Modern Wisdom - #607 - Mike Thurston - Why Are Young Men Feeling So Lost?

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

Mike Thurston is a podcaster, YouTuber and a fitness model. Me and Mike went to university together 15 years ago. Even though we were odd, awkward creatures, there was no pressure to get our life together. In 2023, it seems like there is much more pressure on both men and women to sort it out. What's changed, and why is life more confusing than ever before? Expect to learn why Mike wants Derek from More Plates More Dates to test him for steroids, why going to university wasn't a waste of time, why Mike stopped drinking alcohol, what he thinks about Greg Doucette's Youtube Channel, why women are just as lost as men, the problems of masculinity in the modern world and much more... Sponsors: Get 10% discount on all Gymshark’s products at https://bit.ly/sharkwisdom (use code: MW10) Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://manscaped.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get $100 off plus an extra 15% discount on Qualia Mind at https://neurohacker.com/modernwisdom (use code MW15) Extra Stuff: Follow Mike on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mikethurston/  Follow Mike on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzGLDaTu81nJDtWK10MniGg 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

Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Mike Thurston, he's a podcaster, YouTuber and fitness model. Me and Mike went to university together 15 years ago. Even though we were odd awkward creatures, there was no pressure to get our life together. In 2023, it feels like there is much more pressure on both men and women to sort their lives out. What's changed and why is life more confusing than ever before? Expect to learn why Mike wants Derek

from more plates more dates to test him for steroids, why going to university wasn't a waste of time, why Mike stopped drinking alcohol, what do you think is about Greg DuSets YouTube channel, why women are just as lost as men, the problems of masculinity in the modern world, and much more. This conversation and a debate that I had in Doha the day before has really helped me

to understand some of the challenges I think that both men and women are facing in the modern world, why it was that me and my friends 10 to 15 years ago didn't feel this overwhelming sense of pressure to get our life sorted out and to know our path and our purpose. And why that's changed. Very, very interesting. So, yeah, enjoy this one. Don't forget that you might be listening but not subscribed and that means that you're going to miss episodes when they go up. Also, if you want to spot the show, the best thing that you can do is to press the follow button on Spotify or the plus in the top right hand corner and Apple podcasts. I thank you very much.

But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome... Mike Thurston. I'm Michael Thessen, welcome to the show. Hello Chris, good to see you again. Thank you for letting me use your house to record this in. What do you think? I know you're a bit of a connoisseur of setups when it comes to podcasting. What do you think of this one? I think it's really nice. I'm loving whatever that is. Some old school, old and worldy telescope type. I think that's very nice. Very well done. I'm impressed. You've entered the dark

and dingy world of podcasting. Yeah, how are you finding it? Finally, good, actually. It's probably been one of the things which I've learned the most out of, like what has taught me so far from just having conversations with people, doing research about people, and being able to hold a conversation, it's been very interesting. Well, you've done YouTube for a very long time.

How long have you been on YouTube now? First video went up 2016. It feels like longer than that. But I guess that's still quite a long time. I went hardcore in 2017. That's when it kind of took off. So what? Looking back now and obviously having this big arc of content creation for the last coming up on a decade, being on a platform which is getting ever more successful, ever more popular, more and more people joining, more and more people being competitive.

What have been the principles that have managed to get you to not only estate that you've got a sizable platform, but also have managed to help you avoid being dragged into the muck and the mire and the politics and the backbiting, the reaction videos and the callouts and all that sort of stuff. You've done a very good job of avoiding that. I think I've never really been massively opinionated on anything. I'm quite neutral.

And I would keep, like, say, for example, a lot of my content training related. It would just be about the training. I would never call anyone out or say anyone else's name. It would just be what I believe you need to do when it comes to training, building muscle losing body fat. Same thing when I transitioned to vlogs and lifestyle. It was mainly just either about me and what I was up to or the place that I'm going to, not about the people. Is that a purpose-built strategy to avoid getting yourself into politics? Or is that just that? I think I generally just don't like drama.

I would like to avoid it if possible. Why? Because it's just... Just don't like it. Stress? Stress. And I think it's petty. Once the drama starts, it's backwards forwards, backwards forwards,

and it never really ends. And then sometimes you can get a little bit like... the drama starts, it's like backwards forwards, backwards forwards, it never really ends, and then sometimes you can get a little bit like, some people might say something they regret, and I didn't want to do something, I'll make a video while at the back, I think that was a bit super childish. Yeah, what about the principles? What else have you done? You know, looking back on the come up to get from where you were to where you are now?

What? Just be myself. I think you see a lot of trends over time and people tend to try and like hop onto trends or do what other people are doing who are really popular, but I just took to doing what I do and I feel comfortable doing. And I feel like that has worked massively for me.

And the problem that people come up against, I think, is first off, if you're playing a role, like if you're trying to beat someone else or your version, like YouTube, Mike or YouTube, whatever, you get found out pretty quickly because people are always going to look for hypocrisy or discontinuity between who you say you are and who you actually end up being. And the other side, I think that what both pretty aligned on is if you're not careful, you get known for the drama and nothing else. You don't actually get known for your work or your takes or your expertise or your insights or anything like that.

What you get known for is like, okay, when's the next reaction to your back and forth thing coming? And that's like a really bad situation to be. Yeah. Like the prime example of that in the fitness industry would be Greg. And fair play, he's doing his thing, that's obviously his business model, it's working, he's getting the views. But like you said, that's that's kind of what he's known for. And that's not something I would ever I wouldn't want to be known for the guy that has made a platform or generated a big following just from doing reaction videos

for the people. Would you watch Greg's content if it wasn't sometimes like? I do watch some videos. Yeah, yeah, because you might just do like a reaction or it's almost like a news channel now when someone in the fitness series done something or something's happening or usually it's negativity because the negativity brings in the views. And there's been a few times I'm like, oh, that looks like some juicy gossip. Yeah, do you need someone to go out and find out

what's going on, I suppose. It very much is kind of like a newsfeed for the fitness industry, I suppose. Derek does it, but Derek has a, I guess he hasn't done it as much recently. I guess he's on to bigger things now. But in the past, he used to do that. He grinds, I mean, I've got to watch,

obviously my housemate was a big part of Derrick's liverking video. So Zach Talander is a guy that I live with. He did the Charlotteson's playbook section of that video and his editor, Alex, was the guy that actually put the whole thing together. And I watched them work on this thing for fucking ages. It did a very good job of ages and ages, man.

And I'm watching it happen in an unfold behind the scenes. And I wouldn't have surprised me if Derek would have asked me to sign an NDA. I didn't need to because I'm not going to tell anyone about your spoil it. But they worked so fucking hard on that thing. And yeah, I do think that Derek's a particularly good example of someone that just decides, okay, here's my expertise. I'm going to go at this thing. And yeah, I do think that Derek's a particularly good example of someone that just decides, okay, he is my expertise. I'm going to go at this thing. The problem is that there is a a little bit of falloff. He's never to be going to get himself embroiled in some of those politics. Because of the type of content that he's doing. Obviously, one of the things that Derek did recently,

him and Matt did, does fitness. Because the last time that we spoke was about two and a half years ago, a couple of miles in that direction, I think. And we were talking then, and all of the, like, is he natural accusations that have followed you since we were in uni, basically, like 15 years ago. And I think that one of the concerns that you'd had then was, well, no matter what test you do, there is always going to be somebody that says it's insufficient, it's not enough, it's blah, blah, blah. And I think Matt had that problem too. Matt went to Derek and said, design me the most

rigorous, randomized testing protocol in the world. Is that something that you've... Yes. I've emailed Derek and I've watched that Derek two months ago. Right? No reply. You're kidding me. You're kidding. I'll show you after this.

Because I've spoken to, obviously, I've seen this all happening. I've been watching the videos. I speak to Matt. He's like one of my best friends. And Matt was telling me, because I asked for his number, Matt was saying, just be aware, it's a massive ballake on both ends, because he has to be available to do all these random tests he's got to pay for it But then Derek has to do so much organization

You know he's getting things set up in a country which he doesn't live in and the whole process He can't just do all these random tests in a week or two weeks. It has to be over a Exotic period. Yeah, so He got on that first, did everything he could have possibly done and proved that he's not taking anything. I didn't see, so I saw the announcement of Matt's thing. I never actually saw the results. Did he get you're a cleaner and stronger and well, the results, I think because it was

all messed up because he tore his Achilles like before the testing started playing football. So he's, I don't know what he's trying to prove that he could still maintain his lift or something. So I think he was able to bring it back, but he was getting tested throughout and there was no funky stuff happening. Okay, but it was interesting because he's making these videos and proving that he's natural and then there's still people who are like, not a believer. They're not happy. So why did you if that's the case? Why would you message Derek if Matt's gone through the most rigorous testing protocol available to man and that's still not sufficient for some people because I think there's literally nothing more he can do and If anybody he's gonna oversee any kind of testing I would want Derek to do it because I'd

Pick up the phone. I know. I'll ring him, I'll ring him once we're finished up. Let's take a name this morning. I've got the email and what's that? But I'm not gonna... Pest room. Because I imagine how busy it is now. To give him his due, that man is drowning in emails 24-7.

There was a period, so I'll ask him if I can put this into the podcast, I'm sure you won't have a problem with it, but we can cut it if it needs to be. After he released the Leverking video, which was this big crescendo, and then he does Rogan, then he does me, then he does Zach. What's the name? Then he does a comedy podcast, and then he maybe does one more.

And he was like, I have six months of unanswered emails to deal with, because all he'd been doing was grinding, creating content and then build up to this kind of big crescendo maximum thing and then all he's like what he released like three videos maybe since November, December time because he's super busy. This is one of the things that I don't know people don't really see the Pain that goes into creating content like that. Or even for you, it's so effortful to make a fucking vlog.

Yeah, the vlog's a lot. Dude, it is so painful. And it looks like a beautiful life. The number one desired job amongst American children is influencer now. And I would imagine that you know, you should probably get folded into that. There are some amazing parts of the job, but there are some bits that absolutely suck. If you're sat with your editor the night before it needs to be uploaded, looking at the edit, unhappy with something, giving him amendsonframe.io

or whatever it is that you're using. Yeah. It's not that much fun. And I think that what you're seeing with Derek is the fall off on your side. But this is the same with me. I used to have this really strict schedule where I would have to post a certain time on a certain day.

And I would literally be pulling my hair out just to make sure that everything was perfect, everything was filmed. And when I wasn't, you know, maybe two hours were left before the upload and it wasn't ready, I would be so stressed out. And then I just thought it's not even worth it. I was like, just remove the schedule.

I was like, it's posted as and what. It's posted when it's ready. Yeah, post it a day later, two days later. What do you think, this is an interesting thing, especially given that you've been in the YouTube scene for a very long time, since before, I think before Derek was on YouTube, although he has been on for a long time,

talking about non-fillers content, do you think that he has been one of the bigger, biggest influences in kind of shaping fitness YouTube over the last few years. What do you think has sort of improved in terms of education? Definitely. Because he's like a friggin' encyclopedia. He knows so much.

So he's definitely, he's definitely had a positive impact. I don't know anyone else who's, I think there's a few other people now who are pretty clued up when it comes to... Jeff Neppard maybe? Yes, he puts a hell of a lot of work into his videos. There's another guy, he puts, I've got his name, he puts all these like, bands on his muscles so it can pick up the twitching of the fibers and he does all these exercises. Oh, and Ryan, Ryan something. Oh, and is Ryan? Ryan's something.

Okay, and that will determine how much muscle activation. Yeah, muscle activation doing different exercises. I've never seen it before, and I've watched a few of his videos, and he's very charismatic, charismatic and staining. That's cool. Yeah, so what would you,

the trend when you started YouTube, you know, when I think I was lucky because I was early. Yes, I would agree. You know, that Rob Lipsert, like Harrison Twins, kind of era-ish, I think was a, you know, it was a golden era for like, bro content, vlogs, lifestyle, lifting. To me now, and I'm outside of that,

whatever like cohort of delivery on YouTube in any case, but for me, it really feels like the evidence-based, you know, sort of more scientific approach to education. I'm sure that there still are big lifestyle channels out there, but like I don't see your Jeff sides of the world, your David Lades of the world, like that style seems to have dropped away. And even your stuff seems to be leaning increasingly towards education, even outside of fitness. Is that a job? I feel like that is what YouTube is becoming.

It's becoming more of a platform for education. Like you said, there is always gonna be room for those vloggers and lifestyle people like Jesse James, he's smashing it at the moment. He's absolutely fucking destroyed. But there's only very few people who can do that. And maybe just, I feel like it's one of those things where people have seen everything. It's hard to reinvent something.

Yeah, so Zach, my housemate was at the Arnold Classic a couple of weeks ago. And Jesse James was there with an army of security guys. He didn't know what he was dressed up as. He was dressed up as something. He had a big suit on. He had a big beard on. Maybe he was being Chris Bumsteady and I don't know. He was like, he was being something.

And Zach said watching it from the outside is fucking insane. Like because it's just this reality distortion field moving through a crowd. He's one of the best, I've seen. He came to the buy. Yes, he did. You featured in a video, I remember. Yeah, yeah.

And I just watched him work and I was like, wow. Like, everything he's got, he thoroughly deserves. However, he's not gonna be able to keep that up. Why? Because he'll burn out. He's young, he thinks like 23, 24. So you know what he's like? Made him rubber and magic.

You've got that, and he's a good. Do you remember being 23 or 24? Yeah, it was fucking full of energy. Yeah. That's what I'm noticing now. I'm like, I'm gonna be 33 this year. And I'm noticing like, fuck, I'm tired. And the worst thing is, like, almost you said it, it's like,

this is the most energetic you are going to be. It's down here. It's down here. But I'm like, oh, yeah. Well, Jesse's a very interesting one, I think, because it's the skit style of video without the cringe and the cheese. The one, there was one that he did with Ronnie Coleman

and Jay Cutler, to me pushed the limit on the upper bound. I was like, if this goes much more, it's gonna be a little bit like, oh, but the one that he did where he pretended to be Chris Bumstead, for the people that don't know who we're talking about, Jesse James Fitness YouTuber, very charismatic guy, young dude from America, and he does...

He's got two and a half million subs now, and he hasn't been going that long. And he's absolutely flying. But that's the, you know, it's evident that he's got, I don't know whether he's falling. He is, well, first of all, he is big ball of energy.

Yep. Insane amount of energy, I think very extroverted. Yep. He has absolutely no fear, going up to people, which is very extroverted. Yep. He has absolutely no fear going up to people, which was very interesting to watch as well. And he's just, he's just the hard worker. Always working.

Like, if you tell, there's always a million things going on in his head. You'd be concerned about his ability to keep up that work right? Yeah. Because it, like, it just gets to a point, I think, with, unless you really, really, really love something, most of the time, you're kind of like, oh, yeah, this is getting a bit repetitive now.

It's not necessarily sustainable. It's his work right effortful. I've said it looks like a massive reality distortion field moving through an expo, but it's a lot of work. It's flying around constantly planning constantly just being in front of the camera like I can only imagine how many how much actually doesn't even get put into the video like you only see the best of the best you don't see like all the the outtakes well that's another reason why the vlog format is just so impractical right you know

you want to film a vlog about you, I remember you did some stuff about, you got a nice new car and you wanted to let people know about the car that you'd got. It took like two days. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we got a 16 minute fucking video. Yeah, we got to drive all the way to the desert, which is like an hour away.

Then we had to drive up and down this track with another car, filming. So we're probably filming that little 20 second edit for like an hour. And then I'm ready. That's a podcast. You would have had a podcast and then I remember driving somewhere else

just to do like a talking part, which I kept fucking up. And then I was just like, wow, it's just two or three days of work. And now I'm noticing it's like, it's not practical. I do like the vlogs and I still think it's a big part of my channel. But I think now I

only want to make a vlog if something really cool is happening. Either I'm meeting up with someone very interesting, or I'm going somewhere really cool. The travel vlogs are wicked because it's like documenting myself going on holiday. And then I'm also sharing the place with people. I did a, the reason I'm here in Dubai is because I just did a debate in Qatar. That's what I was. Is masculinity under attack and it's the first time that I've done anything remotely close to TV for quite a long time. You know, I got familiar with it with the dating stuff, take me out of Ireland and then other bits of produced documentaries. But especially after having spent so much time doing this, where if you forget, you forgot the guy's name that puts the thing around his arm.

If that happens on TV, that's a cut, right? Let's research it, shout it out, and then we'll run it again from the top. You just say, Mike, you can just run that again for us, please. It's like, where is it? That's weird. There's no flows. No, not at all. No, of course not, Because they've got 45 minutes,

they've got ad breaks to go in between all the rest of the stuff, are they trying to sell it to Netflix or they're trying to do whatever. And the thing that we did was incredibly well-produced, massive team, two hundred and 150 people on site to do this thing, unbelievable production. But even with that, you know, there's things that the host that was mediating the debate needs to do. things that the host that was mediating the debate needs to do and for me it just feels experientially so much more like stop-starting, you know, we the guy that I was debating me and him weren't supposed to speak to each other before like when we were back stage whereas even if you were sitting down to have a conversation with someone that you disagreed with, you'd welcome them at door, give them a glass of water, say, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, three, two, one, welcome them at the show. And you just crack on. That's why I don't like TV anymore. I seem so fake in stages. I seem real. It's so tight to say, like every, you know,

Rogan and all of those guys have been going on about it for ages. But look at what Jesse James does, right? His content is heavily staged, but it's done in a way that almost draws you in. Yeah. It's quite likable, it's quite enjoyable. And yeah, I'm just fascinated about what's happened with, especially like the vlogging world, I think the rise of podcasts is trickled down, you know, you being able to do Q&A's, you being able to do direct camera things. But if someone was starting up a channel now, we were talking about this earlier on. What advice would you say? Someone's listening and they go,

I fancy making a YouTube channel, I'm prepared to sell my soul to the devil. I have absolutely, I'll go as low as I need to, I'll play any role that I need to. How would you, from first principles, just say, this is how to get to a million subs as quickly as possible if you're prepared to sell your soul? Yeah, if you wanted to with the absolute minimal work required, you can just pick up other

people's content, viral content, and just react to it, and have some sort of animated reaction, which will provide people some form of entertainment, and you're just kind of piggybacking off other people's amazing work, which is kind of like quite questionable, but if you wanna grow very quickly, that's one way to do it. Another way, it depends how knowledgeable you are as a person. Like if you have a lot of knowledge to spread, and you're very good at communicating

and can present yourself well, all you have to do is just sit down and talk, make it a little bit entertaining, have an editor put some cool edits on it, and then you can just bang out videos non-stop. That makes it sound very easy. Yeah, I guess it's a little bit harder than that, but. What is in the way it's,

I'm trying to work out, given the fact that I think that you're not far off, I don't disagree. I'm just trying to work out where it is that people get stuck. They don't have a skill set. They don't have any value to offer, I think. Oh, so they don't have any expertise that they can actually talk on. Yeah, well, I mean, I was having a discussion with a friend about this today about Aubrey Marcus, CEO of on it, founder of on it, now sold it. It told me this thing a few years ago, he said that you don't serve people from your cup,

you serve them from the source that overflows around your cup, and he's saying it in classic, Austin psychedelic fashion, right? But what he actually means is, sort your shit first, right? You need to make sure that you are sufficiently capable to do the you thing before you then try and proselytize to the world about how they should be doing it or how you did it and they can do it, how you did it and stuff, which is why I think if you look at almost all of the podcasts that are doing very well, you know, you're talking like Rogan 50s, Cuban 40s, like Tim Dylan 30s, Chrisтоly at late 30s, 40s,

like all of these, you know, whether it's comedy, whether it's whatever, pick your big name podcast, Tim Ferris, 40s. Like these guys are older. Well, hang on, if you go to other social media, they're not the ones that crush on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, unless it's repurposing content from a different platform.

And I think that the reason for that is, and it's a very good change. We can like complain about, and I do, I'm like rail against TikTok and short form, and it's killing people's brains and blah, blah. But certainly one of the good things is that, people who have genuine expertise and who don't have been thrown into harsh light

by long form conversations. Yeah. That's a good thing. Sit someone down for an hour and a half and you go, oh, there's nothing there. There's absolutely nothing there. There's nowhere to hide in these conversations. Yeah. And I think the older you get, the wiser you are, and the more life experience you have, it's quite hard for you to sit there and listen to a 22-year-old tell you how you should live your life, particularly if you're like over 30.

Even though they might actually know how to live life better than you do, guys, a lot of guys are just W2 stuff and they'll be like, nah, I'd rather listen to someone who's the same age as me or a little bit older. And it's one of the reasons why I held off from this podcast for a bit. So I remember when we did ours, I was like,

nah, that was amazing. I think I want to do my own. And then I was like, man, that was amazing. I think I want to do my own. And then I was like, nah, not yet. I haven't got the expertise, which is crazy, right? For people to look at. I think I just needed, I needed two more years of living life, and I certainly did that. What your views on why men are feeling

sort of quite lost at the moment? Because me and you went to uni at basically the same time. I think we're one or two years age difference. We did the same course at Newcastle. We trained at the center for sporting excellence, right? The CSE together, which would have been your first major like consistent gym. I'm gonna be like,

Yeah, that's what I'm doing my roast split for first time. I'm right. So we would have been walking through Richardson Road, Horser Residence in, Where did you live? Where were you in first year? Castle Leases. You poshed Twatt.

No, this is the thing. I didn't know... I don't know why I picked it, but I picked it, and then I realized I was like the only northern of it. Correct, yes. The people that don't know. And you, Castle University, northeast of the UK. Should have been an original road.

Should have been in Ricky Road. I was in St Mary's in Fanon because I put it as my insurance in the Make-E-Pay. You were in with all of the posh boys. My point being, when we went to university, when we were the age of a lot of the guys are seeking advice online at the moment. That was nothing online. But I don't think that there was a sense of being lost,

despite the fact that there was less information out there. I don't think that, and that's not to say that mean you tumbled into some like perfect slick archetype of being, of finding our place within university or whatever. Both of us in like, like certain ways were a little bit disjointed and took time to find our feet. Yeah. I'd, what do you think's changed? Why is it that guys are, I think it's maybe the comparison aspect of it. Because I definitely didn't have a clue what I was doing. And I think it was only until I was 23,

yeah, 23 when I became a personal trainer, I was like, okay, so this is probably a step in the right direction, before that I was working as a manager in Hollister, the club promoter for a bit, doing all sorts, but I never felt lost. I was just like, okay, well well yeah, I'll just do this. But I had no one else to compare myself to.

Like I wasn't comparing myself to any other 22 or 23 year old out there. In fact, I thought I was doing pretty good. So I was like, hey, I've come out of university and I've got a job. Whereas now you got people who were like 16, 20, 21, 22 who were just making a killing. And I think because they're so out there on social media and they have gained quite a lot of following because

of the success they've had. I think a lot of guys, maybe that age or even a little bit older, they're like, hang on. I was this guy managed to make so much money and so successful. I am literally doing nothing with my life. Comparatively, even if you are on a graduate scheme at Hollister. I think that's one thing. And then maybe the value of a degree is massively gone downhill now. I don't think people are thinking, oh, should I go to university anymore? Is it worth it?

Like, do I need to go? Do I not need to go? Like, what should I spend my time learning? I think it can be quite confusing out there. All of my richest friends don't use their degrees. Yeah, I don't use my degree. You don't, George, the guy that I was at at his house before unbelievably successful marketing business. Did philosophy at uni, can't remember any of it.

Like, I think that all of that's very correct. There's a quote that says comparison is the thief of joy. And maybe that contributes to a big part of it, the fact that just your ability to see 0.001% success, absolute outliers, crushing at a younger age than you. So I went to the UFC's power slap event in Vegas last that a day, which was fucking wild. And I saw Aiden Ross, one of the biggest streamers in the world. I saw all of the Nelk boys, Kyle, Mike from Impulsive, Haspel, I was there, Dan Bilzerium was there, like just being, being, being like, take,

pick your, Steve will do it, like everybody, right? All of the biggest guys that would have been around that, that sort of community. And you look, I mean, Aiden Ross, I think he's maybe 20, 2021, he's one of the biggest streamers in the world. Like, I shall speed is something similar, maybe even younger, maybe he's 19. Kyle and all of the NELK boys are maybe getting toward

the mid-20s, mid-late-20s, but they've got businesses and franchises and clothing companies and all this stuff. I guess a lot of guys are just thinking, oh, well, maybe I need to take the influencer route. And that's why they're so confused. Yeah, perhaps. And what about, is there something else going on about men's roles? Do you think like young guys' roles in the world is something being lost there? I guess so. I mean, I'm not massively clear on what it was to begin with. What would

it used to be young men's roles? Well, this is the point. When me and you were at uni, I was also useless. I had no idea. I didn't know what I was supposed to do, but it didn't feel like a pressure to know what I was supposed to do. So, every generation looks back at the generation coming after them

and can't believe how quickly they're growing up. Yeah, I'm pretty glad I'm not a part of this younger generation. I feel like we had a pretty sweet. Why? Just felt like a simpler time. Growing up, first of all, without social media, I think maybe when I get onto Facebook, that was probably one out was at university, just before university,

but I was 17. We needed an email address when we went. So it was nice just to have my teenage years without all the social media. We just weren't on phones. We had nothing big yet. I'd like a, yeah, I had like a Sony Ericsson in Nokia. I feel like I spent a lot more time being present.

And then, the world's a bit mad now. like really mad with all the woke stuff and I don't know. Well, one of the problems that you have is everybody always presumes that giving more freedom to people will allow them to more accurately choose the precise thing that they want, right? If you, if there's one pair of jeans in the store and you go in, then maybe you want it a different pair

and you want to get that one. If there's a thousand pairs of jeans in the store, fantastic, you can optimize your choice precisely for the exact type of jeans, the cut, the color, the length, the stretch, whatever, right? Ways everything. The problem is that takes the outcome of success or failure out of the hands of your limited choices and more into your hands.

You see how this would be an issue, right? If you choose an ever so slightly suboptimal pair of jeans, that's your fault because there was an optimal pair of jeans for you to take. And I think that the same thing happens here that if the rules and guidelines that people previously would have followed have perhaps been removed a little bit, and if expectations have been raised, you should be doing more at this age, you're able to compare yourself, so on and so forth. That's a really perfect blend of internal uncertainty and external pressure that can cause someone to think, holy fuck, like I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life. I don't know. All of the things previously, the traits that I would have taken pride in, the, you know, the protector,

provider, competent, courageous brave, stands up well under pressure, doesn't give up easily, emotionally mature, all of those things that specifically men would have relied on. That's only one step away from toxic masculinity. All of those can very easily be protecting. Why is it that you think that women need to be protected? Should not be the case that women can be safe without the protection of men? What is it you're intending on doing with them? Oh, provide it. You think that women can't afford to look after themselves. You want women back in the kitchen, do you don't want them to have careers? Like, holy fuck, can women back in the kitchen, do you? You don't want them to have careers? You're like, holy fuck, can we not turn the volume of this conversation?

Yeah, because you must have had a lot of these conversations with the interviews you've done. The dating market at the moment is the worst it's ever been. It's a really good question. I certainly think that it's the most confusing, and the outcomes seem to have the highest rates of sexlessness that we've ever seen. So 30% of men ish, around about a third of men haven't had sex in the last year aged 18 to 30. This stat that just came out from Pew a couple of weeks ago, 50% of men say that they're pursuing a relationship short-term or long-term, which means that 50% of men aren't aged 18 to 30.

Now, both me and you and everybody that's listening that has a penis who's been through the ages of 18 to 30 knows what the male sex drive feels like at that age. Can you imagine what the world has to be like and what your experience of life has to be like for your sex drive to be chopped in half, essentially? Right? Driving mad. Yeah, but these guys are self identifying as saying, I'm not bothered about a short term or a long term relationship. For you to get yourself to the stage

where you've tamped down on that sex drive and there's talk of reducing levels of testosterone, thalates in the water, increasing levels of estrogen and everything that we eat last time outside, blah, blah, blah. People know that testosterone dropped 1% a year since 1980. So that may contribute to it too but in 2019 it was 61% of guys were short term and long term looking for the short term long term mating thing and that's dropped 11% in four years. Like rapid decline so I certainly do think that what are these guys doing and they're just focusing on their own

shit. That's a really good question. That's a really good question. I don't know. I think that a lot of guys are retreating from the real world. But if they were, if it was proper monk mode, where it's I'm working on my self-development, I'm building myself up, that would indicate that they're taking a break to then come back in, to integrate into both society and dating, but I think that a lot of these guys are just fully checked out, even at younger ages, under 20, like guys that are under 20 going men going their own way.

It's like dude, you haven't had chance to not go your own way. I'm trying to think, if I was 18 now, go your own way. I'm trying to think if I was 18 year old, if I was 18 now, it would be a lot harder compared to when I was 18. Harder to do what? I was just date. I think now, because of social media, it's obviously way more competitive. And I just think a lot of women who are, let's say I was 18, they're 18, they're probably not gonna be looking for an 18 year old to date. They'll be looking for older guys to date.

But I feel like that wasn't as much of a thing back then. Absolutely not. No, the amount of people that you had access to would have been limited. But coming out the back of this conversation I had yesterday, this debate in Doha, it was all about masculinity, masculinity being under attack. And I think that this is a concern for women as well, like a massive concern. So I found this really, really like interesting story about the Batman Dark Knight rises

movie premiere. So it's 2012 in Aurora, Colorado. And there was a shooting that happened there. The shooter was a lone man, I think he was 27 years old. So he enters the movie theatre and he starts unloading rounds, just kind of at will. And three men, 24, 26 and 27, threw themselves on top of their girlfriends to use their bodies as shields. All three men died. All three women survived. If that is the kind of masculinity that you want to get rid of in the modern world, if that's the one that is toxic and part of a oppressive patriarchal superstructure that's misogynistically keeping everybody down and you want to get rid of that, we don't live

on the same planet. There is no world in which that is the sort of benevolent force for good where somebody sacrifices themselves for someone that they love. You want to get rid of? Like how can you tell me that that's something that's a good way that we should get rid of that inbuilt desire to protect? And here's the thing you could say that it's chivalry or it's cultured or it's a slightly programmed. You're telling me that these guys, after bullets are flying, have thought to themselves, hmm, like what's the like proper thing to do in what would society

want me to do? And from first principles, they've created a world where they go, oh yes, I should throw myself on top. No, it's an instinct that's deeper and more inbuilt than that. And I'm just, I'm really genuinely becoming concerned about this retreat from society that men are suffering with. And I couldn't agree more man, like I'm, do you think men have the fighting back a bit now? to Andrew Tate there's more people Bring out more masculine content standing up for masculinity Yeah, so I think The best maybe not the mainstream media, but I feel like on social media there's more of it

I would agree I certainly think that Tate's got an exaggerated view of masculinity. And I think that Shapiro hits the nail on the head, which is that Tate is almost always right about the diagnosis, but significantly less right about the prescription to fix it. That he is able to point out the problems, but his solutions much of the time aren't going to be quite as effective. I think the delivery need work as well. Yeah, so there's a concept I've come up with called the soft signal of effectiveness. And what this means is that if you are having a discussion with somebody that disagrees with you or that maybe just hasn't made their mind up, you have to realize if you make them feel silly or foolish or ridiculous, that they're going to dig their heels into their position.

Nobody has ever been patronized or ridiculed into changing their mind, because it just creates this defense to happen. And this is why I'm nowhere near Red Pill enough for most of the manosphere, but I'm significantly far too Red Pill for almost all of the people that are on the more woky side of things. But I genuinely believe that that's the most effective way to change minds. If you make people feel silly, they're going to dig their heels in, and I think that

that's one of the challenges that Andrew comes up against. Now, it gathers a lot of views, which is great, and it is good for getting a message out there. But in terms of changing behavior effectively, I'm not too sure. Obviously, you had, how many plays is that video? I think they're like six million views. Is that your most played video? No, I'll be like this, I think it's like the third most played. Right. But it's like climbing up to the top.

Yeah, and you did that kind of a little bit before his experience. Yeah, yeah. So talk me through, you know, we've been talking so far about the challenges that men face in the modern world, problems of masculinity. You've spent a good bit of time with Tate. What were your thoughts after having spent time with him? How do you think he's contributing to the conversation of masculinity, where's he failing and falling short? I think the problem was all the short form content that was getting put out there. Obviously, it was just like the most extreme out of context clips mostly from some of his old videos. So when he started off

he's been doing content for a long time. His old videos just wild, like he's just saying some magic, but he can do because nobody is even watching, right? So when not many people are watching your videos, you can get away with saying a lot more. As he became drastically popular, obviously people were going back to their old videos and were like, what the hell? They were using that content and it was just going crazy. I, when I first came across him,

he actually DM me, this was in 2021. And I went on his Instagram and I went to a few pictures and I just thought, who was this guy? It seemed like he was trying to show off a little bit too much. And I thought it was all just a front, how a lot of people out here just fake. They just try and take the cars.

Riding cars, trying to show, hey, I've got money. That's what I thought when I saw him, I was like, this guy's his giant shit. But then, I did a little bit of research and I listened to some of the podcasts. I think the first one he went on that I listened to was Fresh and Fit. And then that was the first time I'd actually listened to someone I was like, whoa, this guy, this guy is speaking in a way that I've never heard anyone speak before. And he's saying things which I haven't really heard anyone say before. So I was intrigued and I wanted to listen to more.

And I was like, actually, do you know what? I want to meet this guy. So we came to Dubai, we linked up, we did the videos, we just asked for it. Do you come up, especially to see you? I think he's always doing business wherever he goes. But I guess maybe that was part of the plan at that point you just wanted to. Because he must have seen me probably thought, oh yeah, Mike seems like a cool guy, but he saw the audience.

I'm wrong, he was. And then he probably thinks, you know what? Like he was obviously on a mission to get more followers so he can push wherever he needs to push. So he probably would have seen me, okay, yeah, I'll do a video on Mike and then I can help me out with my branding and exposure. Obviously that works very well.

But um, yeah, I met him in real life and he's actually an even better guy, or know a lot of people don't like him, but in real life, he's like a nice guy, polite, he's actually funny. And um, I think that's a side which a lot of people don't see because they, he definitely just put on some kind of a character, especially in the videos which he makes of people don't see because they he definitely just put on some kind of a character Especially in the videos which he makes himself and he says things and I'm just like why do you say that? It's like 70% of the stuff he says he's like yeah, like I strongly agree with that and then he will go and say something absolutely ridiculous And it's just like why did you need to say that? Because that's the 30% that people are going to focus on.

Yeah. Yeah, I think, again, this didn't quite come up, you know, a state came up with Jordan Peterson as the example, but I said something to the effect of, if you're not happy with the role models that are currently being held up for men, offer up other ones. And I asked the guy that was across from me, the debater, who

do you think is a good role model for men? And he struggled a little bit. He struggled a lot, actually. It's hard to find someone who's the full package, I think. Correct. But I was able to say, well, look, like it's not perfect, but I would say that the kind of man that Peterson would tell you to be, your Andrew Schubeman's of the world, your Tim Ferriss's of the world, your Joe Rogans of the world, your Jocker Willinks. Like, these are people that seem to have codes of honor

and ethics, they do hard things, their courageous and brave, like, you know. They don't get to drama. They don't get into drama. I should have just said my first. But, it's weird that more people don't want it, more men don't want to drama. I should have just said my first. But I it's weird that more people don't want more men don't want to be like those guys. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Maybe they do. Maybe they do. It's just that they're not selling that kind of sexy out their lifestyle

because it doesn't necessarily resonate like it's hard. it's hard, difficult, nuanced, suffering things. I mean, how mosey man, I was spent, I spent Saturday with him last week in Vegas, podcasted, trained, and went to the power slap launch thing with him. And the guys, an unbelievably slick operator, he's one of the most impressive people that have really been getting into his contemporary. He's a terrifyingly competent human. Right. But I don't even know if he owns a car.

I mean, does he owns a car? But it's like a nice Tesla, right? Guy saw his business for 100 mil. He's now doing acquisition deals for fucking lots and lots of money. So this kind of maybe explains a little bit of the tape phenomenon, which was that his delivery was so compelling, because say what you want about what he says, the way that he says it is incredibly interesting. And

it's very, very, very compelling, very precise speaker, good with his words, you know, to go ahead to head with P. Asmorgan. P. AsmS. Morgan is as hard and osters you're going to get, very, very good in a cantankerous debate. And he charmed P.S. Morgan twice with E.T. Matt Chess, right? He's a very competent guy. He gets like, I'll be honest, this was last summer I was listening to a lot of his podcast and he'd get me fired up to work. The stuff he says about women, I usually just ignore. But when he talks about just doing the job, regardless of how you feel, just get the job done, wake up early, go to the gym.

And the fact that there's just so many other people out there that are your potential competitors. If you don't get out there and put the work in, then they're gonna overtake you. But remember that that is David Goggins and Jocka Willink's message to a T with different delivery and with a different package that it's being folded into. So yeah, I think, and this was the point that I made, if you leave a vacuum for role models, and I think the same is coming for women, you know, for the girls that have been left out of this conversation

so far, I think that there is a burbling below the surface, I think that there is a concern, a big concern for role models for girls as well. Yeah, this is a problem because I'm actually trying to find some really good female role models for the podcast. And it's quite hard to do that out here. Yeah, I wonder, because we were talking about this before. I don't know, because there is a lot of successful, smart women, but they don't want to raise their voice.

They don't want to be on the camera. I don't think that is. I don't know. This is what I'm trying to figure out. You've reached out to them and suggested I've reached out to a few. I have friends. Got a big following, very smart, very intelligent, and they're just like, they're avoiding it. And I'm like, I'm literally giving you an opportunity to be the voice of women, and to be a role model to all the women out there that they need.

Why why are you not doing it? That's very interesting. So let me put my evolutionary psychologist hat on for a second. I would say first of all, maybe it's the, they're probably a lot more bothered about how they look on camera. So they would probably want everything to be perfect. And women have bad days and they'd be like,

oh, my hair's messed up today. So maybe I'm not going to film. Or like, oh, I don't like the angle, the camera is facing on my face. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, it takes a very particular type of woman to decide to put herself out there as a spokesperson. So this evolutionary psychology bias that it seems that women have, spokesperson. So this evolutionary psychology bias that it seems that women have, they, they try and flatten hierarchies. So a bunch of studies show that if females, especially girls in school, know that their grades are going to be made public, they're going to downplay what they got. So if guys get an A, if mean you were in union, we walked out of some accounting exam in the CSE,

or like Henderson Hall or wherever our exam was, we would walk outside or let's say that we got, it was a multiple choice when we got the results there and then and I got an A and you got a B and stick it in your face. But the evidence suggests that girls will very much try and downplay that. Another body count as well.

I don't think those two things are actually linked, but yeah, perhaps. But the reason that it seems to be the case with that is that jealousy is a massive risk to women. They're very competitive with each other, but they're competitive in a much more subtle and nuanced way. They don't get, they're not competitive outwardly. Right. Yeah. They're competitive in a much more complex and you could maybe say more devious. There's certainly much more complex social events. Yeah, yeah. It makes sense. I feel like what I've noticed recently

is, especially out here, at least with the guys, I feel like all the guys are out here supporting each other and helping each other level up with the women are like, they're out to, they want to be the best. And they're not helping each other. Dude, it's really, this is the thing and guys can say, women have got it easy, they're outperforming us in education and employment and blah, blah, blah. Women are having a really fucking rough time of it. Like no one is flourishing at the moment. There's maybe some guys at the top and some girls at the absolute top that are having a really fucking rough time of it. Like no one is flourishing at the moment.

There's maybe some guys at the top and some girls at the absolute top that are having a great time of it on average at the moment. That's not to say that individuals can't have like an enjoyable life. But like, it's really tough for girls at the moment. Okay, so there is this ever dwindling pool of guys that are eligible for you.

You have more opportunities than ever before. Society says that you shouldn't become a mother. You maybe want to have a career but also like to have the idea to have a family. But if you have more opportunities than ever before. Society says that you shouldn't become a mother. You maybe want to have a career, but also like the idea to have a family. But if you have a family, you treat it like a second-class citizen that's been conned by the patriarchy and it becoming a domestic prostitute. It's really not, it's really, really complex for them to, if I was a woman, I really wouldn't know what to do. No. No, me neither. And given the fact that we spent the first half of this conversation talking about how difficult it is for men, and I think that it's maybe at least equal in terms of how lost the roles are for women going forward. The one difference, and I think

that this is quite a big difference, and quite an important one, is that men are still having the finger pointed at them and being told that they're the architects of their own misery, and also the architects of everybody else's as well. Like, if there's ever a problem with any group usually, we would say, okay, what's going on? How can we try and change the world or society so that we can help this group flourish? There's not enough women going to university in 1970, so we introduced Title 9 for affirmative action in it encourages women to go. Now, the gender split between men and women is 15%, instead of 13%, when it was in 1970, but in the other direction. So there are fewer men going to university than there were fewer women going to university when that title was introduced.

And now it's like, why are men falling behind? Can't they pull themselves up by their bootstraps? So that is one of the differences and one of the support structures that women do have that I think is lacking more self-amant, which is the sympathy that the wider world would typically give them. And it's because men, specifically white men, have had it good for so long that maybe it's their turn to be on the receiving end of some disadvantages for a while,

which is not how the world is supposed to work. It's not supposed to be that you're overdrawn on your suffering balance, and now it's your turn to take some of this. I don't think that's the way that it's supposed to work. But yeah, I really think that we're going to see over the next few years like a challenge for women, for their role models. What am I supposed to do with my life? How can I find like pride and fulfillment that doesn't completely

destroy like my innate biological urges as well? What's your experience being trying to find female guests for your show? Easier for me, because my interest in psychology, an area which is dominated by women has meant that at least 50% of the episodes that I do are with women. But this is an interesting lesson to learn. There was a period a while ago

where I was big into the productivity space I was doing a lot of stuff around health and fitness It's a both arenas that are dominated by men and I would get criticized for the fact that I was bringing too many men on like Why why are there enough men? Why are there enough women? But then since women come on people just find something else to criticize. It's like why is everybody from why is everybody right leaning or why is everybody from, why is everybody right leaning, or why is everybody British, or why is everybody white? Like you're never going to be able to make your guest list sufficiently pure or sufficiently representative

to mediate all of people's problems. And the way that you said before we started, I was like, why are you bringing your guests on? And you said, anybody that I'm interested in, that's the only way that you can go. That's the only way that you can go. You can't fake the interest. No, correct.

Something else that's changed with you recently, which have been very, very enjoying watching happen. I'm wearing more clothes on my Instagram pictures. That's been nice, at for me personally, as well. Yes, don't lie. But your relationship with alcohol. Oh, yeah. Talk to me about your relationship with alcohol. Oh yeah. Talk to me about your relationship with alcohol and how it's changed.

Yeah, so I pretty much barely drink anymore. I used to be, I guess that's because of the whole British culture. I used to drink numerous times per week, particularly when I was growing up at university, then even throughout my 20s. I was very much into my fitness, but at the same time, there was always at least one extremely heavy blow out at the weekend. And then it just carried on. Like even, I think when I was, when I was the, just before no 29, at the first experiment where I went sober for six months, and that taught me a lot because I was put in situations

where I would normally drink. And because I was doing this challenge, I wasn't allowed to drink. And I think that was the first time that I was in situations where usually I would be drunk and like in a relaxed state, whatever it might be. But this time, I was sober. I was doing something which I would never do.

And I actually realized it wasn't that hard to do and actually quite liked it. And I think life is just short and I can't afford to have days wasting away, feeling sorry for myself being aggressively hung over, being aggressively hung over, which at the age I'm at now, the hour was a pretty aggressive, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what I'll do now is I will still drink, but it usually tends to be when I have done, achieved something, or I've got the job done, and I can celebrate. It's like, okay, you've achieved this. Let's go out, let's celebrate. I have a drink, if you want to have a drink, once

that's over, then it's back to the grind again. What else have you learned from your time going sober? Obviously, the reason for doing it is that you don't want to waste your days so much, but what else have you learned? That actually really enjoy my reality being sober. I actually don't really like the feeling of being drunk anymore. I think now I'm at a point where I feel like I'm very much in control. I like that, I really like the person who I am now

when I'm sober. I'm extremely more, a lot more confident now. I can have conversations with anyone. I can charm people. I can, you know, have a laugh. I can have a dance. I can do whatever I need extremely more, a lot more confident now. I can have conversations with anyone, I can charm people, I can, you know, have a laugh, I can have a dance, I can do whatever I need to do, but I can do it sober. And there's actually no real need for me to drink

and when I do drink, I realize actually, I start to get a little bit sloppy with my words, I say things which I wouldn't normally say might potentially regret. And then there's parts of the night, all conversation, which I would remember, and then I wake up feeling like absolute trash. I spent a lot of money as well out here on alcohol, which is usually just not wise. So it's, when I compare the positives

to the negatives, there's actually very few positives. Yeah. So this, I mean, you know, this was something. I don't know. I'm thinking now, like, so why did I drink this? That's the question I had on the tip of my tongue. Like, if you've laid out this balance sheet of positives and negatives, why did either of us, and this is both of our upbringings, right?

You know, our formative years in Newcastle, and then both of us stuck about once we finished our degrees. Going out, drinking trebs, you know, you get absolutely annihilated for like 10 pounds. Correct. So again, for the people that don't know, when we were at uni, you could have got three treble vodka mixes for a fiver, and you would usually get a free yagobon with each of them. So that's nine shots of vodka plus three shots of yagob for a fiver, you would usually get a freeyager bond with each of them. So that's nine shots of vodka plus three shots of yaga for a fiver and the way that it would work is you couldn't carry all of them back. You would have to pour all of the yagas in together, drink that, drink one of the trebs and then carry two back.

So what I'm thinking is, why is it that we ever saw it as something that not only we would do, we would willingly do, we would repeatedly do two nights a week throughout all of uni. Why? I think... I think it back when I was at university, I actually don't now let her recall. I don't know anybody that didn't drink. I feel like every single person drank. Yep. And if there was anyone that didn't drink, they were just, you wouldn't hang out with them. But they weren't a part of the social group. Yeah, they weren't a part of the social circle. I definitely remember drinking a lot just feel more comfortable to reduce the anxiety.

Me too. Yeah, because especially when you're having club, the music's really loud, there's lights everywhere, there's people everywhere talking, it's really overwhelming. So the alcohol would numb that and then you would feel more comfortable. Just to interject there, think about the modern world, this 2023 version of the world. Someone would say that if that was a challenge that you were coming up against, that's because you're like a blue pill, beta, simp guy who hasn't worked on his masculine essence and stuff. And I think that just to bring it back to what we spoke about earlier on about like why young guys struggling specifically now, this expectation again that you should have your shit together.

You go, really? Did I didn't? Yeah. I didn't. I absolutely drank so I had confidence to speak to girls. I remember I used to have this, I had this like pink polo shirt and pair of jeans and one night I pulled because, and I was adamant that it was because of this particular outfit.

And I'm like, oh, that's like, that's the one. And I was so drunk that I could barely remember what had happened during the night. And you think, what, like, how, that's compensating for the fact that it's just a really highly stimulating, pretty anxiety-inducing environment. I think it would probably make more sense just to not go out, but that was like the biggest part of university was going up, particularly in Newcastle. That was like the reason why I chose Newcastle. I chose Newcastle. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I guess at that age, you really don't have much responsibility. Like I think back to university, I mean, I just, obviously he needs to get the bare minimum done,

you had to do a bit of studying, you didn't have a job, you just live off the student loan. Just having a laugh with your mates. So if you did wake up, hung over then. So I wasn't, didn't really spend the day watching the rugby world cup or whatever was going on on the six nations or some other thing on movies in the in the common room and then get back to it. Yeah, I am, it's like, again, I get that.

But I think the number of people that drink the number of young people that are choosing to go low and know alcohol lifestyles, massively increasing. Yeah. I'd love to say that this is downstream from a trend that I kicked off, but I think it's bigger than that. And I do, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like's now. It's like, okay, yeah, frown of. Maybe that I think there's a lot more informative content out there, which is showing just how bad alcohol is, like humans than the his video about alcohol. Yeah, listen to that. And you're like, I want to drink again. Yeah, it's terrible. It's really, really, I think more people are waking up to the negative side effects of drinking alcohol.

But it's still, there's still a lot of people drinking. I still have a lot of friends who are drinking. Yeah, but I just don't give a shit if I'm going to offend their feelings. I wonder whether part of it comes to choosing, first off choosing the kind of events that you go to, and then secondly, that growing in confidence, because you're right, if you're in a banging, loud student nightclub with 1500 sweaty freshers, and the killers missed a bright side playing at ear bleeding levels, which is like a big spilt on your face. Correct. That's not the place for you to, what advantage do you have in being able to have a better conversation?

Now, you almost need to drink to be able to cope with the environment that you're in, to be able to make it good. And this is the thing that I've been saying for like seven years, like if you need to drink in order to be able to enjoy your night out, you're choosing the wrong nights out. Like what you're saying is that the experience that you're going on is so bad that you have to anesthetize yourself, you have to numb yourself to the experience. You're what, there's like saying, I'm gonna go and do this, I'm gonna go stick needles through the skin on the back of my hand, but I'll take some painkillers,

it doesn't hurt so much. Hang in a second. As you grow up, you start to do different sorts of events. You'll go for dinner more, you'll go to quieter venues, you'll go to somewhere where there's live music, where you can have a conversation. And that sort of enjoyment is facilitated more by being sober. So I wonder whether it's a byproduct of the kind of events that young people typically attend.

I wonder whether Darren, my business partner, who's still doing all the voodoo in the UK, I wonder whether he needs to, I know, do, coffein cocktail hour at five o'clock in the afternoon. What? I don't know. I think that's, as well, when you're in an environment where everybody else is drunk, like that is, that's full on. When you're sober and you're just looking at people, yeah.

It's heavy. Like I feel like if I'm in an environment where everybody's drunk, I almost need to be drunk just to deal with it. Tollinate it, correct. Yeah. Looking forward now, you're doing business stuff, you've got clothing, you've got app,

you're still growing your platforms. As a guy that from the outside looks like he's accomplished a lot of things and is living an enjoyable life in a desirable city. I actually have no money. Yeah, I've skint, I've spend it all on this apartment. I spend it all on this very expensive apartment. What are you accumulating skills at the moment? Are you developing yourself? Are there certain things that you've set yourself with regards to goals?

I think the podcasting has massively improved my ability to have a conversation. Even only 13 episodes in a row. I feel like I'm learning a hell of a lot, which is good. But I'm doing the podcast more just to help with growing the brand and particularly the networking. Because being in Dubai, there's always so many people coming in and out. And whenever I do meet up with someone who is quite interesting and having a really amazing conversation, I'm like, should have recorded that. Yeah, like this needs to be out there. And it's not the right type.

Like you can't do, it wouldn't work in a vlog because a vlog you chop things up and it's like, you would only take five minutes of it. So that was one reason. And another one is, it gives you, it opens doors for meeting very interesting people or people who I respect and want to meet. Thank you.

Because I, you know, somebody who say, for example, who's being very successful or they're killing it, making loads of money, I maybe don't really have much to offer them. Maybe I could help them get in shape, but that's not a quick fix. And it's not something I particularly want to do. I don't want to be a personal trainer for celebrities. But when you have an audience and you have a platform, all of a sudden you become potentially a good asset to them because if they're releasing a book or they want to spread a message or they

want to increase their own following, then coming onto the podcast is going to be exactly what they want. So that's, it's like a strategic thing, but I'm also learning a lot at the same time. Is there anything else that you're thinking at the moment is an area of your life that needs optimizing? Yeah. Monetizing the following because yeah, so I think I've been good at building a brand and growing a following, but I'm actually quite shit at selling things. You and me both.

And Mark can see. So, and it's weird, because I guess I never really learned much about it. Like even though I went to school, went to university, you don't get taught how to sell at school, how to market. University, I did economics and business management, but still it was like so heavy on the theory, the maths, the equations. I was like, I thought I was going to learn how to run a business here, but I'm not learning any of that. So those skills

are never really developed. And obviously I got straight into personal training. So, I mastered the art of building muscle losing body fat, how to communicate with people, or presentation skills, but no marketing or... It's not commercializing stuff. This is something that I like lament about this all the time, just how much is getting left on the table.

We both have friends who will have significantly easier weeks with less work, with smaller followings, with less impact, adding less value, making so much more money. And it's not even necessarily about the money. I don't think that either of us are needing more materialism in our lives. But there's just a sense of, well, I'm leaving a lot on the table here. And yeah, that's, because I'm not motivated by money. Obviously, you need it, but once you reach a certain amount,

you don't really need more. Unless you want to. Would you do it, get a slightly nicer apart? It would be another 10 floors up or something. Unless you want to start investing and buying property or you want to build another business then, okay, yeah. But that's the one thing about Dubai is I've, particularly in the past year, I remember, I think it was like,

maybe I got back from traveling that summer. And my goal was, look, I just want to build my network, I just want to meet people. I want to meet, I want to surround myself with successful people who are doing very well. And I've met a lot of interesting people. In fact, the majority of people who are hanging out with now have nothing to do with fitness.

They're just extremely successful in their own field. And it's crazy to, like you said, they might have 10,000 followers, 20,000 followers on Instagram. And they're making so much money. I'm like, whoa. Like how are you doing that? And they tell me like, oh yeah, the sales funnel.

I'm like, never learned that. The hell's the sales funnel? Didn't learn that. Yeah, I, I mean, this is, this is something that will be very interesting to see how the next couple of years develops because I'm very conscious of not like selling out. Yeah, I've been the same. I don't, anyone who watches my content,

I very rarely push things on to my followers. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that in the long term, that's the right way to go about things, right? Because your reputation is something that you can't buy back If you do sell your integrity, there is no refund policy on that and Whatever it is it takes a lifetime to build trust and

I mean he's a really good example or a very interesting one because it seems like him and his brother can just steamroll through issues. You know, the coffee zilla thing was really damning. It was the two part or three part series that kind of broke down all of this stuff that Logan was doing with his NFTs and then coffee goes on Rogan and Rogan asks him what's the biggest thing and then they pull that and they put that on a clip on Rogan's 20 million person YouTube channel, which gives it another lease of life. And meanwhile, Logan Paul is doing WWE, making money on prime, and he's got all of these businesses. I don't know what it is, and I would love for someone to explain it to me. Those guys, both Logan and Jake, have an uncanny ability to just keep moving through

obstacles. Bad things happen and it just doesn't phase them. I remember after this Tommy Fury Jake Paul fight, there was a video that he uploaded, it might even be in the first story of the next day on his Instagram and it was him going looking at the camera and being happy and then looking down and putting his head in his hands as if he was sad And the caption below was when you lost the fight but made 30 mil You can't fucking knock it. You can't knock that So there's something happening with them and I really want to try and deconstruct What's going on? Yeah, well, I think the fighting thing was very good because you can't. You've always got to respect someone who's going to step into the ring.

Like you even have not done that. But why is Logan able to continue plowing through. These challenges and accusations of of NFT, fuckery and stuff. Yes, we're. accusations of NFT, fuckery and stuff. Yeah, it's weird. Because it's almost like maybe because he's been through it before and he knows, yeah, you're going to be the most hated man on the planet for a couple of days or weeks and then people forget about it and then it's just back to business as usual. So he's personally capable of dealing with it.

But even that, like, you know, someone could be personally capable and the reputation could be damaged. That should be independent of what happens to the reputation. Do you think, let's say, for example, everything that's happened with liverking, do you think his reputation is that because I went on his Instagram the other day, and he still get loads of likes and comments and views. And I'm like, well, five people still watching it. I don't know. Like how is this, how is this still a thing? He was there just with a big play of testicles and I just thought, wow, nothing's changed. Still doing his thing?

What do you think about Liverpool King? Very interesting guy. I don't know. I think it was, he did so many interviews where he was literally asked whether or not he's natural and he just says like so almost convincing. He's like, no, I've not taken anything. I don't feel like that was necessary. I feel like if you just said, yeah, I'm a little bit of this, I'm a little bit of that. People would have been like, oh, yeah, okay. Because most people, a lot of people in industry at the moment are taken stuff anyway.

And to mind his ancestral message, that's right, heavily. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, because he was pushing the natural thing. Yeah. Apart from those steroids. But I think the fact that he was doing that and he'd already sent that email to Derek,

like he's playing with fire. Like that's... So the liver king thing is kind of fascinating to look at now as opposed to Morton. And maybe it is similar to Logan Paul. I've got this idea that I've been playing with for a little while to do with how seduced by success the world is. And do you remember Billy McFarlane, the guy that did Fire Festival? Oh yeah, yeah. So again, for the people that don't know,

this festival, Fire Festival was supposed to be, it was run on Pablo Escobar's Island and Kendall Jenner was part of the promotion campaign for it. And it was gonna be this elite, super high class music festival in Blink 1-8-2, we're going to play and it's amazing, headliners. And the whole thing turned out to be a car crash. Basically, people nearly died. There was no water.

There was no nothing. But had Billy McFarlane managed to pull off even a remotely acceptable event, he would have been hailed as a marketing genius, opposed to a charlatan con man and the only difference between How people perceived him was the success of the event that didn't change the ethics of how he got there in terms of his marketing practices How he'd raised money which was done like incredibly unethically lying to people about where the money was going and flying back and forth To and from New York and all of this sort of stuff and What that made me realize is for as long as you're successful, people will put up with pretty much anything because they are so concerned about being in the trickle-down

cast off of your success. They want to bask in the reflective glow of whatever it is that you do so much that they are prepared to forgive pretty much any indiscretion. And this is what will be interesting to see what happens with Tate when he inevitably comes back into the public limelight perhaps from a witness box, perhaps from behind bars or perhaps if he gets released back out into the real world. Because is it going to be the case that he is continuing to grow and have this platform that has to be, it's almost like a balance, like a seesaw, right? On one side, you have the amount of success that people want to be associated with, and on the other side, you have the laundry list of bad things that are happening, log and pull, like suicide forest NFT thing, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da,

liver king, like the steroids and this, and maybe there's another scandal that comes with whatever. And it feels to me like it's a balancing act between the two, Billy McFarlane, you know, Billy McFarlane sees or tip too far in the other direction, right? He didn't have enough success to hold up the amount of unethical business practices that he was going through. And that thing that I learned, watching five festival, like if you're successful, people will forgive an awful lot of indiscretions. I think that's probably quite true. Yeah. What's happening next? What are you working on next? What's happening next? What are you working on next? Do a mastermind next weekend.

So I'm a person. Yes, we've got 12 people coming to spend the weekend with me. What is learning? Coaching? Online coaching business. So it's a combination of they want to see to buy. They want to get trained by me. They want to learn about how to build a brand, how to build social media. They also want to

meet the people I know, so I'll introduce them to my network. So I've got a whole host of events and activities planned over the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I think the highlight will be, I've got a big yacht which I rented out on this Saturday afternoon. So I'm on the wrong weekend. Yeah, so I'm going to invite literally everybody who I know who was worth knowing and just put everybody together on a nice yacht So it'll be an opportunity for everyone to just chat That's really cool. There's a number of like builder events in Austin people that are building shit Creators founders start up CEOs writers podcasts as YouTube etc Devon Levesque is doing something cool. He's got a ranch out in Texas. He just followed me. He followed me this week. He seems like a cool guy.

Yeah, he's on it. I think he's so he's converted a barn and it's like a HQ for him throwing these events, you've got ice baths everywhere. It's cool. he's like a building community. I think that's maybe one thing that I've been lacking. I could definitely do with improving the community which I have. It could definitely be strengthened. That's, you're not the first person to tell me that in Dubai. I think it's a place that because of the way, not there's a number of reasons. One of them geographically doesn't really lend itself to that, it is not, let's just go to a local coffee garden and meet up with 20 of our friends and we can just chat

and anybody can invite anybody. There's very common in Austin. Once a week, once every two weeks, there must be one of these events, one of them is called based in Austin. Dude, 150 people would turn up and just because and people would bring cases of water, people would bring cases of sparkling water and like one guy would go and get tacos and then you just talk and then someone would say, I'm actually going to go and give a talk over there about what I've learned to do with decentralized, whatever, or my new sub-stack strategy, or whatever.

People are going to listen to some dude, just go and talk. So that, there needs to be more of that because I think a lot of, a lot of guys who I've spoken to, they have a hard time networking and meeting people, maybe guys that are older than them, or like many people who are just, all they want to do is just grow, they want to succeed, they want to build. And it can be very hard, particularly if you come to it, like, I would imagine there's a hell of a lot of people that come to Dubai, but they don't know anyone. And then by like Mike, well, how do you get yourself to these events? Luckily for me, because obviously I've been here for a while, I have a network and

I've established myself here, so I get invited to a lot of these things. But if you're nobody, that can be quite difficult. So if there is more of these events where pretty much anybody can attend to, like it's in my opinion, it's life-changing because you may meet some friends, which you'll have the rest of your life. We might have some conversations that will literally cause you to go on a completely different path. You know, I just from having a dinner with a group of friends, some people who I didn't know, some who I did, they introduced me to one guy. He was one actually gave me the idea of doing a mastermind. And I was like, I actually never really thought about doing that.

But then it made sense because there's so many people every day that messaged me saying, hey Mike I'm in Dubai, can I meet you or can I train with you, can I do this, can I do that. So now this is obviously going to be a tester, it's a small scale thing, so only 12 people. But if this goes well and I enjoy it, then maybe I can do it again in the future on a larger scale. Well, this speaks to again one of the challenges both young guys and young girls and older people. Is what perhaps it even gets worse as you get older that making friends, having a community, you know, having a support group, I feel very, very fortunate that Austin is just...

It's like overpowered when it comes to community and socializing. It's insane. I've never, ever ever been anywhere that is so hyper social. And it's dinners. It's dinners and everything's finished by 8.30 pm because everyone's got to get up in the morning to go and do stuff, right? Or they've got to get back to luck after the dog. So it's not he didn't stay but they never get out of control. I'm pretty sure. And that has been so for me, really nourishing, fulfilling, and it's filled a massive hole that I thought I needed. And yeah, because because all my,

am I really close friends? Like a little party boys. Yeah. And I can't, I've been obviously, I'll link up with a movie now and then and, you know. Unsustainable regular friendships. Unsustainable. You can kill me. Yeah. Mike, I appreciate the fuck out of you, man.

It's very, very cool to have watched what you've done over the last whatever, 15, 16 years since we've been made. And I'm looking forward to seeing how the podcast continues to grow. For people that are listening, they want to check out the stuff that you do, where should they go? So, just search for Mike Thirsten on any platform.

My website, Thirst Official, you pick up a pair of sexy shorts if you want to, and then podcast channel is first things to do. Yeah, I'm fed.