#1057 - Matthew Hussey - How to Know When to Leave a Relationship

55:39But that was me recognizing that there's the leading edge of my growth is something else. And it's usually the thing that makes you the most uncomfortable. The other day I had, I woke up with a sore throat and I was going to like, I was like, should I go to the gym or should I go to jujitsu this morning? I train early in the morning. So I was like, should I do it? And there's that voice in my head that says like, you know, I've got Jocko Willink in my head. saying like, just go, just go ask us, you know, fine. If you don't want to go tomorrow, don't go tomorrow, but today go. And I'm like, yeah, but that's, that's always what I do.

56:18I'm not someone who stays in bed. I'm someone who gets up. So if I'm worrying, if I'm like on the edge, cause that's what people ask me when we're doing like values work of, you know, what's your North star right now? And what does change look like for you? What does growth look like for you. There's often that feeling of like, but do I really need to stay in bed right now? Or is this one of those moments where I'm using it as a get out to get out of doing something difficult? Those are hard questions, by the way, because when you're trying to do something new, there's a lot of clumsy recalibrating and you'll swing too far in certain directions.

56:57If you're trying to get over your fear of confrontation, there are probably going to be some times where you create confrontation over something you shouldn't because you're just like i just i'm i don't know right now what's appropriate for me to do and say and what's not but in that moment my guiding light is matthew over the last 38 years of being alive has your bigger problem been slacking off and not doing the thing that's hard or has it been giving yourself grace and not making things worse bro this is so great and i think it is a for every level there's a devil and as you become older and you have more experience that intuition becomes more powerful and you're able to sort of play with what to 23 year old matthew uh needed to be a relatively one-dimensional piece of advice which is stop being such a pussy but after a while you go I understand where my tolerances are I understand what the ceiling feels like I understand what the floor feels like I understand the difference between backing off because I'm leaving something on the table and backing off because I'm going to get injured in one form or another can I read you an essay please okay some advice on how to support men men want to aim high without feeling insufficient if they fall short men want their suffering to be recognized and appreciated without being pandered to or patronized and made to feel weak.

58:26Men want to believe that they can be more without feeling like they're not already enough. Men want to be able to open up without being judged. Men want support without feeling broken. Men want to be loved for who they are, not for what they do. TLDR, blending inspiration with compassion is not an easy task. How do I set lofty goals which drive me to fulfill my potential without feeling less than if I don't get there tomorrow is a question every guy has asked, ever. The desire for self-love and high performance comes into conflict inside the mind of everyone, men especially. Sure, some men are all drive and goals with non-introspection, and sure, some men are all reflection and inner work with few external desires, but most men desire a mix of encouraged self-belief and understanding support.

59:16Inevitably, these two things come into conflict. Basically, every man just wants to hear, I know you can be more, but you are enough already, and even if you just stay where you are, I'll be right here next to you. You're going to be great, but you don't need to be great, and I'm with you no matter what. Or, as said best by Sturgill Simpson's mum in one of his songs, boy, I don't care if you hit it big, because you're already number one. That's beautiful.

59:49I know you can be more, but you are enough already, and even if you just stay where you are, I'll be right here next to you. you're going to be great, but you don't need to be great. And I'm with you no matter what. Fucking hell, dude. Like, I wonder how few guys have ever heard anybody say something like that. You can do wonderful things, but it doesn't matter if you don't. I think you've got, um, don't praise a guy's achievements, praise the personality traits that made them possible. It's kind of the same sort of thing. Like, I'm not, I'm not fussed about the outcome that you get from this.

1:00:24I'm, I'm bothered about the inputs that sort of go into it. And those inputs can be malleable, right? If the output, like if guys outcomes, there's difference between inputs, outputs, and outcomes, I think inputs, how hard you work outputs, what the work, uh, resulted in, and then outcomes, what the, um, like final, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, end of the equation when it hits the real world is.

1:00:53The sense of malleability that guys have got, if you praise them based on effort and traits, as a part, and I'm sure this is the same for women too, but if it's outcomes, you go, well, that means I just need to grow the company or I need to work harder or I need to become more muscular. I need to do whatever, as opposed to, oh, it's your tenacity that I really respect, or it's your loyalty, or it's your sensitivity. And you say, oh, there's 3 ,000 ways that I can manifest that into the world. And that means that I don't feel like the pressure that I already put on myself. And again, this is for a very specific subset of humans, but they're almost exclusively the sort of humans that listen to modern wisdom, listen to your show too, right?

1:01:41So, you know, they're like people hyper respond to advice differently. It's like, yes, that's true. If you take a broad cross section of the world, but not if you take my audience, they're just the type A people with type B problems, like insecure overachiever group. like oh well that means that my sensitivity is my strength and the fact that she really cared how I was there for her when her dad died means that because that's like sensitivity but like in a sort of a rigid like way like I'm gonna be stunned it's like huh well maybe maybe maybe Maybe she'll be okay with me talking about how I've got some self-doubt coming in from work, and she'll be able to help me work through that too.

1:02:28Or she really appreciated my loyalty to my friend when he was going through a tough time. Huh. Well, maybe that means that my loyalty to her is valued in a different way, as opposed to, like, I care about— She appreciates how hard I worked, like, to build the business, as opposed to how big the business is, you know? I just think that distinction, don't praise a guy's achievements, praise the personality traits, and I know you can be more, but you're enough already, and I'll be right here next to you, even if you don't change. I think that's like, for the women that are listening, like if you want a guy to just like fucking completely melt emotionally, and then go on and end worlds, like rip the fuck out of it.

1:03:09Like, I think that's it. I think that's a playbook. No, I think that's it. To receive that kind of compliment from someone, it's it's like as truly safe as you can feel in in yourself i i i think that women um men women anybody need to also really realize that if they're anxious this isn't this is not an uncommon feeling if you are doubting yourself this is not an uncommon feeling and it's you know i heard jesse eisenberg talking about like having a panic attack on set severe anxiety right yeah and he he was in the middle of a scene and the director he he paused the scene and said i went over to the director and said i'm sorry like something's happening with me i'm not like able to go on right now and the director just said everyone take five and he essentially said to jesse eisenberg you if you didn't have these feelings it would be strange like you're learning all these lines you're on a set you're trying to be emotionally sensitive you're trying to do your thing you trying to make sure your makeup's right at the same time you're trying like there's so many things here that if you he said i don't know how you do it like if you weren't constantly feeling this way that would be weird to me and jesse eisenberg describes this feeling of like oh because as soon as he didn't feel like he was broken for having those feelings it actually gave him the the ability to embrace them and to say well then my job is just to do the best i can do with them i'm not a freak for having them and i think that men especially because we we don't talk enough and the the most for me the most powerful conversations i have that make me feel better tend to be with other men who are being honest when i'm on the phone to a friend when you and I are on the phone together and we're just being honest about things I'll always get off that call and just feel better about myself I don't get off the call I only feel get off a call feeling worse about myself if it's become some egoic call where we're all talking about what we're achieving and this and that and then I'm like am I doing enough am I this am I that but if I'm just having a call with someone and we're like having real conversation about things I go away going oh it's not just me and then i'm like oh well then i think then i'm fine and then my job is not to not have any of these feelings or to think that i'm deficient in some way for having them my i we're all having some version of it so now my job is just to do the best i can with them given my life my makeup up my DNA.

1:06:22There's a great concept I loved. I think it's from Alfred Adler, the psychologist, who talked about the idea of relationships being horizontal, not vertical. That when we have horizontal relationships, we look at someone that we think is ahead of us and it makes us insecure because we think we're behind somehow he said but if you imagine instead that you're all on a football field together and you're all just moving along the football field on your own speed your own journey getting to where you can get to based on you and all of your factors it's not doesn't matter whether someone else has won the super bowl and you're raising a family somewhere it's your there's no vertical it's all horizontal and you can look at someone else as your friend as as you know your teammate or whatever however you want to see it and go oh that's awesome that you're doing that with where you are you then get to be in your own world where you just go look i'm not this comparison thing really makes no sense who who am i what have i dealt with in my life what factors have been holding me back what you know what's been the hand on my ankle every time i try and do something like i i always think of that scene in lord of the rings where gandalf is hanging off the edge in the mines of moria yeah the balrog like the he he's like gonna make it and then like the balrog's whip just comes and grabs him and pulls him down yeah like we've all had that moment where it's like no matter how hard we're trying like i'm doing everything i'm and and maybe we're just finally getting some peace in our life or maybe we're finally like starting to get somewhere and then yeah that whip comes and grabs us by the ankle and pulls us down and it's in those moments where you're like i can't take another thing I can't I cannot take another thing going wrong in my life I cannot take another defeat I cannot take another way that life gets hard out of nowhere it's in those moments that people want to give up and be like I just can't I can't do this anymore part of that is this kind of comparison with where other people are with how easy we perceive them to have it yes resentment that like someone else doesn't have to deal with this or whatever it is but i'm just a i'm a big believer in making peace with even the the challenges and the difficulties that we have that no one else can even see that only you know the particular a fingerprint of how hard your journey is and and what's making it difficult and when you really accept that which is a kind of form of accepting yourself and your life it almost is like nothing else matters anymore all that matters is what's the best i can do with where i am forget moving to la and comparing myself with someone else and where they are and this person that impressive person and whatever it's all irrelevant like it all there is is just your life and all your difficulties and and what will you make of that it's why i wrote in my book about this that i've never watched a full episode of it in my life but the tv show chopped i don't even know what that is there's a tv show chopped where it's a bunch of chefs no who like basically get given a a basket of ingredients make something and they're like you've got 20 minutes and by the end of the show they're going to get rated on what they do with those ingredients the show is about how resourceful and interesting these chefs can be with these ingredients the episode i watched there was like one got they got like alaskan king crab great ingredient and then they got uh kelp jerky like what i don't know what you do with kelp jerky you have to be a pretty interesting chef i'd imagine to do something interesting with kelp jerky but that's the point the show isn't about ingredients the show is about chefs and i think that in life if you like all our resentment comes from obsessing over our ingredients whether it's the way we look our height how much money we have in the bank compared to somebody else where we started compared to somebody else how you know our natural level of wit compared to other people it's like we're so we get so angry or hurt or down on ourselves based on our the perceived deficiency of our ingredients but that's not the game the game is just here's your basket you're a chef what do you do with those ingredients and yes you can't expect anyone else to understand or fully acknowledge how far you've come with your ingredients because most people apart from the people who know you best hopefully the person that you have a an amazing relationship with certain key people in your life they may not even be family they might be friends you develop over a lifetime but most people will never know what it's taken for you to be where you are today or in some cases for you to even still exist today but you do and that's why we we have to do ourselves the service of understanding more often like what forget what amazing meals i want to create?

1:12:25What amazing meals have I already created from the ingredients that I started with? Because if we start paying more attention to that, the confidence we're looking for might be something we already have in abundance. There's this line from Oliver Berkman where he says, outward complaints are not a good gauge of internal suffering. Just because somebody carries it well doesn't mean it isn't heavy. Yeah. Yeah. So good. And yeah, this sort of, boring, mundane, private victory where you've overcome some something, right? Like it's that day where you didn't get sleep because you accidentally had a coffee too late and you had to deal with that email and you hit that bit of traffic and you did this thing and you did this and you did this thing.

1:13:17And it's so, it's honestly so normal and unspectacular that it might not even register with your evening conversation with your partner, unless you have like a particularly open like connection with them. But getting through those, those mundane victories or boring successes, those are the ones that even though they're not grand, they are even more important because life is largely made up of overcoming those things and of how you deal with those things and of the resistance of them. And I think a good part of it is one of the reasons that men in particular, uh, struggle is that I just want someone to see how fucking hard it is sometimes.

1:13:58Like this really, really sucks sometimes, or maybe even a lot of the time. I just see it, please just like pat me on the back and go, that's not easy. Dude, you, you crushed it for getting through that. And it's an odd kind of appreciation, awareness, recognition. It's like a gratitude from somebody else. Like they've sort of inserted it into us. They've hit us with a tranquilizer dart that's been filled with being seen. It's like, yeah, that, that was tough. Sorry you went through that. Congratulations for doing it. like, oh, thank you. Thank you. And again, the advice hyper responder thing for the people that worry, well, if I let my foot off the gas or if I take too much of this, you know, this sort of pussy sympathy stuff, I'm going to lose my edge.

1:14:51It's like, you haven't lost your edge ever. Like when was the last time that you backed off because you were being lazy? if you're the sort of if you're the sort of person that has hit burnout more than two times it's like what side of the ledger do you think that you typically fall on and and that thing that you're afraid of in yourself that you to let too much of it in it might have more wisdom than you realize oh well you've drained the fucking well of this side you've drained the well of the Goggins energy stuff. It's like, well, what's on the other side of something that's truly uncomfortable to you?

1:15:37Vulnerability, openness, sensitivity, connection, intimacy, truth. It's a different kind of power. And you don't know what that power is going to do. You don't know what doors that's going to open for you. That's the thing. That's really scary, right? There's the fear of getting up early. There's like the discomfort, the endurance that's required the resilience that's required to do that but what about the resilience required to truly say what you want or what you actually think to somebody about them in a sensitive way and to just say it and be like allow it to land now you're in no man's land you you're you're basically off road at that point because you don't know you know how to navigate the the thing you've always done you don't know how to navigate it's like if i if someone was always sarcastic in conversation and i say the key to your power at this point is to start to weave in some sincerity now that person you all all of like change personal change is contained even just in an example as pedestrian as this and as superficial as this because that person developed their sarcasm as a response to something and it worked for them on some level which is why they kept doing it and it became just entrenched as their way of being but that way of being created their world so now the way people respond to them the opportunities they get the opportunities they don't get that they don't even know they don't get is all a result of that way of being or in part from that way of being but if they stop doing that and if they listen to that advice to hey bring down the sarcasm bring up the sincerity the vulnerability the connection that person is going in sarcasm they're a black belt over here earnestness they don't even know how to walk so now you're like teaching someone how to walk in an area as a fully grown adult who's like i don't want to be in conversation now if i stop being sarcastic and none of this is really conscious.

1:18:00But in what's really going on is if I stop being sarcastic as my response system to things, what will I say? I won't even know what to say to begin with. So now I go from sounding slightly clever and maybe a bit witty, at the very least having other people on the back foot. With evidence that this works in the past. Right. To someone says something and And I go, yeah, no, it was a good weekend last weekend. Because I don't know what else to say because I'm not used to going to that style and that way of conversing and connecting with people. So now you're asking, this is why change is so fucking difficult.

1:18:40It's because you're asking that person to give up, maybe temporarily or in part, a tool that they know, a weapon they've wielded for so long. And to bring forward a weapon they don't know how to wield at all. and to suck at it and to live with sucking at it for some time, not with a leap of faith that doing this is going to get me more or better results than sticking to the thing that I know. It is extraordinarily hard. And it's why, by the way, I think that we should have some sympathy for the members of our family or our friends or anyone close to us who we are so tired of trying to get to change and we're like but you could be so happy if you just change this one thing or if you you would be so much we would have such a better relationship if you just stop that one thing because it's as hard for that person to change that thing as it is for you to change something that you find nearly impossible to change and it's why true change in any family system right we're all part of a family system in some way we all came from one in some way true change is a fucking miracle and when you actually deviate from your programming you're a pioneer you're the pioneer of your lineage because most of them didn't or couldn't didn't even come close you carried the torch a little further if you're finding it really if you're what if someone's watching this out there and going it's so hard to do like to change this thing or whatever yeah that's why most people die yes not changing yes it's expect that and you'll realize there's nothing wrong with you.

1:20:43There's nothing wrong with you. You're finding what every human being has ever lived has found difficult. You are finding difficult now. And that's what makes you a pioneer as opposed to the same as everybody else. Before we continue, if you think that all protein powders are basically the same, congratulations. That's exactly what they want you to think. Most brands never test their products after they leave the factory, while Momentous tests every single batch for purity and banned substances, which is why I partnered with them. They're literally the best on the planet. They're unparalleled when it comes to rigorous third-party testing.

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1:21:57That's L-I-V-E m-o-m-e-n-t-o-u-s.com slash modernwisdom and modernwisdom. A checkout. I've been thinking about vulnerability recently. Vulnerability is hard. Fully feeling your feelings gets in the way of life. They slow you down, make you doubt, open you up to mockery and cause you pain. Embracing your emotions sounds great in principle, but feels frail in practice. That being said, I'm to try and prove to you that embracing vulnerability is true strength. Vulnerability is speaking your truth even when it's scary. It's Joe Hudson's definition. Who is truly the braver person? The one who lets themselves feel, or the one who flees the second an emotion gets too close?

1:22:38The one strong enough to carry the full weight of their emotional experience, or the one so fragile that they have to suppress it? Without vulnerability, there's no courage. If there's no uncertainty, no risk, no exposure, you're not being that brave because there's nothing on the line. We're so quick to praise suppression as strength. We call it control, discipline. We pretend that emotional detachment is a sign of maturity. But fully living your life means actually feeling what happens, not just performing composure while something inside you quietly breaks. The enemy here is toxic stoicism, not the grounded, reflective kind, the hollowed out kind, the kind that rewards shutdown, that teaches you to be proud of how little you feel, as though restraint were the same thing as resilience.

1:23:20Fearing vulnerability turns your inner world into a minefield. It teaches you to treat emotions like threats. So you tiptoe carefully through your life, trying to not set anything off. Proud of your control, but slowly growing more disconnected from life around you. This isn't strength. It's avoidance rebranded. That's very good. I'm trying to make. That's very good. I'm trying to make vulnerability strong again. But like, I just think that point there, like. I'm enjoying your writing. Thank you. You write beautifully. Thank you. Yeah, I'm spending, I mean, I do this newsletter every week and it's a thousand words.

1:23:58So it's like everyone can write a thousand words a week. But after a while, I've done it for five years. So that's a quarter of a million words. That's a lot of fucking writing. And a lot of this stuff is, I'm not very good at journaling. Never really been very good at journaling. But it turns out that if I have to write for an audience, I'm much more consistent than if I have to write for myself. And much of this is me like, okay, I've conceded the fact that I'm a sensitive guy. Even if I present like a budget Andrew Tate, I've conceded that I feel shit more deeply than some people, maybe most people.

1:24:35And maybe that I've let myself in the past realize that I feel stuff as deeply as like I've suppressed that. There wasn't much room in the northeast of England at a state primary, secondary and sixth form college. and then, you know, university living with lads, there wasn't much room for, oh, this conversation I had today sort of like really made me a bit upset and I felt excluded and like that's whatever. Or I watched a Christmas movie and I cried because it was like really cute. Or like I saw a photo of a dog or like this girl, whatever, you know, there's not much room for that. And I think, again, it's because emotional mastery is an element of almost every definition of masculinity that exists cross-culturally, some sort of emotional mastery.

1:25:24And that's because if you are unable to effectively control the things that you feel, you cannot show up and operate reliably because you are going to be ragged around at the winds of whatever you feel, as opposed to, I just get done what needs to get done. And again, this praises suppression as strength, right? And restraint as the same thing as resilience. But this fleeing from emotions, it sort of comes back to what we were talking about before. Okay. You realize where you're, what are the things that you're really hiding from? Like what are the things that you're really unprepared to face?

1:26:03And it's not more of the same. It's not more bench press or Brazilian jujitsu or even more time meditating, right? All of these things are actions that you have done. They're a intentional, control,

1:26:22agentic approach to the world. They are not a release. They're not you letting go of that control. They are not you sort of turning inward and facing. It's not about exposure. uh it's not about opening up and this is there space for it in the world well very rarely have you had someone that's certainly very few people's parents are sufficiently uh educated in accepting the the complexity of a young sensitive person's emotions to be able to really give you a safe space you don't even know how to navigate how the fuck are they like you're a different person um so you grow up learning well i should probably just like not talk about that stuff or not open up in that sort of a way because it scares people or it does something else i learned this thing from joe hudson fucking awesome story his daughter was seven years old and she was crying in the bathroom she'd been crying a little bit recently over the course of a few months and he went in and was having a conversation with her about why she was crying.

1:27:29He said, you don't sound very sad to me. Are you pissed off? She said, yeah. It's like, hang on. You know when you cry, how often are you pissed off and how often are you sad? She's like, about 50%. It's like, okay, so half the time when you're crying, you're pissed off, not sad. Yeah. yeah why why don't you get angry says well when i cry my sister comes and comforts me but when i get angry everyone runs away like wow there are certain emotions that are more pro-social than others anger is one of them and i think that for men sensitivity is one of the things like a particular type of sensitivity especially if it's messy like if you see a guy who's like out of control with his emotions, not in an aggressive way.

1:28:25Almost when that happens, it's like, oh, there's respect out there. Like, you know, he's like, there's wrapped up in the sort of warrior mindset and like, yeah, maybe he's lost his chill, but it's done in a sort of directional, agentic kind of way. You know what I mean? It's lean in, 10 toes down type shit. Oh, this guy's, this guy's like struggling and down. Most people don't know what to do with that. And I think that that makes, in the same way as Joe's daughter said, like, when I'm angry, people run away. But when I cry, my sister comes and comforts me. I think that that's kind of a similar lesson that a lot of guys have learned, which is when I feign strength, people respect me.

1:29:13And when I embrace sensitivity, people turn away. it's what makes the most important decisions you'll ever make will i think are who you put yourself around who you choose as your friends who you choose as your partners because that there are people on this planet who are good with emotion who are have really evolved ways of being around someone who's emotional because they're they're in touch with themselves too and we often masochistically continue to put ourselves around people who who don't allow it for they don't allow themselves to be that way let alone us so it's like we're taking people who are you know not good at this thing and we're basing our behavior on their acceptance of us i i think we should get around people who are emotionally emotional black belts and make more friends with those people make more friends with people who aren't afraid to be vulnerable uh and by the way like i think there's a couple of things i'll say firstly what when it comes to being attractive because one of the things we're afraid of is being less attractive if we show too much emotion or vulnerability or sensitivity i'm a i've been talking for a long time about a concept i call unique pairings which is that what makes someone really attractive is not one dimension of something it's when you see two different qualities in the same person that you don't normally find in the same person so you have someone who knows how to be resilient knows how to be strong can lead but who at the same time can be intensely vulnerable and sensitive like there's no doubt to me not to kind of analyze why you're where you are but there's no doubt to me that one of the reasons that your audience has done this and your success has done this is because you have unique pairings if you had simply been the guy who came along and you know banged his fist on the table and talked about masculinity it would have got you somewhere because you have certain traits that are always going to make you successful to a degree but this doesn't happen like what you've built doesn't happen the this is what i mean by there's wisdom in that thing that part of us that we're afraid of there's no doubt in my mind that your sensitivity your ability to speak to people's hearts and men's hearts especially has opened doors for you that would have never opened if you hadn't tapped into that side of yourself i think it's why men sit and what is why men won't just watch a podcast with you that they enjoy once they'll they'll keep they'll be on they're on the journey with you they'll be on the journey with you for years to come because they're bought in to those unique pairings and also to i hope uh an underserved market right because in order to be able to say I cry at Christmas movies, there's a shame that kind of comes along with that if you live within a particular kind of ecosystem or a particular plane of the world.

1:33:03I just had yesterday a conversation with Tucker Carlson went up talking about men and masculinity. Tucker Carlson is not the guy to say I cry at Christmas movies to, but if I can be like, oh, well, I'm able to hopefully hold my own at least in like with Tucker in the kind of conversation that he wants to have about men and then sit down the next day with Matthew and be like, yeah, man, fucking sensitivity, dude. Like vulnerability is real strength. Uh, and I would happily, if I'd had more time, happily tried to make that case, that thesis to Tucker, even if he didn't agree with it. Um, but I think that you're right with what you say about these unique pairings.

1:33:41What's interesting is I thought you were going to go, uh, unique pairings between people. and I think both of these things are true. So Naval's first episode is only episode on Rogan where he says, you see a bear, that's kind of interesting. You see a unicycle, that's kind of interesting. You see a bear on a unicycle and you go, wow, look at that. So when you have, you know, like hard hitting philosophical insights with I've made some real money in the world, you go, oh, that's like a kind of a unique combination. You see somebody who can crush it in the boardroom and is prepared to be a puppy dog in the bedroom.

1:34:14Oh, that's interesting, right? There's tension there, there's complexity, there's layers and multitudes. Brilliant. Another element here is a lot of people, I think, especially the guys and the girls who have an issue with, let's say, sensitivity or have an issue with stoicness, right? On whatever side, whichever side of this equation you are, like I have a preference or a demeanor and my partner doesn't accept it or isn't able to reciprocate it. I think what you're talking about there is just a lack of compatibility. And so much of what is being navigated in relationships is just a straight up lack of compatibility.

1:34:56I had this idea that it's far easier to date somebody who compensates for our shortcomings than it is to fix them. So if you are the sort of person that likes to go to bed at 9pm and your partner wants to go out clubbing three nights a week, there is going to be tension there and you're going to have to navigate it. Now, maybe the rest of the relationship is so good that this slightly major thing of a different fucking sleeping pattern can be navigated through because everything else is great. But for the most part, there's going to be other stuff that comes along for the ride that you also don't agree on.

1:35:29Now, if you have to compromise your sleep two nights a week and they have to not go out one night a week. Both of you aren't getting the thing that you want, right? There is somebody out there who would love to party three nights a week. Allow them to find them. There is someone that would adore going to bed with you at 9pm every single night and wants that homebody life. Go and find them. And so much of the issues where people are trying to navigate this stuff is a lack of compatibility. Same thing goes for this. I think a lot of the guys who say, I opened up to my partner. Okay, so you feel feelings.

1:36:02That's good. Congratulations. You faced the scary thing, right? As a man, you face the scary thing. And my partner was turned off. They weren't for you. That partner was not the person who can hold you in your wholeness, right? In your truth, in your full expression of who you are. Allow them to go and find someone who is never going to open up their emotions to them. They don't need to worry about those icks. They're never going to get that ick because homeboy is never going to fucking talk about it. Enjoy that. enjoy this emotionless, barren wasteland of no one ever talking about their emotions.

1:36:34And maybe that's the guy that if you put him on a fucking poster, you can say he's masculine and he's going to stand up. It's like, great. You can date him. I'm going to go find someone who melts at the prospect of me being able to feel my feelings and then allows them to be a springboard for me to go and fucking destroy it in the world outside. Like that amount of compatibility and so much of like the memes that exist online are basically people saying, I dated someone whose demeanor and disposition did not match mine and my preference. And look at how everything broke apart. Allow me to create a broad rule of human nature overall from what is actually just you mixing vinegar and baking soda together.

1:37:17Yeah. And that, that, what you just described is, I think how people get more and more into these uh hyper-polarized echo chambers online because they they've had an experience it's been a very painful experience they then go in search of other people who've had that experience and they hear more of it and i'm not saying communities where people talk together about what they've been through aren't powerful because they are but what it can be instead is this you know i talk i talk in the in my book about this idea of the wall like staring at the wall you know the the very famous self-development trope you know the race car driver mario andretti said you know his advice for race car driving don't stare at the wall your cars go your car goes where your eyes go and but that i don't think people take that concept far enough in terms of what it really means we all have our wall right let's say it's people can't have people women don't like when i'm vulnerable right that's my wall i was vulnerable with someone once and they ripped my heart out and so now i go in search of other people who have that wall as well and all of us together stand there and point at the wall and we keep talking about the wall and we find more evidence for the wall everywhere we can find it we go out and search for it anytime we hear a story about it we say here look this has happened again and the wall becomes the world it's no longer a wall it's a law it's life yeah and that's the that's the truly dangerous part and that's like we have to stand back from anytime i hear women generalizing about men men generalizing about women and i'm like be very very careful of the the little worlds that you get into turning an individual experience into a globalized law i had there's a there's a um the other day i was on instagram my algorithm fed me a guy one of those little skit videos where it was a guy saying me doing xyz because i don't have kids so it was like me waking up at 8 8 a.m because i don't have me eating pizza at night because me checking my bank account that's so high because i don't have kids it was like all of that and there were thousands of comments on this and i was like waiting for i was like oh and people are people are going to be like tearing this guy to shreds in the comments about like how this is such a one-dimensional view and blah blah blah no thousands of comments from people just being like, yeah, me too.

1:40:06I'm, you know, I don't have to do anything on my weekends. I'm facing the wall along with you. Yeah. But it was like, just like everyone who had that wall, apparently the algorithm found them and all of them. It picked you wrong. You're ready to pop at the moment. For sure. Yeah. In the next couple of weeks. Like, but it's a funny thing for me as someone who was you know is having my first child with my wife who's like watching this and going and by the way looking at it and going i know that there was a me that was scared of commitment and having kids and all of that that really would have related to the things in this video well the the problem that you have with these is that there is a cohort of men out there for whom that is the life that they want and probably is the life that they should lead.

1:40:55You're like, you'd suck as a dad and you shouldn't make yourself one. Please continue to do that. Right. It's the same as, it's the same as, uh, women that say like all men are trash or whatever. Like if you make these sweeping statements, one of the wonderful sort of ways to, uh, neutralize the conversation. And also it makes you feel pretty good too. It's like men are trash and like, I'm done with men. It's like, okay, feel free. And you allow somebody to take the route that they want. The same thing with that guy. It's like, I'm so happy living this life. It's like, dude, great for you. You'd have been an awful dad anyway.

1:41:27Oh, what? I don't know. It's like, okay, well, which one is it, big boy? Like, which one do you want? Do you want to be able to have the counterculture, fucking black sheep, heterodox cynicism points? Or do you want to be able to say that you could have been this, would have been good at this, but have chosen the other one? I don't think that these two worlds are compatible and allowing someone to like, there's enough rope, dude, crack on. Yeah. Well, we're not good at, I don't, we don't like the complexity of, of life. And so we do kind of gravitate towards this very simple, like argument. When I was single, I had, I remember watching guardians of the galaxy, the first one and seeing, you know, Chris Pratt playing star lord and it became like this emotional button for me for why being single was awesome okay because you're just renegade yeah i was like i was like yeah i'm star lord

1:42:28so stupid but like you know how these funny things get in our head and they make sense to we're like yeah like that that's how how great is it and i get it like i really understand it It makes a lot of sense to me why we do those things. Now that I'm having a child, I'm looking at like Finding Nemo. I'm going like, oh, that movie's now like got a whole new meaning to me and how exciting to... So like, I get it. I get why we... It's a kind of survival mechanism. It's also a coping mechanism, right? That we go to these places to lean into our choices or to our lack of choices. and and so i get it but it's a very dangerous we're living in a really dangerous time belief wise where your algorithm will really pull you into these little worlds of people who all have the same wall that you do and celebrate it together and it often in some ways those are exactly the kind of people sometimes that you need to be able to stand back from because the people when i want to go somewhere different than where i've been the people i want to be around are people who don't have my wall at all they're like they don't they're not they don't even they're not even aware of my wall if i explained my wall to them they'd be like what wait really you've had that experience or you feel that way or whatever it's like not real to them and i i had a boxing trainer who he he told me a story of going into this was in London and he went into like he he was training like a lawyer and this lawyer took a shine to him and was like come out for a drink one night and you know he took him somewhere like really nice and he takes this rough and ready boxing coach from the east end of London into the west end and they go out to this like really beautiful place in Soho.

1:44:36And he's at the bar and my boxing trainer, the guy that I know is explaining the story to me. He said, I was standing at the bar and all of a sudden this guy that my client, who's just taken me out for a drink, looks at me and says, what's wrong with you? And my friend went, what do you mean? He goes, what's wrong with you? You look like you're about to fight someone. right and it he said what he realized in that moment was that he had walked into this bar immediately like was sort of scanning for threats and was looking for like you know who's the person making bad eye contact with me who's got mean intentions towards me and by the way this boxing trainer is a sweetheart he's a sweet inside he's a softy you get him talking about emotions he'll talk but something happened he went into that bar and he started looking for the wall because he's a guy that's grown up around in a rough time rough childhood he's had some things he's like looking for that threat and this guy this lawyer who's just boxing for fun is like looking at him going i've brought you to a nice place we're having a nice drink at the bar and you're standing there like you're about to fight someone like what's going on with you but the there's so much getting around someone did you see that clip of shohei otani um when it was like a three months ago or something by the way i'm going to say this as someone who knows nothing about baseball so for all you baseball i know everything about baseball so it's fine okay good you could correct me along the way forgive me for for butchering the rules of baseball but there's there's i i assume there is some scenario where throwing uh at the batsman actually makes sense in terms of like actually launching the ball at their body okay actually makes sense okay yeah if you want to walk them it's a foul ball yeah so the pitcher just launches it uh otani and he turns around and it cracks him on the back and i'm only watching this this clip with the commentators but there's this really interesting moment where like all of his teammates like they've already got one leg over the wall of the dugout where they're like about to rush the field and start fighting someone and he just stands them down he just like in his very classy way he just is like no no no i got it and the whole team stands down and the commentators are just like this i remember it because i thought it was such like a beautiful moment he goes this is the he was like this is why this guy is going to be a legend he transcends the sport like this is something that you know a normal thing the team would rush out and they're his teammates just stand down because he's like i'm fine he makes nothing of it and there was a guy i read the comments and there was a guy in the comments who was like i'm a hothead and i this is exactly the kind of situation that i would have turned into something and he said watching this is like an example of a different path this has taught me so much and that it what you have is a guy who's he knows what his wall is but he's watching another guy who doesn't have that wall who's got no he hasn't got that thing that says someone just wronged me let me turn this into a fight it's all good this like you have to get around people who don't even understand like they don't even buy into your frame of reference because those are the people that are going to take you into new worlds those are the people that make you realize life is not there's no one reality there's so many different realities and get around people who by being around them and by thinking like understanding the way they think and the way they process things it puts you in a different reality altogether there is a difference between being around people who teach you stuff from a different perspective and being around people that you can't be yourself around right like yes yeah that's different difference between like education and incompatibility uh dude i i love you i love your work i think you're fucking fantastic everyone needs to check out everything that you're doing and uh you're gonna have a kid by the time this comes out as well you're gonna have a brand new little pussy in the world it's a crazy time man i i i my whole life will change in a matter of the next two weeks from this episode i said my wife already where she's at term so like it could have happened you know while i could got that call in the middle of this podcast to say it's time to go to the hospital but i love you too brother and it's like a it's a real i get excited about the conversations we have i think you're doing something really really different you know you know i feel that way i think you're doing something special and you're special and it's something unique you're bringing to the world so thanks for having me i appreciate you until next time man if you are looking for new reading suggestions look no further than the modern wisdom reading list.

1:49:51It 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.