Modern Wisdom - #159 - Michael Malice - David Icke, Conspiracies & Cuddle Club

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

Michael Malice is an author, political commentator & podcaster. In case you didn't know, me and Michael are now best friends after our first episode a few months ago. So I got him back on to have a catch up. No agenda, just us talking about whatever we've been thinking about recently. Expect to learn what life is like in New York City during lockdown, whether London Real should have been allowed to record their David Icke episode, how to receive a compliment, why kindness is so important and Michael's views on motivation, positivity & staying resilient during challenging times. Get Surfshark VPN - https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (Enter Promo Code MODERNWISDOM for 83% off & One Extra Month Free) Extra Stuff: Buy Michael's Book - https://amzn.to/31soCH7 Follow Michael on Twitter - https://twitter.com/michaelmalice 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

Hello people of podcast land. Welcome back. My guest today is podcaster, speaker, author and my new best friend, Michael Males. For those of you who don't follow us on Twitter, me and Michael have had a bit of a bromance going on since our first episode a couple of weeks ago. And we've been speaking pretty regularly, having some interesting conversations. So we thought why not just record one. So this is it. It probably listens quite a lot like the catcher episodes that I do with Joni and Yusuf, no real agenda, but we get to talk about a lot of cool stuff that's been going on recently, including David Ike getting banned from YouTube with Brian Rose's London reel, what it feels like for Michael to be in New York City when there's essentially no one on the streets. We actually even get into fitness, diet, training, motivation, mindset.

Talk about a lot of stuff. In other news, the podcast backlog is getting pretty hefty now and I jogged around last week about doing three episodes a week, but that genuinely might be where we end up because otherwise guests are just gonna be waiting for months for the episode to go out and I don't want that to happen. So yeah, Richard Shoton, Bruce Duckworth, who is the graphic designer that created the Amazon logo,

also does the design for Coca-Cola, Metallica, Burger King and McDonald's. He's been on Zack Telander, coach ZT, one of the best weightlifting channels on all of YouTube. He's been unrecently DJ Fat Tony, a man who spent a million pounds on drugs across his career. George McGill coming back on to the Mental Models 103. So there is a lot to be excited about coming up. And if me and Dean decide to pull the trigger on it, you may very well have three episodes a week. Anyway, it's time for Michael Males. Michael, mother funkin' Malice in the building. How are you?

My brother, good to be here. I'm Govna, I think that's a great... Govna, how are you? That's Robert. So I feel like we need to bridge the gap between our first episode and this one. Because this is like someone watching season one of Michael and Chris and now watching season five of Michael and Chris and there's a whole bunch of narrative that's gone and now we both we're living together, we own a dog, I've met your parents, I'm considering, proposed, all that sort of stuff. I've been so fly, it's been five seasons. Season five is getting serious, man.

So I want to ask you, what have you learned since we've been friends? So it's funny. I'm going to answer that question in a second. I just finished reading this book, which is called Gumpshin Island, which is a forgotten book. It came out in 1956 by Felix Morley. He was a Pulitzer winner for the first

one to win a Pulitzer for the Washington Post. He was one of the founders of the Mount Pellarins Society. He later became a prominent anti-war right-winger. And the book takes place basically the premises. There's this community in Maryland, in America. They're hit by the Soviets with a weapon and the thrown back in time to the dinosaur era. And what's amazing about this book, there's all sorts of action that happens off screen. Like you were just mentioning,

and I'm reading it, I'm like, that I missed something. Like the Russian character marries the daughter of the other prominent character. And you only find this out when they're like, well, ever since you guys get married, I'm like, when they were in the ceremony, yeah. They were in the ceremony, dating.

One of the kids is eaten by a tarot acto, and it's never mentioned again. I'm like, hold, isn't this a problem when children are being eaten by anything? And then there's this whole subplot where the bankers in this community want to have a coup and basically see his control. And like five pages later, it's like, well, ever since we had to impeach blah, blah, blah,

I'm like, wait, the coup failed. Like, it's so crazy reading like this. So what have I learned since we've been friends? You and I probably chat on a daily basis at this point, I think. You're probably the closest person in my life who I've never met. And I think we come in life from probably different perspectives, but similar wiring, very, very different life experiences, but a similar approach,

being in extreme intensity, intellectual curiosity, pride, yet self-awareness, I think. Maybe we all fail in some of those, maybe not others. So I think one of the things I have, well, you've given me some fitness advice, which has been very useful. But I mean, since we became pals, it's this mates, I think they say over there, this whole virus thing, you know, obviously hit. So that's obviously, throw the number four was, you know, know what? The one thing I've learned, I would say, if I put the one thing, is that I have a bigger, this is going to sound pompous and I don't care. I have a bigger audience than I realized, and that there are people who, when I do crap like this, it actually gives them something to do. So I better get off my ass and do it. I don't have the space to be kind of in hermit mode.

I couldn't agree more man. There's an analogy that I use all the time about the hero in the mythological stories. And it's like, it's the unwilling hero. The hero has to go and slay the dragon, not because he wants to, but because he can, and because he can, he has to. It's like, if no one else is going to go to play the dragon, and I said this to you, I was, I can't remember where I was, we were driving somewhere, I was at Yuan Skype talking away, and I was at Man like, you have a particular coalition of skill, like Liam Neeson, I have a very particular set of skills, and you have a very particular set of skills. And if now isn't the time for people who can make their audience feel connected and like they're a part of something, if now

isn't the time to do it during a global pandemic where everyone literally can't leave the house, then when is that time? Yeah, but for me personally, there's two big issues with that. One is, and I just had to block someone on a social media because they were just rolling their eyes. I'm an extreme introvert. I do not do well with groups, which is not, you know, which is, people misunderstand what introversion is. And also, it's the kind of thing where I don't want to think it's obnoxious to think of yourself

as these people you've never met, you're having an effect in their life. It's like, all right, get over yourself. But it's like, well, the data's there. So they think this, because this isn't how I entertain myself, and this isn't how I get out of my funk, I don't watch podcasts. It's not my thing. I get very, very rest, you know, and part of the reason is I don't watch podcasts. It's not my thing. I get very very rest You know and part of the reason is I'm a talker, right?

And part so when I have to sit and listen to two people talking and the more interesting the conversation The more I want to be engaged in that conversation So inevitably it would become a source of frustration rather than So it's I've been for me, it's a very... Of all the activities, this is the one where I wouldn't want to be on the bench. I don't know if they have that idiom over there. Whatever they have in cricket.

On the sidelines, on the sidelines, yeah, on the bench. Well, here's an interesting thing about cricket for you. So, as I guess kind of similar to baseball, but baseball inherently speeds up the batting process because it's after three strikes or a couple of balls, maybe you could have like some strike, some balls, or whatever, 10 minutes probably at most. The bat is, is either at base or he's back in the dugout. Whereas there's guys in cricket, I've played games where one batsman has been at the crease as it's called out out on the field for days, multiple days that a batsman's done that. And if there's not a lot of other

players getting out, that means that especially if you bat down the order further down, you're just certain a pavilion watching the game unfold like there is no more laxedasical sport on the planet than cricket. You're just there like observing it happen. One of the most annoying things about cricket and I do have something annoying is that in 1990 when Sir Jeffrey Howe was turned on Thatcher and he stood up in the house of Commons and he had his speech that took her down days later and he was just using a cricket metaphor to talk about why she's horrible, she's got to go. And it's like, it's like going to the crease, only to find out your something has broken your something. And everyone in the house, the commons, like holy crap, I'm like, I don't know what these words are, like, like, crease.

You know, so it's just like, dude, if you're going to have this speech, which is going to go international, very historic, this is the Judas speech. Like at least have it be University of the Sun. I don't think cricket is played outside of like a former British Empire colonies, right? It's not played like France is it? Yeah, it is played in France. Definitely British colonies, I think, overtakes like South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, UK, like, I don't think Canada even plays it. Not sure. Yeah, maybe not. I don't think they do. I'm not sure if Americans have the patience for cricket, man.

We'll do now. Fucking everyone's got the patience for everything. Yeah, exactly. I want to bring up probably the best story that I've seen recently, which is about Rishi Sunak, who is the British Chancellor. This is in the Independent yesterday. Your strange crush on Rishi Sunak could actually be a racist fetish. Helen Primrose is. Placros. Placros, yeah, that's what I meant. Sorry, yeah.

Yeah. So she, you know, she was the one who, and her a couple of her friends, they, uh, I should say friends, colleagues, I'm sorry, she wrote an article for some, uh, peer reviewed journal, just filled the jargon and it was in coherent and she got it through. And she's really excellent on, uh, Twitter and she's one of the people I resent who doesn't follow me back, but that okay. And she made the point that the social justice subculture, you start with the reverse, with the conclusion and you

reason your way backwards and that's an example she used. You talk about cash years. So if you are kind of don't talk to the minority cashier, you're racist, but if you talk to them too much, you're fetishizing them. So you can't win, and this is an example. So if you don't like a person who's a minority in power, you're obviously prejudiced. But if you do like them, you clearly like them for the wrong reasons, and you just can't win. I don't know who this person is. They haven't crossed the pond, but. It's the guy who is for a period was going on TV. Let me look him up, Rishi. Rishi Sunak.

He's the British chance. He's the man who's in charge of our budget at the moment. He's the guy that went on TV and said, we are finding three young. 330 billion pounds. We will be paying everybody 80% of their wages because it is important for us. I said we would get it done and we will get it done.

When I meant we will get, like, dude, he killed it. Like season one of the British government was awesome. Then in season two, they killed off Rishi and Boris because they've been in isolation. So I would care. Let's use a choice of words. We are not going to want Boris. It's the with us. And I'm just going to drop you.

I'm sorry. I just had this tweet. I go, I wish for the health of Boris Johnson and Jamie Corbin. I know it's so clear now, but if a world leader goes down, people are really going to start freaking out. And the consequences there are really, really going to be disproportionate regardless of whether you think Boris Johnson is the devil. And so Andrew Doyle found a bunch of tweets of people saying, I hope that Boris passes

away. I hope that he dies. Is that any other? And you think how just how short-sighted you have to be for that to be the sort of thing that you decide to go out of your way to type on a keyboard and press send? Well, it's two things. Let's be, let's, I'll do them at their own game, right? Let's, let's be out, out soulless. If that happens, this is going to get people to like the Conservatives more because now they have a martyr. He's going to be retroactively regarded as a hero because we always look people fondly when they pass than when they're alive. So this is not going to get you the result that you want. And again, not to mention the social unrest that will happen as a consequence.

So there is this, one of the greatest essays I've ever read online. In fact, I could probably name only five essays that are read online that are like super is by Slate Star Codex. And he had this piece called I can tolerate anything except the outgroup. Are you familiar with this? No. Meditations on Mollock by Scott Alexander on Slate Star Codex is probably the best thing I've

read in the last two years. Yeah, he's so this piece is a masterpiece because he went through social media and he compared people's reactions to when Thatcher died, to when Ben Laden died. And he pointed out that when Thatcher died, you know, the song Ding Dong, The Witch's Dead is in the charts. And when Bin Laden died, there were plenty of people who were like, come on, this is a human being, even though he was evil. And this dissonance, he points out, is similar. I don't think he uses this analogy to the uncanny valley, the idea that when mannequins or,

you know, cartoons become a little too lifelike but a little not lifelike enough, that little spot, it's actually very disturbing as opposed to when they look exactly like humans or they look like cartoons. And it's like when someone is close to us but just a little off, we are much more put off at them and are much more hateful, then if someone is completely outside the fold. Yeah, it's a weird one, man. The way that people have been reacting, but yeah, okay, let's not use the word kill off. They got rid of them from season two. So I'm hoping, on Monday, season three of the British government restarts, and I'm hoping that they bring them back, that they do like king in the North type game of thronesy stuff.

I'm just really sad that Rebecca Long Bailey didn't get the nod because I was a huge fan of hers because she's a real life to 10 year of a graph. And she was saying how she she lit it. This is her line that she's inequality keeps her up at night. And it's like I mean, this is it would have been fascinating to see because I feel like Boris Johnson and her are both kind of caricatures of people and a certain political stance. So watching that kind of like,

it would feel much more like a movie than adults having adult clichés. Cleashay versus Cleashay is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, man. The next thing, so there's only two things really that I've got to bring up. But the second one is this David Ike interview

on London Real. Did you have you seen anything about this? If I hadn't brought it up to you over message, would you have seen anything? I, and I told you over, I thought it was pronounced London Real. Isn't there a city called Real Madrid? Which, is that a sports team?

Real Madrid is the team from Madrid in Spain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, London. So I assume London Real is something to do with that. Like maybe they're British, I'm not even joking. The British fan base for Rayal Madrid. Okay, no, it's, I mean, it would actually probably be more fun if it was that.

But let me, Are there, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Are there British fans of teams from other countries? Yeah, some. Okay. Not a lot. I think when you come from the country where the top flight of soccer football is played, people, they get sucked in, but there will be.

I'm sure I've got a couple of friends. I know that support some French teams and a couple that support some. I think it would tend to be that you would have a preference when other foreign teams were playing each other. Sure. But in domestic games, you'll have your own team as well. Who's the most popular foreign team in the UK? Would you say?

That is a good question. Juventus, perhaps, Athletic El Madrid, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, maybe. There's some football fans just screaming at their phones and their air pods at the moment telling me what it is, but I think they would probably be up there, all the European ones, I don't think anyone's gonna be loving like LA Galaxy or something like that,

I don't think that there's gonna be. So yeah, Davidike, you know Davidike is. No. Okay, Davidike is a British, how would you even even conspiracy theorist? Oh, I do not know. I thought it was Pronsikki. I'm not because we have someone named Harold Ike's here. He's the one that lists the lizard people with the Colorado.

Yes, of course. Yes, of course. Yes, David Ike. David Ike. Is it Ike? Sure. I'm not sure. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. Thank you.

So he did an episode about three weeks ago on London Rail, with Brian Rose, who I've felt a little bit off with for quite a while. I'll get into that in a second. Didn't episode talking about how coronavirus, you know, we don't know what it is. What even is the, what is coronavirus? Are the people up top? They don't want you it is. What even is the, what is Corona, what are the people up top? They don't want you to know. And so they did, basically it was that for three hours.

Then at the start of this week, I wanna say Monday, he brought him back in. So first things first, our company is under a national lockdown, mandated by the government. Brian has brought a 60s year old man into his office. Not only he brought him in, but Brian's had to go in. Brian's not a spring chicken and videographer, photographer, sand desk mixer, production assistant, you know, all that stuff. So they've gone in during a government mandate lockdown to record this episode. They record it and I've listened to the full thing.

And David Ike says he opens up and it got taken down off YouTube. I'll get into that in a second. But if you go into Apple podcasts, four minutes and 33 seconds, he says the sentence, this is, this is David Ike. This is the headline. There is no COVID-19. It doesn't exist. So that's how he opens up, right?

That's the headline of this. So it's himself. It's self-defined. And then on Tuesday, YouTube takes the video down. YouTube had a live stream. It was very well watched. It was garnering a lot of attention, that obviously, and they take it down.

Takes a little bit of time, Brian gets in touch with them and says, finally speaks to them, and they said, we have a policy at the moment, and now any videos that are saying that COVID-19 is fake or that it's related to 5G are subject to this same taking down. Now the problem is that because they took it down, it's turned from being a discussion

about the credence behind David Ick's arguments to now a free speech issue. Yeah. And it immediately, just they're trying to censor the truth, bro. That's the first thing that everyone has now. And I don't believe that YouTube will write in taking it down.

I don't think that there was some evidence that people had set fire to 5G towers in the UK, but it wasn't as if it was incited by that episode. So I don't really think that they have any reason to do that, but they did. And now Brian Rose has been on an absolute war path, like fuck the BBC, fuck Facebook, fuck Instagram. I don't even need you. Very narcissistic, very, very self-involved, incredibly self-involved. And that's kind of been one of the biggest

things that's happened on the internet in the UK this week. Been pretty mad. Well, that's, you know, it's funny. He, so he had the exact opposite reaction that I had. My reaction is no one cares what you have to say. So I can just sit in my ass and be fine. Obviously, he's got a much bigger audience than I do. And his reaction goes, everyone cares what I have to say. And if I don't do this, this is a kind of world

threat to the world. This hasn't crossed over here. I am, I don't know about this being a free speech issue, what I am concerned about and I've talked to many of my friends, you know, I'm an anarchist and very, very skeptical of government power, but we are all very happy that in every country it hasn't become riding, it hasn't become civil unrest, that yes, sure, these laws are in place, but I think people are more than happy to do this voluntarily. And I've shocked and

delighted how much, because we've all seen the thing that I was having a very big issue with this whole situation was transitioning. I'm a New Yorker. I've been here on my life. And you and I talked about this on the phone, how it was very difficult for me psychologically as a New Yorker to see the streets being empty. It's something I just couldn't, I felt like I was in a movie or a crazy person. And there were movies like I'm Legend of Vanilla Sky where you've seen this. But the seat and reality, it just was a disconnect. And this had, you laugh, but this really had really bad psychological consequences.

So, and no, you're right to laugh. But at the same time, I am glad. And the fact that this happens so quickly is also that there was no real transition. It's overnight, like, don't get in your house, don't come out. The fact that people have been by and large coming together, keeping their spirits up worldwide, that's not how the movies play out.

The movies play out that as soon as this happens, the governments have to come in and crack down, they go and door to door, rounding people up, or whatever, blah, blah, blah, putting, and I know in like South Korea, the thing about putting these bracelets, right, and so on and so forth, and we haven't gotten there yet,

but it's been a while, and I'm shocked by how mature everyone is and I'm glad how mature everyone is being and frankly, I'm also shocked and Delighted by how much the politicians are keeping it together how there's a lot of all right Let's you know at least calling the US. They're calling Boris. They're calling South Korea President Moon They're like all right. What do we need to do? What's working over there? What's working here? And there's a very, and they're also being, other than obviously China, as transparent as possible.

Here's what we're doing. Here's the numbers. Here's what's working for us. Here's not what's working for you. And I think that makes people feel a lot like, all right, they're on it. Yeah, I couldn't agree, Mom, man. Like the response has been surprisingly mature

from everyone in public and government. And of course, this people online who are rolling their eyes right now, but like, how can you say that given X, Y, and Z? Well, yes, I'm saying that, considering that information that you also have, given that negative stuff and the positive stuff, I am the fact that we're not in Lord the Flies, the fact that we're not in Mad Max, the fact that we're not in Lord the Flies,

the fact that we're not in Mad Max, the fact that we're not in, you know, we had rights in Baltimore, we had rights in St. Louis, not that long ago, the fact obviously it's harder to riot when there's disease around, but rioting is not a rational, like, you know, you don't sit at home, you're like, all right, when would it be most feasible to riot, right? It's a powder cake.

Here's another one, the fact that we haven't had home envisions, things like this, and people getting, gone for a bit raped in their homes. I mean, this is sitting ducks. That is really gratifying. And this is another reason I'm, you know, I'm a hardcore optimist and I'm a hardcore optimist not because it's my nature. I'm Russian born. It's my nature is the opposite. I'm a hard-eyed car. I was going to look at the data. And if you're going to be a cynic and you looked at the situation now, you'd predict, oh, people are going to be starving blah, blah, blah.

It's like, no, no, no. People are really bending over backwards to maintain this social order. Now, we'll see how long this lasts. But it's lasted quite a bit of time already. And as well as to be expected. The thing that is becoming increasingly challenging for me, and I don't know whether this is just who I'm exposed to online or some of the stuff is, it's an easy step from that to the conspiracy theorist types that believe there's a second motive to everything that's going on. For them to say, well, see, this just proves how compliant the public is when the government decide that they're going to shove their hard rod of fucking policy

up your, they're eroding your rights, they're taking away this, they're taking away that and you're like, dude, fucking give it a rest. Like, what's your alternative? Genuinely, what is your alternative to this? Would you rather that people were so Brian Rose again like the guy is brazenly walking around London filming videos 10 30 Hey guys 10 30 p.m. London real offices just finished up here Just wanted to give you an update. It's like Brian mate. There is a fucking That's why you send me that video. There's like now a click. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You send me that video. I'd understand No, no, I sent you I sent you a video of him by day on the rooftop Yeah, on the rooftop of government of London Reels offices saying

Just finished a workout here London reel HQ done some kettlebells some sprints bit of break dancing in the stairwell Can you imagine coming down the stairs to find Brian Rose from London, Ray Al doing break dancing on the landing? Brian, can you stop fucking power-wind milling please? I'm trying to get to the... So, I mean, that's just... You're not above the law. And he keeps on saying one of the things he keeps bringing up is, we have this little thing in America called the first... First Amendment, yeah, the Constitution. I'm like, the elephant in the room Brian is that you are not in America. Like, you're in the UK, we have hate speed laws over here. For better or for worse, most people would say for worse, but count down

killer, all these people that have been, you know, criminal records, locked up, etc, etc for this. And this is at the same time. So the chief constipal of Northam, North Hamptonshire police. So that's a real person. That sounds like a title that we would make up to make fun of you. The chief constable of the what? Northamptonshire police. How many still? All right, Governor. When your title is a sentence, yeah, chief's constable of Northamptonshire police said people are persistently and consistently breaking the law by flouting lockdown and they could get criminal record.

He's issued essentially broad a scope for his officers to enforce the law. And he mentions he's like, we'll check if we need to, we have the ability to check what people have in their shopping, to check whether or not they're going out to buy an Xbox controller or they're going out to buy milk. And if you're buying an Xbox controller, we'll find you. That's not where they're at, but that's where he's getting to. All the while Brian Rose from London, Ray Al is getting a senile old man to come and talk about lizard people in his offices in the center of one of the most popular cities on the planet during the middle of a global pandemic. I can't,

like it's just really, I already had a, Brian was already on my watch list, he was already on my kunt list, and now he's just like gone straight to the top. I don't know that if anything particularly to add to what you just said, I mean that I can see how that would be I It I think there's also probably an emotional sense this part for you that how is it that No good deed goes unpunished like you're the you're playing by the rules You're trying to stay sane you're locked in your house and this guy gets to do what you wish you could be doing break dancing the stairwell It's kind of like you it's it's when people who are

rules breakers, but in an obnoxious way get rewarded, I think that sets up our sense of justice. Yeah. I think as well, there's something incredibly insincere about the way again, because you can't frame it up against his character. It's a little bit more difficult, but anyone that's listening will know, no, no, I mean, if they know Brian real, Brian Rose, I mean, he was taking selfies on the London underground

a while ago before mandated lockdown was in, but when suggested isolation was still going, talk it, it was just him, just him on the London underground and an empty carriage, essentially being like, I am here, look at me, I am a thought leader within this space. And he kept on talking about we need leaders and men of action. I'm like, we need people to stay in the fucking houses, Brian. You need to go break down some your living room and you need to just do what every other podcaster, when Joe Rogan is doing episodes of a Skype with like fucking Dan Crenshaw and that virologist the other day, and he has been the most like a voracious advocate for not doing that.

He's like, I hate doing episodes of a Skype. You know, when he's prepared to bend his rules and he's the biggest on the planet of what he does, like, why can't you, especially when you bring in an OAP in? See, if this, if this Ryan guy was smart, he would make a point which does have historical basis and I just talked about this earlier on a radio show today here in the States 1918 was when the US entered the Great War and this was for many of the at the time progressives a huge thing because they're like all right We're going to this war. We're going to have our fantasy that we've been advocating for a couple of decades now of having the state manage the entire

country, basically like one giant company. So now we have to do it, we have to have complete centralization, a production, centralization, a taxation, we're going to have institute censorship control of the males, things like that. So for them, they're like, if we're going to go into this great war, like we're going to go into this great war, like we're going to get a lot of useful data out of it by seeing how much we can get away with and what it's going to look like. So that when the Great Depression hit 14 years later,

or excuse me, 11 years later, and then FDR was elected in 32 in August in 33, a lot of his new deal programs. They were like, all right, we went through this during a war. Now you're not going to vision moan that we're doing it during the Great Depression because you've already been preconditioned. It's like the second time you get into a fight versus the first time you get in a fight, it's going to be night and day because you're like, all right, I went through this, it sucks. So he does have a point in that if in five years, some government was like, we need to do this

totalitarianism a lot of people would be saying sincerely guys it's not going to be that bad we've been through this before and we've all done it so stopped your complaining so they are in necessarily I don't but the thing is he's saying intentionally I'm sorry like sure I'll I'll I'll get I'll accept the fact that every politician and some will just sociopath. But when you look at how they talk, all everyone I've seen from around the world, they all are freaking out, not freaking out, but they're all extremely concerned, they all

feel the weight of this on their shoulders, they all have families, you know, they all have moms and grandparents and whatever, things like that. And they're like, all right, how do we get out of this? I don't think they're thinking long term. This is our globalist moment to implement the master plan. I think they're thinking very short term. Absolutely, yeah. When the lizard people's parents and grandparents are dying just as quickly as everyone else's,

it's the same thing as if you fall into a quicksand, right? You don't have an existential crisis when you're falling into a quicksand. You just think about getting out. There's this concept by Matthew Sire that I have to tell you about, right? It's called Compensatory Control. Have you heard about this? No. Got.

Why conspiracy theories and demagogues spread in times of worry and uncertainties This is Matthew Sietz piece in the times. Oh, can I guess what his answer is? Yes And let's see if I'm right, okay. I you're saying he's on the level this guy What I mean? I mean, are you saying that what he's saying actually ports the truth or he's using it as an example? Someone's wrong guy is he going to say that in times of panic, any kind of explanation that's kind of an ocum's razor that gives people a sense of certainty is enormously emotionally reassuring? You are a very clever man.

You are, oh yeah, Pat. He's right. He's absolutely right. Man, let me hit you with this. So psychologists have conducted experiments to shed light on why people lose or at least suspend rationality. One experiment asked people to imagine going to a doctor to hear an uncertain medical diagnosis. Such people were significantly more likely to express the belief that God

was in control of their lives. Another asked participants to imagine a time of deep uncertainty when they feared for their jobs or the health of their children. They were far more likely to see a pattern in meaningless static or to infer that two random events were connected. This is such a common finding that psychologists have given it a name, compensatory control. When we feel uncertain, when randomness intrudes upon our lives, we respond by reintroducing order in some other way. Superstitions and conspiracy theories speak to this need. It is not easy to accept that important events are shaped by random forces. This is why, for some, it makes more sense

to believe we are threatened by the grand plans of malign scientists than some chance mutation in a silly little microbe. Yeah, and there's a couple of examples of this. I give in talks and networking and I tell the kids, I go, if you're don't aspire to excellence, it's not going to be possible at your age with your skill set, aspire to competence. If you're competent, you're at the 80th percentile. And the example I use is I would rather you tell me you'll have it on Wednesday and I'll

have it on Wednesday, then you tell me you'll have it on Wednesday and I'll have it on Wednesday. Then you tell me you'll have it on Monday. Give it to me on Tuesday. Doesn't make sense if you think about it, but in other sense, it does reassuringly. I, there's a therapist I know, his wife had this disease after 9-11, so on and so forth. People would rather, like the fight example, right? Like, if you've never been in a fight with the hell is it? Once you've been, it sucks, but the irrational fear is not there. A disease, they found, yeah, people would rather say, you've got leukemia

than go on for years and they don't know what's wrong with you. They don't know what you've got. Yeah, and that's just how we're wired. And I cannot, we could all understand if we think about it. Absolutely. I mean, if we want to bring all the AKs. Yeah, what about like a relationship? Like what's going, like, what's that Facebook thing?

It's complicated. Like we'd rather be like, all right, it's done a lot of times. When things are ambiguous, like, okay, I can't even deal with this. I have to break it up as opposed to, I don't know what the situation is. Have you heard of the Zygarna effect? No, what's that?

Okay, so it's just how the brain has open and closed loops, and it's a writing tool, actually, which might be interesting for you to know, considering that you might start writing again soon. And this was used by, oh my god, a very famous author, and there's going to be people shouting at the podcast again, saying who it is. Very famous author back in the day who would use this. Essentially, the brain doesn't like open loops and it does like closed loops. However, open loops can be manipulated. So for instance, let's say that you do a day of writing

and you finish your session at night, you could finish the sentence, one word in rather than a full stop because then when you come back to it the next day, that loops open rather than closed. So you just continue an open loop rather than having to reopen a brand new one that's on the back end of something that's been closed off.

It's the same reason why we don't like, like you say, cliff hanger endings at the end of a TV series. They're so compelling. We need to watch the next season of Michael and Chris because we want to know what happens next, right? We need to know. That's what gets them. Zygonic effect, open loop, closed loop.

That's interesting. I, that's actually speaks to how I write, and then we're going to talk about your short, because I'm very curious. I, when I write, I do three pages at a session, and then I force myself to stop. So that means I never have writers of luck because I have more in the can tomorrow.

And I know I'm not gonna have to, I'm picking up where I left off. How about you? Do you have a note taking for like, you might have all of these ideas right now and kind of forget, do you just sort of throw them down on a separate document? Oh, I've got a separate document.

Or if I have like a future scene or future section in the book, I'll hit return twice and I'll write that. And then when I go back and edit, I'll put the space in between. So that must be beautiful to reach a section that you need to write and find that a past version of yourself has already written it for you. Like a present from past Michael to present Michael. I've been doing a lot of this time travel kind of thinking.

I had this tweet which I thought was really helpful, which is if you're someone who's dealing very poorly with isolation, who have suicidal ideation or depression or anxiety, I said write a note to yourself when you are going to be freaking out because this is your rational self traveling in time to talk to your future self. And you'll know that this person is telling the truth in writing. And I said, and you and I did this. I said, also, make a promise to someone that if things get really bad, you'll hit them up. And you'll know, you need that promise.

Things are bad. I got to talk to this person before I do anything crazy. And when we do these notes, another thing is I'm going to be a little frivolous is with maintaining your, if you're on a regimen, you're eating a certain way. The reason diets don't work is if it will power his finite. So if you're constantly having to have what am I going to eat, what am I going to eat? You're going to at some point have a disorder thinking and eat, start eating the wrong thing and then it becomes a spiral.

Whereas if you tell yourself, this is what you're eating for this week. You know, no matter what you're feeling in that moment, I was in my right mind on Sunday, so I'm going to listen to him. Now, I'm gonna ask you about Cuddle Club because one of the most profound things I've ever learned was from my friend, Marsha, who ran something called Cuddle Party here in the States.

And what Cuddle Party was, and it was a big joke, although when people thought about it for 30 seconds, they realized this isn't really a joke. It's actually a great idea. Is people get together and they cuddle because physical contact is so important for all of us as human beings. And I asked her, well, how do you,

like, I mean, doesn't get, like, orgy, like, what happened? She goes, yeah, yeah, she goes, well, they have a line, like line like trust about don't fear the boner and and that's that's kind of funny the other line they have is she says is it is incumbent and each of us to establish our boundaries because people take people take as much space as you let them and I'm like wow and when she said that I think I bring this up all the time it's so important for all especially on social media to be like no no I'm not dealing wow, and when she said that, I think I bring this up all the time. It's so important for all of us, especially on social media, to be like,

no, no, I'm not dealing with another moment of your BS because you can expect that person to respect your boundaries. Now, what is CUMBLE club? So I'm wearing a t-shirt, which on the front and the back says CUDL Club. And it is by built up North, which is Paul Warrior, one of my coaches from CrossFit. It is clothing brand, sports clothing brand, although it crosses somewhere between supreme, off-white, and like a good sports brand, I guess. So this is a training t-shirt.

This is what I would train in. And Cuddle Club is a concept that they've been throwing around for ages. In fact, they've just donated, I want to say, two and a half grand to mind, which is the one of the UK's mental health charities, from a limited edition release of long-sleeved Cuddle Club tops, same as the one I've got on. So I bought one of those. And it's a reference to people working hard in workouts. This is not fucking cuddle club. Like you don't get. This isn't a cuddle club. Like really nice. This couldn't be further away kind of from

your ladies. What sounds absolutely lovely, a lovely experience of people kind of giving each other support and love. This is more like let go of the fucking balloon. No one's going to do the work for you. Have a t-shirt in there from the same brand, which says, the magic you are looking for is in the hard work you are avoiding. Oh yeah. Yeah. And that's what a lot of this stuff. So shout out Paul Warrie, Jordan and Tim who will be listening, who are all pushing this sort of rhetoric when it comes to training. I think it's so cool. And it reminds us, especially when it gets to training, I think it's so cool and it reminds us, especially when it gets to training. We can become especially if you're slightly cerebral and a lot of CrossFit as are. Oh, yeah.

Rep scheme, this workout, I was asleep, I'll track it on my wop and this is my HRV last night all this stuff. You kind of forget that there is just a raw animalistic nature to training where you kind of need to go balls to the wall and perhaps give risk, forget risk for a little bit and just focus on intensity and have faith that your physiology, that your training, that your movement and grams, your nutrition, everything will kick in at that time. So this is not curdled with color, but it's also a funny joke because there's a bunch of boys that work for us who went through a period

where they just couldn't have sex. They kept on going back to girls and girls houses after a night out, and they were unsuccessful. Rebuff in one form or another, or couldn't get it up, or whatever it might have been. And then this t-shirt, I bought the t-shirt at the same time, so it's very timely on a number of levels.

Well, that speaks, well, let's talk about the flip side of that. That speaks to, there's a great British band I could not adore more. I have a framed picture of their sign in my living room, St. A. T. N. I'd not be familiar with them. They're a club band. And they have a song called Soft Like Me. And it's just encouraging people to be soft. But I think a lot of times, I've messages to you that we need to be kind to ourselves. And we tend to think that if we are relaxing or especially when we're younger, I have a protege in

and I had to talk him out of it. Whenever I get a paycheck, 10% of that money has to be spent on frivolities. I put that aside. Because otherwise being self-employed, I remember the lean years, not that I'm particularly wealthy now, and I would always rather wait for the train than pay for the cab. And now it's like that tie, like you have to throw this money down the drain so that if you're earning money, enjoy it.

So I think a lot of times we have trouble confusing, am I being kind to myself or am I being lazy? Because the mind is very good at finding excuses not to do the work. It's very good at finding excuses. I don't go to the gym, you go to tomorrow, play the video game. And that's not what I'm talking about. But it is something it's very important for driven people to be able to relax, enjoy the fruits of your labors, and instead of beating yourself up all the time, give yourself a kindness. Because if you are beating yourself all the time because you have this kind of,

maybe not as good self-esteem, I'm not saying that's your problem, it's not your problem, it's not our problem. Well, maybe that person with low self-esteem could use a little kindness, and maybe that'll make his or her life a little brighter. So this is something I think is under, and that's obviously not really the opposite what they're saying. You shouldn't have as your workouts, but this is something I think a lot of us could use a little bit more of. And there's also something I'm very opposed to in my work.

I don't know if it's that way over there, but here in New York and in media circles, there's this really nasty, sneering cynicism towards any kind of kindness or warmth or friendliness. It's seen as eye rolling, it's seen as corny. It's and it's like, you know, you're a hard, you're a hard, you're a hard, you're given example. Well, like any kind of, any kind of movie or kind of expressions of affection, you know affection is really kind of like, oh god, oh please, it's like it's regarded as ridiculous or somehow less than music, right? Or movies. If the plot isn't about pathos and about like, you know, depravity and it's just about

like a family having a fun vacation and it's very kind of heartwarming, a lot of times it's not regarded as legitimate as if they gone through, you know, the kid having leukemia and naked-wish and so on and so forth. And I hate that attitude. I really hate it. I think kindness goes a long way. And here's another example, social media. Right? I've always, I'm always against this idea that if something is common, that doesn't mean it's the norm, just because everyone does something that's not meaning it's actually how things should be and that it's acceptable. And it's perfectly

appropriate on social media to go up to strangers and just call them the nastiest things possible. And it's like congratulations, you found them more on Twitter. Like this is your big accomplishment for the day, there's no shortage of them. Whereas I'm a big troll, as you know, as many as, as, as you said, delicious white no. My way that I speak, I've always trying to push trolling to the next level. And my trolling technique for 2020, I started out is, I've been texting and writing messages to friends of mine, really

kind things, being like, hey, thinking about you today, I just want to know I appreciate you as a person. And they don't know how to react and it freaks them out. And that's just, so it's win-win for me. What happened? Michael, are you okay? Yeah, though, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, and I sell in the truth.

My life is genuinely better since I've met you. And they're like, well, how do I respond? Because we don't have that space to be kind to one another. Everyone has to have a joke or dismiss it. And I'm like, that's, that's a little insidious. There's so much, there's so much for us to unpack from this. But, you know, people that are listening, here's one thing that I realized I was doing.

I was really bad at taking compliments. And I would brush them off. So I had imposter syndrome so bad that someone would say something, they would go out of their way, genuinely, go out of their way to say, hey man, do you know what it is? I really like the way that you pick your arbitrary thing that I do, open a can of cook, write words, do your marketing copy.

It might have been like a physics compliment back in the day or it might have been something to do with the business, or whatever it might be. And I would say something back like, oh yeah, well, you know, like that's what happens when you're a total prick all the time or when you've got no life outside of the gym or whatever it might be. Like, and it was for people that are listening,

think about how you respond to compliments. And if that's the sort of thing that you say, there's a couple of implications. The first one is that's because you don't believe that what the other person is telling you is true. That's the reason you do that. And by not needing to accept it, you close the gap between your self image and what that person is saying. But the more important thing, and this is what really changed it for me, because I wanted to try and find more of a connection with people. And as an only child, this was like a weird kind of bridge for me to get over.

What I realized was it's really insulting for someone to go out of their way and compliment you and for you to have an ability to fucking rebuke it. They've said something really, really kind and nice to you and you've just thrown it back in their face like fuck you. Like and that's why a lot of people, and this was me for ages, I would say, do you know what it is? I just don't really feel that people care about my work or they don't really like my work. I'm like, I wouldn't fucking care about your work. Every time someone says something nice to you, just spit it back in their face. Yeah, it's, it's actually, but there's something else that there at a certain point people

when you're certain sand deviations away from the mean people don't know how to connect with you like I have a good buddy now and he's like into bodybuilding and he's at that point where you will notice him he walks in a room and everyone has some reaction it's never just nothing right and men are often feel like like I like, I wrote a book on North Korea, I've been to North Korea, and if it comes up at a party, this happens inevitably, like what's your book on North Korea, they feel the need to just tell me everything they know about North Korea. And I'm like, this isn't a test, and you can't win. And it's fine that you don't know where to care about North Korea. But they're trying to build that bridge between their circumstances

and mine when the bridge is already there. So when guys come up and they feel the need to have this conversation and be all like not complimentary, like almost like a survival, you know, like oh blah blah blah. He's like, I don't know how to react because either I come off like a douchebag or I come off whatever I go, just tell them you're compensating for your tiny penis. And when you say it like that, the guy will laugh and it's like, oh, this guy's normal. He just likes working out. Well, he's a good point to interject here. Why do you mention, because I haven't heard you say this and I haven't asked you this,

but you tweeted one of the most complimentary things that I think anyone's ever tweeted about me after our first podcast. And you said there's only two people in my life ever that have. There's two people who's who's opinion changed the most after I talk to them. Yeah. Was you and Joey salads. Yeah. What did Joey do? Because I want another. Joey Salads is an internet, he was like a prankster on YouTube. He's a YouTube personality. He's a total bro, like in every way, he came to, and he was running for Congress,

I think he still is. And he came to do my show, and I'm like, this guy's gonna be a total moron, and I'm gonna completely clown him. And within minutes, he was like, I don't know about the Fed, I don't know about the taxes, I do know about social media, I think the Republicans need an AOC, I think I could bring that to the Republican. I'm like, oh, so he wasn't presenting himself as anything other than what he was. He was open about

his limitations. And he's like, here's how to get laid. Like, he's like, this is what you got to do on Instagram, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, here's how to get laid. Like, he's like, this is what you got to do on Instagram, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he's giving me tips from a friendly place. And I was like, I had him completely, completely wrong. And when you're coming from that, when you have, it's the expectations game, right? So when I came in, I thought this guy's gonna be a joke.

And right away, he's not that he's being humble. It's that he's being honest. He's like, I don't know these things. I mean, if you're going to try to play Gatsha with me about foreign policy, yes, you'll win. So I was like, oh, shit, this guy, because a lot of these YouTubers, you think that they're going to have their head off their own ass, and I'm sure many of them do. I haven't met many. It was not that way at all. And ever since then, I will always sing his and your praises. It's just like, oh, it's really, it's just interesting how we come. And we have to have these heuristics when you're traveling in these circles about,

okay, what box is this person probably coming out of? Because you have your love island thing. It's like, all right, like I know this person's like, oh, no, I don't. I know what I think is this person. An idea. Yeah, a good example of YouTuber that I think is really taking the red pill on a lot is Logan Paul like that guy is operating Four orders of

Effect down from everything that it is that he does. I don't know whether you saw Do you see the thing about where he said he was the fastest man on the planet? You know, so he went on he went on a NBC business? Do they have like a NBC business channel or CNBC? Yeah, like so they're talking and this lady is asking him these questions dude you gotta go back and watch it. It's phenomenal. So they're trying to talk to him. I think it must have been just after the tax year had ended or something and they're trying to say so Logan you've just been rated as one of the top earning YouTubers

last year, your revenue was 14 million. And he's going, yeah, well, Michelle, you know, I really think I might be the fastest man on the planet. Like, I really could be the fastest man on the planet. Like, you know, I definitely the fastest YouTuber by a country, and he's just going on. And she's laughing, so she's quite endeared to it. And it's semi-good looking host lady as well.

So it's kind of like you're seeing her trying battle against his genuine charm. And I'm not like a massive Logan Paul fan, but fuck me. He knew what he was doing and sure enough the neck, he's trending on Twitter. Because everyone's going, oh my God, Logan Paul, what fucking idiot. And then Logan.

He trolled everyone. You made me, oh, you made me, you made me not hate Logan Paul, which is that one anecdote. Dude, he's, he's really operating very, very cleverly. And then he, I think a couple of days or a couple of weeks later, he tweeted the back end of his YouTube studio ad revenue for what he'd seen change in his channel From doing that and was like how's this for finance news for you? Wow, okay, I'm impressed. He really believe me away by that. Yeah proper proper fucking good guy I've just remembered you disagree with one of my videos. Oh proper proper fucking good guy. I've just remembered you disagree with one of my videos.

Oh, yes. So you had this video where you are advising people that we all desperately want to be. We aren't normal, but we want to be normal, right? And I think the vast majority of people do not have any independent thought whatsoever. And many of them resent the very idea of independent thought and individuality. Yeah, I agree. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't think that that's wrong. I think what I get worried about and that this is speaking from person experience is individuals that dilute down their own unique offering that they have the combination of skills, life experience, background, odd left field thought, and they choose acceptability over honesty because they want to be well liked. And there's that quote from my friend George McGill who says,

I'm astounded by how many people want to be exceptional in life, but also want to be well-liked and normal. By definition, being normal requires you to regress to the mean. Ordinary people get ordinary results, extra ordinary people get extra ordinary results. And I think a lot more people become normies through the diluting down and the, the, um, nerfing of the corners and the edges of what makes them interesting, um, because that's scared of not being accepted. Well, that's, uh, that's something that is an existential nightmare. And I think that's something. Thankfully, that's decreasing, uh, because the more that there's people like Rogan and all these other types who are

encouraging people to find their own path and I think Now being different in a genuine way like you know like I have the sky who I Exchange things with he's a metal worker. He you know, he sent me this worry coin. I care around with me He's you know like people doing cool awesome things. I'm not saying he's a freak, but he's not normal the more of that there is I think You know, like people doing cool, awesome things. I'm not saying he's a freak, but he's not normal. The more of that there is, I think, in high school, you know, back in the day, it's a lot easier to isolate and marginalize that person, but now with the internet, it's very, it's much, much easier for that person

to create an audience and to have people drawn to him. So that pressure, which may historically be in the case, because you're going to have to work for a company, is really, thankfully, a bygone thing. And my audience, certainly, is very, I'm very, very opposed to normalcy, and this idea that we should strive for normalcy. And so I think that's very sad. I think a lot of things also happen is when people are young and their parents are forcing them.

You know, like I tell kids I go, look, you wanna be an author, right? Go to any, and you tell your parents you're gonna be an author, they're gonna yell at you and blah, blah, blah, blah, you can't make a living and so on and so forth, and it's extremely hard. There's no question. But I said go to any bookstore, right?

Look around. Look at all those shitty, shitty books. That could be you. You could be that mediocre author. But when you put in those terms, right away, it's like, oh, this is feasible, right? So a lot of times we have this idea that to be kind of exceptional,

you have to be Einstein or you have to be Rembrandt, it's like no, no, no, that shitty author has a weird job and is exceptional. And maybe you're not going to get to even to that level, but I promise you by the time you're 30, 40, if you haven't tried, you will regret it for the rest of your life. And if you tried and failed, you still wouldn't care because you shot forward and you're like, I wrote a book, it didn't get published, but you know, I learned a lot from the experience. Everyone who's a, this is such a cliche, but people haven't gotten through their head. There's the scene and the unseen. Every single person who's accomplished has an entire storage case full of failures. But you're not going to see that because that's

not which is the public consciousness. So it's, it's like, yeah, I promise you, I've got three books on my computer that never got published. That's okay. So you need to understand that. It's not a failure. It's just a learning process. And the other thing is you keep knocking on doors. Eventually, one's going to open, it becomes math.

It's not even a question of your talent. It's just a question of your stamina. Yeah. There's a quote from Naval Ravva Kant that I've been throwing around a lot recently and it is, it's far easier to achieve your material desires than it is to renounce them. And I really love that. And I spent a lot of time thinking about it and it kind of touches on what you're talking about there that some people may choose either through fear of failure

or through mindfulness practice and internal work to transcend their desires and say, I don't need the car, I don't need to be the author, I am enough as I am. And it leads people, going back to what we said before, it leads people into this kind of apathetic, no requirement to push myself, like they would be in cuddle club. They would be, that is cuddle club. But the alternative thing to realize, and this is the same, this is my excuse for why I

train on a morning, I want to hear your thoughts about this. If you go out and you do the thing and tick the box, you can still transcend it. You can still transcend needing the fast car, but it is significantly easier to transcend needing the fast car from the driver's seat. And yes, you also get the benefit that by pushing yourself forward by that inevitably, I'm not one for objective measures of success or quantifiable metrics of happiness and all that sort of stuff like I'm not. But you can't deny the fact that those things are society saying to you, you are producing something of value.

You are producing something which is so worthwhile that we are choosing to pay you for it. I fucking give them any charity. Like you can give the, you know, just give the car away, give the free clothes away, do whatever you want, but There's no reason not to expect more or the best that you can from yourself and it comes back to what you said earlier on about learning when you're being strict enough to continue disciplining yourself that you can achieve more and Soft enough to give yourself a break to allow you to not go so far that you that you then snap and the reason that I train the reason I train on a morning is I think there is an inherent

satisfaction in knowing that you have completed a training session and it resets every night when you go to sleep. So if you spend your entire day knowing that you've got to train at 8 p.m. at night, that's an entire day with an open loop of anxiety saying, ah, fucking gutter, just got to train. Still got to train, I'm gonna train at 8 o'clock, you got to train. Whereas if you finished your training session by 12 midday, you're like, ah, rest of the day's mine. I've already got my training out of the way

because it is a groundhog day that resets every single midnight or whenever you go to sleep and you get to take that box. I am not a good person to talk to about this because I am psychotically disciplined and I have been for a long time. So I am so strict with my schedule. I train at night because I don't like it when the gym is busy.

So my gym is 24 hours. I would go at 11 midnight. I go to bed at 2 in the morning every night. Wake up at 11 in the morning. So if I woke up and went to the gym, I would resent it. For me, it's relaxing to end on that. And it's also like, I went too often. So my body's like five days a week is plenty. So I had to force myself to take an extra rest day, and only, and, because I was doing six. So, but I, I don't know that I'm wired that way.

I think if I got my work done in the morning, then I would feel antsy that I have 14 hours to fill. So I don't know. I think it also depends on how much output we have and how much input we have, right? Because I've got like three jobs and so on and so forth. So if I only had the working out, that might be a situation where I would be like, I want to do in the first thing

because then I know if I'm unemployed, I'm not going to worry about hitting the phone and not getting the callbacks because I know I did something for the day. But since I will have enough on my plate, whether I go to the gym or not, regardless, that will take care of that part of my brain, which otherwise would be screaming, it's going to be wasted today. It's going to be wasted today.

It's going to be wasted today. You're watching too much stupid videos on YouTube. Yeah, I wonder whether that's perhaps a little bit of me getting easy wins it earlier on, because I tend to work like that. My morning routine is like 10 wins by 9am or 10am, like a ton of things. So I'll have gone for a walk, journaled, done breath work, meditated, done my spinal rehab, read, cooked and prepped my food for the day, and maybe done something else like by 9.30 or 10 am. And that's just me, perhaps, still trying to build up that level

of self-confidence and kind of belief in my own worth to get the day going real hard, you know, like kind of set off in a high gear type thing and get moving. So yeah, it's an interesting one, man. How have you been finding training from home and stuff like that? So I got to tell you, I do not take it for granted having like a decent audience of quality people. I think I'm very blessed to have this. And I was going absolutely crazy, not having access to Jim, because this is very important for me from mental health.

And I was on a cut and I was reaching, I was at my peak a few years ago, I fell away because my trainer vanished. And now I was getting back to that point. And having that just abruptly stopped, it was really freaking me out really badly. I mean, I went to the park here at 10 o'clock, but you could only do so many pull-ups and dips in that park, whatever. And I'd a fan who she's in Florida, Phoebe, God bless

you. I got blessed you so much. She goes, here's the key, is in the lock box that's at my house, here's the code. I called her while I was in her house, I did her dishes, I, you know, I watered her plants, I was glad to do it. She gave me, she had a pair of 30 pound barbells and a 65 pound kettlebell between that. Since I'm kind of leaning in a very lean place, it's fine. It's not ideal, but it's certainly psychologically, it's fine and physically in a great place. So having that is very, very, very relaxing

in that part of the brain, it's like you're wasting time where you're, we all have, we have this, I don't know if you do, because you've been, I mean, it's been something a part of your life for a long time. I think a lot of people who, for whom working out as a part of their life, have this idea that your body is a series of balloons.

And if you stop working out for like a month, you're gonna be back where you started. Like years will go away. Now that's not how it works at all, but emotionally, that's what your brain is telling you. And there's nothing you can do to tell it otherwise until you go back and are like, oh, I'll drop to five pounds if I fancy,

like I'm curious. Yeah, man, I couldn't agree more. One of the reasons that I'm so happy, Alaco is a Swedish company. And obviously, don't know whether you know, but Sweden are essentially just going about their business as normal. Yeah, yeah.

Bars and restaurants and chair open. So you can order kit from them. So I ordered, I've got some stuff of them very fortunately just before the lockdown started. We got a watt bike which is like an exercise really sophisticated exercise bike and some other bits and pieces. One house made to physiogny the other house made to PT. So like, I, you know, I'm essentially in a gym. I'm in a gym. Yeah. And I was in order weights, but they were sold out everywhere here You know what sold out at the moment in the UK hair clip is oh Fucking I can't get hair clip is to save my life. I am going. I've like every 1981 haircut

I've been going I had it down. I had it like the guy from the damned. I had to ran to ran I mean, I'm like all right I had this streak in my hair because I do this Tulsi Gabbard look. You probably guys probably in the UK don't know her when I was in Dave Rubin. And I thought I was gonna grow out in one session. It does not.

It takes forever for a streak to go out. And we were gonna die it back, but then hair, all the hair stylists are closed by law. So now it's getting longer than it's ever been in my life. I found this, I didn't know this, those round comes, I guess girls know this, they straighten your hair when you come it out enough. So Mike, hair is wavy and now I can do things with it. I'm like, all right, it's gonna look crazy. Okay, I mean, you know what I would love. I would absolutely adore to see you with a top

knot. Oh, a man bun. Yeah. Oh God, no Yeah. Oh God no. Oh God no. Oh God, it's the nightmare of all nightmares. Bro. Nightmare of all nightmares. It would look so sick. So here's a thing for you, the listeners. Sick is in the sense that I should say that. Awesome.

It would look, dude, you would get so much poo. Like it's just bare poo. Yeah. We, the OG modern wisdom listeners will remember this. So for pretty much the entire first year that we were doing this podcast, Johnny, who is UCIPS Business Partner, one of the other regular co-hosts, we convinced him that a top not was a good look. And he grew his hair for well over six months and kept on shaving the sides. And we were like, dude, it's going to be awesome. And I still to this day, I still genuinely think and this is, it goes back to the weird

thing, right? So Johnny has this very oxymoronic personality makeup. He's a chartered accountant who left a very corporate job to start his own fitness business online, which is incredibly successful. He's still of spreadsheets. He's kind of always dresses in holester, abacrombie, lots of navy, nice shirts, Ralph Lauren shirts. You know, just kind of a bit, a little bit preppy.

You're hipster. Yes, I know. Kind of preppy, very, very clean, always well-shaving, but can deadlift 312 kilos. And it's a whole wow, crazy. And it's a freak powerlifter. He still holds the Northern Deadlift record. So he's unbelievable powerlifter, ridiculous quality.

And I'm like, there's just one more thing, and I just wanted the top nut, the man bun, to just set him off as like a barbell samurai. And I want you, I want top nut, I want topnot, Males. I'm far more of an ninja than samurai. Yeah, yeah, that's true. And it will never, ever, ever. My buddy who you reminded me a lot of, I'm like,

why am I getting on so well with this guy, Chris? I'm like, oh, my very, very good friend, John Durant, who I edited his book on the paleo, called the Mouth Paleo manifesto. You and him are very similar in many ways in both very, very white. And he had one for a long time. And it worked for him because he had this whole caveman look. But I, oh my God, the idea, oh my God, I can't, I'm just getting this just disturbed thinking about it. Although I can pull it off. I can pull off a lot. Really?

Especially when you've got that with like, you're like, old school jeans from like the 70s or the cords that have like got all of the feet, the pleats washed down or whatever they're called. Yeah, yeah. Dude, I love that. I love it so much. Yeah, maybe next year. And now, look Michael, man, we've made it. We made it so much. Maybe.

Yeah. And now, look, Michael, man, we've made it. We made it all the way through. We did Brian Rose. We did coronavirus. We did your training. What are you doing for shows now? People want to, like, watch you consistently?

Where can they go? So me and this guy gave Smith. He's a very failed comedian. He also has a show on gas digital where my show you're welcome is on. So we've been doing crossover episodes because our audience is overlap a lot. So by having it like having these bro outs, by having it me on Tuesday and then him on Thursday and then picking up, having this ongoing conversation is giving our audience a sense of continuity and a sense of like, okay, so that's kind of what we've been doing now and it's really had a very positive response. So if they want to

watch me chat with one of my buds and with you, I mean, if this gives people some semblance of normalcy or normality or happiness, I'm glad to do it. Yeah, man. I couldn't agree more. Michael Malice on Twitter, of course, going, who have you done recently? Final thing. What's your been your favorite tweet that you've put out recently? If the corporate press had been as worried about China as they'd been about Russia, we've all been a lot better place. That's a mic drop. That is true. You're totally right. You're totally right. And that is a whole new that is a whole new podcast now that we need to go into it Yeah, yeah, you should go through that at the very very end. Look Michael. Man. Thank you so much, dude It's been a pleasure pleasure. See you later on

Thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed the episode Please share it with a friend. It would make me very happy indeed. Don't forget, if you've got any questions or comments or feedback, feel free to message me at Chris Willek on all social media. But for now, goodbye friends. Bet