Diet and Mental Performance Insights

I also love suffering cause I'm Russian.

So fasting kind of makes you appreciate the,

makes you appreciate what it is to be human somehow.

So, but I have a, outside the philosophical stuff,

I have a more specific question.

It also helps me as a programmer and a deep thinker,

like from the scientific perspective,

to sit there for many hours and focus deeply.

Maybe you were a hacker before you were CEO.

What have you learned about diet, lifestyle,

mindset that helps you maximize mental performance

to be able to focus for, to think deeply

in this world of distractions?

I think I just took it for granted for too long.

Which aspect?

Just the social structure of we eat three meals a day

and there's snacks in between.

And I just never really asked the question why.

Oh, by the way, in case people don't know,

I think a lot of people know,

but you at least, you famously eat once a day.

You still eat once a day?

Yep, I eat dinner.

By the way, what made you decide to eat once a day?

Like, cause to me that was a huge revolution

that you don't have to eat breakfast.

That was like, I felt like I was a rebel.

Like I abandoned my parents or something

and became an anarchist.

When you first, like the first week you start doing it,

it feels like you kind of like have a superpower.

Then you realize it's not really a superpower.

But I think you realize, at least I realized,

like it just how much our minds

dictates what we're possible of.

And sometimes we have structures around us

that incentivize like, you know, this three meal a day thing,

which was purely social structure versus necessity

for our health and for our bodies.

And I did it just, I started doing it

because I played a lot with my diet when I was a kid

and I was vegan for two years

and just went all over the place

just because I, you know,

health is the most precious thing we have

and none of us really understand it.

So being able to ask the question through experiments

that I can perform on myself and learn about,

is compelling to me.

And I heard this one guy on the podcast, Wim Hof,

who's famous for doing ice baths and holding his breath

and all these things.

He said he only eats one meal a day.

I'm like, wow, that sounds super challenging

and uncomfortable, I'm gonna do it.

So I just, I learn the most when I make myself,

I wouldn't say suffer,

but when I make myself feel uncomfortable.

Because everything comes to bear in those moments.

And you really learn what you're about or what you're not.

So I've been doing that my whole life.

Like when I was a kid, I could not speak.

Like I had to go to a speech therapist

and it made me extremely shy.

And then one day I realized I can't keep doing this

and I signed up for the speech club.

And it was the most uncomfortable thing

I could imagine doing.

Getting a topic on a note card,

having five minutes to write a speech

about whatever that topic is,

not being able to use the note card while speaking

and speaking for five minutes about that topic.

So, but it just, it puts so much,

it gave me so much perspective

around the power of communication,

around my own deficiencies

and around if I set my mind to do something, I'll do it.

So it gave me a lot more confidence.

So I see fasting in the same light.

This is something that was interesting,

challenging, uncomfortable,

and has given me so much learning and benefit as a result.

And it will lead to other things

that I'll experiment with and play with.

But yeah, it does feel a little bit

like a superpower sometimes.

The most boring superpower one can imagine.

No, it's quite incredible.

The clarity of mind is pretty interesting.