I don’t think I have to remind you.  This year is an election year.

Aside from the circus to find America’s overwhelming consensus (51%?) for POTUS, every local and civic-level idea will also need that old democratic push.  

Do local roads need to be redone?

Does the high school needs a new weight room?

New DA for the county?

Ok, not into politics? 

Me either.  My jam is human performance and longevity, so how about ideas that hit YOU personally? The truth about human performance.

What are the best foods to eat to stay healthy?

Best shoes for running on pavement?

How much should you lift if your back is a bit sore?

Pillows for neck pain?

Just “Google it” doesn’t work well when the information available is enormous.

Indeed, we’re at a level where the information you get will be pre-packaged as “confirmational bias” based strictly on what you enter in the Google search bar or how you phrase the question to Siri or Alexa.

For example:  

Daily in my clinic, I am asked each of the above questions, and then my all-time nemesis…”How do I best stretch (this body part)”

Maybe that’s why you came to this page in the first place.  To learn a new stretch that holds the key to unlocking your misery.

The problem is: You probably don’t need to stretch that, and even MORE LIKELY, stretching is THE CAUSE of why you aren’t recovering.

It’s maddening.

So how do you get to the TRUTH?

For Six Years, I’ve added articles and podcasts to this site.  This year, I learned something that will forever impact my life and has made me a 100x better doctor and decreased my stress levels at work by at least an equal amount.

Like most of the ideas I share on here, I got this from someone smarter than I.

Let me introduce Dr. David Eagleman to those who might not have heard of him yet.   

He’s got a huge list of credentials as a professor at Stanford and the host of the Hit podcast “The Inner Cosmos.”   He’s a thinker and better yet, an explainer.  A teacher and he recently tackled the idea of finding the TRUTH in a series of some of the best lectures (on podcast) I’ve come across.

One of the people that make my list of, “People who have changed my life without ever having met them.”

He explains:

“Everybody is going to have their own truth, because we are coming from a different perspective and a different set of experiences.”

First, I’ll emphasize what he states, that for most people, they aren’t actually even looking for the truth anyway.   More than likely, (please see episode 40 of The Inner Cosmos, ) “For most people, the search for truth is nothing more than a confirmation of what they already believe.”

I see this every day in my clinic.  From clients as well as myself.

On this topic-

“It’s not that one of us is misinformed, and we need to convince the other person that our way is correct. It is more that there is no correct. We come from different perspectives, experience, and ideals.”

We are looking at the same thing but seeing it through different lenses. 

You can think that your idea is spot on, and you can find and possess mountains of evidence to support that idea, stretch, candidate, expense, shoes, pillow.   TikTok and Insta can show you “proof!”    But that’s only because you found something that you already align with.  It’s confirmation, not truth.

Let’s simplify.

Even the best version of yourself and the over-stressed/hectic version of yourself are two very different people.

This idea isn’t strictly psychological either.  It’s literally not the same you.

Different times, different locations, different hormones and brain interactions.  You physically can NOT operate or make the same decisions when you are feeling stressed and overloaded.   Different Truths because of different lenses.

Even to trust your own decision-making. 

Here’s the science

Survival emotions, fear, anger, disgust, shame, and sadness operate under cortisol.

At the other end are joy, excitement, love, and trust, which operate under oxytocin.

We’re talking a huge difference in brain interactions here!

Now multiply that by 8 billion+ with people from different cultures, upbringings, experiences, and thought processes where some of them were cut off in traffic and haven’t slept in 20 hours while others just received their first kiss and yeah…

Truth.

It’s maybe not such a tangible thing.   I’m up there with Dr. Eagleman when I think it’s okay not to take these ideas so personally.   You don’t need to prove your point and most likely can’t.   It Doesn’t mean you can’t be friends OR that the person behind a different opinion is uneducated and dumb.   It’s not “woke,” enlightened or wrong.  It’s simply their truth at that particular time and location.   It is available for change, modification, and evolution as experiences change.  

Like everything I share on this page, I hope this helps dial back stress, makes you think a little bit, and introduces you to a host of smart guys and girls out there right now pushing philosophy, thinking, modern ideas and healthy insight to those searching.

For more on truth and fantastic examples that will impact you immediately- my whole “Awareness changes Perspective” vibe-check out Eagleman’s podcasts on truth and a host of other great stuff he’s working on!