Why you've evolved to underestimate yourself
Michael Easter is the New York Times bestselling author of The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain. His work focuses on how people can push their physical and mental limits, tolerate discomfort, and perform better. His ideas have been implemented by NFL and MLB teams, US Special Forces units, and NASA.
He is also the author of the 2% Newsletter — because 2% of people choose to take the stairs when an escalator is available. More broadly, "only 2% of people will do the harder thing that has a greater long-term reward if there’s an easier option." His work is about helping people join the 2%.
The Hybrid Letter talked with Michael about how to think about discomfort, why people have evolved to underestimate themselves, and the limitations of wearable technology.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Hybrid Letter: Both training for and competing in Hyrox and other hybrid races require you to endure a lot of discomfort. To be successful, you have to let yourself sit in discomfort. But the feeling itself is something you are hardwired to avoid. You are someone who talks about the importance of seeking out discomfort and making yourself more open to it. How do you approach that process? How can you make yourself more willing to be uncomfortable for longer periods of time?
Michael Easter: I compare it to going out to an edge, and you think you've reached the edge, but when you get close to the edge, the edge expands. You have to get to the point where you're marinating there. Sit in that space a little longer. It sucks, but you don't die.
The next time you try to return there, you're gonna realize it isn't as bad. Your fitness may have increased. But what really unlocks things for people the psychological relationship we have with our ability to tolerate discomfort.
I just did a 50-mile ruck in Normandy. You have a weighted pack on your back. It's a long time to ruck. It takes 17 hours. To prepare for this, my wife and I would always do a 12-mile walk together. I bring my ruck. Once you are at mile 10 of the 12-mile ruck, you're thinking, "When is this going to be over? This sucks." But when I hit mile 10 of the 50-mile ruck, I'm totally fine. Why is that? It's because psychologically, I know I'm barely into this thing.
Your beliefs around the effort and cues around the effort determine how you will perceive it. And that, in turn, impacts your performance. This has been demonstrated in studies. One of my favorite studies takes take a group of people and tells them to run on a treadmill until they are completely exhausted. And then they'll give them this little cue. They'll tell them that most people generally tap out at one hour. And then the scientists show them a clock that is either running a little too fast or a little too slow. And what happens is that most people tap out in an hour plus two or three minutes. So they go a little bit farther than what they thought everyone else did. But in reality, because of the clock being sped up or slowed down, they might have actually gone 45 minutes, or they might have gone an hour and 20 minutes. So really, they weren't fully exhausted. They told themselves they would probably be exhausted by an hour and three minutes or whatever they decided made sense.
At the end of the day, we're talking about sensations and sensations get put through mental filters. If you are running up a hill, and your quads are burning, it sucks. If you're having sex, well, that's awesome. It could be the exact same sensation. But the situation, the environment, and the context are different. It's a totally different story you tell yourself.
So I think these perceptions, they absolutely alter your ability to perform, and starting to understand that and unpack the layers is a big part of being able to sort of go there and realize you're gonna be fine. Realizing that the well runs much deeper and being willing to explore that, even though it is uncomfortable in the short term. These are all just sensations, and they're all going to go away. The context changes what we think about them, and that, in turn, changes how we react to them. That's important to consider in the context of a fitness event when you think about whether you can keep pushing.
So how do you get to a point where you are able to go further than you usually do? That's where adding distractions to your routine comes in handy. Most people will be able, for example, to go longer if they are outdoors. And that's simply because your environment is changing. Let's say you are going to do 10 miles on a treadmill. That sucks. You are indoors and nothing is changing. All you have to focus on is the mileage on the screen ticking up. But outdoors, because there is a lot of different stimulation and things to focus on, you can get to that ten miles with less perceived effort simply because you are not obsessing about the distance. So a big unlock for me with running is going outside and running more and longer. When you stop focusing on the numbers, you might find you are actually capable of doing a lot more.
THL: How do you balance the idea that your brain is telling you that you've run out of juice before you actually have with the reality that, at some point, you have pushed things too far? At some point, it might even be dangerous.
ME: In the grand scheme of things, humans have evolved to be underconfident and overly capable. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense to have people who are generally risk-averse. But then, if you get thrown into a risky situation, you have the ability to sort of get out of it.
So think about if we had to cross a river a million years ago. Some of us would say, "That looks a little dangerous. Let's not do that." On the other hand, others say, "I can cross that river. I'm the man." If the river is too fast, those people get killed off. The risk-averse people survive. But then, the risk-averse people are being chased by the barbarians. The ones that survive again are the risk-averse people who can make it out of a tough situation anyway. The big picture idea is that most people are going to sell themselves short. And there are good evolutionary reasons for that. Going back to the question, I think if you have a good, rounded-out training program where you're not doing too much too soon, you are probably not going to get injured.
THL: Another thing you talk about in your writing is kind of the concept of boredom and our need to be continuously entertained. Hybrid races are pretty exciting. There is music and a lot of people cheering. But to perform well, you need to do a lot of very monotonous Zone 2 cardio work that can be boring. And, as a result, some people probably do less of that than they should. How do you improve your ability to tolerate boredom?
ME: Boredom is evolutionary discomfort that tells us that whatever you're doing right now, the return on your time invested is worn thin, and you need to go find something else to do. And now, our something else is cell phones and TV. Really stimulating things.
I think you do find when you remove those, your mind tends to wander and you tend to get into interesting ideas and go interesting places with your brain. It's not always interesting. Sometimes you just think, "Did I leave the lights on?" I do think that starting to see boredom as an opportunity to get some good ideas is helpful. When you don't immediately go to that stimulating thing, your mind is going to start searching for things and sometimes goes to interesting places. As a writer, a lot of my best ideas come when I'm bored. So really flipping it into an opportunity.
The average American is on digital media anywhere from 11 to 13 hours a day, according to the Gallup poll. So a long training session where you are not able to be on Instagram or watch TV is actually a good thing. Lean into that.
Some of the time, on a long run, try not listening to music or a podcast. The fewer resources you need in order to accomplish something, the more resilient you will be. Because when you get the competition, things are never going to be perfect. So, if you can train yourself to perform even when you don't have your podcast, your book, or your music, I think that's going to be better. It's also going to give you the opportunity to see how your mind works.
THL: For this newsletter, we frequently talk to some of the top competitors in the sport. Some people, when they are racing, use a watch to track their heart rates, splits, and other information. Other top competitors race without any technology at all. What your views were on the use of technology and how it might impact performance?
ME: I think generally, less is probably more. I wrote a whole series in the 2% newsletter about activity trackers and some of their limitations. The more complex the metric, the more likely it is to be wrong. Even heart rate metrics on wrist-based monitors vary widely. They may not be the same day to day due to a variety of factors.
If a metric is consistently incorrect, it can still be used useful. Let's say you're tracking your calories, and you're wrong about the calorie content of certain items that you're tracking. But you're eating the same things. You are wrong. But you are consistently wrong. And the tracking will still allow you to make reasonable judgments. But if something is inconsistently wrong, which a lot of these trackers are, it's totally useless. You can't make a plan around that.
Time is a good one, because the clock is always always going to be right. 60 seconds is 60 seconds. Distance can be a good one. By once you starting thinking you need to be at a specific heart rate, that gets a little iffy. Your tracker could be wrong that day because you put sunscreen on.
It goes back to what I was saying about screens and stimulation. The fewer things you need, the better off you are going to be. If you learn to judge things based on feel, you will be better off in the long run. At the same time, the tracking can help you understand what certain things feel like. The goal is to use it temporarily to understand yourself. But once you've learned from it, you don't want to become reliant on it.
We've come so far in tech. But Roger Bannister was wearing peice of shit shoes and broke a four-minute mile. You have people today who can't run an eight minute mile who are obsessed with their shoes and their trackers. They just need to run more.
Science Corner: Strengthening your foot can make you a faster runner
A new study published in Nature found that doing simple exercises to strengthen your foot muscles "may improve lactate threshold velocity which is connected with running performance." A group of amateur runners who spent 8 weeks doing simple foot strengthening exercises like Vele's Forward Lean were able to run faster at their lactate threshold. You can check out the full protocol used by participants in the study here.
The study also had a group of participants who trained in minimalist shoes in an effort to strengthen their foot muscles. That group, however, did not experience statistically significant improvement in their running performance.
Athlete of the Week: Robin Perségol
Name: Robin Perségol
Age: 30
Hometown: La Malène, France
When did you start hybrid racing? I started Crossfit in 2018 and got hooked right away. I decided to pursue running to stay in shape when the gyms shut down in 2020. I never looked back. I did my first Hyrox and ran my first Marathon in the same month at the end of 202., I was hooked.
Favorite race to date and why: Hyrox World Championships in Nice this June. The venue was beautiful. It really felt like a home race, being in France in front of my family and friends. I also got a personal best that day, despite being the hardest push I ever had to give. Garmin can confirm I raced with an 187 bpm average on my HR chest monitor. I am proud of the way I showed up in front of my loved ones and gave my all. The best you can do is to give your best effort on a given day, and I did just that.
Do you have a race goal? Hyrox sub-60 minute is still my main race goal. As a side quest of mine, running 100 miles is on my list. I failed to run 100 miles at last year's Last Man Standing in Maine. (DNF at 85 miles). It’s on the back burner while I focus on Hyrox this upcoming season.
Favorite station? Farmer Carry. I always take heads on that one. I usually feel “fresh” after the rower and can cruise. I finished in the top 10 in the world championship despite having to slalom between slower gentlemen.
Least favorite station? The burpee broad jump. The lightest I have been doing Hyrox is 200+ pounds. My heavy ass bod makes them super challenging for me. I seem to always redline by the end. I am currently petitioning for the burpees to be replaced by an assault bike station. (Kidding.)
Something you wish you knew when you started racing? Prior to 2024, I had been training for Hyrox pretty much by myself. I did get better, but I wished I started earlier with a coach specialized in hybrid racing. My coach (the great Rylan Schaddeg) has been an amazing mentor, showed me holes in my past preparation and introduced me to many training modalities. He is helping me piece it all together better. Get a coach, it’s worth it.