Modern WisdomThe Mindset Secrets Of Elite Performers - Peter Diamandis
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
95 min read · 19,495 words- 0:00 – 1:59
Intro
- PDPeter Diamandis
What was the most important thing in making Steve Jobs and Elon Musk? What made them successful? Was it the money they had, the technology they had, the network they had, or was it their mindset? What was the most important thing? I think most people would agree it's their mindset. You take away everything, but you retain their mindset, they would regain some level of their success. And so, if your mindset is the most important thing you have, what mindset do you have? What mindset do you want and, w- how are you gonna shape it? Most of us get a mindset that we inherit from our parents, that we inherit from the people we hang out with, but we don't take the time to shape our active mindset.
- CWChris Williamson
We were talking just before, I ask all of the guests to count to five so that I can sound check the recording to make sure that everything's working okay, and you counted down from five. Am I right in thinking that there was a period in the past, and it may still be the same now, where they missed the word five in a countdown because five sounded too much like fire-
- PDPeter Diamandis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... when it was, when it was missiles? So, they would go, "Seven, six, four, three, two, one, fire."
- PDPeter Diamandis
(laughs) Uh, you know, I- I think that's a great myth to start.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- PDPeter Diamandis
But, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Is it bullshit? Am I talking out of my ass?
- PDPeter Diamandis
I- I- I think, uh, if people knew they- to expect a five after a six, they'd hear a five and not a fire. Um, and they're probably- probably waiting for like, you know, launch versus fire. Anyway, uh, yeah, but I am a space cadet and, uh, and counting down to zero, uh, to ignition, uh, is a lot more fun than counting up. 'Cause you count up, you know, it's forever, you know, you get to infinity eventually.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Well, that's the interesting thing when you think about ... Is it Bill Ackman? He's that guy that does loads of short selling, right?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yes. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, the- the- the- the reverse is if you're a short seller, you have a limited amount of money that you can make. If you're going long, then there is ... the sky is the limit depending on what the company is.
- PDPeter Diamandis
And the bottom is the limit too (laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
That's also true. You do have ... there is a limited amount of money that you could lose. Okay, so you have a very
- 1:59 – 8:48
Peter’s Journey to Where He Is Now
- CWChris Williamson
eclectic history when it comes to the things that you've done. If you-
- PDPeter Diamandis
That's a ni- nicer way to put it, sure.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. Yeah. Uh, meandering would be another word perhaps. Um, how would you describe, or how do you describe your background? Someone say, "So, Peter, tell me- tell me sort of your story. Wh- how did- how did you get to the point that you're at?" What's the elevator pitch?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Uh, the elevator pitch, both parents born in Greece on the island of- of Lesbos, came here, I was born in New York, expected to become a physician. I was born in the '60s and two things happened in the '60s. Number one was the Apollo program, and the Apollo program showed us what was possible today. And then there was that scientific documentary called Star Trek that showed us where the hu- you know, where humanity was going. And between Apollo and Star Trek, I got the space bug very, very hard, and my parents wanted me to become a doctor and I said, "Yes, Mom, yes, Dad, I'm gonna be an astronaut," and I ended up pursuing both. So, um, went to MIT, uh, really, uh, studying molecular genetics, pre-med, uh, but on nights and weekends, in the afternoons, I was doing aerospace engineering. Went to Harvard for medical school, promised to complete medical school, you know, got my diploma, sent it to my mom, my dad, uh, I went back to MIT, did aerospace engineering, and, uh, throughout all of that I was an entrepreneur and I realized for me that I loved starting stuff. I loved creating companies. I thought, uh, I think of companies as the means by which you can impact the world, you know, entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are individuals that find big, juicy problems and solve them. And my first group ever was a college non-profit called SEDS, Students for Exploration and Development of Space. It grew into an international organization. I met Jeff Bezos through that, he was the president of the Princeton chapter, and then started a, uh, space university, um, International Space University, and then went on to start a company called Zero G that does weightless parabolic flights and then the first XPRIZE for private space flight. And so I was a space cadet for the first 20 years, really pursuing, uh, space. I had a rocket company, a satellite company, um, and that was the first 20 years of my entrepreneurial life. Uh, I then read a book by Ray Kurzweil, uh, called The Singularity is Near, and damn if it didn't make a right-hand turn in my life. So, Ray is a dear friend, he's a mentor, he's a collaborator, we've started companies together, and Ray, uh, wrote this book and talked about how exponential technologies, uh, computation, sensors, networks, AI, robotics, 3D printing, AR, VR, blockchain, nanotechnology, how all of these technologies are gonna literally transform everything. And, uh, it really just massively turned me on as to the future and I made a shift from space to really, how do you use these exponential technologies to take on the world's biggest problems? Uh, XPRIZE went from a single prize for private space flight to a prize, uh, on solving the world's biggest problems. Uh, Ray and I co-founded Singularity University. That was really how do you ... you know, teaching entrepreneurs and leaders how to impact billion-person problems. And that was my next, you know, 10, 15 years, and then the last decade, I'm still continuing those things, I'm not as involved in space. I'll go back to space, but only when I've got a few hundred million dollars in my pocket that I can really invest in this, 'cause space is not a poor man's game. Um, but the last decade has been, uh, really focused on longevity, on health span. How do you add 10, 20, 30 healthy years on- on your life? So, very briefly, I've started about six or seven health and biotech companies, um-... uh, have a, a half a billion dollar venture fund that's envelt- investing in two-thirds in biotech and longevity, one-third in exponential tech, um, written a, a number of books. And that, in four minutes or less, is a very quick summary.
- CWChris Williamson
What do all of those projects have in common?
- PDPeter Diamandis
My passions. Um, I am driven. I am a passion-driven individual. I do not do anything unless it's what wakes me up at, you know, 5:30 in the morning. So, my passion of s- it's, it's grand challenges. It's like there is no problem we cannot solve, right? We can open the space frontier. The space frontier is the ultimate destiny of humanity. Whatever we evolve to 1,000 years from now, you know, we're gonna look back at this moment in time when the human race moved off the planet irreversibly. Um, exponential technologies solving billion-person problems, I'm, I believe there is no problem we cannot solve, right? I really fundamentally believe that, that we have the ability to uplift every man, woman, and child on the planet, and that we will. Technology is the force that takes whatever was scarce and makes it abundant. And we can go talk, plenty of examples there. And then, the biggest challenge is and the biggest benefit, there is no greater benefit than giving someone, uh, decades of healthy lifespan. All right? There was a study done at Harvard, London School of Business, and Oxford that said if you add one healthy year to the global population, it's worth $38 trillion, the global economy. It's massive. So, that stuff is all driven by what I, I teach, something called finding your massive transformative purpose, your MTP. And I teach this to all the CEOs I, I mentor. I, I run an Abundance 360 program, which is a year-round program for, uh, 360, uh, entrepreneur CEOs and about 2,500, uh, uh, entrepreneurs online. Anyway, uh, finding your MTP that wakes you up and keeps you going, 'cause all this stuff is hard. It's really hard. And unless it's driven by an emotional energy, uh, that's your calling in life, you're gonna give up before you get there.
- CWChris Williamson
There needs to be a reason for you to put up with it being hard. It's going to be difficult.
- PDPeter Diamandis
It's going to be.
- CWChris Williamson
Things are going to g- to get in the way. And purpose, meaning a sense of existential connection between you and what you're doing, is a significantly better motivator than a Jocko Willink motivational video, or some loud rock music, or enough caffeine, or just grit and determination, or whatever it is that you end up relying on.
- 8:48 – 13:13
How Technology Will Help Us to Love Life
- CWChris Williamson
I love the idea of using, um, are you fired up when you wake up in the morning-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... as the proxy for, are you doing something that you care about? Because it's the easiest heuristic. When you wake up on a morning, are you excited about the day that you have in front of you? Or even-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... if the day is gonna start, even if it's back-to-back meetings and w- whatever else, is it still, is it still cool?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Is it still fun, what you're doing? Do you feel like you're connected to it?
- PDPeter Diamandis
100%. And, and it's, um, I think if you don't have that in your life, uh, your job is to find it, right? That's, uh, ultimately, uh, what every person can have. And I think the technologies that are coming online today, uh, are able to help you, um, because they can augment you. You may not have had the education in school, uh, to pursue the dream that you want, but, you know, you can use eventually an AI copilot, uh, to enable you to do that. You know, we're gonna move towards a world in which, uh, the stuff that is dull, dangerous, or dirty that people don't wanna do will be done by robots and by AI algorithms and so forth, but those who truly, you know, want to be creatives, want to be entrepreneurs, want to have a dream, you know, what did you wanna do as a kid before the world told you you couldn't do it? Um, I mean, that's truly, uh, magical. Uh, you know, uh, Chris, you and I are lucky, uh, we are doing what we love. A lot of parts of the world, they don't have that luxury, you know? They're doing what's possible to put food on their table or get insurance for their family. And, and we're gonna, we're gonna be transforming that. That's part of the process of uplifting humanity.
- CWChris Williamson
So, you're hoping that through technology, you can liberate people from doing things that they have to do to allowing them to do things that they want to do?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah, I, it's, so one of the concepts, I, I wrote my first book, uh, with Steven Kotler in 2012 called-
- CWChris Williamson
Good friend.
- PDPeter Diamandis
... Abundance. Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Good... Really, really cool guy.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah, he's, he's brilliant. Um, uh, y- you know, the book is called Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. And I called Steven, uh, I had, Steven had written about me when I was running the XPRIZE Foundation, um, and he did a, uh, Wired and a GQ article, and I remember thinking, "This guy writes really well. I love his writing." And I called him up, and I said, "Will you give me writing lessons?" So, I took writing lessons from Steven, and then I said, "I really wanna do a book one of these days." So, I called him up. I was at Singularity University. This was our second year. And the idea of Abundance, that there's nothing truly scarce in the world. What do I mean by that? You know, people talk about water wars and water scarcity, but the reality is there's water everywhere. Um, there, we live on a water planet, right? We're a blue-green planet. Two-thirds of our surface is covered by water. The challenge is two, you know, 97.5% is salt, two percent is ice, and we fight over a half a percent of the fresh water on the planet. But water's there, it's just not in a usable form. And technology, we're getting ready to launch a, uh, $100 million, uh-... energy-efficient desalination prize, right? We did a w- atmospheric, uh, water extraction prize to pull water out of the atmosphere. Um, so there are technologies that can make water abundant everywhere. You know, energy, we used to kill whales on the ocean to get whale oil to light our nights to read. Then we ravaged mountainsides for coal, then we drilled kilometers under the ocean for oil and, and natural gas. Um, but the earth is covered in 8,000 times more energy from the sun than we consume as a species. The energy is there, just not in a usable form. And so, we see this over and over and over again. And the idea is technology takes, um, takes, uh, what's scarce and turns it into abundance over and over again, right? Abundant access to information on Google, abundant communication on our cellular networks. And so, I don't think there's anything truly scarce. And, uh, and part of my mission is to help people see that abundance mindset.
- CWChris Williamson
Michael Malice
- 13:13 – 19:40
The Source of our Culture of Cynicism
- CWChris Williamson
is a cultural commentator, podcaster, writer. He's just released a book called The White Pill, and I sat down with him to talk about that this week. He is railing, at the moment, against a culture of cynicism, as he calls it. People that tell you that, "This isn't going to get better. It can't get better. Things have always been this way. The bad people are always going to win." Now he's done it in a slightly different way. Um, he describes, in gruesome detail for 300 pages-
- PDPeter Diamandis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... all of the worst crimes of Soviet-era Russia, of the Ukraine, what happened in Romania, famine, prisons, gulags, abuse, uh, uh, uh, nepotism, everything. And then, he rounds out the book by saying, "And look what happened, the bad people didn't win in the end. The Berlin Wall fell essentially overnight." Y- and he continues to load up many, many more examples like that. And yet, there is still a pervasive culture of cynicism, I think.
- PDPeter Diamandis
There is. I have some, I have a, I know who does it.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you mean?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Who causes that?
- CWChris Williamson
Who?
- PDPeter Diamandis
It's the news media. Uh, it's, it's what I call the Crisis News Network, you know, CNN, or... I don't know a good acronym for Fox. So, the reality is, our brains evolved to look for bad news, right? Because 100,000 years ago, a squiggle on the ground wasn't a stick, it was a snake, or a rustle in the leaves wasn't, you know, the wind, it was a, uh, you know, a, a, a, a lion. Um, you were dead if you missed that. So, we evolved an ancient piece of our temporal lobe of our brain called the amygdala, which is the first place all of our sensory input, eyes, ears, touch, and so forth, go. And your amygdala puts you on red alert if it senses any potential danger. And because of that, we pay 10 times more attention to negative news than positive news. And because, what's the news media's business? It's to deliver their advertisers to our, our eyeballs, and so we pay 10 times more attention to negative news than, than positive news. And so, that's what they feed us, constantly. We see every murder in our living room over and over and over and over again, every crooked politician, every problem on the planet. Um, and I'm not saying it isn't true, I'm saying, it is disproportionately 10 to 1 negative. There's so many amazing things going on in the world that we never hear about and never see. And so, I, you could not pay me enough money to watch the news. I... Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's, i- i- it's strange when you look at social media and it seems like, uh, a state reinforcement, a mainstream media reinforcement army, uh, that is packed with gullible volunteers, people who choose to self-generate their own cynical stories and put them out there. Now, the first mover may have been originally that mainstream media was that... I have an amazing study that I think you'll love. So, the, uh, 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, 2012-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... Boston Marathon bombing?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, (clears throat) there was a study done on, that compared two cohorts of people. The first cohort were runners who were in the actual race, and the second cohort were people who had consumed six or more hours of news media about the race. The people that consumed the six or more hours of news media showed greater signs of PTSD and emotional trauma than the ones who were literally there and actually involved.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah. I mean, so, listen, if you're listening to this, consider buying back 10, 20 hours of your week by shutting off the TV. Don't read the newspaper. Set a few Google alerts for the things that are important to you. If something's really going on in the world you need to know about, believe me, your friends will tell you. Take back control. Do not let some editor in some newsroom who's showing you every murder over and over again with this dystopian mindset ruin your day. So, one of the things I teach, right, and I'm really passionate about this, uh, is, your mindset is everything, all right? So, I, I teach this at, at Abundance three- ti- right, 360. I have programs going on right now, uh, for free to help coach people on, on, on mindsets. If I said to you, "What was the most important thing in making Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and, you know, Mahatma Gandhi," whoever your leader that you, or think is amazing, "what made them successful? Was it the money they had, the technology ha- they had, the network they had, or was it their mindset? What was the most important thing?" I think most people would agree it's their mindset. If you take away everything, but you retain their mindset, they would regain some level of their success. And so, if your mindset is the most important thing you have, what mindset do you have? Where did you get it from?... uh, what mindset do you want and, w- how are you gonna shape it, right? Most of us get a mindset that we inherit from our parents, that we inherit from the people we hang out with, but we don't take the time to shape our active mindset, and I think this is a real challenge. Um, you know, uh, so what I teach is I, I focus in on, on five mindsets. Uh, an abundance mindset, uh, which shifts everything. If you see abundance everywhere versus scarcity, you're much more likely to be partnering with people and giving away and getting return. Uh, an exponential mindset, understanding how fast exponential tech is moving and understanding that we can transform an entire industry, uh, not in 20 years or 10 years, but in five years. Um, I focus on a longevity mindset, that we're gonna be able to add 10, 20, 30 healthy years on our lives, and during that time, scientists and, doing more to extend our life beyond that. And it's worth investing in your health today to be able to get ready for those extensions. And then a, a moonshot mindset where you really give yourself permission to go 10 times bigger where everyone else is going 10%. And then finally, a, a curiosity mindset which feeds all of these things. So, I think your mindset, I guard my mindset. I guard it by what I watch, what I read, who I hang out with, and it's, uh, I think it's one of the m- most important things for, uh, for entrepreneurs today.
- 19:40 – 26:58
Steps to Having an Abundance Mindset
- PDPeter Diamandis
- CWChris Williamson
When it comes to applying this, to actually doing something in terms of practices, it's all well and good talking about mindset, you know, just see the abundance in your life, stop watching the media, these are ingrained habits.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And not only are these ingrained habits, they're ingrained habits that are largely invisible to us. I know if there's a cookie there, I can observe my hand go toward it and the cookie go toward my mouth-
- PDPeter Diamandis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... and me eat it and then feel ashamed about myself, right?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Whereas when it comes to mindset, it's so much more ephemeral and wishy-washy and invisible to us. It doesn't galvanize us in the same sort of a way. If someone listens, they say, "Abundance mindset sounds fantastic. I want to step up. I want to make a change."
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What are the steps that make the biggest difference?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah. So here's an interesting way to think about it. Uh, uh, if, unless you've been living under a rock, you've been, uh, seeing the, the rise of, uh, GPT-3 and ChatGPT and all of these, uh, these neural net, uh, AI systems, and so it turns out that our brain is a neural net, right? In the same way that you train an AI, uh, an AI neural net, you show it, in, uh, very famous examples that Google did, you show it cat video after cat video after cat video and it begins to recognize what a cat is. And it's showing an, a, a neural net, uh, datasets, and those datasets train the neural net. Uh, and this, and our brain is a neural net, so if you are watching, uh, use, uh, my favorite example again, if you're watching the Crisis News Network over and over and over again, your brain is going to be wired, uh, in a sense of PTSD. It's gonna be wired of all of this to expect negativism. You're gonna see something and it'll s- scare you even though it may not be scary, right? You hear the rustle in the leaves and it's y- it's sh- it's the wind, but you think it's someone, you know, uh, with a sniper rifle. Um, and so, uh, it's training your neural net by what you read, what you watch, and who you hang out with, right? It's all the data you're letting in. It's how do you train yourself. And depending on how your neural net is trained, again, there are podcasts you listen to, like we're, we are here, um, uh, and, and it's when you have s- an opportunity, a conversation, you can color it negative or positive, and that is a default mechanism based upon, uh, your, your mindsets. So I, I actually have a, a 30-day mindset boot camp that's free. Um, you can google 30-day mindset boot camp or go to diamandis.com. Uh, you can, you can find it there. Or, and it's step by step by step. It's, my job when I'm teaching this is to give you undeniable, overwhelming evidence of the extraordinary world and how it's getting better and better and better on every single level to counter the dystopian news, and then to recommend to you, um, you know, read, you know, books, listen to podcasts, take in information that is going to shape your, your mind. So, uh, when I was starting the International Space University, I'll never forget, my co-founder Todd Holley, we were in the same, same room in a desk opposite each other, and as a joke he put up Murphy's Law behind him, and so facing my desk, and Murphy's Law is if anything can go wrong, it will. And I'm like, "I hate that." I, I kept on just, like, "Just take it down. Take it-" and, and he wouldn't just to bug me. And so I, I had a whiteboard and I put on it, "If anything can go wrong, fix it. To hell with Murphy," right? And that's a flip of that mindset. And then I ended up creating 32 different Peter's Laws in that, you know, when given a choice, take both, start at the top and work your way up. But it's about, it's about shifting the way you think. It's a judo move, so to speak.
- CWChris Williamson
Reagan, when he came into power and he was told that the Soviet era is going to continue, this is the way that the world is now, you're going to have this permanent sort of armament war, ever-escalating nuclear threat, uh, this is the way it is, we need to, you need to learn to work around this. And he said, um, "I have another idea."Some may call my plan simple or even simplistic, we win, they lose.
- PDPeter Diamandis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
That was his plan. Uh, and that's the same as writing on the boards, Peter Dutton, I think.
- PDPeter Diamandis
(laughs) Good, good on him, and he did.
- CWChris Williamson
So, what you've, what you've mentioned here is that you can provide people with relatively undeniable proof about, uh, the reduction in climate associated deaths, the increase in child mortality, the increase in, what-
- PDPeter Diamandis
The decrease in child mortality.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, sorry (laughs) . Um, etc., etc.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Somebody that has imbibed a sufficiently cynical mindset will be able to say, "Well yeah, that's for them, that's for out there, that's for everybody else. Me, life doesn't seem to work out that way. I have A, X, Y, Z reason why that is not the case." What about someone who has fortified themselves inside of a, uh, uh, a helpless victim mindset-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... or, or scarcity inside themselves?
- PDPeter Diamandis
I, I think ultimately anybody can, can will themself to death and can will themselves into that mindset if they, if they so choose. Um, I think you have to get up and go to where it's better, meaning hang out with people who see the world differently than you. Um, you know the old adage, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If you're overweight, hang out with skinny people. If you're out of shape, hang out with people who are in n sha- in good shape, right? If you think the world is going to hell in a handbasket, if you can, find people who think the world is amazing and that it's the most extraordinary time ever to be alive, and get into those conversations. Now, you have to be motivated to do that, and something has to kick you in the pants, um, and maybe it'll be hitting rock bottom, um, maybe it will be your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, your parents, whatever the case might be. But it, it is possible. Um, and I mean, I, I wrote Abundance for that purpose and, uh, you know, it's... The story behind Abundance, where we look at, uh, going from scarcity to abundance in every area, food, water, energy, healthcare, education, learning, heal- uh, has gotten strong, the, the story has gotten incredibly stronger in the last 11 years on every level. Um, you know, the only place that's been a challenge has been in the environment, and even then, uh, there is a extraordinary, uh, tsunami of technologies coming to support, uh, that, uh, that change and that repair.
- 26:58 – 40:54
How Our Bodies Are Dealing With Complex Lives
- PDPeter Diamandis
- CWChris Williamson
When it comes to your current pet obsession of longevity and health-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
I think we both agree that human life has kind of already been a little overclocked, that we are living to ages now that are pretty much unprecedented. Our bodies largely don't know what to do when they get to these sorts of ages, th- we, we, we weren't designed to live to 80, 90. You know, having centenarians, having people that live over 100 is insane. It's absolutely insane. So, given that, what, what hope have we got that we can continue to extend something which has already been overclocked?
- PDPeter Diamandis
So, great question. I'll give you a couple of thoughts there. And, and you're right, our, our bodies were never really designed to live past age 30. Uh, I'll use that number. You know, 100,000 years ago, early hominids would be getting puberty at age 12, 13, and by the time you were 13 or 14, you were pregnant, by the time you were 26, 27, 28, you were a grandparent, and before food was abundant everywhere, before McDonald's and Whole Foods existed, uh, the last thing you wanted to do if you wanted to perpetuate the species was to take food out of the mouths of your grandchildren, and so you'd, you'd die. And there was never any selective pressure after reproduction to keep us alive longer. So, very true, our average human lifespan was late 20s and then 100 years ago was late 30s into 40, and then has grown now to call it 80-
- CWChris Williamson
Is that where it was? 100 years ago, it was 30 into 40s?
- PDPeter Diamandis
It was, it was late 30s into early 40s, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you got any idea what happens if you take deaths under five out of that equation?
- PDPeter Diamandis
It goes up.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Um, it is, uh, there's no question, it was the average lifespan, but what increased it substantially was, uh, better sanitation, antibiotics, better calories, and all of that. Um, so that's the first point in terms of... Uh, the second point is there are species on this planet of, uh, bowhead whales that live 200 years, uh, Greenland sharks that live 4 or 500 years, and I remember when I was in medical school, I asked the question, "If they can live that long, why can't we?" And I said, "It's either a hardware problem or a software problem." And I am clear that it's this decade that we're gonna understand the root cause of that. So, just because we were never engineered to live past our reproductive age does not mean that the systems could not be engineered to do that. And so the work that I'm doing right now, uh, that I'm funding through my fund, that we are working on through XPRIZE and through some of my companies, uh, and supporting some of the top thinkers like George Church and David Sinclair, is really around the notion of how do we get consistently to 100, to 120, and then can we in fact actually get, uh, you know, further? Can we get to 150 years old?Um, and so, uh, I don't think, uh, the answer is, um, uh, impossible. I think we're going to get there. I think AI is going to enable us to understand the, you know, uh, 3.2 billion letters and what is going on there. I think quantum technologies that are coming online and in this decade is going to be the big push. It's going to help us understand what's going on, to model the human, uh, uh, life form in, in great detail. Um, the other thing to note that's super interesting is, you know, we have 3.2 billion letters from our mother and from our father, and that genome is set when you're born, and it's the same exact genome when you're 20, when you're 40, when you're 80, when you're 100. So if you've got the same instruction set, why do you look different? Well, it's not your genome. It's what genes are on and what genes are off. It's your epigenome. It's the control of that symphony of genes, and as we grow older, we accumulate some amount of DNA damage, true, but what goes awry is the, is the silencing of genes and, uh, the wrong genes are on, the wrong genes are off, and so the work that's exciting right now is in epigenetic reprogramming. Can we set back the clock? And so in animal models and in human, uh, cellular models, we've been able to do that. So, uh, I, for one, am doing everything I can to remain in the best possible shape, uh, and, uh, and backing the research, uh, to move that forward because I think we can add healthy decades onto our life. And those healthy decades will buy us additional decades of breakthrough in science and technology to add more decades onto our life. That concept is called longevity escape velocity, and we'll, we'll see.
- CWChris Williamson
I think up until this decade, for every generation that you were born, you gained about an extra eight years on average of-
- PDPeter Diamandis
I think, yeah, the number has been a quarter of a year per year. Um, you know, we've seen some setbacks in the COVID years, these last two years. Um, and I'll be interesting to see post-COVID, do we retain- do we return to that situation? Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Let's say that we didn't inject any new gene editing, CRISPR, uh, you know, um, how would you say? Like, power law advances.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think is the, I'm using the word very loosely, natural-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Real-
- CWChris Williamson
... upper limit?
- PDPeter Diamandis
... realistic. Yeah. So listen, we have- we, we know from history that the very rare oldest lived individuals are 120, 121, 122, 123, I think is the longest accurately, uh, documented living individual. Then we have supercentenarians, who are, uh, you know, get to 105 years old. Now, the difference between normal individuals and supercentenarians, um, is the difference between health span and life span. So you can be alive at 100, brainless, in a wheelchair, drooling, or you can be alive at 100, playing golf, having, going to work every day, have, being a sharp, contributing individual, and, and that's being- that's health span versus life span. And in supercentenarians, um, you know, in, in normal individuals will have a health span till 65 and then a slow dec- uh, or slow decrease from 65 to 80 and then die. Supercentenarian, you know, so you have 15 years of ailments, aches, pains, in and out of the hospital, not feeling well, not enjoying life, forced into retirement. Supercentenarians may have 95 years of great health, and then they fall off a cliff of two years of illness and then die, right? So the goal is extend health span as long as possible. Um, and, you know, that's great, and I think that is possible with exercise, with sleep, with diet, uh, with mindset, with not dying from something stupid. So I'll give you a few examples there, because I think they're important. Um, on diet, I'm in the middle right now. Every year with my Abundance 360 group, I do a 22-day, uh, no sugar challenge. Um, and so we're on a WhatsApp group. There's 150 of us right now on this, and we share what we're eating and doing, and for 22 days, you- it's no carbs, no sugar, no high glycemic, and it's night and day going through a group along with that. But it turns out, in diet, if there's one thing you want to do, it's eliminate high glycemic index foods and in particular sugar. Sugar is a poison for the body. Um, it's a neurotoxin, it's a cardiovascular toxin, um, and it just- we never evolved, right? Sugarcane was not part of our diet, uh, 1,000 or 100,000 years ago. Uh, and so it's an inflammatory. So that's diet in its simplest, you know, I have a Mediterranean diet. I, uh, I do get enough protein to try and keep up muscle. Second thing, exercise. I think muscle mass is one of the most important elements in the body. Um, it has the highest correlation to longevity. So I will try and get my 7,000 minimum, 10,000 target steps in a day and then try and get in two, three workouts a week.Um, sleep, uh, I'm clear eight hours of sleep is my target every day. I used to, like, be proud of getting five hours when I was in medical school. Now I'm proud of, like, when I hit eight hours on my Oura Ring.
- CWChris Williamson
That's eight hours tracked, so probably closer to eight and a half, nine hours in bed. Is that right?
- PDPeter Diamandis
It is, uh, I'm typically in bed at 9:30, uh, and up at 5:30, 6:00 the latest. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And you're, so what's, your sleep efficiency must be very high if that's the case.
- PDPeter Diamandis
It, it, it is, it is. I do get, uh, I, I'm, I fall asleep very easily. I'm lucky in that regard.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Um, so but, uh, you know, there's a whole bunch of hacks on sleep. I use an eye mask that I love, a Manta eye mask. I have a cooling blanket. I set the temperature outside at 65 degrees. I don't eat within the last couple of hours of, uh, of going to sleep, and it's all basic stuff. Um, uh, there's a great book called Why, uh, Why We Sleep, um, which is amazing. Uh, and then, um, not dying from something stupid is very important. Uh, and it's, I jokingly about it, but very few of us know what's actually going on inside our body. Like, if I said to you, "Do you know that there's nothing going on inside your body that, that you need to know, that you don't know about, that you're concerned about?" You say, "I feel fine." But here's the fact, the body is incredibly good at hiding problems. Like, you don't go to the doctor with pains and aches and so forth until it's a Stage III or Stage IV cancer. Um, if you have Parkinson's, the tremors don't show up until 70% of the neurons are gone. And so, I built a company called Fountain Life. It's operational in four centers right now, and we're growing to 20 centers around the world, and we do, uh... In fact, I'm going tonight or tomorrow I'm going to Naples, Florida where our lead center is for my annual upload. And so I'll go there, and it's about five hours. It's a full-body MRI, head to, head to toe, uh, brain imaging, brain blood flow. I do a coronary CT, uh, using an AI overlay, looking for soft plaque, not calcified plaque. Soft plaque is, uh, can kill you. Uh, a DEXA scan, genomics, uh, a Grail cancer test. Anyway, it's 150 gigabytes of data, and I, after that scan, I'm clear about what's going on in every nook and cranny of my body. And I've been doing this now for eight years, and I have a baseline, and I'm looking for any variation, and someday something's gonna hap- it's gonna show up, but I will have caught it at stage zero or stage one when it's the best chance of doing something about it.
- CWChris Williamson
How frequently are you doing this?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Once a year, and then, uh, the, the Fountain Life program, it's just fountainlife.com, is a, uh, once-a-year upload, then a quarterly, uh, follow-up, uh, blood test. And it's really, uh, it's the fiduciary for your health. And then part of Fountain Life is, is, is the most advanced diagnostics, and the other half is the most advanced therapeutics. So we are looking around the world for any breakthroughs, uh, any new science, any new technologies that extend the health span of the individual. We make that available to Fountain Life centers. So I like to say, "Listen, um, you know more about what your, what's going on inside your car than you do your body." And so, uh, if you can afford it, um, it's not cheap, it's 20K a year, but, uh, you get a concierge doctor along with it. Uh, one thing we did do last year to make it more available is we launched Fountain Health Insurance, and Fountain Health is, uh, companies of 50 employees or more, for the same price you're paying for your current health insurance for your employees, Fountain Health gives all the testing for free. Our mission is to find the disease in the beginning where it's cheap to handle versus at the end where it's expensive.
- CWChris Williamson
I've heard you say, "It's not healthcare, it's sickness care."
- PDPeter Diamandis
It is, it's, it's ridiculous, right? So, like, I, I hate the fact that health insurance pays you after you're sick, life insurance pays your next-of-kin after you're dead, right, fire insurance pays you after your house burned down. It's perverse, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Speaking of some,
- 40:54 – 43:58
Experience with Stem Cell Treatment
- CWChris Williamson
how would you say, progressive treatments, I'm going to Colombia in a month's time to get some stem cell treatments over there. What have been your experiences so far? I haven't done...
- PDPeter Diamandis
The country of Colombia?
- CWChris Williamson
Yes, correct.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Okay, University of Columbia, University.
- CWChris Williamson
Ah, yes.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah, and, and, and-
- CWChris Williamson
I'm going down to Medellin. Um, what should, what should I expect?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What have your experience been with it?
- PDPeter Diamandis
So let's talk about stem cells a second. Um, and, uh, unfortunately, stem cell treatments, exogenous stem cells, stem cells from a newborn, uh, placental or cord blood stem cells are not legally administrable in the United States. They have not been approved by the FDA.
- CWChris Williamson
That's why I'm going to Medellin, yeah.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Right, and so w- we send people to, uh, typically a facility in Costa Rica. They're in Colombia, they're in Mexico, they're in Panama, um, and, and, and so, um... Listen, uh, our bodies, uh, when we're born have, uh, stem cells in every tissue, and those stem cells are the regenerative and reparative engines of those tissues, right? So stem cells, uh, in your skin are replenishing skin, stem cells in your muscle, in your brain, in your kidney, in your liver, uh, in your fat is replenishing those, those organs and tissues. Um, and the problem is, again, because we were never evolved to live past age 30, as we grow older, the stem cell populations reduce by a hundredfold or a thousandfold.... and, uh, the question is can you supplement them? Can you rejuvenate and regenerate the stem cell populations? And so, um, I have, believe it or not, my first stem cell treatments coming up this spring. I've been doing exosomes, uh, which are the information packets that, that stem cells put out. Um, but the other thing I'm doing is I'm extracting my own stem cells, fat stem cells and, uh, and, uh, bone marrow stem cells and storing them, uh, for future, uh, future infusion. So uh, I have thousands of friends who have gone through this, and um, I think, uh, people have everything from, "I didn't notice anything," to, "It was amazing. I'm, I'm renewed and rejuvenated." So, uh, it's something which is not consistent for everybody. Um, I think stem cells typically traffic to areas where there's damage and you need, uh, need repair, whether it's joints, um, or, uh, muscles. I think, uh, we're going to discover a lot about stem cells, but they're one of, you know, the 100 to 1,000 X reduction in stem cells is one of the hallmarks of aging, and I think it is possible to rejuvenate that.
- 43:58 – 47:06
Peter’s Supplement Routine
- PDPeter Diamandis
- CWChris Williamson
When it comes to your, uh, suite of tools that you're using in order to extend longevity-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... diet, sleep, exercise, don't do anything stupid mindset.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Why are you not bringing up sunlight or heat or cold exposure? Why does that not-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... factor in as a primary for you?
- PDPeter Diamandis
It, it, it does. Uh, so I do, uh, I do a cold shower every morning. Uh, I do a hot shower first and then I'll turn it on to freezing and I'll last as long as I can. I, I just don't have a cold plunge set up, but I love, love it. And saunas are great. They're an important part. I just need to pull it in to my current living, uh, in- environment, which I have not done yet. But where I can do it, I definitively do that. Uh, there's a whole bunch of different supplements, uh, and meds that I do take. I don't want to be, you know, practice medicine. I can say what I do, uh, right, um, I take about a gram of metformin every day, right, which reduces blood glucose levels. Um, I supplement my testosterone to bring it up to, uh, you know, optimal levels. Um, I'm taking six gram micro- uh, milligrams of rapamycin, uh, right now, uh, and then a whole slew of supplements. And again, um, I think on my dmandis.com, uh, there's all of my longevity protocols, everything I'm doing, uh, accessible there.
- CWChris Williamson
When it comes to your, uh, use of, uh, supplementation in terms of TRT, I have read and heard a number of, uh, concerns around higher testosterone levels being associated with lower longevity. Is that a concern for you that y- the therapeutic levels of TRT are potentially, uh, lowering lifespan?
- PDPeter Diamandis
I, I, I haven't, uh, I have not seen that, uh, that science, um, and I'm not, I'm basically supplementing to get to normal rates. I'm not looking to get to super normal rates. Yeah. Um, and there's, you know, it's interesting, the level of complexity of the human body and our biochemistry and our cellular chemistry is extraordinary. Uh, and one of the things that is coming is finally the amount of, uh, uh, data science that can look at everything, look at all... So you know, we have this 150 gigabytes of data that we get about all- all of our members that go through Abundance360. We know what they're taking, we know what their complaints are, we know what everything, and what will fall out of all that data is correlations, like for this genetic situation, for these supplements, and it's, it's still the early days, but the decade ahead is gonna be amazing.
- CWChris Williamson
That's the, uh, longevity escape velocity that you're talking about.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Stick about, keep your health as good as it can be because at some point in the future, we're going to be able to add more than a year for every year that you stay alive. Um, one of the
- 47:06 – 54:38
Should We Eat Less Red Meat?
- CWChris Williamson
things I was interested looking at your approach to diet-
- PDPeter Diamandis
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... which is quite plant-heavy, which is quite Mediterranean, how do you square the circle of the paleo and carnivore community being, uh-
- PDPeter Diamandis
(clears throat)
- CWChris Williamson
... so popular and having so many people that extol it as a virtue with your view of leaning heavily on plants and have actually a quite heavy reduction in red meat?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Mm... So listen, I eat as much fish as I can. I, uh, eat as many eggs as I can. So I do believe in a high protein intake, but also a high plant intake. I stay away from red meats. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy some bacon once in a while or, uh, uh, some pork once in a while. You know, there's an old Greek saying my dad used to say πᾶν μέτρον άριστον, which is everything in moderation. So I lean heavily, like I attack vegetables, right? Uh, and put on olive oil and everything that I could possibly put olive oil on.
- CWChris Williamson
Like a good Greek man.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah, good Greek. Yes. And, uh, and I will, if I have a choice, uh, I'll be eating salmon, um, uh, wherever I can and, and, uh, you know, uh, three or four eggs in a day. So, you know, and then the reality is all diets are not made for everybody. Uh, your, your ethnic background does affect what diet's right for you.... and I think the other thing that we're discovering right now is your microbiome is, plays such a huge role in everything. Again, it's every time (laughs) we learn about something in the microbiome, like, "Oh, my God, where'd that come from? That's crazy." Uh, and it's, it's, we're collecting data. Uh, I'm doing what, in summary, I think gives me the best shot at... I, I feel like I'm in better shape and have more energy, and more, you know, desire to, you know, to go out there and make my dent in the universe than I ever had, uh, and that's great. And my goal is, you know, I'm 61, can I keep it going for the next 30 years? Intercept of 30 years of, of technology change, and I'll be blown away if that, if we're not adding another 30 years during that time.
- CWChris Williamson
I know that you're a user of Athletic Greens. I have been for a very long time as well. Is that, are you gonna lean over and pull out... There it is, there it is, travel packs. So, um, one of the things that I had read, again this is coming out of the paleo carnivore community, is a concern of overconsumption of leafy greens, which is what I, l- my favorite vegetable, if I could dial it in all the time would be spinach. Um-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yes, agreed.
- CWChris Williamson
It's just great. Um, but ox, oxalates? Is that what I mean?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
And athletic greens and stuff, which is hyper-condensed, very, um, potent delivery of this sort of stuff. How concerned should I be about oxalates? Can I tell all of my friends that are prodding me about it that they need to go away?
- PDPeter Diamandis
If I had any true knowledge, I would give it to you, but I don't.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- PDPeter Diamandis
So best to not say anything. Um, I'll look into it, but, um, I, I love the product and it, it sort of gets me through, uh, my early morning fasting.
- CWChris Williamson
The bottom line is, and I think that you use this as a good heuristic, how do, how do you feel?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You feel better. Uh, and I've just had this morning my first full blood panel done by Marek Health, which meant that I had to stay off anything that's got biotin-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... because that can sometimes skew the results. I didn't even know what biotin was, but I, I haven't used Athletic Greens for probably... In fact, I didn't use it 'cause I was at home and I ran out in the UK. I, I mustn't have used it for two weeks. I don't feel as good. My digestion doesn't feel as good. I can tell that there's something just not quite right, uh, and then I had to do the thing today, and now as soon as I've got it out of the way, I'm like, I'm, I'm back on that. And it's the same as you eat some f- awful fast food-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Power.
- CWChris Williamson
... from a motorway services, how do you feel after-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you've eaten it? Your body-
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... knows, you know.
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah. And you regret that you ate it. You know, one of the things that's going on, it's one of the benefits of, uh, of intermittent fasting, uh, and having something light and, and energy-dense and vibrant is, if it doesn't pull all of the blood out of your brain into your digestive tract, you know, so you feel slow and, and, and sluggish, one of the benefits... I remember the first time I ever, uh, started doing intermittent fasting and, and wouldn't eat until like 1:00, I, I was like bouncing off the, off the walls with energy. And I was like, "That's crazy, why do I have so much energy?" And it's because my, my, uh, blood is not drawn to my digestive tract if you have a heavy breakfast.
- 54:38 – 56:20
Biggest Tips for Longevity
- CWChris Williamson
If there was a bunch of headlines of things that you wish you could tell people to stop taking or stop doing in service of their longevity, what are the biggest wastes that don't move the needle that you wish people wouldn't focus on?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Uh, I, uh, start with one, don't waste your time watching the news.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- PDPeter Diamandis
Uh, become, uh, become selective on what you let into your mind. Uh, this is an extraordinary time, um, so guard your n- what shapes your neural net, uh, the best. On the food side, it's get rid of sodas. Uh, fruit juices are, you know, insane, uh, but it's sugary me- substances and, and carbs. Can you, can you reduce your, your glucose intake? It will-
- CWChris Williamson
Have you got an issue with diet drinks?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Uh, you know, the phosphoric acid in, in, uh, in diet drinks, so I just don't do sodas. Listen, I, I may do a, a Coke Zero once a year, but it's not like I, you know... Um, and then, uh, you know, it's, it really is about, um, it's, it's not any one thing, um, but it's make a few small... Don't try and do everything. Make a few small changes in your life, uh, in these areas. I think sleep is one of the biggest changes people can make that changes everything because it fuels you, um, so, uh, it's nothing... there's no other "stop doing," uh, that I would, I would list.
- CWChris Williamson
Peter Diamandis, ladies and gentlemen.
- 56:20 – 57:19
Where to Find Peter
- CWChris Williamson
If people want to keep up to date with the stuff that you do, where should they go?
- PDPeter Diamandis
Yeah, sure. So my podcast is, uh, called Moonshots & Mindsets, and uh, uh, it's really of deep focus on all of these areas. Uh, uh, I'm on Twitter and Instagram @peterdiamandis, and then uh, diamandis.com is all of my blogs and all of the tools and all the products that I, I provide folks. So listen, I'm on a mission to inspire and guide entrepreneurs to create a hopeful, abundant, uh, and compelling future, and that's what I love doing. And Chris, thank you very much for having me on the show today.
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you. What's happening people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks, and don't forget to subscribe. Peace.
Episode duration: 57:19
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