Two Percent with Michael Easter
From New York Times bestselling author and journalist Michael Easter comes a twice-weekly deep dive into the science of living better by doing things the hard way. Building on the insights of his #1 Substack and acclaimed books, Easter balances rigorous evidence with a healthy dose of skepticism to cut through the noise of the modern wellness industry. Whether he’s interviewing elite explorers and Harvard biologists or deconstructing the truth about longevity and metabolic health, this isn't a show for "biohacking" perfectionists—it’s a grounded, often humorous guide for real people looking to build resilience and agency in an increasingly comfortable world. From ancient wisdom to cutting-edge research, listen to Two Percent to discover why the antidote to modern malaise is often found in the challenges we’ve been taught to avoid.
Episodes
#47: Lessons from Singlehandedly Fighting Off a Terrorist Attack | Christian Craighead
Michael speaks with Christian Craighead, a former SAS soldier and author of One Man In, about the afternoon he singlehandedly fought off a major terror attack in Nairobi and what it teaches about acting while afraid, leading people, and being ready before anything happens. They discuss:
(00:00) Preview(00:38) Entering a terror attack with no backup(07:11) How a hard childhood shaped Christian's r
#46: How to Learn Faster and Remember More | Jim Kwik
Michael speaks with Jim Kwik, brain coach and author of the new book Limitless Daily, about how to learn faster, remember more, and use AI to get smarter instead of dumber. They discuss:
(00:00) Cold open(01:30) Jim's early learning struggles(05:32) The question that changed Jim's approach to learning(17:30) Problems with school systems and tech use(23:00) Using AI to get smarter, not dumber with
#45: Inside the North Tower on 9/11 | Chief Joseph Pfeifer
Michael speaks with FDNY Chief Joseph Pfeifer, who led the first fire units into the North Tower on 9/11 and later gave the order to evacuate the towers. Chief Pfeifer later served as the FDNY Chief of Counterterrorism and Emergency preparedness, is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and wrote Ordinary Heroes, which examines what 9/11 taught him about crisis leadership, resilience, and t
#44: How to Recover From Trauma and Come Back Stronger | Elizabeth Smart
Michael sits down with Elizabeth Smart, who was abducted at 14, survived nine months of captivity, and spent the decades after building her own path to recovery. She is the Founder of the Elizabeth Smart foundation and host of The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart, a true-crime podcast where she speaks with survivors of violent crimes about healing. Michael and Elizabeth discuss: (00:00) Cold op
#43: Avoiding Anxiety Makes it Stronger & Relationship Rules | Dr. John Delony
Michael speaks with Dr. John Delony, host of The Dr. John Delony Show and author of Building a Non-Anxious Life. They discuss: 00:00 Preview00:54 Mental Health and Relationship Lessons from Thousands of Callers09:09 Why The Problem People Describe is Never the Real Problem 12:45 What People Are Really Calling About25:51 Lessons from a Homicide Detective28:28 Why Punk Rock Teaches Stewardship32:09
#42: A Trial Lawyer’s Rules for Hard Conversations | Jefferson Fisher
Michael sits down with trial lawyer Jefferson Fisher, author of The Next Conversation, on why hard conversations are some of the most uncomfortable things we do and how to handle them with strength. They discuss: 00:00 Preview01:41 The hardest conversation he's ever had05:30 What to do before having a hard conversation 14:57 Don't win the argument, understand it17:02 Let your breath be the first w
#41: Should You Take Peptides? A Doctor’s Evidence-Based Answer | Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum
Michael speaks with physician and competitive powerlifter Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum about what peptides are, why they suddenly seem to promise everything, and what the human evidence actually shows.
They discuss:
0:00 Preview0:45 Michael FaceTimes Foster Kamer about peptides8:28 What is a peptide?13:00 BPC-157 and the evidence problem19:40 Why pain relief doesn't prove peptides work24:19 Promising pe
#40: A Navy SEAL’s Case for Being Humble and Obsessed | Eric Frohardt
Michael speaks with Eric Frohardt about his twelve years on SEAL Team 6 as a sniper and assaulter—and what you can learn from it. They discuss:
0:00 Preview0:39 How to stay calm under pressure6:09 How farm work built resilience9:17 The bet that started a SEAL career17:02 How adults can train courage19:45 Watching 9/11 from Guam22:20 From the SEAL Teams to DEVGRU26:13 Why preparation cannot guarant
#39: A Harvard Psychologist on Mindset and Not Following the Rules | Ellen Langer
Michael speaks with Ellen Langer, the first woman tenured in Harvard’s psychology department and author of The Mindful Body, about how our thoughts and expectations shape aging, health, and performance. They discuss:0:00 Preview0:45 The experiment that changed how we see aging4:29 How beliefs change the body10:52 Placebo, nocebo, and imagined exercise12:16 Mindfulness without meditation17:31 Why c
#38: How to Use AI, Kill Complacency, Think About Health, and More | Tyler Cowen
Michael speaks with economist Tyler Cowen, author of The Complacent Class, about how AI is changing our lives and what still matters for health, happiness, and ambition. They discuss:
0:00 Preview0:48 Should we panic about the future?6:04 How AI makes you smarter or stupider7:36 Mental health, antidepressants, and young men16:26 Why America stopped taking risks19:33 The case for free-range kids21
#37: How to Make Modern Work Less Miserable and What AI is Doing to the Workday | Cal Newport
Michael speaks with Cal Newport, a Georgetown computer scientist and author of Deep Work and Slow Productivity, about why modern work rewards busyness over valuable work and how to reclaim your focus. They discuss:
0:00 Preview0:42 Why modern work keeps us stressed3:23 How busyness replaced real productivity11:41 Why email and meetings destroy focus24:58 Do fewer things, finish them faster30:23 T
#36: Lessons From The Most Dangerous Job: Hotshot Firefighting | River Selby
Michael speaks with River Selby, author of Hotshot: A Life on Fire, about what seven years as a wildland firefighter taught them about grit, belonging, and why landscapes need fire. They discuss:
0:00 Preview0:44 Becoming a hotshot firefighter5:27 Proving they belonged on the crew6:09 Why a hard childhood made a hard job easier8:55 What 48-hour wildfire shifts are like15:46 What fighting wildfire
#35: Why Meat Eaters Belong in the Animal Welfare Movement | Dan Shannon, Humane League CEO
Michael speaks with Dan Shannon, who runs The Humane League and has been vegan for almost 30 years, about why meat eaters belong in the animal welfare movement and what actually improves animals’ lives. They discuss:
0:00 Preview0:51 Why meat eaters belong in animal welfare4:26 What life inside a battery cage is like13:03 Why personal guilt is the wrong strategy15:49 How animal welfare campaigns
#34: Why Our Medical System is Broken and How to Take Back Your Health | Dr. Lucy McBride
Michael speaks with Dr. Lucy McBride, a Harvard-trained physician and author of Beyond the Prescription, about why modern medicine overlooks the whole patient and how to become the CEO of your own health. They discuss:
0:00 Preview0:52 Why patients feel dismissed5:13 Why healthcare focuses on damage control10:23 Why Dr. McBride left the system15:58 The question she asks every patient20:09 Where m
#33: Are the Blue Zones Longevity Hotspots Fake? | Dr. Saul Newman
The Blue Zones built an empire on one promise: copy how the world's oldest people live, and you can join them past 100. Saul Newman, a demographer at the University of Oxford, went looking for those long-lived people in the records. Most of them were not there.
Michael sits down with Newman, author of Morbid: Debunking Modern Longevity Science, to walk through what he found. When Japan audited it
#32: Art is the Missing Pillar of Your Health | Daisy Fancourt & Jesse Albrecht
Most people can name four pillars of health: diet, exercise, sleep, and stress. Daisy Fancourt, the researcher behind a 146-page World Health Organization report on art and health and the author of Art Cure, argues there is a fifth: the arts. The evidence she lays out is striking. Regular arts engagement is linked to about half the risk of developing depression over ten years, slower biological ag
#31: The Science of Muscle and Protein | Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Most of us assume America's biggest health problem is obesity. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, a physician for 20 years and the founder of Muscle-Centric Medicine, argues we have spent 50 years fighting the wrong problem. We are not over fat, we are under-muscled, and obesity is a symptom of unhealthy skeletal muscle.
Michael pushes on where the argument is strongest and where it might miss. They get into whe
#30: Life Lessons From the World’s Most Dangerous Places | Robert Young Pelton
Robert Young Pelton spent his early career as an advertising executive with 50 employees, a Rolls Royce, and a half acre on the ocean. At 40, he walked away from it to become a journalist and report from the world's most dangerous places. In the 30 years since, a Liberian rebel has put a bullet two inches from his ear, a Colombian death squad held him at gunpoint for ten days, and he’s arranged se
#29: Summitting Everest and a Case for Adventure | Dr. John Kedrowski
Most people will never even think about climbing Mount Everest. Dr. Jon Kedrowski has been on seven Everest expeditions and reached the summit four times. Along the way he survived the 2015 earthquake that killed 20 people in front of him at base camp, a storm that killed seven climbers on the night of his first summit push, and a lightning strike that destroyed his tent on a Colorado peak while h
#28: What High-Stakes Poker Tells Us About Making Better Decisions | Maria Konnikova
Maria Konnikova earned a PhD in psychology at Columbia studying human decision-making. She then took her research into the most unforgiving laboratory there is: the poker table. From playing her first hand of poker in 2017, to training under the legendary Erik Seidel, and becoming a poker champion, Maria sits down with Michael the day before playing in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, to sh
#27: The Best No B.S. Self-Improvement Books | Alex Wieckowski (Alex & Books)
Summer is peak reading season, so it only made sense for Michael, author of “The Comfort Crisis” & “Scarcity Brain,” to sit down with Alex Wieckowski of Alex & Books, the man who has read two books a week for the past decade. Together they build a list of some of their favorite books, including one hidden gem from Tolstoy, “A Calendar of Wisdom.” Alex tells the true survival story that made compla
#26: Sports That Protect Your Brain From Dementia | Dr. Tommy Wood
It turns out that tennis might be one of the best things you can do to protect your brain from dementia as you age. For this episode of Two Percent, Michael Easter sits down with neuroscientist Dr. Tommy Wood, author of The Stimulated Mind, to explain why sports that make you think while you move are amazing for your brain. The list includes tennis, pickleball, martial arts, and even strongman com
#25: Why Numbers, Scores, and Metrics Make Life Worse | Thi Nguyen
Ever feel like you're winning at life on paper, hitting your steps, your salary goals, your sleep score, and somehow still feel worse? This episode explains why.
Host Michael Easter sits down with the thinker who's lived rent-free in his head for five years: C. Thi Nguyen, a philosophy professor at the University of Utah and author of The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game.
They dig i
#24: Why Our Brains Lie About How Bad Things Are (and How to Stop It) | Cara Lai & Roy Baumeister
If you turn on the news right now, you'll be hit with a sea of negativity, and it can convince you the world is falling apart. It isn't. Host Michael Easter sits down with two guests to explain why our minds are literally built to outweigh the bad, and how you can bias yourself back toward the positive.
First, meditation teacher Cara Lai offers a tip to instantly disarm anxiety: ask yourself "what
#23: Daily Habits to Keep Your Brain Sharp as You Age | Dr. Tommy Wood
Cognitive decline as you age is not inevitable — but whether you keep your edge depends almost entirely on what you do right now. Host Michael Easter sits down with Dr. Tommy Wood, a neuroscientist and performance consultant who works with Formula 1 teams. His book, The Stimulated Mind, changed how Michael thinks about staying mentally sharp.
They get into why sleep may be the most important fact
#22: Why Sports Fandom is Good for Us | Leander Schaerlaeckens & Dr. Daniel Wann
Every four years, Americans suddenly remember soccer exists. The World Cup is here and it may be the single biggest sporting event in human history: 48 teams, 104 games over 39 days, and a final that draws north of a billion viewers.
Host Michael Easter sits down with two guests to make the case. First, soccer writer Leander Schaerlaeckens, author of The Long Game, on why this World Cup is bigger
#21: Why Health Became the New Religion | Alan Levinovitz
Why do people lose their minds over seed oils, raw milk, carnivore diets, and long Covid? Alan Levinovitz isn't a doctor or a health journalist — he's a religion scholar. And from that vantage point he noticed something you can't un-see: the way most of us think about health functions exactly like a religion, complete with ideas of purity, contamination, salvation, and tribes that turn on you the
#20: Why the Steroid Olympics Flopped and the Truth About Peptides | Chris Gayomali & Sam Eagan
What if you juiced a roster of athletes to the gills with performance-enhancing drugs and let them compete for a million-dollar prize? That's the Enhanced Games — the billionaire-backed "Steroid Olympics" held in Las Vegas — and the results were not what investors expected.
Michael Easter sits down with journalists Chris Gayomali and Sam Eagan, hosts of the Superhuman podcast, who were embedded wi
#19: The Science of Rapid Weight Loss | Tyler Minton
UFC fighters routinely lose 10 to 20 pounds in the 5 days before a weigh-in — then put it all back on in the 24 hours before stepping into the Octagon. It is one of the most extreme metabolic feats in sports, and almost no one talks about what it actually teaches us about everyday fat loss.
In this episode, Michael Easter sits down with Tyler Minton, the nutritionist behind some of the UFC's top f
#18: How to Recover When Life Punches You in the Face | Meisha Tate
Miesha Tate became UFC women's bantamweight champion by choking out Holly Holm in the fifth round at the MGM Grand. Two weeks after the highest moment of her life, she realized the title hadn't fixed anything. The next loss almost ended her. She packed her dog into a Kia, drove up the coast, and rebuilt herself layer by layer. She came back to fighting on her own terms, synced to her hormonal cycl
#17: The Power of the Heat and Sauna | Ashley Paulson & Bill Gifford
When it gets hot, most of us hide indoors with the AC cranked, the workouts moved inside, and the thermostat parked at 72°F all summer long. But humans evolved in the heat, and the new science says we can still use it to get stronger, healthier, and (maybe most surprisingly) happier. In this episode, Michael Easter sits down with two of the best people in the world on the subject of heat.
Ashley P
#16: Thinking Patterns of CEOs, Tech Founders, and the Top 0.01% | Dr. Julie Gurner
Dr. Julie Gurner has a two-year waiting list. The Wall Street Journal calls her the real-life Wendy Rhoades (the psychologist from the show Billions). Though her clients are CEOs, founders, billionaires, and elite operators, she actually started her career inside a supermax prison. In this episode, Michael Easter sits down with Dr. Julie Gurner to unpack what actually separates the top 0.01% from
#15: Dr. Andy Galpin Made Me His Lab Rat During an 850-Mile Hike | Dr. Andy Galpin
A year ago, Michael Easter walked 850 miles across southern Utah in 45 days — about a marathon every day. Dr. Andy Galpin turned him into a lab rat, studying his body before, during, and after his 45 days in the desert. What he found surprised both of them.
In this episode, Michael sits down with Dr. Andy Galpin — the world’s top performance scientist and co-founder of Absolute Rest. He is the guy
#14: The Psychology of Adventure | Jay Carson & Sinhue Xavier
Adventure has been engineered out of modern life, and we're paying for it in ways we don't even realize. In this episode of Two Percent, Michael Easter sits down with two guests who have decentered optimization.
First up: Jay Carson, a former Clinton communications director and Hollywood writer (House of Cards, The Morning Show). Jay signed up for a 14-day Boulder Outdoor Survival School course in
#13: How a Hollywood Legend Got Fit at 60 | Brian Koppelman
What does it take to get genuinely strong, healthy, and creatively alive in your late 50s — while having one of the most demanding jobs in Hollywood?
Brian Koppelman is the writer behind Rounders, Ocean’s 13, and the seven-season hit show Billions. He also helped discover and promote the singer songwriter Tracy Chapman. At 57, he walked off a tennis court mid-match, certain he was about to faint,
#12: How to Eat Healthy Without Going Broke | Dr. Nick Norwitz & George Kamel
What happens when you eat 8 cans of sardines everyday for 30 days? For one doctor, his omega-3 levels hit numbers usually only seen in dolphins, his body fat dropped below 7%, and a smell he couldn't shake put a strain on his relationship.
Host Michael Easter sits down with Dr. Nick Norwitz (Oxford PhD, Harvard MD) to break down the science of the sardine diet. Then, George Kamel (Ramsey Networ
#11: Why Most Habit Change Fails (And How to Get Good at Feeling Bad) | Ryan Soave
Sobriety isn't just "not drinking"—it's learning how to live without needing relief on demand. In this episode, Michael Easter sits down with therapist Ryan Soave (18+ years sober) for a sweeping conversation on why addiction often acts like a solution to deeper pain, how fear and shame quietly run the show, and what it takes to break the compulsion loop for good.
They dig into habit change tha
#10: Why Dogs Make Us Healthier & Happier | Sam Alaimo & Dr. Nancy Gee
Dogs don’t just make us happy—they change how we live. Michael Easter talks with former Navy SEAL and writer Sam Alaimo about why dogs pull us back into the present, create purpose, and help us rebuild after our toughest moments.
Then researcher Dr. Nancy Gee (director of a human–animal interaction center) breaks down what the science actually says about how and why pet ownership contributes to
#9: The Power of Constraints & Why More Freedom Makes Us Miserable | David Epstein
What if everything you believe about freedom is wrong? Author David Epstein joins Michael Easter to break down why constraints — not freedom — drive better work, better wellness, and better creativity. Epstein is the bestselling author of Range and The Sports Gene, and his new book Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better argues we have it backwards on freedom.They discuss why General Magic
#8: Subtraction Mindset: Get More By Doing Less | Leidy Klotz
A 3-year old beat a PhD engineer at an engineering problem while playing legos—and that single moment kicked off a decade of research that exposed one of the strongest, most underrated biases in the human brain: we almost never subtract.This week, Michael sits down with Dr. Leidy Klotz — University of Virginia engineering professor, former pro soccer player, and author of Subtract, which explored
#7: Paths Out of Addiction: Fantanyl, Meth, Marching Band, & Hope | Sam Quinones
100,000 Americans die of drug overdose a year. One solution, today's guest discovered, is rather dorky...Sam Quinones spent 12 years reporting on America’s drug crisis and how heroin, fentanyl, meth have reshaped the country. In this episode, he unpacks how Mexican cartels replaced poppy fields with chemicals, lowered the price of meth by 90%, and unintentionally created a schizophrenia crisis. S
#6: Find Joy in Any Job | Dr. Mim Ari & Robin Greenfield
Is work supposed to feel this miserable? In this episode, Michael Easter sits down with two people who answer the question from opposite ends of the spectrum: one who found deep fulfillment inside the system, and one who walked away from it entirely. First, Dr. Mim Ari, an internist and associate professor at the University of Chicago, breaks down what it actually means to be a "deeply fulfilled w
#5: What Science Says About Alcohol & Social Media | Taylor Lorenz & Dean Stattmann
Everyone has a vice. Drinking, smoking, social media, diet soda. And the modern wellness internet will tell you that if you want to live a long, healthy life, you need to cut every single one of them out. But is that actually true?
In this episode of Two Percent, we take a nuanced look at vices and whether some of them might actually enhance your life when you use them the right way. We don't have
#4: The Science of Whole 30, Food Addiction, and Why Weight is the Wrong Metric | Melissa Urban
Melissa Urban — founder of Whole 30 and author of The Whole30 (updated 2024) and The Book of Boundaries — sits down with Michael Easter for one of the most honest conversations on this feed yet. Two sober people (Michael 10+ years, Melissa 24+ years) unpack the parallels between drug addiction and food behavior, why the first time Melissa went to rehab didn't stick, and the single question that re
#3: Marathon Tactics and the Upsides of Ultraprocessed Foods | Brady Holmer & Dr. Mike Roussell
The 130th Boston Marathon is this Monday. To mark the occasion, Michael sits down with Brady Holmer — a science writer, runner, and 2:24 Boston finisher — to go deep on what the race actually feels like, why super shoes might be saving you 5-8 minutes, how to fuel a marathon without your gut exploding, and whether anyone can qualify for Boston.
Then Dr. Mike Roussell, a PhD nutritionist from Pe
#2: Hunting, Hard Things, and the Mindset That Gets You Through Storms | Donnie Vincent
In this episode of Two Percent, Michael sits down with backcountry bow hunter and filmmaker Donnie Vincent to unpack what months in remote wilderness teach you about stress, calm, and competence. Donnie was featured heavily in Michael’s bestselling book, The Comfort Crisis, and now he joins Michael for the first time on mic since the book’s release.
They talk about the ethics and emotional real
#1: Humans are Built to Walk Farther Than You Think | Dr. Melissa Ilardo and Foster Kamer
Walking shaped humans into who we are—and it’s one of the simplest ways to improve health, mood, and longevity right now. In this episode of Two Percent, Michael sits down with evolutionary geneticist Dr. Melissa Ilardo and writer Foster Kamer to explore what endurance science says about how far humans can actually go, why the brain often quits before the body, and how small daily choices compound
Coming April 7: Two Percent with Michael Easter
From New York Times bestselling author and journalist Michael Easter comes a twice-weekly deep dive into the science of living better by doing things the hard way. Building on the insights of his #1 Substack and acclaimed books, Easter balances rigorous evidence with a healthy dose of skepticism to cut through the noise of the modern wellness industry. Whether he’s interviewing elite explorers and
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