Modern Wisdom - #135 - Kamal Ravikant - How Loving Yourself Can Save Your Life

Episode Date: January 20, 2020

Kamal Ravikant is an investor and writer. Do you love yourself? Do you even like yourself? The body and mind you inhabit is the only one you're going to get in this life. That means there is no greater priority than learning to love yourself and work collaboratively, instead of adversarially with your inner being. This is one of the most open and raw episodes I've recorded, thank you to Kamal for being a part of it. Extra Stuff: Buy Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It - https://amzn.to/2TAEVQ9 Follow Kamal on Twitter - https://twitter.com/kamalravikant Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh hello friends, welcome back to Monum Wisdom. My guest today is Kamal Ravakant and we are talking about his new book Love Yourself like your life depends on it. This is probably one of the deepest and most personal podcasts that I've done so far. I was at the end of a very intense period of work. I was in a very unique place for me. Kamal is recovering after literally almost dying. So those things combined made for an incredibly intense, very connected conversation. It's certainly a bit of a departure from some of the more bright and fluffy episodes that I've done recently, but it's very real. And I feel fortunate to have had the ear of Kamal

and the platform and the atmosphere to get some of these thoughts and feelings that I'd had in my head at the time out. Hopefully these will resonate with you too. I found myself over the last couple of weeks as I've had to sit on this episode for a little while. I've found myself reflecting on the things that I spoke about with Kamal, and there was a lot of takeaways that I had myself from this, and I've kept in

touch with him. We may be seeing him back on later this year, so yeah, enjoy this one. I want to hear you feedback. You know where I am at Chris Wellex on all social media, but for now, please welcome the wise and wonderful Kamal Ravakant. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I am joined by Kamal Ravakhan. Kamal, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Absolutely pleasure to have you on, man. I feel like we're gonna have something really special in front of us today. I hope.

I hope so, too, man. Hope to look up to it. Yeah, no. So first things first, you had a bit of a turn recently and you would dead for a bit? What? Yeah, for a bit. This was about two and a half months ago.

I went for elective surgery just to fix an old injury and that involved like moving some arteries around and like tweaking arteries. And right before I was being discharged from the hospital, the main artery they worked on, the sutures came off, so the whole thing burst. And I basically got blood to death. And the only thing that saved me was I was still in the hospital and I was in a bird,

a bird so hard that pulled up in my body and then burst out in my body. Not out of sutures, just from the force of the blood. And the only thing I say was I was spraying blood everywhere. And so you would teach it a little bit like a garden sprinkler system, but just you know, that's that's a great analogy. That's and you know, when an artery goes, it's a one way street, you know, when a real artery goes, it's a one way street. And and they managed to get me right away into an R and go in street. You know, when a real artery goes it's a one way street. And they managed to get me right away into an OR and go in and fix it. And it was a rough experience, man.

And like I literally, you know, experienced a whole like, you know, like this is it. Your brain just goes into primal mode and it's just trauma. It's not like, and there's nothing peaceful about it, it just goes into images and feelings and emotions and just like horror, because your mind's not designed to see blood spraying out of your body like in a large amount and you can feel it, you can feel it yourself like shutting down, you can feel very quickly like just the vitality or whatever

just leaving, just not and you never been thinking those words, it's looking back and I'm adding words to the experience. There's no real words that really happen. It's more like emotions and images. And those a few months ago, so, you know, as we tried it before, the podcast, now I'm healing and I'm rebuilding my body. And yeah, so it was a bit of a turn,

a bit of a one that I wouldn't recommend if you can avoid it, you know. Can I ask where it was coming out of you? Where was the incision? Lower abdomen. Okay, so like right in the alien versus predator, like kind of like that. The most obvious place for it to happen as well.

Man, what a terrifying experience I suppose to have when you are on the cusp of releasing a piece of work that you feel is so valuable and you've worked towards for so long, was there were you cognizant, sufficiently cognizant to think like not now? No, your brain just doesn't know what to do. In trauma, your brain just doesn't know what to do. It goes into primal mode. Just feelings and emotions and images of who's important to you comes up, real fear. I've never tasted real fear in my life. That was a real fear came up,

because it's like this is it, and it's a horrible way to go. So there were no cognizant thoughts, oh, this left of that left, none of that regrets of the dying, any of that, because it was too fast. So, but what was interesting was the book none of that regrets of the dying any of that because it was too fast. So, but what was interesting was the book, when I get out of it, I was in the hospital for a while, severe narcotics and healing,

and just to get out of the hospital, the hospital's a terrible place as man. Like, you're a healthy guy, so you'll get a kick out of this. I mean, the hospital food in the US. It's like it's designed to give you diabetes. You know, like I was refusing their meals and they were like, why? I'm like, take a look at what you're giving me. You know what it's like.

It's like, how is this gonna help my body heal? Like, you know, a bagel, a piece of cake and orange juice. It's like, it's, you know, you're literally they're designed to give you diabetes. You go and healthy and you come out with diabetes. I was literally like, you know, you're literally designed to give you diabetes. You go in healthy and you come out with diabetes. I was literally like, and they were, they couldn't understand why I was skipping meals. I was like, I can't eat this garbage. Like, my body needs to heal.

And so I got out of the hospital, I think a week later, and I was in immense amount of pain. And I was in severe narcotics for a week, and I was supposed to be on much longer. The surgeon said to me, look, if anyone qualifies for these drugs, it's you. You've had, like, you, you, you, you, you know, your body need, you need it. You're in a lot of pain.

And, but a week later, when, and look, they definitely help. They make things easier. You just kind of like lie around and, you know, in pain, but you can bear it and you kind of like in a kind of like floating, not even floating, but it's like it definitely helps. And a week later, I went off cold turkey. Now why? I didn't need to go off cold turkey. I mean, I could have weed myself off. I could have been on them longer. And I'm on cold off turkey. And I was in a lot of pain was because I turned in the final draft of

this to book to the publisher. And now they were sending me the proofs when they lay it laid out on the page. And things get changed then. You know, they've been to copy edits in this. And I had to go through and review the proofs. Now, if I didn't, if I didn't do them, like no one cares as much as the author does, you know, I carried down to every single comma that I care about the feel of the words in the mind, right? And so I had to, and I realized I was trying to do them in narcotics and I couldn't, my brain was too slippery. Like I'm, I mean, I guess I could have, but my brain wasn't on it, right? So I went off and I had something bigger.

I had something bigger than my pain to focus on. That was more important than the pain. So I just went off and then I worked on the on the Galley's word by word by word. And like the next one will come and I would work in a word by word by word. And it was something more important than what I was going through in the moment. And I was an amazing lesson as well. I remember I wrote a little Instagram post about it called Purpose is Bigger Than Pain. And a bunch of people reached out to me privately.

I said, like, look, I was hooked on narcotics opioids and I eventually took me getting involved in something or caring about something that helped me get out of it. I had one person got very, very mad and said, you don't understand, you know, like this. And I was just sharing my experience. And I really do believe that. Look, you know, that's what made me go off of them. So anyway, that was the experience with the book. But so it wasn't in the moment as I was dying.

You don't have that. You don't have time for that when it's like a really fast thing. You can really fast, sudden, completely unexpected thing. Well, we think, I think because the way it's dramatized in movies, right? It's like there's going to be this moment where I'm able to reflect the epiphany will come and I will be able to appreciate all the things. You know, if someone has a near death experience, which is, I mean, you had a beyond death experience. Like, if that, it's dramatized and we get this impression, that's what it's going to be.

It's going to be this beautiful thing. I mean, I think it could be, but I think in trauma, it's different. Your brain just goes into like the primal brain. Because I've had time to sit back and think about it, you know, and it's different. Your brain just goes into like the primal brain. Because I've had time to sit back and think about it, you know, and it literally was. It was just you're going into shock and horror and and feelings and emotions and realizing your brain doesn't go, this could be it. Your brain goes, this is it. And so it's like literally trying to stop it. And there's nowhere to stop it, you know. How much blood do you have?

I didn't count, but they told me a lot to significant amount. I mean, I was spraying blood everywhere to think till the vitamin OR, you know and And to and it pulled up enough to burst out of the body which tells it was already a lot lost, you know, so I'm still quite anemic and my body's still making red blood cells. So my energy levels come and go, but I'm getting better. I'm taking iron supplements, which I've never had to and eventually eating a lot of red meat, which it's just funny.

The doctor's telling you, eat a lot of red meat, rebuild your iron stores. Yeah. It's strange the way that medicine comes full circle. So I think it's so poetically ironic that a book which the process of once helped you to transform your life which the reflection of twice helped you to take yourself out of a lesson that you'd forgotten and the purpose of publishing a third time has been your reason to transcend the most traumatic

experience that you've been through in your life. But this thing, this book is the anchor that you're attached to, at least it seems like that in the recent history of your life. That's a very interesting way to put it. I don't know if it's an anchor I'm attached to. It's something I feel a strong obligation to. You know, this version that we're pointing out to, this is the second version of it. The original version was a short little book I put out seven years ago,

and that took off and changed a lot of lives and saved a lot of lives. You know, I have the emails and I met the people of, you know, that show me that. This version is like, okay, I held back a lot. And I, you know, I have the questions for my readers that show that where they were struggling that I need to share everything that works. And even share where it doesn't work with me and why

and how to make that work. So it's special. It's more of a responsibility, I feel like, and it's a responsibility. And it's so interesting, man. I had, I was having coffee with a journalist today and I was telling her that it's so strange that I'm alive that I'm going gonna get to see this book go out because I basically almost exited the planet without seeing it go out. It's a strange feeling, man. I, yeah, it's a strange feeling.

Yeah, I see the only way to put it. I know, there is something, whether it's an anchor, whether it's the wind in your sails, whether it's the kite you're attached to, whatever it might be, there is a single lineage, a string that is attached to this particular work that is pulling you through life in one way or another. Yeah, that is momentum.

That's insightful, man. I hadn't thought of it that way. It's quite insightful. And hopefully that's not going to be the last thing that we have an insight about. So we've skirtied around it for a while. Love yourself like your life depends on it. To the listeners, you will, I often have authors on

to talk about their books. And although we are talking about the book today, the purpose of this is not to do a breakdown of how to love yourself like your life depends on it. I think that the way that the book made me feel and the topics that it talks about are worthy, they're more worthy of a deeper discussion. And that's not to, you know, lambast discussions

that do talk about the book in, in sort of, more of an order, transactional manner, but this, I think, has some real fire reaching implications. So I'm looking forward to getting into it today And the first thing that I would say that I noticed was the word that I Felt when I was reading it was vulnerability like an absolutely uncompromising degree of vulnerability It felt sometimes to me like standing on the edge of a building that I knew very well and seeing problems, seeing fears go by. So talking about the fact that after going through a

breakup and making these promises to yourself, even within the time that we're that we're dealing with, which is only maybe a month or a couple of months or whatever within this particular window that you're writing, you were bringing up the weaknesses that you had was weak again today, felt bad again today, this happened again today. And on top of that, it's this complete, just opening up of every single emotion that you had, I found it quite scary to read in a bizarre way, like in a very beautiful way, it was quite scary to read because it reminds you of all of the very beautiful way, it was it was quite scary to read because it reminds you of all of the things, all of the fears, all the mistakes that you make in

those sorts of situations. And it was oddly very familiar as well. So yeah, it was a unique experience to read. Yeah, that part is interesting. And there's a very strong reason why it's there. And it actually is very effective because the first part of the book is basically designed to show you just how easily as possible to love yourself no matter where you come from and you know showing like look how basically the overview of how I did it. The second part of the book is okay now step by step manual because it's all working on the inside on the mind. Here's a step by step manual so simple just do this

and really within weeks you'll know. You'll feel it. You'll be like living it. But the third part is actually, we learn best from stories. So I've showed you from the fifth. I've showed you, like, look, it's really possible for my life. Second, now I've taught you how to do it step-by-step, how I do it, and how it's worked for all these readers

from the previous version. But the third is, like, look, but it's an internal thing, right? Now watch it happen internally. Watch me deal with my own demons. Watch me go through something hard. And this is honest to God true. Every single word in there is true. Watch me go through a really rough time and see how I'm applying this.

The point wasn't to share my fears and securities. I don't want the world to know my fears and insecurities. I mean, who the hell does? I mean, I'm not that crazy, right? It's like, and I share stuff about my childhood. Why do I share it? I don't want my friends to know what I ran through when I was a kid. You know, I don't want my mom to know some of the things that are in there, right? And the reason why I did it was because I get the emails from my readers and I know what they're struggling with. And I, first of all, and everyone thinks they're alone in their journey. And I want them to know, look, you're not alone. I've been through this. This is what I've been through. And watch. And I'm the guy who came up with

this and who applies. And I'm watching what I'm going through. And, but it's not to show you that, hey, everyone falls about, I'll show you how I built myself up and from the inside. So even as I'm building up and even as the insecurities are coming up, but the fears are coming out, how I'm working on it. And it's literally what's happening in my mind. So you can see it. And then as you can see, start to see the changes happen, it kind of shows you in a way

that, prescriptively, I could not show you. And you can see the nuances. There's a lot of nuances when you work on the inside. The nuances explained better in a story. You see them happening. By the time it's done, you truly, by the time you've done with this book, you truly understand how to do it.

And also how it's possible, even if you're going to restore them of your own. The context is so important. So a common analogy that I use is it's the reason why motivational quotes on Instagram don't change people's lives. Oh, God. I can say that all that's like, who's life was changed by an Instagram quote? Like I don't get it.

Like, you know, the problem is that there is a lot of worth in it. You think this, this one single sentence could be the distillation of a, one of the best minds on the planet's life's work. They're still down in the single aphorism. But because all that you're seeing is booty picture, booty picture, funny cat video, maxim, booty picture, booty picture, it's like. It's like, I'm just not in the place for this at the moment. I'm getting to retargeted by some website I was on five days ago and blah, blah. I'm not in the place for it. I think that your right context is important and it helps you to understand.

Yeah, and it's honestly the scariest thing to put out, for people to see inside what like, hair, watch me fall apart and watch me rebuild myself, and how I do it, using what I've just taught you how to do in the first two parts. The thing that I'm thinking there is kind of the story of the unwilling hero. So you think the hero in every story doesn't go and fight the dragon

because he has to. Sorry because he can do, he does it because he has to, and he has to because he can, and he can because no one else can. If you are the person who can do the particular thing, and there's no one else to do it, then you have to do it. And that duty bears very, very heavy on your shoulders, but the fact that you are able to go and do the thing that helps everybody else that takes down the dragon that raises the consciousness of everyone else that helps them to transcend their own problems, that is why you have to do it because no one else is there for you to do it. Yeah, I mean, I was writing that part when I was going through that storm, and I was writing it more as an exercise to myself and keeping record. Obviously, it's been, I've edited,

you know, to make it fit for context. And you, but I say that, all I mean is that cut out stuff that didn't belong in the book, right? There's there when you're not running you're writing a book. There's a narrative. You can have you has to serve the narrative And it was near the end. I realize, oh my god. This is the missing peak to piece of the book because I was working on the book and I'd finish I decided it was going to be part one part two, but part three was like look, that's the missing pieces. No way someone can walk away by the time they finished this book and not being convinced and knowing exactly how to love the subs no matter what. That was the point, no matter what. That's where people get stuck in their stories, but, but, but, but, but mine is special. We are all special, but like, like the inside is still a shit show for everyone. You know, we all go through our storms. No matter

how great an Instagram post are, right? So it's like, it wasn't even being the word vulnerable. I mean, I think that's used a lot and the people who use that with this, especially with this book, it was being real. Like there's not a word in it. It's not true and that's not real, you know, and honestly sometimes like I read it and I'm like, oh God, man, I don't want to leave it. I can't believe I put that out. Yeah, I can't believe like, oh my God, it's just so pathetic, but like, look, who hasn't felt pathetic? But the point wasn't to show you that I felt pathetic, to show you what I was, how I'm working, what I'm

doing on the inside, to get over it, to get beyond it, to get better, because that's what it's about. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a pity party. It's not you signalling with your level of vulnerability. Oh god, no. It comes across as transparency. And transparency that is doing, like I say, laying yourself on the fire so that other people can walk over you is kind of the way that it feels to me. Well, it's also a point of like, let me show you how I get better. The point is how to let me show you a practical application of this now. It's all in without talking, talking in theory about what you're going on about.

No, no, no, no, no, I put this in practice. It's seeing the guy that has the crazy diet or does the training regime and sings the song and then goes out and wins the fight Oh, does the race or does the whatever Yeah, it's um it really I was in fact I was like partially trying to convince the publisher that I wanted to cut that last third And that's the one that they love the most everyone at the publisher loves the most and they're like look You've done something special that we beg our authors to do. And you've done it in spades here.

The level of, you know, like the level of transparency that you've shown is like, I was actually at one point, I was like, come on, let's just cut this part. Let's just like, and they, you know, scoot us to them that it's still there. I was scared. But that's when you know you have something real, you know, when you're really scared of showing all of yourself. But the point is not to share show of yourself, you look man, this far easiest way to make money and make a living, right? It's a matter of what helps the reader, what really supports the reader, what transforms the reader.

That's the point because there was an original version of this book that did so well, right? Why come out with an expand, a significantly expanded, it's like four or five times the size, right? And yet, every word matters, why do that? Like, so if I'm gonna do that, then I gotta go all out, because I don't wanna do another version after this. This is it.

This is the soup to nuts version. I'm done, right? I didn't hold back, I didn't hold back here, you know? done, right? I didn't hold back here. I'm proud of this work. I'm proud of what the support of what the book is going to do. I saw what the original version did. I'm very curious to see what this version is going to do. I think in the nicest way possible, you should probably be a little bit scared. I think that it could... Terrified might be the word, actually. Yeah, honestly, man, there's some people for whom this will be the message that they need to hear. And I think, again, if you are the hero that has to go and sacrifice

a lot so that others can live a full of life, so that others can live in more freedom without the tyranny of whatever particular dragon it is that you've managed to wipe away in their mind, I think that's really worthy cause. I also think it's an incredibly worthy reason to come back from the dead. That's, thank you, man. I really do feel like this book is the reason, you know, it's coming out soon and on January 7th. And this reason, the book is a reason, like, get up in the mornings. Now, even when I'm in pain, you know, I get up because I have a podcast to do, I get up because I, you know, until recently, I was still like, you know, to the point where I was like,

like, even down to the last, like, even the blank pages, the insert in the beginning of the end of the book, I was like going back and forth with the publisher about it. Like, I care that much, you know. It's a beautiful, like, it's something that I actually, yesterday, I finally got the hot cover copy. It's very beautiful. The publisher really went the hardcover copies. They're beautiful.

The publisher really went all out, Harper One, like really believes in this book. And you can tell they spent extra money on the hardcover versions. If anyone's going to get the book, I highly recommend trying the hardcover. It's at least I'm holding the American version. It's stunning. And it's like, it's why I get up these mornings. It gets me up, you know, like no matter if I'm feeling pain or whatever, I have a duty to,

it's not just writing it, now a duty to now put it out to the world. It's the wind in that sail, man. It is, it's the kite that's sort of pulling you through different bits of the oil and it is that single string, that one string threaded woven through each of the different bits of trauma that you've had. So we've flitted around it and scurried around it this long.

Why is it important to love yourself? Look, one thing I'll be very clear of, I'm not a, I'm no expert, I'm just a guy, right? I didn't go to school, I don't have a PhD in loving yourself. You know, like, I think I know a few people on the internet that do. Yeah, well, you know. That's really funny, man. I'm going to use that. I'll credit you for it, but that's really funny. Look, I'm not that guy.

I was a startup guy. I'm a guy who was in the US military. I was an infantry soldier in the US army. The things when I think about my favorite things I've done, I've climbed into Himalayas. I've done crazy stuff. I do, I like doing things like that. I'm not the guy who sits around and says,

I don't have a ponytail. I guess I'm long hair, but I don't have a ponytail. You know, I'm, I don't, I'm not the guy who was, you know, I was building startups in the valley. I was building companies from scratch, you know, I'm a doer. I'm, I top myself to write over years and years and years in rejection letters, like, you know, studying the great speed better right at it. Like, I believe in doing and creating things. So I wasn't the guy who was sitting there thinking this, but this was something that happened when I hit a bottom like seven years or eight years ago. When a company I'd built and that self-funded

after four years fell apart and I lost everything. You know, like, here I was, I'd done well, I'm like, I'd done well and I lost every dime I'd made. I was living off credit cards, you know. But, along with it, I lost my sense of self and I fell apart. And it was, the loving of self was something I decided to do in a moment of desperation and it came from something

deep within me that I didn't even know I wanted but I came from my desperate need. And I set out to do it because I believe in the power of commitment, I committed to myself that I would do it. And I show in the book why that's so important, how to make that commitment because it's a sacred act. The commitment to self is a true sacred act. And when you go all in, you know, things happen, right? And so I didn't know how to do it. You know, I didn't grow up with that.

Right? So I had to figure it out. But the one thing I've always believed in is like working you, if you work on your inner self, you got to work on your inner self. And something in me went deep in, and just started doing things in my inner self that start to work, and when they worked, I went deeper, if they didn't work, I threw them away. I didn't care, I was trying to save myself. And out of that came this like basic practice on loving myself within a month

that really, really was, and it shifted my life. And over the years, I've gotten lazy and let it go. And old patterns and loops start to run again and insecurities start to run the show rather than this rock solid base of just just full love for myself. And by the way, loving yourself does not mean being a selfish prick, excuse my language, right? It's deeper. You know, there's a death to it that goes beyond, you know, it's not selfish, it's not narcissistic. You may make better choices for yourself, but you don't make necessarily selfish choices. You make more thoughtful choices. And so it changed my life. It really changed my life very, very quickly.

To the way it was like nothing had done anything, I had done pale to it, because it was completely transformative. And so I would share with friends and then they convinced me to write a book on it. And so like I purposely wrote a very, very, very short book. It was like 40-something pages, you know, on purpose. Very short, very to the point.

I put it out in Amazon, self-published, and it took off. It went viral. People will buy dozen copies and give them out to friends and family. I started getting emails from people who said this stop, literally stopped them coming to the news. So sad, I met some of them and personally was like,

well, one man had a gun in his hand when he was reading it and after he read it, he put the gun away. I have plenty of stories like that. And then from like young teenage girls to women in the 70s or senior citizens and people have, we don't have much in common and life experience. But what we have in common is we have the human mind,

the human condition is the fundamental foundation we all have. And it showed me just like, look, it's not just me. But we all have our own struggles and love is such a primal thing we've wired for. We're at then try to work on 30 different things, work on the one thing that matters. The one thing we could always use more of.

No one says, I have too much love. If they do like, bully for you, I wanna study from you. Yeah. So I think that's why like it's um, I never said I'm not the love yourself guy. I'm not the guy. I tell you what you are now. You don't. You do not have any choice. And if you're not, if you're not the love yourself guy, then bringing another version of this book out was the wrong idea. Um, no, I mean, like I'm not the guy who set out to be that, right?

I'm not the guy who was like, I'm going to teach the world to love themselves. No, I was just doing stuff and I was trying to get better. And then I was just sharing it. That's all it was. To salary. Yeah. And you know, here's a little, here's a little interesting irony in life. So while I was willing startups, I was teaching myself to write and I was teaching myself

literary fiction, you know, which I wanted to be a literary fiction writer. And I was writing novels and that kind of stuff with collective rejection letters. I was studying Hemie Way and all the greats, you know, started with him on that clean clear pros, like it's much harder to get a deeper concept with simple words. And it is a deeper concept with large words, right? And I was training myself to be that kind of writer that like anyone in the world can pick up my book and it's with a basic grasp, completely get what I write about. So I was writing travel stuff and this and that and like adventure stuff and so forth. And you know, I never went anywhere. And then when I wrote the little book, because I had the craft out, now I could express what I had to say.

That little book took off and put me on the map as a writer. So interesting, right? Now what I said, it's not what I said to be a writer for, but because I'd worked on the craft for all those years, it allowed me to be able to do this and then this put me on the map. It comes back to what I just said before, like you don't get to choose the journey that you are called to do. You don't get to choose that. If you're the one that can slay the dragon and you're like, well, I'm not a dragon slayer. And you're

like, well, you can. So you are, uh, grab your sword, you're off. And that's the way it goes. Certainly one of the things that it makes me think about there is Jordan Peterson's advice Ah, grab your sword, you're off. And that's the way it goes. Certainly one of the things that it makes me think about there is Jordan Peterson's advice about being precise with your speech. And I think that increasingly, as I'm exposed to great podcasters like Aubrey Marcus, who's now a mutual friend of ours. He's great, man.

He's a real deal. He is the real deal. Him, Sam Harris, the guys that Ben Shapiro, even all of these guys have different speaking cadences. They swim in different waters. They talk about different subjects, but the thing which unifies them is the precision in their speech. There is no more.

There is no less than they need. It is as lean as is possible. It's one of those Belgian bulls. And it is just lean powerful precise speech like a sniper and I think, you know, the fact that you had to write or you chose to write such a short book meant that there's no time for fluff, there's no time for waffle and extraneous information and all this stuff, it's not, it's just, this is what I mean to say. And again, I can't remember who was I was speaking to.

Nat Eliasson, I think, from the Made You Think podcast. And what he said was 95% of self-help books, not putting lovey self in a self-help category, but it's a good example to use. 95% of self-help books are a 5,000 word blog post that has expanded. There are tweets. There are tweets. But look, I was actually talking to the journalist I was talking to. I was like, look,

think that self-help. And it's kind of ironic because I am now myself up writer. But I look at myself as a writer who's writing self-help from his experience, right? Most self-help books are written by people who want to be self-help people. The book is just a brand thing that they want to get out. It's very obvious. You can read it, you can tell, especially if you're care about the craft of writing, right? And they fill it with things. And they fill of the things that don't serve the reader, that just fills pages, you know, which is just lazy, you know, which is just, if you're going to put something out, don't be lazy. It's because I think part of it will be signaling look.

If you're going to spend $14 on a book, you want to feel like you're getting your money's worth. And I think bizarrely getting your money's worth means looking at a thick book. But that's actually the wrong way to look at it. You want the book to be as short as is possible. And effective. But you know, you can fill a thousand page book and make it every word effective. It's just it's work.

It's real work. You know, that's the thing. So we were talking earlier on about the fact that loving yourself as a transformative process and it's a commonality between everyone, right? It's one of the few things that we all need to do. That's what you identified. And I think I go back to Alain DeBotten from the School of Life, who's one of my favorite content creators. And I can say, he's coming on Modern Wisdom next year. I've managed to get him in my inbox. So it can say he's coming on Modern Wisdom next year.

I've managed to get him in my inbox. So it'll be on next year, which will be amazing conversation. And what he says is that he's referring to depression, but this talks about any negative thought patterns. He says, depression feels like a personal curse bestowed on us. Like it's this very unique pathogen,

this virus that was designed and it's fed to us and only us. Yeah, you might have pain, but my pain special, my pain is my pain. And you don't know, no, you can't understand my pain because it's this. And you can't, you can't give me the root out of this because it's not that. And we, the fact that we don't understand how inherently flawed and vulnerable and terrified and winging it, like how little of a clue everybody has from the most competent person that you've seen to the biggest blender on the planet, no one has a clue. And everyone's just kind of winging it as we go through life. But the fact that you feel because you're so immediately

aware of your own experience, and you get to see all of your blunders up first, you get to see all of your insecurities, you get to see all of your failures and worries and concerns and resentment and bitterness and all of that stuff, you see it at this front row view. And the fact that you're able to see that, and yet you only get a highlight reel of everybody else, makes you always feel like the curses that you have a personal for you that bestowed exclusively on you. And I think that trying to find a commonality which is the wind in that sail, it's the kite that you hold onto, that everybody that's universal. I think that that is really, really important. Well, you know, it kind of goes back to what you were talking about using the metaphor of the hero.

Something I write about in the book, it's like, look, I think it has an adult, we get two choices, whatever story we're going through. Let's look at it as a story, because fundamentally it is, memories aren't facts, memories are stories creating our mind. There is no facts in the human brain. There are all stories created around events that are actually very malleable stories. And we only have one simple choice. Am I going to be hero or am I going to be a victim of this story? And it's our job to create and make ourselves hero of that story. And

how you make the hero of the story is not the one who just sits there eating bonbons at the beach all day. The hero of the story is one who steps up, makes a stand. So I'm going to get, I'm going to make my stand, I'm going to choose something better, choose something bigger and get through this. And I'm going to come out of it. I'm going to get whatever I care for is going to come out of it. That's how you become the hero.

So through all of this, we can use this to become whatever it is we're going through life, whether it's good or bad, we can use it to become the hero of that story. And then when you start to feel as the hero of your story, when you start to actually see the changes that you made and then the effects, then talk about self-confidence,

talk about how good you feel about yourself. You know, and it's all you. You know, it's a beautiful thing. I love that metaphor you're using, by the way. You know, and it's something I've used as well, and I'm using the book and I talk about my childhood and I'm like, look, like, you know, I could point to all those things and say,

look, I was a victim. And sure enough, children can get away with being a victim. At some point, yes, but I'm an adult now. And look what this child chose to do. Because of this child I'm here, how damn proud I'm of this child. He became the hero of the story. And I'm here as a result of him become the hero Man how amazing so there's a million different doorways open at the moment in my mind I want to come back to the fact that the entirety of the book to me feels like a

Letter to yourself or a memoir to yourself as if it was written by another you as if it was written outside of your body And it treat yourself as if you are somebody you are responsible for helping, right? Another Jordan Petersonism there, the fact that you are able to, do you know the statistics about dogs completing their antibiotics courses? Do you know this?

No, well, that's an interesting thing to bring up. I'm curious. If you have a dog, the likelihood of it completing its course of antibiotics given to you is about 90%. The likelihood of you completing your course of antibiotics is much less 50%. Yeah. Yeah.

Why? It's much easier. It's much easier to care for something else than it is to care for ourselves. Oh, interesting. Interesting. Why don't we think about what happens in an aircraft malfunction? You're told to put your mask on first because you are suffocating. You are a little used to anybody else including the ones who need you the most even though you don't know that they're there

That's what you got you got you got to sort your own shit first and you have to treat yourself as if you are someone that you were Responsible for helping so that's one and and I want to kind of come back to how I think all of that links in, but I had a bad couple of weeks recently, and it was start last week, actually, as I began reading the book, and the book was one of a number of different influences, which occurred at the same time, but it was something that I needed to read. And what I felt at the time was, I was very much at the mercy of what was happening in life. I'd piled a lot on this podcast is a absolute labor of love and it is one of my primary passions, but it is a punishing schedule to release two episodes a week. It is challenging.

I have a number of other businesses. I have this that and the other. I'm not singing the world with me so I'm trying to give you context, that's all. And I just, it got too much. And I was like, look, I just want to, I just want to put my hands in the air. I just want to give up.

I'm like, I'm just sick. I'm just going to go to bed. I'm just going to go to bed. And I'm not going to bother checking my phone and I'm going to feel bad about the fact that I'm in bed. But I'm going to do this, like that's me. That's my defense mechanism mechanism like that fuck it. Like I don't need to.

I don't have a boss, I run my own company. I'm single at 31 and don't have any financial liabilities. I can do whatever I want and the company continues to go. I don't have any kids. I'm not, you know, I have no reason to generate my own meaning during the day, right? No reason at all, so most people, I gotta get up my bottle of shout at me at work. I gotta get up, I gotta get the kids to school.

I gotta get my messages here. And that structure that they have, that help gives them momentum, it gives them that pull, right, it's the wind in their sales to pull them through. And I was just like, do you know what it is? I'm fucking sick of creating, sick of getting over my own inertia Like every morning I got to get up and it's fuck this sucks

Like there's no one here telling me like gas in me up Like saying yeah, man, let's come up. Let's get it. Let's get after it Now go to the gym. It's still working for you to bother that it's like no like it's me that has to do this to myself And if I don't do it No one is there to say you should have done it except for me and my own feelings of loathing and guilt and self-referential thinking you shit else why didn't you get out of bed and I was like no fuck like this is just I can't be asked bollocks to it I'm just gonna I'm just gonna do this and that's like I'm sort of flip flopping

around just go into the shop maybe like fart out half a gym session, go home, not really do anything, just wallowing, being feeling shit. And it's been a while since I felt like that. And I was like, fuck, this sucks. Like this is a place that I thought I'd conquered. I didn't think that I was gonna end up having to deal with this again, again, again, for the fucking however much time. I'm 31. How is it that life? Just life? What's the problem, Chris?

Oh, well, kind of, I just got a little bit too many projects on at the moment and the amount of agency and the vastness of choices that my life has to me is it's weighing heavy. And you're like, okay, there's starving children in Africa, there's people who are literally bleeding out of their abdomen and it's spraying everywhere like a garden hose, like in America and blah, blah, blah. Like a sprinkler? Yeah, that's it. Like what, what are you doing? Like why is this a big deal? And What are you doing? Like why is this a big deal? And I was just, I was so sick. I'm one of the things that you say in the book,

which verbalized something that I've been feeling for a long time was talking about how life happens to me, or life happens through me. Three stages, to me, or for me, or through me. Yeah, it's almost a step by step. It's leveling up. Yeah, and it what is that that particular dynamic it's from victim to actor to hero. Probably some of those lines. Yeah, yeah, it's more for the internal thing and the expression of it being external. It's something I've learned. You know, like life happens to me is I think it seems to be a modus operand as human beings. We think everything

happens to us, but that's where victim mindset comes from. And that's a very standard thing, you know, like life happens to me. Life happened for me is that happened when I started to love myself. It just felt like life was starting to just turn, like all of it was just turning in my favor. And that's something that other people noticed too as I start to do this. It's very interesting as within Sovita, you know, the old saying.

And then I think the next higher level as you go deeper is it's almost like you start to feel like what your insight is, it starts to become, your expression starts to become, sorry, your outside starts to become an expression of your insight. And you almost feel like you're just flowing through life, and life is flowing through you, and it's wonderful. And I'm not saying it's always easy, you know,

because we are human beings and we're living a human life, but it's a beautiful, ploy of weight experience life. But it's a beautiful, way to experience life. And it's not one that you force. It's not one that you intellectually say, okay, I get it. And I'm going, it's not a matter of intellectually getting anything. It's a matter of living it. So it's something that happens as you start to do this. As you start to, and look, you can choose something else

with those loving yourself. You can just be just work on something that happens as you start to do this, as you start to, and look, you can choose something else, but says loving yourself. You can just be, just work on something that makes you better at the inside, and you'll notice the same things. And we all have, we all have gone through like maybe flow in our life, but things just start to work. And if you look at it, it's a reflection of the interstate. It is. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about the amount of discomfort and just general angst and all this sort of stuff.

And then I woke up one morning and I was like, you know what is I'm sick? Like I'm absolutely sick of feeling like I'm at the mercy of my life. I'm at the mercy of my thoughts. Like this is not, this is absolutely not the hero's journey, this is absolutely not the way that this was supposed to go. So I started to reframe things and there isn't, there are certain things that you can do which change

course very quickly. I'm hesitant to talk about like this one thing, it came down from the clouds and like you know my life changed upon this, this single thing, it came down from the clouds and like, you know, my life changed upon this, this single moment. But I was able to reframe my thinking and it made a very, very big difference, very, very quickly. And one of the main things was, yeah, perhaps there are some quirks of my own consciousness, perhaps there are some quirks of everybody's consciousness that's listening and with those come some benefits with those come some curses right like it is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so very deeply the depth of my consciousness causes me to suffer all of these little aphorisms that you hear but the point is that this is the vessel that I've got this is the vessel I've got this is the mind I've got and to the vessel that I've got. This is the vessel I've got. This is the mind I've got.

And to the people that are listening, it's the consciousness that you are in. That's the one you've got. Like, you know, whether you believe in reincarnation or something sort of a little bit more exotic, that's cool. But right now, the only thing that you've got is the brain that you're living in.

So you've got to work with it. Like, there has to be something you have to make it work because the alternative is just lying in bed and it even biscuits. And like that sucks. Like that's not a cool way it's been today. So I thought, right, I need to really try and reframe what's going on. And there's some concepts that came to mind leaning into discomfort from Ben Burge, you're on Unchasing Excellence, where he talks about leaning into discomfort as if you invited it through the door. It's like a good friend. So, okay, yeah, yeah, cool. This feels like a little bit uncomfortable to me, but that's cool. This is why I'm here. This is because it's a place of growth for me, and this is part of my process.

And the fact of the matter is, the way that I came back to it was, yeah, maybe I got to get over my own inertia. Perhaps that's just part of life. Perhaps it would be great if there was this big support structure that kind of brought me through everything. Perhaps it would be brilliant if there was someone gassing me like a hype man, you know, like DJs have got on stage, like just hype you up every morning and like, yeah man, let's get out of bed, let's go get it.

How's that about a dome? That's not the situation that life has for me at the moment. So I got to make this work and I have to work out how I can make this work and taking control, taking agency over the things that I can control, because there are some things that I can control and doing that and being proud of the things that I am able to do, being proud and feeling happy with the person that I've become. And you know, when you talk about the traumatic experiences that you've had through childhood and then putting them out on display for, fucking knows how many people are going to read this book, like a lot of people. For...

Fuck knows how many people are gonna read this book, like a lot of people. The fact that someone is... you're prepared to do that. I'm like... You need to be able to own everything it is. All of the failings, all of the scars, all of the trauma, all of the good and the bad. And you have to, because the alternative is lying in bed, you can biscuit or worse. Look, if you're going to put something out to the world, you got to give it your best. It was done do it. If you want it to last, you know, that's one of the, I mean, the stuff that's in that book is there for a reason, you know, is purely designed to be a value. So when you start looking at that way, it makes it makes a choice much easier.

Getting under the second section of the book, which is where you actually start to talk about the process. Would you be able to go through that? Would you be able to explain the process of going through forgiveness? I'm happy to, you know, the one caveat I would give is the reason why I wrote the expanded version was because there's a process here. This is a process that I've refined over the years. To try to give a quick synopsis, I would say I'd be like telling someone on a podcast how to do squats and deadlifts. I would say, if you know, like, you know,

if you're gonna do it, you know, like, really pay attention in the book because there's nuances and those nuances matter and they make it easier and they make it faster and they make it last. But fundamentally it all starts, it almost, it starts with, if you're gonna leave the, if you're gonna go to the future,

you're gonna leave the past behind. So it's an exercise that I've done over the years to forgive myself. A very simple exercise, a self forgiveness, and it works. And everyone I know who's done it, it works. It's very simple, and it's literally you start to realize the weight of what you've been carrying, and it's time to let it go.

You've got to let go before you really, because now we step into the future, where we're going to be loving ourselves. So you've got to let go of the really, because now we step into the future where we're going to be loving ourselves. So you got to let go of the past. So the first is doing that exercise. Then the second is on the power of commitment. You can't just say, okay, I want to love myself and then do, you know, if I'm going to

take things like this, especially with things we're not used to, if you've been eating bon buns all your life, you can say, I'm going to go, you know, train for Mr. Olympia, you know, be Mr. Olympia. You better have a plan of action. You better have a committee. You have some serious commitment. You don't just go to the gym and you feel like and eat your chicken best and broccoli when you feel like it. Whatever Mr. Olympia eats.

You know, but you get, it takes significant commitment. And I think for the most importantly for mindset, this fundamentally is a way to like, is a mindset. It's a, if I can use the word heart set, it's working on your heart and your mind, right? That takes the way to really shift it fast is to make that commitment. So I show how to, how I made my vow to do it and how you can make your vow. So it's a, forgive yourself, make the vow. Then the rest is how you can make your vow. So forgive yourself, make the vow.

Then the rest is you get to keep your vow and then the rest is the practice that I off loving yourself. And it's a very simple practice based on how to make yourself feel on a consistent basis. And then even little things like throughout the day, 10 breaths where you stop when you make yourself feel and how to do that and using the concept of light. I found that for me, the concept of bringing light in as I did that, for some reason, all this really helped. We're gonna be wired for love, we're wired for light, you know?

So when I go, we'll be wired for. And so it's a very simple practice and it basically involves your breath and some of your thoughts during the day, which both of which you're going to be doing regardless. What you're doing is you're taking that monkey in your mind, you're putting rains on it. They say it's a horse and it's a wild horse and you're putting rains on it and you're

training it to go where you want it to go until eventually it starts to walk in there on its own. That's all it is. It's training, it's mental training. It feels a little foreign in the beginning because half an hour have you been taught that, you know, to just work on the mind itself. But it is the most important thing we got. It is the one that affects everything. You can have everything going through your life, but you could inside

feel horrible, you know, or vice versa, or just be steady. You know, I was talking to my brother about this, maybe a month after the whole experience, you steady. I was talking to my brother about this, maybe a month after the whole experience, and I was like, man, it's kudos to my mindset, how my state of mind is to this whole experience. Like kudos to the work I've done, it shows, how my mindset is about this whole thing. I mean, look, there's some really hard moments.

Some really, really hard moments, really challenging. And I get to them quickly and boom, I'm back to solid. You know, I, you know, but that comes from, that comes from like the work I've done on myself. You know, it's cooters to that. It's like, it's like, you know, your body, when you work out, if you go to the gym every day for a year, for 365 days, you know, and you're eating like lean and healthy, your body will show. There's no way you can hide, no other people are not going to, you know, you see someone today and see them 365 days from now and you've done that, they were like, oh my god, what happened, right? Imagine the same with your mind, right? And then the mind is the one that starts it all.

with your mind, right? And the mind is the one that starts it all. You have to lead with that mind first. You have to have that mindset that you want to have the change. And what I really like is it's not that the idea of living, living yourself is not simply a concept. There is a structure, there is a framework that you can instantiate into your daily routine, into your daily practice. James Cleo, Atomic Habits, we do not rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. And that's a system. There, that's how you take the concept. This is the system that you follow, and here's a story which drives the nail home with a sledgehammer that's like the size of a house. And shows you also the nuances.

You can do that in stories that you can't do otherwise. The mind will tune out. That you cannot really get it. So like if you hit that point in your head, you know, it's okay. You know, here's what I need to do. Why do you think that so many people aren't loving themselves naturally? I don't know, man. That's the he I think it's part of the human condition. Honestly, don't know like I mean, I'd be all can have theories about it, but I can have theories about my own, you know, but like I got to the point like I said said, my mindset is more of a doer. So my mindset is, how do I find a solution to this

rather than try to figure out why the problem exists? That's theory. I could spend a whole lifetime going there, right? I just want to fix it. I want practical. So that's my bias. So I'm at the point where I think I remember in the book I wrote when I first wrote it, when I was first coming up with it, it's like, I wondered about why my mind wasn't going to those negative places, but it's like, when you're on fire,

you don't need a lecture on the nature of combustion, you just want water and water, right? And that's what I believe in, like just just like put yourself out of fire. Thank you. That matters. You know, the human condition can be a show. Okay.

How to make it better? How to make myself better? You start with yourself as you see, you know, with the, with the airplane analogy, and then you start to make others better around you just naturally. It's pretty, it's really interesting how that works. You make yourself better. The ones around you start to get better. So it's just interesting how that works. You make yourself better, the ones around you start to get better. So it's just a natural, ribolo effect.

During the podcast that I did with Orbre, he used this analogy that was fantastic. And he said that in order to serve, you have to be fit for service. And that was manifest as you do not serve others from your cup. You serve them from the saucer which overflows around your cup. Oh, interesting. That's a very interesting matter for. Interesting. If you haven't sorted your own shit, it's difficult to help the people with theirs. Yeah, it would like to forgive this thing, but self-agiveness exercise. own shit, it's difficult to help the people with theirs. Yeah, it would like to forgive this thing, but self-agiveness exercise, you know,

it's like, look, forgive yourself first. Yeah, especially if you're number, talk, forgive others. Well, you can't forgive others unless you able to forgive yourself. Truly forgiveness, true forgiveness, it starts with a bit of self. When you start becoming someone

who just naturally forgives themselves, you start to forgive others much easier. It becomes more of a natural expression of it. And look, forgiveness only, I mean, the lack of forgiveness only hurts us. We're carrying enough baggage day today, right? We don't need to carry the baggage of the past. There's enough challenges that are going to come up. There's enough things which need fixing. There's enough people who we can help. Yeah, I mean, look, we carry enough in us anyway and we keep on adding more along the way.

You know, no one's perfect. You know, like there's no, it's a matter of how do I just be a better human? You know, given the operating system, I got, how do I just be a better human? You know, given the operating system, I got, how do I just be better and better and better? One of the points that you bring up in the story is the fact that you are annoyed or upset at yourself for being back in a place that you thought you had conquered. And also one that you had essentially become a... maybe not an authority on, but at least some sort of leader within the space of loving yourself and you'd let that slip. That is such an

interesting situation, I think. So many people who do work on themselves fall back into old habits. But when you fall back, not only have you got the old habit to deal with, but there's the second order, referential guilt of fuck. I thought, I thought I thought this was done. Right. Right. It was the first time that I've ever read a story where someone dissect that. Yeah, it's, it it's a thanks, man. Look, look, I'm human, right?

I wanna, like, I never promised my own perfection. Like, my faking perfectionist, there's no one. And I wanted to show, like, look, because I have all, I have so many emails from Reddit, I don't know, tens of thousands, it's like a significant amount, right? And I read them all, I respond to them. I've got to understand what the challenges are.

I want to show them, like, look, you're not alone. You know, I think as you were explained by depression, it feels so personal and all of our stories feel so personal. I want to say, like, look, you're not alone. You're reaching out to me for advice. I go through the same thing. And this is what I do to get over it.

This is what I do to get better. Again and again, I return to the same thing. And look, I'm the guy who came up with this. And look, I stopped doing it. I got lazy and then when something hard happened, I kind of fell apart, right? And like, talk about embarrassing, talk about feeling shame, you know?

Like, you're supposed to be the guy. Well, I never set out to be the guy, but like I wrote the book on it, right? And like that was for my experience. And I wrote it from my experience. And so I'm going to share that as well. Like, look, like we will, there are times when we will, when we fall, what do we do? We step up again and knowing what works and we do it again and we go back at it. That's part of life. There's people who don't have that rulebook, there's people who don't have that, there's tactics, there's frameworks to fall back on.

I've had a couple of friends over the last few years who have taken their own lives and thinking about them, they are people who had a complexity of mind which caused them to suffer but who didn't have tools to deal with the suffering. That's like a commonality between them. A lot of them were people who... They wanted to become better but didn't have a route out of it. They didn't have something prescriptive. They didn't have... That wind in the sail. The kite's flying limp. And it seems So, it becomes almost appealing. But it's just another pattern. It's another, I said,

it can even be an addiction to go there. You know, like, I have lost friends too. It's, but the way you put it was very wise at describing like, you know, a lot of their condition. So going back to what we were talking about to do with viewing yourself as someone else, it is, it's obvious that we're able to give compassion to other people that we struggle with for ourselves, we give advice to other people that we struggle to do for ourselves. Now, the number of times that I've given someone a piece of advice that I wholeheartedly could have done with

heating myself is like it's almost like you're project it's like what it's kind of like projecting but it's advice projecting that you're not projecting your insecurity it's you're projecting the answer to your own insecurity or your own problem onto someone else but you still don't listen it's so bizarre it's so bizarre and then thinking about love yourself like your life depends on it. It almost sounds like a sentence you're saying to someone else not to yourself, but you can say it to yourself, right? Yeah, I mean, that sentence actually came from a talk I gave, which actually led to the writing of the original version of the book. And really was, I was like, look, if you go out of that way, it changes your life.

If you go to that kind of intensity, like if you're hanging off a cliff and you're just your fingers and it's loving yourself, that's going to save you. How hard would you do it? That's kind of when you go all in on things. It's like, that's what I'm trying to say, basically the whole concept, go all in, commit go all in, commit go all in. You know, that's what I'm trying to say, basically the whole concept go all in, commit, go all in, commit, go all in. You know, that's where transformation happens. And so loving yourself like your life depends on ultimately, that's what it is, commit to it, like truly commit, go all in, and watch transformation happen.

It's pretty beautiful. There's no reason to do anything else, right? You know, by all provable thoughts of what is going on in the world at the moment, you have this life. There might be something else, there might not, but the one thing that we do know is that we have what's here and now. So why go half in? The only reason is perhaps because it's too difficult to go all in, but like if the only

thing that you need to overcome is difficulty and that's the difference between you taking control and life happening through you or life happening to you and being the victim and playing that role, you need to commit. I think honestly a lot of hard difficulty, I'll speak from experiences self-created, a lot of our internal difficulties I'll speak from experiences self-created, a lot of our internal difficulties, just self-created, just stories, right? But look, it's easy to say that. How's that going to help anyone? We all know that.

But going all in is a secret, committing going all in is a secret to greatness, like an entrepreneurship and sports. It look at athletes, you know, how many of like amazing athletes half-assed their training all their life. You don't get that. Why is that? You know, they're always outliers. It's the outliers who changed the world.

And they're always the ones who really go all out. You can have talent, but talent will only get you so far. I might get you early wins, but then when you're in the pros, all of a sudden, you need way more than talent. You need a lot of practice and skill, yet to have really worked on your sport. It's the same thing with the inside. It really is committing going all out.

You can use all out all in. When I was editing the book, going through edit process, I had to convert, sometimes use all out or you can use all out all in you know I when I was editing the book going through edit process had to like convert sometimes use all out all in backwards and forwards between it but but you know it's the concept just go all if you're going all in on something that truly matters to you that's where like magic happens right and and you know that comes from also commitment but you have to commit Whether you make it conscious or unconscious commitment, you are committing if you're going all in. And might as well make it a conscious thing.

So then you learn how to do that for other things that you may not have confidence in, but you want, and you learn, well, I'm going to make a commitment and I'm going to keep it. It becomes a way of being. It's become a way of being for me, and it's really transformative. The ability to make a promise to yourself and fulfill it, I think, is such a powerful and underrated, simplistic way to help people move forward, right? How many people that are stuck in a rut just struggle,

that they've broken promises to themselves so many times. I'm going to tomorrow, I'm going to start the diet. This week, I'm going to go to the gym. I'll stop smoking. I'll be nicer to my partner. I want to cheat on my part. I want to do this. I want to do that. Like how many time and then every time that that promise gets broken, it's like, we're coming back to it being like there's two people. You're looking at yourself like another person. It's like if you had a friend who was consistently breaking promises to you, you'd be like, man, I don't trust you. I don't, I don't, you're not going to do that. You're not going to, you're not going to, you're not going to stop smoking. You're not going to do whatever. But the difference is you can't not have that thought because it's inside of your

unheard. So that dialogue begins to make it harder and harder and harder. So I'm a big advocate for sobriety, for productivity. So I think it's a massively underused tool that people can do to give themselves more time or more money or more calories to spend on things they care about. And the thing is that if you in the 21st century surrounded by a culture where everyone's partying all the time, especially in the UK like big drinking culture, if you can go sober for 90 days or six months, say, like, what else can't you do? Like the deck of cards just tumbles after that. It's like you were the one person that was on a night out that wasn't drinking for six months

or you pick your point, pick your challenge, right? Like once you've done that one thing, it's all right, well, hang on, I made a promise to myself and I kept it, shit. What else can I do? What else can I to myself and I kept it. Shit. What else can I do? What else can I promise myself that I'm gonna do? How much more momentum can I start to build up? And you talk about this, right?

You talk about greasing the groove, about a river, about carving the path of a river. And I thought patterns being deep and I thought patterns needing to be recreated. Yeah, I mean, like, look, you know, the classic neurons that fire together, wire together. These are mental loops and groups that are running the show. So it's about creating like just new groups that run the show and we get to do it consciously. We have too many, maybe create an unconsciously over our lives. It's just, you know, taking over the reins and doing it consciously until the horse walks there, you know, starts walking in the direction where you want to go naturally.

That takes training. The horse doesn't just do that on its own, right? Yeah. It's a horse that's incredibly disobedient, incredibly naughty horse, but yeah, you know, that idea of making promises to yourself and keeping them And having faith in your own word and having Trusting great path to self-confidence You know if you trust yourself You know like I have a fundamental trust in myself And that's like that's something special

And how did I do that? You know? I just started making keeping commitments to myself. And you learn, I'm not perfect, sometimes I break them. But you get up and you recommit and you go out of the game. You don't quit. You don't give up. You learn from it and you recommit and you go out of the game. You go out it again. One of the things that you bring up, so the story at the end of the book is about a breakup.

And inherently with that you need to let somebody else into your life. You need to allow someone to be a part of your life. But what we're talking about here is loving yourself that's inherently quite an independent thing. This is you on your own. How do you marry those those two things together? The majority of people listening, they will either have or end up with some sort of significant other, hopefully very happily for a long time, but they also need to have that framework in place that is just them, but they need to be sufficiently open to allow that other person to permeate into it. How do those two things work? Oh, there's nothing, there's nothing opposing image

or the one's just a way of being. And when you're loving yourself, you're way more loving to others naturally. You're way more accepting, you're way, you're, I mean, you just are, There's nothing, you know, that doesn't fit there. It's not being separate for someone. It's not taking time away from someone. It's just a way of thinking, a way of being inside. And that's nothing to do with, we have enough thoughts about ourselves inside. All this is doing is just channeling it to

something that serves you and serves your life. And if it serves you in such a positive way, it's going to serve the ones you're around. You know, it just is. There's nothing about it that's not compatible. You know, no matter what, even if you're like wrapped around someone 24-70, you're still going to be having your thoughts, just still in your head. And so what's going to be happening inside that head And so what's gonna be happening inside that head? What's gonna be happening inside that head when it's a shitty day? You know, not all days are great days.

You know, what's gonna be the solidness in there? That's yours, that's your choice, and that's for you to work on. And like when you work on that, making that better, like who you're around, who you wrapped around 24-7, you're better with that person. It's easy to see the problem that you came up against, and I have as well many times, you call it coasting.

I got comfortable so I coasted. Or lazy. Yeah, pick your semantic question. Yeah. I got comfortable, so I hosted. I no longer did the practices that I know that are good for me. And it's easy to see how that happens, right? And the particularly interesting thing about your story

is it is for many people, Rugg Flip Day is is the nightmare scenario. It is the number one thing. A partner saying to you, you haven't done anything wrong, but this is no longer happening, is the worst day of the life. It's exactly what they're fearing all the time.

And someone being comfortable before that letting those frameworks go no longer doing the things which give them the strength and the structure to get through a situation like that. That's where that weakness lies, right? And that comfort and that coasting before. So what I wondered was the motivation for not coasting. Is it out of fear of what might happen? What's, how does someone continue when things do get comfortable? How does someone continue to have the drive from when things were uncomfortable?

Um, yeah, because that's a point of hammer hunt again and again, because that's been my biggest weakness. And that's been the weakness of a lot of the readers that reach out to me, right? So it's like I something I'm going to drive home. And like that's why I make this part to the manual creates a practice out of it. Creates a consistent practice that you can do again and again and creates like very simple things like the 10 breaths that you can do no matter what. So you always continue going forward, right? Is it out of fear? No, but after a while it becomes like, look, I just want my life to be this way. I want my insight to be this way because fear only brings you so far. You

will run out of energy when you fear it can only take you so far. You'll burn out versus when you're doing it something that's that just fundamentally is making you better. And, but it takes conscious choice. It takes conscious recommitment. And I talk about that too. You know, you don't just commit once. You don't just commit when you're 15 to work out the gym. You're like, you know, you're doing these unconscious commitments. You know, where you're stepping up and doing things if you want to be better and better shape, but you are doing these commitments and it's a process of recommitting and sometimes you know you'll coast. And it's part of being human, but then when you realize it, then recommit and go back

at it again, because you will be better and your life will be better. And look, if it's out of fear sometimes, then all right, use that to drive you, but that will only take you so far. Commitment is what's gonna get you. It's gonna, what fear will push you and you'll run out of energy. Commitment pulls you forward. You know, there's my commitment to this book

that pulls me forward, gets me out of bed. Even though I'm recovering and I'm in pain, gets me up and gets me doing what I need to do, no matter what. It's not fear. Fear won't do that. Fear won't get you off narcotics. And that easily.

And they're alloring, man. I'll tell you. Talk to you. I was on. Tell me, tell me what it's like. What were you taking or what were you given and what to do? I was on everything. I was on like severe IV at narcotics and oral combination all the time.

And you need it because you're in, you've been split open, man. You know, this puts you open when they go in and like to save your life. It's not, it's, you need it. You're in bad pain. Other than it, it dulls the pain. It dulls you.

It dulls the pain. Now, I have friends of mine who find out that I have some, you know, they're like, oh, can we have some because they call them happy pills. And I can see that I guess if you're not in pain, then it just kind of like dulls whatever else. And you can just be float, float, be floaty. So I can see that.

And, but I want, I refuse to touch them now because like the moment for them past, and there is a, you can see the allure. Like if you're just, I just want to be floaty and not care, you know, like, I can see the allure, especially if you don't have, if you don't have something pulling you forward, I can see the allure for that more and more and more. You know, I can see why these things, there's a, there's a severe opioid crisis in the United States. It's in like severe poverty areas where the industry's gone and people don't have much hope you know and often people are in emotional pain. You missed out on a physical pain, but then these also dull your emotional pain and

so then it's very hard to then get off it. Feeling feelings is hard. Well, it's it's hard. Well, it's hard. Yeah, it's hard, but it's also, yeah, it's hard. But then also feeling good feelings. That's so nice. You know, that's the thing. The lows give the highs, right?

Like, I don't have to give the highs. Listen, I don't like that because you don't have to always be hitting bottom to hit high. But they do give you, they do show you. They make you appreciate the highs more. Right. And I don't think you can, you can, if you're going to numb your feelings, I mean, you're numbing the top and the bottom.

Right. Let me rephrase that. Let me rephrase that you have to risk the ability for you to go low to allow you to be able to go high with your normal feelings. You're perfectly correct. That whatever the range is, you're nerfing top and bottom, right? And you don't get to feel the happiness when you're on particular narcotics, but you also are inoculated from feeling the lows. And for some people that middle section is just safe enough. It's fine. Yeah, you have this pleasantness in narcotics

and you can at least caring, let's giving a shit, which you can see this, but look, I'm just giving my own experience on it. I would keep in mind, mine was also like, I was a significant amount of pain. So like part of it with that whole arc,

I was just going to dull the pain. So I mean, not be the best person to give a full experience, break down on it. But what I do know is that I needed my mind to work for something I had to do. That was so important to me that that was more important than dulling whatever need to be dealt. As you've said, if you didn't have that, what does it leave you with? Pain that needs to be taken away. Yeah, because it's very easy. You're an immense pain to give you this.

Boom, it dulls down. Who would say no? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Like I say, as I read through this, the the transparency was something that was quite shocking in the nice way, especially towards the latter part of the book talking about all of the different failings, all of the different problems that you'd come up against,

all of the different weaknesses, the walk up this morning and was weak texted her again. Like that, those short sentences, you just, I felt the emotion that I've been through in those situations coming through with that. And the main, the key message there was what you brought up at the beginning, which is We all have these failings. This is not a personal curse that's bestowed on you all of us are challenged and terrified and winged in it and confused and Scared and lonely and all of the rest of the things and it's our job to try and transcend that it's our job to try and come up with something Which helps us get past that.

We have to become the hero for a story. Our choice. It really is. You know, commitment and going all in. Man, come out today has been fantastic, man. I really, really appreciate you coming on. January 7th, you said? Correct. Correct. Amazon, where can people hassle you online if January 7th, you said? Correct.

Correct. Amazon, where can people hassle you online if they need to hassle you? My email address is in the book. Drop me an email. You'll find me on the usual social media, you know? Yeah, reach out. Amazing, man.

So links to, love yourself like your life depends on it. We'll be in the show notes below. Links to, come out, socials on it will be in the show notes below links to come out socials We'll be in there as well. And if you need a Z-Mail address by the book Fair enough. I think that's a fair trade right to do it That's the way to do it look I I really enjoyed this man I'd love to get you back on next year and know that the listeners will want you back on as well

So you know, let's let's try and organize a date, and we'll have another discussion. Let's do it. I'd love it. I'd be very curious to see you next year. It'll be awesome, man. Thank you so much for your time. My pleasure. Thank you. Yeah, I'm fed.