Source: Huberman Lab Clips
David Goggins and Dr. Andrew Huberman explore the neuroscience behind willpower, emphasizing how overcoming challenges and engaging in unwelcome tasks can fortify the brain's anterior midcingulate cortex.
TRANSCRIPT
Huberman: I'm going to share a little neuroscience tidbit.
Goggins: Love it.
Huberman: But I think it's one that you'll appreciate. Most people don't know this, but there's a brain structure called the anterior midcingulate cortex, as we pointed out before. That's a noun, it's a name, it doesn't mean anything.
Goggins: Right.
Huberman: We could call it the cookie monster.
Goggins: Right.
Huberman: But what's interesting about this brain area is there's now a lot of data in humans, not some mouse study, showing that when people do something they don't want to do, like add three hours of exercise per day or per week, or when people who are trying to diet and lose weight resist eating something.
Goggins: Right.
Huberman: When people do anything that they, and this is the important part, that they don't want to do, it's not about adding more work, it's about adding more work that you don't want to do.
Goggins: Yes.
Huberman: This brain area gets bigger. Now here's what's especially interesting about this brain area to me, and by the way, I'm only learning this recently because it's new data, but there's a lot of it. The anterior midcingulate cortex is smaller in obese people, it gets bigger when they diet. It's larger in athletes, it's especially large or grows larger in people that see themselves as challenged and overcome some challenge.
Goggins: Right.
Huberman: And in people that live a very long time, this area keeps its size. In many ways, scientists are starting to think of the anterior midcingulate cortex not just as one of the seats of willpower. But perhaps actually the seat of the will to live.
Goggins: Now we're talking.
Huberman: And when I learned about the anterior midcingulate cortex, I was like almost out of my seat. And I've been in the neuroscience game since I was 20. We're the same age. And I was so pumped 'cause I've heard of the amygdala fear, prefrontal cortex, it's planning and action. I could tell you every brain area and every, I teach neuroanatomy to medical students. But when I started seeing the data on the anterior midcingulate cortex, I was like, whoa, this is interesting.
[00:02:10]
Goggins: Yep.
Huberman: And all the data points to the fact that we can build this area up. But that, as quickly as we build it up, if we don't continue to invest in things that are hard for us that we don't want to do, that's the part that feels so Goggin-esque.
Goggins: Yes, sir.
Huberman: To me, that we don't want to do, like if you love the ice bath, “Yeah, I love the ice bath,” and you go from one minute to 10 minutes, guess what? Your anterior midcingulate cortex did not grow.
Goggins: None.
Huberman: But if you hate the cold water, if you're afraid of drowning and you get into water and put your head under… and survive, then the anterior midcingulate cortex gets bigger. But if you don't do it the next day, or if you do it the next day and you enjoy it because, hey, hey, I did it yesterday, woo-hoo, happy me, Merry Christmas, as you would say.
Goggins: That's right, Merry Christmas.
Huberman: Guess what? The anterior midcingulate cortex shrinks again.
Goggins: Yep.
Huberman: To me, this is one of the most important discoveries that neuroscience has ever made because it's that I don't want to do something but do it anyway that grows this area. And it's almost like I have a friend, he's been sober 30 years from alcohol, and he always says, you know, the amazing thing about addiction is there's a cure, the problem is it only works one day at a time.
Goggins: Yep.
Huberman: And so, you have to renew it every day.
Goggins: That's right.
Huberman: So the anterior midcingulate cortex to me, when I learned about it, two things went off in my head: whoa, this is super interesting; and two, I got to tell David Goggins about this. And I waited until now…
Goggins: I'm glad.
Huberman: … to tell you because I felt like, well, for obvious reasons, I wanted to tell you and I wanted to tell you here.
Goggins:
Well, I love that because that's how I've lived my entire life. I didn't know anything about that. But people go, “Man, you have such a strong will.” It's something that you build. Like I never forgot, I was on a podcast one time, and this dude goes, “You were blessed with a strong mind.” Like, what the hell you talking about: I was blessed with a strong mind? That's something that you have to develop.
You develop that over years, decades of suffering and going back into the suffer.
That's why a lot of people who graduate Navy SEAL training, I talk about very openly all the time, a lot of guys don't want to go back into that water, don't want to go back into the hard stuff. Anything hard, anything hard in life, once you get through it, it's like you become a POW. Like, how many POWs you know want to go back to POW camp? None. When something sucks so bad in life, this is on this, that we're talking about now, very few people want to go back. They're happy they graduated.
I realized I'm the same way, I don't want to go back. I have to go back, I must go back. Because that is exactly where all the knowledge of my life exists was back there and exactly what you're talking about. Well, I didn't know anything about this, but how I grew a will was constantly doing these things. So now, it's just life. I wake up, while it still sucks, it's just life. You don't sit back and like, oh my God, like I have days I don't want to do it, but I know I'm going to do it.
I know from years of just doing it, so that's beautiful. And this is why I came on here with you today, and I'm glad that you're talking about this because human beings need to hear this. They need to stop hearing these hacks on this and that. There's no fucking hack, bro, there's no fucking hack. Yeah, you may this and that and saunas and this, all this shit that they, yeah, it's great. There is no fucking life hack. To grow that thing, how do you grow it? Do it, and do it, and do it and do it. That's the hack, the hack is: it's going to fucking suck. And that's when I realized, that's when I realized.
That's why I wanted to come on here today, I didn't want to come on here and talk about no fucking passion and purpose and how to get the fuck out of bed and how to hit a fucking alarm clock and all this catchphrase bullshit, 'cause that wasn't how I lived, it wasn't how I lived. I woke up like every human being does and goes, “Fuck, man, I'm a fucking piece of shit today. How the hell is this going to work out for me?” And you fight that and you fight that, you don't override it, there's no override button. It's the conversation in your head. So how do you do that?
We don't have enough of these conversations about the real conversation that every human being is having and they have no idea how to get out of it, but they do. It's that shit right there, man. You got to build your will. How do you build your will? Exactly what you said, man.
Exactly what you said.
Huberman:
Well, I feel like knowing the name of something, anterior midcingulate cortex doesn't fundamentally change us. But one thing I like about biology is that, willpower, if somebody feels they don't have it, feels like this thing that other people have. But everybody, unless they're brain damaged, like a hole through their head has two anterior midcingulate cortex, one on each side of their brain. Everyone has one, they have two.
So I feel like it's just a question of opening the portal, and the portal, again, I'm going to say it 10 times and forgive me, is I think people go, “Oh, I do hard things, I do sets to failure, and then I do forced reps.” I love training with weights, I love doing sets to failure, I even like forced reps, but guess what? I like forced reps, so I'll tell you, they don't build my anterior midcingulate cortex.
Goggins: Right.
Huberman: Because I like to do it.
Goggins: That's right.
Huberman: Anything you like to do is not going to enhance this aspect of willpower. And it seems so obvious once you hear it, you kind of go, “Oh yeah, of course.” But I think you really close that loop for people when you share what you're sharing today and what you've shared elsewhere before as well, when you're trying to explain the friction is the critical ingredient.
Goggins: Right.
Huberman: And I think people think, oh, if it's effort, well, then, I'm getting better, that's part of it – necessary, but not sufficient, as we say in science. But the suck part, the being haunted, the stick, they're really unpleasant terms.
Goggins: Very.
Huberman: These are probably the most unpleasant terms we've ever used on this podcast. Those are the levers, those are the gears. And without those, this thing that you're talking about, David Goggins as a verb.
Goggins: Right.
Huberman: You know, I sometimes make the joke, but it's not a joke.
Goggins: Right.
Huberman: Goggins is a name and it's a verb. People go, “I'm going to Goggins that.”
Goggins: Right.
Huberman: Right? But that's, I think, again, I'm not a psychologist, but I think that's what you're talking about. The stick, the friction, being haunted, it's the suck part that grows this anterior midcingulate cortex.
Goggins:
So now you know why there's so many people that fail in this world to figure out their purpose, their purpose in life, where do I go? Because to grow that, while you may not look like me, how my daily life looks. It don't look fun, it don't look fun. So it's a choice that people have to make in life. But what's so funny about it is even the richest of rich, who have everything, they always ask me this question, “I feel like I'm missing something.” I don't feel like I'm missing shit. I don't have what you all have, but you'll never in my life hear me tell you I'm missing something. And everybody is, they're missing this feeling. I found it, a long time ago, and I found it right there in that willpower thing.
When you're nothing, nothing, and change yourself into something like me, you call it happiness, peace, whatever the fuck you want to call it, people are missing exactly what went on with David Goggins. “Why don't you smile?” I do, I do. But I figured something out, that's why you'll never hear me say, “I'm missing something.” I found it years ago. You find it in the suck, you find it in the suck, and you find it repeatedly in the suck, to the point where you know exactly who you are.
Most people are missing something because they don't know who they are, they never examine themselves, they've never done this experiment on themselves. The lab rat, we're all lab rats. But you are also the scientist. You create your own self. Most people are missing something 'cause there's so much trapped in there. I don't even want to say potential, I think that word's used too much too.
There's so much in you that God or whoever the hell you believe in, or if you're a atheist, in you, that you have not unlocked, that you walk around with this gorgeous wife or great husband and all this money, you're like, “God, I feel like I'm missing something.” Yeah, because it's about 75% of you is still fucking in there, still chained up, because you just didn't want to find your willpower, didn't want to find your soul, your will, your heart, your determination, your guts, your courage.
And what that looks like, it looks scary, like your little scary lab I went in, scary. To wake up every day and say, “I'm stupid, but I want to figure out a way to be smarter,” versus saying, “Man, I just can't do that” – so you limit this box, so your box becomes so small of things you can do.
My box wasn't even a box, it was a fucking little like little pinhole. And then, through examining myself, getting some willpower, some courage, it became bigger than this table. But that's what we all do, that's why I wanted to come here today and talk to you about real shit. Not no fucking like hacks, there's no hacks, bro. It's you against you, you against you. And if you misunderstand that, you have a real problem, real problem. I can understand you misunderstand me running down the street, shirt off, “Fuck this, yeah, yeah,” I can get it, I get it.
If you misunderstand what I'm saying right now today, the problem is you, and you don't want to fix it.
