#1040 - 4M Subscriber Q&A

26:27so um you will have more fun chill podcasts with the boys they will be coming so hold on tight jordaniel974 would you do a live show in newcastle yes i would and i am and i don't know the fucking date but i think it's in october next year um i'm coming home homecoming baby uh newcastle show it's gonna be so much fun to go back and run another event. I wonder if I have to give out flyers. I might give out wristbands before people come in. That'd be nice. Throw it back to the old club promo days. But yeah, I'm doing a live show. I'm doing a full UK and Ireland tour and maybe even a couple of shows in Germany in autumn-ish time next year.

27:11And I'm super fired up. It'll be great. Don't know the dates yet. They exist. I just don't know. But hold on tight. They're coming.

27:25Sarah Allison. What inspired the Modern Wisdom apparel designs? Metal bands, me being fuckboy metal, like what I wore as a teenager. I basically wanted to make what would 17-year-old me think if he was 37-year-old me, he would design as a T-shirt. And I kind of did that. and we sold so much fucking merch we sold so many pieces it's insane and uh i really worked hard on it and the reason i care is because i work so fucking hard like i spent so long researching like and trying on myself in my living room and jonathan ops guys taking photos front of oh do we like the feel of this cotton we're all yeah but you can't get that in australia but we need to do the thing with the print is it going to be too heavy on the gsa i don't like the length of that every single different fucking piece and every single different design i was personally involved in like me and the fucking designer going back at 11 o 'clock at night then we did the shoot and we did it was a very personally involved project and i really really think that the stuff rules and it looks fucking great and i everybody that's had it and has been wearing it is loving it and all of the shipping will have been done by now so you should have had it for christmas which is sick and we'll be doing another drop probably through end of february end of march something like that there will be another drop it'll be available for 48 hours or 96 hours or something a few days and then once it's gone it's gone and then we'll do it again in a few months and it's it's sick i love wearing it i love wearing the stuff and yeah it was metal bands and my own sense of style, I suppose.

29:14So I never thought I had a sense of style, but it seems like if you just do fuck boy metal t-shirts, people wear them. Lewis, the voice, does your red bracelet have meaning? Okay, so.

29:31If I can hide in my face, there we go. Yeah, it does, actually. um this was the bracelet that i got after finishing joe hudson's retreat and i can't say too much about like the process of of getting it or whatever um but it's really meaningful to me and uh it is a reminder of a version of me that i aspire to regularly get back to um um somebody who is brave in the face of sensitivity and doesn't see suppression as strength sees sensitivity as strength um and is honest and open and it's nice and i look it fucking pisses me off sometimes when i'm trying to type shit but um i haven't taken it off i've not taken it off since since i was there and it's been three months now so now you know smart fuck smart rival guards on have you visited iceland yes i have i went with johnny i went with johnny and yousef in 2016 2017 maybe we went we went to rekuvik and i trained at annie thorisdawd's gym because i was full crossfit bro mode and we did the blue lagoon and we did the golden circle tour is that hawaii so the whatever the whatever the tour is where you go and see that that waterfall and me and johnny went out in november in iceland in just a shirt and jeans because we're like i'm hard as fuck me don't matter northeast of the uk fucking no not to worry about.

31:28And, uh, oh, there was something to worry about. That was, that was another level of call. Johnny thought that he got, um, hypothermia because he was waiting for a taxi. Um, then for a while I dated an Icelandic chick who I met while I was there. And, uh, she was lovely and very blonde.

31:48that was it it's good i like it roll on iceland

31:58guilla macarone four million subscribers and over 1 000 episodes i love the show don't get me wrong but you see yourself doing this for another 1 000 episodes is there that much more self-discovery left to be done great question dude um i would like to think yes because as i evolve as a person my interests do as well um you're hinting at a truth about the show which i've said a bunch of times but maybe bears repeating which is this is a very selfish project it is a thinly veiled autobiography masquerading as a podcast that I am trying to understand the challenges that I am facing in my life right now and I've fortunately managed to construct a world in which whatever I am struggling with whatever I want to learn more about or my pet interest or that thing that I saw yesterday that I need explaining to me I have access to the best people in the world to be able to get them to teach me about it and then put it out on the internet and you guys get to watch and listen and learn as well.

33:08And I get to call it a job. That being said, I can't wait to be a dad. I'm very much looking forward to dad life. When that happens, guess what? There's going to be a lot of child content. There's going to be a lot of child rearing and attachment and baby health and all of that stuff. And then there'll be education system stuff. And then there'll be training as an aging guy stuff. So because I'm a moving target. I think my curiosity in the self-discovery is a moving target too. That being said, a lot of the low-hanging fruit was picked up in the first 400 episodes when no one fucking listened, which is so annoying to me.

33:46The amount of loads that I blew prematurely because I knew exactly where I wanted the show to go, but there was no one to listen. I think it took 400 episodes to get to 100 ,000 subs, 400, 40 % of the show, 100 ,000 subs. This is 4 million. I don't even know what that is as a percentage. What's 100 ,000 out of 4 million? Fucking, it's like such a tiny amount proportionally. So 2.5%. 97.5 % of the audience. I didn't get to see those. And it's so annoying. But I might just run it back. Fuck it. I might just bring Peter C. Brown on again to learn Make It Stick now that I've got hopefully a better bedside manner for podcasting.

34:44But on top of that as well, I'm changing some of the formats. I'm coming up with new ideas, right? This roundtable group hang style episode, the one with the proper guests and the one with my boys. I think that will really enliven a whole new type of satisfaction and interest and curiosity for me. Or maybe you're right. Maybe I've already hit the wall. Maybe I'm in the podcasting equivalent of menopause. But I don't get the sense that I am. And the more that I spend time reading, the more stuff I get interested in. And my curiosity is so fucking nuclear. I did this long before anybody listened and I'll continue to do it no matter what happens with regards to an audience so for me it's always been a very personal project that I love I don't intend on slowing down anytime soon

35:46Karuchi912 how small of an effort is considered too small to be worth doing, even if you're doing it every day in an attempt to move the needle, just 1 %? Great question. And literally nothing. I mean, there's been days, dude, in my 20s where I was sad and low and burned out and depressed from work, where I didn't get out of my bedroom, bathroom, front door to get like Uber Eats. And this wasn't, oh, I'm having a slow, lazy day. this is I don't want to open the curtains I don't want to speak to people I'm making excuses at work so that people don't know that I'm not doing the thing because I'm supposed to be the leader of this company and if they know that I'm not doing the thing then how embarrassing is that going to be I'm supposed to be the guy that drives everything forward I'm so ashamed about this thing but I can't be bothered to get up and I'm so I just don't want to see people I don't know why I feel sad the first day that I broke out of that burnout or you know acute micro depression thing.

36:45Um, each time that I would come back around and take a big breath was getting out of bed was a big deal and opening the curtains was a big deal and going for a walk was a big deal and putting my shoes on was a big deal. Going to the gym, driving to work, those things were big deals. And, um, I think the habituation thing, like hedonic adaptation, but this is personal growth adaptation, if you're used to moving at a really high clip, or if you see other people that are, you compare yourself to what you can do previously or what other people appear to be doing now, and it makes your efforts feel microscopic in comparison, and that is not great for motivation.

37:26In short, there is no such thing as too small. Yes, you can have high standards, but if you're pointing in the right direction and you're doing the right things, even a single step does move you closer to your goal and yes some days maybe you'll run an ultra marathon and other days you'll crawl half a pace but each day is moving you toward that thing and at the very least it's not sending you backward and it's probably more akin to being on a treadmill than it is running a race actually because if you don't do anything that's not stasis that is moving backward your body is fighting entropy your mind is fighting entropy you are fighting against life and there's no such thing.

38:10So read the lesson or the essay that I wrote about the shame of simple pleasures and the shame of small fears. Both of those kind of relate to this thing. And I think, keep moving, just keep moving. In other news, this episode is brought to you by RP Strength. This training app has made a huge impact on my gains and enjoyment in the gym over the last two years now. It's designed by Dr. Mike Isretel and comes with over 45 pre-made training programs, 250 technique videos, takes all of the guesswork out of crafting the ideal lifting routine by literally spoon feeding you a step-by-step plan for every workout.

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39:26Naveed Shezhad Tagar. What do you do when you feel sad or disappointed? well, I felt a lot of that this year, which isn't super sexy to talk about. And I know as well, I appreciate you guys for sticking with me as I've been in my sad boy energy this year. Fuck, it's been like, I've got bored of me. I've got bored of me whining. And I've tried to show up as a professional on the show and let the realizations about what I'm interested in and I've been reflecting on and I'm struggling with come out in the show without it just being this total mope fest, although it may have been at some point. So I appreciate you guys, the patience that you've had, because I want to be higher energy than I have been.

40:22I want to feel in a better mood than I have been. I want to be more positive some than I have been. And that's been hard. It's been hard for me. And I felt this expectation or this obligation or something to

40:37perform, keep you guys, keep the energy up or something. And yeah, it's important to be authentic, but also if I'm just eating shit for months and months on end, it's not very alluring to have this person that is supposed to just turn up and do a job largely like constantly whining about stuff so anyway i've tried to strike a balance and my point is thank you for uh sticking with me i appreciate it uh what do i do when i feel sad or disappointed um my go-to if i don't step into my own programming is uh isolate um isolate ruminate lime bed watch netflix scroll on my phone um like negative self-talk like it's very inward focused it's very uh you are the problem how shameful that this is something that you're going through you should be better than this time is slipping away your life is passing you by you're going to regret this in future there's a lot of that in a monologue um when i do interject and step into my own programming.

41:48It's much more, uh, okay, I'm going to lean on a friend. And this is really a skill that only this year I've, I've fully, fully been able to develop fucking 36 years old. It was the first time that I really realized I needed to do this. Um, the weight of sort of sadness and disappointment was so high that I, I couldn't lift it myself. And that was the first time that I'd ever encountered that. And I relied on my friends more this year than I ever have. And the amount of support that I got when I actually allowed people to show up for me is crazy. If you look like you've got it all together, and I think a lot of guys and maybe girls that listen to this show too, appear to other people in their friend group like the most competent person in the room.

42:36And the problem with that is that if you think that your friends always got it together, who the fuck are you to step in and help them? Like, what are you going to, what are you going to add? Like they help you, right? Um, so you need to ask for help. So, uh, I've got better at asking for help. I've got better at leaning on friends. I've got better at, um, finding coaches and, uh, guides and therapists and stuff like that. If I need, um, more heavy duty insights um breathwork and reading are the isolated good versions of some of the stuff that i do i feel really good if i read i feel really really great if i walk for a while uh ringing friends as well so those are some things that's how i do it right and how i do it wrong jimmy mcgills 5572 can you give an update on your health journey and do you believe you have long COVID.

43:33I'm almost certain that I had long COVID. A lot of the markers that came back said yes. And I caught COVID two years ago, just before I went on tour with James Smith. And that was the beginning of pushing me over the edge. I'd already been in that house that was filled with mold for about six months, maybe a bit more at that time. No, a year and six months. fuck wow yeah I'd been I'd been I'd been in that house for quite a while and um I do long COVID thing almost certainly where I'm at now with health journey um I'm fighting with some nervous system stuff which is so fucking annoying dude because I've like handed the baton off from inflammation come infection stuff, beat that.

44:26And then just at the fucking finish line, that's pivoted into some quasi-disordinary nervous system disruption stuff. So I'm working on that. I've got a great couple of guys helping me with it, which is really wonderful. and I'll beat it. It's just going to take time. It's so fucking funny having

44:54health problems that are really normal. None of these things, EBV isn't that weird, mold isn't that weird, limes isn't that weird, heavy metals, BPAs, gut dysbiosis. None of this stuff is that odd, but all of it together as a young person who is in good health, it's such a strange experience. I'm still trying to work out sort of what it means, but it's taught me an awful lot. It's made me much more empathetic toward people who are struggling in that way. It's fucking certainly humbled me. Jesus Christ. I mean, listen, and I'm sure someone could do a sentiment analysis on ChatGPT of the bravado and the ego that I would have had 12 months, 24, 36 months ago compared with now.

45:42And Alain de Botton had that line on the podcast I did with him where he says the best men are the ones who've been broken by life. And this is a year that I've been broken by life. So maybe that turns me into the best man that I can be. We'll see. Zach Hall What is the most frequent reoccurring thought you have Chris And why do you think this occurs

46:15You're not Doing this right You should be You should be better I don't know what I'm supposed to be better in, but it's something like that. If you were stronger, more resilient, harder working, more diligent, smarter, fitter,

46:41this challenge that you're facing would not be of concern to you. And the fact that it is of concern to you is an identification of your insufficiency and your inferiority. And if only you pushed harder, it will be fine. Why do I think this occurs? Because I learned that if I perform successfully, problems in life seem to go away. And what that means is as soon as you stop performing, you have a fear the problems are going to come back, even well after you've reached escape velocity and you're just floating out in space way away from all of the problems that sort of birthed this fuel source, this motivation.

47:36Yeah, yeah, I think it's that. That being said, I'm getting better. I'm getting a lot better at this. When you go through a low period, these patterns, like they come back up. And it's what I said before that when, when life is going great, nobody, nobody really questions what they're doing. You're able to hide fleeting thoughts and insufficiencies under ego and bravado and momentum. Fucking hell, if things slow down, you really have to contend with the shit that you've been hiding from. and there was shit that I'd been hiding from and it's not big shit. It's nothing massive but it's sort of like fundamental ways that I'd see myself or talk to myself and they weren't good enough.

48:25They're not good enough. Look at me whipping myself for like I'm being ungrateful about my ungratefulness. It's been a really, really interesting year. It's been a very, very reflective, high growth year and I'd had a good run. I'd had a really fucking good run. I think this happens in about seven-year cycles. It seems to me to happen in about seven-year cycles. The last one was probably close to 28, I guess. So like, what, maybe eight, nine-year cycles. I was due a little bit of a pullback. I'd been on a bull run. Stock had been going nicely. I was due a little bit of a pullback, and I've had a pullback.

48:58I've learned what I need to learn, and I'm ready to kick 2026 in the dick. Look and find truth. Congrats on 4 million. Thank you. you sit in a rare position, an extreme outlier in both visibility and wealth, two levers that less than 0.01 % of people alive won't have at your scale, neither individually, let alone at your intersection, both which contribute to identity. As your success continues to compound, what is your experience with identity, attachment, and ego? Great question. I think being British is a fucking huge performance enhancer for this because we are so allergic to ego and that getting too big for your boots thing that it really helps to keep your feet on the ground if you didn't ever anticipate becoming much or anything ever then it just feels all like bonus i guess that could metastasize into some other like horrible egotistical version of it where you are ungrateful for the things that have happened but for me it's much more like whoa what the fuck like i won the lottery i literally won the lot this is so great like how fantastic um identity is a slightly more different one uh slightly more difficult one because the world begins to treat you in a way that you don't see yourself if you don't believe you're on hype or at the very least if you've got the British fucking high gravity feet on the ground, tall poppy thing, you are being treated by the world in a way that doesn't comport with how you see yourself.

50:37It's like identity dysmorphia or something. What you see in the mirror is not necessarily what the world sees. And even the world might not see what they're supposed to see, right? They might see you as this high-flying resource to be extracted from and you just want to live a quiet life or the reverse. They might see you as this meek individual and actually you want to be super gregarious and outgoing. At least at the moment, I think I've got a good balance. I don't feel, of all of the psychological wells that I'm diving into, my ego is not one of them. And I'm really, really fucking glad about that.

51:14The identity thing, the thing I'm so fortunate about is that I don't, I have an audience of people who are like the people I want to hang out with and they don't expect me to be anything except for myself. At the live show, no one comes up. I mean, people come up and go, fuck, you know, your forearms are a bit bigger in real life than I thought, whatever. But no one expects me to be anything else. And I think the more that I do this solo stuff, and that's one of the reasons I want to do more solo episodes next year, the more of me I can actually let out there. And hopefully that makes you feel less alone.

51:47And it certainly makes me feel less alone when I get to talk about it. It makes me feel braver. so I'm going to keep going. This episode is brought to you by Gymshark. You want to look and feel good when you're in the gym. Gymshark makes the best men's and girls gym wear on the planet. Let's face it, the more that you like your gym kit, the more likely you are to train. Their hybrid training shorts for men are the best men's shorts on the planet. Their crest hoodie and light gray marl is what I fly in every single time I'm on a plane. The Geo Seamless t-shirt is a staple in the gym for me. Basically everything they make, it's unbelievably well fitted, high quality.

52:21It's cheap. You get 30 days of free returns, global shipping, and a 10 % discount site-wide. If you go to the link in the description below or head to gym.sh slash modernwisdom, use the code modernwisdom10 at checkout. That's gym.sh slash modernwisdom and modernwisdom10 at checkout. Ayush6610. Congrats on 4 million. Thank you. What advice can you give me about feeling lost in life as an 18-year-old who is just entering college? My brother, you are 18. I'm not trying to be patronizing in the way that every 37 year old was to me when I was 18 as well but you're supposed to be lost in life like you're not supposed to know your direction you've just been in full-time education you're at this huge pivot and this is going to happen to you at every different pivot that you encounter it's going to happen to you when you leave college it is going to fucking flatten you I will promise you now it is going to completely flatten you because you have been in full-time education up until that point.

53:19And now you're freewheeling in the world. And the same things happen. Maybe you're moving away from home. You're not going to be in your parents' house anymore. Oh my God, what does this mean for my identity? What does this mean? I need to find new friends. I need to find, I'm going to leave my girlfriend at home. Are I going to find a new one when I'm there? Or like, I got to cook for myself. I got to fucking wash my pants. How do I wash pants? Where do I get the, how's an iron work? All of these things are big questions, but the feeling lost is where the growth comes from. That is what you're looking for because you find cool stuff when you're lost.

53:48So don't worry about it. I know that you're worrying about it, but it's okay. So what would I leave you with? What would I leave you with? What if it was okay to feel lost? What if feeling lost? What if feeling lost is what you want? What if that's a good thing? Yes, you don't have direction. You're about to go to college. That seems like a pretty fucking good direction to me. Just allow that to happen because you will look back in two decades time when you're just past my age and you will go fuck I wish I'd I wish I'd not worried so much about being lost and I just enjoyed it because I can't go back and enjoy it anymore so make sure that you're present make sure that you're there for this experience it's not going to last forever the same thing's true for every part of life Josh White 47 for the Q &A hey Chris congratulations on the success of your podcast thank you been listening in for a while now, I discovered that I have the met met gene about a year ago.

54:46And it helped me to understand a lot about myself. I've heard you talk about having a met met com T gene mutation, and was wondering if you regard it and everything that comes along with it as more of an advantage or a hindrance in your life. Keep doing you, man. You're great. What a fucking cool question. Yes, Josh White. So the met met com T variant is we clear catecholamines, adrenaline and dopamine more slowly than most people. This means that uncertainty, ambivalence, ambiguity, high stress situations take more time to come down from. It also means that obsession, rumination, working hard are available to you in a way.

55:28I would make a poor soldier, but a pretty good coder, for instance. Predictable, reliable, structured, obsessive, good. Chaotic, highly uncertain, big pulses of energy, not good for me. Is it an advantage or a hindrance? It's both. It's both. This year, I've been so uncertain and swimming in this fucking challenge emotionally for me, it has shown me that my preferences for peace and stability and predictability are not just preferences. They are like water or air to me. They're the hydration, the fuel that I run on. And without it, I can push through and that's fine, but it it fucking ruins you eventually um met met com tea is like pretty you're either going to be really fucking great or it's it's going to be hard um i i see it as more an advantage would i love it if some emotional perturbment didn't play on my mind for the next couple of hours yeah sure but if i meditate enough and i do enough breath work and I counterbalance that, it doesn't really matter.

56:59What else does it mean? Well, it means that I'm super reflective. It means that my depth of thought is something that I really value and I love asking the why question and I love finding out the why answer. So I've learned to love it. I mean, I only found out that I had it like 12 months ago and tons of people have got this. This is part of the behavioral genetics of your psychological makeup. So what is happening from a genetic perspective to influence your neurobiology that then manifests psychologically? And this is slow dopamine, adrenaline, catecholamine clearance, more catecholamines dumped into the bloodstream.

57:39Something happens, spikes, takes a longer time to come down. Avoid stress. Don't marry somebody that is going to cause a ton of drama in your life. don't stick around friends who are unpredictable and always in a fucking catastrophe nightmare listen to Anjuna Deep Deep House meditate breathwork go for walks in nature you will have to pay a price for this it is a hindrance in some regard it is a hindrance but it is a fucking unreal fuel as well so if you can create the conditions for this to flourish it's wonderful sometimes life is going to come in and smash you in the face and you don't get to choose that okay but all of the prep and the nervous system regulation and the building of that window of tolerance is you getting ready for those times because they're coming and in the interim you will have a greater depth of thought you will be able to work harder you will be able to focus way more than everybody else and if you use it right if you treat it like a it's the way i would think you are not fragile you're just finely tuned would be a wonderful way to think about it It's like a Formula One car.

58:53It's not a Toyota Camry. It's not as reliable. It's not as reliable as a RAV4. It's not going to get you as far, but fuck me, if you can tune it just right, it's powerful. So I hope that helps. Emmett Higgins, if you could go back, would you have still gone to university? Yes, I would have done. I fucking love my time at university. I get it. It's uncool. Everybody thinks you can just learn it on the internet. Permissionless apprenticeship, dude. It's expensive and rah, rah, rah. For me, I was so under-socialized as a kid that I needed Navy SEAL Hell Week for learning how to be an adult. I didn't know until I was 18 that you were supposed to knock on other people's doors before you went into their room.

59:35Because it was me and mom and dad. And they would go to bed after me and wake up before me. So whose door did I need to knock on? I think it's good. I learned an awful lot. I started two businesses while I was there. I ran one of those with my business partner for the next fucking 17 years, 15 years, something like that. And it was great. So yeah, I'm very pro. DM Acid Racing, fellow only child and boroboy. Wow, this is starting horrendously. It's great seeing your success and positive impact in so many people. Thank you. even more so when I speak to a few guys who know you and they say you are still sound, that means good, like solid in non-Northern language.

1:00:25My question is related to Middlesbrough, as I too moved away for opportunities like you. Based on your improved knowledge and experience, considering you now have the resources and influence beyond when you left, what are the three improvements you would make to improve the area and opportunities for the people. Okay. Three improvements I would make to improve the area and opportunities for the people. I would love a cultural intervention. I really do not like, my biggest problem is not structural, it's cultural. Didn't like the way that there was a big skepticism of anybody trying anything new especially in the northeast of the uk um i would love to have more role models and conversations from people to youngsters there who say hey if you've got a big dream you can actually maybe go and fucking make it happen that would be the first thing um

1:01:27probably improve the fucking train line. if you could get to Newcastle more quickly you would be able to experience more of that city or maybe Leeds or Manchester as well that would probably be good so something to do with transport but like what the fuck do I know about transport

1:01:46I mean anything that I think of that you build pickleball courts or you know like after school park places or all the rest of it I immediately think about the young teenage yobs that are going to go and break it or spray paint stuff on it. Like this is, this is not an exaggeration by the way, anything nice that's in and around the Teesside area just gets broken within days or fucking melted down and sold at some scrapyard. So I think the intervention, I don't think you even need three. I think you just need to intervene in the culture. Like you can be more, you can do things, you can make shit happen.

1:02:22I've been trying to think about how I, how I could go back, but like, who am I? Some bloke that did a podcast. I might really, I'm not fucking Richard Branson. I can't go and inspire a ton of people, but I don't know. I would love, I would love to come up with an intervention, but

1:02:40yeah, that's the third one, the fucking weather, change the weather. Someone, someone intervene with that. Before we continue, I've been drinking AG1 every day for years now, because it's the simplest way that I found to cover my bases and not overthink nutrition. And that is why I've partnered with them. One Scoop gives you 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food ingredients in a single drink. And now they've taken it even further with AG1 Next Gen, the same One Scoop once a day ritual, but this time backed by four clinical trials. In those trials, it was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels in just three months, and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times, even in people who already eat well.

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1:03:55That's drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. Kaiser Soze, 9857. What's your favorite thing about yourself? Talk your shit, Chris. You've been killing it.

1:04:10Well, that's nice. It's an opportunity to not fucking speak badly about myself, which I've done for most of this so far. It's my favorite thing about myself.

1:04:21the way that my mind works, I really fucking love it. I really love playing with thoughts inside of my own head. And I did that a lot as a kid, you know, an only child playing in his room, listening to audio tapes, storybooks. Um, I just got really used to that and actually really enjoy my own company. I really, really fucking enjoy my own company. And that's great because now I have this wonderful platform where other people get to hear a slightly censored, filtered, polished version of the stuff that I get to say to myself as I walk around the house. And that's cool. I guess the other thing is, especially this year, it's a new type of bravery.

1:05:07I don't think that I think we have a poor definition of bravery and my preparedness to do and face deep emotional work is one of the things that I'm most proud of that's recent and that feels much more self-authored like the thinking thing is cool and I'm sure that lots of you love playing with ideas inside of your own mind but in many ways you don't get to choose that it's just like the thing that you love um it's not hard it's like eating an ice cream or something it's really enjoyable uh something that is hard and i'm really really fucking proud of one of my favorite things is that i've been prepared to show up this year and like face emotional challenges and i've not hidden from them i've not run from them uh sometimes i put them off and delayed but i've i've dedicated myself in a way this year and I've shown up open-heartedly in a manner that I never have before and I'm really really fucking proud of that.

1:06:17Moilfright931, why do you think your reach is so wide? I'm French living in a small town in Normandy. Bonjour. I don't know. I Me and dean always had this thing for ages where we said the channel is criminally undersubscribed And you know, we're cranking away at 10 000 subs after two years and 100 000 subs after four years and I just couldn't i'm like fuck am I missing something here because I really think these conversations are important But I still think that they're important. I still think that Trying to work out how to live a good life not taking it too seriously, striving for a lot, but this new angle I've had over the last sort of 24 months or so of realizing that life's happening right now and taking it steady.

1:07:10I think it is a delicate balance that's not very sexy. It's not superbly sexy as an offering modern wisdom, I don't think, if you actually listen to what it is fully, truly about. Because it's not sufficiently reductive to be hustle grind set mode. It's not like flimsy and whimsical enough to just be sort of philosophy bro abstract idea mode. It's not super optimizer enough to be Huberman, Atiyah, Brian Johnson, but it's also not laissez fair enough to be fucking Finn versus history. And I sit somewhere in the middle of all of this stuff. But I think at least for me, that complexity of I want to strive for a lot, but I don't want to miss my life.

1:07:55I want to optimize, but not like become a perfectionist and over optimize. I think this is a lot of people. I think it's more people than has been priced in by the market. And I'm just, I'm speaking to them and hopefully they're growing with me.

1:08:17tell us about your push-ups on stage some dude fucking said have i trained today and i hadn't and he said you want to do 50 push-ups with me so he did 50 push-ups and i realized that that would turn into a david goggins moment uh and it did and it was cool and i'm glad that i did it idmar janila do you get jealous yeah yeah all the time i someone criticized my use of the word jealousy. I think it's envy, not jealousy. Jealousy is not wanting someone else to have something in case they take it from you. And envy is wanting what someone else has. I don't quite know. Yeah, all the time. All the time.

1:08:58I have envied very much this year people who have had the energy that I haven't, who have got to live exciting lives in a manner that I feel I deserve to and have worked to, but it's been taken from me.

1:09:15I, for a good while, envy people who had the freedom to travel because I was tied down by a very intense job that, you know, running my own company and I still am, but now I just get to travel too. So yeah, I do get jealous, but I try and direct it in the right ways. And when I'm on my meditation and stuff's going well, it doesn't really come up that much. I'm pretty happy. I'm pretty happy with like where things are at. I've work to do on the sensation of happiness, but I'm pretty happy with where things are at. Ker Hales, what is your biggest accomplishment in 2025?

1:10:06not giving up, not stopping, not giving in,

1:10:18not compromising what I knew to be true and the direction I wanted to move in simply because it was going to be painful in order to get there. It's not been easy. It's not been easy. That's fine. They're not all supposed to be easy. But I kept going. I kept going with my health. I kept going with the emotional work. I kept going with personal life. I kept going with professional life. And I held it all together. And sometimes it slipped through my fingers, but I managed to grab a hold of it again. Veronica Danner, how do you find the balance between having high standards for yourself and being rigid or unforgiving with other people?

1:11:03I push myself hard and expect a lot of myself. While I know everyone isn't like that, I struggle with being patient and understanding of people who are undriven and complain about how their life isn't what they want it to be, especially when they try to give me a hard time for trying hard because you don't have to do that, you know. how do you honor your own drive while still respecting other people's not so driven attitude especially when they give me a hard time a hard time for trying because you don't have to do that you know yeah yeah well what's happening here there's a couple of things going on so um this sounds a little bit like externalized perfectionism so i think there's three different types of perfectionism go back and listen to the perfectionism episode which i did about six weeks ago.

1:11:45It's really great. There's also an article in Variety, which might help with this. Externalized perfectionism is, as far as I can see, like fear. I need those people to do it in order for me to feel supported. Another part is this sense of being on the outside, of being judged for something that you know is virtuous, because you are doing high standards, pushing hard, completing a lot and other people are slowing you down they're literally like chipping away at your own motivation you don't have to do that you know um i think a great boundary to set around this the there are sort of two elements the second one is an easier boundary to set uh you saying you don't have to do that you know it's so easy to give some snappy reply which is like well you wouldn't be able to do it anyway so fucking someone has to it's so easy to just give this like very bitter, backbitey, passive aggressive sort of reply.

1:12:48And I'm sure that you don't want to do that. With that one, I would just call it out and say, hey, I really need more support from you than I'm getting. When I am working hard, even if I'm complaining about doing this, what I really need from you is for you to believe in me and enthuse me and tell me that I've got this and that I can keep going. That's what I need from you, even if you're not doing it. And if the way that I'm showing up and the way that I'm working is triggering something in you and you don't feel comfortable with me behaving this way, I would rather that you didn't say anything or didn't comment about it.

1:13:28I'm sorry, I'm trying to achieve big things and I don't want to make you feel not enough for not trying to go after them yourself. But motivation is a tenuous thing. And I really want you to be there for me. And I would love to bring you along for the ride too. But if you can't do that, I understand. But I can't have you. You are not allowed to remind me that I can have lower standards for myself. I think that would be a cool boundary to set and should be sufficiently enthusing to other people if they really care about you. If you say as well, I would love to do this with you. I would love for you to come along with me.

1:14:04like this offering, this opening up, I think, especially in relationships, if you're in a relationship with someone and you want to do a ton of personal development and they're worried because every time you do personal development, you change. And what if you change and you leave them? If you say to them, if you just open up the door to say, I really think that this would be great for us to do together. I want us to do this as a team. I want you to be a part of this. And I would love for us. So why don't we start getting up and going to the gym early? Why don't we start a run club. We should go to a run club together or whatever the fuck is that you're trying to do.

1:14:34Why don't we learn to read a book together before we watch Netflix? You can do this with friends as well and try and bring them in. That would be a way to raise them up. If that's not an option and you're just, I am frustrated with the fact that other people are lazy and not that motivated, it's a tough one and I get it, but you just need to get over it because they're not going to change. change people do not change when you tell them to they will almost never change when you tell them to you can give them the advice you can sort of show them the way but it's very rare that they're going to change if you start pointing the finger at them they'll just dig their heels in more so set your boundaries around yourself uh realize that your way is not the way for everyone um try and make light of it would be another one as well.

1:15:24Just laugh. It's like, fuck. Here I am again, like all my friends are out at dinner and I guess I'm going to spend the evening reading this fucking book. Cool. All right, here we go again. That's fine. That's fine. It'll be worth it. Hey, Chris, the magic you're looking for is in the work you're avoiding and the answers you're looking for are in the silence you're avoiding are ideas I feel got hammered into my head because of you this year. For context, I'm in my early 20s. At this point in my life, how can I know the difference between avoiding something because something needs to be done about it and avoiding something because it has caused enough pain to know it needs to be avoided for your own sake?

1:16:06To clarify, thank you. How do I know when I'm avoiding something because I need to face it to grow versus avoiding something because it's genuinely harmful or draining me? P.S. Congratulations on every milestone you hit. I hope you celebrate the big wins as well as you do the smaller ones. Awesome question. Okay. Super easy. Well, no, sorry. Super easy analogy. Really fucking difficult to deal with. Spoiler alert. How do I know if I'm not doing this next repetition in the gym because I'm being a pussy? How do I know if I'm not doing it because this next repetition is going to injure me? Unfortunately, this is a question.

1:16:42First off, This is a question I get asked a lot. The fear that I might be a bitch is present in the mind of every overachiever. And it is not an easy decision to make. The way that I do it has been through experience. You're in your early 20s. What it seems like you're trying to do here is work out intuitively something that you have a limited amount of intuition around. In my early 20s, my intuition did not exist. I was really struggling because I hadn't accumulated sufficient life experience to be able to tap. What fucking intuition am I tapping into? I don't have any intuition. So what I would do if I was you is just set rules, set rules for yourself.

1:17:35You're going to stick to this thing, this new habit, this training protocol, you're going to give this relationship a chance for this amount of time, and then you're going to step back. So think system two versus system one in Daniel Kahneman speak, right? Deliberate versus automatic. And you're going to have to be very deliberate the earlier that you are in life because you can't use as much intuition as me or as much intuition as someone who's 57 or 87 because you haven't accumulated the repetitions yet. So think about system two, be procedural, set yourself structure, rules, learn, go on ChatGPT, go on YouTube, listen to my podcast, listen to some old Peterson, whatever it is that you're looking at, go, okay, I can kind of outsource my thinking a little bit here.

1:18:23But once you have, you need to construct rules, you need to construct a little framework, a blueprint that you're going to follow. And over time, after you've done that, you will know what too much and too little feels like. But you're trying to find an intuitive balance answer to something that you do not have enough experience trying to balance on it yet. Now you may have fucking tons of experience and I might be pandering and talking down to you. You might be the most experienced early 20 year old in the world. But even if you were, this lesson still holds true within your life. You will have better experience in more time.

1:18:54So do the learning, create a structure, follow a blueprint for yourself that's done from a place of love. And I think that you should be able to work out like i wouldn't be doing does this feel good or not i would just say just fucking commit to it um draining is fine genuinely harmful is different if it's draining you you're uh fucking 23 it doesn't matter like you will be fine you can be drained for the next decade and still have so much in the tank uh genuinely harmful slightly different and that is if it's plaguing you for nights and nights on end and you're staying awake and you're angry about it, that might be a little bit too much.

1:19:40Andrew Birachad 9555. Fuck. Congrats, Chris. I have a question about this Freud quote you mentioned during a show in Toronto. Great to see another person from Toronto. One day, in retrospect, the struggle will strike you as most beautiful. Are we doomed to never enjoy the journey, to only look fondly at the struggle when it is a distant memory, to never recognize and appreciate the good days until they're forever out of reach in the void of the past? If not, what tips do you have to help us stay anchored in the present and find beauty in the struggle here and now? Ah, Andrew, what a fucking great question, dude.

1:20:17Yeah, that Freud quote, one day the struggle will strike you as most beautiful. It's brilliant. unfortunately there is a part of you that is going to experience and enjoy the past more than you did when you were going through it at least as far as I can see one of the reasons is in the moment you have lots of fears and they're distracting worries and concerns and uncertainty and that causes you to not enjoy stuff as much as you could. In the future, you are able to see all of the fears, the million fucking panoply cornucopia of fears that you could have worried about. None of them or one of them came to pass.

1:21:03So you realize that all of your fears didn't need to be something to worry about and all of the enjoyment that you can see how you should have enjoyed it back then was actually where you should have placed your time and your attention. Certainly, one of the problems that you come up against here is that you can romanticize the past and you can grieve over not being there for experiences in the way that you wish that you were. And also, you can see them with a type of rose-colored glasses, which they're not accurate. it. That's not actually how you felt at the time. You didn't feel that peaceful.

1:21:47You didn't feel that regulated. The sex wasn't that good because of your fears, because of your uncertainty. And what you're basically saying is, if I hadn't been me and my experience of life in the past hadn't been that experience, could I go back and experience it differently? Because now I don't feel the way that I did then emotionally, and I see the situation, and I wish that I could have enjoyed the situation then, how I see with the equanimity of my emotional experience now. But right now, you're in an emotional experience which is in some way tarnishing or damaging what you're going through.

1:22:30So, what can we do? Tips to stay anchored in the present and find beauty in the struggle here and now. Remember that your future self is going to look at you right now through your memories, and whether it's with regret or fondness depends on how gentle and how present you can be. Spend less time on your phone. Find people to share it with. Laugh as best you can at the absurdity of the struggle. Journal when things are good, not just when things are bad, because there will be things that you have forgotten about how good they were, not just bad things that you have forgotten about how bad they were.

1:23:16And now, shout at yourself for having been so selfish as to have not realized that they should have been bad. I do think that this is kind of a curse of the thoughtful person, that you are going to not necessarily see the beauty in the struggle until after it's happened. And if you've got a really chronic version of this or an intense version of this, you won't see the beauty in the experience until after it's happened. Like how many people that are performers, I know tons of performers, musicians, artists, stuff like that, that are on stage. And if I asked them about like what happened during that show, they wouldn't be able to tell you anything.

1:24:00They don't know anything about what happened in Berlin in 2024. But there was a thousand people there in front of them. 10 ,000, 50 ,000. How could you not remember that? Because just becomes this sort of whitewash thing. Maybe they were worried about a relationship that they were in, or maybe their parent was ill, or maybe they were just tired that day, or maybe they had like a weird email from someone from their past. God, I missed my life. I missed my life. During that moment, that month, that year, that decade. So I was so distracted by that thing. So one other thing, what are the things that you know are detracting from your experience in the moment?

1:24:44What are the persistent thoughts, the repetitive, boring, overdone thoughts that are regularly causing you to be distracted and not in the moment. Happiness can't exist when you're uncertain and it can't exist when you want things to change much. If you want things to be different, it's going to be real hard to be happy. And if you don't know what the future brings, it's going to be real hard to be happy. So work on those two things first. It's a great question. Click Z. I know that my tendency to fall in love is a lot quicker than others because of my childhood and always feeling like I needed to beg for attention or love.

1:25:23Father divorced seven times. Holy fuck. I never got to see what real love should look like. How do I know if I'm leaning into my preset conditions that are embedded in me from a child or if I've actually found true love and the one for me? Is the spark real? Do you just know right away or is it something you build? Am I falling too hard because it's easy and comfortable and is allowing my inner child to feel loved or is it because it's actually meant to be? Dude. Oh, what a fucking cool question. Father divorced seven times. Well, first off, man, I really feel for you. That's not an easy environmental or genetic preset to deal with.

1:26:13There is a malady or necessarily a malady, but like a psychological disposition where people tumble through the levels of attachment more quickly. Arthur Brooks spoke about it. If you listen to my Arthur Brooks episode from halfway way through this year. You'll be able to find out about it. He explains it.

1:26:35Here's what I would do. Set a bunch of negotiable and non-negotiables for your partner. Typically, this doesn't work. People say you can't have a yes and no list for a decision like this. You need to, you just, when you know, you know. Problem is, and you've identified it brilliantly, a lot of self-work and reflection here, which I'm really impressed by. your attachment system is so finely attuned and becomes turned on so quickly that your ability to discern almost immediately gets thrown out of the window so i would i would set up a bunch of rules and preferences. And I would use way more scrutiny early on in the relationship.

1:27:25You should treat yourself in love like a drug addict. You will at some point in the not too distant future, after you meet this person, if you keep seeing them and keep enmeshing yourself with them, you will become a drug addict and they are the drug. And you will not be able to think straight and you will not be able to use your reason. So while you still have your faculties intact, You need to scrutinize aggressively. So I would keep dates short. I would actually limit contact early on. I would have your set of rules and I would do the scrutiny thing. I would basically do the inverse of that list of questions to make somebody fall in love with you.

1:28:05I would be as deep as you like to be, but I wouldn't push it too quickly to just give yourself just a tiny little little bit more breathing room. And then, uh, what that should do is allow you to just stave off tiny little bit more. And then you're going to check against your list. What were the lessons that you learned from the last times this happened that went well, that went badly? Um, but dudes, I, uh, when you find the right partner, when you find the right one, which you will, you are going to be able to fucking blow her off her feet because of how deeply you feel you just need to treat that depth like uh the precious gift that it is um all right i'm gonna love you and leave you um fuck 2025 what a what a mad 12 months uh thank you all for being here happy new year happy 2026 new studio is going to be here soon.

1:29:07New merch drop will be here soon. Annual review at chriswellx.com slash review. Reading lists at slash books and slash more books and new tour Australia, New Zealand, and Bali in March and April, the UK, and maybe some Europe and Ireland in October. And I'm going to keep going and I'm not going to stop. And I'm going to keep on

1:29:33I'm going to keep on showing up and I'm going to keep on asking important questions of myself and of other people and I really, really, really appreciate you all being here. It means an awful lot. You've changed my life with the device that fucking sits in your pocket and going into the next show feeling super grateful and I hope that you do too. All right. I love you. Bye.

1:29:56If you are looking for new reading suggestions, look no further than the Modern Wisdom reading list. It is 100 books that you should read before you die. The most interesting, life-changing, and impactful books I've ever read with descriptions about why I like them and links to go and buy them. And you can get it right now for free by going to chriswillx.com slash books. That's chriswillx.com slash books.