Saturn Returns with Caggie - 2.1 The Jester: Jamie Laing on Identity + Purpose

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

For the start of Season Two, Caggie is joined by old friend and fellow cast mate of Made in Chelsea, Jamie Laing. They discuss his experience during these transitional years in his late twenties to early thirties; the pressure he felt to perform all the time, and how ultimately this impacted his mental health, which forced him to slow down and reassess. Saturn can cause a rude awakening if we are living out of alignment with our true, authentic nature. This can show up in issues with our mental health, forcing us to delve deeper and make necessary adjustments in our life.  --- Follow or subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

Hello and welcome to season two of Saturn Returns with Kagi. The aim of this podcast is to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. I am very excited to get into the first episode, but firstly, I just wanted to say that I am very grateful to all of you who have listened in and shared this podcast with your friends or colleagues. It would seem that the themes we discuss on this podcast have resonated with many of you and actually through sharing this experience myself I must admit I feel less alone and so I decided to create a Saturn Returns with Kagi Patreon page where I can share content, thoughts, musings and we can create a space together where we can have open conversations in a safe and cohesive space. I was building businesses, creating

successful podcasts, and I was on TV show, getting TV show offers, all these different things, and I wasn't happy. But having good friendships and being able to sit with you now and just feel so totally at ease, having a great relationship with my girlfriend parents all that kind of stuff and now I'm happy for me it's about being loved and feeling loved and being like at this sort of place I am so thrilled that for the first episode of season two I am joined by a very very special person now many of you will recognize his voice. He is one of the originals and the longest standing member of TV show Made in Chelsea. In fact I can't believe he's still on it. Founder of the successful sweet company Candy Kittens, co-host of the Private Parts podcast and if that wasn't impressive enough he is about to appear as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing. But first

and foremost Jamie Lane is one of my oldest and dearest friends. We have known each other since we were 15. Jamie has always been this fun-loving exuberant character and I guess it's safe to say that he's a natural-born entertainer but as you will hear from this conversation I think that the pressures he felt to perform all the time became you know somewhat of a burden to him and I think this is a really powerful conversation because once I explain what Saturn Return means and how it affects us he has this sort of aha moment and he opens up about his own experiences and some of the hurdles he faced during this time. He discusses his mental health, his experience with depersonalization and anxiety,

and how ultimately through these experiences, he has found what happiness is really about. Also, I wanted to introduce you to our astrological guide for the season. Saturn takes no prisoners. It's very confronting. Noor and I connected a couple of years ago through social media. I call her my personal spirit guide. So she's going to be explaining a bit about the astrological side of things

and we'll see how that parallels and connects with the conversations of our guests. So if you had a mental health issue that you were escaping in many ways, you know, drugs, alcohol, travel, sex, Saturn will just confront you with that once more and make you show up, make you take care of yourself, make you take care of your mental health for the next 28 years to follow. Just the self-respect that you have to start giving yourself during that time, the boundaries that you have to set for yourself, that automatically translate to others. So a lot of people who don't serve you will fall away out of your life. And that's a good thing. But during

that time, it doesn't feel like that because you're already confronted with all of these issues and you're already not feeling good. So obviously if all of these things happen and you already have an existing issue that you need to address, it will translate into, you can call it mental health, but you can just call it a dark night of the soul. And this either you know live or die mentally so I think you're gonna like this conversation we recorded it quite recently at Jamie's home in London so please forgive the screaming neighbors you can occasionally hear we swear a little bit too and the unprofessional mic knock by me but you know it's a great conversation between two friends who ultimately just adore each other.

So I hope you enjoy it. I have like few people in my life that I don't have to see or don't have to like connect with. But it's like that memory of like nostalgia thing when I was a kid, right? You're 100% one of them where it it just feels totally normal and relaxed yeah like so much time could pass yeah it doesn't matter yeah and it doesn't matter and I think that's what's kind of great about that's when you know what real friendships are because you have that yeah you have that like childhood kind of friendship

that never really goes I I don't think. I know. Because we first met when we were... Well, people will presume, listeners will presume it's like around Made in Chelsea, but it predates that by, you know, several years. Yeah. But Jamie, welcome to the Saturn Returns podcast. Thank you.

So I think this is going to be super interesting to get like a male perspective on some of the stuff that we started going into a second ago. Can I ask though, with Saturn Returns, why the title? Okay, so during your Saturn return, which happens towards the end of your 20s, it's when Saturn orbits the same place in the sky occupied the time of your birth. So that takes about 30 years for it to do that transit so with it you're supposed to feel this like saturnine energy about you know discipline boundaries and if you haven't been living your life authentically it will kind of give you a couple of tests to force you to do so you look terrified no because that's what happened to me his face right now is like oh my god everything's making so much sense

holy smokes yeah yeah yeah and like like relationships will just like fall apart overnight like jobs won't work out like friendships will change and it's it's really tough and it feels really individual and really personal but it's something that you're you have to go through it's like a cosmic coming of age okay listen i'm gonna be this is real shit i swear to god so i just to really talk about myself again until i was like 22 i was pretty sweet with like everything i was very lucky i had a family we divorced parents whatever but you know everything was pretty cool at home um very privileged background you know went to boarding school all this kind of thing private school uh everything was okay i was happy all the time never really felt sad played a lot of sport uh was kind of popular dated people everything

was all right and then when i was like 22 years old i started doing a tv tv show in chelsea or 23 um and that's when like things like dipped right like things started to become a bit odd like I had panic attacks and I mean let's just be honest like structure of the show in itself was a bit odd it wasn't exactly a stabilizing environment for anyone no I don't think and I still don't think it is for anyone I think it takes a lot of grit and determination and uh just bad habits to kind of stick around doing some bad habits I think it does yeah I think you have to really have a skewed way of life I'm still on it I'm still starting but the biggest thing was is I remember when I was 27 years old, I had something called

depersonalization, which was fricking awful. And what it is, it's basically your, your body putting yourself into autopilot. So I was honestly sitting in a restaurant with our mutual friend, Spencer Matthews. Um, that was semi over the edge. Yeah. I was like, see ya. And we were sitting in a restaurant and suddenly it was like a cloud going over my eyes. Like I was like floating. And I was like, what the hell is this? I was like, this is weird. It was like a click, honestly like a click.

You feel like you're in a dream state. So it's very difficult to kind of understand what reality is and what isn't. So you'd wake up from sleeping and think you're still dreaming and stuff like this. And basically it's your body just saying, right, you've put your body under too much stress and strain. We need to protect it. We're going to shut down and put you in autopilot for a bit. basically, it's your body just saying, right, you've put your body under too much stress and strain. We need to protect you.

We're going to shut down and put you in autopilot for a bit. Yeah, it was terrifying. You must have had no idea what was going on there. No fucking clue. And then six months later, I remember I was on holiday in Dubai, actually. I was just sitting there with one of my ex-girlfriends. And something just clicked, and my mind just went back to normal. And the cloud just disappeared.

Bizarre. But it was six months? Six months of hell. I think I was going mad every day. And also I still had to do TV shows and all these different things and pretend I was okay, all that kind of stuff. Well, you've always had an amazing ability

to like compartmentalize stuff like that. Like not let it derail you and just keep functioning. Yeah. Because you're just like this energizer bunny, but perhaps that didn't always serve you if this is the case. The case, that's it. Like going from like the most sociable person,

I then had like bad social anxiety and I would not go and see buddies as much because I'd be nervous that I wouldn't make as fun for them or I wouldn't be as entertaining. And so basically every single person that I met who I knew unless they were a stranger was like an audition for myself. If I didn't make them laugh or have fun with them,

I felt like I'd failed. That sounds exhausting. It's exhausting. Oh, my God. And then doing the TV and performing all the time. Come on, let's be fun. Underneath it all. Like, no one would think that you and me both

suffer from social anxiety. Yeah, but I... We both do. We both do, yeah, but actually, weirdly enough, the only way that I got over that was exposing myself to situations where i had to go and see people same oh it was just death at the beginning but then i used alcohol all the time but i was just gonna say alcohol was a huge thing for me because i used that as a like okay well i can put on this mask by drinking and whatever and that allows me to go out into the world and not be socially anxious

but of course the anxiety would come tenfold like days later what happened with me is that alcohol became the devil and I was like it's definitely alcohol that's making me feel anxious it's got to be because I'm drinking so much so as I find so then I stopped drinking completely and when I stopped drinking it actually made it worse because there was nothing I wasn't masking I wasn't um self-medicating everything so actually all the anxieties and stuff came to the surface even more and so then what I had to do is I had to rebuild myself and understand myself much more and that's a pretty hard process because it's basically like learning a new language and you suddenly have to just redo everything and how what talked to me about that process oh it was awful did you have like

the infrastructure of therapy and stuff like that yeah I was pretty fortunate because I could afford therapy and I still do therapy once a week and it's not cheap you know it's pretty difficult for a lot of people so I was able to afford therapy every single week um so my girlfriend she had to you know Sophie poorie you know she bought a contract into a guy who's oh my god hey fun all this kind of stuff and then suddenly it went from to this guy who wasn't drinking to like feeling horrifically anxious and does not really know what's going on and she was like well i didn't buy into this and we're just in the context of time when did this happen this happened last nove so I started last November

and it started actually but it started before that actually so 2019 I remember I remember when it first really kicked in I went I was in Buenos Aires so this must be in October time and I remember staying in a hotel one night by myself and I remember waking up the next morning going for breakfast and I remember I couldn't sit still I was going for breakfast and I remember I couldn't sit still I was like well what am I like I couldn't sit still and I was like what the hell's wrong with me why can't I like fidget you trying to move I was like I need to go and walk or something and I didn't understand what was going on and it was all the warning signs for basically what they said is basically burnout in a sense is that you you have been masking yourself with alcohol for so

long you have all these demons going to the surface. You've been working so hard, burning candle at both ends, doing everything, putting on a front, putting on a face, trying to entertain everybody. And my body just went, you can't do this anymore. And the first warning was when I had depersonalization when I was 27. But I ignored it. I just got through it and same bad habits came in.

But I think that was somewhat my rock bottom yeah where I felt pretty shitty and you're like I can't carry on oh I just can't do this anymore I can't carry on you know being someone who's not picking up calls to people being socially anxious only going to events if I'm drunk you know all this different stuff and so I forced myself to change I exercised a lot I forced myself to expose myself to situations that I didn't like whether that was talking to friends that I felt awkward to talk to whether it was going on one-on-one lunches with people because I would never do that in a million years that kind of stuff you couldn't know wouldn't do it why was it like the intimacy of it or something too intimate yeah I could do it with strangers but I couldn't do it with close friends

was it like the intimacy of it or something too intimate yeah I could do it with strangers but I couldn't do it with close friends that's so fascinating yeah yeah and go and me saying that to people they're like are you kidding me you but why because I thought that I wouldn't be I thought I would have I would have to entertain I had done a reality show I still have for 10 years where every single scene I walk into I have to make people laugh I have to make it funny I have to do those different things I was the jester so my job my life everything was just me being this crazy person all the time so if I wasn't being that crazy person I had conditioned myself to be that way so me going to a one-on-one lunch I was like I'm just too exhausted but was it a bit of a fear of like if I'm not being that person who am I yeah exposed and then you have you're being exposed as the person that

you you want people to think you are but you're actually not I remember I went we have a great mutual friend called Max Fox Andrews and I went on holiday with him to Greece and this was last year and I came back from Greece and I went and saw my therapist I had just started seeing and she said how was it I said it was tough because I felt like I'd entertain and I had to do this and I was drinking and God and all these different things she said well what was your favorite moment so my favorite moment is when I was playing backgammon with Max because we didn't have to talk and I could just play backgammon she was like those are the moments you have to remember that you that you can be like that in situations people aren't going to judge you and slowly by slowly I went into situations

where I didn't entertain as much and I didn't judge. And actually, you know what happened? People went, God, Jamie, you're in sweet form at the moment. And I was like, what? They said, yeah, you're just really great to hang out with. And it turns out me being the hectic guy that I was. Was annoying the shit out of everyone. So full on.

They were like, shut up, you know? And also they knew that I was acting and they knew that I was being this character and they because they had seen me before everything when I wasn't that person um because of my whole life and the things that I had done and the choices I'd given I felt like I had to be this character and so when I say I had to rewire myself I had to realize that I could sit with people and actually it's okay to be well it's got a lot of things come like what I'm hearing from this is is a fear and inability to just be seen and to be like held yeah like who you are and not have to always like hold space for everyone else

and be entertaining it's like just to be and for that to be okay it seems like that was like a terrifying thought for you awful and it would it it was imposter syndrome and all that. You know, I still have imposter syndrome now in terms of like business, right? You know, I have my sweet business and my podcast I do. And I still think, oh God, I don't think I'm doing enough. And surely people are going to find out that I'm, you know, God, they're doing so much better. I still have that. And that's the kind of thing that I'm working on now.

So how old are you now? 31 now. 31 now. Nearly 32. Do you feel like in the last six months, there's been a sort of shift in your perspective of everything as if you've landed out of something? Yes.

So this is why it's weird you say that. Like, honestly, I wouldn't think about life that much before. Like, I would think about life, but I would think about life in a very kind of selfish way. So I would think, how am I feeling? What am I going to do? Am I going to do this? And then what switched differently is like,

a lot of thought about meaning and purpose. Like, why are we here? What is the point of this? I used to be so into buying like really expensive brands because it was a brand, but now I'm like, well, what's the point of buying that brand when you can just to be so into buying like really expensive brands because it was a brand. But now I'm like, well, what's the point of buying that brand when you can just buy a t-shirt,

which is from the same place? It just doesn't got a brand. Lots of different switches in this and lots more, incredibly more empathetic, more caring. And that has all switched over this period of whatever, four years.

And I would probably say that right now I'm probably in the happiest place and best place I've ever been because I'm just comfortable with who I am but also that was a necessary process for you to navigate in order for you to come out of this side and be like okay that was shaping me in some way and has taught me x y and z did you have that oh my god it was awful like similar to you I was in the show and that was just hectic And I think it was also very reflective of, like, who we were as people. That was, we were people pleasers. Yeah.

We wanted to, like, entertain. We wanted to be loved by everyone and validated. So there was definitely, like, a lot I got out of it from an ego perspective. But it never felt authentic to, like, who I truly was. And it never felt grounding. And it didn't feel like the energy of it was right for me. And then I went on this sort of like quest for self in a way and got so lost along the way and when I ended up in LA

that was when I first kind of learned discipline like someone came into my life and actually I became like very disciplined but part of that process was like a social exile that happened like I cut myself off from so many people because I didn't trust myself to go into that environment and not perform like you say so I was like cut yourself off yeah because I was like I can't go into that situation and not be triggered and go back to like the way the chameleon person that I always am because that had been my strategy for like my entire 20s and it was so conditioned and set that I didn't know how to like be how to be normal in my state and in those different environments I was like that made me feel anxious but what's interesting about that you

forced yourself to change I didn't I gritted my teeth and tried to keep doing it until I was forced to. Well, I think I forced myself to change, but also there was circumstantially stuff happening that was forcing me to as well. I was suffering as a consequence every time I abandoned myself. And suddenly it got to a point where I was like, again, a thing of loneliness, like who are my real friends who really know who I am? Do I even really know who I am? Because my entire life has been based off like be whoever you need to be to be to fit in and to be loved.

That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Which I think is like there's nothing wrong with that. And when we're young, when we're in our teenage years and we're figuring out our identity in a way for the first time, it's quite a normal thing to be like, well, I just want to be liked by everybody. And it's been over the last year that I actually feel like, okay, I know what stability is.

I know what grounding is. I know how to always come back to my center. But that's something that wasn't innate in me, unfortunately. It was something that I had to learn and develop. It's so interesting you say that because basically that's exactly the sort of saying that I felt. Like I definitely, I had no idea about balance. I didn't understand balance or what balance was. And actually I still struggle with balance a lot of the time in lots of different ways.

But I'm in a relationship now, right, with someone who I just think is epic in every single way. But I had convinced myself that any relationship I went into, I was always going, I was just going to be settling. And actually, what I was going to do is I was probably going to be looking elsewhere. And perhaps you cheat or you misbehave, you do the thing. So that's what happens because this, this idea of a soulmate and living in a balanced life. I didn't think you could balance the two. I thought it was impossible to do that. You didn't think you could actually bring your true self into the relationship? I thought that, yeah, I thought that you couldn't find someone who was compatible enough in order

to make both work. And then I found my girlfriend and it couldn't be more balanced. And it's like, it's unbelievably great how balanced it is. with you guys you're you were great because you made decisions to help yourself quite early on I didn't do that I made decisions that actually hindered me and made me feel worse it's the past six months to a year like you where I've just suddenly just like realized stuff but some things for good and some things for bad like I still struggle with the me like the sort of idea of meaning for bad well so Blake wrote these two poems innocence and experience and says how innocence is destroyed by experience but for me the recently what's happened is the great the great things have

recently I've learned a lot about myself but the the tricky thing that I had is that I then started to question meaning about life what is the meaning of this why are we here what are we doing here and actually the problem with that is that then everything that I used to really love I then I didn't I was like well don't really like that anymore and so then I was like well then what excites me and then I got myself into a hole I was like, well, I don't really like that anymore. And so then I was like, well, then what excites me? And then I got myself into a hole where I was like, well, nothing excites me. So I'm going from this really driven, energetic guy at the beginning of this year to going like, well, nothing really excites me because what's the point of everything? And so that's what and so I had to struggle with that for a little bit. But I think, as you said, what's so interesting with Saturn Returns is that that's what you have to go through

in order to come out the other side to understand everything. Do you feel like your innocence has been broken by your experiences? I think so. I think that happens, unfortunately, with everyone. It's really interesting that that's something that bothers you. Yeah, it really bothers me. It bothers me so much. But then I kind of come around to it that I'm like,

well, all these experiences craft who you are. I like this analogy of if we're a piece of clay and then the pain and the experiences is like the knife that sculpts the clay. So it's like all that stuff is a necessary process that you have to go through in order to become something beautiful rather than it being something that ruins something that you are yeah so I totally agree with you right but the problem is that you you've had to you've had to get the scars and scrapes and things in order to get to that beautiful place where at the beginning you were already beautiful I think what experience does to us is make us anxious and make us question

things and make us not trust people and make us feel socially awkward at us is make us anxious and make us question things and make us not trust people and make us feel socially awkward at times and make us uh question our own abilities i completely agree i've found that challenging myself but now i try and go into it's like even the bad experiences let's say again like you go through a heartbreak and it's very hard not to carry that into the next experience but i think it's one of the the great challenges of life to be able to like fully experience that to process it and then let it go and go in with a curious and playful mind into everything yeah and you know experience is like a necessity because it's like survival right um you know if you were if you were innocent always you'd be killed by the predator like you know you go through a breakup it's the

worst thing in the entire world you think you're gonna die you can't breathe you know you do that wicked thing where you beg for girl who break up first girl break up with me i remember i was on my hands and knees and my like teardrops are landing on her feet and i was like this is low and like so you realize so you learn from all of that and that's quite cool because then you realize actually wait hang on you do get over even though it's so painful so that experience is really good I think the experience which is bad is that you realize that your parents aren't always right and I kind of wish that my parents were the moment when your when your parents get taken off the pedestal for like god i know you realize they're humans i mean what age did that happen

for you i think mine happened quite late i think mine was like so mine happened at 15 it was like mine i think 20 i think mine was quite late yeah but on the flip side of that and this is something that i'm really trying to practice because i would always give so much value in other people's opinions especially my parents especially my mum and other people around me and always like asking what should I do about this what should I do about this and now I'm really like okay personal sovereignty here like what do I feel intuitively about this because we know we know instinctively and intuitively what is right for us I believe it's just about being able to tap into that and like quieting out the noise and everything around you and just being like, what is my body telling me? Yeah, see, I think that's a good, I tell you what I've learned recently, which is like a complete game changer for me, is that I would, if I didn't sleep one night let's say let's have a bad night

sleep I would go sleep for a week yeah I'm not gonna sleep for a week oh my god I'm not gonna sleep I'm never gonna sleep oh my god that means I'm never gonna sleep my girlfriend's gonna break up me means I'm never gonna get married literally and that happens within like three seconds and suddenly like oh my head pops like that's literally like yeah yeah I can relate to that so I would catastrophize everything and what I've worked out recently is that you feel anxious. Instead of grabbing hold of it, you brush it with a feather. You go, yeah, okay, I'm anxious, whatever. We know it's going to go fine.

And so with everything, that's what I kind of do now. And it's actually really helped me rather than before I would just, ah. Well, you over-identify with the thought and let it grow into this, like, monster. And then before you know it like life is unbearable yeah yeah at the moment the main things that i am like personally practicing are being present okay because i've realized that i lived most of my life in the past or in the future even in like the most amazing places in the world i'm anticipating like what's going to happen next or like thinking about something in the past whereas now I'm just like just be present in this moment most people do that you know that's what yeah they just do that

and again like what you just said about your experience it takes like a discipline and consideration to actually you know do that and rewire your mind in some way and then the other thing is also just to like to flow with things and be just to be fluid because you just don't know again it's the same thing when my linear mind goes okay this has happened and then that will happen and then this will happen even if it's in a good way I'm like okay that's that's the path that's what we're doing okay great I can handle that and then something takes you off course and it's like no and it just like completely has a meltdown whereas now I'm like okay and one of my best

friends tells me this she even when things are going really wrong and i was telling her the other day she was like just say thank you and i was like shut up thank you and we like joked about it but it's like you just say thank you to the universe because it's just like taking you on a different course that will redirect you somewhere that's probably better than where you thought you were heading you just have to be like malleable with it yeah and go so those are the things that I'm trying to like work with at the moment because I used to become very like just not move and then things would get bad then things like the depression would come in the anxiety because I would just be in a state of

like paralysis because I'd be like okay this isn't going the way I wanted to I'm going to try and force it and then that doesn't work and I'm just not going to make a move at all whereas now I'm like okay that was shit let's process that let's like be with it and fully accept it and then like let's move that's it it's being with it that's exactly not panicking and I think that was my biggest lesson as well also you know I think may you did that and i think a lot of listeners probably the same is that when you have all these thoughts going in your head you know you have thousand thousand thoughts a second you would always pick out the negative thoughts straight away so you'll think the worst case scenario if something feels uncertain yeah but i think it's

hard because you i just never realized that you had to train your brain in order to well it's a muscle if i never thought that i thought that was a load of horseshit would you say that you're in a much happier place than you've ever been and do you put that down to the fact that you think it was saturn go putting you through your paces and then you coming out the other side understanding yourself yeah you do totally and the thing is i've had like i went on holiday recently with, there was a scientist there who was obviously super critical of all of this and didn't buy into it at all. But at the end of the day, it's a bit like religion. If that provides like a framework that allows you to navigate your way through life, then that's great. You know, and

I take it all with a pinch of salt but I believe that that was like what the process that I went through whether you believe it it's in astrology or not it's kind of irrelevant but I just like that as like an arcing feature that allows me to think okay like bigger things are at play but it's a dance between the two of us. We don't lose free will just because, like, Mercury's in retrograde. But we can, like, be in communication with something a little greater than ourselves, which I think is a beautiful thing. But do you also think that perhaps it's a way to blame things on as well? Well, this is what I mean. I think some people take it too far.

And they can be like, Mercury's in retrograde or like, this is happening. This is why I feel like this way or this is why it's happening. they can be like Mercury's in retrograde or like this is happening this is why I feel like this way this is why it's happening yeah this is a communication between these two worlds I believe like your internal world and the external doesn't take away your personal responsibility just because like bigger things are at play there's stuff that we just don't understand but we are personally responsible for ourselves and the way we show up in life, in relationship, in friendship, in our career. It's all down to us, ultimately. And I think a lot of people negate that.

They don't want to take ownership over their life. They also, like, go into relationship being like, you're responsible for my happiness. But, like, no one is, really. And these are things that I'm really, like, coming to terms with and actually just being more measured about stuff. At the end of the day, I sort of had to sit back and realise that actually, you know, I spoke to this guy who, he went to Goldman Sachs and he was earning a lot of money.

And he wasn't too happy. And he went to Thailand on a trip, went to Thailand and he was on a bus. And this American guy got on the bus and sat down next to him. And he was like, I just wanted to sit by myself and just not talk to anyone and the american guy said hey how you doing he said yeah i'm good he said what do you what's your name he said his name said what do you do he says i work on my sex and he says as well as a banker he goes yeah as a banker the guy said well you must be pretty wealthy he says yeah and you know what i earn a lot of money i do he says are you happy he said you know what this way one of the strip i don't think i am happy he said

well i'll give you the rocking chair technique. When you're sitting in a rocking chair and you look back at your life and you're 90 years old, are you going to be happy with what you've done? And he said, no, I don't think so. Are you going to remember the cars you bought, the houses that you bought, the holidays you went on? Are you going to remember the relationships and all the things you've done for other people? And he went, you're so right. And he got back, he quit Goldman Sachs.

He set up a company, which is a coffee company, it's around London now, called Change Please, where he hires homeless people for a year and houses them and helps them back on their feet couldn't be happier than anyone and what I realized actually that is if you're forget all the business stuff that you're go these things actually if you're a kind person and you're friendly and you you're willing to help others I think that's actually what means everything we get sold this idea of like what success is and what happiness is yes and we just all chase this sort of we're on this hedonic treadmill of more more more like these things will make me happy and you do come to a point where you realize like that doesn't actually

work for me no and also we have this like blueprint that we feel like we have to follow so we have this blueprint we go like okay i have to be married at 27 and i have to be earning a million pounds a year and I have to do this and I have to do that and our blueprint doesn't go to plan because what why would it because it's incredibly hard to do all these different things and it takes a lot of energy and stress and everything so when we don't hit our blueprint we start to freak out because we're like we haven't got married and we haven't got this and we haven't got that oh my my God. And actually there is no blueprint. So to tie that into what you mentioned a bit earlier about like purpose and meaning,

do you feel like this is a big thing that's coming up for you right now? Yeah. Obviously ostensibly like from the outside, even I, a son that knows you quite well, I think, a lot of what you say always surprises me because we do see things from like what we put out into the world.

And we're like, wow, that person's got this going. They've got that business. They've got this career. They've got that relationship. They've got that. And you just think they've got it all together. No. So treading water like a duck underneath. And I mean, in terms like, look, God, if I, when I was, when I was 20 years old and I said I would be doing this when I am now, I would be like, get out of town. Because there are a lot of things that I've done and created.

Which is amazing. Which is amazing. But I always thought that was going to bring happiness. And I can honestly say, and even though she's in the next door room and I don't have to hear it, but my true happiness has come from finding someone who I can just be homies with and just chill with and just have the best time and that's what's brought in pure happiness and forget all the success and stuff for that I would honestly give it all away to just go on a desert island and I'd be quite happy would I be happy I might be a little bit happy but you know what I mean and I think that's what's so great and so when it goes back to purpose and things like that

I honestly think purpose is about loving. The quality of our relationships. Yeah, yeah. Whether that's friendship, families. Yeah, I think that's what it's about. And I'm the happiest, you know, I was building businesses, creating successful podcasts, doing it, and I wasn't happy. And I was on TV show, getting TV show offers, all these different things, and I wasn't happy. tv show offers all these different things and I wasn't happy but having good friendships and be able to sit with you now and just feel so totally at ease having a great relationship with my

girlfriend parents all that kind of stuff and now I'm happy and I think it's because that's what you meant to have these loving relationships and for me I'll be made different but for me it's about being loved and feeling loved and being like at this sort of place I love that I think it's like it's all been a necessary process that for you to come to that realization yeah totally and and you have to so going back to your beard the reason why it's so interesting about Saturn Returns is that without a doubt I had to go through that process in order to get where I am now and if I didn't I would be one of those guys who are fucked every night just going out trying to hook up with chicks and being creepy as ever we saw that path yeah it could have gone that way and it's still good it's still good but

hopefully it won't but it's it's interesting to say that that fuck life throws you fucking shit um it doesn't matter you know and my shit is nowhere near as bad as what other people's are but it's relative to me exactly but you get through it and you just have to be willing to learn change and and move forward if you're willing to do those things persistency in life is key doesn't matter if you're setting up a business if you're a relationship, or you're trying to teach yourself more, you have to be persistent. If you're not persistent, you fall down. I had this amazing quote once, ease is a greater threat to success than hardship. Success isn't about being financially rich. It's

about being fruitful in life in lots of ways. If something is easy, then you're never going to succeed really. Something has to be hard in order to succeed because easy will just sit back and relax so push your boundaries learn about yourself and you have to be willing to do that and be persistent and then you will succeed i just got tingles i love that yeah because i definitely think i was someone that would like just coast along life a little bit and i'm realizing that and it's the same sort of thing it's like going with the flow and like when something tough happens you're just like okay let's move but just always continue to move and like at the same time be able to healthily process whatever you're experiencing totally and also I just think what most important

is is that naivety is your biggest weapon and everything and this is what people don't realize the reason why our my sweet business became somewhat of a success is because we had no fucking clue what we were doing we made them gluten-free and vegan and made them colorful and made them really expensive and people went oh this is sweet just because we wanted to right and we just did that in terms of our podcast the reason why it was everyone said you can't do podcasts with youtube and just making people laugh and never go you have to have a format. You have to do this. I said, there is no format.

Whatever, we're just going to do it. And it worked. Because it's truthful to you. Totally. And I think that just as much as taking advice from people and understanding things, whether it's about your own mental health, honestly, take advice from people and learn. But also at the same time, no one's going to have the answer for you. You have to kind of work it out yourself.

And naivety is what will get you there in the end. I think you can read as many books as you want and all these different things. But actually, you've just got to try. You've got to try and you've got to be persistent. And you've got to, yeah, I think persistency is the biggest thing in life. Persistence is key. I remember Spencer always used to say that, ironically. But his was much more about alcohol drink more women drink more sleep with

more women and you'll be successful on that note those are some very inspirational words from jamie thank you so much thanks guys i absolutely love this conversation and i think people are going to take away so much from it sorry to all the listeners i rambled no it's amazing it's like the philosopher the next chapter yeah should i close my book of notes now i hope you enjoyed listening to mine and jamie's conversation i felt that there is a lot of similarity between myself and him and you know this this people-pleasing thing that we both experienced of always wanting to be liked and loved and I definitely feel you know as I've gone into my 30s that I'm kind of relaxed a little bit and then I have more of a fixed sense of self and it seems like so does he um and he just had to go through some you know tricky things to navigate in getting there because I think the

pressure that he put on himself to always like be 150% 24-7 just was like too much I also loved what he said about you know his tips for finding purpose and how that's ultimately for him about loving and the quality of our relationships is you know essentially what makes for a great life and also how we must remain inquisitive and persistent and naive in order to succeed which I think is some very good advice. So you can find Jamie on Instagram at Jamie Lane and me at Kagi's World. Saturn Returns is a Feast Collective production. The producer is Deborah Dudgeon and the executive producer is Kate Taylor. This podcast has grown through word of mouth so please continue to share it with your friends or anyone you think might find it useful.

It would also mean a lot if you are enjoying it to leave us a review on Apple. This helps us get discovered by more like-minded people and please do check out our Saturn Returns with Kagi Patreon page where I'll be sharing exclusive Saturn Returns content for the Saturn Returns community. Until next time, thank you so much for listening and remember, you are not alone. Goodbye.