I have a chapter in my new book called "Awakened to the
Strangeness of Being Alive." And it's about the fact that if you think about it and how unlikely it is that
we humans evolved at all, even that we even exist, all the bottlenecks in evolution that we had to pass through, including the disappearance
of the dinosaurs and the emergence of mammals. But there are 20 other huge bottlenecks throughout the history of evolution. We had to pass through all of those. We nearly went extinct 80,000 year
s ago from some virus that infect. There were only 8,000
people, humans on the planet. All these different things. And here we are with Zoom
meetings, et cetera, et cetera. It's like the strangest
story you can ever... It's beyond science fiction,
but nobody thinks about it. Nobody sits down and
goes, "God, I'm alive." If you went back to the chain of people that had to connect and have children leading up to your parents, the unlikeness of you ever
being born is astronomical. I mean, unless my
science
is all wrong, you know. 70,000 generations of people
meeting, et cetera, et cetera, finally ending at your DNA. I mean, unless I'm missing
something, it's pretty unlikely. But nobody thinks about it. Well, I certainly think about it now because I almost died, I had
nothing else to think about. I have to entertain my brain the way Milton Erickson
had to entertain himself by observing people. So it's taken a lot away
from me. I can't swim. I'm riding my recumbent
bike, which I love. And 80
-year-old grandmothers
are zipping by me, and I'm like, "God dammit." How awful. I'm so envious. My insecurities all well up. But then I realize, "Hey, I'm
like on a boat. I'm sailing. It's wonderful. I'm outside." You know, I have to go
through these processes, but I think it's developed me in some way that's in the end, very positive. It sounds like you've had to adjust to a new frame rate on life. Like the old movie had
a certain frame rate, this movie has a certain frame rate, but that withi
n that frame rate, there are gifts to be had
that you certainly missed in your prior version of self. Is that about, right? Yeah, but also, like, I tell people this, I totally took my life for granted. I was swimming, all this
time I was fantastic. I was bicycling, I was traveling, but I never sat back and thought, "Wow, this is wonderful. How grateful it's could
be taken away from me." I tell people, "Don't
do that to yourself." I try and teach them, "It can
be taken away from tomorrow. When yo
u're out walking
the dog, think of me, think of me that can't walk a dog and appreciate those things,
which I didn't appreciate." So I try and help people in
that way when I can, you know. I think critical message is also to inspire a sense of urgency in people. You know, I think people
hear a sense of urgency and they go, "Oh, God, I'm
already under so much pressure. Life's so hard." But we're not talking
about a sense of urgency to take on more of what life has to offer. I think we're talking
about a sense of urgency to find one's purpose, which takes work, and is an ongoing process, but to really get out of
modes of apathy, laziness, languishing, and to start, as you've described it, paying deeper attention. I mean, this is a concept that
was super important for me to hear about and I
learned about it from you, was how do you get yourself out of a rut? You start paying deeper attention to the things around you and inside you. And perhaps not coincidentally, you referred to that as
q
uote "Death ground." Yeah. So it's a strategy from my book. I wrote a book on Strategy, my
version of "The Art of War." It's called "33 Strategies of War," but it's really about strategy,
the strategic thinking. It's inspired from Sun Tzu,
the great Chinese strategist. But it has vast
philosophical implications. The idea is, you can almost think of it
like barometric pressure. When necessity is pressing in on you, like your back is against the wall, like you have to get something done and there'
s like this pressure around you, you find energy in there that
you never believed before. William James talks about this, and when he talks about
getting a second wind, he explains it very eloquently. When you feel like your life's in danger, suddenly you can leap over things that you never could leap over before. So Sun Tzu says, "Put an army on death ground, and it will fight until it wins." Meaning put an army with
its back to the ocean or a back to the mountain,
and it's either win or die. T
hey're going to fight 10 times harder. You're going to find the energy
in you that you normally lack when death is facing you in the face, or urgency, or deadlines, or people pressing in on you. When that barometric pressure loosens up and there's none of it, you think you have all
the time in the world, you get nothing done. "Wow, man, I'm 23, I've got
all these years ahead of me. I'm going to figure it out, right? I'm not going to die. I got 50, 70, 80 years ahead of me." No, you don't. That p
ressure now is gone
and you're wasting time. You're doing all sorts of things that aren't leading to any kind of skill. You're not learning or anything. You need to put yourself on death ground. You need to feel that barometric pressure, which is the actual reality. The actual reality is
you could die tomorrow. You could have a stroke tomorrow. You could be fired tomorrow. Everything could fall apart. You need to have that sense of urgency now because that's the reality. You're fooling yourself
by thinking you have all of this time. And so when you feel that pressure, suddenly you can move mountains. You have energy, your life, you know, you just have focus, et cetera. Neurologically, everything
clicks in, you know. And people who've had that experience where they've felt like
the ship was going under and they better get their
act together and survive, they talk about all
these physical processes. I have a story in my new book, I hope I'm not boring you with all this. No, please. Quite
the opposite. About a mountain climber, he was climbing this mountain by himself, and he was having a great time, but there was a storm coming
and he had to get down, and he suddenly fell and he cut his leg open massively, and there was like a
branch sticking in it. And he broke all these bones,
and he was going to die. He was on a ledge. He could see that it was getting dark and storm clouds were massing. This was in the Rocky Mountains. He was alone. And suddenly he managed
to get up on his t
wo feet, and he can't explain how,
but all of this energy, all of this adrenaline
started flowing in him. And he said he was like a mountain goat. He was like going down the ledge. He jumped, he was able to kind
of get down to another ledge. He got out of it. And for the next 20 years, he was haunted by "How did that happen? I want that feeling again. Because it was actually
the most ecstatic feeling. I had energy that I never
suspected in myself." And so he tries everything
to get that feeling
back. He tries climbing other mountains. He tries going to Mount Everest. He tries, and it doesn't come back. And finally, he kind of
figures out the formula for it and why it happened. He studies a lot of neuroscience. It's a great book. I'm
using it in my new book. It's called "Bone Games." It's very interesting book.
A lot of science in it. And he got the feeling back in a smaller sense, but it was the feeling of
your life is in danger. I better get my act
together or it's the end. And sudden
ly, adrenaline, dopamine, all the other
things were occurring in him. And he got it, and he found that energy. So that's the ultimate kind
of death ground right there. The human will to live
is truly incredible. And so I have to say, as I said before, I'm so grateful that your stroke didn't take you out. [Robert laughs] Because clearly there's
still so much in there and you're continuing to share what is really exquisitely
useful knowledge. [MUSIC PLAYING]
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