“The Neuroscience of Peak Performance: A Conversation on Human Optimization” with Andrew Huberman and Maya Shankar

March 18, 2026

In this intellectually rich keynote conversation from Eudēmonia Summit 2025, Maya Shankar, PhD, and Andrew Huberman, PhD, explore how human beings change, grow, and realize their potential across a lifetime.

Rewiring the Brain

Grounded in neuroscience, psychology, and lived experience, the discussion examines the balance between genetic predispositions and neuroplasticity. Shankar and Huberman reflect on how focus, reflection, sleep, and deliberate practice allow the brain to rewire well into adulthood.

They unpack:

Why fear-driven change rarely lasts
Why errors are essential for learning
How reflection acts as the missing link that consolidates growth beneath conscious awareness.

The conversation moves through identity, curiosity, visualization, non-sleep deep rest, and the illusion that we are ever finished becoming who we are.

Throughout, the pair offers clear, practical insights on learning, wellness, and supplements, while reframing change as a process that reveals new versions of the self rather than a return to an old one. Together, they offer a grounded and hopeful framework for navigating change with intention, humility, and curiosity.