Modern Wisdom - #505 - James Smith - Can Men & Women Be Friends Again?

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

James Smith is an author, podcaster, online trainer and not a life coach. Many men and women no longer see each other as on the same team with a common goal, and instead view them as adversaries who don't play well together. But given that humanity has continued successfully for hundreds of thousands of years, this can't be how it's always been, so why is it now? Expect to learn why James got in trouble for saying "she's a 10 but...", how convenient activities often get mistaken for enjoyable activities, whether guys can look at girls in the gym or not, whether Elon Musk not buying Twitter is a huge win for him, whether TikTok is a dangerous influence, what you can learn about yourself from the tasks you're avoiding, why people fearing ignorance is making them stupid and much more... Sponsors: Get 15% discount on Craftd London’s jewellery at https://bit.ly/cdwisdom (use code MW15) Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 83% discount & 3 months free from Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Check out James' Academy - https://www.jamessmithacademy.com/  Follow James on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jamessmithpt  Order Not A Life Coach - https://amzn.to/30VkVdb Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bonjour everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is James Smith, he's an author, podcaster, online trainer and not a life coach. Many men and women no longer see each other as on the same team with a common goal, and instead view themselves as adversaries who don't play well together. But given that humanity has continued successfully for hundreds of thousands of years. This can't be how it's always been. So why is it now? Expect to learn how James got in trouble for saying she's a 10, but how convenient activities

often get mistaken for enjoyable ones, whether guys can look at girls in the gym or not, whether Elon Musk not buying Twitter is a huge win, whether TikTok is a dangerous influence, what you can learn about yourself from the tasks you're avoiding, why people fearing ignorance is making them stupid, and much more. I like talking to James. He has got a lot of insights into gym floor culture, and most of his audience is female. So he also provides a different insight, I think, a guy that is very, very familiar with what women feel about themselves, about their bodies, about what they want from life, giving insights

from a male perspective is not something that you come across all the time. So I very much appreciate James for coming on and he will be back on later this year to talk about his new book, How To Be Confident. So, stay tuned for that. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome James Smith, welcome to the show. Hey, it's good to be back. It's been a bit of a long stint since I've been on it. Feels like I was on a couple months ago, but it's been nearly a year. It's been a long time, yeah. What's going on? I'm a different man.

Why? I'm completely different. Look at this setup for a start. We were just talking about this offline. Last time, I'm embarrassed of the version of myself a year ago. Technologically. In many ways, professionally, technologically, personally, like last time we did this talk, I was wearing a broadcaster headset, which at the time I thought was innovative. Podcasting. I was like, I've got a mic, I've got headphones connected. Now a sure SM7B, the pinnacle of podcasting microphones. I've got three of them in it, right? A DSLR, which, you know, I never fully appreciated the power of podcast clips an hour ago. The game has changed. Yes, sir. How long have you had in TikTok now?

I've had it for two years, but I've only started respecting it as a platform probably six months. And you've got how many followers? 1.5 million. I don't even know why. I did 580,000 in a week. What was that, G2? What did you talk about? There was one video that really booted off, which is a subject that I've actually spoken

about for years. I'm going to do the video on it, kind of, real off the tongue, which is the swimmer's body illusion, where I don't ever say this to shit on fitness people, but I'd say to people in the video, look, imagine there's a person who wants to get in shape and they look at different physiques, they want to, you know, idealize and they go, I would be a runner, but then I'd probably be a bit skinny and look a bit miserable. Or I could be a bodybuilder, but then it might be a little bit too big and look a bit

thick. So then they go, oh, swimmers, I love a swimmers' physique. So I'm going to start swimming. Then three, four months past and they like realize it's an illusion. Swimmers don't always look the way they look because they swim. They swim because of the way they look. Similarly, to me, the people always go, oh, it's right for you. You're big and broad. And that's why you, you know, that's because you play rugby. And I was like, no, I'm big and broad. So I play rugby. When 50 lads in a year play rugby, the big broad dense heavy guys stay on and enjoy it and the people that don't, don't. And in the gym, people that lift weights to six months and don't build muscle,

don't continue the endeavor and they start picking other sports. And there's always the adage that you don't pick your sport, your sport picks you and so many people in the fitness industry, you don't pick your sport, your sport picks you, and so many people in the fitness industry, there are people genetically who have a much easier time getting in good shape and maintaining good shape. And when they say they're tops off on holiday, rather than people go in, oh, you're empathetic, intelligent, you care about people, you should be a coach. They go, wow, you're in great shape, you should become a PT. And that's unfortunately the state of affairs of the fitness industry

largely is people on, you know, people don't look the way of what, because of what they preach, they preach what they preach because of the way they look. Hmm, yeah, so it's a selection effect and the people that come out the other side of the ones that were predisposed to be good at it in any case. I mean, that's one of my friends says that he always wanted to learn to bench in power lifting from the guy that had long arms. So I don't want to learn to bench from powerlifting from the guy that had long arms. I don't want to learn to bench from the guy with short arms because it's easy for him.

I want to learn to bench from the guy that had an absolute nightmare in doing it. I want to learn to deadlift and squat from the tallest powerlifter in the gym. Reason being, well, there's another argument here that if you see two candidates that are of equivalent merit, equivalent qualifications, equivalent experience and all the rest of it, but one of them is really ugly and the other one's really good looking. You should hide the really ugly one because that person has had to do all of the things the good looking person's done and they've had to overcome the fact that they're ugly as well. There's also people, your guilty, non-gilty verdict isn't affected but the amount of time you

get sentenced is affected by how good looking you are. So people that are good looking, so I'm sure to jail sentences. So you just gotta make sure whoever you hire, if you do pick the ugly one, that he's not getting locked up. Because you're gonna be away from the lifetime. So you have a lot of female followers,

and you've spent many thousands of hours on the gym floor. Do you think that it's acceptable for guys to look at girls while they're training? Well, I suppose if you're going to share a room together to train, yes, but there's, I suppose, you've got the nuance of how long the gays is, because I'm not sure of this. You've had much smart people than me on the podcast, but there's probably an objective measure of when an inquisitive gaze becomes a gaze within 10. And, you know, for me, I'm someone that when I'm in a room, I like to read the room in gym training.

You know, I'm like, okay, cool. Lift and shoes, don't need them. Cool. Yeah. You know, someone using wrist straps when they're doing decline bench. I'm like, I'm trying to figure it out in my head. I'm doing the math. I'm like, like, grippasists're doing decline bench. I'm like, I'm trying to figure out my head, doing the math, I'm like, grip assists for a decline bench. But then sometimes, you know, I'm someone that talks to someone in a gym. So if I ever see a woman doing like a hip thrust of significant

weight, I see someone doing my ability work because I've been in those environments. I'll often just go up and be like, hey, I'm really impressed with what you're doing here. I don't even tell them I'm a person on a train. I'm just like, that's a really impressive amount of weight. So you do that. You do that is just another gym, schmo walking up to other people in the gym, despite the fact you're not at work. Yeah.

And I, you know, for me, if I've ever had to go into a shopping center, and you know, now you have like a men's floor and a woman's floor, I feel very uncomfortable in what is the women's area. So if I'm ever shopping my girlfriend and she's like, I actually need to get some stuff from here. I'm kind of on edge and if someone would just speak to me or someone would go, hey, you're right here, by the way, yeah, yeah, good, thanks. You know, something like that can really put your nerves at ease and for me.

I suppose it's a bit easier because I'm a PC. I can say, look, if I was caught staring, this was a professional. You know, I'm sure I'm making sure you technique was good. But I think that, you know, it's because the gym is perceived in a hostile environment that things like a gaze can be taken the wrong way. I suppose context is everything, but being a man, you have to be very aware that if you're in a gym environment or a training environment, you don't want to make people feel uncomfortable, especially if there's a chance they already feel uncomfortable. I agree. There was a video that went viral on TikTok, which you might have seen about a month and a half ago of a girl wearing booty shorts and taking a top off and filming it,

and then she turned around and called one of the coaches a pervert. Did you see that? it, and then she turned around and called one of the coaches a pervert. Did you see that? Yeah, it's annoying with stuff like this, because I appreciate what people are doing. And this is, have you ever noticed that life at the moment, you're never sure if someone's filming it? Like something can happen now, because content is king and people are spending more time than ever on their phones. Like, say someone has like a seizure in a busy shopping center. There's a part in me that's like, is this a TikTok? And that's a scary realization to be like, and you've got this bystander effect already as it is, like people not really want into getting involved. And it's hard to know things in our setup. So you see a girl do that in the gym where you might go over and be like,

excuse me, you know, what's going on here. It's just someone trying to get some virality on TikTok or social media. But I think men have an obligation to be polite. You know, shivery is something that you can barely have a discussion with anymore, where, you know, people are, oh, right, okay, so because I'm a woman, men are just going to objectify me by looking at me. That's not really the discussion to be had. If I was to catch a dude staring in the gym, I'd probably be like, hey, me, come on, she's trying to train.

Relax. I get that, man. I think both sides are a pretty hyper-sensitive. There's definitely an argument to be made as far as I can see that guys need to understand that girls might feel objectified, girls might feel very sensitive, girls might feel very sensitive about guys looking for too long, but that video in particular, so this girl in booty shorts and she's taking a long sleeve top off and there's a

sports brush, it's already like booty shorts, takes it off and there's a sports brow underneath and two guys 30 yards away in the back of the gym, turn and look, she's taking her literally as she's decoding, and she turns around and says, can I help you or what do you want or something like that? She's zero to a thousand in no time at all. And in the same way that guys need to understand that girls don't want to be objectified, girls need to understand that guys are biologically hardwired to look if something like that is happening. I mean, if a guy took his top off in the middle of the gym, some people would turn around and look.

I was just about to say, have you ever heard of a pump cover? No, what's that? So like bodybuilders, I've done this, but I was not sure it's for, it's quite almost embarrassing. So let's say you're in the middle of a steroid cycle,

you're pretty swell, right? You get like a stringy vest on underneath. And say you're eight, 10 weeks into a cycle, you're pretty juicy. right? You get like a stringy vest on underneath. And say you're eight, 10 weeks into a cycle, you're pretty juicy. So what you do is you put a massive oversized hoodie on and track pants. You go into the gym, you do your first four, five sets on a bench, like to the point where you're literally

getting so hot and you're just maxing out the reps and underneath, you know, you're a little bit sweaty, you've got a savage pump, you feel like your chest and arms are about to explode. And then you wait until everyone's in the gym, people are away from like the water fountains and you uncover your top because everyone just thought you were just some big dude in a baggy jumper. Then they see the swall enormous Lord Swaldor more there. And then you do it so you get the stairs, see bum Canadian bodybuilder, he's famous for this, is that when he takes is

pump cover off and everyone's like, oh my god, it's like a gorilla coming into, you know, create alpha status. But the thing is the male bodybuilding community, they like to sneak in under the radar, they don't want the red carpet to be where they walk into the gym, they want it for when they take their pump cover off. And there are quite a lot of people in that setting who kind of cherish the attention. And again, like, you know, I wish there was a bit more dialogue in the gym where if those two guys are staying, she could like, can I help you? And I'm sure the majority of times guys, but oh, sorry, you know, my bad. I don't think people are so ill-intended or have such poor intentions as people assume.

And yeah, I'm sure a bit of communication and not going from north to hundred would probably be the smartest option there. Yeah, well, I think one of the problems we've got at the moment is that men and women's seats are there as adversaries. And this is one of the most interesting insights, I guess, around gender dynamics at the moment, that men and women have somehow been convinced that they're playing on different teams. I don't think that many women have been on different teams pretty much ever, right? Yeah, maybe women didn't have particular access up until recently, but a lot of the oppression when women talk about it comes from women, like most slut-shaming comes from women, most pro-life

rhetoric, or anti-abortion, like anti-pro-choice rhetoricaming comes from women, most pro-life rhetoric or anti-abortion, like anti-prochise rhetoric also comes from women. A lot of the restrictions that are placed on women come from kind of within their own house, as opposed to it being men that are doing that. Like men and women have had to exist together in order to be able to get families to work, in order to have anything close to a functioning society for almost forever, but now that we want to try and find tribal groups that we can jump into whenever we feel is appropriate, this is just another one. Gender just happens to be another one that people are going to tumble into as well.

I love that you've brought this topic up because it is such a topic contention. I mean, if we were to look at the US political system, the left and the right, who heavily oppose each other, it's almost like they've lost sight that the fact that they're a political party to run the United States of America to lead a democracy and a happy nation into the American dream. They've lost all sight of that. Instead of the left and the right being an upward trajectory to support the political state of the nation, they've become internalized, to be polarized against each other. And they're obviously losing sight of how to run a country. Theyized to be polarized against each other. And they're

obviously losing sight of how to run a country, they're just trying to beat their opposition. So to that merit as well with men and women at the moment, let me say it with guys, guys do things to impress other guys. If I shaved my chest and increased the volume of my chest, it's because I want to impress other guys. I don't want to do it to impress women. They don't appreciate the amount of effort it goes into to have a chest as a man So things like hairline as well guys are the first ones to comment on your hairline on TikTok or whatever like to shave it, bro and you're like You're you're allowed to have a receipt in her line. I was in a Croatia a couple weeks ago. I was looking around at Europeans and

I was like 75% of every man I can see here is experiencing some form of hair loss. Rather than seeing that as a bad thing, I was like, this is more normal than we kind of realize. And I like watching older films where Nicholas Cage for decades was a lead actor, was Hollywood sex icon, where this hair line started, like Homer Simpson with three hairs being swept across Bruce Willis. When he was doing die hard, he'd gotten 75% bald and he just had the bits around the side. No, cared then. So a lot of these standards and beauty standards, like you say, are being upheld by men and the same with women, absolutely. Women are less aggressive than men,

especially less physically aggressive, so they are more inclined to use verbal communication as a way of being combative with people. So yeah, you have that kind of side of things where gossiping, like you say, slutshaming. But the thing is as well that sometimes there's a lot of double standards. So this week, my friends on the sofa and my housemates have made up a game where they go, okay, she's a 10, but she shouts your dad's name when she orgasms. And like, it was funny. So you

would just be sat there watching TV. And then one of the housemates go, she's a 10, but and you're like, okay, here we go. And I put it in a YouTube video to break up what was an informative video. And people like that's disgusting. They're like, I was really enjoying that YouTube video until I saw that. And the like that's disgusting. They're like, I was really enjoying that YouTube video until I saw that. And the reason they comment that as well, is because they're trying to change you. If they were truly offended by something,

they're just leave. They're just like, ah, this guy's not for me, but they're proactively trying to change you. They were calling me a misogynist on all of these things. And I go, hold on, goes. You have been expressing your X about guys for clout on social media for about a year now. So if I'm not allowed to make up a hypothetical situation with a

hypothetical 10 out of 10, you are not allowed to rile together your female communities to talk about Ix. There was one that went viral on TikTok where she was like, I never knew this was my Ix, but when he gets in the shower and he kicks the water to test the temperature, that's my Ick. If he does that, you know, when the shower's warming up and you give it like those little toe kicks to check what temperature it is. And then I was like, girls, how can you have this double standard where you openly express things that you find explicitly unattractive in men? But the second we make up a hypothetical situation and we're oppressive, we're misogynistic, all of these things.

And I'm like, come on, if we're going to set the standards as that, being a conflict between genders, then, fucking hell. I got featured in a mega viral Ick thread about a year and a half ago. So one of my many past lives of being a commercial male model, I'd done some stuff for a nightwear company, like loungewear nighttime stuff, and one of the X was a man that wears matching top and bottom pajamas, so you can imagine like a plaid sort of cross stripe scenario, like what you'd imagine someone in the 1800s would wear without the cap, without that sort of long, like weird, fuzz type thing. And it was me. The photo was me, and the ik was myself. And I was like, ah, yeah.

At least I don't wear it, not properly. But, yeah, you are right. I think one of the reasons that that seems a little bit more acceptable is that girls presume that they can say those things about guys, and it's not going to hurt, right? That girls are much more, how do you say, sensitive about their looks than guys are. Therefore, the Ick threads aren't real. Like, the she's a ten, but the he's a ten, but I've seen that put over the top of golden retriever videos. Like, he's a ten, but he dances like this when he's waiting for his food, and this golden retriever's doing a silly dance.

Like, I don't think that it's serious, but you are right that when that double standards and hypocrisy are what people love to point out at the moment in the world. And the reason is that it allows you to have a sense of righteousness, moral righteousness, whilst having done nothing moral to earn it. Like, you get to point at the failings of somebody else and say, this is something that shouldn't happen. Your morality stands on the shoulders of other people. Now, one thing that I'm not sure that I would agree with is that people who comment online aren't truly offended. I think that for a lot of people, that is by mimesis,

by seeing what other people do when they're offended, and they say that they're offended, they presume that that is the way for them to go about offense, that maybe they're going to leave, maybe they're going to unsubscribe or unfollow you, but first, they're gonna let you know why. I mean, how many comments do you get that says absolutely outrageous unfollowed,

or absolutely outrageous unsubscribed? Like, that happens a lot. Yeah, no, say to people as well, I was like, I'll always out them a bit. I'm like, fuck it on me. This isn't an airport, you don't have to announce your departure. But what's kind of interesting as well with this culture that we have now? So I've been devising a few systems in my mind of why I think this is. Now passion is something that before

probably book two, I would have been like, go find your passion. But a lot of people came back to me and they're like, what if I haven't found it? And I was like, well, yeah, it's not something you're just going to find on the horizon. I realized, I didn't really follow my passion when I started doing what I do for work. I followed my values, and I didn't even know I was following my values. A lot of the successful decisions I made almost by accident, almost by accident. So I became a PT because I just wanted it to be happy. I thought going to work in shorts and helping people would make me happy and it did. And I was like not having to have a boss would make me happy and it did. So I followed my values It was only four years into being a PT that I loved my life that I found passion.

So so many people are disconnected from their values. So many people that they never ever experienced passion. And a lot of people mistake being good at their job for passion, which is another tragic state prefers where they go, yeah, I like my job, you know, I hit bonuses, I hit quota, I get money. And then when you're infused with enough money, you can use that as a guy's to cover up passion. So there are a lot of people out there so disconnected from their values that they never experience passion on the way into a job or during a job. So there are been ten years of a passion list existence that they may be covering with money or they may not be. So when they do put on their righteous politically correct hat or they come in from a moral high ground and they express their emotions in such

a way, they feel something in their belly and not many people are combative, not many people fight, not many people have a martial art or something they can lean on. So they get this fire in the belly of self-righteousness and for once they feel passion. And I think a lot of people are inspired to be politically correct and to almost, in some respects, be a Karen, no disrespect to anyone called Karen, because it's the only time in the last few years they genuinely felt passion and for a lot of them, I think it's the only time they've truly felt alive for a very long time and they get hooked on that. When you see these, do you see there was a woman who got kicked off a USA flight for screaming

that the guy next to her wouldn't disclose whether or not he was vaccinated or not. And in the end, it was a transatlantic flight and she's screaming and in the end, the pilots get off the plane. And I was like, your bag's in the hold, you're flying to the UK, you've done everything and this is where you decide you're flying to the UK, you've done everything, and this is where you decide you're going to scream and make a big fuss. I reckon she was really enjoying it, and it's a sad state of affairs that that could be the only time that persons felt fire in the belly for months. That's the place that somebody gives themselves a sense of purpose and righteousness is when they're

actually able to, yeah, well, that would seem to make sense to me. I think that it's rare that people love anything very much. It's quite uncool, especially with the UK background. US people might not get this quite so much because out here is more of a collegial uplifting, optimistic blue sky vision type world, whereas the UK is very much a tall poppy syndrome. If you deviate from the norm, people very quickly will point that out and say, why are you doing that? That's fucking shit. That's lame.

That's not going to work, especially typically, I think, if you take an average. And there was this interesting bit at the start of Eliezzo-Yukowski's book, which is about rationality. And he said, people take the piss out of rationalists that love rationality, not because rationality is a weird thing to love, but because so few people love anything in the modern world. So few people have a genuine passion about anything in particular. So when you see someone that does, they're an outlier. They're such an outlier because most people are just like, what is it that you love?

What do you love in life beyond family and friends? Oh, well, you know, I'm a fan of true crime. What you love true crime? Like true crime documentaries, that's the highest point of fucking existence that you've got, true crime or football team maybe or you know some sort of sport that they support. Those are the sort of places that people go to and with that vacuum of the sort of places that people go to. And with that vacuum of meaning and purpose, I think that people do try to fill it with a stance that gives them the simulacrum of a sense of meaning, while not actually being something that aligns with how they feel. Like it's very performative, you know, that lady that's doing that vaccine thing, that's super performative. Yeah, you're completely right.

And I agree even people like, like you say, with sports teams. And what I try and warn a lot of people of is it's completely fine to love Formula One or love a football team. And even to some people to love your partner that much, but you can't take every part of currency of happiness and values and passion you have

and put it in one thing that isn't a stable investment look at crypto right look at it. You have any encryption? Nothing right I'm not but then again we've had this discussion before I'm not an investor at all like it doesn't excite me but some people would have put everything into that and it can bottom out and some of my friends their their their universe circles around a black hole, which is their relationship, right? And their relationship gobbles up everything. I say, look, if that relationship doesn't work out, you're left with nothing because you put your whole life into that. Same with football teams, and some people probably get depressed when their team gets relegated. But this is why, again, I love martial arts, and there was a black belt. I saw a speech that he made when he got his black belt and he said, you know, I'll lose

friends, I'll lose family, my job, my money. All of these things can be taken away from me, but to Jits who can never be taken away from me. Like the camaraderie, the brotherhood, the accomplishments, he's like, he held his black belt. He was like, wherever I go in the world, whatever happens to me, I still have this. And I was like, that's really compelling, it was pretty emotional to hear it as well. What do you think that that symbolizes? What does him holding up a black belt symbolize? I quite like the fact that it's a, you're almost stuck in a tenure of never ending development within

a specific field, but not just the field of philosophy that you can do on your own or something where you can read books and become Ryan Holiday and become the expert of the Stoics. With Jiu Jitsu, it's, it's something you can't do on your own. You could have the best gym, the best black belt, but if he's in a room on his own, he can't do the sport. There's camaraderie, there's brotherhood, there's teaching people, there's educating people, there's being a mentor to people, there's being an inspiring, you know, figure to people. There's this massive hierarchy, you know, if you look at like the military, you've had generals and captains and you know, all of this lieutenants and sergeants. I believe men crave this hierarchy

between them where tribes for hundreds of thousands of years, you've earned your stripes. And now you can have that in a martial arts setting where people are safe. They don't have to go to war. They don't have to leave their families for periods of time. It's nice to go in and know who's above you. Know who's below you. Know who you can give advice to and who you can go to for advice. And it's a very powerful feeling to know that. And it's a bizarre experience almost where I'll take my martial arts gear with me somewhere across the world. And when I put on my belt, I have respect from someone without ever even talking to them. And it's something, whenever you interview anyone that does a jiu-jitsu, they always have that

little spark, that little, this person is going to fight me, but he's also going to care about me. He's also got respect for the work I've put in, and I've got the respect for him. And I think there are a lot of little parts of the human psych that Jiu-Jitsu caters for, which modern day society doesn't. What is one of the problems that in Jiu-Jitsu, your status that you achieve is directly proportional to the amount of work that you put in. I know you can go to shitty gyms where maybe you'll be given a purple belt before you perhaps should be and then that's a less respected gym or whatever when you go and train globally. And there's certainly harder gyms as well, right, or ones that are seen with more prestige. But generally, your work put in is directly related to the belt that you carry around your waist. So what you're

what you're showing with the belt isn't the belt what you're showing with the belt is all of the years that you've spent doing it. One of the problems that you have at the moment with regards to fame is that fame has become decoupled from things that used to be worthy of making people famous. So our mutual friend Adam Collard's just gone on Lov island for the second time and Lov island is basically the Hunger Games for fame. You get picked out of obscurity, you get thrown at the top of a pile, you come out with a million dollar, a million pounds, pretty little thing contract, and like several million Instagram followers, and there you are, that's the next five years of your life.

Well you're the same person that you were six weeks ago, Whitney, 21 year old hairdresser from fucking Bristol or whatever you are, like nothing has changed. So what people have done now is they've seen the fact that obligation-free status is available. You can just hope to be plucked out of obscurity. Remember that guy on TikTok who was skateboarding down the street drinking? Was it cranberry juice? And listening to it, a particular song, and the song went to number one, and now he's got this very different sort of life because he was skateboarding down the street drinking cranberry juice. When someone's ability or when society begins to reward with fame, actions that don't deserve

it, people are going to immediately think that the way to get fame is no longer to do the hard things consistently over a long period of time at a very high quality. What they're going to see is I need to be in the right place at the right time and hope that I get plucked out of obscurity and thrown at the top of the tree. It's one of the last remaining true meritocracies, where I think I've got that word right, have I? Yeah, thank God for that. And it's great that nothing's going to influence that, and I really enjoy the fact that I started

to get to before I had a blue tick, before I had a book deal, before I had fucking anything notable and nothing's changed and I love that it doesn't matter who I am. I still line up in about order, we still wipe the mats together. The only time that I ever try and assert status is when it's time to clean the mats and I'm there, I'm like, listen me, I don't know your name but that's not how you wipe the mats. I've had Ringworm twice this year, and you don't know what it's like having a girlfriend and Ringworm where you can't touch them. You're laying in bed and you get a bit of skin skin. I'm like, get off me. I've got Ringworm. So it's one of those times where it's really, truly an amazing thing to go in. And another thing

as well is that you can access some of the best athletes in the world. So when I came to Austin last time I saw you, I'm still recovering from that hangover. I was training literally with the David Beckham's, the Cristiano Ronaldo's of the world. And I went into the gym, I had to do like a little form, and our mutual friend Zach is like, Telander, I went to his gym and he was like, bro, come correct man, you gotta come to my gym, I was like, yes, sweet. So I'd already trained in the morning, I'd go there for lunch and it was war.

And some of the guys in there, I was like, oh my god, that's the target brothers, that's sick. And I'm like, oh my god, there's that Cody still, I was like, he's sick. And even their culture was very different to where I'd been before, but they were super welcome in. None of them knew what I did for work.

No one really gave a shit. They were very respectful when we rolled. They actually, all of them lowered their level to me so we could have fun rolls. They could have smashed me. They could have wiped the floor with me, but instead, smile on the face. Most of them didn't even have their gum shields in.

And it was such a great opportunity to train with some of the best. I'm intimidated. I can talk in front of thousands of people, that's fine. Doing a TED talk, no sweat patches. Training with these guys was like, oh my God, you know,

and I think that's one of the things as well that I love about the sport. I put a clip up a couple of weeks ago about a feminist called Louise Perry explaining that while some girls think that choking is a passionate sign of love, others are misinterpreting it and it's not actually that and that girls should stop showing their bruises on TikTok as a badge of honor. What were your thoughts there? Yeah, I commented on this. I don't think one woman can objectively hold an opinion for all women, same way that, you know, that's not allowed in respect of agendas. No one can say this is my opinion on something, therefore it's all of your opinions. I didn't like the

objective manner in which she said that. I do think that any bruises on the neck between genders is probably a tell-tell sign that you're being a bit too rough. It's probably what bruises I don't ever advocate any striking or violence between people. I think that she'd probably be better off doing a survey monkey. I'm asking women of the world a good large population why it is they may like choking. It's not women they may like choking. And I mean, it's not women that just like choking. I think if you look at a fixation deaths, there's a lot of men in there as well. And yeah, to do what? It's crazy that straight away when you use the word

feminist, it puts everyone on edge, including women. Because what was a true passion and passion at stance and I'm sure feminists over across history have done some really stellar things for women but there's now this kind of extremist group of people that are trying to they're almost like a liberal in a sense they want to rewrite everything they want everything to change and straight away as soon as you said I had a feminist on the podcast people are oh god here we go what's coming it's annoying, like, this isn't just in this context, for someone leaves me, they've been misogynist, which they probably have already veganism. 10, 15 years ago, I was like, fair play. Do you know what, fair play. I love animals too, but the fact that you donate them, I love that. Then the extreme is come along. Someone goes, oh, I had

a vegan on the podcast, and I'm like, oh, fuck, I mean, I mean, so it's one of those things where I also appreciate the podcast is really doing well. And for some guests, that could just be their moment in the limelight, they knew that was going to be a clip, they knew there would be some controversy, and they could then link arms with other extremist feminists. But although I think people should 100% remain safe, everything should have consent, every, each person to their own. I mean, you can't sit, Aaron, go, strangling's really bad. Oh, done. David, a wine bottle up is asked. What about that? You know, like, so it is one of those things. I think they should ask women. There was a lot of women in your comments as well, they're like,

no, no. Yeah, I think that's exactly not why. With Louise, her stance in particular is an interesting one, because she considers herself a feminist, but on the other side of that, she's not a sex-positive feminist. So she doesn't think that sex work is the same as normal work. She doesn't think that only fans should be normalized. She doesn't think that the highest calling that women should go for always is their careers.

And to call yourself a feminist in most young people's circles at the moment would be someone that would be for all of those things, whereas Louise I think would be more of a tried feminist. Like she'd be accused of being like a tried wife or something, even though she writes for the spectator, which is like, she writes for the spectator, no, she doesn't, she writes for the new statesman, which is very much on the left. And she also has a organization which helps to prosecute women who have been killed when men use the excuse of rough sex as a defense. So I mean, one thing to note about this is that if people decide to comment on a particular clip that's taken from an episode

and I say, did you watch the full episode? Because evidently, this is a clip which is taken from it. No, I don't need to. And it's like, okay, well, I mean, you're not, you're not taking this particularly seriously. So why, why should I? I think that one of the points that she makes is quite interesting, though, which is that girls on TikTok are showing off bruises as a badge of honor that they're saying, look, this is how passionate my love is. This is how important he finds my attractiveness. That is a very impressionable group of young girls that are being told that this is something that they should strive for. And one of the concerns is that almost any guy will do what almost any girl tells him to do to her because guys are terrified about their performance and just want to do it right.

Whatever it is, they just want to do it right. Whereas the reverse isn't necessarily true. I mean, I would be interested to know how many girls would say yes to choking their male partner. If their male partner said, I'm absolutely certain it would be fewer and it may be quite a few fewer. I just think that it is an important time, especially with TikTok and how messed up and how much social anxiety there is and how much vulnerability there is amongst Gen Z kids. I mean, there's girls that show off self-harm marks on there, there's girls that give tips about anorexia and stuff on there.

It seems to me like fair play for doing successfully on the platform, but for a very young group, it seems pretty dangerous. I don't think from the outside looking in, it looks like a particularly positive environment to be in if you were a 14-year-old guy or girl. It's interesting. I'll start on the only fan sing, something that I've been thinking about for quite a while. And again, I... About the starting one up.

No, I don't know. Oh, maybe. Let's just look on out the window. Okay. Let again, I'm starting one up. No, maybe. Maybe. I see I'll book three sales go. But I actually, I can understand both sides of the argument where she's saying, like, look, don't sell naked pictures yourself on the internet. Especially for platform, I think. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure people buy it. They then own the image or

there's something crazy like that. I could be wrong. However, I actually quite like the idea of women being able to perform these paid services without having to be in the room with another man or being in a strip club with drunk men and or being in a position where they're unsafe. They could do it remotely from a room with a camera. So I actually quite like the division between the woman and the man. I think that's a lot safer. And I think that, you know, if you were to say to a woman, you can make $300 a night in a strip club, but you've got to, you know, dance on drunk men or whatever.

Or you can make 150 a day, and you could just take pictures in your underwear and do, you know, whatever for guys. I quite like that safety barrier between them, because I, either, you said, people criticize sex work, or though I'm not an advocate of it personally, it's one of the oldest professions I think there's ever existed.

Then. But I mean, we just went to Jack there. Would you say that that's empowering women? Like it seems odd to me that female empowerment has gone from wanting women and men to be treated as equals to encouraging women to get naked for the price of a cheeseburger. Like, that to me doesn't seem like the peak of female empowerment, and neither does telling women

that the most important thing that they'll ever do in their lives is their career. And I think that the trickle down effect of that is that one of the easiest ways, or one of the potentially easiest ways to either supplement your income or increase your income is to do something like this on the side. As you say, it's one of the oldest industries in existence. It's probably what the first transactions were made for, either sex or food, survival and reproduction. It was a spear, it was a piece of grain, or it was a girl. And I'm not convinced that that is a progressive idea.

That's not for me to say that girls that would potentially go and do sex work elsewhere in strip clubs, is it safer? Yeah, absolutely. What I prefer a girl to be working on cams instead of walking the streets. Yeah, absolutely. My concern is that the frictionlessness and the fact that it's seen as a no externality, no negative externality option for a lot of women to do is that it's lowered the Ick floor for a lot of girls to get into an industry where they're not going to make that much money

They are potentially going to lock themselves into being a type of girl Maybe photos get leaked maybe a future employer or boyfriend sees them like Here's a question. Would you be happy getting into a very long-term relationship with a girl who Recently quit only fans or currently still had one Oh my god, that's such a misogynistic question. No, Jacob. Like it's interesting because if I was to, this is the defense I like to say a lot. I really wouldn't want my future daughter to do it.

That's fine. That can give me a stance, can't it? It's a potential soon. I could be a father in two years or whatever. There's another point to that. You say about the empowerment. I have no idea because the empowerment side of things, I have no idea what that's like.

But there is one other avenue for thinking on this. There's a lot of potentially low status men that we talk about, maybe utility of deprivation is one of my favorite Jordan-Pietz and topics. We're talking about masturbating, giving yourself access to so many women can negate your actions or imperative to improve the quality of your life. If you're wanking every day to porn or to only fans, you're hardly going to feel jeered up to ask the girl in a coffee shop if she wants to go for a date.

But I can only imagine how many sick and twisted fucking men out there are spurving on women's Instagram. I know, she's so fit, she's so fit, whatever. I quite like the idea sometimes that some of these absolute sickos can actually then access naked pictures of that person and fulfill their fantasies online a long way away. We're opposed to potential other things that they might do, stalking that person, becoming fanatically obsessed with this person or whatever those things are.

So in my recent thinking recently, I was like, I hope, I don't know, I hope that this market is catering to some sick men. One of the problems you have is there's been a bunch of only fans models that have been killed by fans that they've had. So I would say that the degree of separation that you have on Instagram, which is evidently not for you, you feel absolutely no obligation or sense of ownership

or sense of contribution or intimacy with that person. Anybody that's got 10 bucks can become one of, like have the virtual boyfriend service or whatever. That's not the same with a follow, nobody expects that with a follow on Instagram. I think that you're actually from a psychological perspective for men. I think that you're leaning them further into a dangerous arena as opposed to taking them away from it. That's actually a very valid point, which I hadn't thought about. These are all just thing, thingings in my mind. Sometimes I'll be walking somewhere,

my mind will just drift off and I'll try and break down things like this. That's another valid point because those kind of interactions are usually exclusively only to people in relationships. And when you're financially incentivized and sometimes financially propped up by the income that you get from this group of men, you can become subservient to them. And then if you discontinue that subservient nature, it could be met with an amosti.

A lot of revenge, yeah. I think that it's a really delicate one because the psychology of, you know, men like that Jordan Peterson clip where he goes, a man can expose himself to more naked women in an hour than previously a man would ever have seen in entire lifetime. And the psychological implications of that are profound and probably not fully appreciated or studied or understood. Well, there was an interesting point in a podcast that did with Andrew Hubeman recently where he said that men specifically who train themselves to get aroused by watching other people have sex may not have the arousal

response carryover when it comes to being in reality with a normal person. So you could neurologically train yourself to become a voyeur in a way. If that's what you get used to, if you condition yourself to become aroused by watching other people and you then get one on one, that might not work. It may not work in a way that you're supposed to. So you have increases in erectile dysfunction amongst men a lot of the time

because they've desensitized themselves. They've downregulated their arousal response, so much by watching ever increasingly extreme or exciting porn and then reality just can't compete. You know, that's actually such an interesting topic. I know we're talking about so much porn now. What's it called when men like to watch someone else sleep with their wife? So it would be cook old porn, I think tech. Cock-hawed.

Yeah. Cock-hawed. So I've always wondered how someone ends up in that position. And you might have just opened a can of worms there where, like you say, if you're a third party watching other people have sex and you are in love with your wife and you want the best thing for her, then the cock-old experience may come from that. And again, there's that genre of porn, the POV point of view to maybe try and negate that. But one thing that I'm genuinely concerned about, and this is nothing, the metaverse, right? I never gave it, like, and really much thought, but I digest

things over and over, and we both have a mutual friend, Luke, he went to a Red Bull experience where they go to six festivals in half an hour, wearing an Oculus, and they're sat down. But in the metaverse, they get handed a drink, which is actually made in front of them, but as they drink the drink, the Oculus notes that they look up, and when're sat down. But in the metaverse they get handed a drink which is actually made in front of them. But as they drink the drinks, the Oculus notes that they look up and when they look down there another festival. And I was like, wow that's pretty fucking amazing. And then I sort of story about a guy who watches movies in the metaverse. Because you can watch a movie on an Oculus but he actually watches it from a penthouse apartment in bed in Las Vegas, where that's not where he lives, but in his ocularcy he is. So he's like, why would I not wear this? So I'm in a shitty fucking one bed in the middle of America

when I can put this on and be in a penthouse in Vegas. And then I was thinking about, let's say we get neural ink, right, in the next few years, we could tap into, you know, telling our body something. Why would you risk STD's pregnancy, all of these things when you could have a virtual experience of having sex and people are going to be very quick to scoff at that. But I was thinking to myself the other day, okay, let's say in three years time, I can put on an oculus and see my favorite DJ, play a clastumbry. And instead

of paying the money, driving to clastonbury, parking, camping, queuing for toilets, being stuck in massive crowds, idea of getting trampled on, losing phone reception. Like, festivals, you give up a lot to have a good time. Imagine if me and three of my friends can sit on the sofa, watch, buy set, play, put a nightculous on. It feels like we're in the crowd, but whatever we want to go for a toilet, we can just take the Oculus off, go use our toilet, we don't even have to leave the house.

You know, if we wanted to take some MDMA, we can do it. Imagine as you turn the Oculus, I can see my friend, I can even virtually high five him. I was just joking about that, but as I was saying, I was like, that sounds pretty fucking appealing. Going to the pub with your mates, why would we pay for real beer when we can buy a pack and have it at home, and we can have a virtual, you know a virtual banter like pointing at your mates

and we've soon very slippery on the slopes of everyone goes, yeah, but I love leaving the house. But would you, if there was a better alternative without having to? Have you ever seen the Bruce Willis film Surrogates? You remember that one? Yes, I've seen it. I'm trying to think I keep getting it mixed up with the jumper one. No, not that. So it's basically what you're talking about. So in the future, people have surrogates, they're these sort of avatar, perfect versions of them, and you buy

upgrades for your surrogate, and it walks around in the real world, and you just sit in your apartment in a leather chair. I do remember that. basically locked in and controlling it in one way or another and then Bruce decides he wants to do something different. I really am pretty concerned, I think, about that. I mean, I get comments sometimes on the more blackpilly conversations that have come up on this channel from guys who have evidently lost hope that the future is going to be better for them in terms of dating and Is saying don't worry boys just hold on the sex robots are coming. That's not ironic. They're not saying that in an ironic way. They're saying right now. I feel like I'm so invisible to the other sex that all I'm the only piece of hope that I have is technology coming in and Saving me from the current world like that's a terrifying situation to think that we've managed to get a super affluent,

super comfortable society to, that that's the pinnacle that most guys, or many guys, should I say not most at all, but a significant minority of guys think is their outlet. Yeah, I've spoken about this quite a lot in my most recent book, which I've got a credit you for. I'll talk about it in a second, some of the parts of the book that are quite literally from our conversations, but there's two kind of things here. One, the pandemic really fucking slingshotted people into the online dating world because they physically would break the law to go on a physical date. The organic meats that meet in someone in a coffee shop, someone at your local gym, whatever it is,

all those were taken away. So people went to online pretty aggressively. And it's fear of rejection. Now you don't have to get rejected. Before you'd have to interview for ten jobs. Now your CV gets rejected on LinkedIn before you even get there. But the world is becoming more and more comfortable where you don't have to have awkward conversations anymore. So, you have that. There's also a

phenomenon which I write about called declinism, where people have a tendency to think things are getting worse. And again, Jordan Peterson was in a debate a good few years ago where someone was talking about climate change, this, this, what's your thing on this? And he goes, do you think you have an easier life than your grandparents? And the woman wouldn't answer it. You know, everyone's so caught up about how bad things are. He was like, you're I can you have a better life? Yeah, you know, let me just give you something there, man. So there's a concept called the Tokville paradox. So as the living standards in the society rise, people's expectations rise along with them. but obviously your expectations are able to move much more quickly than reality can. So after a while, most of the low-hanging fruit that

reality can deliver to you in terms of convenience and comfort and such like that, they start to level off, however your expectations continue to go up. So what you end up with is a delta between where you see life being and what you thought life was supposed to be. That's the Tockville paradox. The fact that as living standards rise, so do expectations and then expectations overtake the reality. And that causes people to be dissatisfied. I think that's very close to the concept of that. And people seem to think, you know, I think that a lot of people even thinking about having children, you know, we've got a population crisis nearing around the corner,

you had a fantastic interview with Jordan Peterson about that. 50 years in the United States, it's been since people have been producing enough kids to have younger generations. So not only are we going into that, I think there is a bit of, in the subconscious people going, why would I want to bring a child into this world? But there's a book called Factfulness.

Hannah, forgive me for, how's it all? Thank you for that. And that was pre-pandemic that I read. That was still so much of that rings true. There's one part in the book where it's like four million babies will die before their first birthday. And you're like, oh, it's terrible.

Down from 12 million ideas going. And you're like, the way the media portray everything you do for the world's getting worse, but the world is getting better and I do like to remind people of that. And it is tragic that declineism is having such profound impacts on people's thinking, where they do suddenly pessimism bias, loss of version. We're all genetically programmed to negative outcomes and we have that with the future as well, which is tragic. Whenever I get a deep conversation about this,

my friends, I'm like, guys, Elon will save us. Elon will save us. He's not fucking buying Twitter anymore. He's about to be sued by Twitter. Do you see that? The lawsuits just been unveiled about him? What else can they do? Because in essence, he's lifted the skirt on some bullshit

that's been going on with Twitter. He's aired the laundry for the world to see, I think it's fucking brilliant. And, you know, there's so much skull doggery that's been going on in the social media space, and there's so much of even Twitter's code that definitely got reversed during that process. When, like Joe Rogan and all these people got hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of followers overnight, where they've obviously been shadow-burning people, the political leaning stuff. You know, and it's very hard to ignore the fact that many of these social media platforms

are switched boards to political leanings and narratives and makes you know, when I went home to spend some time with my parents recently, I realized that my parents spent a lot of the time in the pandemic locked in lockdown, and it has changed them. And all they had was each other, the news, the newspaper. And I've now realized that my parents cannot have a debate or a discussion anymore, because

they are so set. It's almost like the fabric of your thoughts sets in stone after about two years. So my mom and dad really don't like Elon Musk. And I was like, I was trying to figure out why. And my dad was like, oh, you know, it doesn't pay enough tax on any of these things. And then I was like, right, let's see if I can have like a genuine discussion. I was like, the atrocities going on in Ukraine, terrible. I go, I said to my dad, because for 30 years, I've gone to my dad for,

dad, what's communism? Dad, why is this happening? Dad, what does socialist state spend? And I said, dad, why is Putin invading Ukraine? And he's like, because he's evil. And I was like, I think there's some bigger reasons to that. And I was like, what about NATO? NATO has been, my dad's like, now he's just evil. And I was like, I think that's a narrative that's been painted

online. I couldn't get anything else out of him. I had another discussion recently where there was someone on Lex Friedman's podcast who was talking about how the Nazis were the first to stop pregnant women from having X-rays. and the Nazis were some of the first people to stop their nation smoking. Thirty years after the Nazis stopped their nation smoking, America publicly said this is probably what the 60s I think, or 70s, if we found out that smoking hindered people's health would make it illegal. And when I said that once I said, oh, did you know the Nazis were actually at the forefront of health of their own people? People go, how the fuck can you sit there and say that? I'm not supported anything they've done.

And suddenly, I was getting abused from someone for bringing up the fact that the Nazis were a little bit further ahead in that medical field. And I was like, wow, I actually think in recent years we've moved away from the ability to even have discussions on so many topics anymore. And especially with things like Twitter and all of these things, have you found that it would short form, especially people that maybe you and I right now, podcasting,

it's a channel that's not governed by media, by the big media, or there is a source of media. I feel like these are some of the only genuine conversations it can be had. I feel like podcasts and other back channels where you can actually say and talk about things. I would agree. I think one of the main common denominator between all of the situations you've spoken about there is that people have attached their sense of self-worth and or identity to a position that they hold, that if they were to let go of their position, it would be the same as destruction. So Eckhart Tolle talks about this,

the fact that when you're having a discussion with people, a lot of the time, the reason that they don't want to admit that they're wrong is it's tantamount to ego destruction, right, that this would feel like the complete removal of everything that I am, because if I'm wrong about that, what else might I be wrong about? And there are certain people out there that are more curious than others, and they'll be the ones that will be able to continue to update their software and their programming as new information comes in. Personally, for me,

I spend almost all of my time, especially now I'm in Austin, because it's a very open, philosophically open city. I spend almost all of my time having conversations that I'm in Austin, because it's a very open, philosophically open city. I spend almost all of my time having conversations that I don't know the answer to and asking other smart people if they've got an answer to it. So for me, I haven't really noticed that, but certainly online, comments are reactionary, they're short, they take the worst possible implication of what someone's words could mean. And I know that just doesn't seem like,

for the people that decide to do it very quickly, they're going to realize that it's not an effective way to exist. Now, that's going to mean that they're miserable, they're going to be, their negativity bias is going to be even worse. So, yeah, I mean, I choose to not ever associate myself with those people.

I want to have conversations about stuff as freely as I can. Now one of the things that I have started to realize is that there's a limit to what I can even talk about on podcasts. There are conversations that I sometimes refrain from having, or at least I have to force myself to have with friends, because most of the conversations that I have are on podcasts, and that means that when I want to really push the boundaries of something that's different or interesting or like, can we talk about whatever topic that would be completely unacceptable even on something like YouTube, that's something that I've conditioned myself into. So when you think about if most of your conversations were you and the media, I'm aware it's like a one way conversation, but if most of your conversations were between you and the Guardian

or the BBC or CNN or Fox News or whatever, that is going to become your sense of identity. I've internalized one as well. It's just that my internalization is like guardrails on what I can speak about. Somebody else's other guardrails have been set on them by a media organization. Yes, interesting. I think that one of the most worrisome things that I see is the disintegration of ignorance, where ignorance is now painted in such a bad light, where even when we spoke about the only fancying before, I expressed my point of view and you're like, well, actually, this is what's

happening. And then I'm like, oh, I'm actually wrong on that point, which is fantastic, because I appreciate that. And the same thing with like, you know, trying to have a discussion with my dad wise, put Putin doing that? And I think that it's annoying that someone could go, well, actually, this, this, this, this happened. You shouldn't even be questioned. I have ignorance about the whole situation there, but the thing is you can't really easily find out what's going on. You know, if I, if you were to ask the majority of the people in the UK, why is this happening? They're struggling to give you an answer on it. And I feel that, do you know what this is crazy, right?

I've become more concerned with history as I'm getting older. And people used to tell me history was such an amazing subject. I was like, medicine through time, get out of here. But now I'm getting a little bit older. Mate, I spend a lot of time on YouTube. I'm down in North Korea rabbit hole the other day. I work on it, I watched about five hours of documentaries about North Korea.

Why? Fascination. We just get told, are they evil, which I agree with? But I didn't really understand what was going on there. Joe Rogan had a park in... You're on me? ...on me park. And I was just into in, I don't want to get a name, on me park. And I was listening to that, I was mortified.

I was like, the whole world needs to know about this. We should have been taught this in secondary school. Why was I learning about medicine through time in America? I really became fascinated about all these things. And it, as time goes on, it's one of those things. You get concerned about why we learn and the things we learn it, why aren't we learning about what's happening and so much of history does repeat itself. And I think it's absolutely bonkers that we don't have like better narratives

on that at the moment. So there's a concept called firehousing which I learned from a friend Gwinderbogel. He said, with so many competing narratives in the digital age, disinformation agents can't convince you of any single narrative. So instead, they overwhelm you with many contradictory narratives and still you start to doubt everything and become confused, demoralized, and passive. So the point there is that it is significantly easier to confuse and demoralize people than it is to convince them of anything. And firehousing involves throwing all of the information at you until

you can't work out what's true anymore. I think that's what you're seeing. Sounds almost like you've got an Ionic. Do you want to talk about the cool stuff you've put in your new book? Yes, so what I'm going to say in Austin, Sinc and Sinc and Bears, I've never let good advice for London deaf ears. I'll put that in both my books so far. So there's a Garnik effect which you told me about about waiters remembering open bills and forget about them when they're closed. You started then telling me about the implications that could have to our to our psyche and writing about it really

expanded that. Well I've actually experienced this first time like when you see someone or someone very attractive and everything in you goes oh my god I I found this person really attractive. I'd love to ask for their number, go on the tube, I might be someone, you know, I remember doing a qualification once and it was a five day course and the first day I really found this girl attractive. It was the last 10 minutes on the last day. I was like 19 that I asked her, oh, can I have your number? She goes, I thought you'd never ask. And we ended up going on some like amazing days. It was incredible. I think about to stay, if I hadn't have asked,

how long would I've thought about that? What are the mental implications of not doing things? That job that you saw in LinkedIn that you didn't apply for, and now you're following the guy that's in the role, and he's loving his life, just got a big bonus. All of these things take up mental taxes, and I keep thinking about loops, TV adverts. Oh, after the break, we've got seven ways to kill zombies in an apocalypse.

You're like, oh my god, the loops have been open, shutting loops. And I've really coined that into like a bit of a motivator in how to be confident. But like there was that, the Piric victories as well, which you spoke about, like a dog leaping off a cliff to bite a bird for dinner. Yeah. Tantum out to defeat. Yeah. But how many things are truly peric in daily life that scares?

Very few, I think. Like most of the time, what people are doing is they're slowly chewing away. They're eating away at their own sense of sovereignty with stuff like that. I think I spoke to you about the anxiety cost as well, right? The amount of mental effort that it takes to consider something that you could get rid of by simply doing the thing. All of the stuff that you leave undone, all of the loops,

all of the uncompleted tasks, all of pretty much everything that you decide isn't yet finished, that you could have just done right now. If you were to have just done it right now, that would have been sorted. Yes, it's one of those things where, yeah, I'll bet those out. I'm recording the audiobook at the moment, so I'm back in the studio and about. So you finished it? Bloody hell, look at me happy. Printed on Friday, doing the audiobook, it takes.

I read for about three hours a day for five days. And it is pretty heavy, But then you, it's your book. So some chapters I wrote more recently than others, but sometimes you don't realize how long the sentences. So you have to go through, then you have sense, then you have words that you've potentially misinterpreted, then breathing is difficult as well, because you've got to learn how to breathe properly and when to breathe. And some sentences, you might have to do 15 words before a comma. So you have to take mini breaths in between. It's a bit of an art form recorded in audiobook.

I would agree. Credit to Douglas Murray. His book, War on the West is about 11 12 hours. Incredible. How? And I might be doing a podcast with Doug's Mary in the next few months. His voice. I love it. Right. I might be doing a podcast with Doug Smirin the next few months. His voice, I love it. Right.

Spectacular. Wait, he's got this, this posh, yeah, authoritative voice that, and he's like, well, that's very interesting. And I'm like, yes, it is. I think, but when I saw that 12 hours, it was like, my book's probably gonna be six, seven hours. I was like, wow, that is some stint of recording an audiobook.

It took him an entire week as well, but I think he does it in morning and afternoon stint. He was happening, he was recording it as I was in New York with him. So I left in that first day after I left. He was going, something that I saw an episode of Seth Stevens-Dividowitz who is a data scientist And it links to what you're talking about earlier on about comfort

He says we sometimes mistake a comfortable activity for an enjoyable activity And this rounds up something I've been thinking about for probably about three years Which is that a lot of the time when you consider how future you would have wanted you to spend your time right now, it involves doing something enjoyable, but current you want you to do something which is comfortable. So it would be the difference between going out to a salsa class for the first time ever, which might be shit, but might be absolutely brilliant. And even if it is shit, you're going to remember it a lot more than you are yet another night watching the terminal list on Amazon Prime or whatever.

But because we optimize for comfort in the moment, and we presume that comfort in the moment will be enjoyment in the long term, you often end up selecting for comfort and ease and convenience and over a long period of time, that ends up with just a pretty dissatisfactory life. And that's kind of the same as what you're talking about in terms of you need to have something which will motivate yourself, like what is the little thing that you rely on, that when you think about it, look, I probably just need to go and do this thing because it's going to be quicker for me to work out whether or not I should have done it by doing it, then it is for me to just think about it all the time and obsess. Yeah, I think that you can measure your growth by measuring your discomfort. So right now, I'll put this

in the book as well, how many things this week truly make you uncomfortable, how many things this week truly make you a bit nervous and put your own edge. If there's a considerable amount, you're probably in a growth phase. And if there's nothing, you're probably in a stagnation phase. And I'm quick to spot these. The few weeks I was like oh it's good to be back on Australia, life's good so I was like fuck I'm going to compete in Gidgetseew this weekend on Sunday so on Sunday I'm going to drive an hour and a half away to fight other men in my division and my weight level why because quite frankly it scares the shit out of me training is comfortable and it's not even the fight that I'm scared of. It's the expectations in which I attached to it and that that leading up to doing

unendurable finishing, whether I win or lose, in hindsight it's amazing. Like winning is great but losing. I love to remind myself how amazing it is to lose because there's no better reality check or dose of inspiration that you can get than having your ego realigned to reality. And I think that's such a rewarding thing. And like I said, even say this, say you reach out for a podcast guest who you think is probably a few echelons above where you're currently out and they reject you. That's one of the best things that can happen because if you've made it this far, that's just going to put a fire on your belly and you're going to go, okay,

I'm going to grow this motherfucker until the point you're not going to my daughter to come do this. And I think that people have also not only, do they avoid uncomfortable situations, they can't quite see the potential upside of putting themselves in it and even better yet. They're so fearful of losing when that could be the key thing. Lucy Lord, my friend, she says, the lessons you need are in the tasks you're avoiding. That's very nice. She might have got it from someone else, but that's all right. The fair play, give it to Lucy. It's okay. Yeah, that's lovely, man. I don't disagree. I think that most people understand

the places that they're hiding away from themselves. And you're quite right. It's the things that you don't want to look at, the things that you don't want to do. And those are the identifiers. What else, what else about the new book you excited for? We'll probably, we'll have another conversation, I'm sure once it's out,

but is there anything else that you're super excited about it? Like, if people think it's a book about confidence, like, I'm like, hey, my name's James Smith, I'm so confident. Let me teach you how I've done it. And weirdly, my life is something that I look back on. I'm quite proud of a younger version of me because he wasn't as intelligent. He just happened to make the right decisions. I look back now and I'm thinking, fuck it, I mean, you did it right there, mate. You did it right there. But I've come to realize that confidence isn't so much about success, it's about failure, and it's about how you deal and how you react

to failure. And I think that people, they see the spectrum from the wrong end, they see it at the success end, or your confident because you're successful on that wrong, but actually confident because losing doesn't faze me, things going wrong doesn't faze me. Why? Because that's not the metric that you should be setting for success. Imagine this, and this is again something I've written in the book. Why does something going right have to be successful? Why can't you try to do something be successful? You know, let's say that I love using the setting of dating where people are so worried to ask for someone's number and for it to go wrong. But if you were to break that down into like a three minute segment, the second

you have put yourself into that position and asked before they even have the chance to compute and response, you could win. That's your win. And if people realize that even if just sending their CV to someone, a potential employer, that can be your win. It doesn't have to be getting the job. And if you can set these, again, I've been doing this before weight loss for years, I want to lose 10 pounds. I'm not, how about losing one pound and making that a win? And if people can get better at what their wins look like and where they're setting the objectives and how that failure, you're only going to ever add strings to your bow by failing. And I think that if people can get that in their head, it's more about a book about dealing with failure than

it is a book about being confident. And if you were to think of the most confident person in your mind, the most confident person you've ever met, when something goes wrong, how much do they take it to heart? Very little. And it's kind of, it's that kind of mindset I want people to get into. It's not easy, but it's certainly worth it if people persevere with it enough. One of my favourite bits from the live tour that I went to go and see you do, the most recent one in Newcastle, was how you were explaining to people if they don't enjoy their job,

that you're basically risking nothing to then move on to go and do something else. Can you just go through that? So, firstly I like to remind people that so many of them are doing really well in a job, they don't enjoy. And that's just the fact. Most people in recruitment, right?

There are probably a very few amount of people in recruitment that I actually enjoy. I've done it myself, but they're good at it. And they are, you know, I've always wanted to have my own job, I have my own business, but you know, I just don't know, you know, I can't afford for things not to go right. I've got kids, you know, I've just got a mortgage on a house, and I'm like, cool, okay, but here's something to consider. You're doing very well in a job you're not passionate about. So if you're selling people to

jobs you're not interested in, do you have the capabilities to sell something you actually give a fuck about? Probably. Now, what if that doesn't work out? You probably go back to a job in recruitment. You're exactly where you started. And I think that people, when they really understand, if they're dominating something, they don't like the potential they have for dominating something they do like is massive. And again, I'm pretty sure it's a statistic where people say, when they ask people on their deathbed, the thing they regret the most is the things they didn't do, not the things that didn't work out. And I wish people could have more conversations with old people. The old people, like, I went for it, it was the worst decision ever. They were talking about things they didn't do. And I think that it's really important.

The people appreciate that your work life is such a big constituent of your overall life. And it gives you purpose, it gives you meaning. It big constituent of your overall life. And it gives you purpose, it gives you meaning, it is a pillar of your mental health. It's so, so important. And it kind of kills me that people don't see the implications that has to the rest of their lives because if you don't enjoy your work life, that is going to affect your relationships. It's going to affect your training. It's going to affect your diet because we need to remember like in Sims playing it back on the day you've got those little plus and minus interactions. You want to be getting pluses from work pluses

from your partner and you don't want anything in life to be given you those negative interactions because it will take its toll. Yeah man, I mean, way you live what you do and who you do it with are the three most important choices I think that you can make. It's a very British phenomenon, I think. Most of the American people that I've spoken to, and again, this could be selection effect from being in Austin, which is full of cultural refugees from elsewhere, so they're already people that are predisposed to travel.

But still, I would say that the UK seems to have a disproportionate number of people who are scared to take risks like that. I don't think that there is a healthy number of role models that go and move to Australia or start their own business or drop a job or change something in their life that they know isn't working. In America you've got the American dream, right? There's nothing like that in the UK. The UK is just a blueprint and it's a blueprint to get by. I think that, you know, I'm not

sure about enough of the history of the UK, but people for the large part probably just been struggling to survive, to get by. There's not been a dream. If you go to the UK, it's like, okay, go to school, go to college, go to uni, get a job, hold it down, get a mortgage, have enough money to retire. And what, I could be completely wrong with this, I could be naive. I hate it when people talk about their 50s and 60s. Do this now for 50s and 60s. I appreciate there's a lot of sentiment to that. But now is very important too. The 20s to 30s are very important.

Not for 50s and 60s. They're important for now. Your 30s to 40s are very important. Not for 60s and 70s, but for now. There's no point not making the most out of now for a bid to have it later. There are so many people that hit a jackton life because they were too long-sighted with that. I think that I wish that there could be a better culture in the UK to be like, hey, do what you want. As long as you pay a bill, you don't get in debt.

As long as you don't cripple or lean on the fucking healthcare system, the financial system, or bankrupt yourself, then do whatever the fuck you want. And ultimately, I think that people do need the rules to life to be rewritten where it's more about wake up, do shit you enjoy, come home, spend it with someone you enjoy, go to sleep, get eight, nine hours to do it again, rather than it being like this, it's kind of like rap race. And London feels almost poisonous to me a little bit. I don't really like the vibe of London. And some

of my friends saying, I'm absolutely crazy for saying that. People like Wajara Shailer are like, I just like it better. I feel more relaxed here. I swim in the sea more. I really want to get a dog and just give it a good life here. In London, I see so many people just working so hard, but I don't see the happiness that should come with that. I think the UK is characterized by people who are desperate to not lose rather than desperate to win. No one cares about winning. All that they're bothered about is not losing. And that causes a very particular, uncomfortable scarcity mindset that is very hard to get rid of. Yeah, 100%. And I mean, if anyone in the UK's existence is, they're all so hot for these to, you know, he fucked off abroad and you're doing, you live in your life. If you're happy in your listen to this,

I'm fucking, you've completed it. Well done, you've scored the highest score. It's just there'll be some young people listening to this and they're like, I don't know what to do. I've just inherited some money or I've got a bit of savings and I don't know what to do. It's surely better to go around the world, experience different cultures

because everyone in my family loves where they live, right? My sister lives about five minutes away from my parents. My parents live within the same 300 meters that they were born. They all went to the same primary schools. There was no reason ever for me to not want to live there. And all it took was for me to just go on a bit of a whim. I just had this

urge to go to Australia out of three one way and I got here and I was prepared to be completely wrong. I still am now. And I just wish that if anybody from the UK is listening to this, just go try out some of my different, even if it means, you know, working a job. I actually did a TV piece with an Irish lady. And I think she was working for the BBC and I was talking to her. She goes, I just live in New York and I go, what did you do? She goes, I just went behind a bar and an Irish bar in New York. And she's not working for the BBC and she's not really enjoying her job that much. She goes, it was the best time my life working in the Irish bar.

So why do you believe she goes, my parents pressured me to come home and get a proper job? And I was like, I kind of felt for her then. I was like, you did something to impress someone else. You did what the status quo said you should have done. And because of it, in an interview that should have been about my first book, we're now talking about you not enjoying your life as much as you did before. James Smith, ladies and gentlemen, if people want to keep up to date with what you've got going on, where should they go?

TikTok, now joking. When your breath is. Yeah, online James Smith, PT. got going on, where should they go? TikTok. I'm joking. When your breads is, yeah, online James Smith, PT, anyway, they put it, I'm, I'm hoping for a rebrand in the few years where I can just get the, the name at James Smith. That'd be amazing. Who's got it? The right. A PT. You're kidding me.

No. Why do you want them? Mate, I would love to. There was one point where he tried opening a business called The Academy and I sent him an email, I was up, oh, come on. That's how it doesn't look good on you. But hopefully because you have one day, I am a PT. That is the way I've come up.

And if I do experience any more notable success in the future, I will always say that I'm a PT. I've been told by many people to tell people that I'm an author, because whenever I bump into anyone in business class, what'd you do? I'm an arm person trainer, that I probably think I'm some trust fan kid or something, but yeah, that would be good. Anywhere they type in the name, they should find me. They might find a vocal singer called James Smith as well. Just look for the more handsome one and you'll find me. Appreciate you James. Cheers mate.

Cheers mate. Cheers mate, thanks.