Modern Wisdom - #752 - 1.75m Q&A - Growing Pains, Social Anxiety & Dating Problems
Episode Date: March 2, 2024I hit 1.75 million Subscribers on YouTube!! To celebrate, I asked for questions from YouTube, Twitter, Locals and Instagram, so here’s another 90 minutes of me trying to answer as many as possible. ...As always there’s some great questions in here about my thoughts on James Smith's recent video about modern podcasting, why women are so afraid of men now and how to deal with social anxiety. Expect to learn whether I think Coffeezilla is right that people should only speak on their expertise, my ultimate goal with the podcast, how to balance high standards with gratitude, the plans for Neutonic, what my pickleball rating is, whether I'll start changing the show's content when I have a family and much more... Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get the Whoop 4.0 for free and get your first month for free at https://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get $150 discount on Plunge’s amazing sauna or cold plunge at https://plunge.com (use code MW150) Get a 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 5.0 at https://manscaped.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: http://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: http://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: http://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - 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
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Hello friends, welcome back to the show.
My guest today is me.
I hit 1.75 million subscribers on YouTube and to celebrate, as is tradition I ask for
questions from YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, so here is another 90 minutes of me trying
to answer as many as possible.
As always, there's some great questions in here about my thoughts on James Smith's
recent video about modern podcasting, why women are so afraid of men now and how to deal
with social anxiety. Expect to learn whether I think coffee-zilla is right, that people should
only speak on their expertise, my ultimate goal with the podcast, how to balance high standards
with gratitude, the plans for Newtonic, what my pickleball rating is, whether I'll start changing
the show's content when I have a family, and much more.. Little bit of a different vibe today.
You may notice in my sentiment and sort of the way
that I was feeling that day that, I don't know,
just not that things are getting to me,
but the pressure of increased scrutiny
after the Rogan episode and all of these people
and there's this sort of culture of pushback
against podcasts and all the rest of it, it's interesting. It's more open and more honest and more vulnerable and reflective and
transparent than I usually am and that is
something that I struggle with a good bit on the show opening up this much.
But yeah, I hope that it comes across in the right way.
I hope that it gives you guys a bit of an insight into actually what's going on internally and what it feels like to kind of be on this.
Roller coaster from you know,
absolute normal bloke to still a normal bloke but just a normal bloke that reaches half a billion people a year and is.
a year and is battling with the challenges associated with all of that attention and stuff. So it might be, I hope it is interesting to you. It's definitely at least interesting to me,
even if it's a mixed bag sometimes. Anyway, I'll stop waffling.
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That's manscaped.com slash modernwisdom and modern wisdom at checkout. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome me. What's happening people?
Welcome back to the show.
It is a 1.75 million subscriber Q&A episode and I'm here in the first episode from the
brand new studio.
This is the same room as we were in before,
but it is new camera, new lens, new lighting,
new art direction, new backdrop, new setup, new everything.
So let me know what you think.
I really love this.
I think it does a significant improvement
on what we had before, and I'm very, very happy.
Massive thanks to Dean and Bennett
and all the rest of the guys that helped build this out.
They did it while shooting a ton of other huge episodes. So, muy bueno. And yeah, there may be some technical
problems over the next couple of weeks, but so far, so good. I haven't broken it yet.
Today, I'm going to go through as many questions as I can, ask for questions on Twitter and on
Instagram and on YouTube community. Let's get into them. All right. AJ55779, what was your first job?
Why?
My first job was as a room service boy
at Tall Trees in Yarm,
which was a hotel with a nightclub attached to it.
And I used to give the drug dealers
their breakfast delivery on a morning
and have to move bags of pills out of the way
so that I could put that tray down.
And I was 16, 17, and they used to tip me three pounds.
I think my wage was four pounds, 50 an hour.
And they used to give me, you know, like two pounds or three
pounds tip.
And that for me was insane.
And I did that every Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday
morning for two years while I was in college because I was skinned and I wanted money to buy stuff and
like be more independent. So yeah, that was baptism of fire into the world of work.
Anisa Feringa 4965. Love the show. Thank you. You talked about why you moved to Austin and things you enjoy about
the US, aside from family and friends, what do you miss most about the UK? There are some
cultural artifacts that you have when you live in the place that everyone else has grown up with
the same culture and upbringing that you have.
If I want to make a joke about Greg's or about Blackadder or about the in-betweeners or about
Prince William or something, those are all accessible to me while I'm in the UK
because everybody else knows what I'm talking about.
Over here, I can't do that.
And if I do do that, I then need to explain it,
which kind of makes it pointless using it as a reference at all.
So what I do instead is I have to kind of think of, okay, what is something that I can, that I know about America that I can explain to the people I'm talking to, that is the closest version to what I mean.
And that sounds so small and silly, maybe, but it is kind of a big deal because it's how you position yourself.
It's the way markers of how you navigate
and put yourself within the culture.
And it does feel kind of displacing in a way,
but it is more than worth it, which is why I'm still here.
Daza15686, where did you get your teeth done?
So these teeth are all mine, as you might be able to tell
because the bottom ones are pretty fucked.
But I have a composite veneer on this one because it got damaged playing cricket,
like a true British gentleman when I was 14.
And that's got a composite veneer on it.
So if you do want to get your teeth done,
David Breton, my friend in Newcastle at the Cosmetic Dental Clinic, I think he's still there.
He's the guy to go to.
He's literally one of the best.
He's been awarded a ton of awards
and I haven't been to see him in ages.
Sorry, David, I know I need to come for a checkup.
But you should go and get your teeth done from him.
Mateo Tatz, any comments on James Smith's recent video
about the state of modern podcasts?
Yes, this caused quite a stir.
So for the people who didn't see it, James Smith,
who was my business partner in Neutonic, released a video criticizing controversy farming and
inaccurate guest information that happens on podcasts. And his main point was about bringing
on guests who don't agree with each other. And then after you run out of guests, just trying to piss people
off as a way to generate plays and views and stuff. I am glad that that wasn't directed
at me. And I think he uses the show, at least in part, as a good example of someone who
isn't doing that. I regularly text him and say, is such and such a person a bullshit
artist? And if he says, yes, I often don't bring that person on.
Or I don't think I've ever brought on someone
that James has said isn't legit
in the world of health and fitness,
which is useful, because I have James on speed dials.
That means I can do it whenever.
That being said, people being drip-fed bullshit,
it's not good.
It is not going to make the world of information
sense-making any easier.
And if you are trying to optimize for plays aggressively,
yes, that can lead to some pretty squarely outcomes.
I've said it before, Russell Brands podcast,
like Russell Brands channel is the patient zero
for limbic hijack, like it doesn't matter.
I've enjoyed some me some Russell Brand videos too. But no one can
look at the way that those videos are framed or the intros and say that that's a delicate,
gentle, balanced way to put this information across. And then Coffeezilla responded and he
released a video. I got a little feature in that. His issue was content creators getting out over
their skis and talking about things that they don't have expertise in I
have mentioned this for at least three years that just because you're an expert in
Fucking
Astrophysics doesn't mean that I should listen to you about virology or about the Middle East or about what we should do in the Ukraine
Yes, people should understand the boundaries of their competence.
But that being said, if you're only ever going to speak about something that you are formally
qualified in, I think he brought up the fact that Eric Weinstein is a mathematician and
someone that was at Teal Capital and he does physics or something. What is he doing talking
about what modern women are attracted to? That kind of means that everyone is only ever allowed to
talk about their expertise. And Coffey Zill has got a chemical engineering degree and has then
gone on to do investigative journalism. His degree wasn't in criminology or statistics or in
journalism or in writing or in video creation or in media or in any of those things. Wasn't in
crypto or coding. And he's managed to make a career out of doing something that he worked at quite hard.
And I've enjoyed some of his videos, but I think he's wrong.
I think he's wrong about saying,
this person is only qualified at this one thing,
therefore that's all that they can talk about.
The example was Eric Weinstein talking about what modern women want.
But the problem with that clip is that it's me talking about what modern women want.
It's Eric asking me the question,
but the video stops after 10 seconds
and you don't see that it's Eric's statement to me
that I respond to as opposed to me asking Eric
about his expert opinion.
Another criticism that podcasts are getting at the moment
is that it's more of a business
than it is about communicating accurate information
and all of this other stuff.
And I gotta be honest, more of a business than it is about communicating accurate information and all of this other stuff.
And I got to be honest, like there is this sense at the moment, at least to me, that
this like ambient skepticism and again, I haven't been the subject of direct criticism
or takedowns, none of these videos, none of these like really like embarrassingly funny, scary, compelling to watch videos that
are often done about podcasts that are critical. None of them
have been done about me yet. But it's not like the felt sense of
me as some bloke that has just done this thing for six years,
and now is in maybe the crosshairs or the blast radius of other huge big shows and people that have been on TV and all this other stuff like.
It's pretty disconcerting like a try and be honest as honest as I can that I find myself now on podcasts.
now on podcasts, neutering and nerfing some of the things that I say, or at the very least, getting nervous about talking and saying things. Because I'm scared that some guy,
some fucking super funny faceless guy with a YouTube channel somewhere is gonna bring up a
clip and then that's gonna be the beginning of everybody taking a piss or doing whatever. I mean like
a guy who desperately wants the world to like him is scared of the world not liking him like fucking shock horror or dude that was a
bit unpopular in school is scared about being an outcast or whatever like perhaps unsurprising
I need to go therapy more evidently but
it's it's like it's it's pretty uncomfortable in some ways. Like, I am precisely the same in terms of my capacity to deal with criticism as you.
I am some normal bloke that just did a podcast thing.
And now, I haven't had any media training.
There was at no point along this journey from six years ago doing a podcast on my couch
with a couple of friends that no one listened to for three and a half years to now having
nearly two million subs.
And all of these eyes and being in this realm of lots of other people and some of them have
got good intentions and some of them have got bad ones and some of them have got dodgy
histories and you can't check all the time. It's scary. It's scary and it's disconcerting. And I don't
like that side of the culture. I don't like the fact that there is this ambient vigilance
and skepticism and cynicism. And you see it in comment sections and it seems, I don't know,
to try and give you as a listener of podcasts a piece of advice, if you want the podcasts that
you listen to to keep going the way that they do, you need to learn to stand up for them
if you think that they're in the right. Because lot of the time. I see these criticisms go out and because people love to.
Call out someone that maybe they've got a little bit of a grievance in with or whatever.
That's fine the people that have got a problem with any show more than welcome to.
Words that criticisms publicly but if the people who support the show don't stand up and.
But if the people who support the show don't stand up and back that creator up, I can see, I can begin to see myself, the inclination of how creators say,
fuck them, I don't give a shit, they're just a bunch of pores or they're just a bunch of idiots
and completely blow off all audience feedback.
I'm not at that stage, which is great. Like I like being able to take on
board constructive ideas about where I might have holes in my game or in the way that we're
picking up guests or in the way that we're communicating stuff or in the case, all of
that stuff. Like I'm really, I love the fact that there is this unreasonably reasonable
group of people that watch this show, but it's getting harder and harder because criticism grows more quickly than
praise does. And because you remember the insults but not the compliments, any increase in platform
size doesn't feel like an increase in support, it just feels like an increase in hate. And this
very particular anti-podcast sentiment that's going on at the moment,
very particular anti-podcast sentiment that's going on at the moment.
From a felt sense, like it, it's kind of, it's kind of uncomfortable.
And it sucks.
And it makes me vigilant and kind of a bit scared to sometimes open up fully on the show because I'm like, oh my God, like what, what's this going to be said?
Like, um, poor podcast that complains about things being hard or guy thinks that
he's full of himself because he talks about this most recent holiday.
And maybe the argument is, well, what are you doing listening to people on the internet
or you shouldn't read the comments or you shouldn't care or whatever it is.
But by hook or by crook, like I do care.
And I don't want to compromise the things that I do.
I don't want to get into the rhythm of hating or having
distaste for the audience or discounting stuff. But I can see how that trend comes across,
that people have just for so long seen criticism on the internet that they go,
all right, fuck you, I'm out. I'm not listening to you anymore. This is now an adversarial relationship
and I really don't want this to happen.
So I'm trying to work hard at ignoring
or taking within as good faith as possible
stuff that is like hardcore criticisms.
And then I'm also actively trying to be,
like literally to just do this as well as I can
and to bring on a balance of people.
There was also a couple of other criticisms that I had that have kind of come off the back of James.
I brought Eric Weinstein back on again for the second time in seven months, I think, and had a great conversation with him
last three hours. And there was a bunch of people that said something like,
oh, looks like the beginning of the downfall of podcast is here, like scraping the bottom of the barrel again, Coffeyzilla or James must be right. I'm like, bro, go fuck yourself. I bring on
more unknown creators or academics or intellectuals than probably any other podcast at this level.
I think last year we had at least 20% of the podcasts, 20% of modern wisdom episodes,
were with people who'd never done a podcast before.
So to say, oh, it's just the same circle of people,
it's the same cycle of people going through,
I don't think that that's true.
I don't think that that's a fair criticism.
I don't think that that's the way that I try and chase plays.
I would be interested to know if there is another podcast
at this level who brings on as many unknown people as I do.
I don't think that there is. And
I'm trying to work hard to find interesting new different people. But anyway, that's my rant.
And usually I blast through these Q&As really quickly. But this is something that's on my mind
quite a lot. And maybe I just need to stop watching these fucking channels online that are
like keeping abreast. It's like the weather report for podcasting. But yeah, like my advice would be,
and this isn't just for me,
this is for anyone like any channel that you like.
If you like your channel, support it
because it's fucking rough
and no one teaches you how to deal with criticism.
There's no training course, media training course for,
oh, and this is what happens when you get to this size.
No one bestows on you the ability to not deal
with vigilance and criticism and like harsh
cutting comments from faceless or nameless people on the internet.
So that's my two pens.
Ryan Pani 7018.
Congrats on all your well deserved success, Chris.
Thank you.
You've mentioned it enough times where I got to ask what is your pickleball rating?
Any plans for tournament play?
I don't know how you get your pickleball rating.
Is this on whoop?
Can I get this on whoop or something?
I play at the park there,
and I play a couple of friends' courts,
and I usually lose, so probably very low,
but tell me how I get it.
Emmanuel Ducie-wuk, 7, 7, 2, 6.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
This is the result of the work that you've put in, not the result of luck.
Thank you again.
How do I manage the dichotomy between being grateful for how far I've come and wanting to become more?
The dichotomy between working for my future and being present in the moment.
I feel like there's always a tug of war between the two sides.
Dude, this is the question. I mean fuck if I know I
This is the challenge that I have every single day. I want to maximize what I can I want to be the best that I can be
I want to do things well, and I don't want to leave stuff on the table
But I don't want to be chasing the end goal so much that I never actually enjoyed the process of getting there, because ultimately that's really all that matters. You're going to look back at any
destination and realize that it was 99.9% journey and only one day of celebrating achieving the thing.
So I don't know. What I can tell you is that you are not alone in this challenge. It was probably
the most common question that we got at the live show that I did and
The few things that I know that you can do one of the most practical ways to do it is to put post-it notes around the house and
When you see the post-it notes right on it, whatever you want
Just take 30 seconds to find a way to be thankful or grateful for something that's happening right now
Even if it's the functioning of your body or the fact that you used to have an injury and now you're pain-free or it's good weather today or you just had a great conversation with a friend or you're going to go out for dinner later on or you just really had this
success or you really nailed that phone call. Whatever, however big or small it is, if you can
string together a couple of moments like that of genuine mind rests where feet are thing,
that seems to work for me. but it's rough. I need to
work out what the solution is and as of yet, I haven't.
Axis 1393. I've been improving and pushing myself to do better, but sometimes my grit
and determination feels like it's out of spite to people who put me down or anger at myself
that I'm not good enough. What's a positive place you draw strength from when life is difficult, then mental, psychological sense, we all know you
can tank physical stress. Wow. Okay. The reason I'm laughing, I'm not laughing at the fact that you've
got feeling that you're not good enough. It's that these questions, I have an audience of people that are me, that are a little bits of my pathologies.
So at least I'm...
People like me are gravitating to this show.
I'm accumulating an audience of people who have the same problems that I do, which is
maybe why all of the podcasts distaste or whatever.
Everyone's busy trying to not spite the people that put them down previously and not busy
enough to be able to watch podcast takedowns on the internet.
What's a positive place that I draw strength from in life is difficult as opposed to the
anger and spite that you're not good enough.
Look, this is a very, just give the same answer again.
It's a very difficult challenge.
The reason it's a difficult challenge is that I am still dealing with this myself.
I don't have the chip on my shoulder anymore.
I got past that by, to be honest, just achieving so much more than I thought that I was going to,
that I already knew that I'd sort of blown past.
Like the chip on my shoulder was, it wasn't enough fuel.
It was like useless fuel.
It'd been spent.
Anger at yourself that you're not good enough is something that I'm very familiar with.
If I hit snooze on a morning, if I break my diet, if I don't train, even tiny, tiny little things like
doing a workout in the gym and this final rep and pussying out of the final rep. It's not that I
didn't just finish a final rep. That's some sort, I take that a lot of the time as a comment on me and my self-worth as a person.
So if this is you, we are the same brother.
Also, I am in therapy at the moment,
and you may have noticed this on the show,
that it's fucking creeping in everywhere,
and I can't stop seeing patterns in myself,
and it's made me a lot more introspective and kind of less
confident in a way because I'm all of the stuff that you hide.
You can no longer hide because it keeps rising to the surface,
which may also be one of the reasons why I'm not feeling as
aggressive in my response to people that are critical online.
Obviously as well, I just did Rogan.
So thank you to everyone that watched that episode.
But that, if you don't want a ton of attention going on,
the biggest podcast in the world is probably a bad idea.
And I loved that episode and I loved all of the conversations
and stuff like that.
But even in that, as I'm saying a sentence
and I realized that I meant to say that particular word
and I didn't, I misspoke, or I meant to tell a story in this way and I didn't and I forgot something,
I'll castigate myself during the moment that I'm not good enough and that is exactly what
you've just quoted.
A positive place that you draw mental strength from when life is difficult has to be, I just
want to be better and I'm trying my best. That's all that there is.
Getting wrecked by psychological strain, by you being your own tormenter is not worth it. And I
have tried, I have tried an awful lot. You want to be better, that is something to be proud of.
You want to leave it all on the field of play. You want to make yourself as good as you can. You want to make the world a better place. You want to have an impact.
All of these things are just all positives. Fuck, I don't. I do. I'm this is me. I am
completely battling with this same thing myself. So the best thing that I can say is remember
that the affliction that you have is one that you should
be very thankful for, even though you don't feel it at the time.
Mr. Paul 3D, congrats.
Love Neutonic, by the way.
Thank you, especially the lack of high carbonation.
What are your plans for that brand?
Will you leave it at a drink?
Future flavors?
Looking forward to future guests.
This podcast has changed my life.
Brother, thank you very much.
Right now, we just need to have some stock because America didn't have stock.
It may be restocked today when this episode goes out. I hope that it is and we have finally got new
production factory, new production supply, which is great.
Organizing the supply chain for something like this when it's very, very high levels.
We methylated cobalamin, it's the methyl cobalamin B12 which is more absorbable and
Rodiola rasea and Panax ginseng Rodiola Rasea is an endangered species and we've got natural caffeine and we've got to source this it takes
Ages so we need to sort out supply chain that should be done right now
I just want to get the drink in people's hands because we haven't had it in America for three months
Once we've got that we'll look on to other things. But yes, for now, that's it.
Thank you for not asking a question about some weird mental pathology I've got as well.
LilyDiz8013, great podcast. How is your exponential success impacting your personal life and relationship? relationship. Fuck's sake. Okay. I am very much enjoying talking to more people that
like the things that I like. One of the coolest things about doing a podcast where I talk
to people I'm genuinely interested in because I'm following my instincts, which also means
I'm going to make mistakes. But it means that I create an audience of people like me
At the live shows that we did across the UK and Ireland and Dubai and the United States and Canada
All of the people that came up
I would happily go for a coffee with because they were all like me because they've been selected for me that bit's cool
Exponential success from the personal life side is what I said before it's this
You're just being,
I'm being watched by half a billion people a year
and it's fucking terrifying.
And I don't know what to do.
And I don't know how to deal with it.
And there's only a very small number of people
who can even understand this.
And if you try and talk about it on the internet,
like I'm doing right now,
it sounds like a champagne problem.
Oh, poor YouTuber boy who's dealing with this.
Do you not know that people are starving?
Do you not know that people are dealing with poverty
and all the rest of it?
It's like, yeah, I do.
And yet I still am concerned
about this sort of ambient vigilance thing.
It's a mixed bag.
I'm really, really happy with the show.
I love the conversations I'm having.
This new quality of production that we're doing
and all of the things that it's opened up is awesome. But personally, it's
a high price. Like it is a high price that I pay and that's my fault and it's my mental
pathology to deal with and it's my set of challenges to overcome. And hopefully when
I do that, I will have a shit ton of really good insights and all of the questions that you guys are
asking, which are the same ones that I'm dealing with.
Maybe I'm just a couple of steps ahead.
Maybe I'll have some answers.
So I'm seeing it as an opportunity to prove to myself and also to kind of go out, scouting
for solutions to some of the biggest problems that I think a lot of us are dealing with and they're very normal problems
This isn't how to deal with the death of a loved one. This isn't you know, huge huge things
It's everyday challenges about how do I maximize my potential and not leave things on the table?
How do I balance my desire to be better with my?
Bitterness from being criticized in the past. How do I deal with success without letting it get to my head or without letting it make me become too anxious?
All of these things are
one step at a time.
It is an interesting journey at the moment.
That's as far as I'll go.
George Mack, let's fucking go. Thank you, brother.
What are the biggest midwit me moments over the last five years?
Probably the biggest onewit me moments over the last five years? Probably the biggest one
would be something like, on the left, the guy on the left would say, I just follow my instincts. The guy in the middle says, I will reverse engineer all of my principles and daily values into a
optimized matrix to make my decision framework through.
And the guy in the right would say, I just follow my instincts.
Like ultimately following your instincts is the best route and it cuts out so much psychological
pain from having to go through the guy in the middle of the midwit meme.
If you had to summarize the last 12 months into a sentence, what would it be?
Rapid change is good and bad.
Cam, what's one area in your life you're looking to improve upon the most this year? What is happening with these questions? I mean, they're great and stuff, but they're really
deep and they're all about me. Anyway, what's one area in your life you're looking to improve upon
the most this year? Fearing less, think this whole vigilance ambient anxiety thing.
It's not going to get less the show is going to keep growing and I need to deal with it.
So that would be that would be one.
Another one I mentioned that I'm doing therapy which is fascinating and really really rough like really really hard to be honest.
really, really rough, like really, really hard, to be honest.
Dealing with that more, learning to kind of connect with my emotions would be something that's great as opposed to this like performative autism thing,
which I've managed to create as some defense mechanism.
That would be great.
Uh, I'm back in training consistently, which is awesome.
And I feel great and I'm gaining a ton of muscle and that's great.
So I guess those three areas deal with the byproducts of the show growing, feel feelings, continue to get massive. That's really all
there is. Marissa Allen, if you could send one message out into the great expansive space
and if there is life in anywhere in it, they will receive it. What do you send? It can
be anything in any format. I'd ask them, what's your morning routine? That's it. Duggy house 93. What is up with all of the ads?
Lots of question marks. Yep, that's another one. So look, these big shoots that we do,
I've spent $35,000 in a single day on them. For some of the shoots and for the multi-day shoots it's more and i need to fly dean over from the uk and we need to have this huge amount of insurance for all of the kid we need to rent the kid we need to rent the space we need to build a team and we have.
It's expensive the only way that i can do these big shoots.
Are by selling ad spots i care and believe in the advertisers that I use. And
if you don't like them, it's quite easy to skip forward. This is one of the things where
I'm like, hey, go fully fuck yourself, because it takes so much effort behind the scenes
to do it, to get this stuff to happen. So many like weeks and weeks of preparation.
And then we all fly, we sit on fucking planes.
Dean sits on a plane for like 18 hours
to get over to Vegas or LA or whatever.
And then we spend a full day prepping
and then we go in and we record
and I've done all of my research
and we sit down with the guests
and then there's this huge edit on the back end
and all of this stuff to create content
that you get to watch for fucking free.
And then the internet has a problem with three minutes of podcasts on it.
Like the entitlement that people have, do you know how much it costs to run a podcast?
Like, it's insane.
So what is up with all of the ads?
They're going to stay. I want to continue making the most beautiful podcasts on the planet that costs money
I can't bankroll it myself. I have to use advertisers the only ones that I use are ones that I work with we turned down a
Huge deal a life-changing amount of money deal. We just turned it down a couple of weeks ago
from a very well-known advertiser
because I don't agree with them
and because I don't think that they're a valid product.
The amount of sacrifices that we make behind the scenes
and the amount of revenue we leave on the table
because of not wanting to play this limbic hijack game,
because of not wanting to use the,
they are coming for your kids.
You won't believe what they're doing next that on the titling and the thumb nailing,
all of that stuff. So the ads are staying. And if you don't like it, go fuck yourself.
Michael Connor, if you only had 10 exercises for the rest of time, it's all you have in
your library to stay as muscular as possible. What are they? It's time you weigh in, homie. Okay, Mike. So I've
asked this question of 10 guests, maybe, including Chris Bumstead, greatest Olympia
physique champion of all time, and Phil Heath, one of the greatest Olympia champions of all time.
If only I had 10 exercises. Okay. So incline chest press because it's the best chest exercise on the planet. Pull-ups because overhand pull-ups.
Shoulder press with laterals because I think that shoulders get...
No, we don't need shoulder press. Just lateral raises.
Incline press, pull-ups, lateral raises.
Leg press because I have a bad back.
Fuck, this is hard.
I've done this to so many people and I've been looking at them like,
why are you taking all of this time?
Standing supinated bicep curls.
Overhead tricep extension.
Quad extension hamstring curl.
What do I miss? I'm missing back, missing single arm row. What am I missing? What am I missing? Another chest exercise? Another chest exercise? Cable
flies. I think this probably explains why I have the physique that I do. That's the best I can do.
Christian von Uffe.
What's an example of a counterintuitive life lesson that's improved your life?
The more that you pay attention,
the better things get.
But the more that you're able to let go, the more enjoyable they are.
I guess that's more like a contradictory life lesson than counterintuitive one but that's what you're getting.
That paying attention has been the single greatest competitive advantage that I've had because I pay attention to things.
And I try to be precise and I care.
I genuinely care which is also a fucking problem.
But also, the more that you're able to let go and not fear about stuff,
the more enjoyable you'll find it. So the thing that is making you better is the thing
which is making you feel pain. And this is a perennial balance. Dylan Taylor, if you're
80 year old self, look back at your life now, what will he say you're doing too much of
and too little of? Too much time on screens, too much time on email
and admin and busy work and too little time just having fun and walking in nature and chilling out
with my friends and shooting bows or playing pickleball or traveling. I work an awful lot because
I obsess and I like doing this show and it's fun to me.
But it's very hard because it's so rewarding.
It's very hard to work out is this the absolute best thing that I could be doing it all times.
Am I doing it too much?
Could I be doing it a little bit less and still get most of the gains from it?
I don't know.
But I think eight-year-old self looking back at me now, I'm not doing bad.
I'm really, really not doing bad.
I've got the top five deathbed regrets of the dying written on
whiteboard next to the desk where I work.
And I look at that pretty regularly.
So I'm trying my best to front load that.
ASG.
What's the biggest podcasting lesson you've learned since your first episode?
Podcasting lesson.
Lesson about podcasting or lesson from podcasts? Let's say lesson about podcasting or lesson from podcasts.
Let's say lesson about podcasting silence.
Silence is the best podcasters have things to say and the absolute elite podcasters.
No one to shut up.
If you're able to sit with silence and just allow that to breathe a little bit.
Now even comedians do this.
Comedians do it in a different way.
They're not doing it to think or to think. Comedians don't think. They're doing it for
comedic timing as opposed to because they're grappling with some super complex idea, but
just allowing the room to breathe. Theo Von did this with Sean Strickland, right? Sean's crying.
He's struggling with this sort of traumatic memory thing and Theo just let this silence sit.
Lex asks Elon Musk, when are we gonna get to Mars?
It's a 30 something second break.
Also, awesome, really cool.
So best podcasting lesson is shut up, actually.
More ten-carsic.
Are you cognizant of the risks of becoming a meme of yourself? Yes, I am
heavily heavily aware of the risk of becoming a meme of myself and I try
Very hard to not lean into the same sorts of conversations all the time
It's one of the advantages of having such a broad selection of guests to choose from, that it's not always
bro philosophy with Alex Homozy or Jim Ratts stuff with Mike Isretel or social psychology
insights with Rob Henderson or evolutionary psychology with William Costello. We've always
got this broad range of things. But ultimately, you are you. And unless you continue to change you,
you will have patterns and say things in certain ways.
The way I say yours, which Michael Malice
told the entire internet about, years and years.
That's kind of a funny thing.
So the fact that I've got this particularly prominent brow,
that's not going anywhere.
Like this sort of Klingon shelf thing that I have here that this light really
Strikes perfectly. Let me see if I can see
See that
Yep, someone actually said that
Mike is retell on the episode looked like two different alien head races meeting each other
Like two different species of aliens
with different shaped heads meeting each other.
Like I was predator and he was alien.
Really quite accurate and funny,
which is why I couldn't get mad.
But yeah, I'm cognizant of becoming a meme of myself
and I really, really, really don't want it to happen
because I want to keep doing this thing and because I don't like the idea of a joke being made
at my expense that when I'm trying my best because that sucks. So hopefully it doesn't happen.
Greg, what is your goal slash mission with this podcast? I just want to keep talking to people
that I'm interested in, bro. I just want to bring on people that I'm interested in and just find out what they've got to teach me.
I want to understand myself and the world around me and that's been the goal for six years now.
And that will continue to be the goal and I'm not going to change that.
I have no obligation at all to anybody except for my own instincts and that's it.
My own curiosity and as long as I follow that, I. And that's it, my own curiosity.
And as long as I follow that,
I think that that's the way to go.
So goal of mission is keep on learning about myself
and the world around me.
People can come along for the ride.
Callum Malkin, Alex says,
you don't become confident by shouting affirmations
in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof
that you are who you say you are.
How did you get the evidence for yourself?
And do you think that the evidence is unlimited and you will never have enough?
How did I get the evidence?
So I got the evidence quite largely through doing the show because for a long
time I'd done pursuits where I could always excuse any successful outcome as it being
due to something else that wasn't me.
So my imposter syndrome was so great that even if we had a good event at one of the club nights,
oh, that would be because, you know, everywhere else in town wasn't busy or, you know, we really
fluked it or that's because of one of the boys or that's because of the market conditions or that's
because of the way that we priced it. Not because of me, it wasn't because of my input.
And then I started to do the podcast, which was much more of a one-to-one input to outcome ratio. The same as being a power lefter.
You work hard and the numbers go up, and if the numbers go up and you pick up the bar,
you know it's exclusively because of you and what you did. That's very difficult to hide.
Lots of other pursuits, especially things that are part of a team,
or stuff where there just isn't as tight of a feedback loop between what you put in and
what you get out. That is very, very easy to kid yourself into thinking that you aren't doing as well
or that your successes aren't yours to own. That'd be the best way to say it.
Do you think that the evidence is unlimited and you will never have enough?
I think that you can always have more evidence, but I've managed to get myself to the stage where I'm confident in my abilities.
And that I would have just, I just didn't have confidence in myself.
I had, I was able to pretend like I had confidence. I had the simulacrum of confidence.
Now, if you put me on stage in front of 500 people and say that I need to speak for an hour, I'll do it.
I'll be a little bit nervous before but as soon as I get moving, I'll do it.
That was something I couldn't even do six months ago.
So I'm like, wow, like I concentrated. So the solution to that is do 17 shows in 28 days across three continents.
That's a solution.
It's crushing amounts of volume, crushing amounts of evidence and after a while,
amounts of volume, crushing amounts of evidence, and after a while, it's essentially impossible for that lack of confidence to stick about.
So I promise you, if you just keep going, keep on building that mountain in layers of
paint, it'll be fine.
Martin, how do you deal with having to spend a seemingly inordinate amount of time in front
of a screen?
For me, it can lead to isolation and a skewed perception on reality.
Do you ever think you're missing out on other things by choosing the path you have?
Absolutely, man.
I think all of us are spending too much time on screens.
I don't know anybody, even my mom, even my mom and dad don't have a good relationship with screens.
So with difficulty, I suppose, I'm a few things that I've done practically again,
because I can just give you all of these like fluffy
platitudes and trite little quotes and stuff, but really practically what can you do? I live near a park.
Living near a park is a good idea, I think, because you're right next to nature and the friction between you being in front of a screen
and you being in the middle of nature is really small. So if you can live near a park, that seems to work for me.
It can lead to isolation and a skewed perception of reality. 100% it can. I think that that's
what a lot of the communities of people that have bound together over mutual hatred of outgroups are
doing because that is reality to them. Reality is what they see on the internet. It's not what's
happening out there. It's what's happening in the internet. It's not what's happening out there.
It's what's happening in the group chat
or in the comment thread or whatever.
Do I ever think I'm missing out on other things
by choosing the path you have?
Well, yes, but by choosing other things,
I would be missing out on this thing.
So it's a case of picking what things
are you prepared to miss out on.
Right now, I want to do the podcast.
I want to learn from people.
I want to talk to them. I want to find out stuff and have cool conversations.
That means that I'm not going to get to travel and go on holiday as much as I want or learn
about other cultures. That means that I don't get to spend as much time with my friends
as I'd like. That means that I don't get to go out partying if I wanted to do that because
I need to stick to a routine and a schedule so that my brain doesn't fall apart. Anything that you do will come with an opportunity
cost of the things that you're not doing. Pick the things that you are prepared to
not do and then if they align with the thing that you want to do, your path is now clear.
Chris Peterson, did Love Island help you with your confidence on camera or did you have
to get more comfortable as you did more podcasts?
Hard to believe you never seem nervous when talking to very imposing figures on topics
you aren't an expert in.
Well, apparently that's the whole problem.
Uh, yes, I wasn't aided really at all by Love Island.
Love Island is so interesting.
If you ever go through multiple versions of you in life
and then people in the future find out about things
that you did in the past, each time it's a revelation.
But to you, it's like, I'd even forgotten that I'd done that.
Love Island was now eight years ago, I think for me,
maybe more, and then it gets resurfaced.
Like, did you know that Chris was on Love Island?
Or, oh my God, do you know this guy who was on Love Island?
So, yeah, of course I did.
Of course I, because I was there.
Did I get more comfortable as I did more podcasts?
Yes, absolutely.
Like doing podcasting and especially doing YouTube, doing this, staring into that thing
and anyone that's ever tried to do a video, birthday video for a friend where you're just
looking at this black lens and you have no idea what to say and it's just like a hole
staring at you and there's no one coming to save you no one's gonna come and help you no one's gonna say the words for you and if you mess up over and over again you're gonna feel like
you can't speak and you're completely useless and your brain your brain dead.
This is.
The best baptism of fire for learning how to communicate that you can have because no one is
going to come and save you. No one's going to drag you out when you get things wrong or when you
get stuck or when you don't have anything to say. This is why I said it on the first episode with
Rogan. Sit down for 30 minutes once a week and have a fake podcast with a friend. Put your phone
on record, all of the phones out of the room, put it in the middle of the table and just talk to each other about an idea. And you will be able
to listen back to the way that you communicate and realize, oh my God, I didn't even know that I
had that verbal tick. And after I promise you, after, if you did that for six months, your
communication would be so insanely different. And obviously the extreme version of this is to
actually then publish it on the internet and make it into a podcast. But that can be a big deal for people sitting down
for half an hour. That's not, I do feel nervous, especially before sitting down with Rogan. I
had to train really, really hard. Here's the solution, train hard as hell. And then you can't
really feel feelings anymore. And then the nerves are just, you've got doms and you've got nerves,
and that the nerves die
because of the doms take over. So that was my solution there. Captain Reese, will the podcast
grow in the same direction as your life? If we see you having kids, will you do more dad-centric
content? 100%. I am very much looking forward to learning about bringing up kids and family life.
And I could become a prepper in five years time.
And again, this is the whole follow your instincts thing.
Who knows, I might get real deep into AI or into the 80s jazz or something.
And guess what?
There's going to be a ton of episodes about 80s jazz and AI.
And for the people that that's for, that's great.
And if not, that's not.
But yes, I think there's no way that I'm not going to be changed by something
like becoming a dad, getting married, having a family, dealing with the passing
of friends and family members and all that stuff.
And the show is an outgrowth of me, you know?
For better or for worse, it's me and where I'm at in life.
It's not, you know, I don't know what's going on
in Coffey's Hillar's life.
I don't know if he's got kids.
I think he's married, but I don't know what's happening.
Like his content is always about that out there,
but it's not really about his instinct
of what's going on with him related to his content.
For me, that's not the same.
I keep my private life pretty private, but I'm also following whatever interests I've
got.
So yes, that's centric content, aging gracefully as a man, dealing with the drops in testosterone,
dealing with losing family members and people growing older and getting a dog or whatever
it is that's going to happen.
All of that's in the post. Lewis Stroud, why are nine to five's look down on within the
self-improvement space and how to get past it if your purpose is aligned within a nine to five career?
I have noticed this. I don't think I've ever personally actually been disparaging of someone that has a nine to five because I have been someone that's had a nine to five,
albeit not for long I did it for six months.
But every single person that I knew growing up had a nine to five or bigger and my dad certainly did and then coming from a working class super working class background.
from a working class, a super working class background,
I've always felt a little bit uncomfortable with the way that nine to fives are disparaged.
I don't think that the only way that you can enjoy your life
is if you pivot and do something yourself.
I think it's a very reliable route to do it
and I encourage as many people to do it as possible,
but I try not to look down on people that are doing that
because it's the lion's share of most people.
How to get past it if your purpose is aligned
within a nine to five career, fuck him.
It doesn't matter.
Like I've made huge, huge, huge developments
while I was staying up until four in the morning,
five in the morning running a nightlife business.
You can make huge developments
in your personal growth journey while you're doing a nine to five and
If your purpose is aligned within a nine to five career, it doesn't matter like that's your thing
Just lean into it enjoy that and all of the guys that don't know when they're supposed to start or when they're supposed to stop
But they've got to be the task master or they don't know what they're supposed to do today
And they don't get holidays and they don't get all of that you don't have to worry about any of that
There are tons of advantages of having a nine to five and if you're enjoying it and your purpose is aligned with it,
nail the self-development on an evening time, make sure that you lock into a hard routine
and you are going to have a great time. So I'm genuinely, genuinely, genuinely envious of people
that have great nine to fives where their purpose is aligned to it, especially if they've got a lot of oversight and structure because it takes all
of the pain.
I did a video ages ago.
You might be able to find it.
I can't remember what it was called.
Something like 10 Reasons to Not Start Your Own Business or something like that.
It was about precisely this, that it's not all it's cracked up to be, to go and work
for yourself.
So, the disparaging of nine fives, I'm not on board with that.
Mr. Mel drew six nine three.
Who do you think would win in a fight?
Eight mildly irritated squirrels or a drowsy beaver?
Please provide working kind regards.
Eight mildly irritated squirrels or a drowsy beaver? That beaver's fucked, dude. 8? 4 vs 1? That
would be... I'd be interested to see that, but even a normal squirrel, let alone mildly
irritated would, I think, would be a handful, the very least. That beaver's wrecked. So,
squirrels struggle to coordinate, but they just rushed the beaver
Running around it on all sides little scratching biting squeaking things and that drowsy beavers is he's wrecked unless someone comes in and gives him a
Lucas ade or a new tonic if he had new tonic actually if we made beaver tonic he would be fine, but
Unfortunately not happening.
Jailch?
Jailch, 28.
How to be free from other's opinions?
I don't know.
Here's the guy that's worried about the entire internet being critical of the industry that
he's in.
I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know what that solution is.
See, here's the problem with doing therapy
that it keeps on coming up
whenever you're trying to have a conversation,
whenever you're trying to hide whatever your concerns are.
Some of the ways that I've been able to find to do that
are that most people don't like themselves.
So caring about someone else's opinion of you
is kind of pointless.
Like you wouldn't respect someone's insights on strength So caring about someone else's opinion of you is kind of pointless like
You wouldn't respect someone's insights on strength if they didn't know strength and weren't strong if these people don't like Themselves and don't know you their opinion of you means absolutely diddly squat also
Most of the people who have critical opinions of you probably have critical opinions of almost everything and it's not really about you
It's probably about them or it's about the way that they see the world
So others opinions that are negative a lot of the time are actually just projections of what they hate about themselves or
They're the way that they see the world at large and it literally isn't about you
so
Both of those things I really try hard to to remind myself that it's probably not about you.
Other people's opinions of you are more about them than they are about you.
Techie8036, explain your back issues. Did visiting Dr. Stuart McGill fix it?
What about your stem cell treatment in South America?
Please share your back fixing story in the current state of your back health. Cheers. Okay, so quick recap back the Chris Williamson
back odyssey. I had a bunch of bulging discs when I started doing CrossFit because it's CrossFit
and because I was excited and because I was lifting heavy and I never lifted that heavy before with
moderately poor form at a very high intensity. L3, L4 and L5, S1.
Two bulging discs, MRIs, not good.
Tried to work on it, kept on having those sort of
spasmy back attacks that anyone who's got a bulging disc
or herniated disc will be familiar with.
Went to go and visit Stu McGill.
Stu did a full assessment on me.
I flew to Canada and then drove to Gravenhurst on my own
for the first time, driving on the other side of the road.
This is five or five years ago now.
And yes, he made a huge impact. I did hundreds of hours, maybe thousands of hours of his big three,
which you can Google online quite easily. If you have a back problem, I highly recommend doing the big three every single day. First thing in the morning when you wake up, if you've got really bad back, do them twice,
once in the morning and then once in the mid-afternoon. And I've done that
hundreds of hours. I've done it on a paddle board in Lake Normand, I've done it in Dubai,
I've done it in my house in Newcastle, I've done it in gyms all over the UK, I've done
it in Austin. And yes, it's made a big difference. Stem cell treatment in South America that
I did last year, I went to Bio Acc bio accelerator and I got 200 million stem cells over the space of a week, including intradiscal and every lumbar
facet joint. So literally into the disc of my spine. I was asleep. That was interesting
because it forces you to have a big D load for around about three months. It's really
hard for me to work out how much of this was stem cell and how much of this was D load
because I'd never taken a three month
D-load of anything and I looked skinny and fat and slow and awful
But my back didn't hurt and my knees didn't hurt my knees had been hurting before as well. I
highly recommend a combination of heavy D-load and
Stuart McGill's big three current state of my back is I haven't had a back spasm attack
in nearly two years now, which is very good.
That's muy bueno to me because it was pretty consistent,
you know, every couple of months to every six months or so.
That being said, I'm working around it.
I don't deadlift, I don't squat,
I don't do anything that involve,
I don't do good mornings, I don't do bent over rows. I don't do
anything that causes that shearing, what's referred to as a shearing force going through my spine, bending over. So I work
around it. I do a lot of lunges, heavy suitcase carry lunges. I do a lot of box step ups. I do a lot of leg
press. You know, I've worked around this. I've adapted my training so that my back isn't injured.
But if you are someone that has a back problem, buy Back Mechanic, the book by Dr. Stu McGill.
It's very accessible, very practical.
Do the big three once or twice a day.
Take a D-load from whatever you're doing and learn to do proper back hygiene as it's
called spinal hygiene, which involves keeping a very neutral, good spine.
I always get, James always makes jokes about me that, uh, I'd stand up really
straight like this, that I've got such a good posture, but I don't think I did have
a good posture until about five years ago.
And then I just hurt my back so much that I became hypersensitive and hyper
aware of my posture.
And now I do stand up straight.
It's a shame that I didn't do that 10 years ago.
Anyway, Parker's six nine six.
What have you done in your life
that you are the most proud of?
Conversely, what have you done
that you're the most ashamed or disappointed?
Jesus.
What have I done that I'm the most proud of?
Moving to America, I think, I'm very proud of that.
It was super hard to do.
Administratively, it's a nightmare.
It takes ages.
We submitted this three-inch, thick 700-page portfolio.
And then the first day that I arrived in Austin, I was waiting to get picked up by the Uber
outside of this block of flats that I lived in.
And I was just so thankful.
Looked up at the sky, and it was something that I'd made.
I'd moved my life from this place where I was, where things were good,
but not great, to a place that I was excited about. And I felt like I was exploring and
adventuring and being a pioneer. And it was all because of me. No one else had done it. No one
else had made it happen. No one else had... It was all me. And that made me feel very proud.
What have I done that I'm the most ashamed or disappointed about? I was a bit of a dick to
What have I done that I'm the most ashamed or disappointed about? I was a bit of a dick to girlfriends when I was younger.
Like, I wasn't super faithful and I lied and did stuff like that.
And I really hated that version of myself.
You know, I was an outgrowth of the club promotion industry, but it was on me that I wasn't the
boyfriend that I should have been.
And I don't like hurting anybody, especially not people that have done nothing wrong.
And that's a person that I don't wanna be.
So that's something, I don't know whether it's the thing
that I'm the most ashamed or disappointed about myself for,
but it's certainly something that I keep in the back
of my mind, like don't treat people
that haven't done anything wrong badly.
And I'm doing really well.
That was a big change.
That's probably one of the biggest changes that I've done.
I don't talk about much.
Alicia Melnick.
For me personally, I'd love to know more about you being a successful person.
Integrate joy with your purpose and drive.
Life is all about finding the right balance for the season you're in.
But I've been getting really excited about trying new things and wanting to balance
that with what I'm driving at.
What brings you joy and do you have a metric for when you need to rethink or
engage with that area in order to fuel your drive?
This is something that I've been playing about a good bit, which is trying to have
more fun. Like literally the question that I have for this year is, is it possible
to be world class whilst having fun?
That was, that's the question for me this year. It may be that in order to be world class, fun having fun. That's the question for me this year.
It may be that in order to be world-class,
fun has to go out the window.
If that's the case, it'll make me sad,
but it's whatever, that's a price that you perhaps need to pay.
But I'm really, really trying to do this.
So what brings me joy?
Hanging out with my friends, being outdoors,
doing new things, visiting new places,
going for good food, especially in different, like adventure and novelty for me are very invigorating.
It's also a great way to make time slow down.
When people say, I can't believe how quickly this year has gone, what they mean is I don't remember the days that have gone so far in this year.
One of the best ways that you can slow this down is to add more memory units and memory units are highly derived from how much novelty there's been.
If you drive the same route to work every day for three years, that's basically a thousand
journeys that's condensed down into one memory unless there's one day in particular where
it was rainy and you skidded or you were involved in a car crash or someone gave you a phone
call and told you that you got a raise or whatever.
Like you'll remember those, but because it's always the same thing, it just gets condensed down into one, essentially one memory.
So trying to vary and add as much novelty in as possible is very good.
That's something that I try and do. I try and adventure as much as I can.
I try and do new things with new people, meet people, go out for different
different dinners and travel and do all of that stuff.
Do I have a metric for when you need to rethink or engage with that area more in order to fuel
my drive? Yeah, when I can't bear to sit down and do any more work and I'm like, right, I think
I need a break. And that's when it works. Weezy TF2. You've mentioned how you adopted a
train like an athlete mindset in pursuit of podcasting,
any info as to what that regimen entailed.
Yeah, so this was something that I came across about four years ago, three and a half years
ago in the middle of COVID.
I just really, really wanted to become better at doing the show.
And that meant that I had to cover all of the different bases.
So for me, pursuit of podcasting, I'm a student of podcasting.
I talk a bunch of different content creation courses, like a 30 days
to a better YouTube channel from video creators, Ali Abdaal's part time
YouTuber Academy.
I learned thumb nailing, entitled design, I learned channel strategy for YouTube.
I got a voice coach.
Uh, I started prioritizing sleep and hydration and I played about with nutrition to work out what makes me sharper when I'm on an episode.
It turns out that it is just basically no carbs or fully fasted. I started playing about with Neutropics, which is what Neutonic kind of was born out of, I suppose, even four years ago. What else do I do? I started obsessively watching content creators that communicated in
a way that I wanted to be like. A lot of that was Alain de Botton from the School of Life,
a bit of Peterson, a good bit of Rogan, and just looked at what they did and deconstructed the
way that they spoke and the way that they communicated and then tried to fold that into
who I am. So I didn't just become some shadow version of them. I was like, okay, I really loved the way that pauses
were used there or that he asked a question with a statement
or whatever it might be, folded that in
and then worked on it quite diligently.
There was a period the show got worse during 2020 and 2021.
I mean, it was being so deliberate with everything
that I said and really trying to bring in all of this learning
that the show's flow actually got worse.
But I needed to do that in order to then build that skill up and then come out the other side.
Or maybe it's still getting worse, who knows.
Alan1779, what were you doing in Utah?
I was giving a keynote at its first ever keynote that I've given, which is pretty fun. And I did that for a convention thing for a group of people
that are part of a huge mastermind, 500 people, that was cool. And then the guy said, what are you
doing at 530am? And I said, sleeping. And they said, let's go skiing. And I've never skied before.
So I got to go halfway up. I got to go to the top of the start of a hill.
I got to go to the top of the start of a hill before the actual hill begins.
And I got to play about skiing.
And that was pretty cool.
It's fun to do something, to feel like you were in a place for a really short space of time.
You got loads done.
Utah was beautiful, though, especially being in Austin, which is just flat as a fart everywhere.
There's just no hills. Austin, which is just flat as a fart everywhere. There's just, there's no hills.
The entire place is super flat.
And then to be in Salt Lake City,
for the people that have never been,
imagine a huge mountain range in a U shape
and then a lake and someone looked at the gap
in between the horseshoe of the mountains and the lake
and said, let's make a city there.
And that's Utah, or at least that's Salt Lake City
Simon day
1714
huge geez
Thank you. My question is how slash when you decide to push back on
ideas of your guest or if that is something you consider
great question, man. So I've mentioned this before my
Therapy speak again my people pleasing nature is so strong. I don't
want to upset people. I don't want to make people feel
uncomfortable. And my cringe meter is like toe curlingly
hyper attuned. It's something that I'm actively working
harder at. And I totally get it that if you're Ben Shapiro or Destiny or
Hasan Abi or you know Jeremy Paxman or Douglas Murray or whatever, to them it just seems effortless
for them to find some criticism or to sit in the discomfort of saying something
that makes the other person feel really uncomfortable or difficult and to just sit in it.
Like I was talking about with that science, say the thing and just leave it there.
That is such a huge, it's a genuinely difficult challenge for me and for other people that make
them easily in the same way as for me, staying fit, make them easily and for somebody else,
going to the gym might be an absolute nightmare. That's something I'm genuinely, genuinely actively
working on. I tried hard with the Eric Weinstein episode. There was a bit where
he brought up something that I really don't agree with to do with sex and gender classification.
And one step at a time. But that probably should have been the what are you looking to work on
this year. Like my disagreeability, my skepticism, my scrutiny within the episodes,
and also in my personal life,
of just being able to say what I mean
and say what I think
without worrying about how it's going
to make the other person feel.
Like it's not being impolite, it's being honest.
And that is, that's a big,
if I can get that, now I'm confident that I can,
but when I get that, I think that'll be a really big change.
But you're like observing me go through quite a big transformation I suppose at the moment going from wherever I was to whatever it's going to be for probably the next couple of years. It was pretty well set up until about a year ago or so.
And then the last year has been tons of change.
And then especially the last six months has been so much change.
And coming out the other side, I'm hoping that it's going to be a little bit
less change because the things like growing as much as they have is, is odd.
And this is something I have to develop, something I have to get better at.
And I'm trying and I really hope that you guys
Have faith in me and and believe that I am doing it
Fabuline
7039 congrats on 1.75 mil. Thank you very much by the time you've seen it's probably close to about two mil
Yes, it is. Have you ever thought about interviewing more musicians?
I think someone like John Mayer would make for a fascinating conversation.
Never spoken to John Mayer, never seen him.
But yes, I would love to.
I tried to get sleep token.
I know that's a bit of a difficult ask
given that they're pseudonymous and also don't talk.
But then two, the drummer, I think it's two or three,
did a drum thing on YouTube.
That was pretty cool.
So yeah, I'd love to.
Eric Pritz was someone that I'd be interested to talk to. I know that Oliver Tree, I think he's
called. I know that he's floating around and he seems really, really interesting. Also,
Oliver Heldon's, I met in Guatemala about a year ago. And he's pretty interesting dude,
totally sober, like interesting guy. So yeah, I'd love to.
Fred again, I mean, God, if I could get that guy on,
that would be amazing, but let me know.
Any suggestions?
Mollye is.
ARR 409.
When are you getting Jonathan Haight on the podcast?
His new book is coming out soon
and his work aligns with a lot of the things
you talk about in your podcast.
Things like social media addiction,
mental health amongst young people and the increasing social ineptitude of young
adults. He is booked on. I've got him on for his new book, which is called The Anxious
Generation, I think. I really hope I've got that right. But everyone should check out
John Hight's work. It's really good, very incisive. And he'll be on within the next
month or so.
Naomi GX4RC.
How do you ensure each episode provides value to your audience?
As long as it provides value to me, I assume that some non-zero number of people in the
audience will also find value from it.
It's too hard.
It genuinely isn't.
It doesn't work.
And I've tried it a while ago and it really doesn't work to think,
what do I need to do to make the audience happy?
Because I am not you guys.
I am me.
So the only thing that I can do is follow my curiosity and follow my instinct and be like does this add value to me and just assume that I'm an avatar for you.
And again this is what I meant, I don't mean to keep coming back to it but this is what I meant about not wanting to desensitize myself to seeing.
seeing myself as an extension of the audience itself, as just the guy at the tip of the spear and then everybody else being downstream from that, because I want to continue to just do things to be as representative as possible, to be as open and as messy as I've been today. I'm usually much slicker than this, but I'm trying to work hard to be more honest and
more open emotionally about what it is that's going on.
And if I do that, I have to assume that some non-zero number of people in the audience are
feeling the same thing, even if the situation's different.
They're not in Austin.
They're not a podcaster.
They're not British.
They're not whatever.
I have to assume that there is a good chunk of people that are like that. And that was what I
always wanted. I always wanted someone that was a couple of steps ahead of my journey,
telling me about what the path ahead was like. Here are some pitfalls. Here are some ways that
you can expedite success. Here are some things I did that didn't work. Here are some things I did
that did work. And if I just keep doing that, I have to, it's the only thing I know. And it's the most
authentic and it's the most honest and it's the only way that I can do it. And if it provides value
to me, hopefully it'll provide value to you guys too. So that's my totally unsophisticated strategy.
Sandor Clegane, cool name. Outside of the US and the UK,
where are some of the countries you've enjoyed visiting the most?
What's on the top of your list of places you'd like to visit in future?
Great question. This is a simple one, isn't it?
I don't need to speak to my therapist about this.
Bali was very good.
That's the most quintessential white guy
that I could have said.
Bali was really good.
Thailand was okay.
I very much enjoyed Pai up north
and I very much enjoyed Kosamui.
I think that Phuket is a shithole
and I think that Chiang Mai is a little bit of a shithole
and I think that Bangkok is Mai is a little bit of a shithole and I think that Bangkok is
a huge shithole.
Whereas for being that I've enjoyed Guatemala was cool, although not super safe.
Medellin in Colombia was awesome.
And Camuna 13 was super, super dope.
Rome is my favorite city on the planet.
And Athens was also phenomenal.
I just love history.
So those are great places. Top of the list of places I would like to visit in future.
I'd love to do Venice. I would, I've already done Florence, which was phenomenal.
Anywhere that's got history, Egypt, I'd like to do. Japan, I would like to do.
There's a ton of places.
I've still never even touched Australia.
I've got this weird obsession with Antarctica as well.
So I'd love to go there, see the wall.
There's a lot of places.
Rohan Magade, Magade.
Can you tell us about your spiritual beliefs?
Me, minimal, I guess.
I don't know what spiritual beliefs are.
I have a bunch of friends, one of my good friends
that works for us, Ben is Mormon and he loves his faith.
And I went to Rippon Cathedral with him and his wife
and my mom on Christmas Eve this year.
And that was beautiful.
But my spiritual tank is relatively low.
Mum's a reiki master.
So she's spent a long time doing distant healing
and she does stuff with crystals
and she talks about the moon and stuff like that.
And that's, I really enjoy that.
But for me, faith is a gift that I'm yet to be given.
So I guess we'll wait and see
if that changes. I'm an Austin. Dan Henson, how do you get so many great guests on your podcast?
How did you start? Send DMs, bro. Honestly, the number of people that just respond to DMs,
especially if it's brief and if it is respectful and it's easy to respond to, you'll be surprised how many people will just say yes.
So just start throwing them out. And also networking. Like once you get to, you know,
the mid-level or above guests, it really only comes by referral, unless they're a fan of what
you do already and you've got a real sort of warm lead in. But even now, if I want to bring,
already and you've got a real warm lead in.
But even now, if I want to bring, I wanted to bring Jocko Willink on the podcast.
There's a lady who follows the show, that's a fan of the show, who'd
like tagged me in a story and I'd reposted it.
And then she'd heard me say I wanted Jocko and she's like, oh, I did some
writing with Jocko.
And then she looped me in.
So it's like, I was the most tenuous of connections to get Jocko Willink on.
And that was
two years ago. So network hard send DMs. That's that's literally all I've done.
Small chief, congrats. Thank you. How do you ensure that you continue to push content that you stand by and not just for trends or views? Again, it just, it has to be, am I interested in speaking to this person?
And I'm not always sure, right?
Because like there's sometimes people that you're not sure if they're going to be
interesting, you're like, oh, that book sounds all right.
Oh, that documentary sounds okay.
Oh, I enjoyed that episode that they did that.
And then you don't, the conversation can be of varying levels of, of interestingness.
But I can always tell, because the morning that I wake up,
when I've got that episode later that day,
if I am absolutely fired up and I just can't wait to get training out of the way
and to leave it and to do all the rest of it,
and sit down and have a conversation and I'm prepping with them and I have a conversation, I'm super excited.
The excitement in advance,
99.9% of the time,
is a great indicator that it's going to be an amazing episode. It's very rarely wrong.
And then there's other times when I'm like, I'm going to be, you know, we'll see how this person goes.
I'm blown away.
And then very rarely, I have an episode and I'm like, that was okay.
Like, but it wasn't phenomenal.
I just need to spend as much time as possible.
The way that I push content that I stand by
and not just for trends or views,
the way that I do that is to just have as many of those days
where I can't wait to speak to the person.
Because I'm not thinking while I'm spending an entire day
learning about this person and their ideas
and doing whatever, I'm not thinking,
oh my God, I can't wait to release this
because it's jumping on a trend
or it's gonna get us lots of views.
Like, I'm thinking I can't wait to learn from them.
I can't wait to hear what they're gonna say to this.
Oh my god, like, there's this new study
that's just come out about this thing.
I've got to get their opinion on that.
Like, just do that.
Follow my instincts.
It's just instincts.
And this is something that I need to keep reminding myself as well.
So even if it sounds a little repetitive with some of the questions today, these are things
that are important for me to remind myself.
And saying it out loud isn't something that I do all that much.
So this is useful technique for me to make sure that I'm remembering it.
This is a username 556.
Very clever.
Congrats on this step toward 2 million and beyond.
In one of your talks with Alex Hormosa,
you brought up the idea that you can't split test life.
What do you think would be the best way
to prepare yourself for slash if you go all in
on one of the splits and it fails?
Easiest thing, is it a reversible decision?
You can go all in, but is this a reversible decision?
Because if it is, it doesn't matter.
That's how you prepare yourself. You prepare yourself by choosing things that are right. If it is this a reversible decision? Because if it is, it doesn't matter. That's how you prepare yourself. You prepare yourself by choosing things that are right. If it is not
a reversible decision and you still decide to go all in on it, you better hope it works.
WorkCrafts, Boss 7.9, all of these usernames are so hard.
How do you see the fact that podcasts are more
and more just profit oriented
and therefore invite people who claim having a lot
of knowledge but only are here for publicity
or selling their product?
There often is an interest, conflict and contradictions
but oftentimes the podcasts claim them to be experts.
But what is really true?
I see this trend a lot.
For example, in the Diary of a CEO podcast,
we'd love to hear about that greetings from Germany.
The final word greetings from Germany may explain why I had a little bit of trouble in speaking that.
Thank you for the question.
Do you see the fact that podcasts are more and more just profit oriented?
I don't know it's Stevens profit oriented.
I know that the team is very aggressively growth oriented,, but I don't know if he treats it like a
business more than that. We speak, last time we spoke was a few months ago, briefly over WhatsApp.
I don't know if he treats it like a business. There is contradictions, yes, but there are
contradictions in every podcast. There are contradictions in this. I had an episode with Brad Wilcox who was talking about Get Married, his new book, and it's a
perhaps unsurprisingly, it's pro-marriage. And then I've got James Sexton coming on who is a divorce attorney.
It's your job as the audience to figure out how you sit within this world of people.
If it's like, right, you had this guy on that's pro-veganism, therefore you can only have other people on that are pro-veganism,
that's not the way that it works. But the problem that you have, and one of the things that I'm
fortunate in this show that isn't as big of a deal for me, if you have things that are hard
sciences, like there are facts about diet. There are ways that the body works. There are facts about diet. There are ways that the body works.
There are studies that can be done
and research that we can conduct it
that will give statistically significant,
reliable, replicable results, right?
Those are hard facts.
Me bringing on someone who is pro marriage
and marriage skeptical,
these two people have two different perspectives
on the same thing because they are different people,
because they've seen the world in different ways.
There is no real such thing as seeing the gut in a different way
or seeing stars in a different way.
You can have different opinions about this stuff,
but I understand why,
especially when it's to do with your own health,
when it's to do with this sort of anxiety,
what people want with health and fitness, especially from a show
like Stevens is reassurance, I am doing the thing, oh, this is what I need to do, right?
That's that.
Finally, thank God for that.
That was the thing that I need to do.
And if someone then comes on and after they feel like they've got the answer, that answer
is then thrown into question, quite rightly, that's going to make them feel
like, oh my God, I thought I just had this thing and that's not, hey, hey, what's happening
here? With marriage, like if you're coming to a podcast for it to tell you whether or
not you're supposed to get married, you are in the wrong place. You can find out perspectives
and insights. I think that yes, it is if there is a show which is prioritizing
profit over communication and the quality of the guests and all the rest of it, I think that that's
a high risk strategy. But there are a whole host, maybe most of the conversations and the topics
that we talk about that are on you to do your own sense making about. You can read a book and then read a different book that has an
alternate point of view.
It's not the job of the books to figure out between themselves.
Who's correct?
It's the job of you to do the sense making to work out how this is.
Now, yes, a show is curated by a single person.
And should they be bringing in that other insight?
Well, I learned about this before and what about that?
Hang on a second.
Yeah.
Yeah, probably.
But it's an amalgamation of choosing your podcasts carefully and of ensuring that you
use your own mindset and your own sense-making abilities to take all of the information that you have
with as big of a pinch of salt as you can knowing what you know.
Lot of conversations, lot of questions about this stuff, which I think means that my insight
around this like weather report of skepticism or on podcast, I think that's accurate.
Aaron Munt as a man about to enter his 30 30s newly single for the first time since 17.
Wow.
How do I navigate this new arena of dating apps when not even really a thing when I was
last single?
Yeah.
Wow.
Dude, I remember standing on the front door of LQ nightclub in Newcastle swiping on Tinder.
I got to the stage because it was Tinder was really new.
I got to the stage where there was no more people in your area. It's like, holy shit, imagine that. It would be basically
impossible. I think you could probably swipe right for the rest of your life and not have
no new people in your area in a big city. I would say you're in for a hell of a ride,
dude. How do I navigate this new arena of dating?
I actually think you might be at a bit of an advantage here.
I think that a lot of people are overthinking dating and obviously this is something that
you're doing too.
But I don't think that you need to.
I think that if you're about to enter your 30s, you've been in a relationship for 13
years, you're probably pretty fucking good marriage material. Evidently shown that you're able to commit to someone for a long time.
You have sufficiently reliable and consistent that you make a great partner.
If you're looking to get into another relationship, I don't think you're going to have any problems.
I think go slow, don't expect too much. Be forgiving of yourself if you have a couple of bad dates,
because maybe it is a bit of a new world.
I haven't dated for a while.
But yeah, I think you'll be fine.
I think that you already sound like marriage material,
so you won't have any problems.
Candila Ramota,
367.
Would you ever consider interviewing scientists
studying near-death, dead, and life after death?
I became interested in that research
over the last few months following my father's death,
but I am somewhat skeptical.
I admire your interviewing skills and would love to hear a conversation
between you and any of those researchers like Bruce Grayson,
Sam Parnia, etc. Best wishes from Guy Arna. Wow, Guy Arna, thank you.
I had a conversation with a guy called Paul Evans who had a NDE, near-death experience,
and he was really interesting. People can go back and listen to that one. Maybe it's in the hundreds, I think.
Yeah, that sounds pretty interesting. I'll do a little bit of research on those people,
but I'm kind of skeptical.
I'm pretty skeptical, to be honest.
But yeah, we'll see.
I'll do some research and come back to you.
Darren Collins, 850, congrats Chris,
keep up the great work.
My question is, do you think there are valuable lessons
worth taking from people who present themselves
as villainous?
Interesting, I wonder who presents themselves as villainous. Interesting. I wonder who presents
themselves as villainous. People who seem villainous, perhaps. Well, yes, I think that there's valuable
lessons taken from, to be taken from anybody. And this is one of the problems, again, that exists
in tribal parts of the internet, which are that if you're only going to learn things from people who
you completely agree with, you're going to be defeated and outstripped and outgrown by people
who don't have that level of tribal bias. So for instance, let's say that you were ardently pro-vaccine
and there is someone that was anti vaccine during COVID.
You say that person was anti vaccine therefore moving forward. I am never, I'm never going to listen to anything they've got to say, whether it's about
mindfulness or, or, or geopolitics or lifting or whatever it might be. I'm never going to listen to
them. Well, okay, but you are going to lose out.
And it's kind of the same here.
You know, I don't like villainous people.
I don't know how many of them I've come across,
but I don't wanna be around them.
I don't like the idea of them.
But no one owns the truth.
And if someone says something that's accurate,
like separating the message from the messenger and the artist
from the art, I think, is very, very important.
You will learn significantly quicker if you can teach yourself to discover insights both
from people who you usually agree with and people who you usually disagree with, because
it basically quadruples the pool.
There are way more people that you disagree with than agree with.
If you can learn to take insights from them as well,
your ability to learn will increase an awful lot.
So yes, I think it is worth doing it.
Key we Reese 05,
when is Newtonic coming to Australia?
Soon, man. Unfortunately,
your government doesn't like a bunch of the compounds we have in this.
The UK government also doesn't like a bunch of the compounds that we've got in this.
The US just doesn't really care, and we could put fentanyl in it, and it'd be fine.
But UK, we had to get rid of some stuff, and now we ended up with this.
Australia is just unhappy with, like, they're very, very stringent.
They're equivalent of the FDA or whatever is super stringent.
And it's not like we've got anything insane, it's just effective in here.
So soon, I hope, but I don't want to do some half-assed product that isn't effective.
So if we can't get replacements that are as well researched as the ones that we do,
maybe not until Australia changes their laws.
Amy Robinson, 4451. congrats Chris, absolutely fab stuff.
Thank you.
What was the reasoning behind the Newtonic logo
and what's your favorite type of YouTube videos to watch?
Okay, so this is this sort of,
this new camera's face tracking is gonna kill me here.
So this is an eye, it's a big eye.
It's generated by, I think, Dali.
And the reason that we did that was we wanted something that you couldn't put down. So this is an eye. It's a big eye. It's generated by I think Dali and
The reason that we did that was we wanted something that you couldn't put down And I think it's the most beautiful can that I've ever seen. It's really really cool
And as soon as we saw it, we just fell in love
You can go watch the launch video on my on my page the first time I ever saw it was I oh
That is cool. And then we adapted it and adapted it
What's my favorite type of YouTube videos to watch?
I watch all sorts of stuff.
I'm really into World War II history documentaries
at the moment, which I think Shane Gillis
calls early onset Republican.
I'm enjoying that.
I'm enjoying a lot of stuff around physics
from David Kipping that does cool worlds,
Melody Sheep, also more of the same.
Lemino, phenomenal YouTuber.
Lot of documentaries basically.
Those and some fitness stuff.
Mike Israel, I can't, I watch all of his stuff.
It's great.
Ranjan Kandel 2924.
How do you pick momentum back up
when you lose a bit of steam?
Any reframes to change your mindset to feel like it's going downstream rather than upstream?
Love the pod changing lives.
Thank you.
And I feel you with this.
It's a vicious cycle.
When things are going well, it is easy to make them go better.
When things are going badly, it is more difficult to even slow that down.
So yeah, I feel you.
When you lose a little bit of steam, it sounds so trite.
And I know that you're going to, because I would think think this you're going to think that's fucking too obvious and and and no I wanted something that was more of a hack.
Just start small and don't stop.
Two great rules for this even the smallest amount of contribution to whatever the thing is that you're supposed to do, constitutes done, and never miss two days in a row. Going to the gym can consist of one exercise, four sets,
15 reps, and then you're like, okay, I didn't want to go and that sucked and it was really
low or whatever. Almost all of the activation energy when you've lost steam is spent on starting doing a thing,
not keeping it going. It's all about starting. So you have to reduce the friction on the starting.
That means environment design, read atomic habits by James Clear. You probably have done
already, but read atomic habits by James Clear or reread it to remind yourself of it. Even when
reading the book, I can't be bothered to read your book. Okay, read half a page, read one page, read a sentence. All of the energy is deployed in getting over the hump
at the start, not in keeping going.
So just realize that beginning to get things
to go downhill is it starts as soon as you begin the thing.
Second thing, never miss two days in a row.
Never miss two days in a row,
because if you miss two days in a row, that is no longer a mistake.
It's the start of a new habit. Those are my two things. And I use this all the time.
Blue Wave 3417. Chris, do you think the podcast Explosion is a good thing?
Are so many platforms really a net positive or do you think there's too many voices out there?
platforms really a net positive or do you think there's too many voices out there? I don't understand this question. I don't understand how it would be a net negative. There's too
many voices out there. I don't know what that means. I do think that the podcast explosion
is a good thing because it changed me an awful lot. It took me from being someone who didn't
understand himself, who didn't know how the world worked
or how to show up and behave in the world or whether I was personally cursed by the
way that I saw myself and people around me and the challenges that I had. And I started
listening to people who had exactly the same issues and thought patterns and insights and fears and goals and dreams that I did.
And the more opportunity that there is for individuals to be that avatar,
to be that person who is like, oh, they're like me, but they just know a tiny bit more.
And I can learn from them by being in their slipstream and I enjoy it.
That's great.
Is there a risk of people being too confused? Yeah, but that's on them. That's not really on the creator. It's like, if there's too many voices that there's so many shows and you don't know
which one to choose, that's not on the creator side of things. You have a multiplicity of options,
continue to try them until you find someone that speaks to you. I think it's absolutely a net positive.
100%.
Mulanayak.
Do you have a process for balancing your own internal imposed high
standards of execution, mental, physical, karmic, with grace, learning
opportunity to grow when you find yourself not meeting the very standards that if you were to expect the same from another person,
it would be seen as nitpicky and unattainable. Dude, this is very similar to whatever it was,
the first or second question right at the top. This balance between high standards and grace and
allowing yourself with becoming and being, it's the perennial question. Listen to what everybody
is saying. It's the same challenge.
You, this is not some personal curse. You are not malignant or broken.
This is a feature. It's not a bug of the way that life works.
And it's something that I deal with as well.
Do I have a process for balancing those high standards?
I have faith that I tried my best and that sounds so trite and I wish that it didn't.
It's like the Netflix and chill of the effort and personal development world.
But genuinely, if you tried your best, what more could you have done?
And if you didn't try your best, what were the things that meant that you didn't try your best and how next time?
Okay, it's the Conor McGregor's coach, what he called. Conor
McGregor's coach wrote a book that was a win or learn. It's literally that. Like, and that means
that you don't lose. You either succeeded the thing that you were doing, you meet your high
standards of execution, or you don't, and you go, okay, let me have a little reflection on that.
This isn't a comment in me as a person. I'm no less of a person for not being able to get this
thing done. How do I take whatever I've just done,
whatever failings I had, whatever pitfalls I encountered,
change that and then move forward and it won't happen again.
And again, that's what the never miss two days in a row thing comes from,
that it's this very sort of positively looking forward mentality.
Ryan Utterback. with a positively looking forward mentality.
Ryan Utterback.
Congrats Chris, is it just me or do women seem far more anxious of men than ever before?
As far as I know, statistically male and female violence
is the lowest it's been in history,
yet I feel like another hurdle I have to overcome
in the dating market is being super sensitive
to women's aggressive perceptions of men.
I don't know if these women are ingesting
too many crime documentaries, podcasts.
Wow, that would be an unseen.
Who's calling out the crime podcasts?
That's what I want to know.
Crime junkie.
They're ruining, that's the pink pill problem.
It's not, don't be worried about the red pill,
it's the pink pill coming downstream from cereal.
Fucking crime junkie. I personally, I don't think
it's that. I don't think it's, I would guess it is a whiplash overreaction to me too. I think that
a lot, especially of Gen Z, are spending more time on their phones. Everyone has ambient anxiety.
Also, everybody is observant of the way that others behave on the internet,
and they're scared of that scrutiny being turned on themselves.
They're scared of being part of some...
You know, all that you're hearing is the worst stories in the entire world,
24 hours a day, globally fed into your eyes and ears.
You'd probably be pretty scared too.
Like, this is one of the things that...
A guy I was talking to over the weekend...
Who the fuck was I talking to?
Who was I talking to?
I can't remember.
I was talking to someone.
I remember this insight being really interesting, which was guys don't realize how much of a
big role fear plays in the way that women show up in dating.
It seems like this is true as well.
I think it's me too. I think that what that
did was bring to the forefront. There's this idea of, I think it's called collective sociality,
which is what happens to other people is also my problem, which means that if some other
woman has been attacked and it's in the news, which is being more exposed than ever before
because we have 24 hour news and ubiquitous access to the
internet, that has an impact on my life.
I'm part of this.
It is part of this sort of communal socialization thing.
And yeah, I think it's difficult.
But I think that also you can signal quite easily, quite quickly, that you're not a creep. And once you've got past that
and you've got into a zone of safety,
I think that women should,
at least in my experience, seem pretty warm.
All right, I think that's it.
Ladies and gentlemen, I really appreciate you.
Look, a bit of a different one today.
And maybe this reflects my,
just where I'm at with the show.
Like, I adore it and I'm not stopping I promise.
And I have no I haven't even thought about stopping and I don't want to and I'm not going to.
But I would be lying if I said that I wasn't in this weird transition period between this guy that just started a thing to his friends doing it once a week.
And now it's three times a week and we spend 35 grand a day to fly to Arizona and record with Jordan Peterson.
And there's advertisers and there's pressure to perform and we don't do that.
Then it would be 35 grand in the whole and that's not going to be good.
You know, all of this stuff and scrutiny online, all this shit.
I'm really hoping that I'm going to come out the other side of whatever
this version of transformation is and really be appreciative that I went through this.
But yeah, I would genuinely appreciate a lot of support and stuff if you guys have got
it in the tank, if you want to. Now, all of the nice comments and things and feedback. Maybe the Ryan Holiday
Stoic in me shouldn't be as at the mercy of other people's opinions. And maybe at some point in
the future I won't be. But I kind of don't like that. In a way, I don't like the idea of that.
It's like I want to take compliments and all of the nice things that you guys say. I want to take
that to heart. So anyway, I'm gabbling and I will let you go,
but I appreciate you very much.
1.75 million, I'll see you at two million.
It'll be very soon.
Some huge guests coming on over the next couple of months.
I genuinely appreciate you.
Big love.
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