#727 - James Smith - Do You Actually Need Passion To Be Successful?

23:24So why not pick one that's enjoyable? Just pick one that makes the world seem a little bit rosy or assumed that the glass is awful. And this is so wild for me to say, because six, seven years ago, I was Mr. like, still I'm very conservative, very risk of us, all the rest of it, but it wasn't just showing up in my actions, it was showing up in the way that I perceived the world, too. Whereas now it's kind of like, prepare for the worst hope for the best, is kind of, I guess, how I would set myself up. still in terms of actions, very risk of us, but in terms of the way that I see the world, pretty optimistic, and pretty hopeful.

23:58But you've got another thing that says, becoming feels better than being. It was, Carol Dweck's. Is it? Yeah. Wow. Just in case. You repurposed it. But it's true, right? What is it that Drake says? People don't want you when you have things or when you're going there. If we were to paint like a, I think it's dangerous to paint a finished product, which makes becoming something very difficult. the version or the idea of becoming something, whether, you know, that's always going to morph. One day becoming a father, one day becoming a grandparent, one day becoming a business owner, one day becoming whatever it is.

24:32The journey of becoming something I think is so much sweeter, I even think in martial arts becoming a black belt, the way towards it is probably a lot more beautiful than when you accomplish it. When you get the black belt, even though it's the most, you know, best achievement in martial arts, it'll feel just like all the belts you have before. Within three months, it was just about, you know, like, it's such a weird way of doing it. But again, it is that thing of saying to people, the version, you know, stop for a second, you know, you might say, what was it, Homozi said? He said, during my 20s, I wanted to be a millionaire, and I'm a millionaire, I want to be in my 20s.

25:06So many people might want to work towards something so much. And then by the time they get there, they just want to be the version of themselves that was working the way towards it. Ricky Gervais as well. He said about, The amount of times he presented the office to TV production companies, they declined it. They didn't want it. It's tons of times. He struggled, he went through all these different phases of his life and he said, if I could trade all of that effort for the same amount of money, I wouldn't take it. He enjoyed the struggle getting there so much. But is it only worth the struggle because there was glory in the end?

25:41That's an interesting point, which is, I could never answer that. There's a survivorship by the surface. the course, which is how many people have the platform to talk about how grateful they are for the struggle that didn't make it to the point where they have a platform. How many people, listening to this, there's really funny boys cast episode with Danny who we partied with in New York and him and Ryan were talking about how young kids that want to become creators are kind of being talked out of it a lot of the time by the teachers. And then you hear these rappers talking about like Mr. Henderson in year nine, like you didn't believe in me, but Mr.

26:21Henderson I've shown you now, but he's like, yeah, but how many fledgling rappers did Mr. Henderson save from a life of Shit SoundCloud uploads? So the survivorship bias that kind of gets layered in here, I think is interesting. But the ultimate, the ultimate answer is that Ricky Gervais wouldn't have achieved the success. How do you not stuck about? So maybe it's a tale like a far right tale outcome. But if you get rid of that, you lose all of the tail, right? If you start to bring that in and if people don't have that hope, every single morning for over three years now, I've started my day the exact same way, which is with element in water.

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27:37That's how confident they are that you love it. And element are giving away a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box if you go to the link in the description box below or drink LMNT .com slash MW that's drink LMNT .com slash MW. And the other thing as well is because of this cult of despondency and cynicism online, the minimum bar that people are prepared to quit at continues to get higher and higher, right? that people will quit much sooner than they will do previously. And this is one of the things, I really wanted to bring this up, and I really thought it was important for me to talk about this, about how much uncertainty and luck and randomness and self -doubt both of us had during everything, including stepping out on stage, pretty much every single night, that in Elon's book at the moment, he kind of goes through a Walter Isaacs and explains just how hard he had to work.

28:38And I think that stories about success coming about due to incredible levels of hard work makes achievements seem more attainable, not less attainable. Because if it was no hard work, you go, where did it come from? Oh, it just came from luck. Oh, well, how the fuck am I supposed to manifest that? Whereas if you say, oh, I did was just the same thing, 750 times over and over again. So, oh, well, like anyone can do that. It's going to be hard, but it's not an impossible feat. It's not some ethereal out there in the fucking astral realm, like, piece of luck. It's not being bestowed by anybody. It's just a thing that happened and sure there is luck and randomness on top.

29:16But I think being open about the process and the hard work in the self -doubt makes things that are incredible seem more achievable. I'm going to answer this in two ways. The first part about the survivorship price, 100 % credible. But I also feel now that biases can be used to just counteract someone's points because you might make a really, really important point that makes me think, oh, I need to work harder. I need to be doing more. But what you said might challenge me to the point that I might now pick a bias to use as a new no reverse card. So you could say to me, like, ah, you know, James, if you want to have a successful podcast, I recommend you do 500 more episodes of what you've done.

29:53And I could go, this guy's above shit bias, you know. A lot of people aren't there if they're able to podcast. So there's that which I don't like. You're completely right, but at the same time, I don't like them and people use a biose to try and explain why they're, what they're doing is not working. And the second point is we had two lads that I'll last event who wanted to do well on YouTube whatever. And they were telling me this, telling me that I was like, do 100 videos. And they were like, okay, cool. I was like, yeah. But stop that to make 100 videos. And he asked me something else, I was like, mate, you are not going to learn what you suck at into your, do 100 videos.

30:28And I said, out one out of a hundred of those, one of them is going to do better than the others. And I said, you can now look at that, one go, why not do that one do well. And then when you've done a hundred, you should probably do a hundred more videos. And I could say you see it like settling in with them. And ultimately, people aren't going to learn until they start doing the work. And that level of work for some people is fine, for others, it's not. but you have to have like an unwavering belief that it could work, like you say. And I actually think fantasy is a great word to describe it in the early onset of using social media.

31:02I didn't make enough money that I could save it. So instead I was like, okay, I'm gonna make a different interest savings account which depends on effort, not money. And that interest savings account is gonna be convincing hundreds and maybe thousands of people. And that's not hundreds of thousands, that's hundreds, maybe thousands of people that trust me as a coach. And I thought I can't make enough money to put away tens of thousands into property or anything else. And instead I was like, I'm just gonna work hard to get these people to trust me. And I think that that is such a powerful tool that anyone can really do despite the effort.

31:37Are you gonna have a big enough pod to be invited on Morgan? Probably not. But if you put in that amount of effort, could you get a small collective group of people to maybe come to your event by your product? Do whatever it is you're working to do. chances are probably. And again, like there was also been people that I talked that compared their podcast to yours. And you're like, that's not going to set you up, though. There's no amount of hard work that can really bridge that gap. And I think people do need to become very centric on their own journey. And even if someone else has been incredibly fortunate, what is it?

32:12Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers speaks about how lucky Bill Gates was to be born, it could be out there, it could be saying else, to be born at a certain time where if Bill Gates was a little bit older, he would have missed the first computer because he'd be out working somewhere else. And if he was that little bit younger, he would have already been created. Yeah, so then I do think there is an element of luck where when I was 24, 25, I was at a point where I was probably confident enough to speak on camera, videos were just becoming popular on social media platforms, Facebook, then Instagram came along.

32:46I came along at a time where there was a low amount of creators taking advantage of it, but there was a high amount of users on the platforms. So there is a tremendous element of luck to everyone that's journeyed, but if you're not working hard when that wave of luck comes along, who is it that says, luck is where preparation meets opportunity? I don't know. I think that's one of those ones that's kind of been repurposed by every every person now. It's just got Jay Shetty written on the bottom. Dude. Yeah, maybe. There was this idea called Churchill and Drift, which I think I've taught you about before, which is the phenomenon whereby quotes that are unattributed over time progressively get more and more likely to be attributed to Churchill.

33:27And like, yeah, it's literally his name called Churchill and Drift. I think it was Churchill that said, luck is when preparation meets opportunity. It's just one of those guys where you go, yeah, that seems about right. Let's throw it towards Churchill. But no, I don't disagree about the timing thing. One consideration I've had in my mind for a little while is don't assume that something you see as obvious is obvious to everybody else. You know, you seeing a video creation, well, there's quite a lot of people that watch video and I watch video, but there doesn't seem to be so many creators. That might be to you if you had the wrong mindset, well, everybody knows that.

34:07Everybody knows that. So what's the point in me trying? If you look at the growth of podcasting per audience over time, it is just continuing to go like that. I think it's maybe last year by a percentage started to tail off a little bit, but still huge, huge numbers. Five years ago, it might have seemed like, well, yeah, everybody's got a podcast. You go, well, yeah, but in five years time, really everybody's got a podcast. So I don't think that you can assume something you take for granted. I remember two I found out about this is like my fucking $100 million dollar exit not manifest. I found out about Bitcoin in 2010 No, 2012 I found out about Bitcoin in 2012, right price would have probably been Less than a hundred bucks.

34:57I found out about Ethereum in 2016 price was I remember it wavered between 19, 120. And I was like, everybody knows about this. Everyone knows about dark web. Everyone knows about like Silk Road. Everyone knows about buying drugs online. Everyone knows about cryptocurrency. And then you see a bull run in 2018, 2019, 2020 happened. You go, oh, right. No, now it's kind of starting to hit mainstream. And there's still tons and tons of people. But we just don't have that theory of mind to work out what is obvious to us, but might not be to everyone else. You know, like I've never been interested in like Bitcoin, a theory of maintenance, like still not really because you don't have much control over that stock.

35:41Like there's the market sure people have a good understanding. There's going to be a lot of people that are always going to know more or have better insights to whatever. But when it comes to creating something yourself, whether a business, because a business can be grown with paid ads or organic effort, because you can either pay for people to see your stuff or you can do it organically and do the work yourself. Then, you know, when you really want to go after something, you can pause the Netflix episode, you won't really watch it anywhere because you're on your phone and you can make sure it happens, you can get your phone out, you mess people, DM people, get back to people, just story Q &A, whatever.

36:11You can improve, you can manipulate your own stock through effort, whereas with investments, you can't manipulate your own stock. It's the mercy of the market. And another point about podcasts and about social media and about video creating content, There were some people listening like, oh, but I'm not a video creator. But even now I see real estate agents. I see people that sell insurance, making like TikToks or whatever. We have one guy come to Ash Kaga event who was like, mate, I make TikToks or the properties that I go in. I'm one of the people that watches it. When someone drops the hook of, this is what, $1 .2 million buys you in Calgary.

36:43I want to know. I'm like, what does $1 .2 million? So like, there are so many people, like when I started being an online coach, people were like, how'd you pt people online? It was like saying, I'm an online plumber. That's exactly the look they gave me at first. But another thing that is really crazy, people go, oh, shall I become a PT? And sometimes I think, no, sometimes I think, yeah. But then I was like, although the space is saturated, I don't think it's that competitive. And I actually think it's the same with a podcast, where, although everyone's got a podcast, if you want to be one of the best, you actually don't have to do that much work.

37:18You need good production, good organization. Here's one thing for you. One of the reasons that you are very, very good at this is the half an hour you spend before the podcast putting all your attention into research. There are so many people out there that do podcasts that don't do that. They're willing to do everything, but not that. And that's a little bit more than half an hour, but a little bit more. But Hall Mosey says 20 minutes of preparation ads 20 IQ points. So true. If you do 20 minutes of preparation before you go into a meeting, so true man. 20 minutes of preparation before you go into it might not be him.

37:55This might be, this might be a whole movie and drift. I think it was Alex Formozzi who once said 20 minutes of preparation. But it's true. If you sit down before you're about to have a meeting with someone or a sales call or a job interview or whatever and you say, all right, so where are they from? Or whatever whatever. And he like, oh, you're from Hertfordshire. I used to play rugby in Hertfordshire. Do you know that, and you're like, oh my God, this person knows it's exactly the same as before we go into Canada, we're texting our Canadian friends, going, you know, what if we go, oh, Edmonton is home to the world's second largest mall after Dubai, right?

38:29Have I got any mall jokes that I can come out? I like, have I got any Justin Trudeau jokes? Or we go into Chicago and I start talking about the architecture. It's exactly the same. It seems like, oh my God, how deep does his knowledge run? His knowledge must be so deep because he was just able to pluck this idea. He's like, yo, that architecture joke is the beginning and the end of my knowledge about Chicago. But it seems like you've got way more preparation than you do. And it's crazy that so many people put so much effort into one side of things, but not the other. But even just people rest in your short light.

39:00You can't make your crypto collection shoot up overnight. But you can improve the level of your research, the level of your production, the level of your video. even just thinking a little bit more about what you make content about can hugely have a positive direction on what it's going to. I wrote a newsletter this week about one of the questions that we got asked quite a lot. Lots of people at the live shows asked about how to decide between the multiplicity of options we all have in our lives. There are more things I can do with my time than time I have to do them in. How do I choose? That was one of the most common questions.

39:36And this is from Navarre. If I'm faced with a difficult choice such as, should I marry this person, should I take this job, should I buy this house, should I move to this city, should I go into business with this person? If you cannot decide, the answer is no. And the reason is, modern society is full of options. So this is an interesting reframe to the paradox of choice. Yes, there are lots of things that you can do with your time, with your time, there are unlimited number of options. This can make it hard to decide on which option to choose. but it also reduces the pressure of all decisions.

40:06If something isn't an obvious slam dunk, yes, then it's likely a better option will come along soon. As Derek Sivas says, if it isn't a hell yeah, it's a no. The only caveat to this is it doesn't work with time -sensitive things like having children. So it's interesting. I always thought it was Mark Manson that said if it's not a fat kiss, it's a no, which could have been a slight... ...on duration. Sivas was the first one to do it, actually. Do you know where the most obvious... So I love talking about paralysis of options as being like a real way to negate your ability to make a decision, when you go to shop for aftershave.

40:39There is too much going on. There is if you're into buy. Yeah, and like people come in left -right center, like, hello sir, and they're quite literally, mate, if you walked in and there was someone that you looked at you up and down and then was like, okay, I recommend these three. And you know, you've only got three in front of you. You see the yes or no. But the chances for me saying yes if the options are reduced, I think are a little bit better. You've seen Barry Schwartz is the paradox of choice, that idea about jeans. Have you seen this? No. Super famous TED talk. I'll send it to you once we're done.

41:07So, I think Barry Schwartz, the paradox of choice, was maybe 15 years ago. I remember where I was, where I was listening to it on YouTube, driving to Scotland down Great North Road in Newcastle. This must have been, this must have been 10 years ago when I was listening to this. So, 50 years ago, you want to buy paragines. You go into a department store and there is one type of jeans, probably blue, right? There's no different options. There are sizes, 30 ways, 32, 34, etc. So you go in, yes, you don't have an unlimited number of options, but your ability to make a decision is made much more simple.

41:41Now, you go into a store and do you want boot cut or straight, do you want skinny, do you want ripped, do you want bleached, do you want them to be cropped, do you want them to be full length? Don't even know what half this means. Precisely, right? And since top man's closed, none of us ever will again. But the point being previously you couldn't maximize the utility in economists terms that you got from each individual decision, because that particular only single pair of jeans you could have bought might not be quite precisely the fit and the look that you were going for. But the other side of this that we don't usually think about is the psychological price that you have to pay to reach a point of decision making.

42:20And that is made way harder when there's an unlimited, essentially an unlimited multiplicity of options because in the past, a suboptimal decision was because of constraint. Now a suboptimal decision is because of your error at making a right decision. Does that make sense? Yeah. Back to the second point of what you said about having children. Having children is really interesting thing, right? And I think there's almost a plague. you've got people that we've spoken about ambition, ambition, an incredible thing to be riddled with in life, you know, a dissatisfaction with the norm, a dissatisfaction of average, all of these things.

42:56And that has a positive correlation on absolutely every area of your life apart from the decision making process of children. Because there is a point, and I wonder if you're in this part of your life right now where the table throws hot, everything you do goes well, every episode you do. You know, like the Goggins episode, for instance, nearly could not have happened, but you persisted. You fought for it. You got in there. It happened. It slapped. It did amazing. I think it's the video you have on your channel. It is. It's the channel trailer still, yeah. And you think, oh, if I'd maybe been up all night with a crying baby, I would have had the persistence and the tenacity and the audaciousness to say what I said to lock that in.

43:33So now you create this argument in your head between the table being hot. Because in some respects, you do need to turn your back on the table a little bit to bring up from raised children. Yeah, deciding advance what you're going to suck at. So, have you made any decisions in your mind? Do you push it back to an age? Because readiness is a very subjective thing when it comes to children. If you say, I'll wait till I'm ready, you might wait until you're no longer fertile. So then the second thing I believe people do is they set an age. Then that age seems to be pushed back year by year. Well, if you, this is when I will have kids, is usually this is when I will start to think about having kids.

44:08And that is what if the relationship that you're in doesn't work, what if you Decide to start dating but it takes time to find someone what if you cycle through multiple relationships? What if your other partner, you know, what if it takes time to conceive? So yeah, I think Whatever the reverse of a buffer is like an inverted buffer like start sooner than you think you need to if you want to have kids Probably not a bad idea, but you're right like I do think about this a good bit And it's it's hard to say this without coming across wine key So I'll try and do it without annoying the internet. But the table does feel hot.

44:39Like pretty much anything that I touch at the moment seems to go well. And that's terrifying because it's a very high place to fall from. And it really does. It shits me up to think, fuck, like everything's so great. All of my friends are healthy. My family's healthy. I'm healthy. Everything's going fine. I haven't been canceled. I haven't stepped foot on some sacred cow or landmine. It's going to blow my leg off. Every single month the show grows more. every single month we've got better guests coming on. Dude, the fucking Q1 for next year is just so insane. Like dream guests that I've wanted for decades or the coolest guys on the planet, messaging me on WhatsApp.

45:15Like, your man can't wait to get this thing sorted in Miami or in LA or in London or whatever. But it's a high place to fall from. And that's like really, really scary. It's the opposite of expectations. It's like you actually got to taste what it was like to be there. What is it? The Will Smith says. being famous, gaining famous amazing, being famous is a mixed bag and losing famous torture. It's, I think it's something that I think about a lot and I think that I've been trying to, I told you I had that ADHD assessment and in it they told me I had anxiety. That's not the cool one. That's not the cool one.

45:51I was like, take that back, shut your mouth. And with it, we like, try to get to the bottom of it and the way I make tasks important enough to do with them and spend time with them is to catastrophize a terrible outcome. So she was like this. Fee a based motivation. Yeah, she was like, this isn't a great mechanism to be using. But in essence, I kind of, there will be times I'm not a ham bit tired. I'm going to have a nap and I'm like, oh, you know, you could fall off and no one ever wants to watch your content anymore. So then I just build up that looming anxiety of falling off and never being relevant.

46:19And you know, even though there's part of me that almost sees going backwards slightly utopian because I could always go back to 15 clients on the gym floor. people were like, oh, my PT used to be no, it used to be James. Yeah, it used to be something. Now look at him, maybe no, like, so there's always that in the back of the mind, but like, it is crazy that you could think about that so much because the higher you go, the faster you can fall. And it's difficult because I bet that should you then, say you have children, I bet you will say to yourself, wow, this is actually the single most important project on my life that I've cherished, whatever it is.

46:54And I said this to you on the tour, I was like, I've got friends that have kind of been, what, you know you've got blue pill, red pill, black pill, what pill would you call it when they've kind of been coerced out of having children because of climate or because of, you know, a declineism. Probably black pill, it's a kind of black pillism, I guess. So I, a lot of my friends are kind of like, oh yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna have kids. And I'm like, do you have a good life? And they say, yeah, I have a great life. And I went, who stopped enjoying their life so you could have yours? And oh yeah, my parents did.

47:21How old are they? Oh, they're about 36. Oh, so, you know, maybe you could do what you're parents for it. But there's, to climb as a miss the idea that the world's becoming a worse place. And social media, I think that's ever growing to make people feel like it is because think about it, right? We had fucking pandemic. Then we had Ukraine, Russia. Now we've got Palestine as well. Like some people on social media are like, I'm too crippled by the state of the world. Now we've given James Clinton a live tour. Yeah, so like, but then women are better educated than ever. less women died during childbirth than ever.

47:54The rates of infants making it to the age of reproduction are higher than ever. World famine is lower than ever. I'm pretty sure even I'm not trying to, you know, underplay the state of the world as far as war, but when you look at world war two, when you look at world war one, when you look at the amount of deaths that countries lost to war pre this modern time. Surely, you know, even the amount of available tap water to certain nations in the world. The number of climate related deaths has decreased by 98 % over the last 100 years to 50x decrease. So we could build a pretty strong argument to these black pill bankers.

48:33The state of the world is getting better. And I really, it's crazy that if you were to say anything along the lines of to stop a population breeding, it could be considered genocidal. But then when it's you and your family is considered to go, you know, you're saving the planet. What a hero. Well, I hate the fact that there's virtue in the black mentalty. Well, there's, when it comes to not having kids, when it comes to trying to discourage people from having children around climate change, I think a massive amount of that is people's selfishness or fear around life changing, around what becoming a parent will be like, just repurposed into what seems like an altruistic philosophy.

49:25It's their personal motivations being put out, it's called the Inocetadel by Asiable Inn, which is that you basically repurpose something which is an inward fear into an outward like social justice campaign. And it's not wrong, women get complications during childbirth. And sometimes the kids don't make it to term. And that's brutal and awful and painful. And that is an absolutely honest fear that women can and do have. But saying that it's because of climate and because you don't want the world to end and because there's too many people, which is fucking horse shit, given the decline in birth rates at the moment.

50:06It's an increase, even the decline in birth rate, which is not a subjective opinion. If you look at the objectives, statistics, of repopulus in the US, which is where the majority of the data is from, you can literally say to people, we are not having enough children. We know how many people are going to be around in however many years' time, because as told, demography is destiny. We can't make any more one -year -olds. We can't make any more two year olds. We can't make any more three year olds. So we can predict with 100 % accuracy, the maximum number of people that can be around in future.

50:40It's one of the very few things that you can have absolute accuracy with doing. You see Kim Jong -un was weeping, he was dabbing his tears away as he begged North Korean women to have more children. This happened a couple of weeks ago. So yeah, bro, there was this, I spoke about this with Danny from the Boyzcast. First, this Canadian guy had got a vasectomy so that he wouldn't have kids. Frozen sperm, though, which kind of feels a little bit like a fucking pole ripcord in case of children. Frozen got a vasectomy so that he would not negatively impact the climate, then spent the next five years flying around Asia with his partner.

51:23So he said it could be argued that the gains that we made for the climate by not having a child were offset by all of the flights we took living our freedom. And this is the other side that one of the most common reasons for people not entering relationships and not having kids at the moment is just don't feel ready or enjoying my life too much. Basically, there are so many things you can do right now that are enjoyable, that are right in front of you that are convenient and comfortable from entertainment to travel, to experiences, to time with friends, to all the rest of the things. The standard of living has raised even the worst type of life, so much to a degree of comfort and enjoyment and convenience that many people look at children and say, well, that feels like a downgrade.

52:08Whereas in the past, it's like, what else have you got to do? 1960s sat there with a book in a glass of wine. What else are you going to do? Darling, we have some children, yes. is going to fall all the way on. Yeah, exactly. It's interesting, like, exactly that. One thing, you know, it's quite, it's weird. If you were to worry about men, it can come across as almost like, you know, something misogynist is about to come. Misogynist is about to appear. But I believe, and again, I could be wrong with this, from the observations in my life, that women gets to a certain point where they start to really think about family, they start to get maternal instinct.

52:48So they start to even look at children and be like, oh, I could broodiness. I think for men, it's easier for them to medicate their needs with porn, video games. So even you look at something that, and again, I can't speak on behalf of women, but for men, they have sexual desires, which can be fulfilled much easier via porn than it is via women. So they can have access to more vaginas in one hour than prehistoric humans and history, which I believe Jordan Peterson made a good point on. But even if we look into the complexity of male status, men want recognition, they want to be known being good.

53:24And even I was thinking about this, a few weeks ago, I was playing Call of Duty, and this lad comes into our lobby to play with us. And he was level like a thousand. And me and my mates just thought, not shitting him off, like, mate, I bet you're a fucking savage. You know, this guy must be sick. You know, let's have a look at his KD ratio, right? Let's have a look at him. This guy is probably like 15 year old, right? He has got a level of status from their video games that strangers are giving him credit. Then he was in animal, he got 20 kills in the game and it was owned. And then I was thinking this is dangerous because he probably gets more recognition, more, you know, compliments, more credit, more everything from a video game than he ever could in his life at 15.

54:03And the way we're creating a world that can help people, especially men, and Medicaid their primitive needs without the need to leave their bedroom, existing society, even work in some respects. You know, I went to sign on the doll when I was 19. I couldn't get a job, I wasn't really looking that hard. My dad made me sign on the doll, bit embarrassing. And I was like, Dad, I'm not going to the job center and he was like, son, I've paid the highest tax bracket for 40 years. He was like, you make your way to the center. So I got there and for the record, I took a first job before I ever got to pay out, but they do this thing where they go, are you better off in work?

54:38It's a legit form. You sit there. How many hours can you work a week? I was like, all of them. They were like, okay, because if you can only work 20 hours, you're worth more money on the state than you ever would get in a job. And you think to yourself that there are going to be people out there that maybe are meditating that needs to be porn, alcohol, whatever. And they quite literally have the opportunity. They can buy it. Why would I work 40 hours and be potentially someone of no significance in doing this job, whereas I could have real significance being in the world of warcraft or wherever.

55:09And video games are only getting better. They're only getting better. Where there's more cooperation, more teamwork, more strategy, more rank. You know, even the way that social media was designed to give you the gambling effect when you swipe down as like a root, what's it called in the casino, is it? It's a variable schedule reward. That's the one. I knew you'd know the name for it. So like, as we see even gamification of things online being made to the point to really tap into human psychology, I worry to the point that as we kind of touched on before, someone's reality in the online world could be better than their reality outside of it.

55:43Have you heard my male sedation hypothesis? No, but I'm excited for it. Okay, well it's basically what you've just described, which is men are being sedated out of their reproductive and state of seeking behavior by a combination of porn, social media screens and video games. It's the reason why we haven't got dispossessed groups of men going around and causing riots because they are literally being sedated out of those things. There's when you have high groups of sexless men, which you do have at the moment, under the age of 30, which is high -t, high anti -social behavior, typically, there is a question to be asked, where's all of the in -sell killings?

56:18Like, this isn't a request. And I'm putting a request in with the DJ. But there's a question, right? You know, you see stuff like Sandy Hook and these sort of mass shootings and all the rest of it. But if those things, which they should do, would be moving in line with the degree of dispossession of young men. You would expect to see way more, and we're not. And it's my contention that screens, social media, porn, video games are sedating that behavior out of guys. It's interesting as well. Do you know what? This wasn't even like a legit video. It wasn't the study. It was just some guy rambling on Twitter.

56:50He was talking about how in the Roman Empire they built the Coliseums to keep the, you know, just people occupied. You know, if they didn't get to see carnage, war, murder in the Colosseum, it would allow their thoughts and their thinking about social situation and the amount of food they had and their access to water, it was almost in a bid to entertain them to keep them occupied. The musing, the minted sedation, yeah. So when you look at things like, you know, you've got the premiership football, you've got sport, you've got politics, you've got social media, you've got all of these things. So almost like a puppeteer pulling strings to keep people in a state of sedation, keeping don't tax it.

57:24Yeah, exactly. Don't look over there. Don't look over there. Oh yeah. Looking over here. There's another war for you to be outraged about. Oh, look at it. And it is crazy because if you were to look at the, even the statistics of how many, and of course, you know, the lockdowns a little bit, we tempered towards clusters. If you think about the amount of people for every law enforcement officer or every soldier in the country, they're at numbered vast amounts. And you're always on this like precipice of revolt and all civilization through history. Especially being in America, you are. especially when they're armed.

57:54And one thing that you know, you think about a lot of the time is we live in a time where we seem to think our civilization is perfect and it's going to be evergreen forever. So we look through history and every single civilization for us has collapsed. And it's collapsed for loads of various reasons of which I'm just not well educated enough in. Then you look to this like sedation in cell fertility rates, rebirth rate. And people are like, no, no, no, it's the climate that's going to get us. The sun is going to boil the seeds. And you look around, you're like, which one's gonna go first? Because if you stop having babies to stop the temperature growing up a couple of degrees, if you guys aren't gonna chat to girls because you're wanking and world of warcraft, and you know, if...

58:33There's more immediate problems here. Yeah. Well, there's a great book. It's on that reading list that I released. I think it's the third book down, The Pressapist by Toby Ord, which is a primer and existential risk. It's really great. And this guy has gone to the ends of the earth to try and work out what the risk is of different types of natural risk and anthropogenic risk. So natural risk is volcanoes, asteroids, supernova, et cetera, et cetera. And I think natural pandemic is part of anthropogenic risk actually, which is kind of strange. But then you've got nuclear weapons, climate change, natural pandemics, engineered pandemics, nanotechnology, AI, et cetera.

59:11And it's like climate change, I think, is one in a thousand or one in 10 ,000 chance of ending civilization over the next century. AGI's 1 in 10 natural pandemics are 1 in 30 engineered pandemics are 1 in 6. So you have these things that are orders of magnitude. Malfursuvius is worrying me more. Yeah, well, actually the supervolcano thing is not too bad. Apparently, according to him, he's done the numbers. There's like some stuff in there that's like 1 in 20 billion. I'm like, that's the cool one. That's the one that we want. If I want to go out, I want to go out in a supernova. But yeah, just, I've been singing this song for ages.

59:49Climate change is not an existential risk priority. But now we're going to get labeled climate change to noise. No, I'm not saying that climate change doesn't exist. I'm saying it's not an existential risk priority. I'm saying that there are things that are more important than that that we need to get on with. And there are ways to fix the climate that are much more and improve the quality of life that are much more important than what we're working on at the moment. And you know, that boars round to actually the very principles that, because me and you're very different people, but we share very similar values.

1:00:15And a lot of our values are actually because people are going to go, why are these guys on a tangent talking about all these abstract things? But the reality is that when you come back to it, where we say that people have more things that they need to be worried about, it actually ties into the very things in which we are telling people to become more mindful of, which is effort, ambition, relationships to failure, and the reality of the situation, not the reality of the information, efforts of it. Like one of the main parts of my last book was saying to people, the way you see the world is dictated by the information you are fed about it, not the actual situation.

1:00:49I joke about the lottery tickets. Whenever anyone wins the lottery, come on Trevor, come up here, get up here, come on fucking L .M .A. We're going to give you a check. So big, the bank doesn't even accept those checks. The check is only printed to that massive bit of cardboard to skew other people's reality. The bigger check, it must be more important. Zach, you're a house mate, actually, was showing me a weightlifter, I think he cleaned and jerked like 210 kg and they brought him out a massive check for $250 and he's like, mate, that check must have cost $100 to make. So like, when we see these little tricks that are played by people to paint the reality of the world around them, such as the big check to make people feel like they're actually going to win the lottery, we need to realize that even just a few friends in your social circle who are pessimists or doubters or whatever, that does influence your reality to how you see the world.

1:01:38I mean, you've probably experienced a lot since moving to Austin, right? So Newcastle, even if you were to go see your friends at the pub, whatever, they're not on the same wavelength as the level in the place you're at. It's very hard to have that conversation. I've tried to bring this up on stage. And again, that rocket ship analogy, which I've developed whilst being on stage, which has been really cool, to actually have ideas come to you while you're in front of 500 people, which is also scary. So you go, wow, I'm treading new ground now. This might be total dog shit, but it ended up being okay.

1:02:07But it's hard to have that conversation without it sounding like you're making a value judgment around certain people being better or more worthy or something than other people. And I don't think that that's what you're saying. Certainly, you know, what I've been saying in the live tour, but trying to find people who match your personal growth velocity is really hard. If you're a rocket ship that's taking off at 10 ,000 meters per second and someone else is moving at 100 meters per second, there's only a small while before you're very far away from them. And it's hard to have conversations about things because the things that you're struggling with are different to the things that they're struggling with and the dreams and the goals that you have have now outgrown the dreams and the goals that they have.

1:02:41That's not to say that they can't even catch you up and they may be overtaken in future. They very well may do, but it's going to be tough for you to find common ground unless that person is very open and honest and unless you are too in order to be able to do that. But you always want to try and find people that are ahead of you because they're the ones that are going to bring you along. It's like show me what is it? Show me your friend group. I'll show you your future. And I've found this earlier on. It's so funny. I read literally as I was in the car on the way here. Are we ruled by midwits, this new blog post?

1:03:10It's brilliant. The people in charge are more stupid than you, basically. This is from Machiavelli, one of his books. The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. If we look at the men and women around our contemporary rulers, what do we find? Few reasons for optimism, I'm afraid. In 2011, the Royal Statistical Society asked 97 British MPs a simple maths question. If you spin a coin twice, what is the probability of getting two heads? Since the chance of getting a heads on one spin is 50 % and two spins are independent, the answer is just 50 % times 50%, 25%.

1:03:44Not exactly quantum physics. Shockingly, only 40 % of MPs got the answer right. Among labor MPs, it was only 23%. Most of those who got the answer wrong said 50%, which is obviously incorrect when you think about it. So it just reminds the people who are in charge are more stupid than you are and the bar is set unbelievably low. Yeah, I always thought this is school. You know, I remember, did you go to I had to go to a religious school? Do you have that? I had to do religious education a little bit, but my thing specialized in technology. So... I remember taking the piss a little bit. We'd be in R .E.

1:04:21so we'd call it in England for religious education. and you'd be learning like, you know, the feed in the 5 ,000, like fish, the fish, the bread, the wine, the fish. The fish, that fish story. What was it, the feed in the 5 ,000? It was the fish, I believe, there's fish in there. I was always like, oh, wait, I'd just come from physics. This is bullshit. You'd be quiet in the back. But yeah, like, I was joking about school. It is like that. I think that a lot of the times, especially working in the corporate world, you know, it was politics, it was who was asked to look in, like so many people, so imagine this.

1:04:53when I worked in sales department. This is how mundane the corporate world is. So, did you have a work in an office that I have to wear a suit and tie? Yes, I didn't have to wear a suit and tie, but I did outbound tele sales for the AA in a call cent of six months. Yeah, so this is where the mundane comes in. I worked for the inside sales department of a multi -fact worth of education security company. And in essence, I had to look at the environment leads coming into the business and call them up to quantify them. And this company message me and they go, we're taking you out for staking beers.

1:05:23And I was like, that's wrong person. I'm like, really junior role. They're like, now come up, staking beers. So I met them. And they said, basically, if you come across any big opportunities, it's your role to pass it to one of 10 companies, we want them all. And I was like, okay, and he goes, in return, we're going to give you big opportunities that we're going to close anyway, but we're going to put your name on it before it comes through. So I was a bit like, okay, let's give this go. And I remember at work one day, someone came, the whole team come around and give me an iPad. They're like, James, 300 ,000, you use the deal, that's incredible.

1:05:54You know, we can't believe you had this phone call. I don't remember. It was the other company that put it through for me. And I was now in a position to go for a promotion, literally from backhand and deals to the same company that I shouldn't have. Now, when I looked around at everyone around me, they were all dodgy. They were all sitting on their hands. They were all like not really making the calls. They weren't really like working hard at all. And I was like, this is it the whole way up. This is it literally like the people that were in the top row of SnowFence, the people that. I was like, this is merely just politics between you.

1:06:21And it is, what do you call it? Idiots the whole way up. Yeah. And that's not us being able to, these guys are stupid. But everyone's just kind of pretending that they know what they're doing. It's reassuring. The, what that has reminded me of is the fact that it's reassuring that you get pretty much no matter how high you go, no one really has that much of an idea about what they're doing. Everyone is working out as they go along, especially if you're doing something for the first time, or if you're a relatively sort of pioneering or new novel industry, podcasting. It's been around for 15 years.

1:06:52There are no rules. There are no rules in podcasting. There are no rules in content creation. People are breaking rules. Sam Suleik, breaking the rules all the time. Unedited, no title and thumbnail fuckery, like outwardly boring titles and like relatively unexciting thumbnails. Absolutely destroying the platform. Kill Tony. Kill Tony. But for people who are just going to get blasted. Yeah. Keep a load of comedians in the night. Let's find the worst comedians that we can and bring them up. Like, there's elements of it that are existing and work, but there's also new stuff in that that doesn't.

1:07:29So yeah, I am reminding yourself and reminding everybody that there are no experts in, there are very few experts in a bunch of industries. I have days where I do the stupidest stuff. I went to a gym the other day. I went to get on a leg extension. It was a hamstring curl. I put a PT 12 years. I get on that and I'm like, that was embarrassing. I had to go out to do a set to play it off. You know, just play it off. You had to do hamstring curls. But I think it's so good that if people can show vulnerability at every level, even the people in the smartest positions make the damnest mistakes. I think that it's a lot easier, the higher you climb in life to seem almost un, you know, like perfect.

1:08:14Untouchable. Untouchable. Unfathomable, like all of this stuff. I think it's such a powerful point to say to people like, everyone has the same insecurity, same worries. Yeah. Well, I think it's one of the reasons why celebrities, especially celebrities that are kind of in the independent media space, they're sufficiently touchable because you remember when they came up and you know that they're a person, you know that they've got a life and you know that they have a dog that they need to walk or a wife that they have to go back to or whatever. Like what does Brad Pitt do with his day? I don't know.

1:08:44He's actual untouchable stuff. No one's, first off he's not saying things, presumably because he's got a million media people around him going like, don't fuck this up, don't fuck this up, don't fuck this up. There's a whole army of people that require you to not come in on the Ukraine so that everyone can keep getting paid. Whereas for someone like Peterson, there are fewer filters between him and his fingertips or his mouth, but also he's in this very strange an interesting position, Rogan to say, pretty much everybody in independent media, YouTube podcasting world is the same. They feel just enough reachable for people to be able to say things because they want them to see it, but because of the size, and I don't know where it is, I think it's probably about, around about sort of five million where this really starts to kick in in terms of follow account.

1:09:32People get to a size where the audience doesn't see them as human anymore. They're not a person. There a conglomeration of ideas, like a collection of ideologies represented by a person that is manifest as an account. And you say things to them that you wouldn't ever say to an actual person. And this isn't just people say stuff online that wouldn't say to your face. This is people say stuff to big accounts that they wouldn't dare say to small accounts. Because there is something... Maybe it's like... You'll never look at this. Yeah, he'll never see it. He's got enough money that he can get away with it.

1:10:08It doesn't matter whatever like that just seems to happen and the bigger the bigger that someone's platform grows the more virulent and mean and cutting the criticism it. And I think that that's just like a dynamic that I've observed where people are prepared to say really fucking heinous things about people when they're a large account that they wouldn't be prepared to say them say about them when they're a small account. Was it Jordan P's in them saying like 4 % of the population, maybe a sociopaths, and that 1 % of that psychopaths. So like when you look at even someone that just has 300 followers, right, at least two or three of them are probably not quite all there.

1:10:51And then you think about malevolence, autonomy, fake account. Then you think about people that maybe get, I can't remember the context, but it's like a little sadist, people that like to see other people upset, like to all of these things. So then when you break it down into numbers, even a very small account or a small podcast with only maybe even a few thousand downloads or whatever, you're still now trickling over the territory for coming across someone who is just an evil. With that, Laura, very large numbers thing. When we were in New York on Saturday for Santa to con. Eight million to one odds things happened.

1:11:28Eight of them. Million to one odds things happened eight times on average in New York. If you have a sufficiently big data set, sufficiently big sample of people, really crazy outlier events start to happen pretty regularly. And it's the same thing. You have enough people that vote that have access to Twitter, that know who Elon Musk is, that know that this particular pop star is coming to their town, I think about, dude, I think about this, I think about Taylor Swift more than I should like admit, given that I didn't think about it all until like three months ago. Think about the security concerns that someone like Taylor Swift has, right?

1:12:04I would guess it's on par with the president, where there's so many people and they're so motivated, such a huge bucket of people, and they're so motivated to try and get something out of her. And you filter that down. It's 1 % of the world of psychopaths and of those 1 % let's say 1 % of them are people that are motivated and 1 % of them are motivated around. She's got an army of people. Even after you filtered it down from 1 % of 1 % of 1 % of 1 % you're like that's still like 2000 people that can't go within a mile of her. Exactly exactly. To almost wild as well right. So let's say you've got one and a half million on YouTube, you've got 1 .2 million in store which is which is a lot but then in the population of the Well, it's not massive when you've got this thing as worldwide.

1:12:49I still can't fully get to grips with the facts that people will say stop your New York. Hey mate, love you stuff. Chicago, hey mate, love you stuff. Even today in Austin, Chris and I have this thing where when we're out and about, not in a like a narcissistic way, it's just banter like if you get stopped and recognize. We're flipping immigration, getting over the US border, I'm like, shitting myself a bit because the US border is just the nerve -wracking place. One, no. And I'm like, But the other person has to be present for it. But earlier on, I was in that, some life organics paying 25 pound fucking two smoothies.

1:13:23And this guy's like, love you stuff. And my first reaction was, oh, I wish Chris was here. I was like, fuck sake, that was like, it's a waste. If you spread a million people across the world, it's not a lot of people. How the fuck are we bumping into them every day? Yeah, I suppose not everyone's hit subscribe. We're in habiting places that have people like the people that follow our stuff, which is like one of those. But yeah, the on -street stuff's wide. Like, is that goes to rogue invitation, or which is - But you know why ghost him, because he gets recognized. Of course, of course. Because he's in that Olympic lifting scene.

1:13:55I don't think he likes CrossFit. I think he just likes getting selfies. Because he took me to one of them, and he got stopped every quarter. I thought I'm right here, guys. Yeah, that was rogue when you weren't. One of the things I've been interested in discussing with you is what success looks like to you now, now, because you've done a lot of the things objectively sold out Sydney Opera House, like 2 ,000 people, sold out London Apollo, 3 ,500 people, 3 time best selling author, all the rest of the things. But still, I've spent four weeks with you, unless you're an unbelievably good liar, still like a very normal bloke.

1:14:27What's your conception of success or what have you learned about success given that you've achieved a level that most people would consider to be pretty high? One thing this year is I've actually allowed myself to be proud of some of the things I've done and it was only through, I've got people that follow me for say five, six years and they've said, you've done everything you said you were going to do. I for five years have said, I want to get my residency. I want to find a nice girl and settle down. I want to get a dog and move by the beach. And I literally just went, don't don't I did it all in one year because I only got my residency last August.

1:14:55So then there was a time when I completed all of that. And then I wasn't like, now what? I was actually like, okay, now let's keep this up. Now let's, you know, whatever I've pretended to be to this point, we now need to continue this. So success for me very much is just about doing the day on my terms. So I love making content, love waking up, love helping my clients, all of that stuff. And then I just need something to challenge me a bit. So starting a new book, as long as I can get into something and like get my get my hands dirty with it, that's fine. As far as like financial status recognition, all of those things, I don't I don't know if I really think about it too much, but whenever I put every video I do, I want to be amazing.

1:15:41And then when it doesn't, I'm like, okay, cool, let's try again. With the book, I have a little bit more time to do it. But really, I've actually built my life to the point that the foundations are now really set and set. I can't even relocate anymore because I have a doc, right? People think getting a dog is a little thing. Hopefully, Kelpil is 15 years. So I've now, you know, dug my roots into the ground there. But really, as long as everything I do, I do to my best. I'm becoming more process oriented than outcome oriented, which is how I got here in the first place. So success to me isn't about outcome, it's about process.

1:16:14I mean, I said this, I think I answered a question on your behalf at one of the Q &As, where something that I've always been very held in high admiration around you is your ability to turn things into a game. Like the follow -up camp was just a game. That piece of content was just a game, that writing a book was just a game. and it's a game that you hope to win, but it's not the end of the world if you lose, or if you just have an average performance, and it's not a comment on yourself worth as a human, it doesn't make you more or less of a person. If something does go well or does go badly, it's just information.

1:16:51I think it's really important to unassociate from things as being as real as... So, for instance, you look at your podcast. I think that every interaction, every conversation you have, of course, it's a great interaction conversation, but it's also a three hour stint in the game. And if you see it like a game, you can see the amount of listeners, download, shares, whatever, as a score of that game, not the reality, because there's no way in hell you and I can sit here and think about a stadium of people sat there watching us do this conversation. Like, say we get 100 ,000 views on this video. Imagine seeing in, that's like one of the biggest stadiums in America, 100 ,000 people there.

1:17:25We would be a little bit more an edge if that was a reality of it. And I think when it comes to financial, when it comes to physical, when it comes to the outcome of your process is if it's too real, it can become overwhelming very quickly. And overwhelm is a real killer to anything that you're trying to do. And I think that breaking things down and making them a game, making them high scores is one of the best ways that I can emotionally unattach from things. Because I don't... We don't want to do that too much, right? Like, you know, we did... What was the most people we did? I think we did like 800 people, 2000 people in Dubai, and that's a lot of people.

1:17:58The room was so big that it kind of didn't matter because you can see the first three rows and then everything else just feels like it's just three rows and then noise. And there's part of me that thinks in order to be able to not ship myself out of panic attack before I go out on stage, treating it like a game and reminding myself that if you can do 40 people in Austin, you can do a thousand people in Dubai. Or wins feel the same. Or wins feel the same. But you also want to be able to take in this experience. I always He's used this example of Connor McGregor. He got two cracks at the featherweight championship because he fought Chad Mendes as a step in and he got the interim belt.

1:18:41And then he did Aldo in 13 seconds. And someone asked him this press dude at an interview asked what are you going to do differently this time that you didn't do last time when he's about to fight Aldo. And he says, I'm going to take it all in because he was so preoccupied and fearful and in the zone and doing the things that facilitated his performance that he didn't actually get to experience what he was going through. And there's this great photo of him stood on stage at the ceremonial way in or it might have even been before the ceremonial way in, it might have been the actual one. And he's got that tattoo running up his back and it's just him with his hands out like this.

1:19:20and it's like 40 ,000 people in front of them. Just everyone stood up and it's electric, right? It's Conor McGregor, peak, Sevant artist of war, just stood there with his hands out and he wasn't there for it. His mind wasn't there as he was experiencing one of the most profound moments of his entire life, but he got a second crack. You know, a lot of people have got a lot of bad things say about Conor McGregor, a lot to do because the fact he's successful. If you watch his documentary, which again, they didn't show the full side of who Chrono McGregor is, but his belief in himself is incredible.

1:19:57And there's that point where he's like really early on and he's like, I want my mum to have a mansion, I want my kids and their kids to do well. And he's causing, he's like, I'm like Vincent Van Gogh, you know, I'm losing my mind. And it's actually quite inspiring to see someone with such I'm fathomable belief in their outcome. But going back to the point of light, I, for me, when you do Hamas Smith follow, which you will one day, three and a half thousand people, is black. Everything in front of you is just dark. You can hear them, you can feel them, but you can't see them. And Diren says this to me, he goes, he notices quite early on, he goes, you don't look at anyone.

1:20:33He goes, you'll go out there and talk for an hour and a half, you don't look at one single person, I go, no, I don't. I can't. Because if I look at them, they become real. So I have to try so hard because it is a really weird thing to do. You know, I was personal training for four years, just eight, ten people a day, eight, ten people a day, eight, ten people a day. If I get caught up in the reality of it being what it is, not, you know, I imagine trying to think about three and a half thousand people having to buy the tickets, wait for the day, get in their cars, travel, park and parking, some of them got hotels.

1:21:05Like this is the hardest thing for me, right? say someone pays for a hotel or fly somewhere. We have people come from Alaska to our event. If I take that into my mind and actually appreciate that someone drove six hours to come see me, it makes me very uncomfortable. I don't even like presents or Christmas, I don't like compliments. I've become very weird with any praise to the point I'm like, oh thanks, and they're like, you didn't even accept that as whatever. So if I actually think, oh my God, someone's just come six hours, I wanna have a pack of time, I can tell them, why did you do it? We joked to this, everyone met in the Q &A.

1:21:41They would, oh, I've dreamt four hours for this. I went, I've been dry four hours for this. You know, I, so, for me, I like it being darkness. Sometimes I like not taking it in. I like not appreciating until it's over where I can sit in the green room afterwards and someone goes, that was good and I can then relax. Otherwise, it's, are you concerned about, and not everyone one is going to try and do a tour of speaking, but many people are achieving goals and fearful of realizing the magnitude or the size of the challenge that's in front of them or dampening down their ambition by taking in that gratitude.

1:22:19Did we not say at the beginning of this that you need to celebrate your wins? Oh, yeah, it's much more possible. It's much more possible. Biggest hip, whatever. And come to think of it, you know, I've been thinking about this. I think it's that I would rather they have a good evening than I had a good evening. I think that's the reality. So when I come back and someone's like, oh, you didn't even appreciate that you just spoke to a thousand people. I'll go, I'm, yeah, but they had a good time. They had a good time. Yeah. And then people go, I just did Hamas with, but I'm too preoccupied about someone else having a good evening.

1:22:45Then, I wonder how much of that comes out of fear. Well, again, dude, we've said this a lot on the other side of the day. Massively to do with fear, because imagine, imagine the bitter disappointment that you would, I went, I walked out of a film the other day. There's such a bitter taste in your mouth when you get in your car. Not good. And you didn't enjoy the film, didn't enjoy the show, or like, but it's even worse when you had faith in the person. Whether it was your favorite director or your favorite actor, but it's different because it's your show, right? And there's a part of you inside that you know if you let them down, there's no coming back from that.

1:23:24But I don't think there's any coming back. I remember the audience that you've lost forever. Because I know how much this matters to you from how much you've improved over the last few weeks. like it's night and day. If you think from IFS to the last event, wild, like your mic didn't work the other night and you handled it so well, I was behind stage, I was nodding, I was like, this is good, this. I was like, I'm glad his mic didn't work. It was better. Because I get to see his, you know, almost that slight bit of being vulnerable, but then you were funny, and then you were banning him with the guy, the guy shitting himself, trying to put the mic back on, you put your like Douglas Murray voice, yeah, take it off.

1:23:59Yeah. So, yeah, I think that is important, but... That's definitely something that I've considered and a lot of people that maybe watch guys on stage or girls on stage that are even remotely competent. Just look at them like, oh my god, that must be so terrifying to do. But I've run the live show that we did 20 times, let's say, in the last three months. I did work in progress shows in Austin. I did my tour, I did our tour, and then we did IFS. The skill acquisition, if you just bury yourself in living and breathing one thing, and it's high pressure, and you've done an adequate amount of prep with a little bit of like existing skill set, is outrageous, like how quickly you can pick something up.

1:24:47And again, it goes back to that. People being open about how hard they work is good, I think, because it makes makes what seemed to be incredible achievements seem much more in reach. I'd never done public speaking solo four months ago and then managed to deal with a mic stopping in a sold out show in Vancouver for five minutes while some guy fiddled around in the back pocket of my pants for forever. It's really good. It's been reassuring. I've been very centering for me to kind of go through that. Have you heard of the inverted U hypothesis for sports performance on a rouse or, and I know some people say, sport performance psychology is bullshit that goes whatever.

1:25:34So there is like a, and so if you imagine a U turned upside down, there's a certain level of rouse or the not sexual rouse, but a rouse or you need to be optimal performance, everyone sits like differently on this inverted, more like a hill for anyone that's trying to think of inverted U. If you're under a rouse, let's say I'm like, hey mate, you're going to be doing a crossbar challenge in a field in the middle of nowhere and donkastor on a rainy day. You forage can't ballad right but then if I get a hundred thousand people in stadium you're probably not going to be even you're going to be so worried about kicking the ball right.

1:26:05However, if you were at your mate Sunday league match and there's 30 people watching that could be the right amount of a rouseball and over time you can increase that amount of a rouseball to the point whatever that you do it right. So some people if we went to do an event that was only 14 people in the crowd you probably stumble more than if there was you know 800 because you know under a rouse There's not a big enough crowd, but there's no way to train yourself because when a rouse was too high, you become stressed. When you come stressed, you can't think, you can't be clear, whatever. But only by getting in the hot water of doing events, can you reduce to a rouse or response to the situation?

1:26:39It's like, what were you calling it when we're on the road like a resilience training? Everything's resilience training. But there's no way you can replicate the stage without the stage. There's no way you can replicate a podcast without the podcast and no way you can replicate talking to camera without looking at the camera. For so many people, they need to realize that only way they're going to become more comfortable in situations being in that situation. Do the thing. Yeah, same as, you know, ice baths, whatever it is. Like, everyone is so caught up about how they'll be, how they'll perform doing that thing that they don't get into it and get better at that.

1:27:09And there is nothing better for stage time than stage time. There's nothing better for chin -ups than chin -ups. There is nothing better to prepare for than a nice bar, then do it in a nice bar. What's the future of the fitness industry got in store in your opinion? Because you've been in it for, like, too long. Publicly have way too long. But you're like an old hand at this stuff now. And I think what's been interesting since getting to spend time with you and spend time with Luke as well is to kind of hear the origin story of where you came from, which was this no nonsense online PT being a little bit, like, cussin and swear in and calling people out and making enemies, kind of being a mercenary hitman for ideas in fitness that everyone maybe thought was a bit bullshit and then saying what everyone quietly was saying internally with a few more swear words in there.

1:28:02But it seems like that degree of scrutiny is now quite widespread. There's lots of people following in your wake having done that. Where are we out now? Have you got kind of a conception of where the world of fitness is at the moment? It's a bit of a mess. Social media has changed what fitness is. Actually, Zach, your house made me a good point on this last night where fitness is more about a popularity contest. It's more about parade in your ass and a pair of leggings. Try and someone to work out. It's more about gaming the algorithm than it is about giving advice. You think 90 % of fitness content isn't even someone talking to you where the 100 % of personal training industry is someone coaching.

1:28:44Coaching someone is spending time with them and addressing them with their problems. That's not what fitness is now. You know, oh, walk on a treadmill, this height for this long and you're burned belly fat. You know, like, there's more bullshit than ever because that person just wanted their real to go viral. People just want status. They don't want to help people. So much of like the persona of my brand has come from real conversations I had. I trained this lady once. She was a dog walker. And I've been about out there in content, I've been trying some things and she sat down, she goes, you smell a lot, we're gonna get on.

1:29:12And I was like, she was like, I didn't say, I think you're a coach, doesn't say you're a good advice. You go, you smell a lot, I think we're gonna get on. So I said to her, give me a fucking honest food log or I'll never work with you. And she gave me the most honest food log I've ever seen and I was like, wow, that's a lot of food. She goes, she looks at me and she goes, that's why I'm fat James. Ha ha ha ha. The way we got on was amazing. and I was like, the only way I can replicate that is to be the guy she wanted to sit opposite from. And even in the gym, there's a Pt equal crisp. People go, oh, what's he like?

1:29:42I go, he's a bellend. And people are like, that's not a nice way to talk about a train. I was like, don't care, he's a bellend. And then I was like, his clients love him. My clients are like me. I don't need his clients to like me, because they're with him. So like, all of these approaches that I've had on social media, are the exact same ones that I've had on the gym floor. And yeah, the industry now, Now, there's a lot of people trying to copy each other. Mate, there's a community now, probably some of the top 10 creators in the fitness industry. The second one of them does something good. So if I get one viral video, say about Coke Zero and whatever is in it, the next three days, they all do it.

1:30:19So now as banter, I'm doing what they do. So there's this little thing in the industry and then, mate, it's getting a little bit frustrated at times because everyone's just copying each other. looks like an insesctuous pit of lack of ideas due to saturation. So that does make it some days you wake up. But the crazy thing is like, you just have to go back to helping people with their problems. So like instead of trying to make viral videos, which I think what someone's struggling with today. But people aren't necessarily getting in better shape. And the worrying thing we actually said this last night, a lot of people can't afford peeting.

1:30:55A lot of people can barely afford their mortgage. So they don't want fitness advice. They don't want to talk about the gym membership They just have to cancel so they can keep their heating on this winter. You know the holiday They can't go on they used to get in shape for so suddenly this date a lot of people's lives have got worse to the point They're now becoming Disenfranchised with fitness. Fitness is becoming you know a privilege to a lot of people. Oh, yeah It's okay for you. You can afford to go on holiday. I can't afford the mortgage. It's okay for you You can afford to go to the gym.

1:31:22It's okay for you. You can afford to do a 12 week challenge and And so I think where is coming out of the pandemic, so many people were at that interest rates, you know, money was cheap, all of these things. I feel like we're in this real rut now where a lot of people don't care and similar to the inner Citadel, if I can't afford online personal training, personal training is a bad, you know, wankers. Therefore, there is no need for them, you should do it yourself or so, yes, there's a lot of negativity on the moment. I just try and empathize with it where I say, okay, for someone to be feeling this way, They must be having a pretty tough time at the moment.

1:31:59Yeah, that's a really nice reframe. That's a beautiful reframe around things. I remember Aaron, one of my friends that I played pickleball with, he's Aaron Rodgers, Chief of Performance now, which given that he snapped in a kill, he's probably not that fun. We were playing pickleball at the courts next to mine and we had a speaker on just listening to some of his like weird tribal fucking dubstep stuff. There's a lady over the far side with a dog who starts shouting about the fact that this is a park. This is a park and it's supposed to be quiet. The fact that she's shouting obviously kind of made it a little bit funny.

1:32:37And I would have gone over, me, people please would have gone over and just turned the music down. I went over and turned the music up and started shouting that he couldn't hear her. But I went after that, given the fact that he'd done something that ostensibly was more rude to this lady that was shouting from a hundred yards away, but the fact that he should have been peaceful, when we finished up, I was more vicious about her. I was like, that fucking bitch, like, what does she think she's doing? One idiot, blah, blah, blah. His first place to go to was, imagine how bad her life must be, that she feels the need to kick off about two people playing a sport and listening to music at quite a quiet volume that you can barely hear from 50 yards away or 100 yards away.

1:33:20And that's something getting over like bitterness or resentment or like being cutting on mean in response to things is a, that's pretty noble like approach. Yeah, I was flying back from Dubai in maybe 2016 and the lady next to me was a big lady, But it was okay. She had her seat. I had my seat, but she couldn't get a trade on for a food So she had to ask if it was okay to use my tray to eat her food And I said yes completely fine whatever she did it and As I was going to swallow it the air who says said to me like I'm sorry about that And I remember saying to her I was like if you think that was uncomfortable for me and I'm comfortable That was for her.

1:34:01Yeah, yeah, and she was like oh she she hadn't really clocked it for a second I was like there's one thing I've really been trying for a long time I mean, actually, even if someone's super negative on a comment now, sometimes I go, Hey, bro, you must be in, you must be having a tough day. I hope you, you'd say to someone in the comments, I hope your situation improves. Zach replies to those ones with get well soon. Or do you know, get well soon. You know, some people like this, so there are people, oh, it's really nice James. And there's the other side of me that if you abuse people in the comments, they can report it or get it deleted or whatever, but I've come to find that, you know, you can, you can I would just say to someone like, yeah, I hope you get well soon.

1:34:38There's no way they can pull that. That's not abusive, nothing like that. I hope your childhood trauma resolves itself soon. I hope you regain your relationship with your friends. It's true, though, man. It's true. The people that are so motivated to say super mean things on the internet, it's an indicator that there's a lot of things that aren't going right in their life outside of that. If someone's life is obsessed with politics or obsessed with drama or obsessed with culture wars or obsessed with whatever, you are compensating for not having any control somewhere else in your life. And the first sense that you should feel after you get rid of the indignation and the sort of mocking sense of superiority should be empathy.

1:35:18It's like, oh my god, imagine how bad your life must be if you're focused on this. You know, in like 2014, I emailed Joe Wicks and I said to him, like, I was gunning him a lot online. But again, his fans loved him. And at the time, I said, I sent him an email and I said, that you never get put down by people above you and wife. I just rest in my short of that. I said to him, hey mate, I've got 13 ,000 followers. You know, I need this. You know, like, it's like, you know, like when rappers go ahead to head, you know, beef. They need beef. So I just let him know early on. I'm pretty sure he responded as well.

1:35:48I was like, look mate, and I don't think he cares. He's in his million pounds house, he's got his, all of this stuff. And like, the same goes that, yeah, you never get criticism from people above you. And I think that speaks volumes. I've messages to so many creators who are getting shit or they're trying to explain themselves online or they're trying to get cancelled You never get shit on from above bit like the layer kick So like I think that's just a good realization for a lot of people that when they get criticism or like when people are really going in on them It's very rarely from people above them.

1:36:19You made a series of enemies during your ascendancy, your wicks, keto, veganism body, you had a crack at bodybuilding for a while. But you know why? Because bodybuilders don't use my services. So, but no bodybuilder, no competitive bodybuilder needs to be teaching. It's coming to you. Yeah. No competitive bodybuilder is going to buy my book. No competitive bodybuilder is going to respect me as a coach because they're probably in better shape than me. They're probably almost test than me. So if you're ever going to go after someone, go after someone who is never ever going to benefit your life.

1:36:51Would you advise it as a growth strategy now? Yeah, it's good because you know, I'm not alienate them for who they are, I'm alienating their values that don't correlate with the values of the people that I'm trying to help. Because the biggest mistake people make in fitness advice is realizing that they are not their client. So I said, this is so many PTs, you're not your client. You know, your client doesn't want to eat chicken broccoli, your client doesn't want to six pack. They've told you they want a six pack, because they're telling you what they think they want you to hit. My clients will come to me, I want a six pack, I'm not know you don't.

1:37:22Some what you want. Okay, cool. So you want to fit in the dress that you fit in three years ago. That's very different to a six pack, especially for a woman. You know, then guys are like, I want big pecs. And I'm like, send me a picture of yourself topless. And I'm like, whoa, let's lose, let's lose 30 pounds. Let's get you running a 5K without killing yourself. Then let's talk about pecs. You know, like so many people communicate in the wrong way. So bodybuilders are like, okay, fasted cardio. Half an hour in the morning. I'm like, bro, that's great for bodybuilders who are already on the lowest amount of calories, they're already on the most amount of whatever it would have.

1:37:51Even little things like the mentality Even deeper bodybuilders are so different to the mentality of a normal person. If I can pick holes at that, as far as a growth strategy, people with them feel seen. Even in the smartest marketing where you can drill in someone's problems, you say to someone, hey, do you want to learn how to lose fat with that doing 30 minutes of fasted cardio in the morning or whatever it is, you can communicate with the people you want whilst expressing a message to the Shagrin. You said this word the other day of bodybuilders. Do I use that right? Shagrin. Shagrin. Much to the Shagrin.

1:38:22Yes, yeah. Shagrin. Yeah, so they should go in. So yeah, it is a growth strategy because You need to alienate the things that people have wrong and some people do want to look like bodybuilders But the majority of my clients don't and I don't offer extreme deficits I don't offer fast security or don't offer getting people ready for show and the main reason is the values thing because in every sport on the day you compete you should be physiologically and psychologically your best However, when it's down to bodybuilding and physique, the day you compete, you're physiologically and psychologically, you're worst.

1:38:58That's a mass. I'm like, why are we epitomizing that as fitness when it's clearly not fitness? What do you think is the future of the fitness industry? What would you predict for the next five years or so? Any trends that you can see growing or falling away? I've got time to have a wee. Well, we're going to finish in five minutes. Okay. We've got enough, we've got five minutes in here. Yes. You sure? You've been holding it, I'm sorry, I know it hurts. future of the fitness industry.

1:39:28I think that the bodybuilding stuff is starting to dissipate a little bit, but we still have this massive wave of dishonesty and it is led unfortunately by a lot of brand deals. Now you have brand deals with companies that you actually value. I know for well, like I see you having your age you want every day, having your element, you're not, people are, oh Chris likes age you want, I personally don't, but like I actually see it something that you cherish and you're very transparent with people with your blood work, I feel all this stuff. But if you're in the fitness industry, not the podcast industry, suddenly the ethical standpoint of let's say testosterone, if you can go on test and not tell people that benefits your brand, it benefits your programs, it benefits everything in that little ecosystem of monetary value.

1:40:16And so I would love for that dishonesty to dissipate. I feel like it slightly kind of is, but then it also slightly kind of isn't. But I think that people are cloning up to the BS a bit more now. Evidence -based stuff seems to be coming more to the forefront. Like your Mike Izretel's of the world seemed to be in a pretty big ascendancy right now. But then there's a lot of ideological people where we've got people. people in people, if you go to a supermarket and pit something up off a shelf, that's your hook. And it's a very effective hook because people are like, what's going on here? You don't want to go anywhere, it's just going to super.

1:40:50So now any person in the supermarket chatton waffle picking something off a shelf and going, this is shit. Suddenly people are like, oh, why? Why is it? So we've got all of these people chatton waffle in super markets, kale's bad for you, fast things, you know, they're going to stop you ever getting cancel out all of these things. And now people are just in this, there's a lot of ideological stuff. And you know, veganism had its wave carnivore is actually still alive because of Joe Rogan. And I said to you before, I wish it wasn't as good as it was when I was on it. I felt great. A few explosive shits.

1:41:22But you know, ideology is still pretty rife. And unfortunately, a lot of people in a bid to remain active on social media to get views on social media because views and interactions on social media is how people are obtaining the levels of self -proclaimed status. Status is what all of us are trying to get drunk off. You know the recognition of you having a stand up comic come to a live show and say, you were great on stage. It doesn't change your bank account, it makes you feel fucking good because the levels of status you retain from getting better at that thing. So, so many people now get their first taste of status on TikTok, social media, whatever.

1:41:57And they're doing it through being extreme, that being ideological and by tapping into people's pre -existing beliefs that often aren't true. We've spoke about this while we were away. I never thought of this before, but TikTok is one of the most egalitarian platforms. Follow account on TikTok means less than it does anywhere else. You put a great TikTok out and it just feeds the 4u page and the algorithm sends it to the moon, which means I wonder whether more people will go viral over the next five years than ever have before through TikTok. Do you have the opportunity of not being a big creator, but you can do the right thing at the right time, or even the wrong thing at the right time, and it just explodes, and I wonder how many people that's going to dangle the carrot of fame and status in front of how many people are going to start chasing that thing.

1:42:40And I wonder what the second, third, fourth order effect of that will be. Have you ever heard of Nicolardo Avocado? Of course I have. Gwinter Bogal's audience capture article about him is the best thing I've ever read. Exactly. Like, that's almost where I see it. I'm not to have a guy at the guy, but it was Mark Bang, right? People like to watch other people eat on life. And then I haven't seen a blood work and I could be incredibly fat phobic here. But he's gone from relatively healthy. He's just skinny vegan violin player to someone that wears a seat up. Yeah. He's gone to the front man of this, you know, probably endorsing seatups.

1:43:15So like watching someone literally send their health off the rails in a bid for views. He is like the canary in the mind of where I think social media is going to go. Like whenever there's a fight, phones come out before people break it up. You know, you even see when something really bad happens, people's reaction is, if I film this, it will go on TikTok. So that's the despair loop I see that goes with it where people actually are more inclined to try and go viral from a situation than help. Let's say someone has a heart attack in the street. What's going to happen first? Filming or helping? So I worry about that because if people just get thrills from engagement that can create quite a negative thing because negative news is typically what trends a lot faster than you know Positive things although I do love a good story where someone like adopts a dog from turkey and brings it on Soldiers coming home from water dogs man.

1:44:07That's my fucking vibe like James Smith ladies and gentlemen James I really it's been awesome man the last four weeks. I really appreciate your guidance and your or encouragement since I've been going out on stage, why should people go, what did they expect of you, 2024? What's coming up? I wish I could answer that more, honestly, myself, just gonna be trying to improve everything. You know, everything I do is trying to get a bit better. Whitebelt mentality, you're always a whitebelt and everything you do. So, yeah, whether that's books, events, whatever, the drink, which we didn't even mention.

1:44:36Didn't even mention it. Which I think is quite cool at the same time. Well, it's just part of our lives now, right? Like, we don't really think about it that much. Also, don't have any stock. So I'd be a part, maybe one of the contributing factors. Where do you want people to go? YouTube, James Smith? Just type in James Smith, wherever you'd like to absorb content. And just before we finish, like this podcast, I first came on it about four years ago. You were doing it for me bedroom. You had some cool funky lighting to see how far this podcast has grown in the last few years. It's incredible. I wonder where it will be the next time we sit down and talk on it.

1:45:09Exciting times. James, I appreciate you. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

1:45:24And Doug, here we have the Lemo -Emo in its natural habitat helping people customize their core insurance and save hundreds with liberty mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Lemoo? Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera! They see us! Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual .com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings very underwritten by LibertyMutual Insurance Company and Affiliates Excludes Massachusetts