The B.rad Podcast Scott Carney, Author Of The Wedge. Discovering The Space Between Stimulus And Response To Become A More Resilient Human
“Life is all about stress and choices,” says investigative journalist and anthropologist Scott Carney. He discovers how humans can wedge control over automatic physiological responses into the breaking point between stress and biology, so we can reclaim our evolutionary destiny.
Today, he’s back on the show to discuss his new book, The Wedge (listen to his first episode here). In his New York Times bestseller, What Doesn’t Kill Us, Carney submerged himself in ice water and learned breathing techniques from daredevil fitness guru Wim Hof. Not only did it give him superhuman levels of endurance, but it quieted a persistent autoimmune illness. At the core of those methods is a technique, called The Wedge, that can give a person an edge in just about any situation.
Wedge is a choice that separates stimulus from response, and this applies to anything. In this show, Carney shares the story of the time he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, shirtless (and in 30 hours!), and then we get into some interesting scientific observations as he explains how you can get access to a whole other part of your biology. He also explores our obsession with food, our overabundance of food, and how it’s destroyed the original purpose of taste, which is to lead us to nutrition and survival. We also touch on the importance of being “open to anything,” and how the lessons that came from his incredible endeavors, as crazy and impossible to accomplish as they sound, can be applied to everyday life, and the importance of pushing the limits and rediscovering our humanity. It’s all really just about developing emotional and sensory resilience. These are the building blocks of human experience. And the coolest thing is Carney is an ordinary guy, not a biohacker or super athlete or guru, and he puts in a plug for chilling and watching Netflix, and to NOT look to gurus, but to instead find your own way. However, he also realizes the importance of pairing the luxuries and comforts of modern life with pushing the limits.
“We evolved with a sensory system,” Carney points out. We feel, we think, we sense things. But why do we even have sensations in the first place? Because all the external sensory input we experience is delivering a choice to us: “It’s coming into our body so our minds can make a choice about what that sensation means, and what we can do with it.” All of our experiences get filed away with our “Limbic Librarian.” Then when they happen again, we build these associations, and we can get into dysfunctional relationship dynamics, or get controlled by fears. And while our sensations do mean things, it’s not always what we assume, because they are so linked: “Emotions and sensations are bonded in a very fundamental level of neurology,” Carney explains.
So what does Carney attribute his incredible resilience to? A huge part of it is his mindset. He views challenges from the perspective of: “I am participating with the environment, and those sensations are part of me...I am connected to the environment through my nervous system, and my brain gets to decide what I’m doing there.” He searches the globe for people who understand the subtle language of how the body responds to its environment. He confronts fear at a cutting-edge neuroscience laboratory at Stanford, and learns about flow states by tossing heavy weights with partners. He meets masters of mental misdirection in the heat of a Latvian sauna, experiments with breathing routines that brings him to the cusp of transcendence, searches his mind in sensory deprivation tanks, and ultimately ends up in the Amazon jungle with a shaman who promises either madness or universal truth. All of this in service of trying to understand what we’re really capable of. What can we accomplish when there are no true human limits? Enjoy listening to this show and be sure to grab a copy of The Wedge!
TIMESTAMPS:
Scott Carney is an investigative journalist and anthropologist who discovers how humans can wedge control over automatic physiological responses. [02:07]
Life is all about stress and choices and The Wedge is defined as a choice that separates stimulus from response. [06:07]
The ability to sense the world comes from way down inside where our animal instincts are. [09:17]
Emotions and sensations are bonded at a very fundamental level is our neurology. [14:28]
Scott was trying to study his fear neurology. Kettleball Partner Passing can sure be a test. [15:33]
You have to maintain that focus when you are in that flow state. [21:27]
Seek out adventures of this nature to try to build resilience. [24:03]
Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with Wim Hof was a nearly impossible challenge. [27:37]
Having gone to such extremes of human performance and endurance,
Scott has made a change in attitude. [30:45]
We tend to put people on a pedestal. [33:20]
What is a limbic librarian? It is a way we file different experiences with sensations in our brain. [38:32]
Scott writes about the sensations around the intake of food. [46:20]
The three main building blocks of human existence are time, emotion, and sensation. [56:54]
When you push yourself to do tough things, it balances out the parody between rest and digest in fight or flight. [59:36]
Scott’s next book is looking for a human connection. [01:02:09]
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