know

1:18:58

that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I

1:19:00

can share with you how I attracted a winning

1:19:03

team of over 700 employees in over 20 states.

1:19:06

The insights in this book are powerful and can

1:19:08

be applied to any business or organization. It's a

1:19:10

real game changer for anyone looking to build and

1:19:12

develop a high performing team like over here at

1:19:14

A1 Grosjor Service. So if you wanna learn the

1:19:16

secrets that help me transfer my team from stealing

1:19:18

the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus

1:19:21

employees rowing in the same direction, head

1:19:23

over to elevateandwin.com/podcast and grab a

1:19:25

copy of the book. Thanks again for

1:19:28

listening and we'll catch up with you

1:19:30

next time on the podcast. Yeah.