Skip to content
The Diary of a CEOThe Diary of a CEO

Why grief mimics psychosis and unlocks deeper senses

Through grief after her husband died, a neuroscientist explored somatic work; mediums; and a wider model of the human mind beyond the brain.

Steven BartletthostDr. Tara Swartguest
Aug 14, 20251h 44mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:09

    Intro

    1. SB

      If what you're saying is true, then, I mean, this is a revelation.

    2. TS

      Yeah. And I, I couldn't speak about it until now, that it's possible to communicate with someone that's passed away. And I'm saying it from the point of view of being a neuroscientist and a psychiatrist, and it's taboo because we are afraid that people will think we're going insane. I mean, I've been part of teams that have locked people up and had them injected with stuff against their will because of things they were saying that's not that dissimilar to things I've experienced. So I wanted to find out as much science as I could to try to back it up.

    3. SB

      And do you think you've found the answer?

    4. TS

      Yeah.

    5. SB

      How sure are you?

    6. TS

      100%. And the things I found out are going to shock you.

    7. SB

      The floor is yours. (instrumental music plays)

    8. TS

      Okay. So I'm Dr. Tara Swart. I'm a neuroscientist and a medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry, and I lost my beloved husband to leukemia almost four years ago, two days before our fourth wedding anniversary. And everything I believed in had gone wrong. I was just totally lost and broken, but then I started getting signs from my husband. And in my desperation, I did consult a couple of mediums, but not being impressed by them, I ended up thinking, "If it's possible to communicate with someone that's passed away, and I am all about optimizing my brain, then I should be able to do it myself." So I went down a rabbit hole, and what I've uncovered in this research is gonna have a really beneficial effect on a lot of people.

    9. SB

      Why?

    10. TS

      Because it means that we are capable of so much more than what we think the human mind is capable of.

    11. SB

      So listen, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna try and ask the questions and challenge you in ways that I think the viewer might challenge you.

    12. TS

      I want you to ask me those questions.

    13. SB

      I see messages all the time in the comments section that some of you didn't realize you didn't subscribe, so if you could do me a favor and double check if you're a subscriber to this channel, that would be tremendously appreciated. It's the simple, it's the free thing that anybody that watches this show frequently can do to help us here to keep everything going in this show and the trajectory it's on. So please do double check if you've subscribed and, uh, thank you so much, because in a strange way, you are- you're part of our history and you're on this journey with us and I appreciate you for that. So yeah, thank you. (instrumental music plays)

  2. 2:09 – 5:29

    Shocking New Research About Brain Capabilities

    1. SB

      Dr. Tara Swart, good to see you again.

    2. TS

      You too.

    3. SB

      Thank you for coming back. You were our most viewed guest on the show of all time. Our last conversation did just over 20 million views and downloads, which is pretty staggering, but you're back to talk about something entirely different this time-

    4. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    5. SB

      ... which is this idea of science, which kind of intertwines with all of your work on neuroscience that you've done throughout your career. My first question to you is what is it that you think you know that the vast majority of people don't quite understand, comprehend, or have accepted yet? And take me right back to the sort of first principles of that thinking.

    6. TS

      I believe that we are capable of so much more than what we think the human mind is capable of now, and I- I believe that the brain actually filters down the capability of the mind so that we can exist on this material plane. And things that I found out doing research for the signs is going to shock you. The abilities that we have that we're not aware of are way beyond what you might even imagine right now.

    7. SB

      In what departments and facets of my life?

    8. TS

      Let's just start with something really simple. How many senses do you think we have?

    9. SB

      Five? Of course, we can smell, I can touch, um, I can hear, I can see. Um, is it five that I... Yeah, five. Is it five?

    10. TS

      Have you heard of a sixth sense?

    11. SB

      Being able to see ghosts and stuff?

    12. TS

      (laughs) Okay, so I think most people would agree that we have five senses, and some people would say, "Isn't there something like a sixth sense?" And I don't think it's agreed what that might be. So I actually did a literature review of several pieces of research about how many senses humans have, and we actually have 34 as we currently understand it.

    13. SB

      34? And so what does this mean? Like, what is the... 'Cause you're making an assertion here. What is the assertion that you're making and what does that mean for material sort of, uh, consequences of my life?

    14. TS

      I'm making a hypothesis based on both the analogy of the observable universe and the fact that we have this expanded suite of senses to challenge you to understand that you are capable of much more than you think you are. And, you know, you're a really good case in point for me because you love rationality and data and science and you don't really love intuition and the, you know, the unknown, the unseen. So you know, I think if I can convince you of anything by the end of this podcast, then the impact that that could have on society I think is huge. I mean, the things I found out are going to shock you.

    15. SB

      What do you mean by that?

    16. TS

      I, as you know, was a, was a psychiatrist in the past, so I'm able to diagnose people and say whether they have a mental illness or not. In the past four years, I've been keeping a secret, and there were times in that four years that I had to ask myself if I was in clinical depression, if I was psychotic, if I was manic, if the way that my consciousness was expanding... I mean, Steve, I've- I've been part of teams that have locked people up and put, you know, had them injected with stuff against their will because of things they were saying that's not that dissimilar to things I've experienced in the last four years.

    17. SB

      So

  3. 5:29 – 17:35

    What's the Secret You've Been Hiding From the World?

    1. SB

      I guess we better get into the secret, because I sat here with you almost two years ago now and we had a fantastic conversation, but there was something you didn't tell my audience when we had that conversation that r- reached more than 20 million people. There was something at that moment in time that you didn't tell me, which was this secret you've been keeping. What is the secret, Tara?

    2. TS

      Um, I lost my beloved husband to leukemia almost four years ago, and I've written this book which mentions my personal story. So...... and I trust you. So I really wanted to come back on the podcast and just explain a little bit to people about what's been going on for me for the last four years.

    3. SB

      So your husband, Robin, you met him 2016? And he passed, he passed away from leukemia in...

    4. TS

      2021.

    5. SB

      2021. Now from 2021, when he passed away, what, what happened in your life? What was going on in your world? If I was a fly on the wall, in your context, what would I have seen?

    6. TS

      He'd been given two weeks to live but he actually lived for three-and-a-half weeks, and he died two days before our fourth wedding anniversary. So I was literally reading condolence cards on my fourth wedding anniversary. If it wasn't for the people that I have around me who became like a fortress, I don't think I would be here today. You know, never having had that experience before, it was just so, so devastating. Um, and even though I'm a neuroscientist and psychiatrist, I just, I just was like, like totally lost and broken. And then I started seeing robins in the garden every single time I went to the window, both in Hampshire and London. I've never ever seen so many robins in my life, like not before or since. I still see them sometimes. But I noticed it. I thought, "Of course that's what I want to see." I have no idea what it means, if anything. Um, and then about six weeks after he passed away, I was asleep and I heard a noise in the distance, and we had been burgled once so I went to check it wasn't the alarm in the garages. Couldn't work out what it was, thought maybe it was birds in the distance, went back to sleep. It was about 4:00 A.M. And then I got woken up by a massive thump to my shoulder. I wouldn't demonstrate it on you because it would be too much for me to hit you that hard. It wasn't like a tap. So I opened my eyes and I could see next to my bed a very vague, hazy version of Robin as if he was pushing himself through treacle to be seen, and I was just transfixed. And I saw him become more and more clear. I could see the outline of his hair and his face, and then suddenly he just dissolved from the top down, and my eyes went like this, and I remember seeing his shins and his feet. And I was like up on my elbow watching and I- I just gasped out loud. In my desperation, I did consult a couple of mediums, and again I had that dual conversation. I said to myself, "This is the kind of thing that crazy, desperate people do," and within the same breath, "It's okay for me to be crazy and desperate right now. I've lost my best friend, my life partner." Like, my everything I thought about how the world worked has crashed around me. And I ended up thin- you know, being, not being impressed by the mediums and just at some point, I can't even remember when now, thinking, "If it's possible to communicate with someone that's passed away, and he was my husband and my best friend, and I am all about optimizing my brain and expanding my consciousness, then I should be able to do it myself." That's, that's the start of my journey that I've written about in Signs.

    7. SB

      And do you think you've found the answer?

    8. TS

      Yeah.

    9. SB

      How sure are you?

    10. TS

      100%.

    11. SB

      I mean, if, if, if what you're saying is true then that's a pretty... I mean, that's a revelation, right? So many people have lost, lost people or, um, have gone through different types of loss in their life, and you're telling me that through the work you've done over the last couple of years and the research you've done, you understand how to communicate with them in some capacity?

    12. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    13. SB

      And you are 100% sure?

    14. TS

      100%.

    15. SB

      So listen, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna challenge you in ways that I think, um, the viewer might challenge you, sat at home.

    16. TS

      Sure.

    17. SB

      So I'm gonna try and ask the questions that the viewer might ask-

    18. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    19. SB

      ... because there's, you know, people... The i- this idea is quite a significant perspective-shifting one, so m- my job in this conversation, although these are sensitive matte- matters of course, is just to try and play devil's advocate where I can. And-

    20. TS

      And I just, I want to say that, you know, you know me.

    21. SB

      Yeah, I know you, yeah.

    22. TS

      And you know that you've asked me to come back on the podcast several times, and I've come when I'm ready.

    23. SB

      Yeah.

    24. TS

      So I want you to ask me those questions.

    25. SB

      Yeah. So where does this journey begin then? So this, y- you suffer this tragic loss in your life. You go to the mediums, y- you're let down by them. Where does this begin? Where does your research, your, your journey of discovery begin?

    26. TS

      It starts with this decision to, um, you know, try to communicate with him myself. There's a realization at some point that it's not a one-way thing, that when people pass away, they also have to learn. So it's- it's, it's like two people having to learn a language to speak to each other, like two people who speak a different language having to learn a language that they can both speak. That's, that's how it felt. Obviously as a scientist I then wanted to find out as much science as I could to, to try to back it up, which really comes down to the science of whether the mind or the psyche or the soul can exist separately from the body.

    27. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    28. TS

      And I will say that way before I even started thinking about this stuff, just the m- the moment that he died, which he died in front of me, once he'd actually passed away, I remember a really strong feeling of looking at his body and just knowing that wasn't him, and that the essence of who he was, I didn't know where it was, but it was not there lying in that bed.

    29. SB

      And when did you realize that you were going to...... start to collect research and do research on this idea of being able to communicate in ways that most people don't realize we can communicate through signs.

    30. TS

      Mm-hmm.

  4. 17:35 – 23:49

    You Need to Train to See the Signs

    1. TS

    2. SB

      Do you think one needs to cultivate their ability to see signs? Do you think it's like going to the gym?

    3. TS

      Totally. Totally. I've... It took me years. Um, and like I said, I believe it took him years as well. Um, so yeah, I, I say it's like learning a language, but you're right, it's like going to the gym.

    4. SB

      And what does one need to do in that gym to grow their sign muscle?

    5. TS

      Well, it always starts with believing, right?

    6. SB

      Yeah.

    7. TS

      Um-

    8. SB

      Do you think that's one, one of the big issues w- uh, in terms of being able to access these other dimensions or dynamics, is most people just don't believe in it?... so I wouldn't, I'm not even sure if I'd say most people, I'd say a lot of people don't believe in it.

    9. TS

      Or they secretly do, but they're scared to talk about it 'cause they think people will ridicule them.

    10. SB

      Yeah. 'Cause, 'cause I don't know, my, my brain, my brain feels like I need to have the scientific evidence of things for me to accept them, because I think sometimes I worry that if I don't have scientific rigor around my beliefs, then I would, I'm susceptible to believe anything, and I'll believe in a spaghetti monster in the bottom of the garden, and I'll believe-

    11. TS

      Yeah.

    12. SB

      ... you know, every religion in the world and every, and everything, and then I'm unanchored, and then I blow around like a plastic bag in the wind, and then I have no orientation.

    13. TS

      Yeah.

    14. SB

      So I think, okay, rigor is the basis of my beliefs. I have to have some sort of scientific evidence.

    15. TS

      I know you do.

    16. SB

      Yeah.

    17. TS

      Um...

    18. SB

      It's not to say I'm not open-minded, because-

    19. TS

      No.

    20. SB

      ... I've had my mind changed so many times in my life that-

    21. TS

      Yeah.

    22. SB

      ... one would be dumb now to not be open-minded and to not listen.

    23. TS

      I agree with you about rigor, completely agree with you. My entire career has been based on that. But I just, I, I, you know, I was pushed up against a wall, so I had to think differently, and I think the question that I posed to myself is, is, "What if?"

    24. SB

      You had to think differently?

    25. TS

      So, um, the psychologist Carl Jung talks about, um, when he talks about the collective unconscious, he talks about those basically three main things that all humans experience, which is birth, life, and death. And so we have this common experience, which is actually part of our inherited gene and brain structure, um, so everyone who's ever lived will experience those things. But if we look at ancient wisdom, for a start, we are made of the carbon and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen that came from the Big Bang, so we're all made of the same thing. Our ancestors lived in the cycle with nature. I think us actually having broken our connection to nature is a huge part of why we're so disconnected and unhappy. So if you think of the lifecycle of a salmon, for example, it, you know, it goes through its lifecycle and eventually its bones contribute to the phosphorus on the, um, floor of the forest, so it never really goes away. Um, in many other ways, our ancestors repeatedly saw the cycles of nature, and therefore always kind of knew that everything gets renewed and nothing ever completely goes away. And I think that's a really important thing to return to. I think, you know, when we question things, which you're absolutely right to do, I think we have to look at things that we didn't think were true that we now know are true as just ways of being open to the fact that things in the future might become obvious or known that aren't known now. I think that is an important place of being open-minded to, to sit at. And so for example, um, want to hear about slime mold?

    26. SB

      You tell me if that's something I wanna hear about.

    27. TS

      (laughs)

    28. SB

      (laughs)

    29. TS

      So slime mold are single-celled organisms like amoeba, who go about their daily life on their own very happily as long as their basic needs are met. But if, for example, they're facing potential starvation, they will come together and form a slug, because the slug can move towards your vegetable patch, you know, a new food source, and they can survive. Equally, if they are, (laughs) if they are facing potential, um, extinction, they will come together and form a, a sporing body, like a mushroom. So that's got a stalk and a fruiting body that can release spores that will go into the atmosphere to all different places where these new baby organisms can, can grow and thrive. But if you think about it, the single cells in the stalk are sacrificing themselves for the greater good, 'cause there's no chance that they're, they're going to get released into the atmosphere as a spore, 'cause they're in the stalk. So some of them actually cheat and climb up the stalk to get into the fruiting body and displace other cells from the fruiting body. So things like that, and for example, the mycorrhizal network, which is how mushrooms and mycelium feed the roots of trees. Even trees that have been felled can be kept alive for centuries because the my- mycorrhizal network, which is the connection between mycelium and tree roots, can bring water and sugar to that tree stump to keep it alive. And trees and mycelium don't even only do it for the same species. They do it because they're part of the entire forest and its symbiotic relationship, and they care about each other. Things like this would've been, like, thought to be fantastical 10 years ago. Um, you know, we are in L- in LA at the moment, and I saw the driverless car for the first time. Now, when I was growing up watching sci-fi, I never thought I'd see that in my life. So that's all I'm saying, that... And, and I'm saying it from the point of view of being a cognitive scientist, and I'm talking about the nature of consciousness. I'm not talking about other, I'm not asking you to believe, you know, other parts of science. But based on the fact that we don't know everything, we've learned loads of things that we thought weren't true before, I strongly believe there's a benefit to humanity of raising this kind of question and having this conversation, which I ask you why it's a taboo conversation. What, you know, why shouldn't we be enlightened? Why shouldn't we feel better? Why shouldn't we be more connected? Whatever we've been doing up until now certainly hasn't been working.

  5. 23:49 – 33:49

    I Was Communicating With My Dead Husband Every Day

    1. TS

    2. SB

      When, when was it that you made the decision that you were going to write a book about this called The Signs? Was there a particular moment in this process where you realized that you were going to dig deeper and that then you were ultimately gonna share this with the world?

    3. TS

      I wasn't intending to write a book at all, but I'd got to the point where I had something that I could share with people that I actually thought would be useful.

    4. SB

      And at this point, you're communicating with Robin...

    5. TS

      On a daily basis.

    6. SB

      On a daily basis?

    7. TS

      Yeah.

    8. SB

      Give me some color to that. What does that mean? Give me some examples if you can.

    9. TS

      Well, it either will be that, like, I'll ask a question in my mind, and the answer will come in my mind but I know it's not my own thought. Or I'll just get a direct, like, message from him in my mind that I know isn't me. But mostly it's the signs. So I've t- talked to you about the first anniversary and how hard that was. By the time of the second anniversary, um, I was actually in America, and I'd been filming in studio for a week, and then I was on the road on the Navajo Nation, and that was due to, I was due to fly out of the Navajo Nation on the second anniversary of Robin's passing. And on, by that point I was feeling a bit like I'd completely burnt out, and I had a choice about how to reemerge. Um, you know, whether that was going to be in a good way or I wasn't gonna be able to make it. Um, and I had this analogy of a phoenix rising from the flames in my mind. So on that trip, I said, "Darling, send me the sign of a phoenix." And-

    10. SB

      You said that to who?

    11. TS

      To Robin, in my head. And I s- I chose the phoenix 'cause it's really unusual. So it's not like if I said, you know, a dog, I'm probably gonna see a dog on the pavement every day. But I chose something that is not an easy thing to see. And I was actually in Oklahoma City where, you know, you wouldn't expect necessarily to see, like, something unusual. Every single day between my hotel and studio, I went through Chinatown and I passed a restaurant called The Phoenix Garden with a big emblazoned, like, you know, sign. And on the way there, I had had an indirect flight from Boston, and the flight leaving Boston was late so I missed my connection in Chicago, and I had to spend a night in Chicago, and then I was, you know, late for filming and stuff. And so when I was leaving to go to LA, I was leaving on a s- on a Sunday, and from the Monday onwards I had a podcast every single weekday in LA. And so the team said to me, "We know that you cannot miss that flight. We are not going to put you on an, on an indirect flight. We absolutely promise you direct flight to LA, so you're fine from Monday onwards." We were in the middle of nowhere for, like, a week and basically my flight wasn't booked, so we didn't know which airport we were going to be at. We arrived on the eve of the anniversary of Robin passing, and my flight was booked that day, and it was from Flagstaff in the Navajo Nation to LA, flying on the day of his anniversary, no direct flights. I had to fly through Phoenix, Arizona on the day of his anniversary.

    12. SB

      You've probably heard of that old analogy of y- when you buy a car, you end up seeing the car everywhere on the road.

    13. TS

      Yeah.

    14. SB

      Like, I buy a, buy a new car and then I go everywhere and it seems like everybody's got my car because of, I think, do they call it confirmation bias in science?

    15. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    16. SB

      In psychology? Where once you've got something in your head, you're more likely to see that thing.

    17. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    18. SB

      I think they've done studies on this where if you are exposed to something or you're told to think about something, then you'll see it more in the world.

    19. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    20. SB

      How do you separate what you're saying from that proven psychological phenomenon?

    21. TS

      I don't. I say use it to your advantage.

    22. SB

      But how do you know that wasn't what was happening in your life? Because if you thought about the word "phoenix" and then over the course of a couple of days, you're looking at everything-

    23. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    24. SB

      ... but you're only gonna register the things that are emotionally regi- resonant. You know, I might have seen-

    25. TS

      Of course.

    26. SB

      ... "phoenix" a lot of times over the last seven days, but because I wasn't-

    27. TS

      And it means nothing to you.

    28. SB

      Yeah.

    29. TS

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

    30. SB

      So I didn't, I didn't register it.

  6. 33:49 – 41:16

    What Happens in Near-Death Experiences

    1. SB

      what did you find in that rabbit hole?

    2. TS

      At the border of life and death, usually within one to 24 hours of death, someone who has, whose brain hasn't been functioning, who can't remember the names of their own children, suddenly becomes completely lucid and says, "Steven, darling, come over here. Let me, you know, let's have a nice, like, mother-son chat." And then that gives a lot of people hope, but usually that means it's an hour or 23 hours till the person's going to die. We can't explain that. How can a brain that's irreversibly damaged suddenly function completely normally? There is no explanation for that. With the near-death experiences, I was particularly compelled by three stories. Dr. Mary Neal, an orthopedic surgeon, she's in that Netflix documentary, Surviving Death. She was submerged underwater for 15 or 20 minutes. She should never have been able to be resuscitated. She describes her whole journey of going to another realm, seeing, you know, a being of light, being told that her life isn't over, she has to turn back and return to the physical world, even though she could see her bloated body and her friends trying to reach her to resuscitate her and they couldn't. Dr. Eben Alexander, who wrote Proof of Heaven, he is a doctor. He was an atheist. He was in a coma with bacterial meningitis and was pronounced clinically dead, and then basically came back and said that he saw heaven and he now believes in a god that is benign that cares about the future of humanity. So for me as a doctor, hearing these stories from other doctors was really, really convincing. And then there's one story that, um, Dr. Bruce Greyson told me. He's a professor of psychiatry at University of Virginia who has done 50 years of research into near-death experiences, and he told me the story of a patient in ICU who kept going into cardiac arrest and he had a primary nurse who was a young, um, 20-year-old nurse and they had a really close bond. And one weekend, she was, she had the time off for the weekend and he had a different nurse looking after him, and he went into cardiac arrest and he had a near-death experience. And in that near-death experience, he saw his primary nurse. She said to him, "Your life isn't over. You have to go back and get better. And please tell my parents I'm sorry about the red MG." So he wakes up in ICU, he's got this replacement nurse looking after him, and he says, "The strangest thing just happened. I, um..."... had this experience of being in this other world, I saw, um, my primary nurse and she said I had to come back. And she also said to tell my parents, "Sorry about the red MG." So the temporary nurse starts, bursts into tears, runs out of the room. He has no idea why. Someone comes in and says, "What's just happened?" He explains. And they tell him that his primary nurse was given a red MG for her 21st birthday, took it out for a test run, crashed it into a tree, and died. Now, he didn't know she was dead, but he saw her on the other side and she told him to come back.

    3. SB

      And the guy that told you this story was who relevant to the patient? Who said that?

    4. TS

      Dr. Bruce Greyson. He, um, has done 50 years of research on near-death experiences. He's got over 5,000 recorded cases of patients of his own that he's looked after that have had near-death experiences, and he also shared with me, with me the numbers of, of, uh, cases that other people have on databases. So, you know, we're looking at over 10,000 cases globally recorded at the moment.

    5. SB

      What is it that you believe based on those near-death experiences, like the red MG story-

    6. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    7. SB

      ... and based on this phenomenon of terminal lucidity?

    8. TS

      So Professor Alexander Bathiany, who wrote Threshold, about terminal lucidity, put it really nicely when he said, "Maybe at the border of life and death, we see something that is true all along, but we don't, for whatever reason, see it or acknowledge it whilst we're alive and well, which is that the mind and body can operate independently of each other."

    9. SB

      It is quite, it is quite shocking. There's this case from 2009, an 82, 2-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease who was non-verbal and non-responsive, and had no apparent recognition of her surroundings or family for years. And then one day before her death, she suddenly sat up in hospital, looked around, and recognized her daughter by name, spoke clearly, reminisced about the p- past, thanked her family for caring for her. Her speech was coherent, her memory was intact, and her personality recognizable, as though she had never been ill. She fell asleep that evening and died peacefully during the night.

    10. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    11. SB

      And what do you think's happening there? What do you think's happening there?

    12. TS

      It's possibly, you know, partially explained by a, a surge in neurochemicals, but it's not explained by how can those neurochemicals act if the physical neurons and synapses are damaged? There, there is no explanation. The only explanation is that the mind is not emergent from material, matter. It's not... The, the mind, the thoughts, the emotions, the psyche, cannot be solely emerging from physical matter. That's the only explanation, from what we understand so far.

    13. SB

      And so what is it that you now believe? You believe that our souls and our bodies are two separate things.

    14. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    15. SB

      And where does our soul live if it's not living inside of me?

    16. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    17. SB

      So, like, where is Robin?

    18. TS

      Mm-hmm. So I believe that, you know, whether, whether you want to call it the universe, consciousness, um, collective consciousness, Godhead, cosmic soup, I don't... The word for it isn't important. There's, there's somewhere that that energy goes, and it still exists in some form. And if you believe in reincarnation, then you may believe that it then enters another body as a vessel and, you know, has a different life. Um, but it doesn't go away.

    19. SB

      How do you know?

    20. TS

      (laughs) I'm gonna say something that you're, I know you're not gonna like, but I... I know because I feel it personally, I feel it from, I feel it, like, with the person that I've been closest to in my entire life, who I know would never leave me if they didn't absolutely have to. But I can back that up to the extent of I can, I can say, "You can't prove that this isn't true." I can back that up with everything that I put in the book. And I'm not the only one. Dr. David Eagleman at Stanford says, you know, this idea of the brain being like a radio and receiving signals from outside, we can't prove it, but we categorically cannot say it's not true. Professor Donald Hoffman suggests that space-time is not the basis of how the universe works, suggests that consciousness is the basis of how the universe works. We can't prove that's not true. And I find that really exciting. I mean, as a scientist, you're supposed to challenge the status quo. You're supposed to be curious. You can't, as a scientist, believe that everything we know now is all there is. There's no point to being a scientist if that's what you believe.

  7. 41:16 – 44:38

    How to Train to See These Signs

    1. SB

      I asked you this question about the gym earlier on, about is it kind of like training in the gym? Is, are there things you think people could do to heighten their ability to speak to loved ones that might have passed or to heighten their ability to tap into signs?

    2. TS

      So I go through this in the book, and, and I chose the order quite carefully. So I talk about neuroesthetics, which is, you know, noticing beauty basically, if not, like, actually engaging in the arts. There's a lot of evidence for engaging in the arts in terms of, like, um, increasing your novelty salience, which is noticing new things, which is part of the journey of opening up that filter.

    3. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    4. TS

      Um, and then there's a whole chapter on nature, because I think a lot of signs come from nature, like butterflies, robins, um, sort of, you know, spiral formations, cloud formations. So noticing nature more can help you, you know, also to receive these signs. And then community is a huge part of it, because, you know, if I had this conversation with you and you totally shot me down and said, "It's not provable, this is ridiculous, I'm not airing this episode," that would have a very different ef- like, effect on me-

    5. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    6. TS

      ... to you even being open to, like, asking me challenging questions that I welcome, but also engaging in this conversation and, and sort of, you know, may-... feels a little bit like maybe questioning, you know, some things that you might do differently. Um, so those are three very important parts of, like, sort of part two of the book. Part one is more about what are signs? What are you missing? You know, have you been receiving signs already?

    7. SB

      One of the things that I... when I was going through my sort of, um, transition from, like, being religious to being agnostic, I'd say, 'cause I wouldn't call myself an atheist, is I was watching all these, um, Atheist Minds debate and talk and stuff. And one of the things one of them said is that if coincidence didn't happen in our lives, then that would be a miracle, like, statistically, mathematically.

    8. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    9. SB

      If at some times you don't think of Dave and then the phone rings and it's Dave-

    10. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    11. SB

      ... that would actually be more mathematically improbable than it happening some times.

    12. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    13. SB

      If you think about, you know, the nat- if, if you had this on a, like a distribution cover or something, it is likely, mathematically, that really unlikely things will happen sometimes.

    14. TS

      Okay.

    15. SB

      Right? So I, I've always had that in my head as a way to sort of rationalize coincidence.

    16. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    17. SB

      So when coincidence happens, I think, "Well, probabilistically, really unlikely things have to happen, and if they never happen, then that's a miracle."

    18. TS

      Okay.

    19. SB

      Does that make sense?

    20. TS

      Yeah, it makes sense.

    21. SB

      Like, mathematically, you'd say, like, likely things happen often, unlikely things happen less often.

    22. TS

      Yeah.

    23. SB

      Extremely unlikely things happen way less often.

    24. TS

      Yeah.

    25. SB

      That's, like, the nature of, like, maths, right?

    26. TS

      Yeah.

    27. SB

      So when extremely unlikely things happen, I say, "Actually, that makes sense because probabilistically, those things happen infrequently." They're not happening every single day. Like, right now, I'm thinking of... I can name 10 people. I guarantee when I go to my phone, none of those 10 people have texted me.

    28. TS

      (laughs)

    29. SB

      But if I do that every day, one day, I'm gonna say, "Hey, Steve, checking in." Which makes sense because of the, the laws of probability.

    30. TS

      Yeah, but I don't want you to do that. I want you to just, like, be open to naturally thinking of someone and seeing if that does happen or, you know, kind of... Or asking for a sign and seeing if it comes into your life. That, that's, that's all I'm asking. Like, what... You know, just try it. It's not gonna hurt you. And I'm not just saying that to you. I'm saying it to everyone.

  8. 44:38 – 46:01

    How Does Spirituality Help Us?

    1. TS

    2. SB

      And how do you think that would benefit me?

    3. TS

      I think it makes you believe in something bigger than yourself.

    4. SB

      Yeah.

    5. TS

      Um...

    6. SB

      And why is that so important?

    7. TS

      Because I think a life where all you're trying to do is get through and meet your needs is... Life can be better than that. Um, I think a life where you feel more connected to yourself, to others, to something greater gives you purpose. Um, there's a lot of research that shows that having a purpose that transcends just yourself is actually really healthy and important.

    8. SB

      And what is that for you, now, that transcendent layer in your life? How do you define it? Is it a religion? Is it something else?

    9. TS

      It's definitely not religion. Um, I guess it's spirituality and, you know, a form which will mean different things to different people. It's definitely about caring for humanity.

    10. SB

      Is it a god? A creator?

    11. TS

      For me, no. Um, but 85% of people globally believe in religion and a god, so it's important. Um, I think for me, it's about giving, like, a voice of relevance and helping people to feel seen and heard 'cause I think that's very lacking. And, you know, I'm in the enormously privileged position that you have given me of being able to do that, and I want to use that in a really, like, positive way.

  9. 46:01 – 49:44

    The Science Behind Intuition

    1. TS

    2. SB

      How does this overlap with or sit alongside what people call intuition? 'Cause you talk about that as well in the book.

    3. TS

      Yeah. Um, I know there's so much. Like, there's still, like, so much else that I want to say.

    4. SB

      Just keep going.

    5. TS

      So intuition is... I mean, intuition is what it is. It's accessing inner wisdom, right? But I've, I've included it as a really important part of the book because I believe that it's a way to receive and interpret your signs. But, um, I just wanna go back to something I said earlier, which is about how trauma can be stored in your body, and, you know, to some extent, it can't be retrieved through talking therapy 'cause there aren't words for it because it's actually embedded into the tissues of your body. There's a really exciting new hypothesis for how that might work called the serotonin hypothesis. So previously, I think it would make sense that if, you know, for example, when, when Robin was in hospital, I would, like, sit in a very hunched over position and my fists would be clenched 'cause I felt like I was fighting for his life all the time, and if I relaxed for a millisecond, he could die. Um, so it makes sense to me that that... those postural issues would show up for me later and, you know, in terms of, like, pay- aches and pains and, you know, perhaps sort of... Well, not perhaps. My... As my Pilates and yoga teachers keep telling me (laughs) , like, issues with, you know, certain parts of my spine and stuff. But, um, the serotonin hypothesis is very exciting as a neuroscientist because a lot of people have heard of Bessel van der Kolk's work and the book, The Body Keeps the Score. And it makes sense, kind of intuitively, that the body does keep the score. And, and like I've said, there's an amount of trauma that you can't expr- you can't articulate verbally, so we believe we understand there are imprints of that in the body.

    6. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    7. TS

      But we have... We've never really understood how that works. Um, and we... You know, I've talked before, I think with you, about intuition through a process called Hebbian learning, which is neurons that fire together, wire together, gets pushed deeper and deeper into neurons from the outer cortex, the limbic system, the brain stem, into gut neurons. And that's why intuition is called gut instinct. And we understand that through stress postures, you could have bracing patterns in your muscles for, like, the trauma that you've experienced. Fascia is the connective tissue that holds your entire body together, all your organs, all your muscles. And until fairly recently-... fascia was thought of as a vestigial organ. It was cut away in surgery without thinking of any, that it would have any effect on the rest of your body. Now, it's understood more to actually be an imp- an organ of its own and an important one. And the serotonin hypothesis goes some way to explain how the level of constriction of capillaries and the amount of nutrients that's released to skin, fascia, and muscle is a mechanism for how trauma is held in the body.

    8. SB

      And with that in mind, what do we do to get rid of that trauma held in the body?

    9. TS

      Physical activities. Um, so dancing, singing, drumming, humming, chanting, massage, yoga, craniosacral therapy. And you'll notice, like the ones I started with are, you know, very related to ancient wisdom. So our ancestors knew this. Um, for example, in ancient Greek, um, uh, ancient Greek burials, they would wail and beat their chests, so they were getting rid of grief by ch- like screaming, but also by beating their muscles and letting, like, trauma exit their body.

  10. 49:44 – 54:52

    Healing From Grief

    1. TS

    2. SB

      I'm very well aware that there's probably a lot of people who have sent this conversation to a friend who is struggling right now.

    3. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      And that that friend who has lost a loved one, potentially a husband, potentially a wife, potentially a, you know, God forbid, a child-

    5. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    6. SB

      ... or a grandparent or something, is listening to this because they are in search of answers for their own healing.

    7. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    8. SB

      You've been there.

    9. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    10. SB

      You may still be there in some degree. If you were to advise them on their own healing journey, what advice would you give them?

    11. TS

      The first thing would be, uh, to not repress or deny how they're feeling and, you know, really feel the emotions that, that have to come along with grief. Um, I've, you know, I had amazing talking therapy, which definitely helped me a lot. So if people have access to that, um, professionally, then great. If not, then, you know, if you've got close friends that you can talk to, then talking it out does help. But I've really learned that there's a limit to how much that helps and that some sort of physical therapy, um, is really helpful as part of it. Those would be the basics, I would say. Time in nature has been so healing for me. Um, some form of creative outlet, whether it's making or beholding. So you don't have to be good at art if, if you draw, you know, a picture of how you're feeling emotionally or a sketch of your loved one. It doesn't have to be good. You get benefits from doing that. It's an out- creative outlet for your grief. That's probably the second level, and you know, the third level to me is if you've got a- any inclination to receive signs, um, or just be open to, you know, a white feather landing at your doorstep, um, or a bird coming to visit you or something that means something to you, then that can bring a lot of comfort and guidance and joy.

    12. SB

      And you also assert that things like being in nature, creativity, honing into our r- intuition increase the probability of us receiving these signs.

    13. TS

      Mm-hmm. Well, receiving and being able to interpret in a way that's meaningful for you.

    14. SB

      Gut instinct. Um, in the book, you talk about how strengthening one's gut health can have a, an impact on gut in- instinct.

    15. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    16. SB

      Explain that to me.

    17. TS

      So the, the body is basically the physical foundation for, um, you know, all of your senses to be able to, to flourish, to your higher mental faculties to be able to flourish, and ultimately, for, you know, whatever spiritual experience you have of life, to, to be able to be at its fullest and best as well. So taking care of the physical foundations is really important. And, um, you know, we could talk about all the usual things like sleep and diet and exercise, mindfulness, stress management. But I want to really focus strongly on the, the gut-brain axis, because a lot of new research has come up since I wrote The Source. So it's actually w- you know, we know a lot about this bidirectional communication between the brain and the gut. It's actually a three-way system, which is the brain, the gut itself, the gut neurons, and the gut microbiome, which is trillions of bacteria and fungi and, you know, organisms that, um, are basically determining the health of our entire system, 'cause they're connected to our immune system, to our skin, to our oral microbiome, and, and the brain. So the way that you... The, the most direct access you have to your brain is through your gut. The gut is the most direct way that you can influence your brain, and you can do that through exercise, obviously diet, um, supplementation, even like, um, meditation and art and music therapy have a beneficial effect on your gut microbiome as well, which has a knock-on effect on the neurons in the, the brain. And they communicate with each other many ways, m- mostly through the vagus nerve. S-

    18. SB

      What's the vagus nerve?

    19. TS

      The vagus nerve is a cranial nerve. So it comes from your skull. It's Latin for wandering, because it's the longest nerve that goes through your body. So it goes... There's two, the right and the left, and they go all the way from your cranium, which is-

    20. SB

      What's my cranium?

    21. TS

      Your cranium is the bone around your brain.

    22. SB

      Yeah.

    23. TS

      Um, so inside that, um, down your neck. They go through your diaphragm and to your intestine.

    24. SB

      I'll put a photo up on screen-

    25. TS

      Yeah.

    26. SB

      ... for everybody who wants to see where their vagus nerve is.

    27. TS

      Also, other nerves. So the nerves that innervate the gut organs, um, they're called afferent intestinal nerves. They're also involved in this communication. Then there's hormones, and there's cytokine, um, messages, which are chemical messages that aren't hormonal. Your immune system actually also produces neurotransmitters, and there are immune cells in your brain as well. So those are all the ways that we know currently that the brain and the gut communicate with each other.

    28. SB

      And

  11. 54:52 – 58:09

    The Shocking Link Between Your Gut and Intuition

    1. SB

      so what does this mean in terms of my gut health and ways to influence my, my brain? Does it mean that I, I need to be really big on my prebiotics, my probiotics, to make sure my, my gut's intact, and if I do that, then my intuition will be sharper?

    2. TS

      Mm-hmm. So that's true, but I always like people to understand what's behind that, not just mindlessly take prebiotics and probiotics. So what we're trying to do is reduce inflammation throughout the system, and so basically, because the brain is a small organ in, in our entire system, but it uses up at least 20% of our energy, so it's very vulnerable to, um, what, what we call oxidative stress or free radicals. So every time, like, there's any turnover of cells in our brain or our body, basically as we live, the wear and tear of daily life, we release free radicals which are molecules that can damage cells, particularly nerve cells. And because the brain is- has such high turnover of energy, it's particularly vulnerable to free radical attack, so reducing inflammation and putting things that are neuroprotective around it, like certain vitamins and minerals, is really important. And the hippocampus part of the brain, which, um, it has high cell turnover 'cause it's to do with memory, laying down memories, and obviously well into adulthood we're still doing that, that's also very vulnerable to free radical damage, and that's why we can get memory and cognitive impairments and dementias as we get older. So the, the modern Western diet causes something called dysbiosis, which is that your gut isn't in a good state-

    3. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    4. TS

      ... and that creates a cascade of inflammation and releases molecules, some of which can cross the blood-brain barrier and therefore cause inflammation in the brain. So we want to minimize that as much as possible and put in as many protective and beneficial factors as possible. If we're doing that, the system's in what we call homeostasis, which is good balance. It's kind of starting to take care of itself. It's got all the nutrients that it needs. It's hydrated, it's oxygenated. That's when you've got extra resources to do the higher mental functions, and up until today pretty much, I've described those as being able to solve complex problems, being able to think flexibly, creatively, override your biases. But now I'm proposing that there's more than that that we can do. There's accessing levels of intuition that we didn't know we had. Very much thr- through the same mechanism of how I described trauma being stored in the body, hidden wisdom is also stored in the body. It's not just in your brain. And therefore, the same therapies, like beholding and making art, humming, drumming, storytelling, dancing, yoga, just movement, can help us to access that intuition that isn't just in our brain and our mind and take us to a next level of intuition that's not just cerebral, it's- it's physical.

  12. 58:09 – 59:16

    Ads

    1. SB

      I've just invested millions into this and become a co-owner of the company. It's a company called Ketone IQ, and the story is quite interesting. I started talking about ketosis on this podcast and the fact that I'm very low carb, very, very low sugar, and my body produces ketones, which have made me incredibly focused, have improved my endurance, have improved my mood, and have made me more capable at doing what I do here. And because I was talking about it on the podcast, a couple of weeks later, these showed up on my desk in my HQ in London, these little shots. And oh my God, the impact it's had on my ability to articulate myself, on my focus, on my workouts, on my mood, on stopping me crashing throughout the day was so profound that I reached out to the founders of the company, and now I'm a co-owner of this business. I highly, highly recommend you look into this. I highly recommend you look at the science behind the product. If you wanna try it for yourself, visit ketone.com/stephen for 30% off your subscription order, and you'll also get a free gift with your second shipment. That's ketone.com/stephen. And I'm so honored that once again, a company I own can sponsor my podcast.

  13. 59:16 – 1:02:38

    How to Emulate Near-Death Experiences

    1. SB

      You used the word dark retreats. I've never heard that phrase before.

    2. TS

      So dark retreats come from, um, a Tibetan religion or philosophy, but it's, um, it's seen throughout the ancient civilizations, so the ancient Greeks and Romans used to bury people actually for days, and then they would come out and be, like, the seers and the mystics of that, um, community. S- but there's most research, um, available in dark retreats 'cause it's still happening today.

    3. SB

      What is a dark retreat?

    4. TS

      A dark retreat is, um, have you heard of silent retreat, silent meditation?

    5. SB

      Yeah.

    6. TS

      Yeah.

    7. SB

      Yeah, my girlfriend went on one.

    8. TS

      Yeah, so that's the kind of thing she would do. So basically, you can go away for a few days to a few weeks, and you're just in silence, and you're meditating and doing breath work most of the time. In a dark retreat, you are in, like, pitch black for... I mean, you can go and do it for a few hours or a weekend, but it's meant to be in sevens, so 7 to 49 days. The monks do 49 days. If, as a, you know, a person who's interested spiritually, you wanted to do it quite seriously, you would go for seven days, and you would be in a room or a cave that's got double walls, so it's completely dark. And, um, the reason for doing this is that not all of us can have a near-death experience, right? So this is a way of emulating, it's the closest way of emulating that for anyone like you or I to get access to the benefits of a near-death experience, um, which I've ou- outlined them all in the book. So in a dark retreat, at first, you sleep a lot. Because it's dark, you're releasing a lot, lot of melatonin from your pineal gland, so you fall asleep in darkness.... you awake in darkness and basically that kind of makes you feel more sleepy, so you sleep a lot. After a couple of days, you start to see, like, pulsations of light. It might be like little shooting stars or kind of just like little sparks here and there. And then eventually, it feels like the walls are dimly alight. So in complete darkness, you start to see light. Obviously, there's an element of, like, hallucinating at this point. And so after three, four, five days, you will actually start to see animals, real or sort of fantastical. And eventually people see, like, deities or beings, like people do in near-death experiences. Um, and when people come out of these retreats, they experience many of the same benefits like, you know, a real sort of, like, joy for life, less fear of death, more compassion for other people, less fear of failing so, you know, taking more healthy risks. So, it- it's a way basically of emi- emulating a near-death experience.

    9. SB

      And it therefore convinces you that there's more than you can see in your day-to-day life, and therefore that expands your mind in a way that's beneficial?

    10. TS

      Yeah, it's another, uh, example of an altered state of consciousness. You can also get altered states of consciousness through conscious connected or holotropic breath work, and through the use of psychedelic, um, plants as well.

  14. 1:02:38 – 1:09:12

    How Do We Know It's Not Just Our Brain Chemicals Tricking Us?

    1. TS

    2. SB

      How do we know that it's- it's not just a changing of our neurological state or the- the chemicals in our brain that are causing us to interpret things differently with our senses? Because, you know, we've all ex- uh, I said we all. Many of us have experienced having some kind of stimulant or psychedelic or some s- compound-

    3. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      ... in a rave or at a festival-

    5. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    6. SB

      ... that's made us see the world differently for a moment.

    7. TS

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    8. SB

      And science would say that's just the neurochemicals in our brain-

    9. TS

      Mm.

    10. SB

      ... doing different things which are changing our perception. They wouldn't say necessarily that it's a different realm or a different dimension.

    11. TS

      Yeah, and I- I think you're right. I think it is that. So as a neuropharmacologist, I, you know, understand as much as the research says about the... It's mo- mostly, like I said, in- in the body, in the brain with psychedelics, it's mostly 5-HT or serotonin 2A receptors. And there's a level of hyperconnectivity within the brain, particularly, as I said, in the visual cortex here, which allows people to see things that they don't normally see.

    12. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    13. TS

      Um, and I think the way to apply that in your life is that it's a glimpse into what's possible.

    14. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    15. TS

      Um, once you've experienced that, it could either be that you find other natural ways of experiencing that. So there's- there's a paper I can forward to you that shows that certain forms of conscious connected breath work produce the same effect as a moderate dose of psilocybin.

    16. SB

      Which is magic mushrooms.

    17. TS

      Yes.

    18. SB

      Yeah.

    19. TS

      And this, um, research came out after psilocybin was banned, and practitioners thought, "Well, what are other ways that we can help people to achieve these altered states of consciousness?" Um, and personally, I believe that, you know, having, like, c- a pl- completely, like, awe-inspiring experience in nature, or for me, like, the ballet particularly when I've been so lucky sometimes to sit in the wings and you just completely feel like you're part of it. I mean, I've literally had a spiritual experience sitting in the wings watching, actually it was one of my friends, a principal dancer dancing. Just so overwhelming. It's completely an altered state of consciousness. Um, so there other, there are other ways of accessing that, um, but I think it depends like why you want to and what it means to you. But at minimum, these sorts of things that I'm talking about are ways of understanding that there's more to life than what we know.

    20. SB

      And how does that meaningfully change, like, the concept of what happiness is and contentment is and, like, living a good life is?

    21. TS

      So what I think is really interesting is that we don't actually have to experience certain things ourselves. So there's a lot of research that shows that students from various different, um, areas of expertise who simply learn about near-death experiences actually get some of the same benefits, and that these can last for over a year later. So understanding that when someone sees that there's something greater than us, when someone sees the interconnectedness of- of everything, when someone understands how small some of their problems are in the greater, you know, picture of things helps people to be more compassionate, more grateful, kinder to others, um, less materialistic, is- is really interesting. And I think anything that we can do to help us, you know, free us from some of those chains that I think hold us down in the material world, particularly in the Western world, is... it's healthy for us physically, mentally, emotionally, but it also brings in this element of spirituality that I think is just so lacking in the world at the moment, and- and could be so helpful. Because if we look back at the way that our ancestors used their senses and their intuition to interpret the land, like a cloud formation could mean that rain's coming, but it could also mean that your ancestors were talking to you. Just seems like such a beautiful way to live. And when we lived in, you know, in Paleolithic times, we didn't have spare resources for having fun, but we adorned ourselves, we danced, we told stories, we made, you know, cave art. So I think that just really reminds us that...... those things that are often seen as luxuries or frivolous, they're not at all. They're fundamentally important.

    22. SB

      Believing in- in these things itself is good for us, is that what you believe? You believe that believing in something transcendent, whether it's spiritual or religious, is actually just good for us, so that's reason enough to believe it?

    23. TS

      It's reason enough to believe it, but I think it will naturally change what you do once you believe it. You're not going to live in the same way if you- if you beli- you know, believe some fundamentally different things.

    24. SB

      And the ways in which it changes what you believe are beneficial to you, so y- are you saying that that is reason enough to believe it, like to want to believe it?

    25. TS

      I think it's reason enough to try it.

    26. SB

      Yeah. I mean, sometimes it causes y- people through human history to do awful things, right? To kill themselves, to- to strap bombs to themselves and do horrific things because they believe in something transcendent. It- it can also lead to, like, destructive behavior.

    27. TS

      I mean, I don't think there's any evidence from near-death experiences that that's the case. I think... I know what that- what you're referring to is something that's, you know, more fundamentally like religious and...

    28. SB

      'Cause I was watching that- I've been watching... Jack told me to watch this, uh, Capture Bin Laden documentary, so I was watching it last night, and these people flew themselves into buildings because they believe in, you know, they were obviously radicalized in, uh, various ways but they- they believed in going to a afterlife that would be better than this one.

    29. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    30. SB

      And that they were sacrificing themselves for the greater good. So it's just- it's- it's, I guess it's a side point that just b- the belief in transcendence itself in some regard isn't necessarily always gonna guarantee our behaviors on- on this planet are productive.

  15. 1:09:12 – 1:22:20

    The Pursuit of Meaning and the Rise of Personal Crisis

    1. SB

      the point is just the belief in something transcendent, does that make our lives necessarily better? I guess the answer is I c- it can.

    2. TS

      Yeah.

    3. SB

      Uh, I'm really obsessed at the moment, actually, with this idea of purpose and meaning.

    4. TS

      Yeah.

    5. SB

      Because obviously we're living in a society that's more and more individualistic and-

    6. TS

      Yeah.

    7. SB

      ... independence is kind of vogue, and, um, because of a variety of things that have happened over the last 50, 60, 70 years, we have more independence, women, in particular, have a lot more independence which I think everyone is very, most people, are very, um, supportive of.

    8. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    9. SB

      We have more choice than ever before, and with choice comes independence. So I can choose now when I have a family and maybe I couldn't choose before.

    10. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    11. SB

      Um, and with choice and with freedom, I think some of our more short-term hedonistic designs and temptations take hold, and we end up sacrificing the tribe and shared responsibility and dependence, and a lot of our meaning came from, like, those things.

    12. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    13. SB

      So I f- I feel, to some degree, that when we think about how we ladder up from, like, me to, like, my family to my city-

    14. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    15. SB

      ... to my nation and then maybe to my god-

    16. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    17. SB

      ... those layers have fallen away, and now for many of us, it's just me-

    18. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    19. SB

      ... and that's causing a crisis of meaning and purpose in- in life-

    20. TS

      Mm.

    21. SB

      ... because we're kind of unanchored.

    22. TS

      Yeah.

    23. SB

      What's your perspective on this? And, um, do you think it's true that we're, like, we're more unanchored than we've ever been, and how do you think we get back to that if we can relate to feeling a little bit lost and unanchored and the sort of prevalence, in my view, of people having more and more mid-life crises-

    24. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    25. SB

      ... and turning to religion or spirituality or something?

    26. TS

      Yeah, well, I- I actually called this in March 2020, and it's on record 'cause I was on a podcast and I- I said I foresee a huge mental health crisis, but we could choose for it to be a spiritual revolution. And so then obviously the, you know, the rest of the pandemic happened and then there was sort of a return to society which I think people found really hard mentally as well. And at the same time, there was the cost of living crisis, the wealth gap, a new war, the crime rates par- you know, cer- certainly in London, like, just for my life experience, they had, you know, significantly grown, um, for reasons that we're all contributors to, but, you know, it changes how safe you feel in society. And I'm a big fan of technology, obviously, I'm a scientist, but it is ironic that we seem to be more disconnected than ever when in- in one way, we're- we're more connected than we've ever been before.

    27. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    28. TS

      And I, you know, I w- I- I've said this before but I'll say it again, I think the way out of that is- is a return to ancient wisdom, to true connection, which I believe can co-exist with being technologically connected and advanced. Um, but yeah, I just- I just think we've lost what it means to be human, which means, you know, really being in touch with yourself and r- being part of a community and- and caring about something more than just your own life and- and your immediate, you know, inner circle.

    29. SB

      And what is true connection in your definition of the word? 'Cause I guess there's false connection if there's true connection.

    30. TS

      Mm-hmm.

  16. 1:22:20 – 1:24:13

    Ads

    1. SB

      what's stalled, what's moving, you can't improve anything, and you can't close the deal. Our sponsor, Pipedrive, is the number one CRM tool for small to medium businesses. Not just a contact list, but an actual system that shows your entire sales process end-to-end, everything that's live, what's lagging, and the steps you need to take next. All of your teams can move smarter and faster. Teams using Pipedrive are on average closing three times more deals than those that aren't. It's the first CRM made by salespeople for salespeople, that over 100,000 companies around the world rely on, including my team who absolutely love it. Give Pipedrive a try today by visiting pipedrive.com/ceo and you can get up and running in a couple of minutes with no payment needed. And if you use this link, you'll get a 30-day free trial. One of the things that I thought a lot about when I started The Diary of a CEO was who would be the sponsors of this show. I wanted my sponsors to be companies that I believed in so much that I invested my own money into those companies. The reason I do that is because if I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, I must love the product, and this is one such product that I've just invested many millions of pounds into. I was in the late stages of creating my own hydration electrolyte product. I was looking for a certain thing, I was looking for a certain product that wasn't too sweet, that was science-backed. And I told my friend George Heaton about this and he said to me that he was working on one with a guy called Ross Mackay. They put me in a WhatsApp group, they showed me the product and I fell in love. They have the sachets, they have the cans, and the range of products focus on performance, recovery and sleep. Try it now by going to usecadence.com and to get you started, don't tell anybody this, but I'll give you a code which is code Diary which will give you 15% off and an extra 15% off on subscriptions.

  17. 1:24:13 – 1:29:21

    Should You Find Love Again After Your Loved One's Death?

    1. SB

      And if I told you I'd been through what you've been through and I asked you the question, "Should I go and look for love again?" What advice would you give to me? If I'd lost my partner and... I was, what, four years now?

Episode duration: 1:44:15

Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript

Transcript of episode yfEQRqFo2bI

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome