How to Discover Your Passion | Dr. Andrew Huberman

Kevin's Question: How to Find Your Passion?

00:00Hello, Mr. Andrew Heberman. My name is Kevin and my question is, how does one find what they are truly passionate about? Because anyone that follows you and what you do can safely assume that you're passionate about health, science, and teaching the community about those things.

00:20And as someone who just graduated from college and is finding themsself in the world, and I'm sure I can speak for millions of other people, I was wondering if there was any sciencebacked evidence of being able to find what someone is really truly passionate about.

00:37Kevin, thank [clears throat] you so much for your question. This is a vital question in our lives, regardless of age. Oh, and congratulations on graduating college. That's no small feat. I know people have mixed feelings nowadays about the value of degrees, etc.

00:54I, you know, and here I'm heavily biased. I'm a university professor. Um, and I'm, you know, super enthusiastic about learning and teaching and all the rest. But I I still think for many, not all, it it's a wonderful choice and and it's no small thing to finish uh a degree.

01:10So, congratulations to you and to your family. Finding your passion, that's a big question. It's actually one that I touch on in the final chapter of my book among other things in that chapter. And that's not a plug for the book. Um, it's just simply to say that I go into this in in some detail beyond what I'm going to offer here just for sake of time.

01:29I'll do my best to give

Maintain Daily Structure

01:32you and anyone else listening to this what I think are the key things regardless of age. First of all, if you don't know what your passion is, and even if you think you might, even if you are absolutely sure you do, it is absolutely critical that if you want to be successful, that you continue to be structured about your daily life.

01:56Now, I don't mean overoptimization, doing every single health protocol. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is you need to have a purpose each day and waking up even if it's not the thing. It doesn't feel like the thing.

02:11So I think it's very important if you're a student to focus on your studies. If you're able to do that and not work, more power to you. Many people have to do that and work. If you're working a job, no matter how far from where you would like to be eventually internally, you know, if it's the completely wrong career for you, until you start to feel something pulling you or even just tilting you in a slightly different direction, it is vitally important to continue to take care of yourself to try and get the sleep that you can, to get your morning sunlight, to get some exercise.

02:43Do those things. Doesn't matter if you're a store clerk, you're selling shoes. I mean, long before I became a scientist, I mean, I worked in skateboard shops. I sold shoes. I assembled um uh radio flyer wagons and toys at a toy store. Um I mean, I worked in a bakery.

03:01I had a paper route. I mowed lawns. I did all those things. Um I can't say that I loved all those jobs. Some of them I liked more than others. Some of them paid barely anything. Some of them paid a little better. But it's just so important to con to stay busy and to continue to work and work on yourself.

No Input, No Output

03:20And this isn't just theory, right? You're you're cultivating the skills that in some way you're going to apply to your passion once you find it. Now, how do you find the passion? The way you find the passion can be best summarized. Not to sound uh mystical here, it sounds a little bit like a riddle, but you know the great Joe Strummer from the Clash who in my opinion started the better band, the Mescaleros later, which wasn't punk rock, it's not I don't even know if it's rock and roll, it's just music.

03:47Amazing. He created three masterpieces later in his life. You know, he had this saying which was it was literally called Strummer's law, which is no input, no output. You need to be interfacing with the world in order to have ideas and to discover what your passion is.

04:02You know, the other day, um, because I had a bunch of just kind of wrote things to do, I had to handle a bunch of stuff that could be done kind of mindlessly, but it had to be done. I was listening to a lecture on modern art history. I just decided to put that in modern art history documentary into YouTube.

04:18Just saw what came up and I discovered two artists that just completely blew my mind. And I love art. I love modern art. I hadn't really gone down this rabbit hole of these two particular artists and it doesn't really matter who they are or what they did but in that listening I had a couple of ideas about things related to the visual system that I worked on years ago and some interest that I have in eye health as it relates to some of this emerging peptide science field.

04:49Okay, that's the way the brain works. It's taking different nodes of interest and combining them and that's what your original contribution to the world whatever it happens to be in whether it's in exercise science or finance or you're a high school teacher those things are going to converge in the unique version that is you.

05:06Now the only way that you can find your passion is to keep an active interest in the world. That also means not getting pulled into other people's rabbit holes. You need to avoid two things critically.

Avoid Drama & Numbing Out

05:21These are the don'ts. Avoid drama, especially getting pulled into it, and avoid numbing out. Anything that activates you, gets you angry. Okay, that might be something that could turn into a sense of justice and advocacy. Great. If that's your path, okay, maybe you go into public policy or something of that sort or into advocacy for animals or the world or certain group of people.

05:45Great. But [snorts] you have to be very careful that you're not getting pulled into meaningless dramas that you're not also numbing out because a lot of what's out there in the world is designed to do one or two of those things. So stay structured in your life.

05:58Do some job work. This is critical. I also think at a certain age for some people earlier than others because they have to earning your own money just feels good even if it's not a lot. just earning your own money, putting in savings, maybe spending some of it, putting into investment account, that kind of thing feels really good.

06:15You're building something. That algorithm, that underlying operation of doing something, showing up, trying to be good at it, maybe even great at it, even though it's not your calling, sets the stage. It prepares you for when you get kind of pulled towards something.

06:32Oh, I'm really interested also in this aspect of fitness or this aspect of film making. And eventually you'll pick your trajectory. And the key thing is to remember that's not your final trajectory. You're heading off on a vector that will take you someplace that will take you someplace else, someplace else.

06:49You may have one career, you may have several in your lifetime, but no input, no output. Remain curious and become good and ideally great at listening to your own inner compass or I like to think about it antenna. Occasionally I see something I'm just like, "Wow, this is I don't know why it's interesting and I don't care."

07:09You're inspired by it. Some element of it gets into your consciousness and you move forward with that. I actually have a notebook. This is something I've done um since my teens. Early in my academic career, I had a a list. I update that

Track What Inspires You

07:22list and I have names of different people. Some were from the world of science, some from health and fitness, some from art, some from music. I'm not a musician. I have zero minus and infinity musical talent, but I love music as a consumer.

07:37I just really enjoy being a consumer of it. These are people whose kind of careers or what they did really impressed me. They resonated with me. That's that's the thing because I mean a lot of people impressed me, but it resonated with me. And over the years, I would cross some out and add some in.

07:52And in many ways, the career arc that I've taken, the passion arc or passions plural arc that I've taken is a reflection of all of that, plus my own unique experience. By the way, this was long before podcast or even heard about personal development or any of that.

08:09Get in touch with what moves you, what wakes you up, what kind of gives you a charge in your body that's not meaningless drama. And also avoid numbing out. And here's the other piece. If you're going to go down a particular path, this is so critical.

08:22If you're going to go down a certain path, don't try and bring your unique spin into it too early. Every career path, whether

Chop Wood, Carry Water

08:32it's biological sciences or psychology or exercise physiology or finance, there's a chop wood carry water phase of that where you have to develop the competency and go from unskilled to skilled and hopefully from skilled to mastery in that thing.

08:47And first of all, no one wants to work with the person that's trying to bring their own unique spin to the thing that they barely understand too early. Okay? You have to get your chops in something. So, you have to apprentice yourself to something.

09:00And that can be very difficult for people who have a sense of self that they're a little different. They don't want to do things the way everyone else does. They need to see themselves, their unique gift in the thing. And I'll tell you what, you will be able to do that and you can transform an entire field.

09:14You will literally change the game of what you do. But you got to get the core mechanics and the basics first. You don't get to come in there and be like, I'm me and I'm going to change the game. No, it's chop wood, carry water. So that's like, you know, [snorts] dribble, shoot, guard, pass, like you know, basketball, whatever.

09:33Whatever your at that time vocation turns out to be, you have to work through the core mechanics of that. You have to see the things you're proficient at, the things that come naturally. And then of course there going to be things that are much harder for you and you're going to have to overcome those to be in that field.

09:50And this can be a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow. But if you can accept that you're going to apprentice yourself to this thing for a short while knowing that it's not or a long while knowing that it's not your final destination and that you'll eventually be able to bring in some probably not all but some of your unique gifts to that craft.

10:07And that's where your unique contribution is going to come through. So, what I'm describing here are a number of different tributaries that all start with you that eventually converge in your unique gift to your passion. But in the meantime, stay structured.

10:21Take care of yourself. Avoid meaningless drama. Don't numb out. Try different things. Develop a sense of taste. What moves you toward or away from things? Learn yum yuck me. Like if you see something or like something in a given area of whatever any vocation like yes, I love that or no, I definitely don't like that or meh.

10:43There can be some mess and some yums, but the uh no, that's not going to work. But with that said, once you take on something, you decide to do it. There going to be some things that are hard. Don't confuse that for yuck. It just means you haven't developed the skill set yet.

10:57And you're going to have to embrace and tackle certain things that are hard for you. You have to chop

Mastery & Unique Contribution

11:03wood, carry water for a while. But once you go from unskilled to skilled and you're starting to transition from skilled to mastery and certainly once you've developed mastery in an area then you can bring together or include some of your unique experience and do something truly unique, truly exciting and transform your field likely transform the world because in some small or large way you're going to transform the world.

11:22So that's the recipe for finding your passion. It's really about being you, but plugging yourself into some sort of system long enough to get really good at something so that then you can put your stamp on it. Worked for me. [music]