00:00:00
Stop taking life so seriously. No one is
00:00:02
getting out of this game alive. And in
00:00:03
three generations, no one will even
00:00:05
remember your name. And if that doesn't
00:00:07
give you liberation to just drop your
00:00:10
problems for a moment and find some joy,
00:00:13
I don't know what will because there'll
00:00:14
never be a time when there's no problems
00:00:15
in life. And that's why this time in
00:00:16
between Christmas and New Year is a
00:00:18
really wonderful time to plan big dreams
00:00:19
and goals for the year.
00:00:21
>> So, let's talk about that.
00:00:22
>> Chris Williamson is one of the world's
00:00:24
leading podcast hosts and thinkers. And
00:00:26
now he's back
00:00:27
>> educating us on how to build discipline,
00:00:29
turning goals into results, what's
00:00:30
stopping us finding love,
00:00:31
>> and what makes a good man in today's
00:00:33
society?
00:00:34
>> The single best question to work out
00:00:36
what you should be doing next year, what
00:00:37
would have to happen by the end of 2026.
00:00:39
For me to look back and consider it a
00:00:41
success and it usually comes down to
00:00:43
only a few things. The first one is in
00:00:44
order to pick something up, you have to
00:00:46
put something down. So setting the bar
00:00:47
unrealistically high does not increase
00:00:49
your performance. Like you probably lose
00:00:51
20 lb and get a boyfriend. You can't do
00:00:53
that and move cities and start a new
00:00:55
business. So, make the assumption, I can
00:00:57
do no more than I'm doing now. Second
00:01:00
thing, if your life was a movie and the
00:01:01
audience were watching, what would they
00:01:03
be screaming at the screen telling you
00:01:05
to do with your life? It is obvious.
00:01:07
Leave the relationship. The job is not
00:01:09
working for you. The killer's hiding in
00:01:11
the cupboard. Because if you're not
00:01:12
careful with how you design what it is
00:01:14
that you chase after, you can spend your
00:01:16
entire life realizing that you climbed a
00:01:18
huge ladder that was leaning up against
00:01:20
the wrong wall.
00:01:20
>> And is there anything else? So there is
00:01:23
a wonderful upside in trying to conquer
00:01:25
and trying to achieve mastery, trying to
00:01:27
really drive yourself to go and do
00:01:28
stuff. But I'm not like your feelings,
00:01:30
just hustle and grind until your eyes
00:01:31
bleed either because one of the biggest
00:01:33
lessons I've taken away from this year
00:01:34
is suppression isn't the same thing as
00:01:36
strength. And it's a good thing for guys
00:01:38
who feel their emotions to show that
00:01:41
they feel their emotions, right? Like
00:01:43
I've been at some of my lowest points
00:01:44
over the last 12 months. It felt like my
00:01:46
better self was slipping through my
00:01:48
fingers. I realized my emotions are
00:01:51
legitimate and denying myself that is
00:01:55
not helping anything at all. What
00:01:57
happened?
00:02:06
>> I see messages all the time in the
00:02:08
comment section that some of you didn't
00:02:09
realize you didn't subscribe. So, if you
00:02:11
could do me a favor and double check if
00:02:13
you're a subscriber to this channel,
00:02:14
that would be tremendously appreciated.
00:02:15
It's the simple, it's the free thing
00:02:17
that anybody that watches this show
00:02:19
frequently can do to help us here to
00:02:20
keep everything going in this show in
00:02:22
the trajectory it's on. So, please do
00:02:24
double check if you've subscribed and uh
00:02:26
thank you so much because in a strange
00:02:27
way you are you're part of our history
00:02:30
and you're on this journey with us and I
00:02:31
appreciate you for that. So, yeah, thank
00:02:33
you
00:02:37
Chris.
00:02:38
My audience care a lot about changing
00:02:41
their life for the better. And I think
00:02:42
at this time of year, change is front of
00:02:45
mind for everybody. Everybody's thinking
00:02:46
about New Year's resolutions, who I want
00:02:48
to become in 2026. But when you look at
00:02:50
the stats, 23% of people quit by the end
00:02:54
of the first week of January, their New
00:02:56
Year's resolution, the thing they aimed
00:02:57
at.
00:02:58
>> Roughly half of people will quit their
00:03:01
New Year's resolution, the change they
00:03:02
sought by the end of January. and only
00:03:05
about 9% of people will keep their New
00:03:07
Year's resolution for the full year. So
00:03:09
I guess my opening question to you is
00:03:11
does this time of year matter at all? Is
00:03:13
it a useful productive time to be
00:03:15
thinking about change in your point of
00:03:17
view? I think the world is split into
00:03:19
two camps. Uh one camp says there is no
00:03:22
difference between January 1st and
00:03:24
December 31st. Like why wait? It's
00:03:26
December 10th, just do it now. and the
00:03:28
other camp likes the idea of there being
00:03:31
a culturally appropriate moment to stop
00:03:33
doing something and start doing
00:03:34
something else. Most people need to
00:03:36
realize that they're already spending
00:03:39
tons of time worrying about the future
00:03:40
in the past. They're going back to this
00:03:42
thing that they regret. I wish I'd done
00:03:44
this differently. Oh, I I have uh uh
00:03:48
rumination about something that
00:03:50
occurred. I have a sense of uh
00:03:52
wistfulness for something that I've
00:03:54
maybe missed. I'm grief for something
00:03:55
that I've lost. Then they're concerned
00:03:57
about the future. They're thinking, "I'm
00:03:59
uncertain about this thing that's going
00:04:00
to happen. I could plan. I could try and
00:04:02
come up with a solution for this." So,
00:04:03
you're already worrying about the past.
00:04:06
You're already doing reflection and
00:04:07
planning just in a very unstructured way
00:04:09
where you don't get to choose when it
00:04:10
hits you in the face.
00:04:12
This is a culturally appropriate moment,
00:04:16
like a scheduling appropriate moment for
00:04:19
you to just step in and think, okay, in
00:04:21
between Christmas and New Year, people
00:04:24
that work in retail, God bless you,
00:04:26
people that got to go back to work and
00:04:27
do that thing, but usually there's a bit
00:04:29
of downtime.
00:04:30
>> It's a little bit slower. It's Boxing
00:04:32
Day, chilling out on the couch, and
00:04:34
you're kind of thinking, "Wow, I was
00:04:36
here again at mom and dad's house or
00:04:38
with the in-laws or whatever. What was I
00:04:41
doing last year? What was it like last
00:04:42
year? You're already in a little bit of
00:04:43
a reflective mode. There is no special
00:04:46
magic super secret squirrel source in
00:04:49
January 1st. But it is a good moment to
00:04:52
check in because life tends to slow down
00:04:54
a little bit. Work tends work uh time is
00:04:57
a little bit more slow and you're
00:04:59
already doing this. You're already
00:05:01
thinking about the past and the future
00:05:02
and this is just a good structured
00:05:04
opportunity to check in and do it. I
00:05:06
guess the the question that everybody
00:05:08
should be asking themselves is what
00:05:09
should I aim at? And and is there such a
00:05:12
thing as aiming at too many things? What
00:05:14
what what is a good goal for change? And
00:05:17
when you think about all the people
00:05:18
you've interviewed and the change you've
00:05:19
seen in your own life, what what does a
00:05:21
productive New Year's resolution or
00:05:22
productive goal sound like? And how do I
00:05:24
how do I get there?
00:05:25
>> Yeah. It's very overwhelming. Uh if you
00:05:28
realize, wow, I can do anything I want.
00:05:30
I could look at my entire life.
00:05:33
That's terrifying. That's absolutely
00:05:35
terrifying.
00:05:37
One thing I would say, this is your
00:05:39
opportunity to change anything
00:05:43
behaviorally. You can change anything
00:05:45
you want. Not everything you want.
00:05:47
Right? That's the problem. You can
00:05:49
become anything you want behaviorally,
00:05:51
but you can't be everything you want.
00:05:52
So, you need to pick a small number. The
00:05:55
single best question to work out what
00:05:56
you should be doing next year. what
00:05:58
would have to happen by the end of 2026
00:06:01
for me to look back on 2026 and consider
00:06:05
it a success. I think that really helps
00:06:08
to just give you a bit more perspective
00:06:10
and it usually comes down to only a few
00:06:12
things. You don't usually have so much
00:06:14
in your mind when you do that. Setting
00:06:17
the bar unrealistically high does not
00:06:20
increase your performance. Imagine this.
00:06:22
Imagine that you went into a buffet and
00:06:25
you made your plate as big as possible.
00:06:27
He said, "I want all of these things.
00:06:28
I'm going to put all of this stuff on my
00:06:29
plate and my stomach is going to expand
00:06:32
to be able to fit it."
00:06:33
>> That's not the way that our stomachs
00:06:35
work and that is not the way that our
00:06:36
workloads work. So, first rule, in order
00:06:39
to pick something up, you have to put
00:06:41
something down.
00:06:43
Don't assume that just because you've
00:06:45
loaded more onto your workload plate,
00:06:48
your work capacity will expand to be
00:06:50
able to fit it into your stomach. That's
00:06:52
not the way that it works.
00:06:54
assume. Make the assumption I can do no
00:06:57
more than I'm doing now. I can switch
00:06:59
stuff, but I can't add more in. Maybe
00:07:03
you can. Maybe you're going to be able
00:07:04
to squeeze your phone time. Maybe you're
00:07:05
going to be able to become more
00:07:06
efficient, more productive, whatever.
00:07:08
But it's safer to just assume this is
00:07:10
the pie that I'm playing with. And in
00:07:12
order to pick something up, I have to
00:07:14
put something down. That's a really
00:07:15
important thing because at the moment
00:07:17
it's December 29th. I'm with I'm full of
00:07:21
gusto and motivation and I can't wait.
00:07:23
I'm going to crush it. And yeah, for the
00:07:25
first week, maybe you've got that. But
00:07:27
if you're using motivation and
00:07:29
enthusiasm to work yourself through your
00:07:31
goals, your goals are predicated largely
00:07:35
on a fuel source that you don't have
00:07:36
control over. Don't have a massive
00:07:38
amount of control over your motivation
00:07:40
over a long amount of time. Like it
00:07:41
comes and then it goes. You want
00:07:43
something that's a little bit more
00:07:44
rigid. So in order to pick something up,
00:07:46
you have to put something down. I think
00:07:47
that's a really important point because
00:07:49
when we think about the goals we'll
00:07:51
start setting at this time of the year,
00:07:52
all of them are asking for more time or
00:07:55
more energy. Like pretty much all of
00:07:57
them ask for I want to start running. I
00:07:58
want to start going to the gym. Whereas,
00:08:01
as you say, that means I'm going to have
00:08:02
to take something off the plate.
00:08:04
>> Yeah.
00:08:04
>> And we don't think about subtraction at
00:08:06
this time of the year. Typically, we
00:08:07
don't think I'm going to spend less time
00:08:10
with my friends. I'm going to cut out
00:08:13
Netflix. We think of addition. Mhm.
00:08:15
>> But logically there's still just just
00:08:17
the 24 hours in a day and that the
00:08:18
finite amount of body budget that we
00:08:20
have in terms of energy. So are you
00:08:22
saying that I have to create both an
00:08:25
addition and subtraction list and make
00:08:27
sure that they equal out they net out to
00:08:29
zero?
00:08:29
>> That would be optimal. I think one
00:08:32
question that you really should be
00:08:33
asking yourself. Let's go through a
00:08:35
bunch of uncomfortable questions people
00:08:36
can ask themselves. That could be cool.
00:08:38
>> Okay.
00:08:40
How would I spend my day if I wanted to
00:08:42
make 85year-old me as miserable as
00:08:44
possible?
00:08:45
>> What is it that I did over the last year
00:08:46
that made me right now
00:08:49
feel
00:08:51
it's this constriction.
00:08:53
>> Okay.
00:08:53
>> I I I don't like I don't like my
00:08:55
relationship with my phone. I spend a
00:08:56
lot of time on my phone. I don't like
00:08:59
how uh my mornings aren't very
00:09:01
productive. Uh I've noticed that when
00:09:03
I'm with my friends, I'm not very
00:09:05
present. I've noticed that I spend a lot
00:09:06
of time on my own. I tend to isolate
00:09:07
when things get difficult. I've noticed
00:09:10
that I've got into the habit of not
00:09:12
telling the truth when people ask me a
00:09:13
question. I've noticed that I've got
00:09:14
into the habit of not advocating for my
00:09:16
needs when I should do. I don't hold my
00:09:18
boundaries sufficiently well. Like, this
00:09:19
is why the reflection part's really
00:09:21
important. So,
00:09:24
what would I do to make 85-year-old me
00:09:25
as miserable as possible? How would I
00:09:27
spend my day? And in what ways am I
00:09:30
already doing that? Well,
00:09:33
a lot of those are going to cross over.
00:09:34
That ven diagram is not going to be as
00:09:36
far apart as you might think it is. I've
00:09:38
heard you ask the question before about
00:09:40
if someone was watching this and it was
00:09:41
a movie. What was that?
00:09:42
>> Yes. I mean I mean it's the this
00:09:44
question is so fantastic.
00:09:48
If your life was a movie and the
00:09:50
audience were watching up to this point,
00:09:53
what would they be screaming at the
00:09:55
screen telling you to do with your life?
00:09:57
They would be it is obvious. Leave the
00:10:00
relationship. The job is not working for
00:10:02
you. The killer's hiding in the
00:10:04
cupboard.
00:10:06
What would the audience be screaming at
00:10:08
the screen telling you to do with your
00:10:09
life?
00:10:10
>> So, you've asked three questions and I'm
00:10:13
going to ask you those three questions.
00:10:14
>> Okay.
00:10:15
>> So, the first question you asked was
00:10:16
about what would have to happen at the
00:10:19
end of next year to look back and
00:10:21
consider this year a success. So, for
00:10:23
you personally, I want to spend more
00:10:26
time thinking about ideas and less time
00:10:28
caught up of doing admin.
00:10:29
>> Uh admin is a drain on me. I don't enjoy
00:10:32
I don't enjoy emails. I don't enjoy the
00:10:34
operations of that sort of stuff.
00:10:36
>> Spend time making or
00:10:37
>> Yeah, I want to be in maker mode, not
00:10:38
manager mode,
00:10:39
>> would be a way to put it. Uh, I want to
00:10:42
spend more time with my friends. I've
00:10:44
been soloreneur grind set, you know,
00:10:47
pick it up and lift it type thing a lot
00:10:49
for the last forever. More time with my
00:10:52
friends, more time connecting with
00:10:53
people. So,
00:10:56
that's two things. Like, if I can do
00:10:57
that, spend more time with my friends
00:10:58
and less time doing admin. Now, one of
00:11:00
the problems that you have is and I want
00:11:02
to lose 20 pounds and I want to get my
00:11:04
bench press up to 200 kilos and I want
00:11:05
to do this and it's like really like do
00:11:07
you really really really want that?
00:11:08
Because when I think about it, I have
00:11:10
like much more gentle goals have much
00:11:13
broader goals and that's the stuff that
00:11:16
I think is important to me.
00:11:17
>> And if we think about your subtraction
00:11:19
framework, what what are you going to
00:11:20
have to subtract?
00:11:21
>> Well, what's interesting about those is
00:11:23
that actually those aren't necessarily
00:11:25
additions. The friends thing is an
00:11:26
addition, but the executive functioning
00:11:29
thing, the admin burden is not. So,
00:11:31
actually, that's nice because I want to
00:11:32
do less of that thing, which should
00:11:33
hopefully open up a little bit of time.
00:11:35
What would I need to get rid of? I'd
00:11:37
realistically need to get rid of some
00:11:39
time sat in front of my computer doing
00:11:42
boring admin stuff. I'd probably need to
00:11:45
spend less time scrolling on my phone,
00:11:47
less time on social media. I would maybe
00:11:50
need to make some sacrifices in training
00:11:52
as well. If I'm going to go out with my
00:11:53
friends a little bit more in an evening,
00:11:55
I'm gonna have to get up a bit later.
00:11:56
So, there's some of the trades that
00:11:57
we're gonna have to make.
00:11:58
>> The other question was around if this
00:12:01
was a movie and the audience was
00:12:02
screaming at you.
00:12:03
>> Mhm.
00:12:03
>> What would they be screaming?
00:12:05
>> You're already doing enough.
00:12:08
You're already doing enough. Stop
00:12:11
whipping yourself into submission,
00:12:13
thinking that your happiness sits on the
00:12:16
other side of the next set of goals that
00:12:17
you're going to achieve. You've already
00:12:19
achieved goals that you said would make
00:12:21
you happy.
00:12:22
So if you haven't made it now, if this
00:12:25
isn't when life is going to begin, then
00:12:28
when when when are you going to start?
00:12:30
There's this uh wonderful idea of the
00:12:33
the deferred life hypothesis. Deferred
00:12:36
life hypothesis is basically the sort of
00:12:37
common belief that our life hasn't yet
00:12:40
begun. That what's happening now is a
00:12:43
sort of prelude. It's an intro to our
00:12:47
life truly beginning. And upon
00:12:50
reflection, what a lot of people realize
00:12:52
is that this prelude that they run
00:12:54
through was a mirage that sort of faded
00:12:58
as they approached and they were
00:12:59
actually just running toward the end of
00:13:00
their life. Like they're permanently
00:13:02
putting things off. I get it. People
00:13:04
have got realistic structural monetary
00:13:08
requirements. They've got to get up.
00:13:10
They've got to go to work. They've got
00:13:11
to [ __ ] change their nappy. They've
00:13:13
got to walk their dog. They've got
00:13:14
things that they need to do. That's not
00:13:15
what I'm talking about. My point is
00:13:18
everybody thinks a lot of people think
00:13:21
in one form or another that my life will
00:13:24
begin when they're holding their
00:13:26
happiness hostage. They're in a holding
00:13:27
pattern like a plane that can't land for
00:13:29
some reason. It's like what if that what
00:13:32
if that never changes? What if your
00:13:35
problems in life are never ever going to
00:13:36
go away? What if problems are always
00:13:38
going to be there? What then? Oh wow.
00:13:41
Well, I'm never going to arrive. That
00:13:44
means I need to start living now. And I
00:13:46
think for me there's definitely a lot of
00:13:47
um I will get there when once the tasks
00:13:51
of today are completed once the problems
00:13:53
are gotten through. There'll never be a
00:13:55
time when there's no problems in life.
00:13:56
Problems are a feature, not a bug.
00:13:58
>> I sometimes wonder if this is a trait of
00:14:01
just human evolution. Like it makes
00:14:03
survival sense for it to be hardwired
00:14:06
into my genetic code to strive to
00:14:09
basically continue to strive like to
00:14:10
continue to conquer to continue to
00:14:12
build. And in fact, maybe if my
00:14:13
ancestors didn't have that, we wouldn't
00:14:14
be sat in a room now with all these
00:14:16
lights and fancy cameras and such
00:14:18
because this is the consequence of a
00:14:20
species that strive. And so I wonder if
00:14:23
this is like the curse of being human,
00:14:24
which is we just endlessly strive and
00:14:25
then we die. And because we did our our
00:14:27
offspring have a higher rate of
00:14:29
survival. And like when I speak to
00:14:31
people from, you know, like East Asian
00:14:33
traditions and stuff, they talk about
00:14:35
being at peace and being at one and
00:14:36
being satisfied and all these things,
00:14:38
but it seems so alien to me to be
00:14:41
satisfied.
00:14:42
>> I I I I think I live in a dichotomy
00:14:45
where I'm like well aware nothing will
00:14:46
change my happiness and then at the same
00:14:48
time I'm completely striving as if it
00:14:50
would. Of course, that's a human
00:14:52
condition. We habituate in both
00:14:54
directions. So if your ancestors had
00:14:58
been satisfied when they got to a cave,
00:15:01
when their family grew and they needed a
00:15:03
bigger cave, when you don't just go and
00:15:06
find one bush, you find a ton of bushes
00:15:07
and then you expand and that gives you
00:15:09
additional security.
00:15:11
>> But unfortunately in the modern world,
00:15:13
that causes us with an infinite amount
00:15:15
of things that we can do and can chase
00:15:17
after. We sacrifice the important for
00:15:19
the urgent. The urgent's always in front
00:15:22
of us. the email, the next meeting.
00:15:25
>> Yeah.
00:15:26
>> And this is again, why should anybody
00:15:29
care about doing an annual review?
00:15:31
Should anybody care about the new year?
00:15:33
Well, you're busy living your life for
00:15:35
almost the entirety of the year. And
00:15:37
this is one moment where the urgent can
00:15:40
just take a tiny bit of a backseat and
00:15:42
the important can come through. Who have
00:15:45
I been over the last year? What do I
00:15:46
want from next year? Every single year
00:15:48
is a chapter of your life.
00:15:51
for next year. It's chapter 38 for me.
00:15:53
What do I want that chapter to be about?
00:15:56
>> Do you think there's a single a single
00:15:58
change you could make to your life that
00:16:00
would yield the greatest return on
00:16:02
happiness? Like if you could go into
00:16:03
your own hardware
00:16:04
>> and rewrite the code a little bit.
00:16:07
>> I think less striving would actually
00:16:08
make me happier. I think that a lot of
00:16:10
striving and a desire for success comes
00:16:12
from a sense of insufficiency. Like if
00:16:15
only the world recognized my brilliance,
00:16:18
then I will be validated. And it takes a
00:16:21
long time to realize that you don't fix
00:16:23
internal voids with external accolades.
00:16:25
The problem with that is it's an
00:16:26
unteachable lesson. You try and tell
00:16:28
people that money won't fix your
00:16:30
happiness problem or fame won't fix your
00:16:32
self-worth problem. You should see your
00:16:34
parents more. Time in a hammock is never
00:16:36
wasted. You don't love that pretty girl.
00:16:38
She's just hot and difficult to get.
00:16:40
Like all of these things are only
00:16:42
lessons that you can learn once you've
00:16:43
got there. And people who haven't yet
00:16:45
gotten there think, "Well, that's easy
00:16:47
for you to say." And then when they
00:16:49
arrive, for some reason they seem to
00:16:51
evangelize the same insights like
00:16:54
somebody that's just gone through
00:16:55
religious revelation. So either one of
00:16:56
two things is true. People who achieve a
00:16:58
thing are lying about the fact that that
00:17:01
thing didn't fix their problems, their
00:17:03
internal void with external accolades
00:17:06
because of they're part of some cartel
00:17:08
that's trying to pull the ladder up
00:17:09
after they've just gotten in.
00:17:11
>> Or it's the truth, but it's it's an
00:17:16
unteachable lesson. You will not
00:17:18
understand that that thing outside won't
00:17:22
fix your internal void until you get
00:17:23
there. And I I actually think to Naval
00:17:26
quote, it's far easy to achieve our
00:17:28
material desires than to renounce them.
00:17:30
Like if you want a Ferrari, it's much
00:17:32
easier to actually work real hard and
00:17:35
try and like or get some nice car,
00:17:37
whatever it is, so that you learn that
00:17:39
the car isn't the thing that you want
00:17:40
than it is to rid yourself of the desire
00:17:42
for the car overall. And that's not to
00:17:44
say that getting a Ferrari is easy. is
00:17:46
to say that getting rid of the desire is
00:17:47
essentially impossible.
00:17:49
>> I think me and you are probably two guys
00:17:51
that at some deep level had some kind of
00:17:53
internal void. Is that accurate
00:17:56
statement?
00:17:56
>> Of course. Are you speaking in the past
00:17:57
tense?
00:17:58
>> Have.
00:17:59
>> Have. Yeah.
00:18:00
>> Yeah.
00:18:00
>> You've now accomplished so much. You're
00:18:02
like one of the biggest podcasters on
00:18:04
planet earth. You're you're famous.
00:18:05
People know who you are.
00:18:06
>> Biggest in the world talking to second
00:18:07
biggest in the world. Congratulations.
00:18:10
>> But people know who you are. You've got,
00:18:12
you know, money. You've got freedom now.
00:18:14
You can go wherever you want. do
00:18:15
whatever you want. People know who you
00:18:16
are. You get restaurant t reservation
00:18:18
tables.
00:18:19
>> You did it.
00:18:21
>> Is it what you expected? And has has it
00:18:24
actually changed that internal void?
00:18:27
>> The interesting thing is I never
00:18:29
actually thought I was going to amount
00:18:30
to much. I was just I was just really
00:18:34
interested in what was doing what what I
00:18:36
was doing what was in front of me. I
00:18:38
didn't think
00:18:40
this is going to lead to me being some
00:18:43
achieving something or living in America
00:18:45
or whatever. Each different step got me
00:18:47
there. But no, of course not. Of course.
00:18:50
The the the unteachable lesson has
00:18:51
smashed me in the face, which is
00:18:55
fame won't fix your self worth, money
00:18:57
won't make you happy, you should see
00:18:58
your parents more, you can take a day
00:19:00
off. Like all of these lessons, you have
00:19:03
to live them to learn them,
00:19:04
unfortunately. And my last question on
00:19:06
this is when I asked about the change to
00:19:08
your code that you'd make, you talked
00:19:09
about fixing the striving. What's been
00:19:12
the downside of the striving?
00:19:14
>> There's a a common sense of not
00:19:16
enoughness like I will be enough when
00:19:19
right because you can either run away
00:19:20
from something you want or run towards
00:19:21
something uh run yeah run away from
00:19:23
something you fear or run towards
00:19:24
something you want.
00:19:25
>> And what's the consequence of that not
00:19:26
enoughness?
00:19:27
>> It's a sense of lack. It's also a
00:19:30
provisional life. It's putting life off.
00:19:32
I will be
00:19:34
happy, satisfied, peaceful when
00:19:37
>> And is that a thought you have?
00:19:39
>> It's more like an embodied sense. Feel
00:19:41
it. Yeah, I very much feel it. It's this
00:19:43
thriving. It's this pull. It's this sort
00:19:45
of magnetism moving forward.
00:19:47
>> But yeah, dude. Uh if your life was a
00:19:49
movie and the audience were watching up
00:19:50
to this point, what would they be
00:19:51
screaming at the screen telling you to
00:19:53
do? It's usually a very reliable
00:19:57
indicator of where you should be putting
00:19:59
your attention. So, as we think about
00:20:01
next year that the things one should aim
00:20:04
at.
00:20:04
>> Um, what I've heard you I think you said
00:20:06
on the high performance podcast, you
00:20:07
said you're really obsessed with
00:20:08
understanding what success actually is.
00:20:11
>> So, I I also just before we go into the
00:20:13
more practical things,
00:20:14
>> if someone sat at home and I know people
00:20:16
come up to you on your tours and ask you
00:20:17
questions like this a lot, if they're
00:20:18
sat at home trying to figure out what
00:20:20
success actually is for them, is there a
00:20:23
framework or a principle or a method to
00:20:25
figure out what it might mean for them?
00:20:27
I've heard you talk about two ideas
00:20:29
which I love which is the region beta
00:20:30
paradox but also the parable of the
00:20:31
Mexican fisherman which I think both
00:20:33
stayed with me in a profound way. Yeah.
00:20:36
So
00:20:38
three things success region beta uh
00:20:42
Mexican fisherman what success looks
00:20:44
like for any individual person is going
00:20:46
to be different for you knowing that you
00:20:47
really want a family. There's people out
00:20:48
there that like I'm not that fussed. I
00:20:50
don't think that that's on the cards for
00:20:52
me and that's fine. Other people might
00:20:55
really really want to put the workload
00:20:57
down and step off and and go and do the
00:20:59
dad or the mom thing. Unfortunately, you
00:21:02
can't take somebody else's purpose or
00:21:04
success. Like that's that's you can't
00:21:06
wear it as a suit. It's a bad idea,
00:21:09
right? Cuz it's going to not fit. And um
00:21:12
wonderful line, let go or be dragged. If
00:21:16
something doesn't fit, eventually it's
00:21:17
going to hurt wearing it. And that means
00:21:20
if you're not careful with how you
00:21:22
design what it is that you chase after,
00:21:24
you can spend your entire life realizing
00:21:26
that you climbed a huge [ __ ] ladder,
00:21:29
a very, very long ladder that was
00:21:31
leaning up against the wrong wall.
00:21:33
>> And uh you need to ensure that you don't
00:21:34
do that. And this is why we need to just
00:21:35
sit with ourselves, sit with a little
00:21:37
bit of reflection. And that's why this
00:21:38
time in between Christmas and New Year,
00:21:40
I think, is a really wonderful time to
00:21:41
do this. So, how do you work out what it
00:21:44
is that you want to do? the big picture
00:21:46
goals are going to be hard for you to to
00:21:49
get to. But if you just think one year
00:21:51
ahead, what do I want over the next 12
00:21:53
months? I think that usually helps you.
00:21:54
And maybe you want to be in a
00:21:55
relationship. I want to be in a
00:21:56
committed relationship with someone who
00:21:57
really loves me. Okay, now we can start
00:22:00
to talk about a plan to do that. But you
00:22:03
need to have a little bit of silence.
00:22:04
It's like a problem with permanently
00:22:07
being busy stops you from being able to
00:22:09
listen to fleeting thoughts that are in
00:22:11
the back of your mind. Mhm.
00:22:12
>> And that quiet voice is usually the
00:22:14
really powerful one. But
00:22:17
the there's a wonderful line, the
00:22:19
answers you seek are in the silence
00:22:21
you're avoiding.
00:22:24
The answers that you seek are in the
00:22:25
silence you're avoiding.
00:22:26
>> Do you meditate?
00:22:27
>> Of course you do.
00:22:28
>> Yes.
00:22:29
>> No.
00:22:29
>> Yeah. Do you?
00:22:31
>> No.
00:22:31
>> Do you wish you did?
00:22:33
>> I think the the definition of meditation
00:22:36
is quite blurry because for me when I'm
00:22:38
I I will have a shower for like 30
00:22:39
minutes and all I'm doing in there is
00:22:41
thinking. I'm not cleaning.
00:22:44
Like I'm clean after five minutes.
00:22:45
>> I was gonna say it suggests that you
00:22:47
come out of the shower not clean but
00:22:49
with great ideas.
00:22:50
>> Exactly.
00:22:50
>> No, but I I I mean you get clean in like
00:22:52
5 minutes, but then I spend the other 25
00:22:54
minutes because there's something about
00:22:55
the waterfalling and the alone time that
00:22:58
drops me into a a spiral of thinking
00:23:00
which I think is my version of
00:23:01
meditation. Then treadmills and the
00:23:03
stepper at the gym.
00:23:04
>> Treadmills are great.
00:23:05
>> Yeah.
00:23:05
>> My version of meditation.
00:23:06
>> Shower thoughts are overrated. Toilet
00:23:08
thoughts are underrated. The other thing
00:23:10
that I I love that you talk about is
00:23:11
what it when we talk about metrics of
00:23:13
success, you talk about observable
00:23:14
metrics and hidden metrics
00:23:16
>> of success.
00:23:17
>> Yeah. So, a lot of the time we'll trade
00:23:20
a hidden metric for an observable
00:23:22
metric. Something that's observable
00:23:23
would be your job title, what your
00:23:26
salary is per year, how many people know
00:23:27
you, your bank balance, the size of your
00:23:29
house, the car that you drive,
00:23:31
>> things people can see.
00:23:32
>> Yeah, of course. The only way that your
00:23:34
success can be judged is outwardly. So
00:23:37
naturally we trade something which
00:23:39
people can't see for something that they
00:23:41
can see. For instance, lots of people
00:23:43
would trade a longer commute for a
00:23:46
higher salary or um
00:23:50
a better job title. One of the problems
00:23:52
that you encounter with that is that the
00:23:54
length of your commute is one of the
00:23:56
most correlated uh stats with your
00:23:58
happiness. Longer commutes reliably make
00:24:00
people more miserable. And what's the
00:24:02
hidden metric that you've lost by doing
00:24:04
that? Well, that's less time with your
00:24:08
family, with maybe your kids that are
00:24:09
growing up, with your wife to connect,
00:24:11
that's less time to pursue your own
00:24:13
passions, even if your job is your
00:24:15
passion. So, what about uh a more
00:24:18
stressful career? Going to move into a
00:24:20
different industry that's way more
00:24:21
stressful, but it pays more observable
00:24:24
metric. What's the hidden metric? What
00:24:25
about the peace of mind that you have as
00:24:27
you go to sleep at night? What about
00:24:29
what that does to your health and the
00:24:31
quality of your relationships and your
00:24:32
ability to be present on a weekend?
00:24:34
because you're not able to turn your
00:24:35
phone off because your last job was 9
00:24:37
to5, but this one is 247.
00:24:40
Well, it's difficult to say because
00:24:42
you're like, people want and need real
00:24:46
resources. I want to improve the quality
00:24:47
of my family. That's a noble thing to
00:24:48
do. But after a while, you have to admit
00:24:52
if you already live a comfortable
00:24:54
quality of life and you trade it,
00:24:57
you you trade your happiness or your
00:24:59
your peace in order to get more,
00:25:02
you're making a bad choice because
00:25:04
you're going to sacrifice something that
00:25:06
you want, which is happiness, peace,
00:25:07
connection for something that's supposed
00:25:09
to get the thing that you want, which is
00:25:11
money, job title, bigger car,
00:25:14
>> which I think links to the story of the
00:25:16
Mexican fisher.
00:25:17
>> Yeah. Parable of the Mexican fisherman.
00:25:19
Uh,
00:25:21
an American businessman was away on a
00:25:23
holiday in Mexico and he got taken out
00:25:25
by a fisherman and he asked the
00:25:27
fisherman, "So, what do you do each
00:25:28
day?" The fisherman said, "I spend each
00:25:31
morning out on the water. I fish a
00:25:33
little. I catch some food. I take it
00:25:35
home and I sit in my house with my wife
00:25:38
and my family and we eat what I've
00:25:39
caught for the day." The American says,
00:25:41
"That's stupid. This a stupid idea. what
00:25:43
you should do is you should get a bigger
00:25:45
boat and then you could catch more fish
00:25:46
and then you could go sell it at the
00:25:47
market. The fisherman said, "Why would I
00:25:50
do that?" So, well, once you've sold it
00:25:51
at the market, you could buy some more
00:25:53
boats and you could get your friends to
00:25:54
come and work for you and then they
00:25:55
could catch more fish and you could
00:25:57
start to sell it wholesale. Fisherman
00:25:59
said, "Why would I do that?" So, well
00:26:01
then you could create a canning factory
00:26:03
and you could export it back to the UK
00:26:05
and you could have a huge business.
00:26:07
Fisherman said, "Why would I do that?"
00:26:10
So well then you would be able to retire
00:26:12
and fish a little on a morning, catch
00:26:13
some fish, and then spend the afternoon
00:26:14
with your family.
00:26:17
And it's the same lesson as Paulo Qua's
00:26:19
The Alchemist, which is this young boy
00:26:22
goes on a huge big journey and he finds
00:26:25
out the thing that he was looking for
00:26:26
was in the back garden all along. But
00:26:29
that's an unteachable lesson. And the
00:26:31
big lesson behind The Alchemist is
00:26:34
going on a massive journey to end up
00:26:36
back where you started is not the same
00:26:38
as having never left.
00:26:40
And this is what an unteachable lesson
00:26:42
is. You have to go to the top of the
00:26:44
mountain to get up there and go, "Damn
00:26:46
it.
00:26:47
Damn it." Like, I thought that was going
00:26:49
to be the answer. But now that it's not,
00:26:51
I can rid myself of that. I've crossed
00:26:53
it off. And it's so unpopular. It's so
00:26:55
unpopular to talk about this online
00:26:57
because everybody that doesn't have a
00:26:58
thing assumes that the thing will fix
00:27:00
their problems and that the people who
00:27:01
have got there, achieved it, and say
00:27:03
that it didn't are ungrateful.
00:27:06
like, "Oh my god, the thing that I want
00:27:08
and they're just casting it away." Like,
00:27:10
how dare you? How dare you say that the
00:27:12
thing that I know I want isn't the
00:27:14
answer to my problems.
00:27:17
And yet, reliably,
00:27:19
everybody that gets there says it's not
00:27:22
the answer.
00:27:24
It's very true. I was thinking back to
00:27:26
all the goals that I wrote in my diary
00:27:28
at 18 years old, and then it's no
00:27:30
surprise that that I have none of those
00:27:32
things now. They're all like material
00:27:33
things and outcomes I was looking for.
00:27:35
Let me give you another one. A great
00:27:36
question to reflect on. Knowing what I
00:27:39
know now,
00:27:41
what advice would I give myself 12
00:27:43
months ago?
00:27:45
Do you know what mine would be? Mine
00:27:46
would be around it would be about around
00:27:48
prioritization.
00:27:50
It would really be around the saying no.
00:27:52
Like we we don't really teach it goes
00:27:54
back to what you're saying about adding
00:27:55
and subtracting, but my life would be
00:27:57
much better if I was
00:28:00
even 10% better at saying no to things.
00:28:02
>> Mhm.
00:28:03
>> It would be so much better. I'd be so
00:28:04
much more s upside isn't like 10%
00:28:06
upside. It's like 50 100% upside because
00:28:09
the compounding force of focus.
00:28:10
>> Okay. So that's what advice you would
00:28:13
have given yourself 12 months ago
00:28:14
knowing what you know now.
00:28:15
>> Yeah.
00:28:16
>> Guess what?
00:28:16
>> Well, it's almost certainly what you
00:28:18
need to hear right now.
00:28:20
>> The big problems are the big problems.
00:28:22
In the same way that you've got the feat
00:28:24
that you had a decade ago, the big
00:28:26
drivers psychologically for you tend to
00:28:29
be the same throughout your life. Uh, I
00:28:32
put other people's happiness ahead of
00:28:34
mine. Maybe that showed up when I was a
00:28:36
child and I didn't speak up to mom when
00:28:37
I felt upset because I was worried that
00:28:39
it would upset her. Maybe that happened
00:28:41
when I got into my first job and I
00:28:42
didn't advocate for myself when my boss
00:28:44
was treating me poorly. Maybe that
00:28:46
happens when I get into a relationship
00:28:48
and I'm scared of making my needs known
00:28:50
to my partner because I'm worried that
00:28:52
they're going to reject me or think
00:28:54
lesser of me. When it comes to my child,
00:28:56
I'm terrified to discipline them because
00:28:57
I need their love and I don't want them
00:28:59
to make them upset. This is a single
00:29:01
trend that's occurring throughout your
00:29:03
life and all of the time. One of the
00:29:05
most common questions that people ask is
00:29:07
what would you tell yourself 10 years
00:29:08
ago? Great question to ask. Not because
00:29:10
it's trit, but because it is almost
00:29:12
always the very same thing that you need
00:29:14
to hear right now.
00:29:16
>> What would you have said it 12 months
00:29:18
ago?
00:29:22
>> Stop working so hard.
00:29:24
>> Stop working. Take a day off. Take a day
00:29:27
off. Take a day off per week. Put your
00:29:28
phone down. Put your phone down. go
00:29:30
outside, touch some grass, and it's the
00:29:33
same thing now. It's the exact same
00:29:34
thing now.
00:29:35
>> Do you think you're going to accomplish
00:29:36
it?
00:29:38
>> I don't know. I don't know, man. I mean,
00:29:40
you know, I'm trying. I'm trying. But
00:29:44
behavioral design, I I've got better.
00:29:45
The one thing that I can say and the
00:29:47
beautiful thing about the end of your um
00:29:50
review, there are some resolutions
00:29:54
which I decided on a decade ago that I
00:29:58
still do now. And I think that's really
00:30:00
cool. So when I'm faced with the
00:30:02
opportunity to plan because I gave
00:30:04
myself a little bit of space, right? And
00:30:06
it never happened. Very few of the
00:30:07
habits that randomly appeared in the
00:30:09
middle of July are ones that I've stuck
00:30:12
with and I really care about. Bad ones
00:30:13
maybe. I maybe accumulated bad habits in
00:30:15
the middle of July, but most of the ones
00:30:17
that I really love that are very
00:30:19
conscious that are aligned with where I
00:30:21
want to go, they're ones that I
00:30:22
consciously designed, right? They're
00:30:24
ones that were done purposefully and
00:30:25
that's always been around a review
00:30:26
period. So, yeah, end of the year is not
00:30:28
special. When else you going to do it,
00:30:31
right? When else are you going to do it?
00:30:33
But yeah, 12 months ago and and 10 years
00:30:35
ago, I was doing the same thing.
00:30:36
Different industry, running nightclubs,
00:30:38
chill out, take a day off. So, what is
00:30:41
this annual review template that I have
00:30:44
in front of me?
00:30:45
>> At the end of each year, you need to
00:30:46
have some sort of a format. Uh, if
00:30:48
anyone wants to go and download it, they
00:30:49
can go to chriswilx.com/re.
00:30:52
It's totally free. They can just copy
00:30:53
and paste it into their notes app of
00:30:54
choice and then fill it in. I realized
00:30:57
that this big question of it's the end
00:31:00
of the year and I need to look back on
00:31:01
it. I want to uh reflect on what went
00:31:03
well and badly and I want to plan my
00:31:05
goals. without a a structure, you're
00:31:10
just like cast out a drift, freewheeling
00:31:12
everywhere, and you have no idea what to
00:31:13
do. So, there's a bunch of questions.
00:31:16
Stuff like, "How has this year gone?
00:31:18
What went well? What went badly? And
00:31:20
why? What lessons did I learn? What
00:31:23
habit or system accounted for most of my
00:31:25
success? What are the most valuable ways
00:31:27
that I spend my time? How can I find
00:31:29
more time for this?" There's a section
00:31:31
for memories. What was the best
00:31:32
surprise, best meal, coolest new
00:31:34
experience, my favorite new city, my
00:31:36
favorite new friend? What was my
00:31:38
favorite day or my most intense day? Was
00:31:40
the best sex I had? What's my favorite
00:31:42
quote and song and artist? And then
00:31:45
there's a plan. What would I do this
00:31:47
year if I wanted to make 85-year-old me
00:31:48
miserable? What are the things I do to
00:31:51
make my day go great?
00:31:53
What do I think is productive that
00:31:55
isn't?
00:31:57
What is productive that I don't realize?
00:31:59
Those are two big ones.
00:32:00
>> Mhm.
00:32:01
And then there's some final thoughts.
00:32:03
What would have to have happened by the
00:32:04
end of next year to look back and
00:32:05
consider it a success? Who do I need to
00:32:07
become for the next chapter of my life
00:32:09
to go the way that I want? Knowing what
00:32:10
I know now, what advice would I give
00:32:12
myself 12 months ago? So for the people
00:32:13
that are frantically taking notes, they
00:32:14
can just go to chriswallex.com/re. And
00:32:16
this is this is available for free.
00:32:18
>> You mentioned there that goals you set
00:32:19
10 years ago are still some of your most
00:32:21
important today.
00:32:22
>> Mhm.
00:32:23
>> What are those goals that you cherish
00:32:25
the most? Habits, goals that you cherish
00:32:27
the most that you you set out to
00:32:28
accomplish 10 years ago. So, I reflected
00:32:30
last year on the highest ROI resolutions
00:32:33
that I've ever done. And what I think
00:32:35
would be cool would be if people put the
00:32:37
single best return on investment res re
00:32:41
resolution that they've ever done in the
00:32:43
comments cuz that will create maybe the
00:32:46
biggest repository of the highest value
00:32:49
New Year's resolutions that anybody's
00:32:51
ever had and the best ones will get
00:32:52
updated and the bad ones will be heavily
00:32:54
criticized in the replies. So, that
00:32:55
could be kind of cool. Okay, so that was
00:32:57
an instruction which means if you're
00:32:59
listening right now, leave a comment
00:33:00
below with the resolution you set
00:33:02
yourself at any point in the past that
00:33:04
returned the most for you in any in any
00:33:06
area of your life.
00:33:07
>> You love it the most.
00:33:08
>> And if you agree with someone's, please
00:33:10
hit the like button on their comment,
00:33:12
too. And this should create, as Chris
00:33:14
says, a repository of the most
00:33:15
impactful, highest ROI resolutions.
00:33:18
>> I think that's cool, dude. I want to do
00:33:19
it. I want to know what everyone else's
00:33:20
big resolutions are. So, I'll I'll give
00:33:22
you mine. Okay. No phone in the bedroom
00:33:24
at night. charge it outside.
00:33:26
>> Interesting.
00:33:27
>> It's an instant 15% quality of life
00:33:31
increase.
00:33:32
>> Why?
00:33:32
>> Because when you start your day, if you
00:33:34
use your phone as your alarm, you roll
00:33:36
over, you turn the alarm off, and
00:33:39
immediately you're looking at your
00:33:40
phone. You haven't got up, you haven't
00:33:42
got moving, you're not hydrated, you're
00:33:43
not seeing sunlight in your eyes, you
00:33:45
are
00:33:47
hit in the face by the world telling you
00:33:49
what's happening as opposed to you
00:33:50
having a tiny little microcosm of peace,
00:33:53
this little oasis for you. Now, I get
00:33:54
it. People that have got young kids are
00:33:56
hit in the face by the children, not by
00:33:57
the phone. But even if you do, adding
00:34:00
the phone and the scroll and everything
00:34:02
else on top, that means you're not
00:34:03
present with the kids. So, even if the
00:34:04
kids are a problem, you don't need to
00:34:05
have the phone in there. You wake up, it
00:34:08
means that you're always on the other
00:34:10
side. The world is happening to you.
00:34:12
You're not happening to the world. When
00:34:14
you go to bed on a nighttime, you're
00:34:16
going to be using your phone before you
00:34:17
go to sleep, which means that you're
00:34:19
going to cut into your sleep time.
00:34:21
you're going to be uh in an environment
00:34:24
digitally that's going to make yourself
00:34:26
feel horrendous. It's not good. It's not
00:34:28
good for sleep. Whether it's the blue
00:34:30
light, there's a little bit of research
00:34:31
that seems to say that it's not the blue
00:34:32
light so much as it is the scroll sort
00:34:36
of dopamine trigger adrenal intermittent
00:34:39
schedule reward thing that that's the
00:34:40
the main issue of what's going on. But
00:34:43
it also means if you can't sleep, you
00:34:45
know, you can just roll over and pick
00:34:46
your phone up and now you're two hours
00:34:47
into a YouTube scroll hole. That's who
00:34:49
you truly are. By the way, people think
00:34:51
that who you are is, you know, your
00:34:52
journal entries, your diary entries. No,
00:34:54
no. Who you truly are are the videos
00:34:56
that you watch on YouTube between 10
00:34:58
p.m. and 12:00 p.m. at night when you
00:34:59
can't sleep. That's who you really are.
00:35:01
So, getting your phone and putting it
00:35:03
outside of the bedroom is no cost.
00:35:06
There's no reason to not do it. The only
00:35:08
reason to not do it is somebody needs to
00:35:09
ring you or something like that. I get
00:35:12
it. Maybe you've got kids that are out
00:35:14
late and you need to make sure that
00:35:16
they're okay in case some sort of
00:35:17
catastrophe occurs. Really, there are
00:35:18
very few excuses to not have it outside.
00:35:20
Radio alarm clocks have existed for
00:35:21
forever. Buy a radio alarm clock. Take
00:35:24
your phone cable now and put it in the
00:35:26
kitchen or put it in the living room or
00:35:28
something or put it on the other side of
00:35:29
the room, right? Cuz you don't want to
00:35:31
wake up and charge on your phone. The
00:35:33
it's the single biggest improves quality
00:35:36
of sleep. It means that your mornings
00:35:37
are better. It means that your nights
00:35:38
are better. It means you're less
00:35:39
distracted. It means you spend less time
00:35:40
on your phone. you're forced to do
00:35:41
something even tiny bit more productive
00:35:44
like watch Netflix or read a book or
00:35:46
talk to your partner. It's interesting
00:35:48
because I was thinking about this
00:35:50
through a four quadrant graph
00:35:51
>> drawing a diagram
00:35:52
>> where I'll throw it up on the screen
00:35:54
please and make it look better editing
00:35:55
team because this nobody's going to be
00:35:56
able this is not coherent but on one
00:35:58
axis you've got things that are low
00:35:59
effort and on the other axis you've got
00:36:01
things that are high return and this is
00:36:03
right up in the top right which is like
00:36:04
very low effort high return habit yeah
00:36:08
which is probably where one should aim
00:36:09
most but I imagine a lot of us are
00:36:11
aiming at like high effort low return
00:36:12
>> uh morning walk every day
00:36:14
>> okay morning walk slightly higher effort
00:36:16
>> uh The research around this is is
00:36:18
fantastic. Humans obviously pushed this
00:36:20
a lot. Morning sunlight in your eyes,
00:36:21
even if you don't have the sun. Even if
00:36:23
you're somewhere dark and cold and wet,
00:36:25
doesn't matter. Getting up and doing uh
00:36:27
ambulation, so walking through an
00:36:29
environment while your eyes scan left
00:36:30
and right seems to tune down your fear
00:36:33
response. It makes uh your amygdala just
00:36:36
a little bit more calm. So regardless of
00:36:38
whether if there's sunlight, fantastic,
00:36:39
that'll be even better. 5 minutes, 10
00:36:41
minutes. And I know people have got
00:36:42
structural limitations. This is me
00:36:44
assuming that you've got like 20 minutes
00:36:46
on a morning that you could slot this
00:36:48
into. And if you're not waking up with
00:36:50
your phone in your hand, that probably
00:36:51
is the 20 minutes, right? Little walk,
00:36:54
bit of fresh air, just get up, put your
00:36:56
shoes on, get going, just get moving.
00:36:58
You don't need to think. You don't need
00:36:58
to do anything at all. Don't need to
00:37:00
brush your teeth. Get up and go.
00:37:01
Probably need to get to the bathroom,
00:37:02
actually. Get up and go. Uh, no caffeine
00:37:04
within 90 minutes of waking. Just push
00:37:07
your caffeine a little bit later. It
00:37:09
seems like the adenosine system isn't
00:37:12
dominant during the first 90 minutes of
00:37:14
the day. Your adrenal system is.
00:37:15
>> So adenosine is the the receptors that
00:37:17
deal with caffeine and tightness.
00:37:19
>> And tightness. Exactly. And caffeine
00:37:20
binds to it and it stops you from
00:37:22
feeling tired. Salt act on your adrenal
00:37:24
system. So if you use some sort of
00:37:25
electrolyte drink first thing in the
00:37:27
morning, that will help to get that
00:37:28
moving. But the main reason for this,
00:37:30
regardless of the research, most people
00:37:32
have a 100 pm slump, feel a little bit
00:37:34
tired. And I think if you just push that
00:37:37
caffeine a little bit later, just see if
00:37:39
you can hold on. When you wake up, you
00:37:40
should be okayish, just the natural
00:37:43
cortisol, you've gone for a little walk,
00:37:45
you know, you're here we are, the day
00:37:47
has begun. Do you really need a c a
00:37:49
coffee within 20 minutes of waking?
00:37:51
That's what most people's first thing
00:37:52
is. Just see what happens. Test it. See
00:37:54
what happens if you push it back by 90
00:37:55
minutes and see how you feel. At least
00:37:56
for me, I know that that works well.
00:37:59
No alcohol for 6 months. This is a big
00:38:02
one. This is much more high effort for a
00:38:04
lot of people, even people that don't
00:38:06
drink that much. Uh because a lot of the
00:38:09
parties and things that you attend, are
00:38:12
not superbly fun. And some people use
00:38:16
alcohol in order to make their family or
00:38:20
the wedding or the birthday a little bit
00:38:23
more comfortable.
00:38:24
>> A social lubricant.
00:38:25
>> Correct. Yeah, of course. But if you
00:38:28
take alcohol out for about six months,
00:38:30
what it forces you to do is think, do I
00:38:33
really want to go to that party? I'm
00:38:35
actually having to anesthetize myself of
00:38:38
the people that I'm around. Like, if you
00:38:41
can only bear to be around your friends
00:38:42
when you're drinking, that's probably
00:38:44
not a good indication. And if your
00:38:47
friends only want you to be around them
00:38:49
when you're drinking, they're not
00:38:51
friends, they're drinking partners.
00:38:54
So, I think alcohol is a a big qu I just
00:38:57
like it. It just makes me have more fun.
00:38:59
All Hey, I get it. But I think if people
00:39:02
look at it closely, they realize that
00:39:03
they're using alcohol as a bit of a
00:39:06
crutch. They're using it to bolster
00:39:09
themselves in a way. What's interesting
00:39:12
is it's one of those areas where you
00:39:14
don't understand the hidden cost until
00:39:16
you really give it up for a while. And
00:39:19
and I think about my own relationship
00:39:20
with drinking and I stopped drinking at
00:39:22
30 years old. I'm now 33. And I had just
00:39:26
drank because I just drank. I'd never
00:39:28
ran the experiment of just giving it up
00:39:29
for a while. And I and then at like I
00:39:31
don't know maybe I was at 31. I thought,
00:39:33
you know, I'll have a drink again
00:39:35
>> because now I could really AB test it.
00:39:36
I'd had a year of not drinking. Decided
00:39:38
to have a drink again.
00:39:40
>> It ruined three days of my life. I had a
00:39:43
couple of glasses of wine, didn't get
00:39:45
drunk. It ruined three days of my life
00:39:47
because of the the domino effect it
00:39:48
caused. So it meant that I got worse
00:39:50
sleep that night and then because I got
00:39:52
worse sleep that night. I ate more
00:39:53
poorly the the next day because my my
00:39:55
dopamine system or whatever the cortisol
00:39:57
system was all messed up
00:39:58
>> and then I I podcasted worse. I didn't
00:40:01
go to the gym the the day after that
00:40:03
that day or the day after because of
00:40:04
that because I felt really bad. I then
00:40:07
slept worse and I could track all of
00:40:08
this on my weight. Hashtag ad
00:40:09
hashtagsponsor hashtag investor
00:40:10
whatever.
00:40:10
>> Bye.
00:40:11
>> Yeah. And I was like, "Oh my god, those
00:40:13
three glasses of wine had this hidden
00:40:15
domino effect that I must have been
00:40:17
living with for my whole life."
00:40:19
>> Dude, so many people want to build
00:40:22
habits. They want to build meditation
00:40:23
routine. They want to go to the gym more
00:40:26
consistently. They want to improve their
00:40:27
eating habits. They don't realize that
00:40:29
the thing that's stopping them from
00:40:31
doing that is sat at the bottom of the
00:40:32
glass of wine that they have four nights
00:40:34
a week. It's tough. Some people are able
00:40:37
to do it and they don't mind. The
00:40:38
costbenefit ratio for some people is
00:40:41
great. I'm just saying try just try try
00:40:45
six months. The reason that you need to
00:40:46
put an end date on it is that you have
00:40:49
it's like running a race where you know
00:40:50
that there's a finish line. If there's
00:40:52
no finish line, it's really hard to run
00:40:53
the race. How are you motivating
00:40:54
yourself to get there? I think that 90
00:40:56
days would be the absolute minimum. 30
00:40:58
days isn't long enough. You need longer,
00:41:00
right? And especially given that the
00:41:01
hardest bit is the start, which means
00:41:04
that you've paid all of the pain at the
00:41:05
very beginning to not actually get any
00:41:07
of the benefits of this being my new
00:41:08
habit.
00:41:09
>> Do it with an accountability buddy. Do
00:41:10
it with your partner. Say, "Hey, I
00:41:13
listened to those two British idiots
00:41:14
talk about how not drinking might be a
00:41:16
good idea." Why don't we do that? Why
00:41:18
don't we try going sober until July? You
00:41:20
haven't missed the summer, right? The
00:41:21
summer's just about to kick in. So, if
00:41:23
you think, "Oh, I can't wait to get back
00:41:24
to drinking." You can have a a beer in a
00:41:25
beer garden.
00:41:28
a huge proportion of people will not
00:41:30
want to go back to drinking. They'll do
00:41:32
it, take time off, get into it, and
00:41:35
realize
00:41:36
I actually don't like this. I love the
00:41:38
fact I got more
00:41:42
reward from building good habits, from
00:41:45
now having a meditation practice, from
00:41:47
now getting up on time, from being able
00:41:49
to go to the gym more. I've become more
00:41:51
dependent on that than I ever was on the
00:41:53
alcohol. This is an idea you when we
00:41:56
talk about habits and when we read these
00:41:57
habit books, we we're often aiming at
00:41:59
like the ninth domino in a set of
00:42:02
dominoes.
00:42:02
>> And I was just thinking then like the
00:42:04
conversation probably needs to start
00:42:06
with what are like the foundational
00:42:07
things. What is the first domino?
00:42:10
Because we know from science that what I
00:42:12
choose to eat is heavily impacted by my
00:42:14
hormone balance today and my hormone
00:42:16
balance is impacted by my sleep, my
00:42:17
emotional regulation, all these things.
00:42:19
A lot of people aim at domino number
00:42:21
nine and think, "Oh, we'll change that
00:42:22
one." Having no idea that actually this
00:42:24
is downstream from a set of other
00:42:26
foundational decisions. And you know,
00:42:29
even as someone that sits here with
00:42:30
scientists and experts all the time, if
00:42:32
my like core state isn't good,
00:42:37
the chance that I'm going to pick the
00:42:38
right thing or go to the gym is
00:42:40
extremely low. Being smart is basically
00:42:43
pointless unless you're at peace.
00:42:46
Like any amount of intelligence can be
00:42:48
overridden by ego or insecurity or
00:42:51
immorality or bad incentives or
00:42:53
impatience or poor sleep.
00:42:56
>> Yeah, sleep is, as far as I can see,
00:42:58
just it's the the pebble at the top of
00:43:02
the avalanche. It's the gateway drug to
00:43:04
everything else being horrendous. Your
00:43:06
caffeine use is impacting your sleep.
00:43:07
Your phone use is impacting your sleep.
00:43:09
Your alcohol in an evening time is
00:43:10
impacting your sleep. If you think that
00:43:11
you drink in order to go to sleep,
00:43:13
you're not sleeping. You're sedating
00:43:15
yourself. Okay. So, if we can sort the
00:43:18
sleep out, how many other things open
00:43:19
up? But you don't sort the sleep out.
00:43:21
You sort the caffeine intake out and you
00:43:23
sort the nighttime phone use out and you
00:43:25
sort the drinking out and then oh my
00:43:28
god, I've got all of this extra
00:43:29
willpower. The thing that I thought was
00:43:31
the issue, which was I kind of always
00:43:32
feel a bit tired and sluggish on the
00:43:34
morning or I always want to eat salty
00:43:35
foods around midday or I always, you
00:43:38
know, always just can't think too
00:43:40
straight for the first couple of hours.
00:43:42
It's like the problem might be hiding at
00:43:44
the bottom of the glass.
00:43:46
>> We think the cause is actually a
00:43:47
symptom. I just noticed this because you
00:43:49
know when I I changed a couple of core
00:43:51
foundational things like exercise and
00:43:52
sleep, everything became everything was
00:43:55
lubricated.
00:43:56
>> What's your highest ROI New Year's
00:43:58
resolutions?
00:44:00
>> Oh, my highest ROI New Year's resolution
00:44:03
was actually a change in a previous
00:44:06
resolution. So my previous resolution in
00:44:08
2017 was I'm going to go to the gym
00:44:10
every day.
00:44:12
Ended up being a terrible resolution,
00:44:13
>> a horrendous resolution.
00:44:14
>> Yeah. So 2017 it was go to the gym every
00:44:16
day and I got about four or five months
00:44:18
in, I missed a day, the resolution's
00:44:21
done because it was a it was a
00:44:23
completable resolution in an area of my
00:44:25
life where I didn't I need an
00:44:26
incompletable resolution. So 2018, my
00:44:29
resolution became consistency in the
00:44:31
gym.
00:44:31
>> And this is when everything changed
00:44:33
because consistency is a a goal I get a
00:44:37
shot at every day irrespective of what
00:44:39
happened yesterday.
00:44:40
>> And I've got the rule. I've got the
00:44:41
rule. Let me give you the rule.
00:44:42
>> Okay.
00:44:43
>> This is from all of the habit stuff.
00:44:45
James Cle has been on my show. I think
00:44:46
he's been on your show too.
00:44:47
>> Yeah, he has.
00:44:48
>> Yeah. Uh best habit book of all time,
00:44:51
Atomic Habits. Of all of the things,
00:44:54
there's only two that have really,
00:44:55
really, really stuck. This is the best
00:44:57
rule when it comes to habits. Never miss
00:45:00
two days in a row. Like you are not
00:45:03
going to be able to go to the gym every
00:45:05
day. There will be one day when an
00:45:07
absolute catastrophe occurs. You ate
00:45:08
some dodgy sushi last night.
00:45:12
You can't go. But what you have is
00:45:15
one missed day is an error. Two missed
00:45:18
days is the start of a new habit.
00:45:21
And it alleviates this all or nothing
00:45:24
mentality that we all have. If you put a
00:45:26
packet of biscuits in front of me and
00:45:27
you, we say, "You can have none of them
00:45:30
or you can have all of them." Easy. Tell
00:45:33
me to have two of them. [ __ ] you, dude.
00:45:35
I'm not going to have two. No one has
00:45:36
two biscuits, right? You have all of the
00:45:38
biscuits or you have none of the
00:45:39
biscuits. And that's kind of humans are
00:45:41
absolutist creatures. Like think in
00:45:44
extremes.
00:45:44
>> Yeah. Going to be super super dialed in
00:45:47
on my diet and it's going to be great
00:45:48
and I'm going to get up and do my
00:45:49
meditation and do the rest or I'm going
00:45:51
to go full DGEN mode and I'm partying
00:45:53
and it's a beaather and so on and so
00:45:54
forth. Like there is no middle ground
00:45:56
really with this and that means that
00:45:58
small errors can snowball into complete
00:46:02
uh demolitions of the habit. But if you
00:46:06
just think okay at some point this year
00:46:09
I'm going to miss it. And the rule is if
00:46:11
I missed it yesterday I have to do it
00:46:14
today. And that alleviates your issue
00:46:17
which was I cranked it for the first
00:46:19
couple of months and then one day came
00:46:21
in and I thought h and then the second
00:46:23
day and then I thought well this is just
00:46:24
me now.
00:46:25
>> The other trap that I've noticed in that
00:46:27
is one of my friends had great success
00:46:30
with a new habit with going to the gym
00:46:31
for like three or four months. He he
00:46:33
messages us in the group chat. He says I
00:46:34
finally cracked it. I finally figured
00:46:35
out how to do this. And I said to him at
00:46:37
the time, I said, "Listen, mate. Like
00:46:39
the best the best thought I've ever had
00:46:41
that's made my habits be consistent is
00:46:44
the realization that you never crack
00:46:45
it." And actually thinking about the day
00:46:47
when I fall off the horse and what my
00:46:48
strategy is for getting back on the
00:46:49
horse. Like being really really
00:46:51
cognizant of the fact that at some point
00:46:53
I'm going to eat the sushi and it's
00:46:55
going to [ __ ] up my belly or or I'm
00:46:57
going to be on a flight from Australia
00:46:58
and I'm going to land and it's going to
00:46:59
be midnight. And like having a strategy
00:47:02
to get back on the horse and this just
00:47:03
deep belief that you never crack any
00:47:06
habit
00:47:07
>> has been the single most important thing
00:47:08
for me being consistent because when it
00:47:10
happens and I feel unmotivated and that
00:47:12
guilt can creep in and say you [ __ ]
00:47:13
it. I have a I was expecting this.
00:47:16
>> Yes. Of course it's not a a bug it's a
00:47:19
feature.
00:47:19
>> Yeah.
00:47:20
>> This was the price of entry. It's the
00:47:21
cost of doing business of trying to do
00:47:22
behavior change that it's not always
00:47:24
going to work. Mhm.
00:47:26
>> Um, another one, another great uh
00:47:29
resolution, 10-minute walk after every
00:47:31
meal.
00:47:32
>> Interesting.
00:47:33
>> Huge, huge ROI, dude. Crazy. So, it's
00:47:37
called a postprandial walk. Um, and what
00:47:40
it does is it helps to regulate glucose.
00:47:42
It gets your blood sugar moving. Your uh
00:47:45
stomach because of the contrlateral
00:47:47
movement of how your arms and your legs
00:47:48
work, the muscles actually cross across
00:47:50
your stomach, which helps you to digest
00:47:51
food. You know, you have a huge big
00:47:53
meal, you're having a great
00:47:54
conversation, and you sit there and
00:47:55
you're like, "Uh, I mean, this
00:47:57
conversation's so great, but I feel
00:47:59
awful. This this sucks." You just after
00:48:03
you go out for dinner, uh, if you got a
00:48:05
lunch break from work, eat your food,
00:48:07
10-minute little walk. Again, I
00:48:10
challenge people to do it and not say
00:48:12
that it makes them feel really good. You
00:48:14
go for dinner, you're with a friend,
00:48:16
you're out with a partner, you're
00:48:18
meeting somebody for the first time.
00:48:19
Say, "Hey, do you want to why don't we
00:48:20
have a little stroll?" Sometimes it's
00:48:21
gonna be freezing outside, whatever. You
00:48:23
know, do what you can. Let's go for a
00:48:25
little stroll. Makes a huge difference.
00:48:27
Huge difference.
00:48:29
>> What about matters of productivity?
00:48:31
>> Do you think much about this? Because
00:48:32
again, this time of year, people are
00:48:33
thinking about procrastination,
00:48:34
productivity. They're trying to get more
00:48:36
done. They're trying not to doom scroll
00:48:37
so much, be on Netflix, waste time. And
00:48:39
I think a lot of the guilt does come
00:48:40
from feeling like we're unproductive.
00:48:43
>> Absolutely. Yeah. There's a wonderful
00:48:45
idea called productivity dysmorphia. So,
00:48:48
it's the inability to see your own
00:48:49
success.
00:48:50
It's like uh to acknowledge the volume
00:48:52
of your own output. So it sits at the
00:48:54
intersection of burnout, imposttor
00:48:58
syndrome, and anxiety.
00:49:01
It's you think of it like ambitions
00:49:03
alter ego. Basically like the pursuit of
00:49:05
productivity spurs us to do more while
00:49:08
robbing us of the ability to savor any
00:49:10
of the successes that we achieve along
00:49:12
the way. So first off, people are not
00:49:13
particularly good judges of how
00:49:15
productive they are. I think so many
00:49:17
people are whipping themselves into
00:49:18
submission saying you're not doing
00:49:20
enough because in the past that
00:49:21
motivated them to do more.
00:49:23
>> Yeah. And after a while you have to
00:49:26
accept I'm I'm doing quite a lot. And if
00:49:30
you were an athlete on a sports team and
00:49:33
your coach only ever pointed at you when
00:49:36
you made a bad play, you wouldn't feel
00:49:38
particularly motivated by that. But a
00:49:41
lot of people have this sense of
00:49:43
productivity debt. They wake up every
00:49:46
day feeling as if they're already
00:49:48
behind. And only if they dominate their
00:49:50
entire day perfectly can they drag
00:49:52
themselves back up to some minimum level
00:49:54
of acceptable output. And only then can
00:49:57
they go to sleep that night without
00:49:58
feeling like a loser. This means that
00:50:01
you your set point is loss and the best
00:50:04
thing that you can do if you crush the
00:50:06
day is get to a draw. You never win. And
00:50:11
then there's this sort of weird drill
00:50:12
sergeant in the back of your mind that's
00:50:14
saying, "All right, you can have a
00:50:16
little bit of a break now, but just so
00:50:19
you know, soon as you wake up in the
00:50:20
morning, it's all going to happen
00:50:21
again." And you know, I'm speaking to a
00:50:24
very particular type of of mindset here
00:50:26
that there is a huge cohort of people on
00:50:28
the internet who do need David Gogggins
00:50:30
screaming in their face, telling them to
00:50:31
go harder and sort their life out.
00:50:34
The sort of people that listen to your
00:50:35
show and listen to Modern Wisdom are
00:50:39
probably not in that camp.
00:50:41
>> Do you know what's surprising? I am in
00:50:43
that camp. I'm in the camp of
00:50:45
productivity dysmorphia.
00:50:46
>> Mhm. Of course you are. Why is that
00:50:47
surprising? Look at what you've built.
00:50:49
How could you not do that with if you
00:50:51
were seeing how much you did?
00:50:53
>> I can't really think of many days. And
00:50:55
just for context, when I wake up in the
00:50:57
morning till, you know, 2 2 a.m. at
00:50:59
night, I'm working. But I can't think of
00:51:01
many days or really none none come to
00:51:04
mind where I've I've got in bed and
00:51:06
thought you were productive today.
00:51:07
[ __ ]
00:51:07
>> crushed it.
00:51:08
>> You met the standard
00:51:09
>> productivity debt.
00:51:10
>> Yeah.
00:51:10
>> You woke up feeling like you're already
00:51:11
behind
00:51:12
>> 100%. Because of yesterday and the week
00:51:14
before and the month before and the
00:51:15
to-do list.
00:51:15
>> You see you see your own shortfalls from
00:51:18
a front row seat, right? And this is one
00:51:21
of the curses of people who have big
00:51:23
dreams, goals for themselves. the the
00:51:27
size of their goals is always greater
00:51:28
than their ability to deliver them. And
00:51:31
we assume that by having very very very
00:51:33
high standards for ourselves that that's
00:51:36
what what is it? Um shoot for the stars
00:51:37
and even if you don't get it, you'll end
00:51:38
up on the moon. Something like that.
00:51:40
>> Yeah. Whatever. Um that's great for a
00:51:43
while and it's very good at the
00:51:45
beginning of your journey,
00:51:46
>> but after a while I think you just need
00:51:48
to give yourself a [ __ ] break, dude.
00:51:49
Like people are
00:51:52
destroying themselves in this perpetual
00:51:54
sense of not enoughness. They're always
00:51:57
chasing the next thing. So that's all of
00:51:59
that is for me to say that people uh
00:52:01
want productivity, desire productivity.
00:52:03
I'm just trying to say you're probably
00:52:06
working real hard as it is. That being
00:52:07
said, how much do I think about
00:52:08
productivity and how can we like twist
00:52:11
the the knife a little bit more to give
00:52:12
people some some tools?
00:52:15
Best question to ask yourself. Uh, if I
00:52:17
could only achieve one thing today,
00:52:20
start of every day, if I could only
00:52:21
achieve one thing today, what would that
00:52:23
be? You're only allowed to do one thing.
00:52:26
And it's the big thing. It's usually the
00:52:27
scary thing. It's usually the thing that
00:52:28
you probably don't want to do. How many
00:52:30
times does someone go and clean the
00:52:32
cupboard in the kitchen that hasn't been
00:52:34
touched for 6 months? Rearrange. I'll
00:52:36
rearrange all of the plates because they
00:52:38
don't want to have that conversation
00:52:39
with their boss because they don't want
00:52:41
to face that particular piece of work
00:52:43
which is like big and scary and I don't
00:52:44
really know how to tackle it, how to
00:52:45
begin. you will do everything that
00:52:48
doesn't need to be done in order to
00:52:50
avoid the one thing that does. It's
00:52:51
because it's a big scary task that
00:52:53
people will endure months, years,
00:52:56
decades of misery to avoid a couple of
00:52:59
days of pain. And that makes sense. It's
00:53:02
a good trade in some ways, but over time
00:53:04
you're going to accumulate an awful lot
00:53:06
of discomfort.
00:53:08
>> Reminds me of what Nael said when I
00:53:09
interviewed him about procrastination is
00:53:12
the avoidance of discomfort. Um, and he
00:53:14
really said that most of human
00:53:16
motivation is just the avoidance of
00:53:17
discomfort because I I tried to test his
00:53:19
idea. I was like, "What about having
00:53:20
sex? That's surely the pursuit of
00:53:22
pleasure." He was like, "No, you get
00:53:23
horny, which is a form of discomfort and
00:53:25
in order to alleviate it, you go and
00:53:26
have sex where you pursue." But he said,
00:53:28
"All all of our behavior is driven by
00:53:29
discomfort." So, in your example of I've
00:53:31
got a big I've got to start the
00:53:32
manuscript for my new book, but I end up
00:53:34
cleaning the house. It's cuz
00:53:35
>> sounds like a personal example.
00:53:36
>> No, but it is. It's like, you know, I
00:53:38
remember how long I procrastinated on
00:53:39
starting my new book because it's like
00:53:40
being stood at the foot of Mount Everest
00:53:42
starting a book. It's huge.
00:53:44
>> When you think about procrastination,
00:53:46
which is part of pro becoming more
00:53:47
productive,
00:53:48
>> what what in your mind are the causes of
00:53:52
me me avoiding the thing that I should
00:53:54
be doing? As far as I can see, there's
00:53:56
two main reasons for procrastination.
00:53:59
The first one is you don't know what to
00:54:01
do. So, you have this big book in front
00:54:03
of you, but nobody's ever written a
00:54:05
book. they've written a sentence and
00:54:08
then that sentence has accumulated over
00:54:09
time into pages and paragraphs and then
00:54:13
a book appears or you've reviewed a
00:54:15
book, you've looked at the edit, you've
00:54:16
made a decision about the color for the
00:54:18
front cover, but you do what's called a
00:54:22
next action from uh getting things done,
00:54:24
David Allen's productivity strategy.
00:54:26
People want a really really great
00:54:27
productivity strategy. Getting things
00:54:28
done by David Allen is is about as good
00:54:30
as you can get.
00:54:32
You do a next action. So, I'm
00:54:34
procrastinating over a task. What is the
00:54:36
next physical action that I can do that
00:54:40
pushes me toward that goal? I need to
00:54:43
write an email. Well, you better go and
00:54:44
open your email client. Right? If you
00:54:46
don't have your email client open, it is
00:54:48
impossible for you to send the email.
00:54:50
Well, actually, before that, I need to
00:54:51
sit down at my desk. Actually, before
00:54:52
that, I might need to put my pants on.
00:54:55
Okay, pants are on. Hooray. I'm moving.
00:54:58
I'm down at the desk. All right, there
00:54:59
we go. I opened Instagram. [ __ ] Okay,
00:55:02
close Instagram. Email client. That's
00:55:04
the next action. So any bit, what is it
00:55:07
like? Uh completing a marathon is just a
00:55:09
ton of steps one in front of the other.
00:55:11
Like it's just one foot in front of the
00:55:12
other. Do this really really big thing
00:55:13
by breaking it down into small chunks.
00:55:14
That's the first reason in my opinion
00:55:16
for procrastination.
00:55:17
>> Before we move on to the second thing,
00:55:18
it reminds me of something Jordan
00:55:19
Peterson said to me about um why people
00:55:21
don't change their life. He said people
00:55:23
don't change their life because the
00:55:24
first steps to doing so are so embar so
00:55:27
small that it's like embarrassing.
00:55:28
Correct. And he told me the story of a
00:55:30
guy who he was trying to get to change
00:55:32
his life. This person wouldn't leave
00:55:33
their bedroom. Plates stacked to the
00:55:35
ceiling, messy bedroom. And on day one,
00:55:37
he walks in, they put a vacuum cleaner
00:55:38
in there, they do nothing else. Day two,
00:55:40
they come back, they plug it in, nothing
00:55:41
else. Day three, they come back, they
00:55:43
turn it on, nothing else. And by the end
00:55:44
of the 30 days, this guy is out of his
00:55:46
bedroom, his room is clean, and he's out
00:55:47
in out in the world, which he was scared
00:55:49
of. And it always made me think like the
00:55:50
the first step to real change isn't some
00:55:53
great leap which is going to cause huge
00:55:54
cognitive dissonance and discomfort. It
00:55:56
is often so embarrassingly small that we
00:55:58
don't think it's consequential.
00:56:00
>> Yeah.
00:56:00
>> And I think about that with my life all
00:56:01
the time. I'm like actually maybe the
00:56:02
first step here is just like
00:56:06
buying buying a notepad,
00:56:08
>> you know, to start writing my book.
00:56:10
There is definitely a sense that
00:56:14
focusing our attention on a small step
00:56:17
kind of reveals the smallalness of our
00:56:19
lives that like, oh my god, I said that
00:56:23
I I sat down at my desk. like how
00:56:25
pitiful is this really how small I've
00:56:27
become. I should have this big cathedral
00:56:29
of achievements and monumental stuff.
00:56:32
You go, well, yeah, but how do you get
00:56:33
there? We got to lay the first break.
00:56:36
Um, so humility, being humble and uh
00:56:40
compassionate to yourself. Okay, I I I
00:56:43
did a thing today. I went for a walk,
00:56:45
felt like crap. I ate this bad sushi
00:56:47
last night and I, you know, I did one
00:56:49
thing did one thing, one small thing
00:56:51
that moved me toward my goal. So anyway,
00:56:53
>> maybe that's because we never get to see
00:56:55
that first small step. We get to see the
00:56:57
outcome. So if I'm thinking about
00:56:58
becoming a podcaster and following in
00:56:59
your footsteps,
00:57:00
>> I see you've got this [ __ ] digital
00:57:02
screen with where you've got Matthew
00:57:03
McConnA sat in the set of
00:57:05
>> I do
00:57:05
>> his movie and I'm thinking, "Fuck, God,
00:57:08
that's a long way to go."
00:57:10
>> Well, the beautiful thing about a lot of
00:57:11
stuff on the internet is that uh it is
00:57:14
archived for the rest of time. So you
00:57:16
can go back and watch my first ever
00:57:17
episode, which is me in my old office
00:57:19
for the nightclub stuff that I did. And
00:57:21
my business partner yelled at me
00:57:22
afterward because I kicked everybody out
00:57:23
so that I could record. And he's like,
00:57:24
"You can't keep doing this. It's not
00:57:25
your studio. It's our office." And it's
00:57:27
a single iPhone and a Blue Yeti USB mic
00:57:31
that looks like a big white dildo. And
00:57:32
it's up and over the top of the desk.
00:57:35
And it's me and a friend from the gym
00:57:36
talking about how we might row the
00:57:38
Atlantic one day.
00:57:39
>> Embarrassing to start there for someone
00:57:40
that's watching you do Matthew McConnA
00:57:42
in a digital screen. It's embarrassing,
00:57:43
>> but also not because that was the first
00:57:46
step. But that wasn't the first step.
00:57:47
The first step was deciding what name it
00:57:49
was going to be and then driving to
00:57:52
Gates Head to buy the Yeti secondhand
00:57:56
from some dude on eBay and that Yeti
00:57:59
went on to do 500 episodes of my podcast
00:58:02
and then we changed to nicer microphones
00:58:04
or something. So everybody's journey
00:58:07
begins embarrassingly small. And I think
00:58:09
just having a little bit of compassion
00:58:11
for yourself, having the humility to go
00:58:14
the first step that I do is going to be
00:58:17
so small that it it almost wouldn't
00:58:19
register on the ledger of
00:58:21
accomplishments. It would be minute
00:58:23
going, okay, that's still a win. First
00:58:26
thing, you don't know what to do. Second
00:58:29
thing, you know what to do, but you
00:58:31
don't know how to do it. So you can sit
00:58:33
down in front of the spreadsheet and you
00:58:36
know that you've got to do a VLOOKUP on
00:58:38
this spreadsheet. We have no idea how to
00:58:39
do a VLOOKUP. What's VLOOKUP? It's some
00:58:42
like some Excel thing that Excel nerds
00:58:44
will know. Um Chat GPT, Google, ring a
00:58:49
boss, ring a friend that is an expert in
00:58:52
Excel. So for me, when I look at my
00:58:54
procrastination, it occurs due to
00:58:56
usually one of two things. Poorly
00:58:58
defined next physical action. I don't
00:59:00
know exactly what the next smallest step
00:59:02
is that moves me toward my goal. I do
00:59:04
know that and I sit down. I don't know
00:59:05
how to do it. Like how do I like if you
00:59:08
don't know how to open a file, you don't
00:59:09
know how to unzip a file. Doesn't matter
00:59:12
how many files you've got in front of
00:59:13
you. If you can't unzip them, you can't
00:59:14
see them. So, okay, I need to learn. Hey
00:59:16
dude, I got this zip file. Where do I go
00:59:19
to get it? Oh. Oh, okay. Thank you. And
00:59:20
then we've got moving. So, it's either a
00:59:24
uh action issue or a skill issue. And
00:59:26
both of those are usually pretty simply
00:59:27
fixed. I was reading your newsletter,
00:59:29
you talk about how some people
00:59:31
procrastinate because they're scared of
00:59:33
what they'll find out about themselves.
00:59:34
>> Mhm.
00:59:35
>> If they try the thing, and I thought
00:59:37
that's so true.
00:59:38
>> Yeah. I mean, if you The upside of never
00:59:41
trying is never having to feel the pain
00:59:42
of failure,
00:59:44
>> right? If you never face that
00:59:48
discomfort, like if I tell myself that
00:59:51
all women are terrible, then I'm excused
00:59:53
of ever having to talk to a woman and as
00:59:55
a result I never have to feel the pain
00:59:57
of rejection. If I tell myself that
00:59:59
everything is [ __ ] or that things will
01:00:01
never get better, I'm excused of ever
01:00:03
having to try anything. It's more
01:00:05
comfortable to get fatalistic and call
01:00:07
it pragmatism. like the cope is framing
01:00:10
hope as pathetic and embarrassing and
01:00:13
optimism as delusion. This is cynicism,
01:00:16
right? Cynicism. And uh the opposite of
01:00:20
that is enthusiasm. Since moving to
01:00:22
America, I've been surrounded by very
01:00:23
enthusiastic people. Americans kind of
01:00:25
have permanent firstline cocaine energy.
01:00:30
And uh I like enthusiasm. I wish I
01:00:33
could, you know, export some of it back
01:00:34
to the UK. You know what I was really
01:00:36
disappointed by? I mean, you featured in
01:00:38
an article recently in a very well-known
01:00:40
British paper. Maybe this came across
01:00:42
your desk or maybe not.
01:00:43
>> No, I have no idea.
01:00:45
>> Okay. So, it was uh it was the same week
01:00:47
that the Spotify rap came out. Yeah.
01:00:49
>> And in the top 10 in the world, there's
01:00:50
me, you and J Shetty. There's three
01:00:52
Brits. I think we're punching above our
01:00:54
weight.
01:00:54
>> Yeah. %
01:00:56
>> with regards to this lady who wrote this
01:00:58
article basically said it was a
01:01:01
rejection of our patriotic inheritance
01:01:05
that we were trying to do
01:01:07
self-improvement at scale like whatever
01:01:10
happened to the British stiff upper
01:01:12
lipness where we sort of feel stoically
01:01:14
satisfied in our own loneliness and
01:01:16
misery that's like an almost an exact
01:01:19
quote
01:01:19
>> really
01:01:19
>> yeah it was really it really made me sad
01:01:22
and it made me sad for a few reasons
01:01:23
first stuff. The UK is not exactly
01:01:26
showering itself in glory at the moment.
01:01:28
There is an entire content bucket of
01:01:31
American streamers reacting to news from
01:01:33
the UK and going, "Oh, the downfall of
01:01:36
the UK with the whatever." Whether
01:01:37
that's true or not, the optics aren't
01:01:39
great coming out of the UK at the
01:01:41
moment. And you've got three people who
01:01:44
have done it. I don't know whether Jay
01:01:46
is from workingass, but I'm from as
01:01:48
workingass as workingass can be. I know
01:01:50
that you're like even lower than me
01:01:51
somehow. Congratulations. and wherever
01:01:55
Jay's from, and you've managed to get
01:01:56
these three guys who are genuinely
01:01:59
trying to make the world a better place,
01:02:00
really working hard at it, and your main
01:02:03
takeaway was not during a time where the
01:02:05
UK is kind of eating [ __ ] on the global
01:02:07
stage. Congratulations to three people
01:02:09
who can show young entrepreneurs, people
01:02:13
that want to do personal development,
01:02:14
improve their own lives, that maybe you
01:02:16
can do it, too. And maybe we all got
01:02:18
lucky. I don't know. But it made me real
01:02:20
sad to read that. And this isn't just
01:02:22
that. I was like, it would have been
01:02:23
nice if the the UK like UK press had
01:02:25
backed us and said, "Good on you guys."
01:02:27
But on top of that, it just reminded me
01:02:28
of a a mindset in the UK that
01:02:33
kind of has like Stockholm syndrome for
01:02:36
their own sad moments, for their own
01:02:39
like zero sum like tall poppy thing. And
01:02:43
I really don't like the tall poppy
01:02:44
syndrome in the UK. And uh it made me
01:02:46
sad to to to read that. If I had one
01:02:49
wish for people in the UK and if you're
01:02:51
listening now there's a high possibility
01:02:53
you're in the UK is
01:02:56
lift people up and be positive like clap
01:02:59
for strangers. If someone does something
01:03:01
if someone falls flat on their face in
01:03:03
the pursuit of a big goal clap for them.
01:03:04
Go that was amazing. At least you tried
01:03:06
because their success paves the way for
01:03:08
us all to fail and fall flat on our
01:03:10
face. But right now there's a bit of an
01:03:11
inversion of that. I was in San
01:03:13
Francisco last week and I swear to you
01:03:16
one woman came up to me. She told me
01:03:17
three times she had failed at her
01:03:19
startup. She's now back living with her
01:03:20
mom. And she wore it like a credential
01:03:22
in a badge of honor because in that room
01:03:23
it is.
01:03:24
>> But back home that's a hit piece. That's
01:03:27
a hit.
01:03:27
>> Look at this stupid delusional woman who
01:03:29
tried to do this thing. It's evidently
01:03:31
not going to work. How embarrassing.
01:03:33
>> Oh yeah. She she's her employees have
01:03:35
been let go. She owes this money. All
01:03:38
these things. It would be framed as a
01:03:39
negative. And actually when I read the
01:03:41
thing the the Spotify top 10 thing. Yes,
01:03:43
we're all doing self-improvement stuff.
01:03:45
But for me, that's kind of beside the
01:03:46
point. We we built media businesses and
01:03:49
there's not a lot of in terms of
01:03:51
competing with America and competing
01:03:52
with the rest of the world. It's crazy
01:03:54
that three British entrepreneurs managed
01:03:58
to contend with the United States, the
01:04:01
home of media, more capital, more brand
01:04:04
partners, more access to talent,
01:04:06
everything is here it seems. And for for
01:04:09
three Brits to do that, I was so proud.
01:04:11
I I actually don't need anyone to tell
01:04:12
me like to be like I was so proud of
01:04:14
you. I was so proud of Jay because that
01:04:16
is um it's a real underdog thing and
01:04:18
many of us started a lot later than the
01:04:22
people that
01:04:24
>> you know the Indiana Jones movie where
01:04:26
he's like running and the big door is
01:04:28
coming down the big stone door and it's
01:04:29
coming down real slow and he's running
01:04:31
running running. He slides underneath
01:04:32
and he grabs his hat as he comes in. I
01:04:34
kind of feel like that was us in the
01:04:35
podcasting WORLD. WE JUST SNUCK IN
01:04:37
before the sort of explosion and and you
01:04:40
know we rode uh rode the the the
01:04:42
increase in platform size. But yeah,
01:04:44
look dude,
01:04:46
having people around you that genuinely
01:04:48
are prepared to watch you take big
01:04:49
swings is something I wish I could gift
01:04:51
to the UK. Like the way that I would put
01:04:53
it is
01:04:55
Americans want you to succeed in case
01:04:58
you take them with you on the journey.
01:05:01
Mhm.
01:05:02
>> And the worst parts of British culture
01:05:06
don't want you to succeed in case you
01:05:07
leave them behind.
01:05:10
>> And I I know that there are so many
01:05:13
people that this is just a mimemetic
01:05:16
issue that if you had one key mover
01:05:19
within a group that that would start to
01:05:22
spread and spread and spread. But to the
01:05:25
people in the UK that are doers and are
01:05:26
builders and are actually making stuff
01:05:28
happen, like you have one of the hardest
01:05:31
jobs in the world, cuz not only have you
01:05:32
got to get over the lonely chapter, the
01:05:34
challenge, the difficulty, the
01:05:35
procrastination, the getting up early,
01:05:36
I've got to stop drinking, caffeine 90
01:05:37
minutes after waking, holy [ __ ] there's
01:05:39
so much on my plate, you have this
01:05:41
additional gravity of a culture that
01:05:44
doesn't tend to celebrate success and
01:05:46
risk-taking in quite the same way. So,
01:05:48
if that's you, I think like power to
01:05:51
you. I I really do. and there is a
01:05:55
community of people out there even if it
01:05:56
feels lonely. Now,
01:05:57
>> what do you think of the UK versus US
01:05:59
conversations generally? Do you think
01:06:01
it's really as bad as you hear on X or
01:06:04
on social media? Do you think the UK is
01:06:06
really as doomed?
01:06:07
>> I don't know, man. I mean, I hesitate. I
01:06:10
don't like to throw a ton of shade at
01:06:13
the country that I left three, four
01:06:15
years ago now. Uh because it does feel a
01:06:17
bit like pulling the ladder up after I
01:06:18
got you the last lifeboat off the
01:06:20
Titanic and me going like sorry I had my
01:06:22
problems while I was there. I had I had
01:06:24
my my criticisms of the UK while I was
01:06:27
still in the UK. I wish that people were
01:06:29
more positive some. I wish that there
01:06:30
was less tall poppy syndrome. I wish
01:06:32
that risk was um more celebrated. You
01:06:38
know, we have the same number of
01:06:42
universities in the top 10 in the world
01:06:43
as America,
01:06:45
>> but we produce 80% fewer entrepreneurs.
01:06:48
>> And what is entrepreneurialism? It's
01:06:50
like vision. It's risk-taking. It's
01:06:52
being prepared to do something that
01:06:53
hasn't been done before. and uh that
01:06:57
maybe there's some something else I'm
01:07:00
not seeing that's a part of the maybe
01:07:01
it's the weather you know maybe it's the
01:07:03
fact that we're a waterlocked island or
01:07:05
that the population density is 10 times
01:07:07
that of the US but there's something I
01:07:10
feel like bottom up that's putting a bit
01:07:11
of a restriction on people and and and
01:07:13
yeah it was a shame it was a shame to
01:07:15
see that the UK press was
01:07:19
just living out the exact cultural
01:07:22
script that I assumed that they would
01:07:24
Um, shame. Shame.
01:07:27
>> Do you know something I've noticed? Most
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01:07:31
targets. They're tested by the weight of
01:07:33
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01:07:35
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01:07:37
all the notes, the timelines that never
01:07:38
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01:07:41
of friction in my commercial team until
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01:08:30
Productivity. Have we closed off the
01:08:31
book of uh things that really one of the
01:08:33
things I've read in your newsletter as
01:08:34
well as relates to productivity is just
01:08:36
this idea that a lack of confidence
01:08:37
kills more dreams than a lack of skill.
01:08:39
>> Mhm.
01:08:40
>> And confidence I think is maybe one of
01:08:42
those big foundational things that sits
01:08:44
at the very top of the stack of dominoes
01:08:47
to be able to do anything which is like
01:08:49
do I actually believe I'll be able to?
01:08:50
Mhm. Well, let me give you this. Uh,
01:08:54
I think a lot of people assume that
01:08:56
self-belief is kind of the answer to
01:09:00
what it is that they're looking to do.
01:09:03
You can just do things.
01:09:06
You can just do it anyway.
01:09:08
You can do it tired.
01:09:10
You can do it with no self-belief.
01:09:13
You can do it when you don't want to.
01:09:16
You can do it when you think it's not
01:09:17
going to work. You can just do things.
01:09:21
And I've learned that you can have no
01:09:24
self-esteem and show up anyway.
01:09:27
You can have no self-belief and things
01:09:29
still go well. Ryan Holidayiday says,
01:09:32
"Self-belief is overrated. Generate
01:09:34
evidence."
01:09:38
[ __ ] yeah. I want evidence.
01:09:41
Want an undeniable stack of proof that I
01:09:43
am who I say I am. And I I am I am the
01:09:45
poster boy for imposter syndrome, dude.
01:09:47
Like I I never assumed that I would
01:09:49
amount to really anything,
01:09:53
but I'm pretty stubborn. And being
01:09:55
stubborn has meant that I've just kept
01:09:56
showing up. And uh that stubbornness
01:09:59
feels even more in reach than
01:10:01
consistency. Consistency is pretty in
01:10:02
reach, right? Don't miss two days in a
01:10:04
row. All right. Well, [ __ ] write
01:10:07
write 500 words a week. Start a Substack
01:10:09
and write 500 words a week. You can
01:10:11
probably do that. You can probably find
01:10:12
500 words a week. It'll take you half an
01:10:13
hour. Write 500 words a week. After a
01:10:15
year, you're a writer. Congratulations.
01:10:16
You're a writer. You have the license to
01:10:18
be able to call yourself a writer. How
01:10:19
fantastic. And then who knows in four
01:10:23
years time you've got Penguin came
01:10:25
knocking. Maybe there's a book deal for
01:10:26
you. How fantastic with that? I'm a
01:10:28
published author with Penguin. How
01:10:30
fantastic is that?
01:10:32
But it starts by just going
01:10:35
I'm going to see what happens if I do
01:10:37
this little thing.
01:10:37
>> So interesting as you said that I
01:10:39
thought you know what when I started I
01:10:41
had no evidence. Definitely didn't have
01:10:43
belief that I could do what I've done
01:10:44
over the last sort of 1015 years of my
01:10:46
life. But I also had no choice because
01:10:48
of that internal void. So
01:10:50
>> yeah,
01:10:51
>> I had no evidence but no choice.
01:10:52
>> That's the that's the region beta thing
01:10:53
that you mentioned earlier on. So um the
01:10:56
region beta paradox. Imagine that if you
01:10:59
were going to travel less than a mile,
01:11:01
you'd walk it. If you're going to travel
01:11:04
a mile or more, you would drive it.
01:11:06
Paradoxically, you would travel 2 miles
01:11:08
quicker than you would travel one mile.
01:11:10
You jump in the car. And what this
01:11:12
suggests is that if we only act when
01:11:15
things cross a certain threshold of
01:11:16
badness,
01:11:18
worse things can be better than better
01:11:20
things. So for instance, the person who
01:11:23
lives in an apartment and it's in a kind
01:11:26
of a sketchy area of town and there's a
01:11:27
little bit of mold on the ceiling and
01:11:29
the housemates's kind of a bit weird,
01:11:30
but it's really cheap and they quite
01:11:33
like the bed and it's not too far from
01:11:35
their work. Uh, someone's in a
01:11:37
relationship and their partner's not
01:11:38
abusive or mean to them, but they're not
01:11:40
really that fired up and don't really
01:11:42
see that much of a future with them. Or
01:11:44
the person who's got a job and their
01:11:45
boss is a bit of a dick and it doesn't
01:11:47
pay that well, but it's really cushy and
01:11:49
they don't actually have to work that
01:11:50
hard. All of these people would be
01:11:52
better off if their situations were
01:11:54
worse because it would galvanize them to
01:11:57
go and do something. And this zone of
01:12:00
comfortable complacency that people get
01:12:02
into is where they can sit for a very
01:12:04
long time. And this is a really
01:12:06
dangerous one. Things aren't bad enough
01:12:07
to be bad, but they're nowhere near good
01:12:09
enough to be good. And this
01:12:13
sort of gray zone, this liinal space,
01:12:15
this sort of like productivity purgatory
01:12:18
that you sit in just sort of allows you
01:12:21
to keep moving forward. You're not
01:12:22
moving toward what you want, but there's
01:12:24
not enough discomfort to get you to do
01:12:25
it. One of the most uh spicy questions
01:12:28
that's been asked at one of my live
01:12:29
talks about this was um should I
01:12:31
purposefully make my life worse so that
01:12:34
it kicks me out the bottom of region
01:12:35
beta? I'm like it's a high-risisk
01:12:37
strategy. I wouldn't I wouldn't
01:12:39
recommend it but it is a difficulty.
01:12:41
>> As you were saying that I was thinking
01:12:42
about how our relationship with that
01:12:44
uncertainty is going to define our lives
01:12:45
and that a lot of people are choosing
01:12:47
certain misery over the uncertainty that
01:12:49
you'll encounter as you go and search
01:12:50
for more. And I always almost almost
01:12:52
imagine it as being stood on the edge of
01:12:53
a cliff and the part of the cliff I'm on
01:12:56
is illuminated. I know it. It's not
01:12:58
great, but I know it.
01:13:00
>> And then I look off into the the abyss
01:13:01
and I've got to jump into this
01:13:03
uncertainty. I don't know if there's
01:13:04
land there. I don't know what what's in
01:13:06
there. And I think people's relationship
01:13:08
with with uncertainty defines their
01:13:10
entire life. Like can you quit when it's
01:13:12
meh?
01:13:14
And I look back on my life and go, if
01:13:16
there is one defining skill, maybe
01:13:18
because of of this sort of internal
01:13:20
void, it's been not overstaying my
01:13:22
welcome by many days in a situation
01:13:25
>> that pushes back against your I say yes
01:13:27
too much. It seems like you do have the
01:13:28
capacity to be able to quit when
01:13:32
>> Oh, yeah. But it's it's I mean, so these
01:13:34
are like big life decisions. And what
01:13:35
I'm talking about when I say I don't say
01:13:37
no enough is like
01:13:39
gradual clutter. Right.
01:13:42
>> Gradual clutter being uh you start
01:13:46
starting a newsletter when I have no
01:13:47
time to write. Whereas when I'm thinking
01:13:49
about this uncertainty, it's like went
01:13:52
to university, lasted a day, never went
01:13:54
back.
01:13:55
>> Walked in, thought this is like school
01:13:57
where where I failed, never went back.
01:13:59
Built a company, was going well, raising
01:14:01
investment, very successful, quit out of
01:14:03
the blue, started this other company
01:14:05
called Social Chain. Did that up until
01:14:06
the age of 27. 10 days before we're
01:14:09
about to go on this IPO road show for
01:14:10
the company to up this to a new stock
01:14:11
market reached this point where I'm like
01:14:15
even though my entire identity is this
01:14:17
social chain guy and even though we're
01:14:18
about to raise this money and the
01:14:19
company would eventually rally up to
01:14:21
what being worth 4 500 million on the
01:14:23
Frankfurt stock exchange
01:14:25
I'm going to jump off into nothingness
01:14:27
I'm going to leave it all with no plan B
01:14:30
and that's when I reflect on my life and
01:14:31
go oh like in the big moments I've not
01:14:34
required I've not needed certainty what
01:14:36
I've needed is uh realization that this
01:14:39
certain misery is not what I want.
01:14:40
>> That's brave. Do you know what I'm
01:14:42
saying? Like I I look at people's
01:14:43
decisioning and their life story through
01:14:44
this lens, which is like how much
01:14:47
conviction do you need that you're in
01:14:49
the wrong place? Obama said on stage
01:14:52
when I spoke at this event um that he
01:14:53
spoke at many years ago that on his big
01:14:55
decisions in life, he gets to 51%
01:14:57
certainty and then makes the decision
01:14:58
with the peace of mind that he made the
01:15:00
decision with the best available
01:15:01
evidence. He talked about getting Osama
01:15:02
bin Laden in that compound in Pakistan.
01:15:04
He had never seen that he was there, but
01:15:06
he he risked two Apache helicopters of
01:15:09
lives and
01:15:10
>> like what percentage of certainty do you
01:15:13
need to make a big decision I think is a
01:15:15
determinant for the long-term success
01:15:18
you'll have in your life. Some people
01:15:19
need to get to like 95%. And you never
01:15:22
get there in most things.
01:15:23
>> Yeah. It's the difference in uh
01:15:25
behavioral economics between maximizing
01:15:28
and satisficing. It's like the two the
01:15:30
two terms like basically what's your
01:15:32
threshold for conviction? Yeah.
01:15:34
>> You know the paradox of choice by Barry
01:15:36
Schwarz. Do you know this? Okay. So
01:15:38
Barry Schwarz uses this wonderful
01:15:40
example of people buying jeans 50 years
01:15:42
ago going into the jeans store. You go
01:15:45
in and there is one type of jeans.
01:15:48
There's maybe different sizes maybe. And
01:15:50
you go in, you buy the pair of jeans,
01:15:52
you leave. Maybe they're not the perfect
01:15:53
jeans that you wanted, but you had no
01:15:56
other choice, right? So you got them. So
01:15:57
you're okay with your decision. Would
01:15:59
have been happier if there was others,
01:16:00
but there wasn't. So, your decision
01:16:02
regret is basically zero. Roll the clock
01:16:05
forward. It's 2025. You go into the
01:16:07
jeans store. Do you want skinny or
01:16:09
stretch? Do you want boot cut? Do you
01:16:10
want ripped? Do you want bleach? Do you
01:16:12
want gray, blue, black? If you walk out
01:16:15
of the jean store with a suboptimal pair
01:16:18
of jeans. This is no longer because of
01:16:20
restriction from the environment. This
01:16:22
is because of your inability to make the
01:16:23
right choice.
01:16:24
>> And this causes people to fear making
01:16:27
choices. They project the potential
01:16:29
regret they're fearful of in the future
01:16:31
down into the present and it causes
01:16:33
decision paralysis. So they don't do
01:16:34
anything. They think there's so many
01:16:36
different options here. And this is one
01:16:37
of the paradoxes where you think, well,
01:16:39
lots of choice allows you to maximize
01:16:41
what you want. You get the perfect pair
01:16:42
of jeans. So why is it that firstly
01:16:45
people tend to be less satisfied with
01:16:48
their decisions when they're given more
01:16:49
options and secondly why so many people
01:16:51
struggle to make decisions in the first
01:16:53
place? all because they're paralyzed by
01:16:55
the overanalysis they have of all of the
01:16:57
different optionality that's in front of
01:16:58
them.
01:16:59
>> Overanalysis paralysis.
01:17:04
Jeff Bezos's Amazon thing about type
01:17:06
one, type two doors is really useful
01:17:07
here because when kids come up to me at
01:17:08
the tours and stuff that I've done,
01:17:10
>> most of the time the question they're
01:17:12
asking me can be answered with with a
01:17:13
rebuttal, which is, "If you're wrong,
01:17:15
could you go back?"
01:17:16
>> Like, "If you're wrong about quitting
01:17:18
that job at City Bank, would City Bank
01:17:20
have you back?" or Santandere,
01:17:23
>> whoever, but you've been there for three
01:17:24
or four years. You're like a high
01:17:25
performer. You're killing it. You could
01:17:26
do it with your eyes closed. Of course,
01:17:27
they're going to have you back. In fact,
01:17:28
you probably get a pay rise if you go to
01:17:30
their competitor. So, in such a
01:17:31
scenario, go be the violinist in Peru
01:17:33
and do the cupcake thing.
01:17:34
>> Like the start the cupcake store because
01:17:36
if you're wrong,
01:17:37
>> you can always go back. And that
01:17:39
honestly, when I say that to kids, it's
01:17:41
almost like the most common rebuttal I
01:17:42
give them, which is like, if you're
01:17:43
wrong about this dream you have, would
01:17:45
you be welcomed back to your current
01:17:46
life?
01:17:47
>> Well, think about this. If you're
01:17:48
succeeding at a job that you hate,
01:17:50
imagine how great you'd be at one that
01:17:51
you loved.
01:17:52
>> If you're not fired up about the thing
01:17:54
that you're doing today and you're still
01:17:57
winning,
01:18:00
what could happen if you actually
01:18:02
enjoyed you were fired up when you woke
01:18:03
up in the morning? Imagine that.
01:18:06
>> Some people have never experienced to
01:18:07
know that it's possible.
01:18:08
>> It's tough, man. And lots of people have
01:18:10
got real world restrictions, which
01:18:11
[ __ ] blows. But there's always
01:18:14
something that you can do that's little.
01:18:15
Another question people can ask
01:18:17
themselves when reflecting on last year.
01:18:19
What are some of the thoughts that you
01:18:21
repeated too many times this year? What
01:18:24
are the things that came up over and
01:18:25
over? That little voice in the back of
01:18:26
your head, that conversation that you
01:18:28
need to have?
01:18:31
>> What are the thoughts you repeated too
01:18:33
many times this year to the point that
01:18:35
it caused harm or distraction? It it
01:18:39
plagued you. There's this thing that's
01:18:40
there. [ __ ] Like that thing that my
01:18:43
partner said to me 18 months ago over
01:18:46
dinner is still in the back of my mind
01:18:48
and I'm I'm ashamed of bringing it up to
01:18:50
them. I'm even more ashamed to bring it
01:18:51
up to them now because they're probably
01:18:52
not even going to remember it. But they
01:18:53
said they said this thing or they looked
01:18:55
at the waiter that way or or my boss
01:19:00
mentioned something in an email that
01:19:02
made me feel like they they really don't
01:19:03
value me and I really and it's just over
01:19:05
and over or [ __ ] I need to I need to
01:19:08
sort my diet out. I need to sort my diet
01:19:10
out. I should sort my diet. I can't sort
01:19:11
my diet out. I'm going to sort my diet
01:19:12
out. I should sort I can't over and over
01:19:14
and over again. What are the thoughts
01:19:17
that plagued you this year? What are the
01:19:18
ones that kept on happening over and
01:19:20
over and over and over again? And
01:19:21
typically from that there is a
01:19:24
conversation that you need to have
01:19:27
or there is an emotion that you're
01:19:28
unprepared to feel. So another great
01:19:31
question, what are the emotions that
01:19:32
you're unprepared to feel? If fear comes
01:19:34
up, do you run away from it? You
01:19:36
distract yourself away from it. You
01:19:37
drink yourself away from it. You lift
01:19:38
yourself away from it. What are the
01:19:39
emotions you're unprepared to feel?
01:19:41
>> And you're safe to feel these emotions.
01:19:44
You can just sit there. It
01:19:45
>> It's interesting because as you said
01:19:46
that, I thought about how the framing of
01:19:49
85-year-old me was actually such a
01:19:50
wonderful way to understand this because
01:19:53
I know the question we asked earlier was
01:19:55
what would 85-year-old you like really
01:19:56
be annoyed that you did today. But the
01:19:58
inverse of that is like 85year-old
01:20:00
Steven is just going to wish I took care
01:20:02
of my body more.
01:20:04
>> It's like just it's not going to care
01:20:05
about the money. It's going to go, "You
01:20:07
can't walk up a [ __ ] hill, my guy.
01:20:08
your you your glutes have blown out and
01:20:10
you don't have flexibility and you're
01:20:11
hunched over and you you lose uh
01:20:14
respiratory
01:20:16
um you can't walk upstairs without being
01:20:18
out of breath.
01:20:19
>> Mhm.
01:20:20
>> And it's so interesting that if like
01:20:21
85year-old me is going to be so pissed
01:20:23
off that I didn't take care of my body
01:20:26
more.
01:20:28
>> It's even as someone that seems to take
01:20:30
care of their body quite a bit.
01:20:32
>> But still, yeah, you're making trades. I
01:20:35
I'd love, you know, what would I do to
01:20:36
make 85-year-old me miserable and what
01:20:38
would 85-year-old me want me to do more
01:20:40
of?
01:20:40
>> They're great great frames. Let me give
01:20:42
you a couple on uh problems and stress.
01:20:44
So, one of the issues that people come
01:20:47
up against is you've got the start of
01:20:50
the year, this wideeyed blue sky vision
01:20:54
for what's going to happen. And even
01:20:57
though you know that stuff's going to
01:20:59
come and sort of get in the way, it
01:21:01
always feels unfair when it does.
01:21:03
shouldn't be this way. We sort of rail
01:21:05
against the the road bumps that we have
01:21:08
along the way. So, uh, six lessons about
01:21:12
problems and stress. Number one,
01:21:14
problems are a feature of life, not a
01:21:16
bug. There will never come a time when
01:21:19
you have no problems. What did you you
01:21:21
think you were going to wake up one day
01:21:24
and there be no more problems? Like
01:21:26
completing a video game level and going
01:21:28
to a map where there's nothing there,
01:21:30
right? things
01:21:33
are always going to incur problems. Your
01:21:36
problems will change, but having
01:21:37
problems is going nowhere. Uh number
01:21:40
two, whatever negativity is consuming
01:21:42
your thoughts probably won't matter in 3
01:21:45
months time. Like in 3 months, you won't
01:21:48
remember the corrosive texture of your
01:21:50
own mind or the boring repetitive things
01:21:52
that you thought or or maybe even what
01:21:55
you worried about. I think what were you
01:21:57
worrying about 3 months ago right now?
01:21:59
Probably can't remember. don't remember,
01:22:01
>> but all of the time that you spent
01:22:03
worrying will have passed. So, you're
01:22:06
sacrificing your joy and your presence
01:22:08
in the moment for a problem that you
01:22:10
won't even be able to recall in the
01:22:12
future. So, immortality would kind of be
01:22:15
the only life where so much flippency
01:22:18
with the the time that we have would be
01:22:20
acceptable. Learning comes from the
01:22:22
edges. Number three, change is
01:22:24
uncomfortable and it rarely occurs
01:22:27
without a lot of stress. Learning comes
01:22:29
from the edges.
01:22:30
>> From the edges.
01:22:31
>> Pro approximate zone of development.
01:22:33
>> What does that mean?
01:22:34
>> You pushing yourself just beyond what
01:22:36
you're comfortable with. And sometimes
01:22:38
this can be emotional pain too. Leaving
01:22:40
the job happens when you get pushed out
01:22:42
of region beta on the bottom end or
01:22:44
growth happens when you overextend
01:22:46
yourself the right amount. Not so much
01:22:48
that you get injured, but so much that
01:22:50
you're challenged. That this is a new
01:22:51
zone for you to get into. I'm clawing
01:22:53
up. Wow. And it expands your potential,
01:22:55
your idea of what you're able to do. And
01:22:58
it's like it pushes you so that your
01:23:01
system becomes more resilient on the
01:23:02
other side.
01:23:04
Many of the periods of radical important
01:23:06
change that you have had in your life
01:23:09
have only occurred because of severe
01:23:10
challenges you faced. Like look back
01:23:14
almost all of the big periods of growth
01:23:16
in your life have germinated from your
01:23:18
lowest points.
01:23:21
In retrospect would you have avoided
01:23:24
them if you could? Probably not.
01:23:28
So yeah, this challenge is a gift. You
01:23:31
can uh lean into discomfort as if you
01:23:34
invited it through the door. It's like,
01:23:36
oh, there we are. Hello.
01:23:39
It's good to see you.
01:23:41
>> What thoughts did you repeat too many
01:23:42
times this year?
01:23:43
>> You're working too much.
01:23:45
>> Okay, so this is a recurring theme here.
01:23:46
>> Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Again, the big
01:23:48
questions, the big problems are the big
01:23:50
problems.
01:23:50
>> And you want to orientate your life
01:23:52
towards just having bigger gaps of
01:23:54
emptiness. Uh, but probably filling it
01:23:56
with other stuff. Family, same as you. I
01:23:59
can't wait to be a dad or dog. I should
01:24:01
have a dog. I should have a dog. How
01:24:02
many times have I thought the thought I
01:24:03
should have a dog? Get a golden
01:24:04
retriever.
01:24:05
>> I saw a tweet which has kind of haunted
01:24:07
me for 12 months. The tweet said, "Why
01:24:10
do all the big male podcasters not have
01:24:12
kids?"
01:24:14
>> All the big male podcasters not have
01:24:15
kids. They all talk about the population
01:24:17
crisis and this that and the other. And
01:24:19
then it was like Chris Williamson,
01:24:21
Huberman, Lex, Steven. None of them.
01:24:25
>> Jay got kids.
01:24:26
>> Jay Shetty.
01:24:27
>> Yeah. No. Okay. Yeah. But then also
01:24:29
Tucker Carlson's breeding a lot. Uh he's
01:24:32
he was number 10. Rogan's got like three
01:24:35
daughters, I think. Three or four
01:24:36
daughters. So
01:24:37
>> Rogan's the only one that But think
01:24:39
about it as well. There's a generational
01:24:41
difference here. Like Tucker and Rogan
01:24:43
are of the same generation. And this
01:24:45
younger generation of like
01:24:46
>> It's very flattering for Andrew Huberman
01:24:48
in his 50s, but
01:24:48
>> Oh, yeah. [ __ ] Yeah. But why why is
01:24:51
that? Why don't we have kids?
01:24:54
I I mean it's a it's a great question.
01:24:56
Um for me, I spent a lot of time in my
01:24:59
20ies really trying to work out who I
01:25:01
was. I had my head up my own ass. Like
01:25:03
I'm happy to say that I had a uh slow
01:25:06
development psychologically in terms of
01:25:09
becoming the person I wanted to in terms
01:25:10
of realizing how important different
01:25:13
things were to me. Like how long have
01:25:15
you known
01:25:17
felt it I should have kids?
01:25:20
I've always wanted kids, but I've not
01:25:22
put steps in place to make that happen.
01:25:25
Um, up until the last two years. And you
01:25:29
know what's crazy? I'm completely
01:25:30
unprepared. I am my life as it is now is
01:25:34
not ready for kids.
01:25:35
>> I fly too much. I'm too busy. I have too
01:25:37
many prior other priorities
01:25:39
>> in order to pick something up.
01:25:40
>> Yeah. But something down.
01:25:41
>> But I have this sort of meta view which
01:25:43
is the big step up in meaning in my life
01:25:45
will probably come from that. So even
01:25:46
though there's no emotion in my body
01:25:48
that's telling me that this is a good
01:25:50
idea,
01:25:50
>> close my eyes and do it and I will
01:25:54
adjust.
01:25:54
>> I will adjust to the responsibility as I
01:25:56
always have. There was no room in my
01:25:57
life for a podcast when I started this
01:25:59
podcast,
01:25:59
>> right?
01:26:00
>> But I adjusted. And so it goes against
01:26:03
every inclination that I have to have
01:26:05
children right now as a as a as a man
01:26:07
that has freedom, who is 33 years old,
01:26:11
who can go wherever he wants, whenever
01:26:12
he wants, and doesn't really have to
01:26:13
answer to any major responsibilities
01:26:15
outside of my
01:26:16
>> Do you like that? Do you like the fact
01:26:18
that you don't have dependence in that
01:26:21
way?
01:26:22
>> If you ask this brain,
01:26:24
>> yes, I like freedom. I like the fact
01:26:27
that I after this conversation I can
01:26:30
work on my business, go to the gym, go
01:26:31
wherever I want, fly somewhere, go to
01:26:33
Hawaii. I like the freedom. However,
01:26:36
there's this like meta brain
01:26:40
>> that is my regret brain and it lives 50
01:26:42
years from now and it's been inspired by
01:26:44
all the conversations I've had on the
01:26:46
podcast and it says to me that actually
01:26:48
the most meaningful thing you can do is
01:26:50
increase the amount of dependence and
01:26:51
responsibility that you have.
01:26:53
>> This is an unteachable lesson, dude.
01:26:54
that uh you should probably have kids
01:26:58
now, right? That could be a could be a
01:27:00
lesson perhaps.
01:27:01
>> Yeah.
01:27:01
>> That you will never feel ready. That
01:27:03
could be an unteable lesson.
01:27:04
>> We have this population decline
01:27:06
situation going on.
01:27:07
>> Mhm.
01:27:08
>> And
01:27:10
is it it's is it not a function of or a
01:27:14
consequence of the fact that we have
01:27:16
more freedom, more control, we're like
01:27:17
more nihilistic. We we
01:27:20
>> it's more like me me. M
01:27:22
>> now there's like a subtle narcissism
01:27:24
which is bred in society and look I I
01:27:26
ain't got kids but just so you know lads
01:27:29
that are watching I'm doing everything
01:27:31
in my power some things that I can't
01:27:33
actually tell you about but I'm doing
01:27:34
everything in my power to to have kids
01:27:36
as soon as possible.
01:27:38
>> Okay.
01:27:38
>> So I I imagine that I'll be a father
01:27:39
>> that just sounds like shagging all the
01:27:41
time.
01:27:42
>> Well, yeah.
01:27:42
>> Okay.
01:27:43
>> But I think I'll be a dad within the
01:27:45
next 12 months.
01:27:46
>> Amazing.
01:27:46
>> And I I and I I have to say this again
01:27:49
because it's so important. Like there's
01:27:51
no part of me in this moment of time
01:27:52
that's like, "Oh, I really really want
01:27:54
to be a dad." I can see the cost, but
01:27:57
the benefit is unknown. I have to take
01:27:59
other people's words for it.
01:28:00
>> It's crazy, dude. It's it's a a painful
01:28:03
realization. And um I've had some of the
01:28:06
best demographers in the world on uh
01:28:08
Lyman Stone uh from the Institute for
01:28:10
Family Studies, Steven J. Shaw who did
01:28:12
the birth gap documentary. Uh these
01:28:14
people know what's going on and it's a
01:28:17
it's a function of a lot of things. It's
01:28:19
a a function of people having other
01:28:21
stuff to do. There are so many other
01:28:23
things to do than have kids. Uh reliable
01:28:26
contraception. That means that you can
01:28:28
choose to put it off. You can continue
01:28:30
to push it off for as long as you want.
01:28:32
Specifically, uh women's socioeconomic
01:28:35
emancipation into the workforce and in
01:28:38
higher education. That means that at 18,
01:28:43
the first thing you do isn't get
01:28:44
married. Oh, I'm going to go to
01:28:45
university. Well, I've just put three or
01:28:46
four years into university. I'm going to
01:28:48
now go and get a job and now I've
01:28:49
committed to the job. I'm going to maybe
01:28:50
climb the corporate ladder. That's
01:28:52
pushed the vitality curve back. It's
01:28:54
made it later rather than being earlier.
01:28:56
And another problem is because there is
01:28:57
such a multiplicity of different life
01:28:59
directions that people can go down. The
01:29:01
likelihood of you being ready at 22 and
01:29:04
you meeting someone else who's also
01:29:05
ready at 22 is actually quite low. So if
01:29:08
you think that you could have a graph
01:29:09
like this uh vitality curve it's called
01:29:11
by Steven Shaw and previously it would
01:29:13
have been very short and and sharp and
01:29:15
spiky and that would be like when people
01:29:17
want to have kids it's like you know
01:29:19
from 18 to 24 let's say if you meet
01:29:22
anybody within that age range it's
01:29:23
likely that they're at the same life
01:29:24
situation as you as you flatten that
01:29:27
curve make it longer and you also push
01:29:30
it a little bit later you're now 35 to
01:29:34
meet somebody that's also 35 and ready
01:29:35
to have kids but you meet some that not
01:29:37
because there's too much area under the
01:29:39
curve that's flat as opposed to
01:29:41
everybody kind of dancing to the same
01:29:43
tune. They're all dancing to different
01:29:44
tunes.
01:29:45
>> Uh so that contributes to it. I
01:29:48
certainly think that there is a anti-f
01:29:51
family message that comes about that
01:29:54
there's a girl with the list on Tik Tok
01:29:56
which I think is this girl who wrote 350
01:30:00
reasons to not have kids. It's like
01:30:01
eight pages, nine pages long and it went
01:30:04
super viral and it's everything from
01:30:06
literally a parasite growing inside of
01:30:08
your body to can't wear cute heels with
01:30:11
the girls, will have to miss brunch, all
01:30:13
of the different issues that can occur
01:30:14
during childirth and then I think there
01:30:16
was a a list of things for kids and it
01:30:20
was like maybe a page a half a page long
01:30:21
that she'd written and um we she is open
01:30:25
to seeing the world as she wishes. I
01:30:27
think by the sounds of things, it is a
01:30:29
really good idea that she's not a
01:30:30
mother. And I'm glad that she's choosing
01:30:32
to not have kids. But that tone, that
01:30:37
sentiment is like prevalent because
01:30:39
people see this is what I have to
01:30:41
sacrifice now.
01:30:44
Pain, discomfort, lack of freedom
01:30:48
for something that I have no idea about
01:30:50
whether or not it's going to make me
01:30:52
satisfied in future. And yeah, maybe
01:30:56
people say it's the most important thing
01:30:58
or whatever, but it's easy to excuse
01:30:59
away when there are so many other things
01:31:01
I can do with my life. I can travel
01:31:02
around Bali and I can watch Netflix and
01:31:04
I could build a business and I could
01:31:05
start a substack or I could build a
01:31:07
YouTube channel and do a podcast. All of
01:31:08
these things you could do. Pushing off,
01:31:11
pushing off, pushing off. It's no
01:31:12
surprise. And the final point is I think
01:31:15
um having kids is mimemetic. So
01:31:17
>> what does that mean?
01:31:18
>> Uh you model the behavior of the people
01:31:20
that are around you and the people that
01:31:21
you see. So good example of this Uh,
01:31:24
South Korea's got one of the worst birth
01:31:26
rates in the world. It's uh for every
01:31:29
hundred South Koreans, there will be
01:31:31
four great grandchildren. A 96%
01:31:34
reduction over the next century. It's
01:31:35
insane. There are entire classrooms,
01:31:37
whole schools in South Korea that are
01:31:39
unoccupied now. And um there are many
01:31:42
many reasons. the 4Bs movement, uh the
01:31:45
the um increasing of women's acceptance
01:31:48
into education, and then when they got
01:31:50
into the workforce, they were still
01:31:52
being prejudiced against, which meant
01:31:54
that they swore off a lot of the things
01:31:55
that they were promised. Like lots and
01:31:57
lots and lots of different reasons, but
01:31:59
one of the big ones culturally, which is
01:32:01
really fascinating, is K-pop. K-pop was
01:32:04
this export that Korea was going to put
01:32:06
to the world. We have this ability to
01:32:09
construct like the perfect boy band or
01:32:11
girl band. we're going to export it to
01:32:13
the world and this is going to be a
01:32:14
representation for us. One of the things
01:32:15
that K-pop stars have to say is that
01:32:17
they will be celibate while they're in
01:32:19
the band. So, not only does this mean
01:32:20
that they can't be in a relationship, so
01:32:22
the most popular cultural influences in
01:32:25
South Korea aren't showing a pro-
01:32:28
relationship narrative.
01:32:30
>> They also obviously can't be mothers or
01:32:33
fathers because they can't be in a
01:32:34
relationship. the converse of this
01:32:37
cultural intervention in the country of
01:32:38
Georgia, very religious and there's this
01:32:41
superstar pastor guy, very religious
01:32:44
country, this this this pastor that's
01:32:46
kind of like a really rock star sort of
01:32:49
dude.
01:32:51
He said, "I will personally baptize the
01:32:54
third child of any family in the
01:32:57
country." So now these parents are
01:32:59
speedrunning having kids so that their
01:33:01
child can be baptized by the equivalent
01:33:03
like you know the goat. He's like the
01:33:04
the the the like [ __ ] Avichi of uh of
01:33:08
of of pastas.
01:33:13
K-pop did the exact opposite. They had a
01:33:16
cultural intervention which showed a
01:33:18
nonp pro- family influence whereas
01:33:22
Georgia had this one that was a pro-
01:33:23
family influence. So, a cultural
01:33:25
intervention that South Korea could
01:33:27
easily implement would be to say the
01:33:29
only way that you can become a K-pop
01:33:31
star is to already have had a kid. Like,
01:33:35
we're only going to create boy bands and
01:33:37
girl bands out of people who have
01:33:39
already had families.
01:33:41
>> This kind of brings the conversation to
01:33:42
me and you because there's a lot of men
01:33:44
that listen to your show. There's a lot
01:33:45
of men that listen to my show. And I do
01:33:47
think in many respects we're modeling to
01:33:49
some respects to some people what it is
01:33:51
to be a good man.
01:33:54
by what we choose to do. You know, you
01:33:55
have a lot of influence. I've watched
01:33:56
the videos of people coming to you after
01:33:57
after your tours and they say to you
01:33:59
that you're their friend. They're like
01:34:00
they thank you for the fact that you
01:34:01
have been their their big brother or
01:34:02
their friend to look up to. And so I I
01:34:04
think about this a lot which is like
01:34:06
what am I modeling
01:34:07
>> as a as a podcaster? We're both in the
01:34:09
top 10 list of the global podcasts uh
01:34:12
according to Spotify. So do you think
01:34:14
about what you you model and do you
01:34:16
think about what a good man is? Do you
01:34:17
think about what you want your audience
01:34:19
to think of a man's responsibility is?
01:34:22
>> Yeah, very much so. That being said,
01:34:24
I've never claimed to be some shining
01:34:26
example of what people should do.
01:34:28
>> Uh I certainly know that I try my best
01:34:33
to
01:34:35
be the sort of guy that I would want to
01:34:39
be friends with. I I quite like me. I
01:34:42
quite like me. And I've worked really
01:34:44
hard. I didn't like me. And I worked
01:34:46
really, really hard to form myself into
01:34:48
a shape, a construction.
01:34:50
I feel big emotions, for instance. And
01:34:53
for a long time I was very ashamed of
01:34:54
them and I wouldn't get below the neck
01:34:55
and I would use intellect to like
01:34:58
protect myself from feeling my feelings.
01:35:00
And on stage anybody that's come to see
01:35:02
my live show I get tearary every night.
01:35:04
I get tearary telling the same story.
01:35:07
Okay. Well, I think that's like a a good
01:35:11
thing. I think it's a good thing for
01:35:13
guys who feel their emotions to show
01:35:15
that they feel their emotions. Right.
01:35:17
Suppression isn't the same thing as
01:35:19
strength.
01:35:20
and I've stopped suppressing. Wonderful.
01:35:24
I think that there is uh wonderful
01:35:28
upside in trying to conquer and trying
01:35:31
to achieve mastery, trying to really
01:35:32
drive yourself to go and do stuff. But
01:35:34
I'm not like [ __ ] your feelings, just
01:35:36
hustle and grind until your eyes bleed
01:35:38
either. So, I'm trying to show balance.
01:35:40
I think mindfulness is really important.
01:35:41
I think that a physical practice is
01:35:43
really important. All of this stuff kind
01:35:44
of appears in the exterior. Remember
01:35:47
what I said before? What's the
01:35:48
conversation we're prepared to have?
01:35:49
What's the one thing that you should be
01:35:51
doing? It's usually the big thing. The
01:35:52
big thing is probably going to be
01:35:54
something to do with have a [ __ ]
01:35:55
family, dude. Like, it's time for you to
01:35:57
have a family, but it's a uh
01:36:00
>> Is that scary for you? Be honest.
01:36:03
>> To have a family? No.
01:36:04
>> But the the sacrifice and commitment
01:36:06
>> It used to be.
01:36:07
>> It used to be.
01:36:08
>> Used to be. Yeah. Of course.
01:36:09
>> When did that change?
01:36:11
>> Two years ago.
01:36:12
>> Really?
01:36:12
>> Two or three years ago? Yeah. Yeah.
01:36:13
Yeah. And again, we are products of our
01:36:16
environment. like all of the the
01:36:20
cornucopia of different things that we
01:36:22
can do. Look at this paniply of options
01:36:24
that I could spend my life doing. And
01:36:26
you sort of get shiny object syndrome
01:36:28
and you chase after things and isn't it
01:36:30
going to be exciting and then you get to
01:36:35
where you thought you wanted to be and
01:36:37
you go
01:36:38
that might not be the answer.
01:36:41
That's why
01:36:43
having a bit of time to reflect, having
01:36:44
a little bit of time for quiet, fleeting
01:36:47
thoughts to come up. Like a busy
01:36:49
calendar is a hedge against existential
01:36:51
loneliness. Right? If you are always
01:36:53
needed by somebody, you don't have to
01:36:55
sit with your quiet thoughts. You don't
01:36:57
have to think, "Oh, [ __ ] that deep
01:37:00
question that's been in the back of my
01:37:02
mind. I'm it's easy to push off if
01:37:03
people want me or I move from
01:37:05
caffeinefueled meeting to evening
01:37:07
dinner. I actually have to listen to
01:37:09
that." But if you sit with your thoughts
01:37:11
for a little bit, and this is why a lot
01:37:12
of people don't like sitting with their
01:37:13
thoughts, this stuff comes up. And
01:37:16
that's why the question, "What emotions
01:37:17
are you unprepared to feel?" is so good.
01:37:19
>> What changed two years ago that made you
01:37:21
change your perspective?
01:37:22
>> I don't know. I grew up. I just I guess
01:37:25
that's what growing up is called. Like
01:37:27
it wasn't some moment where the skies
01:37:30
opened and and things changed. I noticed
01:37:32
I used to think I used to think that
01:37:34
kids were super annoying. My business
01:37:36
partner uh had his first son when he was
01:37:39
25. So I would have been 252, 25, 26
01:37:41
maybe. And I remember thinking, [ __ ]
01:37:44
like he just can't come out with me
01:37:45
anymore. Like he's busy. He's got all
01:37:47
this stuff to do. And then each kid that
01:37:50
he had, it was about two years apart,
01:37:52
each one. I noticed my relationship to
01:37:55
the child was different. I was like,
01:37:57
"Oh, okay. Well, you know, they're kind
01:37:59
of kind of cute or whatever." And then
01:38:01
another one came along and I'm like,
01:38:02
"Okay, like that's really." So, I saw
01:38:04
this sort of um sedimentary rock, this
01:38:06
like archaeological dig of myself
01:38:08
change, and now I'm godfather to uh my
01:38:12
best friend's daughter, beautiful
01:38:13
daughter who's like four months old, 5
01:38:15
months old. And I love going around and
01:38:16
seeing her. And yeah, I I don't know.
01:38:18
It's just growing up, dude. Growing up's
01:38:20
weird because something changes and you
01:38:23
kind of didn't choose it. Do you know
01:38:25
what I mean? Like, did you choose?
01:38:26
>> No. [ __ ] me. No, it's weird, man. It's
01:38:29
weird.
01:38:29
>> This belief climbs inside of you and
01:38:31
sort of wears you a little bit.
01:38:33
>> Yeah. And a lot of the time we're scared
01:38:35
of that and I understand why. But like
01:38:37
resisting the fact that that's there
01:38:40
like
01:38:42
I don't know it's kind of a denial of
01:38:43
this beautiful thing that's just been
01:38:45
given to you. There you go. There's like
01:38:46
something new and exciting that you can
01:38:48
move into. And I think a lot of friction
01:38:51
is in the resistance, right? Suffering
01:38:53
is in the resistance of the thing.
01:38:56
>> I've just finished writing my third
01:38:57
book. I haven't firmed up the title yet,
01:38:59
but I have started mocking up some
01:39:01
different designs. And I've been doing
01:39:03
this with Adobe Express, which is one of
01:39:05
our sponsors. What I love about Adobe
01:39:06
Express is that it makes it so easy for
01:39:08
me to obsess over the tiniest details.
01:39:10
The typography, the font, the color, the
01:39:12
text placement, the stuff that might
01:39:14
sound petty to most people, but actually
01:39:16
compounds to create something that
01:39:18
stands out, something that's one better
01:39:21
than the rest. And designing my cover
01:39:22
art has reminded me of how many creative
01:39:24
things I've learned over the year. But
01:39:26
it's also reminded me that there are so
01:39:27
many creative minds around me that are
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also sitting on their own secrets. So
01:39:31
I've created the one better guide in
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01:39:36
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rest. You know, every once in a while
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you come across a product that has such
01:40:01
a huge impact on your life that you'd
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probably describe as a gamecher. And I
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would say for about 35 to 40% of my
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team, they would currently describe this
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called Ketone IQ, which you can get at
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01:40:57
You mentioned a word earlier on. You
01:40:59
talked about the lonely chapter.
01:41:01
>> Uhhuh.
01:41:02
>> You you said the word briefly. I guess
01:41:04
this lonely chapter idea is a
01:41:06
consequence of what will happen when you
01:41:08
go in pursuit of a big goal. You want to
01:41:10
start the business. You want to quit the
01:41:11
job. Whatever. Explain to me what the
01:41:13
lonely chapter is. The lonely chapter
01:41:15
describes a time in your life where
01:41:17
you're so developed that you can't
01:41:20
really resonate with your old set of
01:41:21
friends, but you're not yet sufficiently
01:41:23
developed that you've built a new set of
01:41:24
friends.
01:41:25
>> Give me an example.
01:41:26
>> You have decided to stop drinking. Your
01:41:28
New Year's resolution is 6 months. I'm
01:41:30
going to stop drinking. You can go out
01:41:34
with your friends that want to go to the
01:41:35
pub on an evening time, but you feel a
01:41:37
little bit ostracized. They're having
01:41:38
digs at you and jibes at you. Oh, come
01:41:40
on, mate. Only one beer. Who do you
01:41:42
think you are?
01:41:43
Um, so your change is creating some
01:41:47
friction between you and them. Your
01:41:49
friends like to play Xbox on an evening
01:41:52
time and that's how they hang out, but
01:41:54
you want to start going to the gym, but
01:41:56
your friends don't go to the gym and
01:41:58
then when you do hang out with them,
01:41:59
you're talking about the gym because
01:42:00
that's your new thing and they're still
01:42:02
talking about Xbox. So there is a a
01:42:05
friction that happens as you try to grow
01:42:09
because if your friends don't grow at
01:42:10
the same pace as you, you don't speak
01:42:12
the same language. A friend referred to
01:42:14
it as changing your dialect so much so
01:42:16
that over time you and your friends
01:42:18
don't even speak the same language
01:42:19
anymore.
01:42:21
>> And it's very uncomfortable because it's
01:42:22
tempting to go back to the old life that
01:42:24
you're used to. The old patterns, the
01:42:27
old routines, the old friend groups, the
01:42:29
old everything. And you have to stop
01:42:31
doing the things that you know bring you
01:42:33
validation in the moment to start doing
01:42:36
the things that you have no idea about
01:42:39
whether it'll actually work. Like you're
01:42:41
going to tell me that I'm not going to
01:42:43
go out with my friends this weekend cuz
01:42:45
I'm going to keep my meditation streak
01:42:47
going. Who even knows if meditation
01:42:48
works, right? It's so much easier to
01:42:50
just stay in the routine that you were
01:42:52
previously doing the same sort of
01:42:53
things. for you to pull away from that,
01:42:55
you're going to have to do stuff usually
01:42:57
that makes you more different, more easy
01:42:59
to be mocked, and more alone.
01:43:02
And the initial sad reality is that on
01:43:07
your journey of personal growth, at some
01:43:09
point you may need to leave a group of
01:43:11
friends behind who aren't growing at the
01:43:13
same pace as you.
01:43:15
But the really sad reality is that if
01:43:17
you do it a lot, you may have to do this
01:43:20
multiple times throughout your life. And
01:43:23
it's not a value judgment about who's
01:43:24
better or who's worse. It's just a stark
01:43:26
reality of what happens when you start
01:43:28
to make changes in your life. And I for
01:43:31
instance, I met a million people on the
01:43:32
front door of nightclubs. Million people
01:43:34
in person had a handful of friends. I
01:43:36
worked with half of them. Million
01:43:38
people, handful of friends in internet
01:43:40
marketing speak. My friendship
01:43:41
conversion funnel ratio was not very
01:43:43
good. Million people, handful of
01:43:44
friends. And the only way that I could
01:43:47
work out who I was was to kind of follow
01:43:49
my own instincts and do some of the
01:43:51
personal development stuff. Like a
01:43:53
thousand days sober, 500 days without
01:43:55
caffeine, which is [ __ ] miserable.
01:43:57
Nine gratitude meditation journals with
01:44:00
no idea if any of it was going to work.
01:44:02
And this is the really important thing,
01:44:04
and it's a bit that all origin stories
01:44:08
miss. And I I wish that they paid more
01:44:10
attention to it.
01:44:12
Seems to me that on every hero's
01:44:15
journey, as soon as they make the
01:44:17
commitment to go from where they are to
01:44:19
where they want to be, their self-belief
01:44:21
never waver. Like, sure, there's ups and
01:44:24
downs in the journey and the progress,
01:44:27
but their conviction doesn't slip. It's
01:44:30
like at that moment, the clouds parted
01:44:32
and I was sure I was going to become a
01:44:33
UFC fighter. I was going to become a
01:44:34
businessman. I was going to get off
01:44:35
drugs, change my mindset, whatever. In
01:44:38
my experience, that's not the way it is
01:44:42
at all. Like your entire journey of
01:44:47
personal growth is just steeped in doubt
01:44:50
and self-pity and uncertainty and it
01:44:52
tarnishes the whole experience. It's not
01:44:54
sexy. It's not cool. You're like, "This
01:44:57
is supposed to be my rocky cut scene.
01:44:59
It's three and a half minutes in the
01:45:00
movies, but it's been four years for me.
01:45:02
What's going on?" There's not even the
01:45:04
promise that there's any glory on the
01:45:06
other side of it. And this
01:45:09
is exactly why it's so much easier to
01:45:11
just go back to your old patterns. Why
01:45:14
it's easier to just go back to doing the
01:45:15
old things that you used to do. People
01:45:17
make small changes. They do little
01:45:18
things. Lose 5 pounds or they change
01:45:22
companies. But how many people do you
01:45:23
know that have really changed their
01:45:25
mindset? Lost 50 or 100 pounds or change
01:45:27
careers or moved from the city that they
01:45:29
grew up in? It's rarer. And I think the
01:45:33
reason that I love this lonely chapter
01:45:35
idea is that it it names something that
01:45:40
a lot of people feel is a bug, not a
01:45:43
feature of personal growth, which is
01:45:45
this discordance with their old patterns
01:45:47
and their old friend groups and the fact
01:45:48
that they don't know whether the
01:45:51
uncomfortability is supposed to be
01:45:52
there. Is this discomfort right? Is my
01:45:54
self-doubt? Surely I should just believe
01:45:56
and see it, believe it, achieve it. Am I
01:45:57
not supposed to just be, you know,
01:46:00
single-mindedly going toward my goal?
01:46:03
This doubt is supposed to be there. I I
01:46:05
can promise you that every single person
01:46:08
who has gone from a place where they
01:46:09
didn't want to be to one where they did
01:46:12
has had to go through this lonely
01:46:14
chapter and deal with all of this. And
01:46:18
uh I think it resonates with people
01:46:21
because the sort of people who listen to
01:46:23
Modern Wisdom and your show are the sort
01:46:26
of people that this is about. It's the
01:46:29
kind of people who live in the UK and
01:46:31
want to do something themselves
01:46:34
who want to build a business, do
01:46:36
something that there isn't a
01:46:37
particularly good role model for. That's
01:46:39
presumably because they want to do
01:46:41
something. They want to become better.
01:46:42
They feel like they're built for more.
01:46:44
Uh, and this is what I meant when I said
01:46:46
before that you can just do things. Just
01:46:49
do it anyway. Do it tired,
01:46:52
do it sad, do it lonely, do it without a
01:46:54
role model because if you're waiting for
01:46:57
somebody to come along and give you that
01:46:58
helping hand, sometimes you're going to
01:47:00
be waiting too long.
01:47:02
>> It reminds me so much of um Jeff Bezos's
01:47:06
shareholder letter where he talks about
01:47:07
resisting the equilibrium. in his final
01:47:11
2020 sharehold shareholder letter said,
01:47:13
"Differentiation is survival and the
01:47:15
universe wants you to be typical." And
01:47:17
the way that this dubtails into what
01:47:18
you've said is your environment is very
01:47:20
very much holding you in place. And
01:47:23
actually in every facet of life, every
01:47:26
organism is currently expending a huge
01:47:29
amount of energy just to resist the pull
01:47:32
to be typical
01:47:32
>> regression to the mean.
01:47:33
>> Exactly. So if you were to like leave
01:47:35
your friendship group now, the the
01:47:37
amount of energy it's going to take to
01:47:39
stay untypical is tremendous. And he
01:47:41
says, "This is my last annual
01:47:42
shareholder letter as the CEO of Amazon,
01:47:45
>> and I have one last thing of utmost
01:47:47
importance I feel compelled to teach. I
01:47:50
hope all Amazonians take it to heart.
01:47:52
Here is a passage from Richard Dawkins
01:47:54
book, The Blind Watchmaker. It's about a
01:47:56
basic fact of biology. Saving off death
01:47:59
is a thing that you have to work at.
01:48:00
Left to itself and that is what it is
01:48:03
when it dies. The body tends to revert
01:48:06
to a state of equilibrium with its
01:48:07
environment. If you measure some
01:48:09
quantity such as the temperature, the
01:48:11
acidity, the water content or the
01:48:12
electrical potential of a living body,
01:48:14
you will typically find that it is
01:48:16
markedly different from the
01:48:18
corresponding measure in its
01:48:19
surroundings. Our bodies, for instance,
01:48:22
are usually hotter than our
01:48:23
surroundings. And in cold climates, they
01:48:25
have to work hard to maintain that
01:48:27
differential. When we die, the work
01:48:29
stops. The temp temperature differential
01:48:31
starts to disappear and we end up the
01:48:33
same temperature as our surroundings.
01:48:35
Not all animals have to work so hard to
01:48:38
avoid coming into equilibrium with their
01:48:40
surrounding temperature. But all animals
01:48:42
do some comparable work. For instance,
01:48:44
in a dry country, animals and plants
01:48:46
work to maintain the fluid content in
01:48:48
their cells. They work against a natural
01:48:50
tendency for water to flow from them
01:48:52
into the dry outside world. If they
01:48:54
fail, they die. More generally, if
01:48:56
living things didn't work actively to
01:48:58
prevent it, they would eventually merge
01:49:00
into their surroundings and cease to
01:49:02
exist as autonomous beings. This is what
01:49:04
happens when they die. And what he's
01:49:06
talking about here is that to be
01:49:07
different in any context or environment,
01:49:10
work is being done. Like to stay
01:49:12
atypical, and I think about this as we
01:49:14
come into the new year, which is if
01:49:15
you're planning to be different, quit
01:49:17
the job, go and be the violinist in
01:49:18
Peru, start the cupcake business. It's
01:49:21
going to cost you so much energy to
01:49:23
resist the equilibrium that you better
01:49:25
going back to what you said about
01:49:27
subtracting things. You better save
01:49:28
energy somewhere else
01:49:30
>> because
01:49:31
you know I had a neuroscientist on the
01:49:33
podcast that was the neuroscientist that
01:49:35
discovered we have a biological budget
01:49:37
of energy and literally like a bank
01:49:39
account. And what tends to happen, I
01:49:41
think, and why the the New Year stats
01:49:42
are so horrific in terms of the amount
01:49:44
of people that stick to their goals is
01:49:46
we go in search of
01:49:48
a new state, a new life that's going to
01:49:51
cost us even more energy to resist the
01:49:54
our current environment without
01:49:56
budgeting for it by saving elsewhere.
01:49:59
And I think about this through the lens
01:50:01
of as a business owner because as a
01:50:03
company the dire of a co will become
01:50:05
like the mean the minute we stop the
01:50:07
fight.
01:50:07
>> The minute we stop experimenting the
01:50:09
minute we stop pushing the boundaries.
01:50:10
The minute you stop doing the big
01:50:11
digital screens the minute you give up
01:50:13
the fight you will become every other
01:50:16
show. That's what I meant when I said
01:50:17
problems are a feature of life not a
01:50:19
bug. Like there will be no day when you
01:50:22
don't have any problems. And uh railing
01:50:26
against it. Why is the flight delayed?
01:50:28
Because flights get delayed. Because
01:50:30
flights get delayed. That's why. And did
01:50:32
you think that there was going to be a
01:50:34
day when no flights were delayed? That
01:50:36
you're going to reach some escape
01:50:37
velocity where this was no longer an
01:50:39
issue? I love this analogy using escape
01:50:41
velocity. Imagine that we've got a uh
01:50:43
rocket ship here. So when this is taking
01:50:47
off on the launch pad is when it needs
01:50:48
the most energy. The inertia is the
01:50:50
highest, the resistance is the most. So
01:50:52
that's when you need to use whatever
01:50:53
fuel you've got. Use the chip on your
01:50:55
shoulder from the kids that bullied you
01:50:56
in school. Use your desperate desire to
01:50:58
be seen by that girl out there. Use your
01:51:02
need for validation from your parents,
01:51:04
whatever it is. And then what happens is
01:51:06
the old school style rockets, not the
01:51:07
new Falcon 9 ones. What happens when
01:51:09
this takes off?
01:51:11
This fuel source switches off and then
01:51:13
the booster rockets come on. That's as
01:51:15
you get to a different level of altitude
01:51:17
and now you're using a different sort of
01:51:18
fuel source and then this falls away,
01:51:21
the bottom falls off and it keeps on
01:51:23
going and then it gets into escape
01:51:25
velocity. Use what you have at the
01:51:27
start. And at the start, most people
01:51:28
have way more discontent than they do
01:51:30
love.
01:51:30
>> There's a I mean, even this ties right
01:51:32
back to New Year's resolutions because
01:51:34
if I am going to make a change and reach
01:51:36
escape velocity, then I'm going to need
01:51:38
to focus all my energy and therefore
01:51:40
save leakage, like save wasted energy in
01:51:43
this moment of time. And I've heard you
01:51:44
talk about this when you do your annual
01:51:46
review that again it goes back to what
01:51:48
we're saying like you do need to cut
01:51:50
some [ __ ] and you can't have it all at
01:51:52
the same time if you are going to change
01:51:54
your life.
01:51:56
This is one of the problems of
01:51:57
overcooking your goals for the next 12
01:51:59
months. I think you can probably do two
01:52:02
big things in 2026. Two big things. You
01:52:06
can probably lose 20 pounds and get a
01:52:10
boyfriend that you really, really love.
01:52:14
You can't do that and move cities and
01:52:16
start a new business and and learn to
01:52:18
play the piano. No. And that again is
01:52:21
why don't go into a buffet and assume
01:52:24
that however much food you put on the
01:52:26
plate, your stomach will just expand to
01:52:28
fit it in. Because what you're going to
01:52:30
guarantee is that you fail next year.
01:52:33
You can almost guarantee that you fail
01:52:34
at doing this thing. Is it great to set
01:52:36
your sights high? Yeah, that's real
01:52:37
cool. And maybe you've got lots of
01:52:38
things that you want to do, but just
01:52:40
what would have to happen by the end of
01:52:41
next year for you to look back on it and
01:52:43
consider it a success. And what if you
01:52:45
created a rankordered list and okay, I
01:52:47
need to kill one of these and you left
01:52:49
yourself with one or two. What's left?
01:52:50
You could only do one thing next year.
01:52:53
Cross that off. Cross that off. Cross
01:52:54
that. What am I left with?
01:52:57
I really want to lose the weight. There
01:52:59
we go. Now we can break that down into
01:53:00
individual steps. I need to get a gym
01:53:02
membership. I need to get some cool gym
01:53:03
wear that makes me feel good as I go to
01:53:04
the gym.
01:53:06
I've heard you talk, you know, you
01:53:07
mentioned that get getting a boyfriend
01:53:08
next year. One of the resolutions a lot
01:53:10
of people will have, even if it's not
01:53:12
directly, is to find a partner.
01:53:15
>> And I I heard you referencing
01:53:17
psychological stability as the thing we
01:53:20
should be looking for in a partner.
01:53:22
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:53:23
>> What do you mean by psychological
01:53:25
stability?
01:53:26
>> After some sort of emotional
01:53:27
perturbment, after something happens,
01:53:30
how long does it take for them to get
01:53:31
back to baseline?
01:53:32
>> Oh, okay. So, I'm looking for someone
01:53:34
who is just what? emotionally stable or
01:53:36
they they returned
01:53:38
>> the return to their emotional
01:53:39
equilibrium. Right? So, let's say that
01:53:41
we're going on holiday and uh the flight
01:53:45
is cancelled and it's a big deal because
01:53:48
their family is going out there. Is that
01:53:50
the sort of thing that happens and then
01:53:52
there is a reversion to baseline within
01:53:55
a few hours or is that the sort of thing
01:53:57
that blows up the entire trip of the
01:53:59
holiday with their family? M
01:54:02
>> something occurs that causes emotions to
01:54:04
be uh impacted. How long does it take to
01:54:07
get back to baseline? That's emotional
01:54:09
stability and it's very predictive of
01:54:12
relationship outcomes. Some other stuff
01:54:14
um conscientiousness.
01:54:16
Person's thoughtful. They think a lot
01:54:19
about you specifically and they care.
01:54:23
Agreeableness. Someone who's moderately
01:54:24
agreeable. You want somebody who when
01:54:27
you propose plans is a a yes and person
01:54:31
like huh yeah
01:54:34
and finally you want someone who's
01:54:36
moderately open in openness personality
01:54:40
trait. So there's three
01:54:42
conscientiousness agreeableness openness
01:54:44
to experience. You want someone who's
01:54:46
moderately open so that they're prepared
01:54:48
to go and do new things. As soon as you
01:54:49
get into high openness that's when
01:54:51
wandering eyes come in. This isn't to
01:54:53
say that personality traits are destiny,
01:54:56
rah,
01:54:57
but based on titro's work, this is
01:55:01
pretty reliable. I also like the
01:55:02
psychological stability thing. I think
01:55:04
that's really, really lovely. You want
01:55:06
somebody who feels like home. You want a
01:55:08
relationship that feels like a safe
01:55:10
harbor that you can wall yourself off
01:55:12
against all of the ills of the world.
01:55:14
Your business can fall apart. Your
01:55:16
health can decay. Your friends can
01:55:18
abandon you.
01:55:20
But you know that at home there's
01:55:22
someone who loves you for who you are,
01:55:24
not for what you do, and they've always
01:55:26
got your back. And I think
01:55:29
aiming for a relationship that feels
01:55:31
like a safe harbor is a really good
01:55:34
idea.
01:55:35
>> It's rough at the moment, isn't it? For
01:55:36
I just I just I'm so glad that I'm not
01:55:38
single because when I look out at the
01:55:40
dating landscape of like dating apps and
01:55:42
all this stuff, I'm so glad that I I'm
01:55:45
not out there in in that war zone. Mhm.
01:55:48
>> And when you, you know, there's a lot of
01:55:50
single people that follow you, men and
01:55:52
women. When you think about if you were
01:55:56
30-year-old Chris, and you're a single
01:55:58
guy, you're not doing the podcast,
01:55:59
people don't know who you are.
01:56:01
>> If you were trying to solve the love
01:56:02
problem in your life, where would you
01:56:03
aim at first?
01:56:04
>> Like the love problem, that's cool. Um,
01:56:07
the first thing you need to do is say,
01:56:08
am I the sort of person who the sort of
01:56:11
person I want to date wants to date?
01:56:15
>> Yeah. If not, it's obvious where you
01:56:17
need to work. Work on yourself.
01:56:19
>> That's such an important question that
01:56:21
requires such honesty.
01:56:22
>> Yeah. And this again is why some time
01:56:24
away from the urgent in the importance,
01:56:26
some time to reflect, some time to
01:56:27
listen to your fleeting thoughts. You
01:56:29
know, you know that your wardrobe sucks.
01:56:32
You know that your wardrobe sucks and
01:56:33
you hate fashion and you've excused it.
01:56:35
It's like, I don't need to do that or
01:56:37
I'm not interested or whatever.
01:56:39
Hey, dude. I'm sorry.
01:56:41
Chicks care about how you look. Shock
01:56:43
horror. They care about what you wear.
01:56:45
probably need to go and update the
01:56:46
wardrobe. You got a female friend. You
01:56:48
watch a few YouTube videos online. Maybe
01:56:50
that's where you need to start. I'm a
01:56:52
bit overweight. I'm a bit skinny fat.
01:56:55
The gym is one of the most reliable ways
01:56:57
to increase your attractiveness. One of
01:56:58
the most reliable ways as a man to
01:57:00
increase your attractiveness. You need
01:57:02
to be a real super Chad to not need to
01:57:04
have any physical practice at all and
01:57:06
still be able to get the sort of woman
01:57:08
that you want. So, okay, maybe you're
01:57:10
going to start to go to the gym, but
01:57:12
let's assume that you have reached the
01:57:14
level that you need to be at in order to
01:57:18
be attractive to the sort of person that
01:57:19
you are. So, that's the first one,
01:57:20
right? Because if you're not, you're
01:57:21
permanently uh condemning yourself to
01:57:24
always pine after partners that aren't
01:57:26
going to want you back. Next step, where
01:57:29
do partners like the sort of person that
01:57:32
you want to date hang out? Where do they
01:57:35
go? Like if you love dance music, it's
01:57:39
probably a bad idea to go to a breath
01:57:40
work class. Like why not just go to
01:57:42
parties that have got dance DJs on? Or
01:57:44
if you're really into lectures and
01:57:46
philosophy, go to an Alex Okconor live
01:57:48
event or something and hang around
01:57:50
outside or like talk to the girl that's
01:57:51
next to you. If you really love sport,
01:57:54
like obviously go to the gym, pick up
01:57:56
pickle ball, like start doing that.
01:57:58
Where are the sorts of places inhabited
01:58:00
by the sort of person that you want to
01:58:02
be like? There's bonus points if you can
01:58:05
go and do a thing that you have a little
01:58:07
bit of a competitive advantage at,
01:58:08
especially as a guy. If you used to play
01:58:11
tennis in high school and you've got a
01:58:14
bit of hand eye coordination, you can
01:58:15
probably be one of the best pickle ball
01:58:17
players at a recreational court pretty
01:58:18
quickly and you're going to be that new
01:58:20
guy who's like a like you seem like I
01:58:21
want to play with him like he always
01:58:22
wins or whatever it might be. Like not
01:58:24
being manipulative, you're just playing
01:58:26
to your strengths.
01:58:27
>> What decision did you make in your life
01:58:28
that made you more attractive than any
01:58:30
other decision? going to the gym. Going
01:58:33
to the gym. Uh I started training when I
01:58:36
was 18 at the Center for Sporting
01:58:38
Excellence at Newcastle University. I
01:58:39
had no idea what I was doing and was
01:58:41
taking blueberry extract and unflavored
01:58:44
hydraized whey in a desperate attempt to
01:58:46
see if I could gain some size and I just
01:58:48
didn't stop. And um
01:58:51
I like it. It makes me healthier. It
01:58:53
makes me feel powerful. It it it added
01:58:56
to my frame. I had real hard gain. It
01:58:58
took [ __ ] ages to put weight. I
01:59:00
remember when I was 20 and I broke 70
01:59:04
kilos for the first time and I was like,
01:59:05
I'm [ __ ] huge. Um, and I just didn't
01:59:08
stop. And I think not only is it
01:59:11
something that's great for me, it's
01:59:12
something that really very reliably
01:59:15
makes you more attractive to women.
01:59:16
>> What about for women?
01:59:18
>> What do you think in your POV would
01:59:20
make?
01:59:22
>> Look, I would be tempted to go for the
01:59:23
gym thing too. And the reason that I
01:59:25
like it is that it is it's
01:59:28
uh you benefit on multiple levels. Like
01:59:31
even what you don't want to do is do
01:59:33
something that makes your life feel like
01:59:34
a performance for your future partner.
01:59:37
>> You want something that even if that
01:59:38
doesn't come along, you're still glad
01:59:39
you did it. And how many people say, "I
01:59:42
went to the gym in an attempt to get
01:59:43
better legs because the guy that I want
01:59:45
to attract is kind of like into girls
01:59:46
that have got good legs and I want to
01:59:47
wear like nice dresses and look cute in
01:59:49
them and all the rest of it." But I
01:59:51
really hated the way that I my boyfriend
01:59:54
didn't come along and what I was I broke
01:59:56
myself trying to do I lost myself trying
01:59:58
to do that. No, you made yourself. You
02:00:01
won independently of whether or not that
02:00:04
person came along. And how wonderful is
02:00:05
that for you? So I I I mean this is just
02:00:08
me shamelessly shilling for everybody to
02:00:09
go to the gym and get jagged. Uh but I
02:00:12
think that would be good. One other
02:00:13
thing I think that is maybe a
02:00:17
slightly unusual strategy that women can
02:00:20
cultivate is receptiveness.
02:00:23
So I think especially in a postmeto
02:00:25
world, a lot of guys are very scared of
02:00:28
approaching. Guys have always been
02:00:29
scared of approaching women. But in a
02:00:31
postmeto world, they've been taught that
02:00:34
anything short of a hell yeah is a no
02:00:37
get away from me so that you don't make
02:00:39
the girl feel uncomfortable.
02:00:42
guys already were quite nervous going up
02:00:44
and talking to you. So, you have to
02:00:46
treat a man and his interest kind of
02:00:50
like slightly inexperienced golden
02:00:52
retriever. It needs to be very loud,
02:00:55
very obvious signals of interest from
02:00:57
you. So, in the middle ages or
02:01:00
aristocratic middle ages, ladies would
02:01:01
drop a handkerchief in front of a
02:01:03
gentleman. Oh, mom. Mom. Oh. In 2025 in
02:01:07
New York, there are women uh stealing
02:01:10
finance bros salads, finding their names
02:01:12
from the salad on Instagram, and then
02:01:14
messaging them and saying, "Sorry, I
02:01:15
accidentally took your salad." Like,
02:01:17
that's the 2025 equivalent of dropping
02:01:18
the handkerchief. But receptiveness, I
02:01:20
think, is important. Like, hey ladies,
02:01:23
if you like that guy and he's not
02:01:24
approaching you, maybe assume that he
02:01:28
doesn't know that you like him and apply
02:01:31
a little bit more receptiveness. And
02:01:33
another the other side of this is if a
02:01:35
guy does come up to you and you're not
02:01:38
into him, don't mock him or make it like
02:01:41
uncomfortable to his face because you
02:01:44
are ruining the next girl's chances who
02:01:46
really does want him by making him feel
02:01:50
not enough for doing it. It's taken
02:01:53
a superhuman amount of strength to come
02:01:55
up and say, "Hello, I just wanted to say
02:01:58
I thought you look really lovely today.
02:02:00
What's your name?" That was the most
02:02:04
terrifying thing that that guy has done
02:02:05
that day. And if you don't, if you're
02:02:08
not receptive, even if you don't want
02:02:09
it, it kind of creates this culture of
02:02:12
men feeling broken and and like they
02:02:14
shouldn't do that more.
02:02:15
>> So,
02:02:16
>> yeah, there's some
02:02:17
>> What is um what is the most important
02:02:19
things we haven't talked about that we
02:02:20
should have talked about, Chris, as it
02:02:21
relates to this time of year?
02:02:23
>> The strivvers who want to make make
02:02:24
change, become someone else.
02:02:26
>> Stop taking life so seriously.
02:02:29
Like no one is getting out of this game
02:02:32
alive. Literally
02:02:35
in three generations, no one will even
02:02:38
remember your name.
02:02:40
And if that doesn't give you liberation
02:02:43
to just drop your [ __ ] problems for a
02:02:47
moment and find some joy, I don't know
02:02:50
what will. Like life is inherently
02:02:53
ridiculous and guaranteed to end sooner
02:02:56
or later.
02:02:59
So, you might as well enjoy the ride.
02:03:00
>> Do you know your great granddad's name?
02:03:02
>> Nope. Do
02:03:03
>> you?
02:03:03
>> No.
02:03:05
>> People don't like that idea. And I I I
02:03:07
get it. Maybe you will be remembered for
02:03:09
generations to come.
02:03:12
But just assume that you don't. This is
02:03:13
this deferred happiness syndrome thing,
02:03:15
dude. Like, don't wait. Life really is
02:03:19
happening right now.
02:03:22
There there is this belief that once
02:03:24
life's duties are out of the way, then
02:03:27
you can finally start doing the thing
02:03:29
you want to and fully living your life.
02:03:32
It's uh called the provisional life.
02:03:34
This sort of strange feeling that you're
02:03:36
not yet in your real life. For now,
02:03:38
you're doing this thing or that, but
02:03:40
there's always the fantasy that at some
02:03:41
point in future
02:03:43
the real thing will come about.
02:03:49
There is a kind of urgency that I think
02:03:51
we could all do with and uh that's not
02:03:54
to put pressure on people so that they
02:03:56
feel um like a failure if they fall
02:04:00
short.
02:04:01
It's not to deny the fact that people
02:04:03
have got real legitimate resource and
02:04:05
time constraints that mean that they
02:04:07
can't do a thing.
02:04:10
But don't wait.
02:04:11
This life really is happening right now.
02:04:13
And
02:04:16
I can't think of many times when you're
02:04:18
going to regret
02:04:22
trying
02:04:24
to make something happen. Now, I guess
02:04:26
one other thing, the sort of people that
02:04:29
have made it this deep into the episode
02:04:31
are the ones that this is about.
02:04:34
I think type A people have a type B
02:04:36
problem. So, insecure overachievers. Is
02:04:39
that type A?
02:04:40
>> Yep. Need to learn how to chill out and
02:04:42
relax. And lazy people need to learn how
02:04:44
to be motivated and work harder. But
02:04:47
given that someone is two hours into a
02:04:48
podcast between me and you, I'm going to
02:04:51
guess that they're probably type A. Some
02:04:53
version of a walking anxiety disorder
02:04:55
harnessed for productivity, as Andrew
02:04:57
Wilkinson says. And here's the thing
02:04:59
that you may have already realized,
02:05:01
which is type A people with type B
02:05:04
problems often get very little sympathy
02:05:07
because a miserable but outwardly
02:05:10
successful person always appears to be
02:05:12
in a much more preferential position
02:05:14
than a content being lazy but on the
02:05:17
verge of bankruptcy. One like one feels
02:05:22
like uh a a limitation and the other
02:05:25
feels like a choice. One is a systemic
02:05:28
imposition and the other is like a
02:05:30
bourgeoa luxury, right? I need someone
02:05:33
to teach me how to work harder and be
02:05:34
disciplined feels upward aiming, noble,
02:05:37
charitable. I need someone to teach me
02:05:38
how to switch off and relax feels
02:05:41
dopamineergic, transactional, like
02:05:43
opulent.
02:05:45
Every underdog movie ever has a scene of
02:05:49
some person down on their luck learning
02:05:51
how to work harder and pull themselves
02:05:52
up by their bootstraps.
02:05:55
None include a scene of a guy learning
02:05:57
how to log out of Slack at 6 PM or
02:06:00
finally enjoy a beach holiday.
02:06:02
>> And like I said before, maybe more
02:06:03
people do need David Gogggin screaming
02:06:05
in their face to go harder than need
02:06:07
Echart Tole whispering in their ear that
02:06:09
they're enough already.
02:06:11
But for a perhaps minority of people,
02:06:16
they actually need to hear the opposite
02:06:18
message. We need a a parasympathetic
02:06:20
Gogggins who's going to carry the TV
02:06:23
remote and the Cheetos. # rest harder
02:06:26
than me. We need to teach people to give
02:06:30
themselves a [ __ ] break. And this is
02:06:34
a an odd thing to hold in both our hands
02:06:37
at the same time. You do not want to
02:06:39
have a victim mindset. You want to have
02:06:40
agency on the world. You want to enact
02:06:42
stuff that's going on. You want to make
02:06:43
it and you're going to have to try
02:06:45
really hard.
02:06:46
And also,
02:06:48
you need to give yourself a break. You
02:06:51
have to know that if you nailed your
02:06:54
day, you don't just make it back to
02:06:56
zero. You got to plus 10.
02:06:59
There's no arbitrary minimum level of
02:07:00
productivity you have to achieve every
02:07:02
day in order to be worthwhile.
02:07:06
Are you religious? And I asked this
02:07:08
because you talked about the idea of
02:07:10
death and pursuit and you don't know how
02:07:12
long you've got left. M
02:07:13
>> and I think it probably has to be framed
02:07:14
in the context of what you think happens
02:07:17
thereafter.
02:07:19
>> Uh no, I wouldn't call myself religious.
02:07:21
Are you?
02:07:22
>> The way that I look at it is if you look
02:07:25
at our evolutionary history, we we're
02:07:26
meant to be part of something. But if
02:07:28
you look at the narrative of the last 20
02:07:30
years, that's given rise because of
02:07:31
social media. It's all about be your own
02:07:34
boss, remote work. I mean, we talked
02:07:36
about the whole kids thing, people
02:07:37
having less kids. So we're actually
02:07:38
swinging away from dependency to
02:07:41
independence and freedom. And it appears
02:07:44
to me that freedom and total
02:07:46
independence
02:07:47
>> will make you sick.
02:07:49
>> So naturally our masov needs going this
02:07:51
doesn't feel right. I need to I need
02:07:53
some I need to belong somewhere.
02:07:54
>> Think about this Maslo's hierarchy of
02:07:56
needs uh an existential crisis. You
02:07:59
asking yourself the question or anybody
02:08:00
that goes through this review process
02:08:02
chriswex.com/review.
02:08:03
Anyone that goes through that and
02:08:05
thinks, "I don't know what to do with my
02:08:07
life." Think about how few people
02:08:10
throughout human history have ever had
02:08:11
to ask themselves that question.
02:08:13
>> Dayto-day, desperately just trying to
02:08:15
cling on to existence, unsure whether or
02:08:17
not the cold snap tomorrow is going to
02:08:20
come into the cave and kill them all.
02:08:24
An existential crisis is a luxurious
02:08:26
position to be in. And it feels
02:08:27
horrendous. How do you hold those two
02:08:29
things in your mind at one time? Yeah.
02:08:31
>> Like you're telling me I'm blessed
02:08:32
because I'm asking myself questions that
02:08:34
make me doubt the meaning of my life.
02:08:37
>> Yeah. And uh maybe that's where religion
02:08:40
is is stepping in now to try and give
02:08:42
people some guidance on that sort of
02:08:43
stuff. I saw a tweet that said um my
02:08:46
parents had the problem of survival and
02:08:48
I have the problem of
02:08:49
self-actualization.
02:08:50
And I think um sometimes
02:08:54
sometimes
02:08:56
some I got to be careful what I say
02:08:57
here, but I'm say you know they are both
02:09:00
they both come with their own challenges
02:09:02
I should say.
02:09:02
>> Absolutely. I mean and there's this idea
02:09:06
I had the other day of the the shame of
02:09:08
small fears which is what this is about.
02:09:10
So imagine explaining small fears to a
02:09:13
caveman. say, "Uh, Grook, I worry about
02:09:19
sending this message." And Grrook would
02:09:21
respond,
02:09:23
"Will the enemy try and see the
02:09:25
message?" "No." "Will a saber-tooth
02:09:27
tiger smell the message?" "No." "Will it
02:09:30
be etched on the wall for the rest of
02:09:32
time?" "No, it's a little small
02:09:34
rectangle."
02:09:36
"Why are you worried?"
02:09:38
uh in case somebody doesn't like me or
02:09:40
like what I say or I hurt their
02:09:41
feelings, he just laughs in your face.
02:09:43
And
02:09:45
we have to accept the fact that the sort
02:09:48
of fears we have in the modern world are
02:09:51
both uh smaller and more complex at the
02:09:55
same time. Yes, they're not about life
02:09:57
and death, but our nervous system has
02:09:59
been repurposed from bears to boundaries
02:10:03
and it does not know the difference. It
02:10:06
feels like you saying your truth,
02:10:08
saying, "I don't think that this job's
02:10:10
working for me," or you said something
02:10:11
that doesn't land with me, and you you
02:10:13
crossed a line. That feels like you're
02:10:15
about to be rejected from the tribe,
02:10:17
even if the tribe is now just a WhatsApp
02:10:19
chat.
02:10:20
>> And this
02:10:22
repurposing of our nervous system
02:10:26
gives us the additional complexity of
02:10:28
the shame because now we feel shame.
02:10:32
Who am I to have this problem? Do I not
02:10:34
know that across the grand expanse of
02:10:36
history, this is nothing? My ancestors
02:10:38
would have dreamed to have had the
02:10:40
opportunity to have dealt with this
02:10:41
problem instead of the one that they do.
02:10:44
And yet, you can't deny the way that you
02:10:46
feel. It's like one of the biggest
02:10:47
lessons I've taken away from this year
02:10:48
is my emotions are legitimate. Like the
02:10:52
way that I feel is the way that I feel.
02:10:55
And denying myself that is not helping
02:10:59
anything at all. It's like you feel
02:11:01
scared before you go out on stage to go
02:11:03
and give this talk in front of a few
02:11:05
thousand people. You shouldn't be
02:11:06
scared. No one's going to come and kill
02:11:08
you. And you start shaming yourself for
02:11:10
your fear. And then you become anxious
02:11:12
about your shame about your fear and
02:11:14
then bitter about your anxiousness about
02:11:15
your shame about your fear. You've got
02:11:16
this infinite regress of mean emotions.
02:11:19
Like, huh?
02:11:22
The first one wasn't me. The first one
02:11:25
was the situation.
02:11:27
The second one was me. the third one,
02:11:29
the fourth one, and now I'm complicit in
02:11:31
my own suffering. I've made myself I've
02:11:34
made myself suffer unnecessarily. So,
02:11:36
and this is why the spit and sawdust and
02:11:40
caffeine and big dreams
02:11:43
really really important, but it has to
02:11:45
be married with some self- loveve. And
02:11:47
um maybe not in the beginning. Maybe if
02:11:49
you're trying to get the rocket ship off
02:11:50
the launch pad, use what you have,
02:11:52
including
02:11:54
your
02:11:56
self-hatred and your need for validation
02:11:58
from people and that chip on your
02:12:00
shoulder from the kids in school. But
02:12:01
after a while, you need to accept that
02:12:03
that is a toxic fuel if you use it for
02:12:04
too long. But when inertia is at its
02:12:07
greatest, I think you have to use what
02:12:08
you have.
02:12:09
>> I'm going to I'm going to ask you a
02:12:10
question, and this is a I just want to
02:12:12
try an experiment here. Can you think
02:12:14
out loud when you hear this question?
02:12:16
Okay.
02:12:18
So, I'm going to ask you immediately.
02:12:19
Think out loud. Okay.
02:12:22
Are you happy?
02:12:24
It's
02:12:24
>> complex question.
02:12:27
I have to work hard to be in a good mood
02:12:29
sometimes. And I don't like the fact
02:12:31
that I have to work hard to be in a good
02:12:32
mood. Uh it feels to me like I need to
02:12:35
stack the deck in my favor in order to
02:12:38
be able to do that. And I wish that I
02:12:40
didn't. And yet I'm really proud of all
02:12:44
of the things that I've done in order to
02:12:46
be able to make my my happiness
02:12:48
increase. I have a I have a set point. I
02:12:51
I had depression in my 20ies. I've had a
02:12:53
lot of anxiety as well and I'm really
02:12:55
proud of what I've done to overcome
02:12:57
that.
02:12:58
>> You have to work hard to be in a good
02:13:00
mood.
02:13:00
>> Yes.
02:13:00
>> Can you talk me through that? I've never
02:13:01
had this before from you.
02:13:03
>> Okay. Well, this year has been a
02:13:05
particularly difficult one for me
02:13:06
because I got kicked in the nuts by
02:13:08
health. America's a wonderful country,
02:13:10
but everything's trying to kill you. The
02:13:11
food system, the municipal water, the
02:13:13
building materials, the air quality, and
02:13:15
uh I lived in a house that had toxic
02:13:18
mold. I got mold poisoning, which a lot
02:13:20
of people in America have, and it's so
02:13:22
brutal. A ton of other stuff. And I
02:13:24
spent a long time, the best part of two
02:13:26
years, with two jobs. One was the show,
02:13:29
the other was trying to fix my health.
02:13:31
So after all of this, all this big
02:13:33
Modern Wisdom review thing, all I did,
02:13:36
my only two goals for this year at the
02:13:37
start of this year were don't let the
02:13:39
show drop and fix my health. That was
02:13:41
it. That was all I wanted. Nothing else.
02:13:43
Don't let the show drop and fix my
02:13:44
health. So I really was humbled, like
02:13:47
kicked in the nuts so many times that
02:13:48
they were two-dimensional. They turn
02:13:50
they disappeared if you looked at them
02:13:51
from the side. It felt like a cosmic
02:13:54
joke. It felt so
02:13:56
unfair. like working so hard to just
02:13:59
operate, going to bed at 7 o'clock at
02:14:02
night for six months, unable to sleep
02:14:04
because I was wired but tired because my
02:14:05
cortisol was inverted. Cortisol was
02:14:07
higher at night than it was in the
02:14:08
morning. So no matter how long I slept,
02:14:10
I was never able to feel rested in the
02:14:12
morning. and then dealing with it alone,
02:14:15
dealing with it on my own and trying to
02:14:17
go through complex environmental illness
02:14:20
doctors and treatments and all of this
02:14:22
stuff that really made me
02:14:25
face a lot of the fears of insufficiency
02:14:29
that I've had. I think every man knows
02:14:31
reflection when he's at his lowest and
02:14:33
I've been at some of my lowest points
02:14:35
over the last 12 months. So for me, the
02:14:38
happiness thing has been like I just
02:14:40
need to get through today. I just want
02:14:42
to perform well on the show. I can't
02:14:44
really think about the mood that I'm in
02:14:45
when I do it because the mood that I'm
02:14:47
in is just swimming in melancholy. I
02:14:50
don't feel very good. It felt like it
02:14:53
felt like my better self was slipping
02:14:55
through my fingers like it was being
02:14:57
ripped away from me due to
02:15:02
some thing that I hadn't done. It felt
02:15:05
so unfair, so comically unfair, like a
02:15:08
literally like a personal curse that had
02:15:10
been hit at me. And it was specifically
02:15:12
on the thing that I care about the most.
02:15:14
So mold does typically lots of things,
02:15:17
but three things. Uh energy, mood, and
02:15:19
cognition. So it makes you tired all the
02:15:21
time. It makes you low mood. And it
02:15:24
makes you forgetful. Like there was a
02:15:26
day when I looked down and I forgot how
02:15:28
to tie my shoes. Couldn't remember how
02:15:30
to put my shoelaces together in order to
02:15:32
tie my shoes. I was forgetting words.
02:15:34
forgetting the names of people that I'd
02:15:35
known, forgetting the names of like
02:15:36
friends, dogs and stuff that I'd spent
02:15:38
time with.
02:15:40
And um yeah, this year has not been a
02:15:42
year where I've been trying to maximize
02:15:43
my happiness. It's one where I've been
02:15:44
trying to sort of survive. And I did it
02:15:48
pretty much silently. I did a video
02:15:49
about it in maybe October time,
02:15:51
something like that. But again, my I
02:15:54
want to keep my private life private
02:15:55
thing was
02:15:59
important to me because I didn't want to
02:16:01
have other people
02:16:04
Being ill. Anybody that is dealing with
02:16:07
a an illness will know this.
02:16:11
Talking about your illness is kind of
02:16:12
like having a birthday that what you get
02:16:15
is inundated with lots of messages from
02:16:17
people who are all really well-wishing,
02:16:20
but what it results in is just a ton of
02:16:21
admin and a load of guilt if you don't
02:16:23
reply. So, I didn't I knew that if I
02:16:25
started talking about all of the stuff
02:16:27
that I was going through, it would be
02:16:28
great because it would make other people
02:16:29
that were dealing with it feel less
02:16:30
alone. But it would also be an
02:16:31
additional burden on me while I'm trying
02:16:33
to fix myself of trying to sift through
02:16:36
all of my friend knows how to do a
02:16:38
parasite cleanse using goat milk and you
02:16:40
can, you know, pray to the full moon.
02:16:42
Like, dude, I really appreciate you
02:16:43
caring about me so much that you've
02:16:44
tried to link me in with this person.
02:16:46
And sure enough, this documentary that I
02:16:48
put on the channel that people can go
02:16:50
and watch came out and that happened. It
02:16:53
mercifully I was a little bit further
02:16:54
through the journey. But yeah, man.
02:16:56
Like, how do I optimize my happiness is
02:17:00
a luxury that a lot of people aren't in
02:17:01
a position to do. And and that that was
02:17:03
me this year. I didn't have the spare
02:17:05
capacity to optimize my happiness.
02:17:07
>> And you still try hard to be you still
02:17:09
have to put significant effort in to be
02:17:11
content, happy.
02:17:13
>> Um yeah, at the moment, yeah. Uh I've
02:17:17
been working hard on it. You know,
02:17:20
happiness
02:17:21
really only exists when uncertainty
02:17:24
isn't there. It's very difficult to be
02:17:26
uncertain and happy at the same time.
02:17:28
You'd even make the argument that humans
02:17:30
never chase happiness directly. They
02:17:33
always chase certainty first because if
02:17:36
you don't know how the future is going
02:17:37
to pan out, how are you able to be h
02:17:40
especially if it's like chronic
02:17:41
uncertainty like you know severe
02:17:42
uncertainty, not just I don't know who's
02:17:44
going to win the sports game tomorrow.
02:17:46
And for me, I didn't know if I was going
02:17:50
to get escape velocity to get out of
02:17:52
this health stuff. And if that's the
02:17:55
case, where am I deriving my happiness
02:17:58
from? All I see is this endless stretch
02:18:00
of work and discomfort and fatigue and
02:18:03
tiredness and solitude. And I I I feel
02:18:07
bad for the guy that had to go through
02:18:09
that this year. Like I feel for him cuz
02:18:11
it wasn't it wasn't easy and it was
02:18:13
lonely. And I'm really proud. I'm really
02:18:17
really proud that
02:18:19
I kept showing up. I didn't give up on
02:18:22
myself. I hit dead ends with regards to
02:18:24
treatment, with regards to testing. It
02:18:27
was like months where
02:18:31
I was going to bed at 7:00 p.m., waking
02:18:33
up at
02:18:36
8:00 a.m., still tired, sleeping
02:18:39
straight through.
02:18:39
>> There's something interesting here
02:18:41
because the three areas that you said
02:18:42
mold impacts are also the three areas
02:18:44
that everybody kind of knows you for,
02:18:46
right?
02:18:47
>> And that's kind of
02:18:47
>> why I said personal curse. It felt like
02:18:50
it felt like somebody had designed
02:18:53
a pathology just for me and it would hit
02:18:56
at all of the places that I took my self
02:18:58
worth from.
02:18:59
>> Does it leave a question then which is
02:19:01
if you take everything I value now that
02:19:03
gives me selfworth,
02:19:05
what remains?
02:19:06
>> Well, that was a question I had to ask
02:19:08
myself this year
02:19:09
>> and what did remain?
02:19:11
>> Somebody who's kind, somebody who's
02:19:14
genuinely kind and uh
02:19:18
sensitive. And I always thought that
02:19:20
sensitivity was a weakness, but it's
02:19:22
not. At least not for me. Somebody who
02:19:24
is resilient
02:19:26
in a very normal way. So boring
02:19:29
victories
02:19:31
is something that I've had to learn to
02:19:32
take pleasure from this year. You know,
02:19:35
is today
02:19:39
the grandest accomplishment of your
02:19:40
entire life?
02:19:42
No. but you went for a walk or you were
02:19:46
kind to that person at the supermarket
02:19:48
or you were gentle with yourself when
02:19:49
you became frustrated.
02:19:51
And I had to get over the shame of small
02:19:55
pleasures that somehow me feeling proud
02:19:58
about the way that I showed up in a tiny
02:20:00
minute way that nobody else saw was sort
02:20:03
of a comment of the smallness of my
02:20:05
life. Oh, you must not have a lot going
02:20:06
on. Like how feeble, how weak, how
02:20:10
minuscule must your life be? that that
02:20:14
seeing that golden retriever was the
02:20:15
best part of your morning.
02:20:18
And yet I realized that that was worth
02:20:23
being happy about and that denying
02:20:25
myself the opportunity to be happy about
02:20:27
something small is basically me holding
02:20:29
my happiness hostage. Like until the
02:20:31
bank deposit is sufficiently large, the
02:20:34
ledger doesn't kick in. Like I can't
02:20:36
pick up pennies. I can only pick up $100
02:20:38
bills. And um it really [ __ ] humbled
02:20:42
me, dude. Especially if you're flying
02:20:43
high, you know, two years ago, the show
02:20:46
is just vertical. And it, you know,
02:20:49
numerically it still is now, but it
02:20:51
really really felt like something had
02:20:53
just come in to bring my feet back down
02:20:55
to earth. And I feel different to the
02:20:59
person I was last year, but I'm much
02:21:01
more connected, I think, to a sort of
02:21:04
truth. Alander Boton says, "The best men
02:21:06
are those who have been broken." And
02:21:08
this year has definitely broken me.
02:21:10
>> Are you doing better now?
02:21:11
>> I am. Yeah, I am. Um, it's if I was at a
02:21:14
three 12 months ago, I'm probably at a
02:21:17
seven to an eight now. So, don't let the
02:21:20
show drop and fix my health. Like, I got
02:21:22
close to doing both of those. We've got
02:21:24
to wrap up now, but I wanted to give you
02:21:26
the chance to end this with any closing
02:21:28
thoughts that you might have for the
02:21:30
listener that's gotten this far in this
02:21:31
conversation
02:21:32
>> and who is really at, you know, the
02:21:33
foothills of potentially a new version
02:21:35
of themselves.
02:21:36
Is there anything else,
02:21:38
>> Chris, that you wanted to say?
02:21:41
>> Well, first off, congratulations for
02:21:42
making it through all of this. There's a
02:21:44
lot of uncomfortable things to face with
02:21:46
conversations like this. It really
02:21:49
forces you to reckon with parts of your
02:21:52
direction. You're like, [ __ ] Like, I I
02:21:54
really don't want to have to have that
02:21:56
conversation. I really don't want to
02:21:57
face that thing. There's a great quote
02:21:58
from John Paul Sartra. He said, I've led
02:22:02
a toothless life. I have never bitten
02:22:04
into anything.
02:22:06
I was waiting. I was reserving myself
02:22:08
for later on. And I've just noticed that
02:22:11
my teeth have gone.
02:22:15
This idea of being shunted to the side
02:22:17
of your own life, of being a
02:22:21
an NPC, a non-playable character when
02:22:23
you should have been the main character.
02:22:27
uh
02:22:28
you can be in service of other people,
02:22:30
but you can still have some sort of
02:22:32
action that you take into the world.
02:22:33
This deferred life thing, waiting for
02:22:36
life to begin.
02:22:40
It's a great time of year to question
02:22:41
that assumption. What would have to
02:22:43
happen by the end of next year for you
02:22:44
to look back on it and consider it a
02:22:45
success? What would I do to make
02:22:46
85-year-old me miserable? What would I
02:22:48
what would 85-year-old me wish that I
02:22:50
did more of? What are the emotions I'm
02:22:52
unprepared to feel? What are the
02:22:55
thoughts that I thought too many times
02:22:56
last year? If this was a movie and the
02:22:58
audience was watching, what would they
02:23:00
be screaming at the screen telling me to
02:23:03
do with my life?
02:23:05
They're cool questions and uh they
02:23:08
certainly helped me. They helped me find
02:23:10
direction. So, I hope they've helped
02:23:11
everyone else as well.
02:23:14
We have a closing tradition where the
02:23:15
last guest leaves a question for the
02:23:16
next, not knowing who they're leaving it
02:23:17
for. And the question left for you is
02:23:18
quite relevant. What is the most
02:23:21
important component of human joy and
02:23:24
endeavor that you believe must be
02:23:27
preserved in priority?
02:23:30
Oh, wonderful.
02:23:36
I think agency
02:23:38
I think the belief that you have
02:23:42
the ability to impact your surroundings.
02:23:45
Uh because the opposite of agency is you
02:23:47
basically holding your hands up and
02:23:48
saying, "I'm at the mercy of the world.
02:23:51
You happen to life. Life doesn't happen
02:23:53
to you."
02:23:56
Chris, thank you. You are going on tour
02:23:58
and uh you're going on tour next year in
02:24:00
March, I believe. And you're going in on
02:24:02
tour in an area where I know we have
02:24:03
lots of listeners,
02:24:04
>> Australia, New Zealand, Bali.
02:24:05
>> So, I'm going to link below a link to
02:24:07
anyone that wants to come see you on
02:24:08
tour,
02:24:09
>> but also highly recommend people go
02:24:11
download the the modern wisdom annual
02:24:13
review template. So, I'm going to link
02:24:14
that below as well. Look in the
02:24:15
description. It's all there.
02:24:17
>> Is there anything else that if people,
02:24:19
you know, your channel, people should go
02:24:20
subscribe to your channel if they've
02:24:21
liked what they've heard today. Is there
02:24:22
anything else?
02:24:24
>> I had a conversation with Naval
02:24:25
Ravocant.
02:24:26
>> Oh my god, I love that.
02:24:27
>> It's the people always ask like, "What's
02:24:29
the best conversation you've ever had?"
02:24:30
And I say, "It's like trying to choose
02:24:31
between a thousand children." Um, that
02:24:34
was really special. And for people who
02:24:36
know him, you should watch it again.
02:24:38
>> For people who don't know him, you
02:24:40
should go and check it out. So, we can
02:24:41
link that below. I highly recommend
02:24:42
that. Yeah. Honestly, the modern wisdom
02:24:45
manual review template, it's free. Copy
02:24:47
it, use it, and um that'll put you on my
02:24:50
mailing list for a once a week
02:24:52
newsletter, which is a lot of the
02:24:53
thoughts, a lot of the ideas that we've
02:24:54
gone through today. I wanted to uh say
02:24:57
something to you before we finished up
02:24:58
as well.
02:24:59
>> Um, no, it's a it's a thank you. So, uh
02:25:03
I think people often wonder about what's
02:25:04
going on behind the scenes or what
02:25:06
somebody's like behind the scenes. And,
02:25:08
uh I had a I needed some advice from
02:25:12
you. So, I messaged you on a Saturday
02:25:15
afternoon on WhatsApp and within 30
02:25:18
seconds, you rang me and then put me in
02:25:20
a group with like the guy that was able
02:25:24
to help with this thing and then
02:25:26
basically sort of carried us through
02:25:28
this process for the next couple of
02:25:30
weeks and kept checking in with me.
02:25:32
That was that was very very meaningful
02:25:34
and you didn't need to do it. And uh I
02:25:35
very much appreciate having you. I mean
02:25:37
you you in my phone book is like a
02:25:39
[ __ ] hidden weapon. you're kind of
02:25:41
like the jocker willing to be able to
02:25:42
get, you know, stuff sorted. But uh I
02:25:44
just wanted to say thank you for that
02:25:45
cuz it was it was really really kind and
02:25:47
um yeah, it's it's awesome to feel like
02:25:50
people have got your back and that made
02:25:52
me feel like that.
02:25:53
>> I appreciate that. Um yeah, you've
02:25:55
earned that because you you've done so
02:25:57
much for so many other people and you've
02:25:58
been so selfless in a way that I aspire
02:26:00
to be. Like I'm not very good at like
02:26:03
staying in touch and connecting and
02:26:05
replying and stuff like that, but in
02:26:06
those particular moments, you know, I
02:26:09
think we are a team.
02:26:11
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
02:26:13
>> So, uh, so I appreciate that. Thank you
02:26:16
so much.
02:26:16
>> Thank you, mate.
02:26:21
>> This is something that I've made for
02:26:22
you. I realized that the direio audience
02:26:25
are striv
02:26:28
goals that we want to accomplish. And
02:26:30
one of the things I've learned is that
02:26:32
when you aim at the big big big goal, it
02:26:34
can feel incredibly psychologically
02:26:37
uncomfortable because it's kind of like
02:26:39
being stood at the foot of Mount Everest
02:26:40
and looking upwards. The way to
02:26:42
accomplish your goals is by breaking
02:26:44
them down into tiny small steps. And we
02:26:47
call this in our team the 1%. And
02:26:48
actually this philosophy is highly
02:26:51
responsible for much of our success
02:26:52
here. So what we've done so that you at
02:26:55
home can accomplish any big goal that
02:26:57
you have is we've made these 1% diaries
02:27:00
and we released these last year and they
02:27:02
all sold out. So I asked my team over
02:27:04
and over again to bring the diaries back
02:27:05
but also to introduce some new colors
02:27:07
and to make some minor tweaks to the
02:27:09
diary. So now we have a better range for
02:27:13
you. So, if you have a big goal in mind
02:27:15
and you need a framework and a process
02:27:17
and some motivation, then I highly
02:27:19
recommend you get one of these diaries
02:27:21
before they all sell out once again. And
02:27:23
you can get yours now at the diary.com
02:27:25
where you can get 20% off our Black
02:27:28
Friday bundle. And if you want the link,
02:27:29
the link is in the description below.
