Steven Bartlett: Why I’m Asking My Girlfriend To Marry Me! Being Independent Is A Mistake

35:03So you have to create an old situation. And the way that you do that is by clearly unapologetically standing for something. The opposite approach again becomes indifference, you become sameness. And the entire world is trying to pull everything in this moment, you, me, the plants in this room towards sameness. That's what happens when we die. Your body right now is about 20 degrees higher than this room. When you die, it will become the same. So we always, At all times, all organisms are fighting against sameness and it requires a huge amount of energy. But it's ultimately what makes companies, brands, people distinctive.

35:41Jeff Bezos actually wrote about this in his last ever shareholder letter at Amazon, where he cited Richard Dawkins' book, The Blind Watchmaker. And he talks about how this is just a fact of the world. Like, your environment right now is doing everything it can to bring you back to sameness. And you're burning calories as we speak to keep your pH levels and your temperature different from the environment. so when you step out into the world with a brand like hot smart rich which is not sameness it's very much distinctive the world is going to expend a ton of energy pulling you back down and your job is to remain distinctive and with that will come all the upsides that you seek but it will become some you didn't choose and didn't expect jeff basil says in that letter he says amazon will die the day that it gives up that fight it will retreat to nature it will become you know like the plants when they when they give up their fight and so this is this is why embarrassment is both the price of entry but it's also the price you pay every single day and so you really need a framework for why you're doing this because that gravitational pull back to being typical being the same being like the crowd fitting in like the crabs in the bucket analogy it's it's gonna be strong so you better have a counterforce that's that's even stronger a lot of people be listening now I could never deal with that.

36:54I could never have a thousand people telling me I'm an idiot on the internet. It's like a muscle. You build it when you break it. So, you know, you've got to kind of, hopefully, you know, your rise is not Justin Bieber. Hopefully it's a gradual one where you can really work on that muscle and understand what it is. And the other thing I have to say is like, I don't know what religion you follow, but just never forget the fact that you're going to die. and for me having been really really clear on the fact that i'm going to die someday and it could be today it could be 10 years from now it could be 50 years from now and that not even like my great great grandkids will remember me it's remarkable how quick we're forgotten and for some people that'll feel like a depressing thing for me it's the most unbelievably liberating thing to know that all this stuff this stuff that i i might have worried about this morning or yesterday or this week is just going to fade into nothingness and it means that i can truly be myself I can truly do the thing because I know I'm going to die and I know when I die none of it's going to matter and actually what's going to end up being the most consequential thing is the ride that I had with the people that I loved and did I live in line with who I truly am so death has been such an unbelievably wonderfully liberating thing and sometimes when I look up at the night sky when I was at Joshua Tree a couple of weeks ago and I can see all the stars and the guy was telling me that that star over there is 25 million light years away and we go wow none of this it matters none of it matters and I live in this dichotomy it feels like a like a huge dichotomy of knowing that absolutely none of this matters at all I have no concern or regard for my legacy doesn't matter again all of these things would become attachments and then attachments become like a ball and chain so no regard for my own personal legacy no regard for what happens when I die, which means I can truly live.

38:46You said something to me last week when we were doing our photo shoot that actually has stuck with me and I've written down every single day. And I think I've said it to so many people, they're probably annoyed at me at this point. You said, Maggie, you need to stop focusing on proving people wrong and you need to start focusing on proving people right. And I think my whole life I have so focused on like all the haters, all the like the non believers. And it was a little bit of a stroke of an ego when Stephen Bartlett, second biggest podcaster in the world, like dragon on dragon's den, like all of the compliments that you've had taps me on the shoulder and is like, I see something in you.

39:22And of course there is an element to that where it's like, see, like I was, I was right all along. Someone saw this in me, but it stuck with me because I think so many people listening to this are going into the new year and thinking about like becoming their best self. And then they let all of the people that are coming into their life, say all of the things that are going to keep them from achieving their potential. And not all of them are going to have a Steven. Like you say to me every single time I see you, it is my job to help you reach your potential. I see you. I didn't have someone like you for the first 12 years of my career.

39:56For the people that are listening to this, that are going to be swayed for another year from the people that doubt them and put all of these things in their head of why they can't do things, how do they start focusing on proving the people right instead of proving these people wrong that are trying to take them away from their mission? So I think it really starts with collecting evidence for yourself, because everybody listening now, including you and me, we both have almost this bookshelf. There's like a bookshelf over there, this bookshelf of books on it. And every single book is, you can think of it like evidence, and it's evidence that's come from your childhood, what someone said to you, how things then played out and how you interpreted them and the only way and that bookshelf the problem is it's yes they're books but they're also instruction manuals they then inform what you do in the future so someone listening now who has a bookshelf full of doubt and skepticism and things going wrong and interpreting them badly it's like it's really crazy advice for me to say like just do the thing yeah because my words are not greater evidence than all that sits on your bookshelf what i need to do is I need you to conduct certain behaviors then they're going to be embarrassingly small behaviors that are one at a time going to replace those books that is the game and I've sat with so many psychologists that have told me about how people turn their lives around and you would think it would be like you know I need you to just jump off the cliff in fact I remember one particular psychologist telling me that he was working with a young patient who couldn't leave their bedroom bedroom.

41:26Bedrooms stacked to the walls with filth and plates and all these kinds of things and they're scared of going outside. And on day one what they do is they bring the hoover in. They do nothing else, that's day one done. On day two they plug the hoover in, that's day two done. On day three they turn the hoover on. By day 30 this person has a clean room and they're outside. If you tried to get them to climb Mount Everest on day one they would have looked up, experienced cognitive dissonance which is the discomfort you face when you're facing a very big challenge and they would have never done it.

41:56But by breaking it down into small steps, just pebbles instead of Mount Everest, it's remarkable how much your life can change. The advice I would give that person who doesn't have a mentor or someone to push them out of their bedroom or to push them at Mount Everest is to start stacking small wins. The reason people don't do it is because those small wins are so embarrassingly small that they don't think they're consequential. But actually when I reflect on my podcast, my journey, I reflect on how I started, it is this commitment to embarrassingly small steps. that gave me evidence about who I was and counteracted evidence that existed there before.

42:31You know, even like starting my podcast, I think people think of me starting the podcast, like I made a phone call and then I called like Netflix and then, you know, I called some big, big time producer. But actually, I wish you could have seen me that day. I wish you could have seen me in that white room at my old company turning to the team being like, I think podcasting is going to be a big thing. I have this idea for a podcast, I need to think of the name. And then me coming back three days later and being like what about the diary of ceos and then me thinking about that for another day and come back the next thing going actually the diary of a ceo then that night walking to instead of going straight home walking to apple and buying a 99 microphone and bringing it home and then the next day taking it out the box and then the next day plugging it in and going how do you edit and then me loading like garage band and this oh garage band comes with the mac than me trying to speak into it and playing around with these plugins and then cutting it and then you know and then doing that embarrassingly small steps now you got second biggest podcast in the world we're adding 700 000 subscribers a month amazing embarrassingly small steps and if you try and jump to where i am now the leap is so big that it will cause all that discomfort that means you'll be paralyzed into inaction so that's the game it's and you know every step of the way you slowly take those books off the shelf.

43:46So it's slightly contradictory advice, but it's just how change happens. And I know it's the same for you. Totally. Because it's the same for everybody. But when you're sat there looking at a Maggie Sellers, the problem is the 99 % of people showed up recently. So they see the finish line and they go, oh, that's a long way away. They don't want to put the sock over the microphone because they're trying to figure out how to get the to stop on the mic like I did. It's embarrassingly small steps. And that's the only way that I know how, you know. It's so interesting hearing you say that because even for me, there was a level of like intimidation, right?

44:24The embarrassment is the cost of entry every single day. You're so right. Like having you come here to this studio with these tiny little mics and like, of course, there's been an evolution, but there's still so much to do and so much to go. And I remember you saying this where you were like, if I had looked at Joe Rogan when I wanted to start, I never would be one and two with him, right? Because it's like, even for me looking at you, it's like, well, it's on, like I'm coming for you. But it's going to take me a long time and a lot of little baby steps to get there. But I think the barrier to entry for creators now is so low for entrepreneurs is so long, but let's just stay on on creators.

44:59Do you believe that every single person can be a creator successfully? Not not really, I don't think I don't think every single person can do everything and once upon a time it would have been really really easy for me to tell you yes but I think with wisdom and age you come to learn that people are different and they have you know one of the biggest things that stops people being able to do anything whether it's entrepreneurship or creating is self-awareness it's do you actually know what you're good at and how you're received and if you don't then you'll continue to aim at the wrong target and going back to your other point because I think this was super important is that when we started the podcast we knew we were going to do really well once we got going and the reason we knew we were going to do really well is we realized we'd discovered a secret philosophy that everyone else ignores and it kind of goes back to what i was saying about embarrassingly small steps which is this whole principle of one percent you'll be very familiar with this because it's um there's two phrases that i use most popularly in my office and in my companies and that is failure we try and increase the rate of failure and the second is this idea of one percent i remember realizing that in order to catch the biggest podcasters in the world and to build the biggest show in the world all i had to do was care more about the small stuff because this goes to the point as well about momentum like creating psychological momentum there's a study i often talk about where harvard business review asked people when their best day of work was and they asked them to keep these diaries every single day and just write what happened that day and at the end of the study in harvard business review they found that the people who are most motivated had experienced a tiny win even if it was a 1 % win, like a tiny little thing.

46:35So what that speaks to is this idea that if you start finding tiny little ways to improve, it creates the feeling like we're going somewhere, which overlaps with what Sir David Bralesford taught me, who's in the first chapter of James Clare's book, Atomic Habits. He told me that when he went into the British cycling team as the performance director, and he saw that they were down and out and depressed, and they didn't believe in themselves, and they were the laughingstock of the world, the thing that turned them around was, of course, focusing on the 1%, which is making the bottles bigger, making the pillow softer.

47:02But he said to me, what people don't realize is when we started finding these small wins, the team felt like we were going somewhere and they stopped leaving the office at 5pm and started leaving at 2am. The power of compounding small little gains is unbelievable. And so when I looked at our early progress for the Diary of a CO, for example, and I plotted on a graph and I was like, okay, if we just keep changing our trajectory by 1 % in tiny little ways, measuring the co2 levels in the room or a b testing a hundred different titles and thumbnails or measuring the impact an exclamation mark has on the title which we found out gives 0.2 percent more click through which is fantastic using the color red and instead of using the color green for the thumbnails which gave us another 1.4 percent additional click through if i just get kept my team focused on the turning over the small stones that everybody else thinks are inconsequential and don't matter all i need is time that's what the graph said it said that if i just keep keep kept finding these tiny little wins all i needed was patience and all of my competitors are looking for the next big leap forward in innovation in podcasting they're looking for some new youtube or some new spotify some great leap forward because that's what people think the game is but our bias has always been to aim at the small things and the great thing is you find more of them it creates psychological momentum and sometimes when you turn over small stones you find huge prizes i think i told you about like a 10 second change i made to my podcast that increased the amount of people that subscribe by 300 what kind of team would bother to ab test 50 times a 10 second change one that's focused on the small stuff i think about this in almost every field of business of investing is can you out care the competition on the smallest things because really it's it's the smallest things that you can do something about and they're easiest to find so because it's it's so obvious to me now it's so obvious to me now but it still doesn't no matter how much i've said it to people it still doesn't appear to be obvious to anybody else like you would think it was petty that when jemima changed the air fresher in the diary of co studio and posted in our slack channel she got like 25 fire emojis most people would think that was petty but then danielek walks in and goes man it smells so good in here i go one percent we're one percent closer and it's for you know all i need to find 100 of those to start compounding at least a rate of 100 so that is most of the game but again you've seen compounding return graphs right because you're an investor and you know you understand finance it's slow that it's fast and because it's slow that it's fast you look at any compounding return graph it's like this and then whoop like a hockey stick so what kind of maniac unless they've developed a religious belief about 1 % gains is going to go through three years of flat.

49:42Well, yeah, that's going to be number one soon. Is this where your quitting framework comes in when you're not seeing improvements from 1 % growth? So I'll give you the full quitting framework. And this is really for anybody that's thinking about quitting a thing, whether you're thinking about quitting a job or a relationship, whatever it might be. Typically, you're thinking about quitting for one of two reasons. It is either hard, and again, I keep these very broad, or because it sucks. And I define them differently. Hard is the challenge is difficult. Sucks is it's more of a mental feeling and emotional element.

50:12So you're running a marathon, you're on the 22nd mile, you're raising money for a charity that means a lot to you. That's hard. You're thinking about quitting. The question becomes, is the effort that I'm putting in worth the rewards on offer? Mile 23, I'm raising$10 ,000 for a charity I love. Is the effort worth the return? If something's hard in life and it's not, the rewards aren't worth it, quit. If it is, then stay. Going down the other side of the framework you're thinking about quitting something because it sucks the next question should be is there something i can do to make it not suck if there isn't so if it sucks and there's nothing you can do to change that you should quit if you there is something you could do marriage counseling speaking to the ceo speaking to the board of directors to make it not suck the next question should be is the effort it would take to make it not suck which is going to marriage counseling worth the thing on the other side of that effort so you're having a difficulty in your marriage you could change it you could go to therapy but is dave worth it like is the relationship with dave on the other side actually worth the effort we would take and in my former business social chain that's exactly where i got to i felt like there was something i could do to make it not suck but the effort it would have taken another 18 months of arguing with these you know very um serious german people on my board about the future of our company was no longer worth the return the financial return and the emotional return on the other side of it i thought i could change it i didn't think the effort would be worth it to to fight to change it so i quit however if you do think it's worth it you should stay and fight because all things in life whether it's relationships or even good things require continual effort for course correction and that's how i think about quitting i think generally one of the real toxic narratives in society is that is that quitting is for losers.

51:55And it appears to be the case in my life, but also in the lives of the people that I've interviewed, that they are remarkably good at quitting. Like really remarkably good at quitting when all external evidence tells them that they're a maniac for doing so. Like almost every story of someone that I sit with on my podcast involves this one moment where objectively they were an idiot. And I say idiot because all of the evidence, the logical financial incentives orientated towards them staying at university, staying in that high-flying job, not leaving for 10 years Darren Brown to go and do magic tricks on a table in the middle of nowhere.

52:31But again, this goes back to the point about why embarrassment is the price of entry. I can relate a lot to that because I think it's a common theme in my life, like both in relationships, calling off an engagement, moving into Calabasas with my stuff in storage, having no idea what I was going to do, like to work relationships where I was making like$120 ,000 right out of school at Salesforce, best performing BDR in the entire world and was like, I am so unhappy making 100 cold calls a day. I've learned what I can here. I now need to go to a startup environment and fail a little bit. I went from making$120 ,000 a year to$60 ,000 a year.

53:10And people thought I was crazy. They were like, you have the dream job. You work nine to five, you make$120 ,000 a year. You're loved, you're recognized, you get all of these different things from Salesforce. Like, why would you go and do that? If I think back to the other piece of quitting, it's also being really brave. And it's taking really big risks. And it's being able to say no to something that's not good enough, because there's something better for you. And I think so many people listening to this, especially at this time of year, will be like, it's good, but it's not great. But shouldn't I just stay in the good?

53:50And it takes a very brave, confident person to be like, I'm actually going to go from good to find great. I have now 12 years working in either corporate or startup environments. I've invested in 20 different companies. I've had 40 people sitting in this chair. And I can really confidently say women specifically are really afraid of taking the same big bets that like men don't even think twice about. What is your advice to someone that's listening to this that has that they have a good life, but it's not great. And they either need to quit or find confidence to go and pay the price of embarrassment to go live their dream life.

54:35Like, what do you say to them? it's so interesting because i interpret it like completely differently and this goes back to the rationality point which is when i dropped out of university to start my business that was not brave brave was staying because i'm so clear on my north star that anything that jeopardizes it including spending three years being miserable is the risk that is the risk that requires great bravery i think i'm a coward because i won't risk the most important thing which is my happiness and so really i think the answer to the question if i break this down to first principles is are you really really clear on what what your north star is like because if you're really really really clear on what your north star is in your life what matters to you the most and i would hazard a guess that it's happiness then anything that jeopardizes that is the risk that is a huge risk you're taking So staying at Salesforce with that kind of clarity is the biggest risk one could take in that scenario because it wasn't making you completely happy and it wasn't going to make you completely happy off into the future.

55:39It wasn't going to completely fulfill you into the future. And, you know, going back to the thing I said about you get one life. And for me, the greatest risk any of us could take, which requires bravery that I just don't have, is to live an unhappy one, an unfulfilled one. Like that's craziness to me. But that's just the way that I think about it. And I'd rather struggle. I'd rather go back to shoplifting Chicago town pizzas than to go back to university. You can see with the way that I think about situations, why it's kind of like hard for me sometimes to understand why anyone would sit in misery for seven years if they have a choice.

56:12I have to say a choice because everyone's life's very nuanced and they have kids and mortgages and all kinds of things. But if you have a choice to make a step in a different direction, the greatest risk is not doing that. Why do you think you're like that? I think you need frameworks for making decisions in your life or else you won't make the decision someone else will and emotion is such an unbelievably powerful force you know that if it makes the decisions through your life it won't walk you to fulfillment it'll walk you somewhere else it'll because it'll you'll be dragged by fear and a life dragged by fear is not is not a life that ends up with the things i think any of us want and i think a lot of people are dragged by fear that whole life is just pulled through by the powerful limbic system that is like 80 in charge of the factory.

56:57So if I can just stay in with my logical decision-making frameworks as much as I possibly can and think from first principles, I think I get better outcomes. And I think this idea of thinking from first principles is a really important one that I should probably try and explain, which is whenever you're faced with a decision, instead of accepting conventions answers to this decision or something that's been done before or someone else's opinion, what you do is you ask yourself what you know to be true for sure right now for you in this situation. So even with podcasting, right? Let's use that as an example.

57:30When I started as a podcaster, everybody told me that in podcasting, you put it on audio on Apple and Spotify, and that's how podcasting works. Now from first principles, I go, where are my audience? That's a first principle question. And the answer to that question is they are on YouTube. They're on all social media platforms. Another first principle question would be, how am I going to tell new people that this show exists. well they're on social media okay so we need to do clips that's a first first principle solution they are on LinkedIn on email so we're going to need to show up there as well and when you think from first principles you end up building better solutions and solutions that are more designed for the present moment when you reason from analogy which is how it's been done you make sameness and I think about the same in our lives like we're told that in a relationship and in marriage it needs to look this way with the white dress and you walk down the aisle and you do it like this and you say these vows and these are solutions made a hundred years ago for someone else's life in a different time when they didn't have technology in a different world.

58:34Have we pushed on the paper wall to check that these solutions are still the right ones for me? And that's really what first principle thinking does. It just pushes on some of these preferences and traditions to see if they still hold. And the same is in my life. Like people say, go to university, get a job, get a mortgage, have kids, the end, I guess, death, the end. retire the end. Can I check? Can I check? And the way you do that is by asking those questions. What do you know to be true right now about this particular problem set? We want to just use the blueprint that others have handed to us.

59:07So first principle thinkers or papable pushes, much harder to do, but they get all of the upside. As someone who was once told by friends, you're either going to be a millionaire or you're going to go to jail. I'm just trying to find like, how is this 17, 18, 19 year old thinking in first principles? Like when did that switch happen for you? It's gradual. All the principles that I care about, the 1 % thing I talked about, pushing on paper walls, all of these things, it's like they start as polystyrene and then you stress test them with real world scenarios. And over time, they go from polystyrene to being made of like titanium and then they become my religion because i've stress tested them so many times in so many different contexts to know that this principle really really matters and i think principled thinking is critical because it's kind of like you can go through life guessing at stuff or even when i speak to your audience now i could give them like tips and tricks and tactics but that is all a fish what they need is a fishing rod a fishing rod is going to help them navigate over the long term and this is why i think of principles i try and find principles i try and write them down understand them find stories from history that have cemented them.

1:00:14And then I try and live them and instill them in my team. Because if we're principled as a team, I don't need to be there. Like everyone knows 1 % matter in my team. And they're 5 ,000 miles away in London right now, for example. They'll be thinking about 1 % and paper walls. So it becomes our religion. And then that's culture. You just said something where you said, I pull from lessons of history. And I fundamentally believe that there are three types of creators. There's creators that build from their personal experiences. There's creators that build from their expertise. And then there's a mix of both.

1:00:45You are top creator globally in Forbes, top creators of 2025, Time Magazine's first ever Time 100 creators list. That is this year. If you had to pick how you've built to be one of the top creators globally, do you build out of any of those categories? I guess the third one resonates with me the most is I just am all parts of me online. And it's reflected in the conversations we have on the Diary of a CEO. Like if you looked at my YouTube algorithm, them you would see me watching such a wide variety of things from ai to trying to understand business to psychology to childhood trauma like it's a reflection of who i am i'm just very very broad i am i am a bit strange because as a creator i i mean i guess my background is in business because that's where the the first couple of people knew me from and now people know me as a a lot of people know me as a podcast which i find super weird it's like so weird to me if you know me you know I hate wasting money, especially if you're in the phase of your life where you're cash poor, equity rich, because you're in the midst of building something incredible.

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1:03:19HSR, not only do these keep me cool at night, but they are the softest sheets I have ever felt. Perfect that they now sponsor my show. And now is the time. It's the new year, the perfect moment for a reset. And if you don't love them, you can return them hassle-free. I'm so excited to be partnering with Cozy Earth because they stand by their product with a 10-year warranty. so visit cozyearth.com and use my code hsr for 20 off can you say the thing i'm the most fascinated with what's that so people i think define their personal brand with three pinned images that are on their instagram yours are steven.com valuation you did a partnership with prince william for homestead uk to end homelessness in the uk and then there is jimmy fallon why are those pinned i think the first one the steven.com announcement is pinned because it's they're 90 of my life and steven.com is my entire focus at the moment the prince william thing is probably just because i find it so crazy that prince william asked me to help him with this stuff and that we're working together on homewards um so i think it's just so crazy and my parents are such big fans of the royal family like the only time i've seen my dad cry in my life was when diana died so my mom's nigerian as well so she's just a huge fan of the royals as well and And then Jimmy Fallon, again, it just couldn't, it's very strange for a kid like me that was born in Botswana, moved to the UK and lived in Plymouth, which is like the countryside to be sat there.

1:04:47It's very strange, especially considering I'm not like an A-list celebrity and I'm not like an actor or anything. So it's very, it's very surreal for me to be in that frame, like the iconic Jimmy Fallon show. So it was, yeah, it's crazy. Crazy. It's so interesting because I think the more that I get to know you, the more that I'm fascinated with you, like all of the hobbies that you have. And I think you do have a really amazing way of turning things you're passionate about into entrepreneurial pursuits, right? But there's one element of your life that I feel like I would love to talk about, which is your relationship with Mel.

1:05:21No comment. I'm joking. Can I show you something? Sure. So she sent this. I was asked to send you a surprise message which feels so ironic because you are usually the one who surprises everyone else I know you don't often pose to reflect on the journey so yeah I'm just reflecting and remembering I never ever met someone like you that is so optimistic so composed looking forward, moving, creating, imagining what's next with so much passion and depth. I see the man behind the questions, the interviews, the conversations. And I don't often tell you that. But you really are a superman. Really. A superhuman.

1:06:21Even on those days where you feel so down, you show up. and you people advise it's insane the depth in your mission the impact that you have on millions of people listening to the conversation that you have every week but also the impact that you have on your family your best friends is truly precious and we are so proud of you i love you

1:06:50when were you speaking to my girlfriend how does it make you feel yeah she um she she knows me better than anybody and yeah she knows me better than than anybody because she just gets to see it all so i actually learn more about myself from hearing things like that and generally when she says things i like listen very intently because you know probably like your partner they they really understand the full picture more so than anybody on planet earth understands the full picture so yeah she's um she's very special and she's she's very very special and in many respects she's like everything that i'm not she's just like an angel that fell from the sky that's kind of how i describe it to my friends we've been together for almost seven years now and she's very much just like she's what i'm aspiring to be in every sense of the word she's what i'm aspiring to be more like you know what's one of the most interesting conversations i thought you had was with tim ferris and at the end of the interview there was probably like five 10 minutes left you talk a lot about why a lot of male podcasters have remained single and I want to play the other side out because I think you've now been in a committed loving relationship with Mel for seven years yeah why I mean there's several ways I can answer this question because it's true I I am pretty shocked that a lot of the major podcasters I'd say really outside of Rogan don't have kids they don't have a partner they kind of seem to be in not very stable long-term relationships and i think the reason why i've chosen to take a different path is because i know rationally logically oh my god bring the emotions to you i know that as it relates to happiness fulfillment everything that matters in life it is the better path to take now of course it comes with its costs but i i've sat down with some of the most you know important psychologists on on the in the world and people that have one particular guy who's ran the longest ever study on human happiness study shows that over 100 years you know the people that started the study have actually died it's been going for so long that the thing that delivers the highest amount of happiness over the long term for men and women is the quality of the relationships and as part of that your romantic relationships not only does it extend one's life but it makes everything much more worthwhile and so logically i know that um it's the right thing for but you know the the other answer is just like she's so great she is she's like i don't believe and this again is me being sounding super logical and rational i do not believe i could ever find anybody better on planet earth ever now that might also sound romantic but it's also very rational like i don't believe i could ever find someone better and I want to be a father I want to have lots of kids we're trying hopefully soon and I think it's the path to a better life and it's a lost it's a lost thing in our society people are having less kids and they're seeing relationships as being things you can throw away and they're trying to avoid all commitment there's a narrative of people trying to avoid dependency don't depend on anyone stand on your own feet be your own boss and I think this is a mistake because when I think about human beings and why they are the way that they are, we got here from dependency.

1:10:21We got here from relying on our tribes, from relying on other people. In fact, the defining trait of being a human, the reason why we can take on the grizzly bear is because of cooperation. But society, because it sells very well, is convincing us that independence is happiness. And I look across my friendship group and I go, actually, my friends with the greatest amount of independence that are freelance, that are working in a skyscraper in Dubai that are financially free, that have no kids, no partner, no puppy. They are the ones that are calling me the most and are struggling the most. And then there's someone like my brother, who's a year older than me, Jason, who has three kids under the age of six, lives in the countryside in Lithuania with his family, with a job and with commitments and with people depending on him.

1:11:08One of the most stable, happy, fulfilled people I know. I think this idea of like maximizing freedom and maximizing independence in many respects is a lie. And that we need to re-anchor ourselves to something bigger. And that can be, you know, you and then your family and friends and then your community and then your nation. And then for some people, it's even like their sports club or whatever. And then it's their religion. And then maybe it's something more bigger like the universe. But we need to be anchored. And Mel helps me anchor. and then I'll have kids and a family and responsibilities and dependencies.

1:11:41And I think that's what it takes to both be a good man, but also a good human being. I'm very excited about depending on other people and having other people depend upon me. And I'm really like, I really am about to start a mission to try and take this on. I really think it's a bad thing. Loneliness is through the roof. Gen Z are unhappy than ever before. They have less friends than ever before, less connections, less dependencies, less responsibilities. I don't think this is something to celebrate. I would like us to depend upon stuff i don't know why maybe this is why the universe brought us together to do this but there was an article that came out did you read the article that was like it's embarrassing to have a boyfriend now by vogue no and i had a really adverse reaction to it because it was all of these women basically saying like it's embarrassing to have a boyfriend that treats you badly which it is for sure but it got taken to a totally different context which is around like you don't need a man you don't need anyone independence and like as much as i totally agree with like the underlying mission of that article i actually believe fundamentally to your exact point like we are better people when we have relationships and we have community and there is such a large conversation right now for ambitious women that's like men aren't keeping up there aren't people that are going to be able to make your life bigger and better and have it be an abundance driven dynamic between the two of you.

1:13:05It's all about win or lose. And I always look at every single relationship as win-win. How can you find a win-win situation? And so it's a mission that I do take on myself as well, because I think with my partner and I, we're a really great example of like, I have my own world. I have my own life. I have my own thing. I have my own financial independence. He makes me the best version of myself, but I have a life outside of him and he loves that and vice versa what do you think it takes to have a dynamic like that or like you and mel because you seem to have a really good one based on that voice note and just seeing you guys interact like that's been probably one of the best parts of getting to see you of like what you're really like is seeing the woman behind you i think if you build anything it's it's rough and hard and everyone in a relationship or anyone that's got a family will understand this but But again, we're optimizing for a culture where you avoid hard things and discomfort and conflict.

1:14:02And I think even with AI coming into the picture, it's going to become even easier to have a relationship with something that requires no friction. And there's nothing in my life that's worth it with no friction. Like even going to the gym, everything in my life that I've done that's meaningful and worthwhile comes with friction. So the first thing is realizing that me and Mel, when we have conflict, that this is not a sign of our inadequacies or our lack of love for each other. it is an opportunity for us to understand each other more and for us to grow and it's me and her against the conflict not me versus her and this has really really helped us this continual reminder that we're on a team against the problem and that generally knowing that conflict is to be expected it's normal and even though instagram says otherwise arguing about small things is like healthy i saw something the other day on instagram it's a couple talking about how they'd never had an argument in three years i was just like fuck they're so fucked like like you are so fucked if If you haven't had an argument in three years, you are seriously screwed.

1:14:57Because you're probably suppressing and avoiding. And the key to conflict resolution is this question, which is, does each conflict make you stronger? Does it heal to 101 % or 99 %? If you're having conflict that heals to 99%, it's a matter of time before this thing ends. If you're having conflict that heals to 101%, which as Mel often says to me, the roots are getting deeper, then you'll be fine over the long term um and i said this the other day and people found this to be not a good thing to say but i don't care i think i have an opportunity and a responsibility to model what it is to be a good father and a married man and committed and And I think with the platform I have, I do take on that responsibility.

1:15:52Someone's rebuttled me the other day and said, you shouldn't live your life for other people in that way. But I very much live my life for other people with what I do anyway. Like I try and have conversations that I think will benefit them. And so can I also be an example that I think will benefit young men where you can see someone who has a family, is in a long-term committed relationship it and is honest about the trade-offs and the difficulties and such so I'm excited about that season of life which I'm trying to get into now what's the birth order of you and your three siblings are you the youngest I'm the youngest of four so growing up did you always feel like you were the problem solver and like taking on responsibility or that's something that you learned I was the failure in our family I think I was written off as he ain't gonna make it of course my brothers were geniuses they're like you know rewriting the textbooks to make them harder because they didn't think they were hard enough and getting 100 % in the textbooks that they'd rewritten to make harder they were super geniuses my sister super smart as well and then there was me who like was falling asleep in lessons turns out I had ADHD wasn't paying attention wasn't attending school was intercepting my report cards so that my parents didn't see them when I got my grades back from my GCSEs I just put them in a scanner and changed them and gave them to my dad like I just school wasn't for me I got expelled then I got unexpelled because the school said I made them a lot of money because I was doing lots of little businesses on the side for the school school wasn't for me so I was I think written off but I think the parents didn't care I think they thought we've had three good ones so we can we can we can have a a runt so where does that come from then I think it's ultimately the most important thing that ever happened to me because being the youngest meant that I got more of that independence and freedom that we talked about earlier which means room to fail we were also the black family in an all white area which meant I had a ton of shame so you've got lots of room to experiment because your parents are now so busy that they're not coming home and then you've got huge shame which is this driving force and you want to solve the shame problem space and shame means you start doing things which build evidence and evidence is self-belief and self-belief at 14 years old because you managed to sell out a nightclub for an under 18s event at 15 years old and 900 people came and you came in with a bag of money is like a really amazing thing to learn at a young age which is I can have an idea and then in nine days I can walk through the door with a huge bag of money oh the world is bendable like I can just bend the world oh interesting goes back to the whole thing about paper walls like at 14 years old realizing that there was there wasn't a gap between idea and execution like the realization of that thing it's just an unbelievable thing to learn at such a young age and I had to learn it because I wanted the same stuff my friends my rich white friends had and the only way I was going to get it is if I did something this is probably why my friend said to me you'll either be in prison or a millionaire because I was going to do something I was going to do something honestly I can't believe that I made it either because like you ADHD school was really hard for me and I had to try really really really hard but I'm so glad that things were hard and to your point like having friction and not having everything come so easily to me made me the person that I am today where it's like paper wall pusher and one percent better.

1:19:06I think this is such an important question, which is like how moldable and malleable do you believe the world is? And I think everybody listening now will have a different perception of how much they believe they can grab hold of the world and like putty, like bend it into the shape that they want for themselves. I think Steve Jobs said this in his commencement speech about his most important realization in his life was realizing that you can bend the world in the direction you want to. I think that is the thing. How much do you think you can influence the world, like your world, bend it in whatever direction you want?

1:19:37At a very young age, I learned that it was extremely bendable. And actually that was my only chance was bending it myself. Because when you have two brothers that are geniuses, you compare and you go, I mean, we understand the value of anything by the context in which we see it. So you've got two geniuses there at home and then you've got this kid me so you go oh okay so i'm gonna be broken poor uh okay so if i try and compete with them on academia university school i'm gonna be broken poor so i need a different way and they used to stand there when i was younger and they used to have a debate a bet i think the bet's still going who would be a millionaire first they would never involve me in this bet it was just jason and kevin arguing continually through my childhood who would become a millionaire first and i'm thinking i need to find a different path I'm going to go through the bushes.

1:20:22You know, like there's the path. I'm going to go through the bushes. I'm going to go through the jungle. And at a young age, because I did those events and stuff and did a couple of deals with like vending machines, I realized that all of these people that were my age were going to be adults with me. And that was, I just remember that 14 years old, remembering, oh my God, so these people are going to be the adults that I'm, you know, contending with. And if I can get them to come to my party or use my vending machines now at 15, when I'm 35 I'll just do more of that stuff I'll just make things and then sell it to them and I'll be fine and that was the real moment where I like school was like over for me I really gave up on school at that point there's a video on YouTube maybe for people watching you can play the video yeah and they take an ant and they take a biro and they draw a circle around the ant and the ant immediately thinks it's trapped like you're looking down on that piece of paper from a bird's eye view and thinking this ant could just run across this biro mark but the ant is convinced that it's trapped it has accepted that as its limitation they make the circle smaller with the biro the ant thinks it's trapped again and it won't leave that smaller circle and then they do the same thing with a spider they put the spider on a piece of paper they draw a circle around it and as the spider is running to escape the the biro they're drawing they're drawing more and more circles and it's kind of weaving them weaving them dodging them not stepping on them and then you see this one moment in this video where the spider steps over the biro and you see this like moment of realization where the spider realizes that that that barrier that it had previously accepted as being a wall it realizes that it's bs and it can never be trapped by the biro again it just walks over it and i think about that in all of our lives there is a circle you've drawn around yourself right now even if it's a big one and there's a circle i've drawn around myself where we've told ourselves how far someone like us that comes from where we come from and with all the best available information and role models we have how far we can go and we have accepted it even me even you even Elon Musk even everyone listening right now and that the key just like with the ant is to realize that that is a figment of your imagination and that it exists and your job I think is to continually put one foot over that line and then it expands again and at a very young age 14 15 that's exactly what happened I realized that the world was bendable and that these barriers weren't weren't real things they were just preference and tradition and that I could I could write new ones because I'm not smart not good at math not good at was never good at science not good at English none of these things still can't spell still think I'm dyslexic because I can't spell simple words like I can't spell the word entrepreneur I must have written it like 10 ,000 times so I can't spell it so what is the thing the thing for me was just a genuine belief that things were possible if you told me to go to the moon next week I genuinely believe that there's a way there's a way I'm one email away from the person that's sending the rocket a persuasive fucking email to go into the moon that i think is the thing and i don't know how you give that to people they're gonna have to fail their way they're gonna have to stack up an undeniable amount of evidence one small experiment at a time it's super tough you know what's interesting the further i've gone in this world the more I've realized how hard it is to give people advice because when I was younger I would say cliche platitudes all the time like just keep going never quit blah blah blah and the more I've gotten older and the more I've been able to interview people and understand their world and what torments them and those negative thoughts and I hate myself and everybody hates me the more I've realized that giving someone else advice from your own wiring and psychology neuroscience is like is so reckless and it's so naive.

1:24:04So much of when I try and give people advice these days, it's all about like, what can you do to learn the lessons you need so that you can change your life? You said something like the more interviews I do, the less sure of what I know. And it's interesting because I feel similarly around investing. When I made my first investment, I was like, I'm going to be a millionaire off this investment. Like this is working. And now 20 investments later, it's like, I am so doubtful of everything. I see all of the problems that they are going to run into. But like when I was early on and naive, I was like, this one's making me a millionaire.

1:24:45This one's a billion dollar company. And it was really interesting when they put that in the research doc around the interviews of like, do you feel that way you feel less sure about what you know now 500 interviews in than you did when you first started yeah and in your example you've never been wrong as an investor when you start right so i think the more you've been wrong when you thought you were right the more you accept that you might be wrong right now yeah that's the same with interviewing it's i thought i knew x thing and then 47 people in a row and emerging science and research showed me that x thing was not the truth.

1:25:24And, you know, so then you live in a permanent state of having strong beliefs, but holding them loosely because you're well aware that you've been wrong 500 times in the past and that everything is open to change. And that's, I mean, that's the definition of science. It's a bunch of hypotheses that they continue to test. And the more you know, the more you realize you didn't know as well. So the more I discover things about the gut microbiome or psychology to your neuroscience, I go, wow, for the last 30 years, I've just been freestyling, but there's 47 trillion bugs in my belly. And they're like running the show and running my serotonin and controlling my mental health.

1:26:00And there's this like gut brain axis. You know, you go, wow, this is magic. So it's like doors just keep flinging open and you're going into rooms of just, you know, more to learn, which is a beautiful thing and a wonderful thing and how I think we should all live our lives. We should live our lives in the pursuit of that kind of growth and ignorance. We should live our lives as happy, sexy millionaires and hot, smart, rich girls. Exactly that. Okay, Stephen Burlett, we have to finish with some rapid fire. Okay. Okay. What is the last thing that you put on your credit card? So the last thing that I put on my credit card...

1:26:33I shouldn't say this. When's this coming out? January 7th. Okay. My engagement ring.

1:26:44Hopefully I'll propose, but I'm going to propose and around christmas time so oh my god are you serious yeah you just got the same reaction to seeing the video that we made wait so happy for you yeah oh my gosh wait i could do a whole other episode on this right time to ask a question someone tell me you can ask me whatever you want okay wait i'm so happy to hear this because i've heard you talk a lot in podcasts where you were like i wasn't 100 sure that i wanted to get married but i know it's really important for mel yeah when did you decide so it goes back to it goes back to a whole thing about first principles i i wasn't entirely convinced that marriage is the best structure for uniting two people because there's so many flaws to it and the whole process of you know you have to go to court and ask the court if you can get out of the thing if it doesn't work out and how that and then you look at the stats and go 50 of people fail and when i buy a tv if i knew it was going to blow up you know 50 of the time so it felt like a broken thing to me from first principles and I wondered if there was a better way.

1:27:48Also, again, this is me being super honest, I'm like massively avoidant of commitment. And I have been since I was a kid because my mum and my dad didn't look like they were in a good relationship. I thought my dad was trapped. I've always been avoidant of commitment. So that's part of the reason in those early episodes as well of the Diary of a Seer where I'm like, I'm never going to get married. And then you grow up and then you meet the right person and you understand things more. And it's important for Mel but also I want to get married too you know and so what am I waiting for if what I said is true that I don't think I'll find a better person and if it will give her stability in our relationship etc and we want to have kids and the kids be stable etc then I concluded that I have 51 % certainty that it makes sense I have so many things that I could talk to you about but I paid for the ring yesterday I think.

1:28:44Yeah so this is quite front of mind. It's quite difficult to find a ring you know. Where did you get it? Well about four years ago she was talking about engagement rings with a friend and I was looking over her shoulder and looking at the ones she liked and I was on Pinterest. I was like looking at her Pinterest and just like saving the ones she said she really liked. So I've had this folder in my phone for like three or four years of the ones she said she liked and we were in New York yesterday and there's a jeweler in New York that my some of my friends that I really trust told me to go see.

1:29:14And they've made the ring for us. Can you describe the ring? Let me see yours.

1:29:24It's quite similar to yours. So it's like a big diamond. And then, I mean, how the fuck am I going to describe it? They're all the same, aren't they? Emerald cut, round cut, oval, no clue. Does it look like this? It's oval. Okay, I love oval. gold band or silver band or platinum like does it does it look it's got it's a thin band with oh shall i show you yes please okay with little diamonds around the band as well because she wants to wear another ring with it yeah she wants to stack it i heard this four years ago she wants to stack it so she can stack it with a gold or silver ring whatever she wants if it's diamond are you gonna do a big proposal or no okay no i'm not gonna post about it i'm not gonna instagram it.

1:30:08I was going to say, are you going to pin it to your profile? None of the world's business. Okay. I'm really not about that. Like, it's not my, it's not my thing to bring my personal stuff to the world generally. Like I talk about Mel sometimes on the podcast because I'm talking about our personal stories, but I'm not like out here posting our relationship. Okay. I think some things can be. I am so excited for you. Wait, I have to ask you something. You said avoidant. I used to be very avoidant before my current relationship. I'm now secure. And I actually would say I lean a little bit more anxious than I ever thought I would because I was extremely avoided in relationships.

1:30:43Has your attachment style changed with Mel? Yeah. And it goes to what I said about evidence. Your avoidance is just going back to the bookshelf analogy. It's just a bunch of books you have on there that have given you evidence that the right approach and model for love is to be avoidant. Now, what sometimes happens with avoidance is someone gets over the castle wall. They try and make the castle wall as high as they possibly can. no one's coming in someone gets over the fucking wall and they change you from the inside one book at a time they give you new evidence that actually this relationship isn't something to be fearful of and you're not going to lose your freedom and they're not going to hurt you and that's what happens and mel is mel is i'd say secure and she got over the wall and everything i thought about being in a committed relationship with a woman she i think i like low-key stress tested it and it turned out to not be true so i have no evidence now she doesn't impinge on my freedom She lets me be who I want to be.

1:31:35She supports me. I don't feel like I'm in jail. And so I guess I'm more of a, I'm definitely more secure now than I was avoidant, for sure, for sure. But it's been a long road. Like it's not, things don't change overnight and you can still be triggered easily by your old style. You know, if something really, I learned this generally about trauma and our attachment styles is you never really heal to zero. It's always there. but um it stops making the decisions but it's still there somewhere you know on a bad day an unslept day i'm sure we could bring that out of you i am so excited for you this is exactly what i wanted to hear oh my god okay um what are you excited about i think it's exactly what you said like i think if you're okay to have that responsibility i think there is a huge responsibility for men that are successful, driven, opinionated, loving, abundant, generous, kind, smart to show the world that like this is another way.

1:32:47And I think that it's been hard, especially before I met my husband, like see where the relationship dynamics were going and to see the type of culture that we have celebrated, which is like, there's always so many options. People are disposable. The things that we value a lot about femininity and about women sometimes aren't actually valued by men like you. And I think you with this decision are actually proving to a lot of people that those types of relationships and those dynamics exist and don't settle and don't that that is what is embarrassing it is embarrassing to settle but it is not embarrassing to have a boyfriend and it is not embarrassing to put yourself out there and it is not embarrassing to try and i think you signaling this step is part of the responsibility that you are talking about it makes me really excited it's so crazy that it's rare it is though it is it is rare and i think that's a really crazy thing and even the idea of settling like if you think about our great-grandparents great-great-grandparents they grew up in a village they didn't have mobile phones a lot of them probably never got on a plane before and flew anywhere and so they fell in love at higher rates or similar rates of satisfaction with someone in the street and they lived a great life and when you again when you go to their satisfaction or happiness they didn't find ken in miami and that didn't make them any happier so there's clearly something that comes with this idea of um of feeling like you have too many choices that actually means that you don't appreciate any of the choices and i mean they've done the studies in supermarkets where they put out like 20 jams and then they have someone walk in and ask them to pick a jam they either don't pick one because there's too many options and whichever one they pick because there was 19 others they didn't pick they're less satisfied with their option whereas when they put five jams or three jams people are much more satisfied with their option and realizing that this is part of human psychology means to me that like bro when you when you're with someone and they're they're they're great and yes there's problems unless yes you could be with someone else that's probably not going to scream at you for the first six months at least work on it like you work on your business invest in it and um yeah and have kids and don't be so nihilistic and don't make it all about yourself and don't just focus on the bag and you know have responsibilities and have babies that are going to scream at me and wake me up in the middle of the night, even though I'd rather be building my whoop score.

1:35:16You know, like, sounds like a good idea to me. It's so funny because it's like one part of my brain is like, the evidence I have now tells me this is a terrible idea because it's going to come at a cost of things that I right now enjoy. And then I have to have this religious belief that there's this life I've never experienced with these upsides. I've personally never experienced. I know what I'm giving up, but I don't know what I'm getting. When I'm talking about like being a father, having five kids and getting into marriage, I know what I'm giving up because I've got it, but I don't know what I'm getting.

1:35:54So I have to, I have to, I have to really go to what it is to be a human. And I have to say, my ancestors, my wiring is designed to get tremendous meaning and joy from taking on this responsibility and from stepping into this commitment. And so I'm going to do it. Is this the first non-logical decision you've ever made in your life? It seems to be non-logical, but it's actually perfectly logical. It just requires a little bit more thinking. That's why I went right back to my ancestors and was like, how am I designed? And, you know, I've sat with childhood psychologists and all kinds of psychologists that talk about what happens when you have kids and the emotional changes and the meaning and fulfillment.

1:36:36minute i've interviewed the guys from harvard that have done the longest study on human happiness so i've got the evidence to know that this is the right path for me but i haven't experienced the upside yet i mean of course you can only experience what it is to be a parent when you are one you can only experience what it is to be married when you have done it so i have to believe in the evidence that i have but i understand why people don't do it because especially when their life is good why would you why would you sacrifice that what for something you've never seen and experienced doesn't seem to be doesn't appear to make a lot of sense you know this is why people aren't doing it the richer they get the more abundant their life becomes the less they want to have dependencies or commitments and so they don't and i i can't blame like each to their own honestly and it's not to say that i'm going to be happier than someone that doesn't have kids or isn't married it's not to say that at all but for me i believe that i'll be happier being married and having lots of kids and i think i think especially the commitment to a woman in a marriage is some is a positive thing to model and i think it's also positive to model being a dad that you know has people counting on him i am i think i'm so taken aback because like as i've gotten to know you as the person behind Stephen Bartlett, like host and entrepreneur.

1:37:59It's like, it is something I just went through and it does change you in a way where I think people are like, how's married life? And you can say that surface level answer of like, it's great, but like it did change me for the better. And I think, you know, my, my husband and I talk a lot about purpose and I think I have a life's purpose in HSR. Like I get the messages from women and I know what this conversation alone will do for them. Like for me, having my own purpose outside of that, that's like my family. The thing that like I always tell my husband is my worst fear was being as driven as I am, which is why we scored 98 % on the culture test together, or I matched you, but having no want to share that with like that was legitimately my worst fear because i knew i was going to get there like i have fundamentally believed since i was little that i was going to be successful and then my worst fear was i get there with who and with like for what yeah same yeah same and honestly like having my husband now he says this to me all the time because he waited till he was 45 to meet me to get married to do the thing and he said it is the worst business decision i will ever make in my entire life you are the worst business decision but you are the best decision I've ever made in my life.

1:39:21Yeah. Everything is a trade-off. And I think when we're looking for perfect trades where there's no downside, we end up living a significantly worse life. It's just about being intentional about the trade. And it sounds like he was really intentional about the trade he was making. He was well aware that it might hurt his business, might make him less productive and you, but the upside was, yeah, all the things that make the success worth it anyway. Like if you've ever bought a big house or if you've ever bought something nice the first thing you want to do is come experience with people you love you want to invite people over get them to sit in the front seat and so yeah one of my real deep fears for my whole life was that especially knowing how avoidant i was that i would be successful which i was pretty sure of when i was younger and then i'd be lonely you know and that sounds like a horrible place to be i think the only thing worse than being lonely is being lonely in a big house or a private judge it's so interesting because one of the big conversations i've had with like a lot of executives in media recently is like all storytellers are trying to answer a question right and if you think about like what love is blind does to our society in america they're answering the question like can you fall in love without seeing someone and i really thought about that as it relates to hsr like what is the question that i'm trying to solve with this and I really think it's, can you have it all?

1:40:50And I ask everyone almost that sitting in that chair, can you have it all? And the answer is always like you can, but not at the same time and whatever. And I think with this last part of this conversation that was supposed to be rapid fire, but I'm glad it came up was like, I think you're showing people that you can, that you can have it all. And I don't want that to feel like a lot of pressure, which I know it is, but I think yeah it signifies something more than just like you and Mel deciding because even of itself like that's amazing and I'm because I know both of you and I've gotten to see her soul in like such a genuine way like she just radiates love like I'm genuinely happy for the two of you but on like a bigger scale I think it does from a male's perspective and one of the big things for this year with HSR is like, you know, 30 % of our listeners are actually men.

1:41:41And I speak to women a lot because like, I know who I'm talking to. And it's great that there's peripheral listeners. But I don't want to lose like who this is really for, right? And I think those people that are listening to this are going to feel something hearing you talk about you making the decision to get married as someone that could easily choose not to and have an easier life maybe and I just know that like you sharing that is going to make more of an impact maybe than anything else you've said which is crazy but what do we all want at the end of the day love connection relationships so I'm really happy that you shared that with us thank you i think that no i think that's all really astute i think that's really really on point and i don't think i would have an easier life you don't think so no it goes back to what we're saying like choose your annoying or choose your hard i'd have an easier life in some respects and then i'd have a much harder life in other respects and on balance i'd rather have an easier life by getting married and having kids and being a father and versus the easy life of, you know, more freedom, but then dealing with the difficulty of being lonely and unfulfilled and flippant relationships with people and dating and having to go, hi, I'm Steve.

1:43:09You know, I just, that's not an easy life for me. So. Okay. Can I keep going on my rapid fire? Okay. You could only pick one for the rest of your life, Stephen. Yeah. A 7 a.m. call time or never drinking ketone IQ again? I would say 7 a.m. call time. Okay. Was that hard for you? No, not really, because I do want to wake up earlier. I do want to wake up earlier. I think it would be good for me. Okay, we can go for runs in the morning. Please. What is your favorite episode of DOAC ever? I'm going to say episode 101 with Mo Gordat. but just because it was the most shared episode ever and because he wasn't a celebrity so it wasn't being shared because he was a famous person it was just so profound and he said so many things about life and happiness that have stayed with me and the one I always talk about is this idea of expectations and he said to me that you're happy in your life when your expectations of how your life is supposed to be going are met and you're unhappy when those expectations go unmet and I use this as a framework to think about why I'm unhappy at certain moments in my life and it's always without exception because i had an expectation of how something was going to happen and it's currently falling below then and this also gives us a framework for being able to control our happiness which is managing one's expectations of ourselves of others of our partner of our dog when they poop in the house or whatever it might or someone cuts you off in traffic and this is why gratitude has become and has always really been seen as one of the great answers to happiness because gratitude is the realization that your expectations are being met in various areas of your life right now and if you think about everything that's made you unhappy in the last week i guarantee it's all about an expectation you had about something so yeah my god episode 101 okay you can only pick one for the rest of your life eggs or watermelon eggs really yeah damn i watched your men's health video and you were like i love watermelon i do but eggs come on eggs are like protein and it's just water i was absorbing myself in your world basically for the last few years but then really over the last few days have you ever worked with someone who's such a big super fan i don't know i don't know i don't know you do know a lot about me which is which is really a compliment you know it means a lot to me and i'm very appreciative of that you're honestly one of the people i marked on as my inspiration it's so crazy how weird that feels to me it feels it makes me uncomfortable because of me or because other people generally okay yeah makes me very uncomfortable but i'd rather it be you than someone else i think maybe it makes me uncomfortable because of the last question, which is then it creates an expectation.

1:45:39And I just, I don't want to meet anyone's expectations. It's like, you can't put that pressure on yourself because we all have to manage our own expectations. And like, before you got here, I was so nervous. I was like the whole week I've been really nervous. Like even my brother-in-law's calling me being like, okay, you got to calm down. Like it's going to be okay. You know? And right before you walked down here, I said on the vlog, like, I just want to get rid of my expectations because whatever happens happens. This is supposed to be fun. Like this is, this is supposed to be fun. And as soon as I did that, all my nerves went away.

1:46:13I let go of the expectation of what I was expecting. And even to recap it, like, I don't even know if this was what I was expecting, but it's better, you know? And like the feeling that I have leaving it is so much better than what I had come into it with. And so even though you feel an expectation on that it's not up to you to manage other people's expectations because i'm your biggest fan and now i work with you and like have this special access it's up to me to manage my own expectations it's not up to you that's beautiful fave podcast that isn't yours or a flight story show it would be they're like true crime podcasts okay it's basically what i listen to i watch a ton of youtube i don't really listen to podcasts i know it sounds crazy i don't really listen to podcasts It's rare that I listen to podcasts.

1:47:00Very rare. Is that because you don't want to get influenced by what they're doing? No. Okay. I just prefer to watch YouTube and watch videos about specific subjects and probably a little bit shorter. But I do listen to podcasts sometimes. It's just when there's, I like the All In podcast. Okay, here we go. It's quite surprising. I do listen to them, but I watch them on YouTube, yeah. Okay. If you could title this season of your life, what would it be called? It would be called Liftoff. probably a lot of things going on obviously i've just you know stephen.com is launched as a business and that's i'm building all the foundations of that company and then you know in the whole marriage kids realm we have liftoff so it'd be liftoff a lot of starts a lot of things starting all at once it's quite scary you know it's my favorite saying what's that when you're on a rocket ship, don't ask what fucking seat you're on.

1:47:58Just get on and go. And honestly, I've always like when people ask me about you, I'm like, he's on a rocket ship. And I didn't ask what seat I'm on. I just got on the fucking rocket ship and waited for a lift off. So the fact that you just said lift off is literally crazy. I know this is one of your favorite questions to ask candidates when you are hiring. So after achieving so much success, Stephen Bartlett, can you explain your biggest achievement like you're 10 years old? my biggest achievement bar none and it's so easy it's so easy this question for me is falling in love with someone then falling in love with me and us building a relationship together bar none it was the only thing that i didn't think i could do so it's the it's the thing that i'm most proud of and the thing that i i cherish the most i say to mel all the time i just check with her i say sometimes i'm like do you still believe that i would delete everything that i am or my business or my success my bank balance to protect this relationship and i ask her this often and if she answers yes then it's evidence that um i've correctly prioritized the things that matter the most and so she's been saying yes many times in recently so i'm happy about that well it wouldn't be an interview without making me cry so steve burland thank you for getting hot i love how you say my name by the way i know i say it wrong but like it's fine it's iconic so i'm not switching it thank you so much for coming on sweetheart can i ask you one more thing of course how can hsr help you right now helping to push into the world this narrative that independence isn't all it's cracked up to be and that there's a risk to independence there's a risk risk to everything in life there's always a trade-off so when people tell you about standing on your own two feet you don't need anyone you don't need a boyfriend whatever it would i think it'd be really net beneficial for society if we all collectively just questioned this a little bit and thought deeply about the value of dependence and relying on others and being part of something whether it's a religion or a community like like this community there's huge value in that and even your community you have one of the most incredible communities i've ever seen like isn't that evidence that isn't it great to like depend on other people and to be part of something so the the thing i would ask is that people when they encounter the narrative that is the antithesis of this to just push back on it and uh let's make dependency and commitment sexy again yeah done love it

1:50:44Sounds different.