The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - E25: We are the Burnout Generation

Episode Date: February 19, 2019

This week has been chaotic. In Chapter Five of The Diary of a CEO I flew back to the UK for an incredibly busy week filled with podcast interviews, speaking appointments, pitching to one of our biggest clients as well as filming an advert campaign. The ...

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly, to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. once again this week has been chaos absolute chaos and therefore we've got a lot to talk about my diary is full of scribbles little annotations i made, notes that I can't quite make out. And that's because I've travelled across the world this week because of work and my responsibilities. I've had so, so many things to do. I've had speaking engagements, I've filmed an advert, I've been to a couple of our global offices, I've been on podcasts, I've been pitching, I've done everything in between, all while juggling the challenges, I guess, of my own personal life on top of that. And when I have weeks like this, I have more to think about and more to say in my podcasts than usual weeks. I have more sort of

self-analysis. So this diary entry is definitely, definitely going to be interesting. And it's definitely going to be honest. And I'm actually saying, talking about topics this week that I think even I've been too scared to talk about. Yeah. So without further ado, my name is Stephen Bartlett and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

Okay, so the first point in my diary this week just says, mental load, de-responsibility your mind and your life, full stop, burnout, full stop, why was I so pissed off? Let me just set the the context let me set the scene for you a second a couple of days ago I had a flight to catch to London and in London I had a tv advert to film I had a podcast recording with one of the biggest podcasts in the charts I had a speaking engagement on one of the biggest stages in the world. And then I had a pitch with one of our top clients over the phone that I needed to prepare for. And I had all of these other things in between. On top of that, I had to go and see my family and a hundred other tasks on my to-do list. And on top of that, just as a cherry on top of that cake, I lost my passport.

So in the lead up to getting on the flight I'm actually running around New York and I realized that I left my passport at a completely different airport on a completely different plane that I just got off. So a lot going on in my mind. On top of that I've got my general life admin stuff going on. I've got 100 WhatsApp conversations banging on every single day and all of my responsibilities that are attached with my personal brand, including filming this podcast, which is late by the way, because of everything I've just described. So that's the context. That's what my life in that moment looked like. And I was on this plane flying to London through the night, realizing that when I

landed, I literally was going to be already late for things that I had to do I was already late when I landed and I landed into London my driver wasn't there he just wasn't there so that cost me time I get to my hotel and usually I just walk straight in and my my assistant saw it all but for whatever reason I had to wait 30 bloody minutes because the hotel needed £1.50 right don't fucking get me started this hotel wanted £1.50, right? Don't fucking get me started. This hotel wanted £1.50 as a deposit, right? So that cost me 40 minutes. So this is all getting on top of me. On top of that, I've not eaten. On top of that, I've not slept for about two days. Just going to keep it facts with you. And I really lost my cool. I really just like lost myself. I became a really just nasty,

not, I wouldn't say nasty. I became a arsehole. That's the best word to describe it. I was incredibly short with people that are close to me, mainly Sophie, my assistant and Lauren, my brand manager. I was just short and kind of rude. And I kind of almost lost my temper. I was just very frustrated at everything and it all just got on top of me. All of these responsibilities that I had, everything had to happen within 24 hours and I just lost my cool and I hate losing my cool because my cool is something that I really pride myself on. Being able to hold my head and my composure in the most grueling situations is something that I've always cherished. And I've had harder times, but for whatever reason, mainly because of lack of sleep, I just lost my call. And a few days later,

I read an article about burnout. And this is a topic which I've always avoided. I've always avoided burnout because I'm scared of it. People have always said to me, Steve, don't work so hard, you'll get burnout. And I've always said, these idiots, they don't know me. I'm untouchable. I'm unstoppable. I can't get burnout. We're talking about burnouts for weak people. I'm not weak. And I'm even scared about talking about it now because people that know me always worry about me because of how much I give to my work and my life and all these kinds of things, and here's a disclaimer, this is me being completely honest, as you will tell as this podcast goes on, I'm fine,

right, I'm not burnt out, I just needed a fucking nap, I'm happier than I've ever been, as always, I'm more excited about life and my career and my job and my business than ever before. I just had a fucking moment. And I read this article on BuzzFeed about burnout, and it talks about how our generation are the burnout generation. And it just felt so true. You are the burnout generation. You listening to this right now, you're not the millennial generation. You're not the lazy generation as other generations have labeled us. You're the burnout generation. We're the generation that have optimized our lives for work. We are obsessed with climbing the proverbial ladder. We are desperate to get to promotion and more

responsibilities so that we can keep climbing and keep climbing and keep climbing and then retire and die. And social media has played a role in making us the burnout generation because it's also made us the I want your life syndrome generation. We want everyone's life. Social media shows us this amazing world where people just like us are living their best life. I fucking hate, do you know what time I fucking hate? My best life. That is, for the record, something I just fucking hate, right? Because nobody's living their fucking best life, are they, really? If we're being honest, like, everyone's life could be better let's be completely honest nobody's living their best life like if what i know about life is true that

it's a journey that it's constant improvement that it's exploration none of us are living our best lives unless we're living the tumultuous roller coaster explor exploratory life. And that's not your best life. That's life. I much rather the phrase I'm living life. But anyway, back to the point about being that I want your life syndrome generation. We look at Instagram and we see people that have supposedly hit the perfect balance of work hard, play hard. They have the holidays, the lifestyle, they seem to love their job, they don't seem to work much, but they seem to play a lot. And the reason for that is because our own dissatisfaction about the reality of our lives causes us to narrate our lives on social media and we create this illustration which is how we

want our life to look, but not really how it looks you know that's the fucking truth what we put on our social media is often the illustration of how we want our life to look because we're not fulfilled enough with how it actually looks so we think we can draw a new picture and that kind of becomes true right and we're all guilty of that and the truth is when we see people's lives that we want we think this generation believe that the And the truth is, when we see people's lives that we want, we think, this generation believe, that the answer, the cure for that syndrome, for that itch, for that jealousy, is more work. We think, I just have to work harder and then I'll get that life that I see on Instagram. I think we assume the more we work, the less problems we'll have but I would argue that evidence might just suggest

otherwise and because of the internet and because of profiles and because we all have LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram we've all become brands, online brands. I used to joke to my friends you know we have this expression where we say that's not good for your brand. And what we're saying is like, that's not a good look for you, right? But we all have become brands. And I think this is also one of the reasons why we're the burnout generation. Because brands never turn off and our brands never turn off. Our brands need constant maintenance online. We are a slave in the coal room of our own online brand, feeding the furnace with coal to the beat of an algorithm which threatens to make us irrelevant if we don't throw more coal into the fire.

The shovel is your smartphone, and the coal is the tweets, the Instagram stories that we create to feed our brand and that online narrative. And it is exhausting. That's the world that this generation live in. It's always, always, always on. And another factor that contributes to the fact that we are definitely the burnout generation is that we've become more efficient at everything than any generation that I've ever come before us we are the most efficient generation we've made our lives so efficient so that we can do more so that we can free up time just to fill it with things that will make us more busy, so that we can take more on, so that we can add more notifications and emails and

tasks to our to-do list. We've replaced quality time with things that take less time. And I live in New York City, right? And New York is known for being the city that never sleeps, and the hustle, the bustle bustle the career and all of those things right and so this this city really is a prime example of exactly what I've described every bloody food place in New York is like subway where you pick 10 ingredients really really quickly and they'll chuck them in a bowl for you or stick them between bread so that you can get back to your desk and carry on working faster. What happened to like sitting down with friends and waiting for your food to be cooked? That idea of sitting and waiting and socialising in person, as we all know,

is sacrilege to the burnout generation. That's like blasphemy, right? This is why the fundamental criticism of millennials that we're lazy and entitled is so infuriating. And this is what she writes about in her article. She says, we work so hard that we figured out how to avoid time wasting in every respect. We figured out how to avoid wasting time ordering meals so we have Deliveroo and Uber Eats. We figured out how to avoid leaving the house to go to a shop with Amazon Prime. We figured out how to save time meeting loved ones by using FaceTime. We figured out how to make dating more efficient and faster with Tinder just so we can free up time to fill it with more things to be busy with. At any given time, if you look at my life, right?

And when I landed in London and I was a bit all over the place and lost my temper a little bit, right? I had five things to do right then. And I was late for five things. While adding five things to my to-do list that had just arrived in my inbox, while cancelling five things that I didn-do list that had just arrived in my inbox, while cancelling five things that I didn't have time to do because I was busy. We are the generation with all of the tabs open, trying to accomplish 20 things at once and the internet has made us involuntary,

obsessive multitaskers. And Anne writes it in this article that I was reading that all of this optimization of our lives as children in university and college online culminates in the dominant millennial condition which inflicts upon you regardless of how old you are or how rich you are or where you live which we call burnout and burnout was first recognized as a psychological diagnosis in 1974 by a psychologist called Herbert Friendberger I think his name was and he classified it as physical or mental collapse caused by overwork or stress burnout is of a completely different category than exhaustion although the two sort of concepts are in some respects related. Exhaustion means going to the point where you can't go any further,

right? But this is where burnout is completely different. Burnout means reaching that point and pushing yourself to keep going, whether for days or for weeks, or in some cases years. And what's even worse, the feeling of accomplishment that follows an exhausting task, whether it's passing that exam or finishing a massive work project, the feeling of accomplishment never comes. It never comes because the nature of someone living in the burnout generation is just one task after the other, after the other, after the other. There's no time to feel a sense of accomplishment. The exhaustion experienced in burnout combines an intense yearning for the state of completion with a tormenting sense that it cannot be attained, that there is always some demand or anxiety or distraction which cannot

be silenced. Josh Cohen, a psychoanalyst specializing in burnout, wrote, you feel burnout when you've been exhausted and you've exhausted all of your internal resources. Yet you cannot free yourself of the nervous compulsion to go on regardless. And there are so many people listening to this right now which are going to be able to relate to that. And what she writes in the article that I read, she talks about because she's so burnt out with work and studying and all those kinds of things in her life, she almost finds it impossible to do the simple tasks

like get your laundry done, iron clothes, go and register to vote. The simple errands in our life, our generation find it impossible to do because we're so burnt out and exhausted by running our lives and our careers, right? And if you can relate to that, then I think you need some advice.

And I was looking around the internet and i was looking in books and various other sources for some solid advice i could give you and the crazy thing is a lot of the stuff you read online about being burnt out or exhausted points to like go do yoga or fucking eat mocha chocofraca lacto vegan bullshit i don't know and the truth is none of that's going to help. There's no fucking yoga class or like treadmill desk or whatever. That's going to cure your burnout. And this is what the article says.

And I couldn't agree more. It's much, much deeper than that. It was taught to you when you were in school. We were conditioned and cultured to work and to climb that ladder. And I see no easy way out for our generation. I just don't. But I saw a comment on the article which offered some advice and I wanted to share that with you as well because I think it's important to leave you with some advice, not just be Debbie Downer and say that you're fucked, right? So there was a guy that commented on the article and he wrote some really great words which I wanted to share with you as well.

He wrote, go and look up the phrase directed attention fatigue on LinkedIn. This is literally a biological phenomenon rooted in the lack of sleep in which a chronic state of mild to severe sleep deprivation causes the brain's executive function to deteriorate and reduces the capacity for decision making. When you don't get enough sleep, your brain doesn't get the time it needs to consolidate memories, to restore itself, to repair tissues and flush out toxins. The ongoing result of mild sleep deprivation coupled with a constant sense of urgency is the descent into a permanent fog of low-grade anxiety worsened by dulling at the edges. That is 100% what I fucking felt. Because of my mild sleep deprivation, I was all over the shop and my mood took a massive, massive L. You know, the likely reason millennials

feel this more intensely than any generation so far is because the ratcheted up pressure to succeed in everything we do is coupled with the overwhelming presence of sleep robbing technology. The CEO of Netflix said that his greatest competitor for Netflix, the one thing that Netflix is competing with, is your sleep. The reality is all of the technology we have in our lives is constantly robbing us of sleep. And in some level, that is our enemy. That is what's destroying us. Millennials want to have it all. We all want to have it all, to post it on Instagram, to tell the world we did it and we made it and to love us,

while simultaneously fearing that we will slip into the ravine of failure and this fear the failure in our minds is not having the best job and not living the best life and not having the best love as a result we are treadmill addicts hamsters slowly running ourselves into the ground through the lack of rest mild anxiety and a desire to climb a fucking ladder you know this all sounds quite grim but the article in the comment below it says that the simple answer is to unplug and get more sleep and to be honest it's not that simple at all because finding more time for healthy sleep and rest goes directly against the grain of having it all and And that's what we're programmed to do.

And we're programmed to be the super worker who has a super social life, who never misses that hot new episode on Netflix or whatever it is. And, you know, you just can't have it all. And the pursuit of trying to have it all, which I'm more than guilty of, results in having very little to be proud of. And in that moment, I wasn't proud of my fucking mood, right? I was an asshole. And I did go back afterwards and apologize to Sophie and Lauren in that and just say, listen, I need to sleep. I need to make sure I take care of myself because if I don't, I'm going to find myself in a really bad state of mind. And that bad state of mind is going to cause me to become someone I don't want to be but it's also going to be the one thing that stops me from actually being successful

and all the things I want to be successful in. I guess the moral of this elongated point is to take care of yourself. Stop sweating about having it all and being it all and achieving everything and climbing the ladder. De-clutter your mind. De-responsibility your life. Simplify everything. The only way our generation are going to win is if we push back on this conditioning, on this culture, on society, which has made us the to-do list burnout generation. And we actively, actively, and this is kind of ironic for me telling you to work on something else right now, but we actively work on simplifying everything and maybe go back to our roots. I talked to one of my previous podcasts about one of the main causes of depression and mental health, according to a lot of the books I've read, and specifically a book called Lost Connections, is the lack of

psychological needs that we're getting from the world we live in today, the lack of exercise, for friends and family, love, our tribe, nature, and the efficiencies that we've produced by being part of this generation are the things that have robbed us of those things, those psychological needs. So a lot to think about there, but I hope something there has helped you because this whole journey has definitely helped me. And once again, for my friends and family and you guys that listen to this I'm completely fine okay I always get the funny thing is when I record this podcast I always get loads of messages of concern because I speak openly about things that I'm thinking I've never ever been concerned for myself because I am so deeply happy.

But this podcast is the journey of me exploring ideas and exploring myself. And I think for the last six, seven years, everybody has said to me, Steve, you're going to get burnout. Steve, you're going to get burnout. Steve, you're going to burn yourself out. Don't work so hard, you're going to get burnout. And I've always just shrugged them off and told them something. You don't know me. I'm invincible.

That's what I thought in my head when they said it. Burnout isn't for me. Burnout's for weak people. But I've changed my mind. I think there is a chance that I could get burnout and I don't want that to happen. So I'm going to fight it. Okay. And I think you should fight it too. Okay. So the next point in my diary,'ve just written reminder and here's what the reminders says it says there's so much uncertainty in life but the one thing we know for sure is the inevitable and here's what i mean we know that there are so many question marks in life and part of the reason this podcast exists is because as the CEO of a company that runs a pretty high intensity life as you've just heard from the previous point, I have tons of questions that I explore every single day. But there is one thing that I know is die. 100%. Your heart is 100% going to stop. Your brain

is 100% going to shut down and you're going to be dust in memories. You're going to be dead longer than you were alive. And with all this in mind, the most important reminder, and I guess a lot of this is inspired by Steve Jobs and what he said at his commencement speech is you know what matters Steve Jobs said on at that commencement speech he said you know we're all already naked we've all got nothing to lose we have to follow our hearts but I guess my question is what matters and for me this is a reminder that I kind of bestow upon myself regularly, there are two things that matter. There's kind of two parts to our story as humans.

There's life and there's death, and there's two things that matter. And when you think about this from a more sort of philosophical perspective, only one of those things is in our control. Life. And the decisions you make, the way you behave in your life will unequivocally determine the legacy, the memory and the impact you continue to have following your life in your death. So because the only part in our control is my life, let's just focus on my life. What matters in my life?

There's two things that matter in my life, me and other people. So on the point of me, the thing that matters most is my happiness. And as it relates to other people, my family matter. And it matters that I use my existence here on earth while I was alive to make the existence of other people more happy and fulfilled. Those are the two concepts that matter, me and other people. My happiness and making sure that because I existed, the happiness of other people is improved. And I guess this is a really sort of simple idea, but I don't think you believe it. I don't think 99.99999% of people really know they're going to die. I don't think they live like that. I'm being completely honest, I do not. I don't for a second think that you think you're going to die. But it's 100% guaranteed that nobody makes it out

alive. Because if you really believe that, if you really believed that fact, I don't think you'd live your life how you're living it. If you really thought those things mattered and you really knew that you were already naked, I don't think we'd spend so much time sweating the small stuff, caring about strangers' opinions, asking for permission to live our own lives. And so for me, this reminder is a really really powerful liberating one and it's one that I reflect back on whenever I feel myself getting consumed by bullshit that really won't matter I will be dead longer than I was alive and so you know ain't got shit to lose okay the next point in my diary, I've just written,

there are no rules to success. This is a really fucking weird thing to say, because a lot of the people that listen to my podcast or listen to my content or watch my YouTube, I guess what we're all looking for is a bunch of rules that we can apply to our own lives to help us achieve results that we're looking to achieve, right? And I think one of the revelations I've had is that there are really no rules to success. There can't be rules to success when all of the subjects are different. You are different to me. So the rules that are applicable to me for my success and the way that I get to where I want to go can't also all apply to you, right? Because we are completely different jigsaw pieces. And it's hard because in life, we're always looking for rules. We're looking for undeniable rules for this puzzle. Rules on how to

become successful, on how to be happy. And the great epiphany I had when I was flying on this plane the other day is that there are no rules for all of us. So studying another human, following their steps is in fact really dangerous. There are only rules for ourself and our own lives. We're all different. How could there be a rule for all of us? In fact, every time we try and treat different things the same, history tells us this amounts in failure. If you look at the education system, teaching all kids in the same way, the same thing is fucking kids up. I'm one of them. I slept through all of my classes. I was expelled from school. I was probably considered a failure to many people and I turned out okay. But the education system perceived me as the same and it taught me in the same way and it gave me the same rules and I didn't come out very well according to them anyway and I think

the same about success I think listen I've said this before but I love Steve Jobs but I'm not Steve Jobs right and the way that Steve Jobs made it is the only way Steve Jobs could have made it but it's not the way I can make it and as I said before we are so good at confusing admiration with aspiration you can admire someone and not want to aspire to be them not try and copy the footsteps that they've taken I talked on this podcast a while ago about a young kid that follows me that desperately wants to be an entrepreneur. And I don't know how to put this. He was really inspired by what I do and my story and my journey. So he's tried to emulate it almost exactly. And because of that, he's resulted in a lot of failure. He's living at home with his mom currently.

He's getting older and older and older, but he's still trying to copy the blueprint of my life. And the problem is, that was me. I'm not saying I was special or anything. I'm fucked up in so many bloody ways. And because I'm fucked up and because I'm crap at things and because I'm good at some things, the jigsaw piece that resulted in my overall success is a certain shape. That's the piece that fitted me. And what I'm saying to you is the piece that will fit you won't look like the piece that fits me so instead of trying to carve out that piece and stick it in you to see if it completes the picture I'm asking yourself to look at yourself first to look at your

own shape and once you understand yourself once you build that self-awareness about what you love and what you're good at and what you're bad at and what sucks and what your talents are, then you can carve out a piece to fit your jigsaw and to complete that picture. I promise you it's so fucking dangerous trying to copy people that you admire. You know, you can learn from them, but to try and emulate them, that's a dangerous old game. The secret is self-awareness. The secret is knowing yourself. Okay, so the next point in my diary, I've just written social media, work, chemical imbalance. No, people are one of the biggest burdens to your mental health. And here's what I mean. You know, growing up as a very social person and then going and starting a business and employing a lot of people, one of the things I've definitely done is I've got to meet a lot of

people. And I've met great people. I've met not so great people. And I've had people close to me, sometimes involuntarily because of work, that have been in some respects toxic. They have hurt my peace. And I think everybody listening to this podcast right now has somebody in your life that is hurting your peace. And as I reflect on maybe the last, let's say, five years of my life, I can literally think of, say I knew 3,000 people, three people in my circle who have sucked the peace out of me. And you know, social media gets a lot of the blame for mental health problems and overstressing and work and burnout, as we've just talked about, and chemical imbalances and all of these things. But honestly, I think people in your circle are one of the biggest causes of mental health issues and let's call it

peace robbery than anything else. One of the best things I ever did in the last decade of my life was mustering up the courage to remove certain people from my life and not like half removing them. I read this quote earlier on which I posted on my Instagram and it says that when you take the trash out, you know, you empty the bin, you go and put the bin bags by the door, it still stinks your house out even though you've put the crap in a bin bag. And I'm guilty of that at my place here in Brooklyn, right? I put all the crap into a black bag and I stick it by the door and then my house starts to stink. You've got to take the bag out. And I reflected on that quote because there are people in my life that I removed completely. I cut them

out completely. And it was hard and it cost me. It cost me friends. It cost me, in some cases, professional opportunities. In some cases, it meant that someone would go and talk shit about me for 12 months, unwarranted. But I had to cut them out for my own peace. And I think cutting out a handful of people from my life has had an upside which is indescribable. So I'm throwing this back on you, listener, whoever's listening to this, wherever you are. Is there someone in your circle that is robbing you of your peace, that is making you anxious, that isn't treating you how you think you deserve to be treated. We do this a lot in business where there's just that one rotten apple in our circle or in our company or in our business. They've got too much of an ego, they're rude, they make people feel

bad, they're selfish, they're obnoxious, they don't think we know their agenda but we do. And as in a business context sometimes they're offering great skills. Sometimes they're talented. And the worst thing we can ever allow in a business context is a talented arsehole to corrupt our culture. And the same applies for you. How many talented arseholes, how many people have you got in your circle that are well connected, are valuable in one respect, but they are peace robbing in another? Here is my message to you. This fucking year, we removed them. All of them. This year, we cut out all of the talented assholes in our circle. All of the peace robbers, right? I did this in my life.

It was one of the best things I ever did. And I just hope the same for you. Okay, the next point in my diary, I've just written, name someone that doesn't have haters. Let me back up a second, give you some context on this. So over the last couple of years, I've put myself out there more. I've built my, as they call it, personal brand. And I've made more content online on Facebook, Twitter, et cetera, et cetera, Instagram. And because of that, I've picked up a shitload of haters. Whenever you put yourself out there in the world, you'll pick up a bunch of people that just fucking hate your guts. And to be completely honest, I'm pretty sure there's some

people that listen to this that fucking hate me, because that's just the way of the world, right? And naturally, nobody wants that. Nobody like wants to be hated. Nobody wants to have like that 1% of people that talk shit about them behind their back because we all have our egos and we all want to be loved, right? That's just a human thing. So I think at one point last week,

while I was in the gym, in fact, it crossed my mind, what would I have to do to not be hated while still being myself and putting myself out there and trying to achieve the things I want to achieve? How would I have to behave? And the answer was there is no way. There is no way for me to behave that will result in me being able to achieve the things I want to achieve, while still being myself and fulfilling myself and being happy, and not getting haters. It just doesn't exist. Name for me someone on the face of planet Earth

that doesn't have haters, that has achieved anything, that has been themselves. I thought of names. The first name that comes to my mind is someone that I think everybody loves, Obama. 50% of people fucking hate him. All of the Republicans hate him. Then I thought, okay, who else? Maybe a sporting legend, Ronaldo. People hate Ronaldo. In fact, all of the opposing club's fans, every time he plays, hates Ronaldo. They boo him. They shout shit at him.

All the Messi fans hate Ronaldo. You can't, I can't name one person on planet Earth that's got through life without being hated and achieved something. So listen, they're going to hate you anyway they're going to talk shit about you anyway and sometimes i do think i think because i'm younger and i'm fairly new in my industry and our company's done really well and we're disruptive and we speak honestly and all these kinds of things people fucking hate my guts and some people do and I hear about other agency CEOs as there's one in particular in Manchester I've heard about that apparently they just fucking hate me never met me have no idea who they are have no idea who this guy is absolutely hates me apparently and um upon hearing that it's definitely not very nice no one

wants to be hated but you know what choice do I have we all get this in life this isn't just a situation unique to myself we face this resistance that comes from others whether it's strangers whether it's your mum whether it's your dad your brother your sister your sister-in-law whether it's a stranger that works in a competing business that's two decades older than you that is clearly a bit pissed off that you've done a right for yourself. That is the resistance we all face. And that resistance tells us to get back in our place. How dare you try and be successful? How dare you try and be yourself? You better get back in line and be a sheep. That's what the resistance wants from you, right? But the problem is standing in line is a really unhappy

place to be so i have to come to peace and i have to be happy outside of the line but outside of the line is where all the shit talk takes place that's where people try and tear you down and a lot of the time they tear you down because they wish they could step outside of the line too so they're shouting from the line get back in line who the fuck do you think you are and gary vaynerchuk i've seen him be torn down in this way there are like a cult of people that are just gary vaynerchuk haters and if you tweet something negative about gary vaynerchuk you'll get 200 retweets on twitter because people want they love to hate him there's no fucking reason to hate gary vaynerchuk honestly's not. I've met the guy four or five times. Nice guy. I text him quite often. Nice guy. He's trying to make the world a better place. His intentions are good. People fucking hate his guts. And this is the world we live in.

And the choice you have is this. This is the choice all of you have. Okay. You can either take the hate, be yourself, do it your way, chase after your fulfillment, be unapologetic, live your life on your terms and have no regrets, or you can retreat under your duvet, turn the lights off, lock the door and just wait to die. That's the choice as far as I see it. And I think about that every as far as I see it and I think about that every single time I see that hate I think oh shit maybe I should act differently so that people won't talk shit about me or won't be critical and I just think I can't be fucked to get under my duvet and turn the light off and lock the door because you know I'm going to die anyway that's

the fucking punchline isn't it that's punchline. I'm going to die anyway. So none of this stuff is going to matter. None of your fucking opinions are going to matter. Your mum's opinion won't matter. None of this shit will matter. You know, I think if there was, if I had a mission in life, right, and I had to say, what am I trying to do to the people that watch me listen to my podcast come to like listen to me on stage it would probably be I just want you to be you I want you to be comfortable in your own skin and just being you isn't it sad that that's so hard just to be you unless you're a fucking racist of course then I don't want you to be you I want you to go and go to church and repent for your sins but if you're a nice person in the world

could do with your value and you've got a unique take on life then I want you to be you not racists and bigots and all that I don't want you to be you I want you to find Jesus but yeah anyway I'm gonna end the podcast there. It's 2am here in New York City and I talked about sleeping this podcast, so I better go get some. I'm in the cupboard in my apartment here in Brooklyn, New York. I'm surrounded by glasses and a blow up bed and a big exercise ball. And I've got work in the morning. So I hope you've enjoyed this podcast if you have then please message me tweet me tag me on Instagram I'm going to go through the podcast reviews again and anybody that's rated at five stars and left their Instagram handle or their Twitter handle I'll be dropping you a DM just to say thank you I'll pick five people and and send you a voice

note as well and answer some of your questions so thank you so much as always for listening to this podcast I know you don't have to and I appreciate you allowing me to rant and get all this stuff off my chest and I really hope anything I've said helps you because if it does then that helps me as well so have a wonderful day have a wonderful week and I'll see you again next Monday.