#796: L.A. Paul — On Becoming a Vampire, Whether or Not to Have Kids, Getting Incredible Mentorship for $250, Transformative Experiences, and More

This episode of the Tim Ferriss Show interviews L.A. Paul, a Yale professor whose research focuses on selfhood, decision-making, and transformative experiences. The conversation explores the challenges of making life-altering decisions, particularly those where the future self will be significantly different from the present self (e.g., having children). Paul uses thought experiments, such as the vampire scenario, to illustrate how traditional decision-making models fail in such cases. She suggests that the decision becomes one of choosing to discover a new way of being, acknowledging the inherent uncertainty and potential for both positive and negative transformations. Listeners gain a framework for understanding and approaching difficult life choices where the future self is unknowable.