The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Former No.1 Pick-Up Artist: “We’re Wired to Cheat After 7 Years”, “I Was In A Relationship With My Mum”, The True Danger Of Porn: Neil Strauss

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

What can the former world’s best pick up artist and now recovered sex addict teach you about love? In this new episode Steven sits down with 10x New York Times bestselling author, Neil Strauss. Neil Strauss is a former music critic, cultural reporter and ghostwriter, he is best known for his books, ‘The Game’ and ‘Rules Of The Game’ which documented the secret world of pickup artists. In this conversation Neil and Steven discuss topics, such as: How he went to rehab to overcome sex addiction His emotional evolution How he redefined his idea of love Dealing with a toxic relationship with a parent The reasons people have commitment issues Why dating is so hard Three steps for healing trauma How we are wired to cheat after 7 years in a relationship Why marriage is now a tick box exercise How to attract a perfect partner Why all relationship issues are historical The dangers of masturbation and porn What he learned as Kevin Hart’s ghostwriter The one attribute that made Kevin Hart a success Kevin Hart’s key to resistance How to overcome fear of abandonment Why your childhood is the reason behind your relationship problems The 5 things men need to do to find love How to break out of a toxic dating cycle Why checking a partners phone is cheating Living in a separate world when you cheat You can purchase Neil’s most recent book, ‘The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships’, here: https://amzn.to/3u9gm17 You can purchase Neil's book, 'The Game: Undercover in the Secret Society of Pickup Artists', here: https://amzn.to/3udYx13 Follow Neil: Instagram: https://bit.ly/3QAzZ9I Twitter: https://bit.ly/3MEH0FA Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

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 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 ever check your partner's phone? It's a form of cheating. And here's what's interesting. I found that Neil Strauss, the former world's greatest hiccup artist, best-selling author. He opens up about cheating, monogamy. Whose work is insightful and controversial. Do you think it's natural to be faithful to one person? In my research, the most evolutionary argument that made the most sense was that

we're wired to cheat after about seven years. That said, I realized that all relationship issues are historical. For example, I hurt someone I loved. Offer a sexual experience that wasn't that great. Went to sex addiction rehab. Then the therapist said, the reason you've never been in a healthy relationship is because your mother wants to be in a relationship with you. My mom never proved a single person I dated.

When I wanted to live with my girlfriend, my mom cut me off. She'd come in my room and tell me about how horrible my dad was. I was the only one who understood her. So you grew up trapped. We call that emotional incest. And then what happens as soon as you're in a relationship, you want to escape. Having that outlet of cheating or drugs means we're not just trapped with this one person. And how does one go about unwiring that?

These little things program us. So you've got to disengage it. And so what works is... The people that really are struggling to find that love what advice do you give to them people have this fantasy about what they want but you're gonna attract someone who's at your level of growth and self-esteem everyone who has that list of this is what i'm looking for make that list for yourself and become that person and then you'll meet that person that's like just 100 true what do you think about masturbation i like how you just

asked that question just i've never shared this. I'll probably regret it. I did an experiment once. Neil, I first came across your work when I was, I'm going to say 17 years old. Your book was the first book I ever read without moving from the moment I opened it. The book, obviously the book covers the life of pickup artists and you kind of go on that journey with them and then you kind of shine a light on that world. But for me, what the book taught me was a lot about human psychology and that human psychology was even quite a significant thing in life business and everything in between and relationships and then I read your second book some years later called The Truth and again this book changed my

life but for very different reasons for reasons centered around the fact that I was struggling in relationships I was struggling with commitment I thought that our relationship was prison. Um, and your book, the truth gave me an olive branch that maybe I was wrong. And it showed me sort of a, give me a mental model to redefine how I saw relationships. There's a lot of people struggling with relationships. Yeah. I mean, that's why I wrote it. That was one of those people. Give me a little bit of an overview of your story up until, up until writing the truth. I think we're really similar. We were talking a little bit before the show in terms of like being a late bloomer in terms of relationships and commitment and freedom

being important and all those kinds of criteria. I just thought, you kind of think everything's normal and everyone else is strange and you're normal until you hit a bottom and something goes wrong. And for me, what happened was, I mean, it's super vulnerable to share, even though it's in the truth, but it's weird to say it in person. I was dating someone who I thought, oh, this is more serious relationship. Maybe this could go the long way. And then I cheated on them. And sadly, people usually don't learn a lesson when they cheat. They learn a lesson

when they get caught. So I got caught. And then you face the reality. That's when the compartment breaks down in your mind and you face the consequences of what you've done. And her being smart was like, I'm done with you. You cheated on me. You betrayed me. Goodbye. Good. Which is good for her. And I felt like just wrecked. I felt just, you know, I

wrecked it. I hurt someone I loved and cared about. I destroyed my chances for the future that I wanted to have all for like a sexual experience that wasn't that great anyway. So, and this is in the book, so his name's there. So Rick Rubin, the producer, the music producer, who's kind of been a mentor to me, he almost produces my life

like the way he literally produced my life, like the way he produced a record where I'm living everything. He's someone who can just, the way he looks at music, he can look at your life and see what your logical fallacies are. So he said, like, maybe you're a sex addict. I'm like, well, what do you mean? It's not like I need to have sex all the time. I'm not addicted to it. I'm not like out there doing crazy things. He's like, well, I mean, A, look at all the stuff you do in the game.

Did that make you happy? You know, you did in the game. Did that make you happy? You got everything you wanted. Did that make you happy? And now you hurt somebody you cared about for a sexual experience. Maybe you are a sex addict. And we literally argued back and forth about that for months until he was ready to give up on me. And then I said, I don't know, but I'll tell you what,

I'll go to sex addiction rehab because it's not going to hurt. I'll learn something. And I went there very cynically into sex addiction rehab. And we did something called like a timeline where you write down your most, and you can do this at home. It's a useful thing to do to write down your most impactful experiences, positive or negative in your first 17 or 18 years. And you kind of write them out. I was going for my positive and negative experiences. And then the therapist goes, well, you know, the reason you've never been

in a healthy relationship. I'm like, no, why? Because everything either I cheated or someone cheated on me or they just didn't work out. And I go, no, why? She goes, well, it's because your mother wants to be in a relationship with you. And exactly that look you just had was exactly what I had. I'm like, what are you talking about? But logically, but in my body, like everything when it passed made sense. Then she said, and this was like a little intense. She's like, there's a word for that. We call that emotional incest.

And I was like, what the fuck is that? Like, but almost like I'm feeling it now, like I felt this whole, like this cold wind blow through like my entire soul. And like my body recognized the truth that she was right. Like why did my mom never prove a single person I dated? Why was I grounded for most of my high school life? Why when I wanted to live with my first girlfriend,

did my mom cut me off and say I wasn't allowed to do that even though I was like, you know, 19 or 20 or something like that. Like, it's insane. You know, why would I sit while we're watching TV and like massage her? It's fucking creepy, but know, how horrible my dad was. And I was the only one who understood her. Like, yes, like it's crazy. And so once I recognized the truth of that, all of a sudden, like it just was never the same again. Basically, there's like three types of parenting, right? This is, see, there's functional parenting, which is just a parent that takes care of a child's needs. There's abandonment when a parent's not there for the child's emotional or physical, you know,

emotional or physical needs or the parent's gone. It can be abandoned. And even if a parent dies when you're very young, you don't know that, that sometimes you might think that's about you. Then there's enmeshment, which is like most people don't know and don't recognize, which is when a parent's, when your job is to take care of your parents' needs. Ah, okay. When you kind of start parenting them or taking care of them. Yes, or, or instead of making choices

about what are best for you, to making choice about what's best for them. So simple version is you're taking care of them. In fact, you can see people who are adults and they call their mom or dad every single day and are always there for the problems that their parents are having and feel guilty if they're not.

But then it can be more subtle, like maybe a parent's really anxious and you need to be home and close by and do all these things. But it's not for you to be a better child, it's for them to be less anxious and less worried. So a sign that enmeshment is occurring is if you grew up feeling sorry for a parent.

We're born with kind of all our brain cells, but the neural connections aren't made, right? And in our early, early childhood experiences, all that wiring is being put together. So they're like our programmers, right? Like they literally just programmed us. So these little things program us. And this woman, Pia Melody, she's brilliant.

She has this great therapy called post-induction therapy uh pit and she thinks of your child she thinks of your childhood as a hypnosis and she's trying to wake you up from that hypnosis and it's such a great way to think about it that we're really indoctrinated into this cult as children right like and that cult is our family our family values the family system the way it is mom dad like we have nothing else and that shapes the wiring of our brain and then as adults so much of our journey is to like just wake up so how does that all come back around to this sex addiction so if you grow up uh enmeshed with a parent um well what happens

as soon as you're in a relationship again you feel trapped and that trappedness reminds you of your parents your parents in your childhood and so what do you want to do when you're trapped fly escape exactly you want to escape but how do we escape cheating exactly interesting that cheating is a a path to escaping that's quite interesting yeah and it doesn't have to it's like it's almost like a and by escaping. That's quite interesting. Yeah, and it doesn't have to, it's like, it's almost like a, and by the way, it's not cheat. Some people will act out in some other way. It could be some other type of escape, but often it's cheating

because we feel trapped again and we feel we just want to pop a hole in that like plastic bag overhead before we suffocate and having that outlet of just cheating or fantasy or drugs or whatever it is, like something there, like just helps us escape and not feel trapped. We have our own separate life or we're not just trapped with this one person. It's scary. We feel this

like terror. I mean, sometimes like before I did all this work, like my girlfriend would like hug me. And I'd like to feel like my skin crawl. I just feel trapped. And like, she just loves me to hug me, but I feel like, just like I wanted to escape. See, I can relate in a way because I remember when I would pursue someone that I was attracted to when I was up until the age, I'd say about 22. And the minute they showed an interest in me, I would kind of like dissuade them from wanting to be with me. So I would pursue them.

Then once they were interested in me, I'd dissuade them. I would get like, my skin would crawl when they showed interest in me. I really had to do a lot of work to get rid of that. Like I was,

I had an allergic reaction to someone being interested in me. Yeah, it's that exact same thing. And so that's why a lot of people who are avoidance don't recognize their avoidance. They're like, no, I want love. I want to be in love. That's my whole goal in life. Yeah. How does it feel when someone actually returns your love powerfully? And how does one go about unwiring that or unlining those limiting beliefs? I'll give it to you in the way that I think is like the most effective. The first step to heal is humility. Like the number one thing you need is humility.

And as someone once told me, the same brain that got you into this problem is going to get you out of it. And a lot of people think, well, if I read books and I write books, I love books, and I listen to podcasts, I love podcasts and do podcasts as well. But just taking in information,

you're not going to, you need really humility to say, shoot, I don't know the answers. And you just surrender to a, to a, to an expert and just say, I know nothing. That's why we're talking before the podcast about AA. And the first step is realizing we were powerless. And I think that humility is the first step to change. And it's, man, it's a hell of a step because it's hard for people to really be humble in this world and say, I don't know. So from there, this is the three things. And I think they work in combination.

I really think this is the formula. I love that the therapy model was redone around this, which is one is you need deep, intensive workshops where you're really like an emotional puddle on the ground crying this stuff came in emotionally and i think you only heal emotionally i think anyone who's listening maybe even yourself if you had a moment that really changed it's something you felt emotionally it wasn't oh if you if there's an idea and you're like oh i get it it's just a behavioral problem and then you change it the things that you understand and you keep making the same mistake, you know, as they call it in NLP, conscious incompetence, those are the things where it takes something deeper. So deep, intensive, emotional workshop. And then everyone goes to these things. The Hoffman process, for example, is very popular

right now. Have you heard of that? Yeah, I have. One of my friends put it into the group chat the other day. Yeah, yeah. So it's powerful. It's great. What the Survivors Program at the Meadows or it's the Rio Retreat Center is amazing or therapeutic, but there are a bunch of, so you go to these, what always happens or even after any kind of seminar is you leave like, this is amazing. I totally get it. I see who I am. I'm going to go live my best life now. And then you get around the same environment and the same behavioral patterns start, you know, sneaking back in and you're back to where you started. So you need the big shift and then you need something for maintenance. That's where talk therapy comes in. So step one, deep workshop. Step two is some kind

of ongoing maintenance. And here's something I recommend. And it's also cheaper, I think, than therapy. Not everyone can afford to see a therapist every week. So you need something that where every week or every couple weeks, your wrong thinking is corrected. So as an example, I got a bunch of guys together in my neighborhood. Different men are at the same level in life. And we all chipped in for one therapist. So instead of you buying a therapist, five, six, ten of your friends can chip in on a therapist. You can do that. Skip a few coffees a week. And then we meet every week.

We've done this for probably since my seven years now. Almost the exact same group of people, a few people come in and out. And every week we go in there and here's why group therapy, I think, and a lot of research backs this up actually, but research can back anything up, is that it works better than one-on-one therapy is if you're having a discussion with me or a therapist, you can just say, well, I think you're wrong. I disagree. Even though you don't have a degree, I disagree. But if that therapist and like eight of your friends all say, no, man, you're wrong. You're like, I disagree. But if you all say so, you're probably right. I'll consider that. So I think it's really powerful. And the other great thing is you don't have to wait every week or every two weeks to see a therapist.

You're in touch with all your friends. Like you said about your group chat, you're in touch with all your friends all the time. So group therapy, like, for example, we show this pattern. So I could be in my therapy thing and start to say something. Like, I'm starting to see this person and this is going on. And right away they'd be like, oh man, you're doing that same thing you did with your last two people you started dating. Why don't you try this new thing? They see you so well. So deep shift, ongoing maintenance, that's where the talk therapy comes in. Then the third thing is tools to use

when you're backsliding. As an example, we talked earlier about how someone would, I get hugged by my girlfriend and I'd start to feel that, what you said, that same feeling, like I just felt like uncomfortable and wanted to escape. So the tool there was something called reparenting. Reparenting is like talking to your inner child or talking to yourself. And I just say, hey, she's not your mom. You can relax. I got this. I'll take care of you. She just loves you and cares about you.

And man, accept that. So I'll just give myself that inner monologue. And why do you think that works? The reparenting or the tools? The reparenting part. Yeah, I think the reparenting part is this. Like there's inner child's kind of like a word that if you haven't done the inner child work

just sounds like so woo-woo. So another way to think about it is this. When you see something that's familiar that traumatized you as a child or a teen, right away your protective mechanisms from then are going to take over. So you've got gotta like disengage it and so what works is saying it works is recognizing it and saying like no this isn't that this is

actually okay so you can relax and just accept and that's all quite unconscious isn't it so you won't consciously know that the reason this hug with this person is giving me the like the heebie-jeebies or the creeps whatever um is because it reminds me of my mother or whatever whatever but unconsciously that's kind of what's going on the old circuits are starting to fire but you haven't had a thought yourself you're just experiencing a feeling like i would experience that feeling of feeling like i was trapped but i wouldn't consciously know why you wouldn't know no of course no you course. No, you would have no idea. You literally just think I'm trapped. And that's why these things all work together. So like the package, the short version of it, because it's a long answer is deep intensive workshops, uh, ongoing maintenance through

group or talk therapy and tools to use when the old behaviors come up. So once you've done that deep intensive workshop and recognize, Oh shoot, I react like this because I'm getting flashbacks to being like suffocated by my mom or my dad, then you're, now you're conscious about what's happening. And then as you consistently use the tools, it's you, you, you get to intervene quickly, right? So the key is like intervening quickly. I'll give another example that a lot of people might relate to is like when you're in a conflict or you're starting to get upset about something, right? And then if you just stay there, you might start to get upset or behave in a way that you don't love. Does that make sense?

100%. Yeah. So what you want to do is start recognizing the signs of, oh, my heart's starting to beat faster. I feel like maybe there's something you feel in your chest or in your arms. For me, like my arms start to get like, I feel like, I don't know, just sort of like a weird tension in my hands. As soon as I feel that, I'll just say, one second, I'll be right back. I'll step back, bring myself back to earth, and then come back and I'll never react.

So I think one of our goals, I think the goal of self-improvement of this work is to be like non-reactive, connected, but non-reactive. Masturbation. Yeah. What do you think about masturbation? I did an experiment once because like there were a lot of people who Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins, for example, like doesn't let his band like have an orgasm the day of a show or something like that. I think Darren, some director,

I don't want to say his name wrong, felt like there were all these kind of artists who I was talking to who, by not having an orgasm, felt like they could use it. And I think Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich or something talks about just not letting the energy out and then kind of recycling and using it for productivity in your life.

And I'm sure a lot of tantric and other teachings say the same. So I tried an experiment of not doing that. I just felt horrible and I was attracted to everything. I remember watching South Park and like Cartman's mom came on and like, and I felt like aroused.

I was literally like- What chapter of your life was this in? This was like in a pre-truth. Okay. So the answer is like, I don't, maybe I'm not there yet, but I don't have a strong, I think that as long as it's not compulsive, as long as it's not changing your healthy relationship with women or sexuality, and there's a difference between masturbation and pornography. Pornographies. What's your view on pornography? I don't think it helps. Yeah. Here's, let me give you I don't think it helps. Yeah.

Let me give you the last thought on masturbation. This is like a crazy thought. I've never shared this. I'll probably regret it. I'll probably call you later and ask you to cut it out. But I think that everything in your life, I think you can be giving yourself a seminar in your life all the time. So maybe we'll end here.

But I almost think of it as training. So if I'm going to do it, I'll just think, okay, my goal is to last longer or try to do it twice or something. So I try to think of everything. Even with that, I'm like, how can I train myself to be better? Interesting. And so I'm always thinking, even in my life, I'm like, how can I – So a lot of people talk about – even I mentioned this kind of cliche of the authentic self versus the false self. And I always think like, shit, what is authentic? How can I measure authentic?

I don't know what's authentic. I think when I was really inauthentic, I thought I was being authentic. And I realized that a better dichotomy is the creative versus the destructive self. So like if you're watching pornography and then masturbating and like you feel better afterward was it constructive for you or was it destructive and so trying to do things that are constructive feels right is that just an excuse though for a destructive behavior go ahead what do you mean so is it so in the context of masturbation you're giving it some kind of purpose by saying it's like practice yeah it's like training yeah am i, am I just sort of deluding myself

by saying this is okay? I guess the answer is like you, you know the seed by the fruit. So to see if it hurts in my relationship, my sexuality or my relationship with women and things like that. What about pornography then? Do you think pornography is harmful?

For relationships, love? I guess the, I guess the answer again is like, it depends on how you're using it. I don't know. I haven't really thought this out. And there are certainly a lot of studies that show the opposite of pornography, but I think if you're, if it's just becoming regularly and it's, you're doing it too much, or I'm sure you can use pornography in a healthy way with your partner and watching together and maybe getting turned on and then experiencing something together or mixing it up sometimes and i'm sure there are ways i think everything can be healthy and unhealthy you can drink too much water and die do you think it's natural to be faithful to one person for life in all my research i think the person who came up with what i think is the most

evolutionary uh argument that made the most sense was helen fisher uh and she's an evolutionary biologist i believe and she said that she thinks it's natural to um and she studied marriage patterns divorce patterns and this changes based on the number of kids. But where she believes we're wired for seven years for serial monogamy with clandestine adultery. That's what she says. Meaning serial monogamy means one partner at a time, but secretly cheating sometimes on the side. That's how she thinks we're wired.

And that the average is about seven years if you have more kids that last longer, meaning that's enough time for the child to grow up and kind of take care of self. And then you get to, you know, have new children with someone else and vary your genes. That said, that's like the evolutionary perspective. That said, I don't believe like evolution is destiny. You know what I mean? It's probably evolutionary for people to want to take someone's, usurp someone's power and money. And I don't know, I'm sure there are all kinds of evolutionary impulses that we have a prefrontal cortex that allows us to make these choices. I mean, if we had to do everything, I think you have a choice whether you want to be faithful or not. That said, fidelity is different than honesty, meaning that i think you can be honest with your partner and for example i know people whose partner maybe the partner went through menopause and sex stopped and they had a discussion and said like i still have these sexual needs what do i do about it and they renegotiated the relationship you know and some so i think that we can rethink a relationship there's an ongoing discussion between two partners

and probably the partner with the lowest comfort will generally win out i talked to this woman that we can rethink our relationships as an ongoing discussion between two partners. And probably the partner with the lowest comfort will generally win out. I talked to this woman, Stephanie Kuntz, who's like the biggest expert on marriage. She wrote a book on it. And she said the history of marriage was originally, it was, you know, for property rights and inheritance and kids were just extra workers, you know?

And then it was marriage for love was this radical idea. And she says, now we're in this thing where it's just, you know, tick a box. Like I was at a dinner the other day and a bunch of people were there talking about their relationships. And someone's like, well, I'm going to have a kid, but I'm freezing my eggs. I want to have a kid later. And I'm going to do this. And someone else is like, I'm never, I'm going to get married and fall in love and have kids. And it's like a tick a box thing do you want one partner or many you know do you want it but not you know a lot of people are into you know ethical non-monogamy now uh do you want kids do you not want kids um you can just check a box and decide is that we're in this way where we have so much choice ethical non-monogamy yeah i didn't know that was a thing

yes what does that mean some people call it consensual non-monogamy or ethical non-monogamy but that's basically you're you're uh not monogamous with your relationship partner but your ethical meaning you're both honest about it okay yeah you as you said earlier you went on a journey to figure out whether that stuff could work for you like polyamorous relationships swinging all of those kinds of things and you concluded that it just it couldn't work for you i think you remember you saying that you kind of wanted like a half open relationship at the time i think most people probably do i think that's probably coming out of like a it was me coming out of a wounded place saying that by half open you mean like i can see what i want and they don't do something i think that usually whoever says that and i

including myself at the time is probably like a a wounded person in terms of like, I just want to do what I want, but I want to deal with uncomfortable. And you deal with those uncomfortable emotions, but you can't do what you want because I can't deal with uncomfortable emotions. So I think that the answer is, I think there's like three entities. There's you, there's your partner, there's the relationship. I think the right answer is something that makes all three better. So for example, when I was in those scenes, there were a lot of couples and sometimes it was the woman leading the charge,

sometimes it was the guy leading the charge where one partner was letting the other partner be more open so they didn't lose them and they were just silently suffering. That's not good for the person or the relationship. But I think if you can find a way where like, for example, one person I met, he thinks his partner's fabulous and other men, he shouldn't just get to hog all that fabulousness to himself. He wants to share that. Other people

can get to experience that. And so that's right for him and right for her and right for their relationship and you've met people that are in that sort of polyamorous situation that are like really really really happy yeah and here's what's interesting i found that just as many people cheated in polyamorous relationships as monogamous relationships and i'll give you an example like one of the first people I met, like maybe they have a boundary, like, oh, you're not allowed to do this specific sexual thing with other people. You're not allowed to do this. Like they would still break. They can literally do like 95% of what they want and 5% is restricted. And they'll cross that boundary. I found just as much cheating in that as monogamous. And the idea being that, the idea really being if you're healthy,

whatever relationship you choose will be healthy. If you're unhealthy, whatever relationship style you choose will be unhealthy. And maybe there was something in just breaking the boundary that people find somewhat appealing. So it doesn't really matter what the boundary is, but there being one, you're going back to that avoidant nature of trying to stop yourself from being a bird trapped in a cage. Yeah. Just breaking a boundary is part of the thrill. Yeah, there's someone I met, part of the wisest person I met, I forget his full name, his name was Pepper. And he had two big thoughts.

And one was that intentions are better than rules. And then his second thought was your partner has to have an abundance of you before they can sort of be with other people. So explain both of those then sure sure the intention is like well what are our intentions to to honor each other to be honest uh to respect and to have sort of intentions which are discussion points um versus well you can do that but you can't do this and behind it those rules is an intention. For example, what's behind the discomfort of someone sleeping with someone else is the intention to safety. I feel unsafe if you're off with someone else because I could lose you. And so the intention maybe might be safety and maybe there are other ways to get that need met. You know, as a short

guy who's like literally like five, six and people are always looking for someone who's like six feet or over a guy and you're like oh man i'm like six inches below the mark i realized oh no what they want is like safety there or security being with someone who feels bigger or stronger helps them feel safe and i'm like okay i can do safe i can't do tall but i can do safe interesting so um so so that's the idea of intentions then the idea of a partner has abundance of you means a lot of people are like this relationship isn't working we're fighting a lot maybe we should split up

maybe let's try polyamory that's not going to work versus or it's just if your partner has enough sex has enough love has enough connection and then you're with someone else there's less of that fear because they're full. Your partner should be full first.

Third thing for people who are considering doing this in case they're, I'm sure some people are like thinking maybe this will work for me, is I think it's called the burning period, which is that if you do open up a monogamous, open up a relationship, is probably there's a period of six months or whatever that you, there's a lot of discomfort and awkwardness and it requires a lot of communication to work through it. A lot of insecurity, I imagine. Yeah. Our biggest fear as a child is abandonment because what happens if our parents out there, we don't get milk or water or food and we die,

we can't take care of ourselves. and so we're fear of abandonment a great a great line from the truth it was i think about this all the time when people are scared in a relationship about being abandoned this therapist uh named lorraine said um unless you're a child or dependent elder no one can abandon you except yourself and you're like you're not going to die if the person you love leaves you it's just going to hurt and suck right that's how it feels right on a psychological level it feels like we are being because that that emotional reaction stems i guess right back to like i don't know being thrown off the island by our tribe or something and when we think about the physiological consequence of loneliness as well like the

body completely changes we go into self-preservation we don't sleep as well just when we think about the physiological consequence of loneliness as well, like the body completely changes. We go into self-preservation. We don't sleep as well. And that's just when we're lonely. Yeah, no, you nailed it. I think there's two sides. Like if a child's abandoned, maybe that child doesn't survive. And that's obviously happened to us children historically.

And then the other side, like you said, if you're kicked out of the tribe, and this is why people are so fearful on social media and all these things, if you're kicked out of the tribe, and this is why people are so fearful on social media and all these things, if you're kicked out of the tribe, well, you can't survive on your own out in the wild. So we are afraid of abandonment and social rejection. There's abandonment and social rejection and loneliness. Your first book, The Game, I think it spoke to some men who feel that way. Like, because I think those men, I think I was probably, maybe I was one of them where I was a young man who wanted to figure out

how to be loved. And the game appeared to give me a code to that. In a world where figuring out how to be loved and finding someone to love me was kind of this like complicated you know thing that didn't make sense and i reflect on where i don't know how many years we're on from the game now maybe 10 years or something but in terms of men feeling like they understand what masculinity is and loneliness and the statistics around the amount of men that are sexless um we've gone in a worse direction like there are more men now that

feel isolated lonely that are struggling to find uh love a partner. We've had dating apps emerge, I think, since the game, pretty much since the game, which has confused the whole dynamic of how do I find someone that loves me? Where do I find them? It's roughly about 50% of people now meet online. So there's this new generation of men and women that are struggling now to find to find that love it's interesting like you raise this question like why is it when we're more connected than ever that we feel more disconnected i think that maybe one of the issues i think it's really tough to all be connected because we thought that technology would with this idea of the global village marshall mcluhan and stuff like that technology is going to just create a global village, which it did.

But we forgot that the village, it sucked to live in the village because in the village, everybody's gossiping. You know, if you step out of line, you're, at least we were saying earlier, you're kicked out of the village. Everyone tries to keep everyone down because it's petty and it's jealous. And if you're different or express yourself in some other way, you're like an outcast. It used to be that, you know, if you left high school, went to college or moved somewhere else, you get to just create a whole new life. And now we're all in this fishbowl staring at each other and it's uncomfortable and maybe feels less safe. On top of that, I think there's some statistic a few years ago that 25% of marriages start in the workplace and now you can't really date in the workplace anymore. So that's kind of off the table now. And then I

think the other thing is people, I noticed that on the apps, people sort of have this fantasy about what they want and then they might be with someone, start dating a few times and say, oh, you know, that one thing's just not quite right and what I want. And, and there's so much abundance that they can just go back to the dating pool instead of working, working it through or, or, or, or writing it out. In other words, before you bet someone out, you exchange phone numbers. That was like exciting thing. You got the phone number and gosh, when should I call? I guess I'll wait two days to call. And then you call and oh my God, I'm gonna see him in four days. And, you know, and there's so much excitement around that. And now you literally just,

you like, you go back on one of these apps and within like 24 hours, you have so many options. In your, in the last two decades, you've met so many people that are like struggling in relationships and love. And I guess my question is like, what advice do you give to them the people that really really are struggling and it's different issues for men and women because there's there's different dating dynamics in play there so for those let's start with men for those

young men and i've had many guests on the podcast talk to those speak of the statistics around young men and also around the suicidality of those young men and um i mean some of the really crazy stats are around suicide i think i've shared a few times before that in the uk alone someone dies by suicide every 90 minutes and 76 of them are male um look at some of the other stats the number of unmarried men in the united states has increased by 50 since 1970 the number of menmarried men in the United States has increased by 50% since 1970. The number of men who are reporting that they are lonely has increased by 50% since 1980. The number of men who have had sex by the age of 20 has decreased by 20% since 1990.

The age men have their first kiss is now getting later and later. The number of men who are reporting that they have been victims of um sexual assault by another man has increased by 20 percent so the stats tell a pretty horrific story and then the same the same here for women in 1970 only 13 percent of women over 30 were unmarried today that number is nearly 50 percent the divorce rate for women over 30 has doubled in the past 50 years and i can go on and on and on. So clearly there's something going on with relationships, dating. Let's hold two ideas. One is there's something going on. And the other one is stats.

So when I wrote The Truth, I went through, like I started the book with similar stats, that, you know, 50% of marriages end in divorce. But I'm like, I got my start. One of my starts is like a fact checker at The Village Voice before I was like writing these books and things. And so I'm like, I just really rigorously checked facts. If you really dig deep, you'll find that probably 50% of statistics are made up. You'll literally add to the degree that most of them, I couldn't keep the stats because either they never existed. In one case, we call the actual researcher on, I couldn't keep the stats because either they never existed.

In one case, we called the actual researcher on, I think, the divorce stat or the infidelity stat. And they're like, she's like, I never said this. This is not from my research. My name's always attached to this. I don't know how to stop it. So what happened? So a lot of these things, first of all, but I think the sense of all this is very true. I'd be slow to jump on a stat.

It's funny. I did a piece for Rolling Stone on Elon Musk and similar thing happened where I told him the statistic and he's like, I'd have to see how they did that study before I could even comment on it. That said, I think we're in a crisis. I think what we're speaking of is like we're really like there's a there's a real mental health crisis and if you think about when you were a kid like how often did you have doctor's appointments gosh not often um but i don't know maybe twice a year twice a year and have dentist appointments the same i think twice how often did you have like therapist or psychologist appointments exactly right and that's our culture our culture is your teeth better look great. Got to make sure everything physically is fine,

but no concern for mental health, no teaching of mental health. So we have no foundation to build on. And then we get to our age where all those wiring and all those patterns are set and then if we want to heal, we better have a lot of money because it's a rich person's game to heal because insurance and nothing covers it.

So we really want to work on this. And again, if I could be sort of a crusader, maybe I should be. I don't know. Maybe I need to be. It would be for taking mental health as seriously as we take physical health. Because guess what? Obviously, stress leads to all kinds of diseases. And also so much self-harm and other harm are related to obviously mental health issues. And then we have this idea, we all have some sort of mental health issue.

You know, like everyone does. And if you don't think you have a mental health issue, there's something going on. You know, look in the mirror. We're all wounded from the way we were raised. So, so we really need to get the culture and the system to take mental health as serious as they take all the rest of education. But we're clearly just finding it harder just to meet each other as well. Yeah, there's a great, there's a Japanese writer named Kobo Abe, and he wrote this Woman in the Dunes, which is a great book and movie. He has this great line.

He says like, he goes, we're wired for this tribal existence. And the city is the first place where we had to meet a stranger that's not an enemy. And we're still not used to that. Strangers are scary. I think most people, people are scary. I mean, even now back in the dating thing, I'm like, I'm meeting someone on an app and I don't know who they are. Like before, if I met someone that were kind of in my scene or in my peer group, or somehow we share these interests, but there's just a random person on app that literally like, maybe they're a scammer.

Right. Are you, are you in that phase now where you're, you're dating again? Yeah. How's it going? And what's new in terms of like, since last time you were in a dating phase of your life? Let's see. I just ended like a short but serious relationship, which was interesting.

And I guess what's new is just the things we talked about. I think I'm with my son like Fridays to Mondays. So I think it's hard for someone who's not a single parent or doesn't have a child to sort of understand that maybe I'm less available. You can react one of two ways when you recognize you're getting older, right? You can go buy a flashy car and start dating people who feed your ego and you can just

feed your ego till you're dead. And that seems like a horrible way to go. I remember my first time in LA, like when I moved to LA, I was in this like nightclub and there was this guy in a wheelchair with a older, with a mask to breathe. He was like very old, like 70 or 80. I don't know. He was at death's door and he was surrounding, he had these like two, like, you know, very young plastic surgery women around him. And I'm like, oh man, like, you know, I don't know whether to feel sorry for him or what, but I was like, oh, that's, that's like, that's, I guess that's his life choice and good for him. You know? Some, so you can kind of chase that validation. He liked dating multiple women because he liked women competing over him.

That felt good when there was drama, like it made him feel wanted. So you can live, basically you're living out of your unhealed wounds, right? You can either live out of your unhealed wounds or you can sort of heal your wound and see what else am I here to heal or what else am I here to do?

What's gonna, what are the few things that make me happy and a few things i can contribute i've got close friends of mine that um feel somewhat similar from conversations we've had with them where they're in a relationship with someone and it's almost like they're torn into two pieces it kind of takes me back to maybe the start of your journey into the truth, which is they love this person, but at the same time, they just can't stop the urge to be with, to either cheat or think about other people or to text other people, et cetera. And they're almost tormented by it. I know some people that are like really tormented by that. Yeah. Then you have to look at yourself. And I do this all the time is what parts coming out of a wound and what parts like

authentic. Right. So there's one part where, yeah, other people are attractive. Like if you're in a relationship and you find other people attractive or hot or like might even think someone's a better match for you, like that's healthy. You still have eyes. You still have a comparing mind a little bit. And that's okay. It takes the right person. What's that? Does it take the right person in your view to make you commit?

It takes you being the right person. Okay. It takes you a hundred percent takes you being the right person. And even to the degree that you're going to attract people, you're going to attract someone who's at your level of growth and self-esteem. So like literally everyone who has that list of, this is what I'm looking for. Like make that list for yourself and become that person.

And then you'll meet that person. That's like just a hundred percent true. And, but, but then the other side, like you said, then there's the part where it's agonizing, where it's like,

Oh God, I, I mean, I can speak from experience that once I did all that work we talked about in The Truth, I was like really happily monogamous with Ingrid. Like I didn't look at other people. I didn't chase that other stuff. Like everything was clean.

What changed? What changed was I wasn't afraid of going deeper into intimacy anymore. Meaning that like I would just look at her and I just had walls up that kept me from getting closer that of really loving her and really accepting her. So you can either do the work with another person or you can do the work against that person.

And against that person is acting out and fantasizing in your head and resenting. Or the other thing is you can work on yourself and work on how can I get deeper with them and how can I learn to accept them and how can I realize the issues I have with them have nothing to do with them. There's a saying, I'm pretty sure it's a saying, but that all relationship issues are historical. It's not about them. It's about something that happened with mom or dad the things you're trying to change and fix were things that uh you needed from your parents how important do you think it is to be

completely honest in a relationship i.e your partner should have the pin for your mobile phone or there should be no pin on your mobile phone. That complete honesty where they are able to see and know everything. Yeah, great question. I think the ultimate balance is they have the pin for your mobile phone, but they never use

it. Checking your partner's mobile phone behind their back is a form of cheating. And I think a relationship needs both honesty and trust to work. Honesty means one partner's being honest, but if the other partner distrusts, it's going to go just as badly. Do you think that if you cheat on someone

and they never find out, do you think, what is the harm to you? So if you cheat on someone, the harm to you is all of a sudden you've taken the relationship and you just like drove a cleaver through it. And now you're living in a separate world than they are. You can't get back to the same intimacy that you had before because intimacy is showing who you are and your vulnerabilities to someone else and being accepted. Right then you're lying lying in bed you're thinking about that other person you're worried about them texting you start being a bit different a little differently around your partner they sense that and they feel like something's wrong maybe it's wrong with them and they behave

different and it sets it sets off a whole you know invisible chain into motion and you can never authentically connect whilst you're cheating on someone. If you're cheating on them, you can never really, it's not a real connection, is it? You're hiding, you're hiding and compartmentalizing something. Some people are so good,

they hide it from themselves. You know, there's a great line. This is also from Rick Rubin. He said, it's in the book. So he said, I don't trade long-term happiness for short-term pleasure. I don't trade long-term happiness for short-term pleasure. I don't trade long-term happiness for short-term pleasure.

Interesting. Right? It's really good. So I became of the mind of this, which is in terms of guys like you and I and other women too who feel trapped in their relationship is I recognize that they're not keeping me from sleeping with anyone else. I can actually go ahead and sleep with whoever I want. I really can.

I can sleep with whoever I want, but I have to be honest and accept the consequences. So if sleeping with that person is more important than my relationship, I'm free to sleep with them. It's actually my choice. So no one's being, you're not being made to do or forced to do anything. It's all your choice. You just have to accept the consequences that,

well, that sex with that person better be more important than your relationship. And so you can still, no one's keeping you from doing anything. You made an agreement. If you don't like that agreement, then make a different agreement for your relationship. You wrote Rick Rubin's book, but you also, um, you wrote Kevin Hart's book. Yeah. What did you, uh, learn about Kevin Hart? Oh man, I love like like, he's one of, like I learned a lot from him. He's really one of my like favorite people. Like what you see, he, what you see is what you get.

He is who he is. What I learned is this, and this is like more of a business thing, but he has no resistance. He goes, he doesn't have resistance to everything, meaning that we have a plan, we want things to work out, and there's an obstacle.

You had Ryan Holiday on The Obstacle is the Way. There's an obstacle, or someone's just being difficult to work with or whatever it is. He just takes the call, he deals with it, hangs up, and he doesn't get into a story about it.

And so I don't know if it makes sense because I haven't seen this written anywhere as a principle, but when things go wrong or there's something he has to do that he doesn't want to do, he doesn't have resistance to anything. He just does it, rolls through it and moves on. And he doesn't think, I'm like one of the biggest actors and comedians in Hollywood. Why do I have to deal with this? He just deals with it. Doesn't procrastinate. He doesn't procrastinate he doesn't procrastinate he gets it done he does stuff himself he doesn't blame others for bothering him he really is like and he's he has a strength of positivity he's even if he's i've seen him like quote unquote yell at his kids but he's so positive and accepting interesting when something happens we get right into a victim place right away right

away we think, why me? Or God, why do I have to deal with this? This is supposed to be like this. And he doesn't have that story. And he just does it. And going back to how we're raised, he was raised with a very strict mom. And he applies that strictness into his life as a discipline. And it works.

And what about Rick? Rick Rubin? What have I learned? Man, I mean, that book, The Creative Act, I originally didn't plan to write it. I just said, I'll do all the interviews for the book and you can find a writer because I don't want to, you know, we're friends

and it's okay. Like you need to find the right person for your book. But I just want to do all the interviews because I want to learn from him because he's produced everyone, Kanye, Jay-Z, Beastie Boys run DMC, Johnny Cash. And he's so wise. And so I just wanted to learn from him.

And this is what I think the main thing I learned, and it's in the book. I'm not trying to make a book be something. I'm almost listening to the work and trying to hear what it wants to be. So I really learned to take the ego out of the creative process and surrender to the moment and understand there's something being called into existence that's not about me. And I'm just trying to guide it there and not get in the way. And it was a whole new way of thinking. It wasn't an artist-centered form of creation. It't an artist-centered form of creation. It was an art-centered form of creation.

Interesting. Yeah. If you're making a book or a podcast or whatever else, you kind of get you out of the picture to allow the thing to become what it wants to become. As an example, the truth was going to be against monogamy and trying to maybe create a new form of merit of

relational and marriage that works better because as you were saying earlier it's all broken but instead it became a book about healing my own trauma and i sort of listened to that and that's why maybe the book's impactful well it goes back to what we were saying earlier you said the first point of um what they were calling a sex addiction was humility yeah or anything and that's it and it's really having humility in the face of of the universe there's so many other great points in that book one of his great one of his great lines in there is uh is about and this is great true it's true of bands is business relationships you know people get in conflicts or do you have like a business partner do you kind of do it all yourself oh i

yeah i used to have a business partner in my previous business. Yeah. And he said, um, if you're disagreeing on things and not saying things the same way, that's great. Because if you both think alike in a partnership and want the same things and want to do things the same, then one of you is unnecessary. So true. Yeah. So true. We were successful in our business relationship because we were so fundamentally different so there was never a crossover yeah and we we knew each other's responsibilities were you could a piece of work could come in and we wouldn't have to speak we knew whose job that would be yeah based on skill set yeah it's great and you're able to to do that

when you and not everyone can do that you know they, it's, it's a hard thing for them. What's your mission now in life? Like you're, you've done so much. You've, you know, you've been successful in so many areas of your life. What are you aiming at now? Yeah, it's interesting. And it's funny, man, when I, when I was like a kid, when I was there, like in college, my whole goal, there was a newspaper called the village voice, which was like the cool newspaper in New York. I just wanted to write for The Village Voice. It was like, you know, the center of the art scene and the culture. And I started writing for them when I was like in my early 20s. And then everything, that was really my life goal. And then everything's been a bonus. And I really think in terms of projects, like I was thinking before your show,

I was looking at your podcast thing. It was like the relationship expert, the sex expert, the this expert, the number one, this. And I was thinking, what do I do or what am I? And I believe I have this saying like that don't brand yourself. Like let the world try to brand you while you keep moving forward. And I really just think in terms of projects. So I have no goal other than I want the next project I'm working on. I just want to do really great at it and share it. And then move on to the next project that I'm really excited about.

The difficulty with labels is we pick them up when we are successful at something. Yeah. And then we get stuck. Yeah. I mean, how many people do we know that, say the health industry, where someone's like, they stake their health reputation on something that's really true in the moment. And now maybe the research has changed and then they're still, they don't want to lose their audience. So they're saying something that maybe they don't even believe anymore because we grow and we evolve.

And if you label yourself as something, well, man, it's hard to move on. And so we have to be really, I think we have to be really careful of that. Some people, by the way,

there are certain people, they have just one mission and that's their mission. And they, and that's great for them. And there are people like by the way, there are certain people, they have just one mission and that's their mission and that's great for them. There are people like you and I who are very growth oriented who keep changing. Like you had one identity before this podcast, you have a completely new one. And I have no doubt that in like five, seven years,

maybe that's what's that saying? Seven years and all our cells recycle and we're completely new. They're going to be doing something equally amazing and unexpected and cool. What's that been? What was that like for you because your book was so successful the game it was so successful so you become the game guy yeah yeah and my thought was if i thought was okay i have to do something else that's strikes people so powerfully become the whatever guy it was still like okay what can i do logically that's what i would think i think i just have to do something bigger and then they'll know me for that right and then there

are other people who are still doing that who are literally the people in that book the game who are out there still doing the same thing and with with a book it's not like a social media post where it just kind of falls off the timeline yeah it's selling every day yeah and you're really fortunate to be thought of as by other people as the whatever yeah because most people never even are known as anything. Yeah. So it's like, I'm really grateful for it. And I'm like,

how can I, what, what's next again, going back to Rick Rubin, his thing is as soon as you finish a work and you, his, once you share it, you just move on to whatever's next.

Why was it so resonant that book, the game in your view? I don't know. It's a weird thing it was really out of my control and it's funny because i really feel the books i feel like you get the book like to me i was really writing about male insecurity like it isn't a book about like like you were saying you were lonely you felt disconnected you didn't know how to connect that's what you said right yeah it was like getting it i mean it was the girls at school like i didn't know why that dude over there

was really successful with them and i was less successful than that guy over there and i didn't realize that there was this whole kind of psychology about my like posture and how i could present myself um and honestly one of the big things that i came to learn i don't think i've ever said this before was at 18 years old I was very unsuccessful with the women that I wanted so whenever I wanted someone I couldn't get them right it didn't mean I couldn't get you know girlfriends whatever but whenever I wanted them I couldn't get them right which is obviously quite quite annoying so there's like five people girlfriends in a row that i wanted

and i couldn't get any of them i could get other people i was doing fine i don't want to make it seem like i wasn't doing fine i was doing fine um and i always wondered why that was and then reading about the psychology of the game and understanding that there's this sort of social proofing thing and that i portray my value to people in everything that I do, how I speak, how I hold myself, how desperate I am, whether I lean in in conversations and peck them and how to just be a little bit more composed. Right, which you do very well, by the way. Now I do.

Maybe not so much then. And then I saw this really interesting thing, which was by 25 years old, when I was actually securing myself, my mannerisms all changed naturally. And I fell more in line to what in the game you referred to as a natural. Yeah. As in like, I did the high value things naturally and then I was successful.

Yeah. Cause I think it was like a really shallow path to, to like self-improvement or self-esteem. Yeah. And it's nothing. And I think it's interesting. I felt like that. I think it did well. Cause I think of the culture thinks of it as like the douchebags Bible or something-esteem. Yeah. And it's nothing. And I think it's interesting. I felt like that, I think it did well because I think of the culture thinks of it as like the douchebags Bible or something like that. And for me, it was really like

about male insecurity and that feeling less than and then sort of finding this very shallow path. And also like, it's a path and go in the wrong direction. If you keep like you did, you, you,

the goal is to become a natural and let go of all those things. Almost like when we're, someone's learning to play, to paint or play tennis or whatever it is, they're following the form and then let go and step into who they are. Yeah. And then I lost in that, but I didn't need any funnily enough.

I didn't need any tips or tricks or strategies or little games or whatever when I was securing myself. Yes. What's the book you'd write then instead? If like, if the goal is to get to a place where you're securing yourself, what is the, who, what kind of book would that be? Yeah, I mean, I think there couldn't be any other book because that was the path, A, that was the path I took.

Yeah. And B, like somehow i thought female validation would get me there when it really needed to be my own validation yeah like how do we get that's what i'm saying like how do we get what's the book on our own validation yeah yeah i yeah i think i think it's there's a couple great books on that but i also think there's no shortcuts to this stuff like again blessings to everyone who does plant medicine, and I'm not against plant medicine in any way, but I think, like, like, you can't just, I don't, and again, there are plenty of exceptions to everything I'm saying, but I think, like,

doing one ayahuasca, like, journey is not gonna, you know, or doing one of the workshops that I, doing the Hoffman process or doing anything, we all, we're in this culture where we want these shortcuts. But, like, it's always that long cut. It was like the many year journey per the many year journey we went on to, to figure this stuff out is where we got there.

So I think maybe there's no other path other than one we took. And if there's a shorter path, we want to gotten there. That's exactly what I think. I, I wish, I think men specifically like young disillusioned, single men that are like looking for love and not having much success need now is, is a book about the long cut, the long route. The long cut, I mean, that's your next book, The Long Cut. Oh gosh. Yeah.

I'm not an expert on the subject matter and I have to write about it. But like, what does the long cut look like? Because the long cut to self-esteem is like going to the gym, working on yourself, working on your mental health, being of service to society, friendships, emotional expression,

those kinds of things. You just did the table of contents of your book. We're getting there. No, but I'm trying to figure out. I don't mean that. Like that list you gave is really great. And it's funny with my son who's in the other room, we have Sunday service days

and we do something of service because I think that's like that. I love that you mentioned that. Like we try to do something. So I think it's true that it's really a combination of stuff. And some people just look at one path, but it is a little bit of all those different components

of working on your psychological health, feeling like, why do I feel less than? What was the thing? What's great about like the stuff in your past, looking at your childhood, is you see that it's not you. I always thought it was just me, like somehow I'm not enough. And then I realized, oh no, I feel like not enough because these experience, you know, my mom calling me all these different

names. I internalized that and thought that's who I was. And I can say, oh, that's not who I am. And now I get to change. So it's nice to look back and see how these seeds were planted. So we can say, oh, that's not me. That was just some programming. And then I can to change. So it's nice to look back and see how these seeds were planted. So we can say, oh, that's not me. That was just some programming. And then I can run a virus scan on myself, right? And quarantine the virus. So I think like the long cut to self-esteem is figuring out why, what those reasons are, and then working on them.

And then all those different components you said. I think the easiest step is being other-oriented instead of self-oriented. Being of service, instead of saying, I expect everyone to make me feel good, how can I make others feel good? And how can I make my job is to feel good about myself? There's a great line, I mentioned Pia Melody earlier,

who's this amazing therapist and author. She says like self-esteem should come from the inside out, not seeking it from the outside in. And so, like you said, you could go in the gym, I think doing something physical, you know, like doing something meaningful, having friendship, social relationship connection, all those things, having, looking at those different areas of your life and keeping them full and then looking at the things that are destructive in your life how often are you doom scrolling you know how often are you comparing yourself to others how often are you chasing things you don't really want but feel like you should want and all those other things your son

comes to you at 21 years old and says dad i'm struggling i i'm single. I'm lonely. Nobody's interested in me. Women aren't interested in me. Which book do you pass him? The game or the truth? Yeah. Good, good question. Um, yeah, I don't know. I mean, first of all, he probably would never, I feel like, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, first of all, he probably would never... I feel like... I don't know. I don't know. I feel like the game... Maybe I give him neither. I don't know.

Maybe I sort of just talk to him and listen. Yeah, I feel like you almost have to read both until I get it because the game can be seductive in itself. And also the game's not a... The game doesn't necessarily end well even within the game for the pickup artists uh yeah so i don't know which i give them maybe i talk to them those characters from the game do you know where they are in their lives yeah you do yeah yeah i talk like i i sometimes hear from mystery who's out there doing his thing doing doing workshops in Europe right now, I think.

Yeah. It's funny. Like a lot of people still doing it or going through just still being them, doing them, right? Going into another relationship. I think it's hard. How do we stop doing ourselves if ourself isn't serving us?

So you will be writing a third book in this series. I know you've written many, many, many books, but a third installment of Neil's kind of journey in love. Or maybe not. Back to the idea, like, it feels natural that I do the next installment because that's what I do. But how often are we trapped by what we've done before? Like, lately, I've been doing these podcasts.

True crime. These true crime podcasts. And I feel like I'm hopefully helping people and making a difference and storytelling in another way and trying to like help people locally so so maybe i don't do that but i don't know we talked about uh labeling Yeah. And that's kind of linked in with identity. What do you want to be known for? And I think this is an interesting question because I think if someone asked me that,

there's like a bullshit answer. Right. And then there's probably like the truth. Like if I could choose what people knew me for, I would be known for the businesses that I've built. Yeah. I guess the podcast as well, but for me, like I'm, I have a preference towards that part of my identity for some reason. Yeah. What about

you? Yeah. I mean, I really like, I always, I always want the books to be known more than me. Like I like, you'll notice in the books, my picture's not on them or anything like that. I don't like, I really want the books to be known. So we're just, I guess I would like it like, oh, that's a new Neil Strauss thing. I can't wait to read it or listen books to be known. So we just, I guess I would like it like, oh, that's a new Neil Strauss thing. I can't wait to read it or listen to it or watch it. I just, I just want to be known as like, oh, if he does something that's worth noticing or reading or paying attention to.

So maybe that's as a writer or a storyteller or something. But really like I'd rather the projects be known, like the new podcast series I'm doing, which is different than the rest. Like in my head, I'm just thinking, I just want the projects be known, like the new podcast series I'm doing, which is different than the rest. In my head, I'm just thinking, I just want it to be awesome and people to be really excited by it. And I think I'm just always thinking about the next project

and I can't wait for it to come out and have an impact. When's it coming out? I think January. I'll tell you about it offline it's crazy really yeah it's crazy because when i saw you were doing a true crime podcast i thought does that mean you're like reading out stories from cases that were you know a couple years ago or something yeah okay i'm a big true crime fan so anything oh my god okay so i don't listen to

any other genre i don't even listen to this podcast. Right. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. The question left for you is, describe a moment in your life when uncertainty was dominant. How did you navigate this uncertainty?

And how did it change you? After 9-11. And then after Hurricane Katrina, I think we had a certain thing in Americans that we felt were just Americans not touchable or something like that. Nothing bad happened. And then when 9-11 happened and we responded

in the way we did as a country and felt like the whole world hated American terrorists and, you know, yellow, red, all these alert levels. And when Hurricane Katrina happened, and felt like the whole world hated American terrorists and, you know, you had yellow, red, all these alert levels. And when Hurricane Katrina happened and you saw bodies flowing down the street in an American city and here was a disaster, the government knew it was coming

and there was nothing we could do about it. I think I felt this existential uncertainty, which everybody feels now, by the way. The whole world feels it now because no one trusts the system no one trusts the government but this was like it felt new then it's crazy how now everybody feels this way but then certainly i felt was like fuck you can't rely on the system to protect you you're on your own is that why you wrote the book about prepped prepping yeah that's how i wrote i wrote the book about prepping and then what i did was

prepping is basically preparing for the worst possible day. So like doomsday or I don't know, like a world or a nuclear bomb. So you start stockpiling in your house stuff that will mean that you can survive on your own. Yeah, learning kind of survival skills. So I guess the way I felt with that, so I felt that existential uncertainty in a way I did that was doing the things that would allow me to feel safe and give me like peace of mind so the idea is when i feel the uncertainty i try to take the steps that give me peace of mind and are constructive not destructive sometimes it feels like we're in such an uncertain time then people do things that are giving them peace of mind that are destructive to themselves or others like a lot of hatred and division and things like that.

But recognizing, I think, that uncertainty maybe comes from within. So what I did, I guess, I guess, I guess, like the answer is when I feel the uncertainty, I go on a journey that becomes a book, whether that was the game, uncertainty about dating, relationship to the truth, or uncertainty about the world was emergency. And are you still a prepper? I'm prepped but but at the same time i also recognize there's only so much you can prep for you know what i mean yeah we don't know when this these disasters are coming and we don't know how it's going to come or what it's going to look like we had a pandemic so we think we're preparing for

the next pandemic but the next thing that's going to happen is nothing we're ready or we're we're concerned for so i think the best thing you can do is be like mentally prepared for uh the unknown and crisis situations but uh but i did get like a second passport and all those things in case i need to get my family to safety so so second passport maybe is the answer neil thank you thank you so much thank you so much for writing the truth because this book has certainly helped me to I said to you before we start recording there was a part of this book where you describe a bird in a cage and that's exactly how I felt and then you go on to reframe that notion to make me understand that I'm not trapped in a cage and that I am consciously making a choice to be in the relationship that I'm in. And at any point, if I wanted to leave, I can. And for me, that idea in this book is part of the reason I've been in a

wonderful, successful relationship for the last four years that has enriched my life. So thank you so much for that. Your writing style has always been something I've admired so much. And even when I became an author, I remember that being front of mind that you were able to take me on these incredible journeys. And in through the journeys, I learned something. And that's how I i've aspired to write we can do a whole nother podcast another time about your writing ability because that is profound and evidenced by the fact you've written rick rubin's book which is behind me and kevin hart kevin hart's book and many others that people don't know about so thank you for the inspiration it means a lot to me and thank you for your generosity thank you i'm excited for where your journey takes you and at the next conversation on parenting. I look forward to it. Thank you.

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