The secret to a disciplined life | Pavel Durov and Lex Fridman

I've seen you be once again quite stoic

about your emotions. You ever get angry?

You ever get lonely? You ever get sad?

The roller coaster of human emotion. And

what do you do with that when you make

difficult decisions? I'm a human being

like everybody else. I do get to

experience emotions and some of them are

not very pleasant.

But I believe that it's the

responsibility of every one of us.

to cope with these emotions and to learn

to work through them.

Self-discipline is particularly

important because without it, how can

you overcome

this

seemingly endless loop of negativity or

despair

that ultimately leads to depression for

some people? I normally never have

depression. And I don't remember having

depression in the last 20 years at

least. Maybe when I was a teenager.

But one of the reasons for that is

I start

doing things. I identify the problem. I

can see a solution and I start executing

the strategy.

If you are stuck in this loop of being

worried about something, nothing's ever

going to change. And people often make

this mistake thinking, "Oh, I should

just have some rest and then regain

energy." This is not how it works. You

gain energy by doing something. So, you

start doing something, then it happens.

You feel motivated. You feel inspired.

And then ultimately you do something

else a little bit more, a little bit

more. And in a few years, who know you

may end up achieving great things. Yeah,

that's the thing that people really

confuse. If if you're stuck

in in a depressive cycle, even when you

really, really, really, really don't

want to do anything, just do something.

Try try to make progress because the

good feeling comes on the end of that.

The whole point is to do first and then

feel. not feel and then do.

>> Exactly. And going to the gym is a good

example.

There are many days when you don't want

to start working out, but they have you

have to overcome this initial reluctance

and then you get to a point that you

enjoy it and you think, "Oh my god, it

was such a good idea to come to the gym

today." But it's similar to pretty much

every activity.

You get to write some code.

Write a small piece of code first and

then you get inspired. Then you'll come

up with more ideas.

You need to write a novel or just write

a paragraph.

This is pretty obvious and it's not a

secret. But because we are bombarded

with all kinds of information that is

not really important for us in terms of

becoming successful,

we often forget the important things and

this is one of them. We've been working

out every single day. You have been

working out for many years

pretty intensively. So, I think a lot of

people would love to um know what's your

perfect daily workout regimen.

Let's say on a daily on a weekly basis.

>> I do 300 push-ups and 300 squats every

morning. And in addition to that, I go

to the gym normally five, six times a

week,

spending between one or two hours every

day.

>> So, push-ups and squats are still a big

part of your routine.

>> Yes, this is how I start my day.

I'm not sure they do a lot in terms of

changing your body, but they're

definitely a good way to

practice self-discipline

because you don't want to do this

push-ups in the morning most of the

days. Squats are particularly boring.

They're not that hard. They're just

boring.

But you overcome it and then it's much

easier to

start doing other things.

related to your work. For example,

when I can, I also take a nice bath

because it's another exercise of self-

discipline. I think the main muscle you

can exercise is is this muscle, the

muscle of self-discipline,

you know, not not your biceps or or or

your pecs or anything else

because if you get to train that one,

everything else

just comes by itself.

>> Yeah. everything else becomes easy. We

should mention I went with you uh to BA

and um I think it's fair to say you're

nuts

in terms of how much you can handle. Um

and I didn't even see the worst of it.

Can you can you just speak to the the

your crazy escapes in the BA? What value

you get from it? So both the heat and

the cold.

>> I I don't know if it's crazy. I think

it's quite natural and normal by this

time.

>> Yeah. Yeah,

>> but maybe I could just got used to it.

So, ba is this uh extreme kind of sauna

practiced by Eastern Europeans.

>> Yeah.

>> But it is done

in a way that maximizes heat and they

also use all kind of herbs and branches

and

it's a much more holistic and natural

experience.

Then a necessary part of it is you get

the cold plunge

and then you go back. And again, this is

one of the things that maybe in the

moment is not always that pleasant,

particularly if you go to extreme

temperatures,

you don't feel great. I don't always

feel great, but this feeling is passing.

It's only a few minutes.

Same with the ice bath. you have to

suffer a bit

and then you get to feel great for hours

and days after.

What's more, it gives you this long-term

health benefits. In a way, you can look

at it as alcohol in reverse. Alcohol

will give you this short fleeting

pleasure for an hour, for a couple of

hours, but then you will be paying for

it with long-term negative consequences.

I'd rather do banana in ice bath.

>> We uh swam the length of a large lake in

France a couple times. Can you u talk

through why you value these multi-our

swims?

>> I left swimming for hours. The longest I

swam was 5 and 1/2 hours in Finland. Was

quite cold. I got lost in the process.

Barely could find my way back.

But

the reason I do it, yes, you feel great

after you're shaking a little bit. You

feel great after you cross a huge lake

and I cross many lakes. Geneva Lake,

Zurich Lake, and every time you feel

this achievement,

which

makes you happy, makes you feel strong,

and then you're more ready to other

challenges.

And of course, when you know you're

going you're going to start a journey

that will last a few hours, you're

reluctant to do it. But you swim for 10

minutes and then for 20 minutes and then

for 30 minutes

and it teaches you this incredible

patience

that I think is necessary if you want to

achieve anything in life and it's pretty

meditative lake versus ocean.

>> Yes. And you don't have to go too fast.

>> Yeah.

>> You can be slow and enjoy the moment

>> until you get lost and it's 5 and 1/2

hours. Did you panic like if you're

going to be able to find the shore or

find your way out? Not really. I'm a

reasonably stress resilient person. I

didn't panic at that moment. And there

were worse swims I had that were shorter

but involved accidents and you know

about some of them. So that wasn't the

worst by far. But an important thing

about swimming and physical activity in

general is that it makes your mind clear

and your thinking process is becoming

more efficient.

Because at the end of the day, the

efficiency of our brain is limited by

how much sugar and oxygen our heart can

push through blood to our brain. So how

can you make this go faster or how to do

you make your lungs more efficient? How

do you make your heart more efficient in

doing that? The physical activity is the

only way I know of. So, it's not just

staying healthy

or trying to look good. It's also

being

productive. It's also being stress

resilient.

All of these qualities are necessary if

you want to run a large company, if you

want to start a company.

I'm surprised when I started doing this

more than 10 years ago that more CEOs

didn't engage in sports.

The situation changed in the last

several years, which is great because

back in the day, if you take 20 years

ago, there was this stereotype that if

you're strong, you must be not very

smart and vice versa, which is a

complete lumacy.

Very often these two things go together.

>> So for you working out it's not just

about staying healthy. It's actually

valuable for the work that you do as a

tech leader, as a engineer, as a

technologist.

>> Oh yes. When I can't train,

I can instantly feel

that stress is creeping on me. I

>> Yeah. So even in situations where I'm

constrained, I can't go to the gym. I

would just keep doing push-ups. I keep I

just keep doing squats.

>> Yeah. I mean, that's the cool thing

about body weight exercises. You can

just do it anywhere.

You can just pop off 50, 100 push-ups

before a meeting.

>> I don't you feel weird when you have a

day without physical activity?

>> Yeah. If I go a day without doing

push-ups at the very minimum, that's a

shitty day.

>> And if you can do pull-ups, it's even

better.

>> Yeah. I got to ask you about your diet,

too. No processed sugar, no fast food,

no soda, intermittent fasting, sometimes

once a day only. Sometimes a couple

times a day. Uh, so take me through your

philosophy on the no sugar, no no soda,

just clean food.

>> Well, sugar is pretty easy because it's

addictive.

The more you consume sugar, the more you

want it. The hungrier you get.

>> So if you want to stay efficient and

healthy,

why consume processed sugar? You'll just

end up snacking all the time.

intermittent fasting. So say eating only

within six hours and not eating for 18

hours every day also

brings structure into your day and into

your eating um habits. So you don't

crave sugar anymore because you know if

you eat sugar and then you're unable to

snack,

you're just punishing yourself.

I read a few books on longevity. I think

something everybody agrees on is that

sugar is uh harmful.

No, I'm not militant about sugar. Like

you can eat berries, fruit if you feel

your body needs it,

but it's not true to think

it's necessary to consume sweet things.

Not for children, not for adults.

Red meat, I stopped eating it about 20

years ago because I just felt heavy

every time I had it. So, I guess it's

individual. It's my metabolism. My

digestive system

isn't

uh agreeing with with with this kind of

food. So, I normally eat seafood of all

kinds and vegetables. This is

the basic source of calories for me.

>> Yeah. And like all things uh you said

short-term pleasure isn't worth your

future. So a lot of things we all know

that alcohol is destructive to the body.

Tobacco, pills, processed food, sugar,

but society puts that on you makes it

very difficult to avoid. So I I guess it

all boils down to just discipline.

>> Yes. and trying to identify

the real cause of an issue you're

experiencing.

If you experiencing a headache, one

solution would be to take a pill and

then the headache disappears.

What this pill would actually do in most

cases, it would

mute

the consequence, your feeling of pain.

It's a painkiller.

it will not eliminate the root cause. So

you have to ask yourself what is it that

is causing this headache.

Uh do I need to drink some water?

Is the air quality here bad? Do I need

to start getting more sleep? Is there

something wrong with people around me?

They're stressing me out. There must be

some reason why you're experiencing a

headache. But if you take a pill, you're

not removing this reason. you're

actually making it worse

because this harmful factor is still

there. It's like you're piloting a

helicopter and there is some red signals

and red lamp starts to blink and and it

starts producing bad unpleasant noise.

What would you do? You would try to

figure out the cause and eliminate it.

Maybe there is some mountain next to you

and you have to avoid it or you take a

hammer and smash the signal.

I think the answer is quite obvious. So

why are we constantly doing this

regardless? Oh, because everybody else

is doing it because there's a whole

industry trying to persuade you that

this is the right thing to do.

So, it's incredibly important to analyze

yourself and try to get to the bottom of

things. So, you generally try to avoid

all pills, all pharmaceutical products.

Yes, I've been staying away from all of

that since I became an adult. When

you're a teenager, your mom would

typically say, "We need to take this

pill, otherwise, you know, the world

collapses." Um, yeah. Yeah,

>> once I became a grown-up, I said, "No, I

don't think that the producers of pill

are incentivized in the right way. They

are not really interested in eliminating

the root of the problem. They would

rather have me dependent

on the pills they're producing

um so that I could buy them forever."

And then I also realized, no, I'm not

saying that you should never take pills.

There obviously is some diseases

that you can only fight with

antibiotics, for example.

So I'm not suggesting we go back to the

middle ages.

Uh but what I'm saying is we overuse

pills. Yeah, it's always good to uh

study and deeply understand the

incentives under which the world

operates so that you don't get swept up

into the forces that operate under these

incentives and big pharma is certainly

one of them. Pharmaceutical companies

have a huge incentive to keep the

problem going versus solving the

problem. It's wise. Well, this is

something I practice every day. I read

some piece of news and I ask myself

who benefits from me reading this. Then

you can end up coming to this conclusion

that maybe 95% of things we read in the

news have been written and published

because somebody wanted you to

buy some product,

support some political cause, fight some

war, donate some money. Let's do

something that would benefit other

people. And this is not a problem to

support causes that you truly believe in

as long as it was your intentional

choice and you're not being manipulated

into fighting other people's wars. And

that takes us back to the original thing

we started talking about which is

freedom. One of the ways to achieve

freedom of thought is to remove your

mind from

uh the influences, the forces that

manipulate you. That's really important

to realize. the the content you consume,

especially on the internet, when a large

percentage of it is designed to

manipulate your mind, you have to

disconnect yourself and be very

proactive understanding what the biases,

what the incentives are so you can think

clearly, independently and objectively.

And again it ties back with uh

restraint from alcohol.

>> Yeah.

>> Because if your mind is clouded, how can

you analyze yourself? You'll always be

def dependent on opinions of others.

you always follow the mainstream

and with then whatever the authorities

or whoever in charge will tell you you

believe it because you don't have a tool

of your own to rely on to come to your

own conclusions.

I have to ask you this this is something

that came up. You don't watch porn. I

don't think I've heard you talk about

this before. What's the philosophy

behind not watching porn? You know,

there's a lot of people that talk about

uh porn in general having a very

negative effect on young men on their

view of the world, on their development

of their sexuality, and how they uh get

into relationships and all that kind of

stuff. So, what's your philosophy in not

consuming porn? I don't watch porn

because I just feel it's a surrogate, a

substitute for a real thing

that

is not necessary in my life. If

anything,

it just forces you to exchange some

energy,

some inspiration to a fleeting moment of

pleasure. Doesn't make sense. And in any

case, as I said, it's not the real

thing. So, as long as you can u access

the real thing, you don't need to watch

porn.

But then if you can't access the real

thing, it's you shouldn't watch porn as

well because it means there's some

deficiency in your life, some problem

that you have to overcome.

>> Yeah. Analyze the underlying cause.

Uh and again this goes back to the theme

of investing in uh long-term flourishing

versus uh short-term pleasure.

There's this there's a theme to the way

you approach life. I try to be

strategic. I try to act under assumption

that I'm not going to die in 1 hour from

now

>> and I'm going to stick around for a bit

despite the fact that we are all mortal.

So why would I exchange the mid and

longterm for the short term? Doesn't

make any sense.