Jamie Wheal is an expert in peak performance and leadership, specializing in neuroanthropology - the intersection of culture, biology and psychology. He is the co-author of the global bestseller and Pulitzer Prize nominated book, Stealing Fire, and the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of ultimate human performance. Since founding the organization in 2011, it has gone on to become a leading voice of evidence-based peak performance, counting award-winning academics, legendary professional athletes, special operations commanders, and Fortune 500 business leaders among the hundreds of thousands of people in its global community.

​On this podcast, Jamie discusses the “meaning crisis” that we’re suffering as a society, with fundamentalism and nihilism filling the vacuum. He offers a blunt and eye-opening perspective on where we are today as a culture, why it’s so hard to make sense of the world, and how our efforts to cope are likely making things worse. Jamie explains how best to bring about healing, inspiration, and connection, so we can wake up, grow up, and show up for a world that needs us all.

Jamie’s upcoming book, Recapture the Rapture, is set to release on April 27, 2021.

Here’s the outline of this interview with Jamie Wheal:

[00:00:28] Book: Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex, and Death in a World That's Lost Its Mind, by Jamie Wheal.

[00:00:51] Book: Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work, by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal.

[00:01:22] Jamie's journey: music, mushrooms, mountains, and marriage.

[00:10:10] Narcissism in the spiritual marketplace.

[00:13:57] A meaning crisis.

[00:17:22] Book: Omens of the Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection, by Harold Bloom. 

[00:24:01] Article: The Rise of Victimhood Culture by Conor Friedersdorf.

[00:24:10] Book: Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell.

[00:25:08] Books by Christopher Ryan: Civilized to Death and Sex at Dawn. 

[00:34:37] Podcast: The Postmenopausal Longevity Paradox and the Evolutionary Advantage of Our Grandmothering Life History, with Kristen Hawkes.

[00:40:32] Neuroanthropology + cultural architecture.

[00:41:33] Nitric Oxide.

[00:43:12] Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman. 

[00:46:22] Healing, inspiration, and connection.

[00:47:31] 5 forces: respiration, embodiment, sexuality, substances, music.

[00:52:23] Book: Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein.

[00:53:49] Dr. Nicole Prause.

[00:56:10] Psychedelics.

[01:08:02] The importance of self-organizing groups.

[01:08:41] Where trauma and talent intersect.

[01:11:36] Recapture the Rapture website.

[01:12:27] Get the audible version of Recapture the Rapture.

[01:12:50] Stay awake, build stuff, and help out.