A recurring guest investor describes taking the entire month of August off after hitting a wall of digital overload and anhedonia during COVID — no phone, no email, no podcasts, no social media. He walks through the withdrawal symptoms, the reset, and what listening to Andrew Huberman’s podcast with Stanford addiction doctor Anna Lemke taught him about why it worked: he had essentially been running a self-directed dopamine fast.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host), Guest (investor, Victoria BC)
Introduction: Digital Burnout and Bailing on August [00:00:00]
Sam: You’re successful — successful in the traditional sense. You’re a good friend. You normally come on a lot, but you just tweeted about how you kind of took off for all of August and bailed because you were having a meltdown — which we’ve all had before — like a digital overload meltdown. And you just bailed, right?
Guest: Totally. It was really bad. It’s interesting to think about — I think this happened to everyone over COVID, like their life just shifted in a weird way. And my life just became crappy during COVID, which is weird because I had this amazing year. We took a business public, we raised a big fund, we got to work with all these interesting people, we bought some great businesses, I didn’t die of COVID — like all these great things happened, and yet I was totally miserable.
When I kind of zoom out, my old day… you guys know I live in Victoria, Canada, and I didn’t even have an office. I would just work out of cafes — go to the same cafe every day, sit there with headphones on. Three or four of my friends would always work there, so it was kind of like Cheers. There were always interesting people to talk to. And my day was just broken up into a bunch of chunks — on any given day I wouldn’t really be on the computer or in one place for more than an hour or two.
And my day went from that to sitting in a house on my computer all day on Zoom, doing email. It just made me miserable.
Why Business and Socializing Matter [00:02:30]
Guest: When I look at what I love about business — I don’t actually love doing business per se. Strategy, coming up with ideas, all that stuff is great. But the cool thing about business is you get to meet interesting people. Business is just a hack, right? If you’re interested in health, you figure out a health business and you suddenly can meet all the most interesting people in that world. And I’m an extrovert. So anyway, I was totally bummed.
I started going on Twitter a lot because I was craving socializing. And I went from like 20,000 followers to 170,000 followers — I got totally hooked. A good day would be: I have a viral tweet, or I go on your podcast, or something exciting happens. A bad day would be: I say something on Twitter, I get dunked on, I get misunderstood, or it doesn’t do well.
I’d tweet and it would only get like 50 likes instead of 5,000 likes — and that would throw my whole day off. So I got to a point where I was like, Jesus Christ, this is totally ridiculous. I’m thinking about Twitter constantly, I’m checking Twitter constantly.
And on top of that — email, checking stats, checking stocks. If I went to the bathroom without my phone, I felt like I was going to freak out. Constantly listening to audiobooks, constantly listening to podcasts, no silence.
Hitting the Wall: Anhedonia [00:05:00]
Guest: So I hit this weird breaking point on August 1st. I woke up and I was like — I’m not stoked to get out of bed. I’m not depressed. Objectively, everything is fine. I just have anhedonia. I’m not excited about anything.
Sam: What’s that word you just said? That was a good one.
Guest: Yeah, it means like an inability to feel pleasure. Nothing would get me pumped, nothing would give me a hit. You know when you go on Netflix and you’re scrolling endlessly for the perfect thing and you just can’t find it? That’s how my life felt.
The Detox: Rules and Withdrawal [00:06:00]
Guest: So I basically — it’s the middle of August, I live in British Columbia, it’s super beautiful — I said to my wife: I’m out for the next month. Let’s go off to our cabin, go on some trips, and I’m just going to totally check out.
I set a couple rules for myself: no phone, no email, no computer, no podcasts, no phone calls, no social media, no news. I couldn’t even read non-fiction business books. Pretty extreme. I put on my Apple Watch — it has cellular, so I figured if there’s an emergency I can get a phone call — put my phone in a drawer, and just disappeared.
I went up to my cabin and hung out with my kids. And honestly, for the first three or four days, it felt like there was a bug in my brain. I was just so irritable. Being a huge ass. I was slapping my pocket every five seconds to check stuff. I’d be sitting on the beach with my kids and I’d constantly think, “Oh, I need to text this to a friend” or “I gotta take a photo of this.” Really weird, horrible withdrawal.
But then after like three or four days, I was like — holy crap, this is really interesting. I started reading fiction books, just sitting for hours, enjoying a sunset, taking a silent drive, doing all this stuff.
The Broccoli Effect: Resetting Baseline Pleasure [00:08:30]
Guest: It’s kind of like if you eat junk food all the time — you’re drinking Coke, having burgers all the time — and then you eat broccoli, it doesn’t taste that good. Your brain is primed for extreme flavors. But if you stop eating the junk food for a month, then eat broccoli — broccoli is orgasmic. It’s amazing.
So I did this for four weeks, and I was feeling really good. When I came back to life and started going out and working again, it was really bizarre. I’d listen to a song playing in a cafe and it would be like the greatest song I’d ever heard. I’d read some random article and it would be fascinating — I’d just be completely engaged.
And problems I had to solve that would have pissed me off before seemed like no problem. I was actually excited to solve them.
The Science: Huberman, Anna Lemke, and Dopamine [00:10:30]
Guest: I started going like, why did that work? What was it about that?
Around that time I started listening to podcasts again, and I listened to this episode of the Huberman Lab podcast. I’m sure you guys have listened to it — he’s amazing.
Shaan: Yeah, he’s coming on the podcast.
Guest: Oh amazing, that’s awesome. So he did this deep dive on addiction with this woman Anna Lemke, who’s a Stanford addiction doctor. I thought it would be about heroin addiction or alcoholism, so I’ll start listening to it — you know, those other people with those other bad problems.
Sam: It’s fun to read about them.
Guest: Totally, I was like, maybe this will be philanthropic — maybe I can help fund the heroin addiction center in Victoria or something.
As I listened, I just went, oh my God. This is not about those people. This is universal. Basically, dopamine — the neurotransmitter — is the thing that makes you feel craving and pleasure when you do things, and it motivates you to do things.
She said something along the lines of: if you eat chocolate cake once a month, it tastes amazing. You don’t really crave it that much. It’s very pleasurable. If you eat it once a week, it’s still enjoyable, you start having some cravings, you start wanting it. If you eat it every day, your brain literally craves it — and you’re in pain until you eat it. And when you eat it, it’s not even that enjoyable. It just makes the pain go away for a little bit.
She compares that to heroin addiction. And then you realize: we’re all stimulating ourselves with social media 24/7. We’re constantly taking these hits, and the hits become less and less enjoyable.
She’s at Stanford treating students, and she talks about kids who come in addicted to social media and video games — no motivation. And she says: I basically recommend a dopamine fast for four weeks. They can’t do any of that. They have to go walk in silence, drive in silence, have quiet moments, not avoid those feelings.
And I realized I’d basically done that for myself. That’s why I felt better. I was an addict. It’s crazy.