The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - James Smith: How To Create The Life You’ve Always Wanted

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

James Smith is a bestselling author of Not A Life Coach and Not A Diet Book, and a personal trainer and fitness influencer with a unique philosophy that makes his message unlike any fitness advice you’ve ever heard before. James combines hard truths, he’s not afraid of saying words like ‘fat’, and an extra level of connection and empathy with his clients, he begins by asking them how many hours a week they can commit, and works around them. He has high expectations that work around you. James is a special guy, and he didn’t hold back in this conversation. Fitness is a world where there’s a lot of bad advice, a lot of contradictory opinions, and it can be hard to tell the wood from the trees. For the plain facts on how to take your fitness to the next level, James is the fitness expert for you. Follow James: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jamessmithpt Twitter - https://twitter.com/jamessmithPT James’ book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-Life-Coach 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 time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you

that listen to this show let's continue we've spoken about quite a few things today that i've never really spoken about james smith the world's fastest growing online personal trainer, but he's much more than that. Like a driving instructor, I should not exist in your life in six months. Why is it so acceptable for people to invest money into fitness professionals and then still be there three years later? Because if you do your job well enough, your client leaves. If people were truly happy, I would have been shut the hell up then, and I wouldn't have experienced so much growth from pointing out the inadequacies. I don't like people that presents a solution without education. It breaks me to think of the tens of thousands of people who gave up on their ambitions because they went the wrong way for advice.

And when they fail the plan or don't finish it, they blame themselves. Where the hell have you come to the conclusion that you would not succeed following your passion i just wish that maybe earlier on someone had said to me okay you're not doing well here but this doesn't mean you're not intelligent there is something else that you could do very well james smith the world's fastest growing online personal trainer. But he's much more than that. He's an author of three books. His third one's about to come out. He's unapologetic. He is outspoken and he says it how it is. And that's meant that he now reaches millions of people online every single week. I had an expectation on James. I've seen him on social media.

I've seen the types of things he says when he's on telly. But the guy I met today, deeply self-aware, unbelievably humble, and so incredibly wise. And because he's so honest and straight talking, I walk away with some lessons that I genuinely believe will stay with me for a lifetime. You are going to love this one. Trust me when I say that. Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. james you've listened to this podcast before um so you probably know that i tend to start in a similar place i tend to ask my guests about their early years but when i was reading about

comments you'd made about your early years one of the things you said is it's not not much very interesting happened yeah i mean it's one of those things where I was like, there's so many things to talk about. Let's not go there. As a young child in school, didn't have a huge amount of friends. And I think that primary and secondary school, if you had to pick five people

that are never going to accomplish anything in life, I would have been in that group of people. Was diagnosed with learning difficulties, which kind of been disputed. I remember Jimmy Carr talking about getting that laptop. And it's true, you had to see an educational psychologist. And at the end, they were like, James's reading and writing speed is very quick. We think he's just lazy. And throughout school, I was in the cloakroom and they give you extra time in exams, which I didn't need because I was so bored. I'd be done the exam 20 minutes before everyone else and just sat there, not through being intelligent, but like, I can't be bothered with this.

And a lot of behavioral issues at school. If I look back at that, I almost feel like my brain was only functioning at 20% throughout the whole education system, probably up until college and dropping out of university in my first year. And you were adopted. Yes. This is a open topic. And I even, before this podcast, I was like, I wonder if any other high achievers are adopted.

Found Steve Jobs, Jamie Foxx, Marilyn Monroe was in the list. And I was trying to figure out if I could draw any, you know, relations to other people that have done it. I've even read books where someone on Instagram is like, oh, if you're adopted, you should read this, because it resonated with me. And I bought these books and talks about abandonment and senses of you know unfulfillment I didn't really relate with any of those topics so I think that as far as a kind of dream adoption story I ended up in the Smith family you know blonde hair blue eyes mum and dad still together now each other's first girlfriend and boyfriend so I was incredibly fortunate with that having come all this way in your life and

learned a ton from the books you've written and I know that's such an introspective process but all the people you've spoken to all the DMs you must get are there any sort of dots you've connected now that have made you realize that being adopted was in any way consequential to who you were to become? It's difficult. I'm still discovering it. You know, with relationships, I think it's a very interesting one. I've had conversations with other adopted people and they say to you like, you become very attached to people very quickly

because, you know, it's a very strange thing never seeing a blood relative before. So you might look at your parents and other people look at their parents and, you know, uncle, they see features. I've never had that. And you never feel like your parents aren't your parents because I'm a strong believer there if you bring you up.

But then sometimes in relationships, maybe I'm a bit cold. Maybe I'm a bit too intense. I'm always judging that and overanalyzing it. And people ask me as well, they're like, oh, do you think you're this way because you're adopted? And suddenly you're overthinking a lot you're like is it is it not is it something that's a big part or a small part and it's very difficult to get answers

for that when you go through school and you go through like early your early teen years and then you've got people telling you you've got a learning issue and then they're giving you special treatment and all these things at that part in your life having like bounced around a little bit and not really fit anywhere in terms of the system do you think in hindsight you were learning that you were like not good enough 100 and i think that i definitely wore that for the next four or five years but i thought the only place i'm going to be accepted is a bottom position in a corporate gig. 20K a year, I started off on 18. Sales department, I'm going to have to cold call people and kind of work my way up slowly. So that's what I did for my early twenties.

Worked in the sales department, 18K basic, then jumped to another one for 20K basic. I thought, well, I'll do this for five to ten years get to a management role do that for five to ten years maybe get near a directorship role and i think that's what a lot of people who have failed the education system think but that's what people do oh i might try recruitment which i also did for a year and everyone said oh you learn good money but you hate it i'm 22 i'm like how can you earn good money and hate it i did recruitment it was good money and i hated it so it was it's one of those things where definitely i do feel that if we paint people when we see people get bad grades at school we should you know have a more open conversation about okay you're not doing well at this what do

you think you'd be good at and i mean even in the last 10 years don't play video games there's no future in that now there is you know don't spend all day on your computer there's no future in that now there is so i just wish that maybe earlier on someone had said to me okay you're not doing well here but this doesn't mean you're not intelligent there is something else in a lateral you know pathway that you could do very well at what would you say to someone and i imagine there's a lot of people listening to this now who are driving in their cars now on the motorway because i see them upload the podcast when they're like driving they're on the treadmill on monday morning etc and they're in that job where but there's that voice inside them that's

saying you know what you could have done more and you've got so much more potential but they've believed the narrative they're like corporate just climb your way up some shit ladder. I have two answers to that. The first, so many people are hitting quotas, working for someone else's goal. So in recruitment, people go, I just don't think, you know, I'd be able to accomplish much on my own. I go, okay, but you're doing something you don't enjoy and you're exceeding at it. You're excelling at it. You've hit quota for three years in something you're not passionate about. Where the hell have you come to the conclusion that you would not succeed following your passion? How have you come to that conclusion? That's ridiculous. Now, the second thing is, although this has been disputed, I'm a big believer, and I'm sure you will too,

in income satiety, that after you earn a certain amount of money, there's a tapering off effect. And it's very difficult to say that because straight away people's defense is, well, it's okay for you because you've gone past that curve. I'm still on the way up. And I say to them, you're probably working your career for another 10 years because you think in 10 years time, you're going to have enough money to eventually be happy with your situation what if that bet is wrong what if you've just lost 10 years and you're not happy what if i think the two people there's two ways of thinking some people think it's an exponential return where they'll go through misery for long enough and then boom they're just happy i said to them how do you think millionaire ceos wake up out of bed like oh my god life is so good it's the exact that they wake up same as you or i can't wait to have a cup of coffee and then the other one it's more of a linear

scale where they go okay 30k this much happiness 40k this much 50k this much i say to them what if in 10 years time you're wrong 10 years is a lot more than 10 years between 30 and 40. 10 years is a lot more than 10 years between 20 and 30. Imagine, always think in the back of your mind that that bet is going to be wrong. And if you could fast forward to 10 years time and see that you made the wrong bet, how would you feel?

Now think about that before you make a decision. Yeah, that's so true. You know, LinkUp TV published a video with me the other day and the type they put the title as like money won't make you happy which is not what i said but i understand why they're doing it we've got to get them clicks and um i did see i saw the comments that said a very similar thing it was like oh it's easy for you to say i'm like well it would take someone that's made a million to tell you that a million isn't it i couldn't have told you when i was broke like so and also i have no incentive to like put you off getting rich i'm just telling you i'm letting you know that up here my happiness didn't scale proportionate to my wealth uh to a point so as you say 75k per

household apparently it starts to plateau just letting you know i always say to people it's very important they understand this all wins feel the same all wins it's true you don't get an uber surcharge on dopamine the way our brain chemistry works you know okay pleasure serotonin dopamine you don't get a 1.7 surcharge because you're wealthy so you know when you secure a deal at a mid-level high level or you know stock exchange level it's the same dopamine response and it's one of those things where people go oh my god okay yeah and buying a car whether it's a lamborghini or a brand new golf people cannot comprehend that that wind feels the same and i love to tell them i'm like no it exactly is and when people set goals and i don't like the conversation going into fitness but

they say i want to lose 10 kg i'm like like, lose one kg, damn it. And then celebrate that because that feeling of stepping on the scale and accomplishing something is the same at one kg as it is at 10. You've just denied yourself a long way before you're allowed to be happy, which I think is what human beings are really bad at. We won't let ourselves celebrate wins at the level we choose. Not only do they feel the same, we get to determine where those wins are. Did you find that success wasn't what you thought it would be well this is interesting because and people don't believe me when i say this i never intended for this i never had dreams of being what i would i

would consider it wealthy and people will watch this and they'll go no no no the other guy's wealthy and i'll say no no no and from a subjective standpoint I've been able to buy my friends and my family dinner without having to check my bank account for like four years that's something that I didn't have for the 28 before it that's wealthy right and um it it's one of those things that I never really wanted if I'm completely honest my goal as a personal trainer was 10 clients three sessions a week pay me well I don't want 30 clients doing 30 hours i want 10 that see me three times a week i'll be in london or i'll be in sydney if they skip a session it's 150 pounds an hour they won't mind because they're good high level clients that was it that was the goal what

happened i became process orientated probably 2015 where on social media for the first time investments don't really interest me that much and this is another crazy thing people hate me about the social media investment did i will post something useful every day here for years 10 years i thought and in 10 years time hey guys here's a book ching make 20 grand grand, whatever. And as I was posting into email marketing, I wrote email marketing emails for 10 months before I made a sale. If you'd met me nine months in, you would have thought I was fucking insane. Hey James, what are you doing? I'm writing emails to who? 300 people. What about my online PT program? How many of them buying it? None so far. Social media, three years in.

What are you doing? I'm posting every day. How much money have you made? None. People would have gone, you're fucking mental. Nowadays they go, okay, fair play. But the momentum that I wanted, I just wanted a life where I didn't have to see clients

that they'd seek me. I just wanted a life where I could post about a book and money would appear in my account. And after doing that for three, four years, I feel like the table's hot and I enjoy being at the hot table. And rather than looking at an exit strategy, I've created a life that I love where send a marketing email, market my brand so I can get people to email, manage my academy, you know, promote books and write them i have everything i need i'm i'm like on a wave that just never seems to end and that to me i mean carol dweck one of my favorite authors becoming is better than being i never wanted to be anything in particular so there's no

gold medal depression at the end right remember that from your pod that's that's not there for me because i've never set an everest peak i've never set that so this wave that's that's not there for me because i've never set an everest peak i've never set that so this wave that's moving for me i'm just happy and do you know what i've i joke around all the time i'm like if this ends tomorrow what a ride you know and i don't think enough people see it that way where you know i know you've had the pleasure of taking friends on a private jet i did that once once. And I was like, wow, if I, if I die tomorrow,

they'll be like, rest in peace. Hopefully they'll cry. He took me on a jet for one night. And if this all came crashing down, I'd be happy with that because I never set it. You know, there are so many boxers who wanted to be heavyweight world champion. They never made it.

They've got to go to the grave with that. I almost feel like there's a element of being unbeatable when I never set a precipice to reach. Yeah. I mean, Mo Gowdat, which is one of my favorite podcasts I've ever done here, talks a lot about that, that, you know,

unhappiness is in essence, when our expectations of how life is supposed to be going, go unmet. And he's there, they call him a happiness expert, genius on the topic. And even billionaires, they have expectations of their steak and he's the they call him a happiness expert genius on the topic and even billionaires they

have expectations of their steak tasting like japanese wagyu perfection 10 out of 10 so if it comes and it's a 9 out of 10 steak they are often furious the fuck is this medium rare i said right whereas you take that exact same steak you give it to you know someone else that's on 18k a year they'll be like that because their expectations are lower and they're all standards are low they will be over the fucking moon same stake two different people with two different sets of expectations it's interesting as well where uh next time you're at a table with people that are very accomplished i noticed the people that have experienced the stake that much they're so much more involved in conversations because that's the only thing

that can interest them on that night. They've had 10, and this is something that petrifies me where sometimes I feel like I want to be successful, but not too much. Yeah. Because once you've eaten at every five-star restaurant in London,

like you say, your standards have been set. Once you've dated 10 models, standards have been set. And I almost do feel sorry for sometimes the Bezos the Bilzerians you know I think wow I'm like what what are you doing each day to excite you and this is why not to hijack the conversation but Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for me is like a nucleus of my focus my attention what I care about on a daily basis because nothing can really impact that and I will never be able to get to a status where no matter no matter who I am what I do or what I accomplish

when I step on the mats we get in belt order for years at my old gym we all wipe down the sweat after the mats like you know black belts get our gears off and we do it and it's so important to me that I know that for the rest of my life when i can still train i will never be too big for that and i think that there are so many high achievers that love that connection to it and i feel sometimes for people that are super successful they're not getting beatings enough they're not for me i can i remember uh did a business to business event i flexed when i was there i was like hey guys i was wearing a gold volex which actually just sold this morning and

i was there i was like hey you know uh here's here's what it's like flying first class we're in no bc oh you know i was flexing on the business tour next day went to compete lost in the first round you know turned up i was like wow it's like thank you for that thank you my weekend i would have been taken off as far as you go if it wasn't for getting beaten up on the Sunday. Do you know what? So many people have told me about Brazilian jujitsu and the way they speak about it

isn't like it's a sport or a martial art. It's more like a philosophy for life, almost. It teaches you life lessons. And so many people have told me that in a row that I thought, you know, I fucking need to give this a shot. And I really enjoyed it. Even though it was a one-on-one session and I was in Indonesia for two

hours I was like I need to do this more often you know like marketing social media email marketing you are going to be awful for the first six months you are but if people persevere through that and again I remember where I learned a lot of my business now so I was I was in Victoria I was in a double tree Hilton I was in a room with 200 personal trainers we all learned the same thing that day and i remember the faces the people in there and i never saw them again i've never seen them on socials i've never seen them on instagram on tiktok anywhere like that and i think to myself we all learned the same thing just not all of us stuck with it through the the painful times where in email marketing you you spend six months you don't make money in jiu-jitsu you spend six months you don't beat anyone you have to say to yourself right

i'm happy to endure this because i know come the other side i can reap the rewards and it's very difficult in this day and age to say to someone let's do we're going to get you to do something where you physically are going to be powerless for six months it doesn't sell well that narrative. But then when you get through it, similar to people, I love the email marketing analogy. Now, so many people in the new rich can send an email and that's their day's work done because they persevered, they built the relationship.

They managed to cultivate an audience who are ready for it. Same with jujitsu. If people just commit to it, and like you say, when people talk about it, you're like, this isn't a coincidence. I drink less, i party less i you know have now ambitions of teaching my future kids i have ambitions of teaching white belts i'm gonna go back to sydney i'll say to my gym hey that no one

wants the fundamentals class so i'll have them i'll have them same with pt world i never wanted to train athletes i like just first time Sharon who is a housewife and she has to make sure the kids are at school on time teach her to deadlift I was like that's what brings me pleasure and I think that I'll really enjoy teaching the white belts and so many people they have so much that they are kind of working for in life but nothing that's such a slow gradual progression like a martial art in the middle you've highlighted there one of the things that evidently made you successful was that commitment to consistency and like i mean you would you would have seen it in your social channels because every successful

person i've seen and i speak to says the same thing first couple of years fuck all then i mean that's the laws of compounding it goes slow then it goes really fast you would have seen that so that's clearly one of the things but what else made you and because there's a lot of people on instagram giving advice and there's a lot of fitness people and whatever else why you of all of them it's interesting where i think that having a conversation with me now you'd probably assume or you'd come to the conclusion i'm different to my socials i've always seen social media as a crowded room where you know a podcast is where we sat together driving somewhere for three hours let's talk let's relax let the conversation wander

but on instagram on tiktok whatever i have 10 seconds to capture your attention and i love the idea of polarizing people i said in my first book that imagine you invite me to a barbecue in shoreditch and someone talks about formula one and i go i fucking hate formula one someone goes what go look i just doesn't interest me and someone's like you brought him the first time and he's shitting on formula one 10 people at the barbecue three of them be like do you know what i also agree with you i think it's shit and they'll remember me for saying something controversial rather than oh yeah it's good isn't it oh let's have it so you, so many people want to get in line with an opinion

that they're no longer remembered. So I took it upon myself and it was almost by accident. I do my lives every day. I do videos. Then something would piss me off and I'm not a violent person. So I just channel it into a video and it would get a lot more likes and shares. And I was like, hold on, what's going on here? So again, I would post 10 videos and it would be the one where I was a bit more aggressive. And over time I learned that there were certain things people wanted in a certain way. And it wasn't the six packs, the chicken and broccoli, the food prep. It was being passionate without compromise about different topics. And I do swear as a person, I am crass. I am vulgar. And I do make very inappropriate analogies for things.

I put that out. Like I said, I only ever wanted 10 clients. I only ever wanted 10 clients. So if half the people that see a video hate me for it, that's fine. Because as long as the other half is 10 people that would do business with me, again, I'm invincible. And I've always had that mentality that I only need 10 people like me to make a living. And if I do those 30 hours at 150 pounds an hour, six hours between 6am and 2pm, I can live a dream life and be wealthy, even though it's barely breaking 100 to 200k a year. As long as I can buy dinner for my friends and family I can be wealthy with 10 people and people completely misconstrue social media for that they go I need everyone to like me I need a million people to like me you know I first flew first class with

28,000 followers and you don't need that many people to like you to do well and I wish I wish people could understand that because social media has become a popularity contest it's not this is not a popularity contest this is a means of you getting people over the line to like you enough to do business with you it's so true i i did a lot of talking on stage where i was looking at people like pierce morgan and kanye west and katie hop Hopkins. And what you've described there is what I've always said, which is you don't have to like these people, but the conversation orbits around them. Now your barbecue analogy there, by you saying, oh, the Formula One is shit, everyone then comes over to you and the conversation centres around James's opinion.

And that brings attention to you. I said to my friends last night, because I did a tweet and it's got 20,000 likes and it's like going fucking crazy. And everyone's talking about it. I said, listen, you're not going to be able to build a personal brand in 2022. If you're not, I said this to my friends last night in our WhatsApp group, if you're not prepared for someone to call you a C-U-N-T. If you're not willing to accept someone calling you a C-U-N-T, it's going to be incredibly hard to get um the attention you need for the algorithms to turn in your favor and that means in your case and as i've seen from many just being yourself and but there's a cost there is but you can be selective with this as

well so uh if i have an argument against the keto diet yeah i don't advocate the keto diet so if a load of people that are zealots in the realm of the keto drink diets hate me that's fine i'm starting fire on someone else's property then you know i support vegan from an ethical standpoint but i don't like this self-righteous uh you know sanctimonious element of veganism it's been hijacked a bit like um i've often said like feminism what a fantastic cause hijacked by a few to give it a bad sometimes bad rap veganism is the same but then i can have a little bit of a cheap shot and joke you know satire content with a vegan and suddenly oh the vegans are up in arm

sharing this this is unacceptable again i've started firing someone else's property and the people you've cultivated to like you guys actually really funny or you know so you can be very selective with who you pick arguments with i did one about bodybuilding where i said hey if you want to you know diet down for six months to show off your insecurities versus someone else's cover yourself in fake tan and call it a sport you do you right the bodybuilder community went mental and everyone was like, is this guy stupid? He's a personal trainer. I don't coach bodybuilders. Yet thousands of them shared my post. My following went up and little did they realize it was their followers that may be invested in them, but don't agree with their values. They went, hold on. I'm supposed to

hate this guy, but I agree with him. And now their eyes are on me, not someone else. Being selectively hated is brilliant. And now I even look to the comment section for new content. Someone goes, James, well, when are you going to start training chest? I'm like, Hey man, when are you going to start, you know, stop going on people's profiles you don't follow to make content. You know, there are so many arguments now that I can see from the negative comments that I can then turn into content. So again, it's one of those things where people need to appreciate there is a power in being disliked. And if I turn up to, you know, an event that's supposed to be fully booked and it's not got bums in every seat, I might go, oh,

I might need to, you know, rein it in and really reconsider what I do for a living. But as long as the talks I do have people in them, as long as I'm still getting support for what I'm doing, I feel like I must be tiptoeing the line enough. Like I say, it's passion without compromise. I'm going to say what I feel and I don't care. I think it was Seneca, if you don't wish to be criticized do nothing say nothing be nothing and you know that's how I feel and are you being yourself or are you playing a character it's always caffeinated James you know me when I've had three coffees that's who people get behind the scenes I'm a bit more relaxed I'm quite happy to disagree with people because there isn't uh an interest in it for me someone walks past me on the street saying i love formula one i'm like

hey mate come back yeah you're fat and i hate formula yeah yeah yeah and um and the same again where you know i'm i'm not argumentative away from social media if i see people you know chatting hate about me i don't get involved in it. I'm not really that person. What about Joe Wicks? What about that beef? Do you know what? Sturred the pot there a little bit. You said some comments to him about,

he said there's some dishonesty there regarding what he does. So this is something where I haven't gone back on my word, but about six months ago, I took the podcast I did about him offline. I felt like I'd been a bit harsh, you know. At the time, I've got 10,000 followers. I've had my first taste of growth on social media. And like B-film rappers, you need an arch enemy. You know, you need someone to be able to go out so you can kind of go back and forth. I actually emailed Joe about four years ago, five years, seven years ago and um i emailed him and i

i found out that you'd seen one of my videos and i thought oh shit i never expected him to see it ever i was posting content i was oh my god i might have hurt someone's feelings so i emailed him i say hey joe just to let you know one i will be coming for you a bit, but two, you never get put down by people above you. That's all I said. And he emailed me back ages ago and I continued the endeavor and there were still things that- What did he say? Do you know what, coming back,

I think he said something along the lines of he hadn't had an email like that before. It didn't stop me though. So there were a few things that frustrated me. One, I don't like people blanket prescribing solutions to people, I don't. And there's, I don't like anyone that presents a solution without education, you know, the teacher man to fish analogy.

So I had clients that were paying me, but also bought his plant. So straight away, there was a bit of a conflict. And I remember looking through the supplements stack and I was like, branching amino acids, leucine, and I was like was like well i don't know why you're popping these lucene pills for my protein they're massive like a pelican trying to swallow each one i was like unless you're vegetarian or vegan you don't really need this then the branched amino acids and i was like you don't really need to be consuming another six pills with this and then i was like from an ethical standpoint i don't

these people are very over supplemented for jumping around the front room. Then there was the one size fits all plan. One of my clients was a type one diabetic who got sent it and I was like, don't eat that. This is not, you know, specialized for you. And the amount of volume that was being given to people is it's very easy to make people tired. This is what frustrates me as a trainer. I actually want to stimulate people in the gym,

get them moving. And if there was ever a boundary of the maximum they could do, I want to come under that every day. A lot of people are stressed, underslept, undernourished, smashing people in their front room every day, I don't think is the solution out of this. So I picked some holes in the programming, picked some holes in, you know, the supplement issue there. But the main problem is this people would have gone there seeing him on tv gm tv seeing the book sales and gone this is my savior and when they fail the plan or don't finish it which i think a lot of people do i think i'm not saying that objectively they blame themselves and this is what kills me so many people maybe hundreds of thousands of people

would have done a one-size-fits all plan, all doing the same exercise regime. I could not sustain HIIT training at 32 every day in my front room. It would break me. When they do eventually fall off that and the meal plan, cooking everything from scratch, which again, I mean, we're sitting next to Huel. That's a market that's come off the back of people

not wanting to cook from scratch. When they fail that plan, they're going to blame themselves. And the voices in their head are going to say, I didn't want it enough. I'm not motivated. I'm not committed. I'm not cut out for this. And you can hear my voice now. This is something I'm passionate about. It breaks me to think of the tens of thousands of people who gave up on their ambitions because they went the wrong way for advice. If people love it and they love cooking from scratch, this guy's probably the guy for you to join his plan. Not mine but

It almost felt like physics so many people went to something it created gravity that other people went and it's my Feeling that that let a lot of people down and if it didn't I wouldn't have experienced so much growth from pointing out the inadequacies If people were truly happy I would have been shut the hell up then and i would have just gone away and not existed on social media so what's your plan how does it differ imagine uh we have you the consumer hello selling i'm selling you the consumer the principle fat loss is a calorie deficit the fact that we need to create an

energy deficit um just for anybody that doesn't understand that means burning more calories than you're consuming. And it doesn't make it a simple science, but, you know, let's just say to people, like money in the bank analogy, if you earn too much than you spend, you're going to accrue money in the bank. That is what fat is. It's not from toxins. It's not from, you know, whatever you're led to believe. Now, everything in between those two, how it works in the person is a method, you know, keto, 5-2, intermittent fasting, all of these are methods that dress up the principle for the consumer. It's almost packaging something for the person. With me, rather than giving them the method first, I put them straight in bed with the principle. And I say, look, this is how many calories I think you burn on a daily

basis. I think you should try eating 15% less than that. Here's a protein target, go away. If it works, we've hit it. If it doesn't, we're still too high. If you gain weight, you know, we've really missed the mark here. This is how it works. Really educate people to all the things they need to go. Like a driving instructor, I should not exist in your life in six months,

apart from the guy that taught you to drive. Why is it so acceptable for people to invest money into fitness professionals and then still be there three years later? The PT model is almost flawed in some respects. If you do your job well enough, your client leaves. So for me, even when my clients that I had face-to-face for years, I was on gym for four years, I said, look, you're going to pay me more than the rate that you pay anyone else. But in three months time, if you can't do this on your own i'll give you your money back because i should be people arrive at fitness like getting in the car for the first time they're like what the hell is the third pedal that's a clutch a

clutch dad what the hell is a clutch i remember learning to drive i thought there was go and stop and rather than just getting in the car and driving i need to explain to him we need this to change gears the indicator must be done before we start to break this is your merits and the fitness world doesn't have that anymore there needs to be some ruthlessness with this where I say to people look this is the education you need you need to learn how to do this for yourself it's one of those things where I have a big problem with people monetizing and not giving that solution you know I think it's so important that we teach people these fundamentally so they understand and I'm not an extremist you look at me now I'm you know i think it's so important that we teach people these fundamentally so they understand and i'm not an extremist you look at me now i'm you know just before downstairs we were talking before

the podcast about have you been on the front cover of men's health i was like no no i don't agree with that i don't think these are physiques that are obtainable to most men in our country i think you know that's like saying hey you can't be happy to earn a quarter of a million pound yes that's great but most men won't get there so how about we set the goal something more realistic and middleton another one of your guests friend of mine he got criticized for not being lean enough for the men's health cover we got a guy climbed mount everest you know like oh sorry mate you're not lean enough you haven't shaved your chest recently enough so it's one of those things where i think there's a lot of a lot of work to be done with not only teaching people how things work,

but also in setting the finish line. So from entrepreneurship, the new rich, I think is great because we have such subjectivity between how much money your business can make. But once you get the freedom to work remote and live your life, well done, you've done it. And I think that if someone, especially men, can get to the point where they're happy to go for a jog topless, you've done it. They don't have to be upset. If you can go for a jog topless or you can, you know, wear a pair of Speedos on holiday, well done, mate, you've done it. And I think we need to have that approach with fitness. You're in the business of helping people change their lives, hopefully. I'm guessing that's part of the goal is to help them become a better version of themselves. And a lot of people listening to this will have a friend or they'll have a, I don't know, a family member or

someone that they, they want to help change their life. What have you learned about those that actually do take the steps, commit, change their lives and those that just kind of say it? And how do you, are you able to identify them super early and say this person's got no chance is there like a warning sign where you go there's this person's just all talk and do you give up at some point on people uh face to face i had to because there was a finite amount of energy in which i could give people and i had to sack clients and i'm sorry someone could take your slot pay me the same amount of money, but I can make progress with them. And sometimes they come back a different person.

The main thing I learned, I wrote the first book, not a diet book. And then I realized there was a precursor. And my theory is that, you know, in my videos, in my content, I say fat people, I say obese, and I use the C-U-N-T word openly. But I don't think people are gluttonous and greedy i think that yeah from

an evolutionary standpoint it makes sense that if we're surrounded by copious amounts of adonic food that we should be consuming it because we have done hundreds of thousands of years but people don't want to be this way so i came to realize that so many people before we look at calorie deficit we need to look at other pressing issues. Do you like your work life? Do you like your relationships? Because if you come home from a work you're not passionate about, from a job you're not passionate about, and you walk straight in through the door to a relationship you're not passionate about, me telling you to eat less means doing less of the only thing you might enjoy every day. So there's a big life constructionist issue that comes up. And actually I find as a PT, I was asking this,

I was like, you're always moaning about your boyfriend. Why don't you break up? Oh, we've been together five years. And since now I now know that's the sunk cost fallacy, whether making a decision based off the previous investment, not the actual reason if they want to be in a relationship. So with the second book, I was like, well, before we even get into this commitment, wanting it, do I give up on this person? I'm like, right, we've got Steve, repetitive yo-yo dieter, sticks to the deficit for three weeks, then he falls off. I go, Steve, mate, do you like your job? You know, do you like it? Nah, well, I've been there eight years. Do you like your relationship, Steve? Oh, nah, you know, I'm a mystery in my head. And all the other way around,

Sabrina's like, my boyfriend's a wanker, whatever it it is and i've come to realize that if we can Help change those things in those people's lives suddenly everything else seems a lot A lot easier. There's a lot less boundaries a lot less effort. So in a cheesy way we almost need to address the foundations that people are building on because If you haven't got this and again Imagine you're in a job you hate on 50k and you take a pay cut and start a venture with your best mate for 30k you're gonna have less pleasure in your life less expensive trainers less private jets whatever but suddenly you have a job you enjoy

and if you're getting enough satisfaction between seven when you wake up and four when you come home you won't need to get it from food and then they drop a bit of weight and then they start feeling better and then they go oh do you know what i could do with a bit of muscle on this arm so then they start going to the gym and then they make friends there and so this whole conversation surrounding you know motivation i don't think it's a positive charge motivation i think that too many people are carrying a negatively charged career and a negatively charged relationship status so you view like a poor relationship with your diet or food as more of a symptom of negativity or lack of fulfillment or lack of satisfaction in other areas of your life because i've actually been there when i worked in uh so i

worked in sales and i hate phone calls so it was the wrong job for me i don't even now when people call me i'm like what do you want? They're like, what do you mean? Are you, you're right. I'm fine until you called me. So, and I used to get to work. I used to have peanutella sandwiches, two slices of toast. I wasn't even hungry.

Peanut butter on one, Nutella on the other, put them together. I'm having a 500 calorie, just a bit of toast, just to kill time from my mundane existence at my office. Again, there are so many people doing this.

And in my time in corporate, I realized people are doing the absolute bare minimum to get by. And I always say to people, the second you join a big corporate business, they're going to pay you the least amount of money for the most amount of your life. And if you don't construct how you want your life to look, they're going to do it. And a lot of people don't like how that construction looks like. And then they wonder why they're feeling malaise or you know depressed or disheartened and it's because you let someone else build your life for you and it's very important for people to unattach from that and then if they can and this is another thing where i'm sure you you'll be able to relate to some of

the best things that have ever happened in my life have come off the back of opportunities not going my way and my back's been against the wall. I'll probably get shot for saying this, doing an event later on this year at Sydney Opera House, which is mad, massive. For me, it's an incredible feat because four years ago, I remember being so skin in Sydney,

living in a hostel that i went to opera bar to apply for a job behind the bar and they said you have to have a qualification to serve our cars i'm not doing this i remember reading uh tim ferris's tools of the titans on the ferry back to where i lived and it goes if someone put a gun to your head would you work harder i was like oh shit yeah i would i would call up all my existing. I'd get referrals then I'd call those referrals and I close them for sales I give them money back guarantees. I would quite literally just do a lot more and then I came to realize Okay, i'm gonna go home and do that and

Within five months. I joined fitness first and then bought my way out of it It's crazy that people are so afraid of being in this position where they leave a career They're unfilled with that. They're going to be stuck and lost but anything when your back's against the wall you find another version of yourself that Works harder and does more and puts himself into uncomfortable situations and my favorite thing to say to someone is like How many times have you let yourself down really in your life? How many times have you really woken up and gone?

I've really let myself down and even if you have you got out of it and most people they haven't i know why the hell do you think you're gonna let yourself down now where's that come from where's that bullshit assumption come from probably the people you hang around with probably the the naysayers in your life that may be saying it because they want to protect you and so many people in that kind of world of just not fulfillment and i always say again please do not mistake passion with being good at something because if i get you to do anything for three years you're going to be good at it don't call that passion you do recruitment for three years and you can close people oh yeah straight yeah flitzy 100 i'll get them top four whatever it doesn't mean you're passionate about

it means you're good at it and people really need to distinguish that there's going to be a ton of people listening to this now that are in that situation they're in a they're on their way to a job this morning you know that they don't particularly like and but they're going to say well james i've got a mortgage to pay and i've got a couple of kids you know you'll get this a lot of time because i get it i get every day i've got a couple of kids and you know you'll get this a lot of time because i get it i get it every day got a couple of kids and it's easy for you guys to say because you know you're single and you've got all this money now but i can't just leave this call center james i've got timmy that needs to go to school and i need to give you know buy his books for his book bag and what do you say to those people that are feeling

like they've they've kind of built a wall too big to climb over? It's a very difficult one. And again, I can never say, oh, just do this. Because when I'm talking now, I'm talking to James of 22, similarly to how you would talk to yourself at 18. I can't talk to every age group listening to this podcast. So I'll try to talk to the one I know best.

But there's two kind of ways out. There's one where some people do need to make a risk because they may see no options now, but where are they going to be in five years? A lot of the time things get worse with time, not better in these situations. Unfulfillment, passionless existence, all of these things get worse.

If your relationship is on the rocks, you don't just give it four years. Something needs to be done. Sometimes you do need to rip the cord. But to people who are genuinely past it, because people did read my second book and go, well, I just can't do this. I said to them, well, okay, make sure your kids know this. Make sure if there's one valiant thing you do is fall on the sword and say, right, for me, I will sit out the next 10 years. But those kids, every time I talk to them, every day they're at the dinner table, every step they make in life, instill that into them.

My dad said to me, like my whole life, he's just always said, you're a long time dead. He always just drilled it into me my whole life. Every time I've wanted to do something, it's like, I mean, you're going to be a long time dead, son. And it helps me understand there is no time to to dwell to wait to see things out and i think that again that's one of the things that people don't think about enough you know we're all slowly dying it's such a weird thing to think about people i just give it a few

more years you don't have that time isn't on our side our existence as a human being is if the universe could talk it would laugh at the amount of time we have to live and some people again what's the worst that could truly happen you've got a mortgage call have you got enough to survive two months two months and if you can't give everything to something for two months maybe don't do it at all personal trainers as well they say this all the time at my business talks Oh, you know, they're doing minimum wage hours six seven pounds an hour wiping down machines between trying to run a legitimate business And they're afraid to go alone

Okay, if I gave you seven pounds for that hour and put you on the gym floor And gun to the head mentality you need to make a business where you're going to wipe down machines for your whole life Of course, they're going to do it the the intensity the audacity everything they could give to people're going to wipe down machines for your whole life, of course they're going to do it. The intensity, the audacity, everything they could give to people is going to be incredible. I think it's baffling that people write themselves off before they even make the decision. And in some respects, them going, I've got kids, I've got a mortgage, I appreciate all of those things, but is this a bullshit hurdle you're putting in front of making change in your life? I could be wrong. I don't know, but it could be.

They need to ask themselves that. I can't ask them that. One of the things you said that was really interesting. You said, I don't feel deserving of my success. And I've heard you talk a little bit about imposter syndrome. Do you suffer with imposter syndrome? I kind of back out of it very quickly every time i i feel the emotion everything to me is just weird it's just weird people on a selfie i'm like yeah

i'm like this is a weird part of my day let's embrace it this is something that up until 27 no one ever stopped me for a photo or acknowledged my work 32 now give or take 15 of my life so for 85 of my life that never happened so everything to me life, that never happened. So everything to me, it's just, you know, I joke around at the speaking events. I go, Hey, I'm going to get found out soon. Until then I'm going to milk this for everything I can. I do, I do feel it a lot. It's a strange one, especially at home. Like, uh, I'll go out with my mom and dad. Someone will say, Oh, James, can I get a picture? I now chaperone my dad when he goes into london we went to twickenham a few weeks ago and i don't particularly like going to watch sporting events anymore it's cold you know trains are so crammed all of this but if my dad's going i'll come with

you i'll make sure no one barges into you especially when people are exiting twickenham i'm like fuck off and um purple belt yeah yeah watch out mate you're going and um even i see it my dad's face he's like he's like but he he doesn't my parents don't have social media they don't they don't exist in that world but i can tell they're kind of proud of it and i was like you know what if my parents are proud of this weirdness i'll embrace it and i'll be happy to embrace it but yes it's just incredibly strange it's again why i need someone else to negotiate all rates and what i get paid and speaking appearances because whenever even getting the invite for this

podcast i was like fuck you know i was like i hope i can keep up the conversation for an hour i have the biggest fear whenever i have guests on my podcast i'm like what if i run out of things to ask after half an hour where does that come from that of, like that almost self-doubt and insecurity. I think that a lot of my confidence, not all of it, but a big chunk of it is a facade, an essential facade. I need to play the character. Confidence to me isn't about who you are, it's about who you need to be.

It's about how I need to talk in this interview, how I need to present myself, the things I need to get passionate about. In some respects, when that fades, you know, I'm just a PT on the gym floor in Bracknell. I worked on a, you know, a trading estate for three, four years. And the craziest thing is I was happy. I was happy then.

I wouldn't, you come meet me four or five years ago. Hey, James, how's your life? I wouldn't blow, you know, fucking hell, I could do with a bit more money. No, I could do with, you know, an expensive watch expensive watch it's never like that i used to ridicule my clients for flying business and buying rolexes i was like what a waste of money now to my other friends i'm like you should really try business and um yeah i've definitely had a complete flip on that i don't know where it comes from to be fair but to be honest it's probably a fact i

spend a lot of time my family and my friends i don't really have any mega successful influencer friends everyone's pretty grounded and we all think that we're getting away with murder charging money for things so i think it probably comes from that but from what you said as well you spent the first at least 15 years of your life being indirectly told that you shouldn't aim so high and not much is going to happen in your life right it was when i first became a pt that this changed where i remember listening to podcasts reading books studying topics and one day it clicked i was like i'm never going to be in the best shape never going to be the most muscular never going to be the most experienced and i was like i could be a good communicator because

these podcasts i'm listening to are dull as fuck i listened to a 56 minute podcast on caffeine i managed to turn it into an academy module that was two and a half minutes right that's all they needed and i thought there's a gap in the market here and it becomes a snowballing effect where maybe even the same with yourself where at the beginning you were like i understand the operational part of the business i understand investorship and when you see the returns on your efforts you're like oh i'm actually quite good at this and you get all these confirmations that occur along the way and i think it's more that if i'm honest i still struggle to communicate with myself that i'm an authority on things i actually need external

validation still quite a lot which i've never really told anyone before. We've spoken about quite a few things today that I've never really spoken about. And even there are always little battles that can be won and lost. And some days I'm like, I do lose belief in who I need to be. And do you know what?

Actually content creation for me really helps me with that because whenever I'm having a day where I'm like, do i really know what i'm talking about i will just express something i feel wholeheartedly about and see how it goes and when it fucking blows up i go oh maybe i do know what i'm on about carry on that's a dangerous game to play because on the other end if your if external validation is moving you up it's like impossible for it not to move you the other way so if someone dms you and goes you are you're you don't know what the fuck you're talking about vegans are you know this and keto a keto vegan is the best way to be surely that moves you too no it does and sometimes if i if i do get a really you know harsh criticism i don't take it from an emotional

level i take it from an objective level i actually do this a lot if someone criticizes me on something i go before i think he's a dickhead he could be right so i give him the benefit of the doubt and i'll go to someone smarter than me i'm like just to double check i'm right on this topic and i think that's a good way to protect myself from it every time someone says you're wrong on this subject i don't go hey fuck you i've got more followers than you i'm like oh fuck i best go away and research this And I actually use the little troll attack sometimes to reconfirm my position on something. If someone goes, you know, you swear too much in your content,

I'm like, I'll reflect on it. Am I swearing too much? Is this how I got here? Dangerous game to play that. Like, we all play it. I'm not pretending. I'm just playing devil's advocate to ask good questions here.

But that, yeah, if you're relying on other people to validate you then their words can also invalidate you theoretically so do you struggle with that being then then i would just remove myself from the situation on the social media side of things and i'd be like okay i'd sit with my thoughts and again do you know? I remember you saying this word just before we went live. Psychedelics really helped me with this. But psychedelics also got in my head a couple of times. For people that don't know too much about psychedelics, I've always said to people,

it's like therapy with yourself. You're not always the guy that holds all the answers, but you're at least the person that has the questions. I remember I did a magic mushroom trip and one of the questions i was poised with was do people like you for who you are or what you do i was like oh i'm gonna need a few weeks i'm gonna need a bit of time for this because i was like how many of my followers actually know who i am it's my first defense when someone criticizes me i'm like you don't know me i'm like oh if they don't know me what do they like me for it's like fuck i'm still figuring it out so i think that

there's definitely a lot of conversations and internal dialogues in which i'm still breaking down and that's another thing that people can't understand about psychedelics some of the things you're poised with in question with can take months sometimes years to unravel it's one of the things with building an identity isn't it you then it's easy to to start to believe you you are your identity and that's not always a helpful thing because it can take you further and further away from who you actually are and i think all the mental health research is clear that when we abandon ourselves because we've built up a persona then it can be very costly for the person we truly are and I actually think that continual faking from what I've learned from my guests is is really really harmful so it must be somewhat difficult right like creating the

separation because you are not the guy that I've met today is not the guy that I've seen on Instagram telling me that I'm a fat prick like it's not these aren't the same joking these aren't the same individuals so how do you kind of disassociate from that i think jim curry said something about taking the mask off he goes depression is when you have to take the mask off and say i don't want to do this anymore and for me very fortunately it's three minutes a day on this person so i was on tv so in front of loads of people. But then sometimes what I do like is I purposely, I call it a cunt-sive. I do a post that catches all the cunts in a sieve.

And I sometimes purposefully, as hard as I can, try and get people to unfollow me. I just say something brutefully honest. I go in as hard as I can with the objective of losing a few thousand followers. Because then I can kind of tighten the area, the remit of people which I talk to. And I remember middle of summer I was like this is shit just honestly I was like we're kind of out of lockdown but we're not still got to do tests to go travel we're pretending it's the new normal but it's not the new normal and I I just expressed my emotions without the

facade and no one barely even noticed and I was like that's that's good that means there's not this big transient period between I am just in it's not a different person it's more enthusiasm which I think again is a very important thing because like part I always say that my talks are between a TED talk and stand-up I need to ensure that I can tiptoe the line of retaining the audience, keeping them in, entertaining the audience at the same time. So there is a requirement. Jimmy Carr, when you met him, you wouldn't, if you listened to that podcast first half an hour, you wouldn't go, oh, he's a funny fucker. You'd go, this is a very intelligent person. So I completely appreciate where he comes from as well. For me, I don't

think there's too much separation. I think you wouldn't sit with me now and go that's a completely different person you would go okay this isn't instagram james yeah it's a caffeinated yeah um you said the word depression there one of the things you wrote about in your book is anxiety as well and your own experience with anxiety tell me about that that's something that well you sleep with people and they can say anything that's one that creeps up on you over time where you can have i remember once waking up to a message saying relax this is fine it's all being dealt with but one of your ex-girlfriends in a facebook group community for mums has said do you think it's okay if i make up a story about my ex? I will take the money from the story and give it to my son. So we had that screenshot, we had that locked down. So if it did

go to the press, straight away, we can have it taken down. And I was like, wow, I thought we were on good terms 10 years ago, whatever it was. And that then gets your mind working. You go, what if I rub someone the wrong way? What if someone changes their stance on you? What if, you know, I have a joking altercation with someone in a bar, which they then misconstrue? What if I genuinely want to, you know, be ignorant on a subject and someone construes that as a facetious attempt to insult someone. So there's a lot of anxiety that I carry because not everyone watching is watching you succeed. A lot of people watching you want to see you fall and they're waiting at that very opportunity.

And that is quite tough because there are going to be a lot of people that are out to just not see me be happy. So that's where the anxiety stems from. A lot of the time you have the general life anxiety, like, Oh, I hope, I hope I don't get cancer this year. You know, one of those things. I've had friends that never made it to 30 some of my rugby teammates uh that you know find a lump in the testicle on a friday both off by sunday dead within 10 months and i think about that a lot so i think it's important to have that anxiety as well i'm not guaranteed to live to 60 you know i'm not guaranteed to see my book release so for the publisher's sake i get finished but so there's there are anxieties but i work proactively to

override them you know uh mark twain i've had many worries in my life most of which never happened so i think that i've got the wisdom especiallyoics, to these anxious traits are not new. They've existed for a lot longer than we could imagine. So you do carry that around. I get drunk, you know, or did I put something on the story? You know, I know that drunk James can say things, but I know he'd never do things.

He's not inappropriate. He's not a groper. He's not disrespectful to women or any of those things. So I'm fine with that. But then I do carry this small amount of anxiety because the higher you climb the further you fall and when you feel like your life is a fairy tale you hope it has the fairy tale ending and you're like i hope i'm not the one that you know this is going too well it's like you're a gambling table you keep winning on red eventually i'm

gonna lose everything i think about that a lot so i think that's what keeps me straight how do you defend yourself from being cancelled what's your sort of philosophy for that for me my my thing and ant middleton i think reaffirmed this for me jordan peterson reaffirmed this for me as well is if i never can try to convince anybody that i'm something i'm not if i never try and convince them that I'm like a really good guy or that I'm like morally perfect, they'll never be able to call out contradiction. And really a lot of the time people getting cancelled

is because they try to pull the wool over your eyes about their like moral compass. And it explains why Jimmy Carr can sit here and go, I mean, this is slightly different because it's comedy, but Jimmy Carr can sit there and go, oh, fuck this is slightly different because it's comedy, but Jimmy Carr can sit there and go, oh, fuck the over 70s, the Delta variant wiped them out. Or rappers can talk about

all the misogynistic things they talk about, whatever. No one's going to leave any hate on their videos. Because they never gave us the expectation of other, otherwise. It's usually the people that, quite often it's the people that

are our prime ministers or our politicians or have inherited this moral high ground that we go, oh, you had a Christmas party. I stand with very controversial opinions as well surrounding, I'm very pro drug legalization. I think that, you know,

I've got family members in the police force. I wish they were dealing with real crime. And I think that we could abolish a lot of drug related crimes by legalization. I think we should tax and we should quality control. I don't think it's going to be a net positive for society, but I don't think exactly right now it is any better. So with standpoints like that, and people go,

James, have you done cocaine? I go, yes. You know, have you done MDMA? Yeah, last weekend. You know, I'll always be honest with people. And that does give you a drop off for followers, but a cuntive. I've thought them out early so that they can come in, they can go, and that's not to be sexist

or to talk about female genitalia. That is to use another polarizing word. So I'll be transparent with that. Similar to Danny Dyer got caught on CCTV doing a line. I was like, oh, it's just Danny. You know, what do you expect? That's what I mean. He never tried to-

There is the anti, you know cancelable effect of that uh you know even when single being very transparent with needs and wants through messages so that if someone was to look through you know a trail of it you'd be like well he'd made it very clear that was the position he was in so i'm always trying to maintain an anti-cancelable thing i haven't got tv i haven't got radio i've actually probably had 12 minutes of tv time in four or five years i think because a lot of tv networks don't want to get cancelled so um if you were to pull the plug on all my media tomorrow i'd probably see a one percent drop off and engagement and you know i'm very honest with all my clientele the the people that really matter to me are book buyers academy

members and talk attendees i don't believe that any of my actions would ever deter them from their interest in me which kind of makes me uncancellable you know yeah and i'm not too worried about that i've been thinking a lot lately about like there's a few types of imprisonment in life there's physical imprisonment you can put me in a jail and the other type of imprisonment which i think is probably even worse is like the mental imprisonment which is we're going to decide what you can think and say um and who you are and like i really don't want that so how do i have to design my life to make sure that i never get mentally imprisoned i never go to jail. And one of them is building enough resources so that even if you turned off my revenue streams,

the ones you could turn off, I'm still good. The other is things like this, which is, this is my own show. Don't sell it to Spotify or someone else because then there is a guy that could pull the plug. And I've really started to think about this idea of like designing an uncancellable life so that you could be mentally free

in a world where we're all fucking virtue signaling and trying to fit in and be correct you know i like that like i've written that in book three yeah yeah it's a race you can get it in their book first i think um yeah you're you're incredibly correct and i think that you know i don't have a huge amount in savings but i think i could live three years on that you know i went to i went to asia for six months when i was younger and in six months i spent three and a half thousand pounds yeah i wasn't staying in the nicest places but i spent time there so sometimes i'm like hey if the world goes to shit i got 10 years in thailand let's go i'll just train jiu-jitsu it doesn't cost me anything laundry whatever so i always do that and i actually i wrote about this one in my book so i

remember i ate in a steak restaurant in syd Sydney once on the beach and the waiter that served us, really nice guy, young guy. And I looked at him and I went, oh, I could have your life, you know. You probably serve steak in the restaurant, probably get good tips. You're in Sydney, you probably work 6pm to 11 most nights, maybe five, six nights a week. I could surf during the day and get a dog and train jiu-jitsu if i was to do that every day for the next 30 years i would have a better life than 99 of people on the planet so with the cancelable thing i almost think like if i was to get cancelled i wouldn't have to use my phone as much you know as long as i can get into a country that i that i genuinely love

i always say to myself i'll open a jiu jujitsu dojo in a small town in Australia. I've got door knocking experience. I used to door knock for Empower. I used to have to knock on a hundred doors to sell gas and electric to people that already had gas and electric. How much easier would it be to sell jujitsu memberships? Hey, come down first weeks free, whatever. I, in the same way, not only like to have the uncancellable life, I like to have a get

out plan that can sometimes be better than my current existence. I in the same way not only like to have the uncancellable life I like to have a get out plan that can sometimes be better than my current existence so it's one of those things where I was like um yeah I do think about that a lot and that's why you have family trusts isn't it yeah exactly but no I think it is one of those things where especially with Dragon's Den and you're going on BBC there is a expectation of of who you are and the mental jail you talk about I experienced in the corporate world where I was in recruitment high-end recruitment and they said what'd you get up to the weekend the truth was i was on an away bus to exeter playing rugby and i got dick of the day so we had to do edward cider hands where they duct tape bottles of cider to my hands and i had to

drink about three liters of cider pretty much to break myself free they put a bin bag around me and i puked in it for the most of the way back. I was like, yeah, just went out for dinner with my friends. And then having that same conversation, good weekend, oh, lovely, thanks. Went out for dinner with my friends. I couldn't even express myself, which is you do feel like you're behind bars.

And I used to have to wear a shirt and tie, clean shaven. I wasn't even client facing most of the time. And I'd get shit for not shaving and where i just wanted to go why do i need to fucking shave i'd be like okay yeah of course i'll get the tomorrow yeah and that builds up that angst builds up and for a lot of people that do suffer mental jail i think that's another reason martial arts saves them they can save that angst they can save that frustration and channel it later in the day i have big worries over people that don't have an outlet for breaking out of jail

oh yes yeah and they probably then turn to alcohol and violence and getting punch-ups or whatever it is so i feel that human beings i believe we're quite combative i think that you watch kids have play fights they're not trying to hurt each other sometimes they are give them a set of rules get them into it let them express that but yeah the two things one if people are in that mental jail they need a way out to express them and if they are in a mental jail they need to create long-term solutions to not be in there because not expressing yourself in life like you say i've never thought of it like i think that's really profound mental jail where in some sense, being mentally behind bars must be harder than-

Even worse. Yeah. You see it in, one of the examples I've given on this podcast a number of times is in their LGBTQ community where, because they are, when people are unable to express even their sexuality, the suicide rates go up, you know, before they've, quote unquote, I don't like the term, but come out the closet. And when you look at the things that are prescribed in the more holistic mental health treatments as

being good for mental health it's things like um creating music or doing art or even like dancing and like things like yoga and expression for me is something that i learned later in life is actually writing books or doing a podcast i mean that's therapy, right? When people go to therapy, they express themselves, they let it out. Look at men that don't express themselves. It's the single biggest killer of suicide. So let's think, so we know mental prison is a real thing and we know the consequences are severe. The question becomes, how much are you imprisoning yourself mentally? How much are you doing that in your day-to-day life? How much, like, and you're completely right. And I'm so glad that's where you went with it, which is like, you need to find a way in your day-to-day life? How much, like, and you're completely right. And I'm so glad that's where you went with it,

which is like, you need to find a way in your life where you get a chance to express yourself. The cell walls are closing in on that jail. You've got to find a way, whether it's fucking, this is why I've got a bit of a problem with the nature of social media and you're marked on how correct you are, not how true to yourself you are.

It's all about correctness typically. It's funny because it's actually not, but it feels like it is. We've seen it. I mean, part of the reason why you identified yourself as winning was because you weren't correct. But it feels like the rewards are reserved

for those that are correct. Piers Morgan's the same. The most uncorrect person you'll meet in our, look at the fucking numbers. He's this guy, you know? So I just, I don't know, I'm very passionate about that topic of. It's interesting you say that, because today, if people go back and actually listen to me talking about adoption, they'll see that I'm struggling to talk about it, because I've never, I've spoken about it maybe 10 times in my life, to that extent, ever, online, offline, whatever,

yet we've never met before, but the medium in which we've decided to communicate being podcasting has allowed us to both express our true deep emotions surrounding situations which is this dynamic in which has been created with you know the the listening world of people that are interested in two people colliding i think it's great and like you say it's incredibly therapeutic and it's so difficult now to create a medium of distractions conversation where you know it's it's almost a dying breed but at the same time being re-energized by people looking to sit down and do it conversations dying i two years ago went away to melbourne with two friends i said i'm fucking sick to death of social media we're going

away with no electronic devices and i couldn't believe how deep our conversations were at dinner, no phones. And then we get to Melbourne and my friend comes around the corner. He just had a pee. He goes, mate, this looks like a comedy sketch. I'm there with a Sudoku book. He thought, he's like, mate, I thought you were taking the piss. I thought you were trying to make me laugh as I came around the corner. You're genuinely in the Sudoku book. I was like, yeah, mate, what am I going to do for us today? We went to the cinema without our phones. We went out for dinner without our phones.

And the conversations we were having were so much more in depth. I was uncovering problems that my friends were having. I was like, I live with you and you've not told me this. And yeah, it's one of those things where I'm very grateful to podcasting because it allows me to get a lot off my chest as well. Yeah. And like you say, there aren't the mediums for people to get things off their chest whether physical or verbal and i just hope that the way the world's moving becomes more like that and again if you want to express yourself on social media for me doing that was the win not the followers that was

occurring from it that was a bonus it was like salt and pepper on top of the meal just putting something i felt strongly out every day made me feel good that's what i got addicted to same via email writing the emails is what made me feel good the what happens after that from a business perspective is erroneous irrelevant it doesn't really matter so for so many people out there even if you do a podcast and 10 people are listening mate you've won the battle before they've downloaded it i think that the more people that can understand that the better let's talk about love then you mentioned love a couple of times you referenced that you weren't so good at it by what you were saying there in terms of romantic relationships and love what's your uh what's james like when it comes to that department this is interesting because i feel already do you ever criticize

yourself before someone's criticized you i get in there early people i always think about what they're going to say yes okay so yeah so then they go well in the last 10 years you haven't had a relationship that lasted over a year correct does that make me bad at relationships or good because i will not i will not and this could be an idealistic utopian desire that I may, I could be completely wrong on this, but whenever I have the feeling that this ain't it, I'm out. I could either be a genius or I could have a fixed mindset when it comes to relationships. This is what I'm figuring out. Business, something goes bad. I'm like, mate, leave it with me. Give me a laptop, prep a get and a coffee. Let's do this. Give me my my phone i'll sort it out relationships i'm like nah there's no hope there's no hope sorry uh i've also i've got shit before for breaking up my text sometimes i'm like i just need to deal with this now they're like oh i'll meet you tomorrow i'm

like no i can't sleep until i deal with this sorry this isn't working out we can meet tomorrow if you want but i'm ending it now so it's a two-sided sword where one, I think that I have these utopian standards that one day I'll be able to turn around and go, I was correct. This is what I wanted. And the other side, the other part of my conscious is like, maybe you're not willing to do the work

like you would in other areas of your life. Do you value the, I guess the idea, but would you value a romantic relationship in your life yeah i would very much like so psychedelic experience i had in the last year was really helped me decide i want to have kids it was you do want to have kids i don't want to have kids yeah like one because when i have a child it'd be the only biological relative i've ever met which is a powerful thing i think that's going to be incredible for me like to see my features in another human that blows my mind and it gets me very excited so there's that and i remember

me and my friend and some people straight away will be angry that i'm talking about illegal drug use but me and my friend put our phones down for 10 hours went to a park with a picnic had a speaker and we sat opposite a lake and we just talked shit out and i remember this dad coming by with his kid and they had bread to give the ducks and i was like i was kind of watching not in a creepy way and i thought to myself like this is what life is the dad at some point gives it over to the son the son then gives it over to the duck and i was like what shame it'd be if the kid refused to give the bread to the duck i was like what a sad ending to the story that would be and i went off in my mind thinking about life and thinking about the

opportunity. And my parents sacrificed a lot for me. You know, they had to go to the adoption home. It's spent, spent years. They had to, you know, my mom was infertile. She couldn't have kids. They went through so much trauma to get day one with me. And I thought, fuck. And then from day one till now, the school runs, the me being a dickhead as a teenager puberty I was bad like all of these things and I think everything I have now that I love is because of the sacrifices they made and with life I think soon my time will come to make that same sacrifice I have to pay this forward I think that I'll be hardwired to want to. So sometimes when I'm 32 and I'm thinking, shit, I need to start focusing on love more because

I don't want to be 40 with the most money, the most followers, and have no one around me. When all my friends settled down and had families and I'm the creepy fucking uncle who's banging hot 22 year olds every weekend. I't want that so i need to make sure that i don't arrive at the wrong finish line that's a very very important thing that'll be the worst thing in the world why because i think ultimately the the only way we can really enjoy things is to share them with people and this is my favorite thing i've ever done my money is is buy people ludicrous things you know i with my friends i'll lie to them i say to them um i'm banging a girl who works for BA,

give me your flight details. I'll get you upgraded. And then I'll upgrade them and they'll hate me for it. They're like, you fucking prick, you shouldn't have done that, you know? But then when they land wherever they got and they're like, mate, that was the best flight of my life. I love doing that.

And I'd love to do that in a family setting as well. The look on a kid's face when they go on holiday or whatever it is. And for me, that's an integral part. Spending money on yourself is a short-term fix. I think if you buy something for yourself, it's pleasure. If you buy something for someone else, it's happiness. If I buy myself a Lamborghini,

I'll be excited for three months. If I buy someone else a Lamborghini, I'll be excited for the whole time they drive it. So the prospect of family to me is not only a long-term investment into their lives but the long-term investment into my own happiness and you know it's like an ultimate project for me that I'm really excited about and I think that one of the most important and integral things I value about financial freedom and working only a few hours a day is my dad said this to me once i'll

never forget him saying it he goes i wish i'd spent more time with you when you were growing up to be my sister i was like fucking hell it's like dad like you know he he commuted to the city every day for 50 years worked in the same company king williams street 50 years and so he would leave the house at 6 30 and get back at 7 p.m and when I heard that I was like One I never felt that way but two I won't make that same mistake So for me, it's going to be a big part of my life in time to then set someone else up To experience everything i've experienced because if I do that, right?

Dying won't be such a big problem Like now my biggest problem is that if i did you know i hate to say it don't want to jinx myself if i did get cancer next year my biggest regret would not be having kids i hate to talk about tragic illnesses or whatever but one of my very good friends um his name is paula lima he was very badly affected by covid and he had to be hospitalized he was in hospital bed which is funny because he's quite literally a fitness model. If you look at the maxi muscle types of protein, he was the six pack on the front really. So, um, incredible shape, all of that. And I said to him, what was it like? And he goes, just so happy I had my kids and that they'll be looked after. He was like, he almost

had a, he won't mind me saying this, a sense of accomplishment on quite literally what could have been his deathbed. I thought, fuck, I could do with some of that it's so remarkable how you see people's lives and priorities switch when they have kids and you just you know it's coming because all of my friends that have had kids they always say i wish i'd done it sooner or you really wish you you know that kind of narrative of like there's this profound sense of meaning that we're yet to discover have you ever thought about so let's say human beings as we know them have existed for hundreds of thousands of years the lineage the amount of grandparents great great grandparents how many how many times has a baby been produced in that lineage thousands all it took all it would ever take through hundreds of thousands of years of

lineage was one person to not want to do it. Or, you know, they obviously didn't have quite the choice back then, but all it would have taken was one person to break that chain. And so many of us wouldn't exist now. I think about this all the time. Like my biological mother who gave me up for adoption, she could have ended the chain there. If anything, you know, I'm still very much pro-choice. And I feel like I have a voice to say that because if my biological mother had chosen to abort me, then I wouldn't have a life. All it would take is one break in that chain of lineage for me not to exist. And I'm like, that's too much hard work that's gone on before me. You think the majority of the human race has existed in poverty, in the cold, in famine, in all and all of these things i'm like i can't stop the buck here for what a selfish life you know for lay-ins

and to get a full night's sleep i once asked my followers on instagram whether they regretted having kids and the poll substantially was more in favor of people regretting it but i think really yeah it was it was quite literally if you could go back and not have kids would you and it was like a 49 51 but it's circumstantial i can imagine they're like yeah you know the grass is always green all right you have kids they keep you awake the little shits all of this stop having sex with your wife whatever it is and it's all too easy to just go oh fuck yeah you know i wish i had my young life yet but i've never truly met a rich successful single person without kids with a life that i envy i mean like even dan bozarian right yeah yeah yeah i quite i don't idealize him i've just listened to some of his

podcasts he's like yeah you know like uh i have multiple girlfriends i'm the only guy they've uh you know i've never never been lied to by i sometimes look and i go i feel sorry for you a little bit i feel sorry for you and i even i joke to my friends i'm like i have the perfect amount of success i almost i'm worried to have too much more too many temptations too easy you know when when things become we live in an age where our devices are too replaceable you know uh no iphone comes out suddenly the old ones obsolete see you later whatever it is i never want that to be the same with people and that's where i feel that successful wealthy men go when they don't you're falling on the sword to have a family it's sacrifice it isn't always a net positive decision for your lifestyle. There's more meaning to it than people allude to.

And I think when faced with the decision myself of whether or not I want to do it, I need to say, well, what's the opposite? Well, what else am I going to do? You know, there's pleasure and happiness, again, so different. I say to people that everyone has access to happiness. Some don't know it, but they do all have access to happiness. Not everyone has access to happiness. Some don't know it, but they do. All have access to happiness. Not everyone has access to pleasure. And you can live a life of happiness without pleasure, but you cannot live a life of pleasure without happiness. And the second you try and fill your quota of happiness with pleasure,

you end up going down dark holes, drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever it is. And people being unaware of that decision to be proactive in the pleasure pursuit, when really they're getting woken up by the kids, they're taking the kids to school, your kid going through puberty, giving you shit, was really the happiness under your nose the whole time

that you never really knew about. So I don't have an anecdote to unhappiness, but I think I have a good clue on what would bring me a life of happiness. I've had enough pleasure so far. I'm tired. So what work would you have to do then in terms of getting yourself into a romantic relationship?

When I think about myself, I think, well, if I'm going to be the kind of guy that could offer what I imagine my wife would want me to offer, I'm probably going to have to change this or be a bit more like this. I have to work on this thing that I do because I'm a bit of a dick there.

What are those things for you? so this is an interesting one I think I need to start working on myself and being a better human I don't think I've been a great human in a lot of my relationships I think that I've been selfish and I think that I've made bad decisions and then I've blamed the other person for it because I haven't, I haven't accepted that it was me being a bad person that caused that emotion. It's only something I've been reading some books like I read Attached and came to terms with my avoidant relationship style. There's something I really want to work on. And I think that moving forward, I need to, yes, respect my partner, but I need to respect myself and hold myself to

higher standards i think that if i can hold myself to higher standards i will quite simply be a better human and i think that i need to start taking more responsibility for things because so many things in life you can work your way out of and you can you know change and develop and build to it and i need to put that attitude into relationships it's not saying it's easy but i'm saying it's it needs to be done so i think that i have work to be done i think i just need to communicate that with whoever i'm with and just say look if you look at my books i'm great you look at my academy i'm great live talks give me sell out the o2 i'll be great relationships i got some fucking work i'm great you look at my academy i'm great live talks give me sell out the o2 i'll be great relationships i got some fucking work i'm coming with baggage so you know as long as

someone is open and accepting of that i think that's the first hurdle i don't think i've ever sat that down before i think that when i've arrived at relationships before i'm like well babe i'm gonna be a lot more interesting than anyone else you've fucking dated and that has to go you say you need to be a better human give me just a couple of specifics when you say a better human because that's quite broad you get quite a lot of options being well known having an instagram inbox you have a lot of temptations you have there are there are quite frankly women that I've even met on nights out and say hey i've got a girlfriend they go i don't care and they say i'm not going to tell her and having that means that you have to raise the level of who you are you are no longer just a 32 year old

warm-blooded male you have you know options in front of you these are these are more difficult to say no to because one of the biggest issues i believe men have with the dating scene is they need to win a woman's trust when you are well known they already have the trust it's danger lurking at the door it's opportunities it's you know so many of these things to rise to that challenge is no easy feat. And that's why I believe so many men have fallen. It's a self-destructive pattern as well, because so many men have amazing families, beautiful wives and great kids. And they just lost that ability to be a strong man for one hour and it's gone.

It's a tough ask. It's a tough challenge. But then everything has been so far. None of this has particularly been easy. It's been enjoyable, but it's gone. It's a tough ask. It's a tough challenge, but then everything has been so far. None of this has particularly been easy. It's been enjoyable, but it's not been easy. So that's something that I'm going to have to work on, but I want to revel in that because my mom and dad are still together. That's, you know, something that I'm grateful for. And it's something that they still argue. They still have bickers. You know, my dad made my mom cry the other day

saying she's going to shop in too much because of the COVID rates. And I was like, it's crazy to see, my dad can't even watch the gory part of a film, but fuck, he's a strong human. He stayed in the same business for 50 years. He stayed in the same relationship 50 years. I think it's about time that I like took inspiration

from them on things outside of business. is you're writing a book about confidence confidence i let you say that first just in case i was letting the cat out of the bag but you're writing a book about confidence why are you doing that and what have you learned from starting that process it's something that really i wouldn't come at it from a place of hey my name is james smith i know everything about confidence my sweat patches wouldn't come at it from a place of hey, my name is james smith. I know everything about confidence. My sweat patches wouldn't say that but It's something so Inquisitive it's a tool in which i've used and you know when I was writing the first chapter I called it a superpower then I deleted that because superpowers are unobtainable. This is obtainable

And i've come to realize during the writing i'm learning a lot as well I'm, like is confidence genetics i go into heritability and then i go into you know what different types of confidence are there how does it affect us you had mel robbins on recently so i started listening to her book five four three two one it's like five four three two one i'm still shitting my pants asking this girl for a fucking number so like and i like to get into these systems. I go, that might work for someone, but that doesn't work for me. And during this process, I'm not releasing it until January next year. I'm going on these journeys. I'm asking myself these questions. I'm very happy to go to external experts in that field. There's quite a bit of nonsense out there, I feel. And similar

to the world of fitness, I'm not the most fit guy but i took the field and i provided clarity i'm not the expert in life design but i went out i created a book on clarity i wouldn't want to come into a place of confidence go hey i'm the most confident person on the planet because so many of us that are very confident in certain realms have gaping holes in our confidence every one of us you and i right you're doing a o2 arena 16 000 people in there do your thing we'd be like let's go you're in sorrow house on a friday night all right girls give me let's go ask her for a number no no no i'm too scared you know so if we can help people identify their gaping holes give them understanding for it is it merely a perception of our external reality is it something that's nature is it nurture

it's i wish i had more for you right now but i'm still learning and again someone goes why should i buy a book on confidence i got it took me a year and a half it's 12 quid don't fucking buy it then so yeah it's one of those things it's a very exciting project for me and even now I enjoy talking to people I admire about it because they'll say something and I'll be like I can't wait to research that and go down the rabbit hole and have 20 browsers open on my laptop it it's an exciting process I really enjoy well listen uh James you know we've got one more thing to do which is a tradition of the driver ceo which you might have seen before if you've watched a podcast before which is the

previous guest asks the next guest a question and they never know who they're writing it for and also i never know what the question is until i read it so what is your definition of luck when preparation meets opportunity i disregard luck when people talk about it people say i got lucky i say fuck you i'm like no you didn't and i i hate the way people connect people's dots i hate it for yourself someone goes i right age right time right time right educate fuck you you know i hate it no one's lucky and i think that although there are certain privileges people can have please never underestimate someone's work because connecting the dots is a primitive thing that we do and you know the better people can suppress the notion that they're lucky they

can be fortunate in some respects but this luck don't, let's not undo people's work. I completely agree. And I also think that, to add to that, when you start to believe in this religion of luck, what you're actually doing is disempowering yourself. You're handing over the reins of your life to this force outside of your control. And you're just sitting there aimlessly hoping that it falls in your favor. And I, so when I post things, sometimes I'd like to wind people up on my stories and the things i'll post are like honestly the easiest way to wind people up is just to talk about personal responsibility okay you weren't to blame for what happened but you are now responsible one of my guests who was it um mark manson he said okay if someone leaves a baby on your doorstep not your fault but it is

immediately your responsibility and and people just, and Mo Gowdat said it, is that people just fucking hate the idea of like taking responsibility for your life. But I think that any other choice, pointing at luck, pointing at privilege too much, despairing that the Tory government are in power, so that's why you're poor, is a way to choose your puppet master as this invisible force that gets to call the shots thank you so much you were nervous you said to to come and do this today you know i actually about two three hours ago i stood up and i said i'm not nervous i really care about this podcast yeah because for me when i got the invitation it got

me excited the opportunity to talk i know this platform i know i think i have a good idea of where this podcast is going as well yeah and for me to have an opportunity to not be instagram james meant a lot to me so it's more of a fact that this was important to me i wasn't scared for it yeah yeah that's amazing and you know i i personally just took a screenshot of you after seeing you say something online and sent it to my team, I think about two weeks ago and said, and I never do this, right?

What happened, the way that the podcast typically works is the team will come up with people that they know that I would like and they'll send them to me to approve or not. But it worked the opposite way around with you. I saw something you said. I thought this guy's truthful. He's honest.

He has, he's smart really smart probably way smarter than i think people give you credit for because honestly this is one of my favorite conversations ever thank you and it's not because you have a you know just just because you have a great story it's because you have the wisdom to point at the lessons you've learned and you have the humility also to point at them with impartiality um so i i was like can you reach out to this dude and please ask him if he wants to come here and that doesn't always happen um so again it's for me when you say your this was important for you and i saw you did an instagram post saying i'm going on a

podcast that's really do you know for me that is like the most it's the greatest thing that we hear i just want to say thank you because honestly it's one of my favorite conversations ever on this podcast and i mean that thanks i don't have to say that i don't gas people up if i don't have to i just say oh thank you goodbye but no i genuinely mean that it's one of my favorite conversations ever on this podcast. And I mean that. Thanks. I don't have to say that. I don't gas people up if I don't have to. I just say, well, thank you. Goodbye. But no,

I genuinely mean that it's really, really, really amazing conversation. And I, I also now understand why you've been so successful. So thank you for your time. Thank you for blessing us with your wisdom. And yeah,

going to keep watching you grow and grow. Cheers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.