#779 - Hamza Ahmed - The Harsh Truths Young Men Need To Hear

25:13Like you're already evidently very self reflective. You're introspective, you're doing the rumination thing. You're going to assess your behavior, you're going to reflect on the things that you did. So for me, I just accumulate as many experiences as possible. I wouldn't do it forever. So I'd be like, I'm gonna try dating, I'm gonna see what this is like, and maybe I'm gonna try monk mode, I'm gonna play around with that, I'm gonna be super social for a while, maybe I'm gonna get into the gym. like what do I like? You don't know what you like. I'm still fine, I'm 36, and I'm still finding out things about myself that I like, about how I like to regulate, about what I want to spend my time doing, about what the perfect day looks like for me.

25:51I've been playing with this for a decade. So just live life and find through experimentation. I think trying to have too much, certainly, other things that are better for you to do than others. Yes, should you have a physical practice? Yes, should you be trying to eat clean? Yes, should you avoid getting drunk five nights a week? Yes, but does that mean that you shouldn't ever drink? Does that mean that you shouldn't ever miss a training session? One of the things that you do, which I do as well, is you care a lot about your routine and about getting dialed. You wouldn't come and do a podcast with me in London because it would drop your HRV too low.

26:27But there is a peril of overoptimization because you then become a prisoner of all of that stuff. And if you get yourself to the stage where the things that are supposed to serve you now own you What life are you living like who's in charge here you or your whoop strap? Like is your whoop strap there to tell you how life is going on or to tell you how to live life? I think you need to get it the right way around There's a quote I've been saying to my students recently all of the greatest men were sleep deprived So here here we are okay, human said I've got to get sunlight in the morning and don't get blue light I'm wearing the orange glasses and stuff like a nerd.

27:01The group strap is red, so I'll take the day off training and stuff. There is no great man in history who had perfect sleep all the time. Not even like great sleep all the time. Most of them I am sure would have been deeply sleep deprived. They had sleepless nights. They were awoken at 2 a .m. because that's just the things that you need to do to sometimes get to the top level in a chaotic world. And we love these routines. And this isn't like people have taken this wrong way until like, oh, Bahamsa said sleep, sleep's like bad for you or something. No, no. Sleeps are amazing for you, of course it is, but obsessing over it is not what the greatest people do.

27:33They have a great routine which allows them to usually get pretty good sleep most days of the week. But if they miss a day, they don't view it as like this, oh this horrible thing that's happened. Rather they're actually, I can imagine they actually enjoyed it. Like this time's where I'll wake up at 1am and I'll randomly be full of energy. And instead of being upset thinking, oh but my aura starts going to be all fucked up now. I'll just get up and work for like an hour. I end up like having this weirdly peaceful time where you know everyone's a slave. It's very, very fun you try and work at one in the morning.

28:04It's so nice and you do that for like an hour so just me shouting in my house with a bathroom on wicked everyone. It's getting another video out. But you did, I think that you're really right. I think that looking at how you become a prisoner of what you want to optimize is so dangerous. And it speaks to me of like massive fragility. It's like, oh, you think that your constitution balances on such a knife edge that one bad night of sleep that you can't even survive that. Oh, you think that going out and drinking once is going to be the beginning of the downfall of your thing. This is coming from the guy that did a thousand days sober, but I periodized it.

28:50And then after that, I reintegrated and I did other like it is all about chunking things, I think, into manageable blocks. How many guys have you got that are part of your community thing now? This morning we have 1 ,865. 1 ,865. What are the young guys in your community struggling with a lot at the moment? Because we hear stories of what is it that Gen Z and Gen A what are the problems that they're finding? But a lot of this is coming from self -reports in survey data and the kind of surveys that are going to be asked are going to be things to do with the beliefs around the LGBT movement or whether they support abortion or whether that's skewing to the left or to the right or whether they're dating or whether they're not and why they're not.

29:41But you have like ethnographic qualitative data. It's the conversations that you see between people when they've kind of got their gloves off a little bit. What do you think? What are young guys worried about what are the problems they're encountering, what are they fearful of at the moment?

30:01It's very difficult for them to find anyone else like them. Only with the newest content creators and communities that they find like minded people, and it still isn't really scratching the So for example in Vegas I just did a little meet up with some of my community members and 15 guys randomly turn up I didn't even give much notice where they turn up and the youngest guy there was 13 years old He came with his father. They drove her 30 hours to get there They came from like oh, hi oh and I only gave the notice about 30 hours before we met as well So they literally saw the post got in the car and drove to come see me and he was he was a young killer 13 years old only eat red meat.

30:41We were all racing each other. He was faster than all of us as well, which was like fucking absurd. We literally, I raced him as well and I wasn't going to go easy on him. And he's twice in age. I had like triple his body weight, which is a bit unfair. And he said as well, it's like, I think he's getting home school now, but he mentioned when he was in school, he's not going to fit in with anyone. He tried to get a few friends on self -improvements and he said, like, you know, they kind of got it and watched the few of my videos, but they didn't take it seriously and they were never going to meditate.

31:08It's just at least with my community, the problem is they don't find other people who are on self -improvements who aren't being degenerates, who are going to the gym, meditate, in journaling, eating clean, not touching plastics and stuff. It's quite like a rare group of people that I've brought together who normally we wouldn't have ever been able to find each other. So at least with my community the biggest thing is finding like minded people. But then in just in general, let's say the average guy who maybe doesn't watch my videos, but who maybe has just discovered them recently. Then it's the stereotypical problems that you already know.

31:39It's like they're watching porn, they're in video games, they feel like horrible, they're not getting girls. I looked at, I think you posted a poll a couple of days ago on YouTube community and it seemed like being awkward and cringe, worrying what people think about me in securities and the way that I look, those are the things I took away from that. Yeah. Looks maxing is very popular these days. What is looks maxing? It's kind of like you get onto a protocol to look like cuter as a guy and so I have a free community we have like a hundred thousand people in there. I had to make a post and literally saying like guys I'm not gonna lie this is kind of gay.

32:15They've used kids to join it and literally we had about a hundred posts a day of guys posting selfies and literally asking like do I look cute? How could I make my hair look cuter? And I was thinking like do you guys watch my videos? I'm down and I'm going to be bathed over like Buzka head and I'm like shouting yeah like, you know, we've got to be strong guys, you know, testosterone. And all these guys are coming in like, how should I make my eyebrows like this? Or like, they should I do my hair like this? They really care right now because like young men are realizing just how important the physical appearance is in the modern dating scene where it's all judged on Tinder and Instagram.

32:45And so there's a huge level of, I don't know, need or pain right now for the young guys who basically aren't fitting in with the TikTok boy stereotype that seems to be like the meta of attraction. And you said cute. Why do you say cute, not better looking? That's what I found is the youngest guys are optimizing for like teenage girl gaze, which is the TikTok boy meta. When she gets like 21, 22 years old, like you're a man. Yeah, you're looking at me with this. It's like women aren't attracted to the cute looking TikTok boy with the fluffy hair and stuff. Any woman who's above like 22, 23 years old isn't looking for a guy like that.

33:20But when most of these kids who follow me are 13, 14, 15 years old, they're on Instagram or Snapchat or TikTok and they see the girls in their classroom who are posting about those TikTok boys, so it seems to be less like the... Timothy, Shalamet. I wouldn't know, but... Timothy's the guy from Dune, like the lead actor from Dune. He's quite a feminine, like a skinnier sort of dude. Like hair, like... Yeah, big floppy hair, curly stuff. Alright, so young guy comes to you, says, I want to look, Max. What do you tell him? If we want him to get as much attraction from girls as possible, and he's a teenager, major which is important to mention.

33:58Number one, most importantly is muscle mass. If you can build up the first like, new gains in the gym, the 10 pounds, it's the easiest time you'll ever build muscle is the first year. So rinse that out. There's no excuse why any man should not have activated his new gains in the gym. But along with that is then his body fat percentage, especially the younger you are, especially for the guys who are teenagers, being closer to like 10 % body fat having the jawline, like you've got very good, jawline cheekbones and stuff. But what seems to be the matter for these young guys is that TikTok boy look and all of them You know, I can't see a TikTok boy who's got like a like a skinny skinny fat Indian

34:36It's all it's all gonna be like you know like lean lean skater boy kind of jawline cheekbones or low body fat percentage 10 % ideally the hair If you're a teenager you go with the TikTok boy hair It's like the fluffy like I don't know what they call it like the broccoli style looking hair that very attractive to 14, 15, 16 year old girls. And then the style, the kind of clothing you wear, again, it's like copy the TikTok boys, they're always wearing like boot -cut pants, which are up to the belly button, it's like a white vest and like, you know, the hair and then the little jacket or something, it's like a cute fashionable style.

35:11And then also the huge one, which makes it very easy to attract girls these days is followers, social media presence, pre -selection. This is for like, let's say, guys who are teenagers, first of all. Then if we, it's similar, but once you get to about 21 years old, the game changes. If you're not trying to date like underage girls and you're trying to date like women, they're not attracted to some of these things. Women who are 22, 23 years old and not attracted to TikTok boy hair. They're attracted to more just of the masculine style, especially basically how polarity works is the more masculine you are, the more feminine of the women you will attract.

35:46So if you want to date a feminine woman who for example is more nurturing and you have you'll have this sexual polarity With where you feel like more of a strong traditional masculine man next to she's gonna be attracted to more of the the Dymorphic Traditionally masculine traits of shorter hair which Shows off like your skull shape for example a thicker neck You still want good things like for example muscle mass, but you can actually have way more muscle mass now When you're younger you want like you know a little bit of a lean physique whatever now you're talking 200 pounds and they'll like the more feminine women might still want you to be a little bit bigger.

36:20For dating women, you don't need to be anywhere near his lean. And in fact, it's kind of nicer if your body fat percentage is a little bit bigger because then you are just the size of you is bigger. What I'd say is in general, if you want to be attractive to older, not older, like women women, 21, 22, 25 years old, think about just being more of a primal caveman, especially especially if you want to go for more of the feminine girls. So for example, if you wanted some of the most feminine girls ever, you would want to look like a caveman, daggistanian, cauliflower, ear type of guy, because that's probably as masculine as you can look in the modern day.

36:56You still want the followers, the intellectual Chad, like archetype that you've got is probably what I would say is the meta where it's like, you're a very attractive handsome guy, but you're not like the stereotypical dumb Chad who's just attractive, but he's brain dead. So it's like when you can show off, you're selecting like a podcast. You basically got, if I had to rate right now, you have the 10 out of 10 funnel of attracting me right now. I'm like, I wonder what your DMs are like. I'm sure that there's a lot of women who can chaos. And they're like, there's women, I can imagine, right? They're saying like, oh yeah, you know, your podcast is like this.

37:27I know it's supposed to be for guys and stuff, but I'm a girl and I like it too. Like, yeah, when I first started the podcast, six years ago, my friends used to call it groundwork at scale.

37:41So, yeah. Yeah, it's one of the weirdest things in the world, like in terms of an arc. You know, as a guy who, early 20s, didn't really feel very confident, didn't really know his position. There wasn't the kind of advice and content online that we have access to now, so there wasn't the same kind of guidance. And I remember thinking, like a decade ago, or whatever, it would be so amazing to be a Jim Shark athlete. Like, could you imagine if I was a Jim, because then that's validation. That means that everything's cool and that would be good. I hope you're so great to get a blue tick. It would be so great to have this thing, to have that thing.

38:15All of those things are apparently available if you just have sufficiently weird conversations on the internet. The easiest route to becoming a Jim Shark athlete is to not actually care about the way you look and to just have interesting conversations. The easiest route to getting the blue tick thing. But I think fundamentally what that is is what is your competitive advantage because of your predisposition, the thing that you like to do and a capacity that you have. And you just lean into that because I'm not going to beat C -bum, like being jacked. I actually probably can't beat him at the emotional thing either because he's pretty good at that.

38:49But I can hold a pretty good conversation with him. So, all right, well, that's my thing. So, I'll just lean into my thing. And it's weird how stuff ends up coming full circle. All of the dreams and goals and things that you wanted so along and go, even if they feel kind of like petty or juvenile now, there is usually a much quicker way to get the things that you want with far less resistance by swimming downstream rather than upstream. You know what I mean? If I wanted to set up like a wife funnel, like a protocol to attracting wives, I'd basically do the exact same thing that you're doing. I first would have started with like Chad archetype, I go to the gym, I'm on Love Island, whatever, I party and stuff, but then I would have stopped that.

39:29Rehabilitate. Yeah, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm a chore now guys. It's like, but this is all one big con. It's a massive sire up. Literally, and the 10 out of 10 topics I'd be choosing is like, oh yeah, the sexual revolutions kind of crazy guys. You shouldn't be taking the pill, like message me when you're up. Oh, I'm on the birth control. Honestly, dude, you are right. You've actually called out my meta there, which is fucking terrifying. It's really strange. I think the whole world of like especially for young guys at the moment. Is it young girls that have got it worse? Is it young guys that have got it worse?

40:03I don't think it really matters. I think that everyone is kind of lost and this obsession with luck is so interesting to me because We definitely had it, you know, I'm 36 now So I guess from your audience it's like two decades sounds like a long time and really was We weren't as obsessed with the way that we looked and And for girls, there's at least a bit of like nobility in vanity for them. Like you know, women that are in the 50s get cosmetic surgery in the 60s get cosmetic surgery, they use makeup, they wear heels, they accentuate their body shape by wearing certain dresses. Like it's in kind of in the lines, it's part of the lineage of your sex.

40:47The same isn't quite true for men, you know. So there's an interesting stat that says, male body dysmorphir is on track to overtake female body dysmorphi within the next two decades. That doesn't surprise me at all. With men becoming more and more feminine, lower testosterone, societal pressures, to not be as masculine, I'm not surprised that so many guys are getting into, like, am I looking cute or not? Because quite frankly, bro, when I was in high school, and I'm sure it would have been even more so for your generation, it was gay. Like we saw Justin Bieber and the first thing that any of us said was he was gay because he had this kind of her And it wasn't even us trying to be like homophobic and trying to make like a some kind of actual point It was just like guys don't do that But these days the younger generation are and I think it's because they're taken on a lot of like feminine traits Like it like I every now and then I'll scroll on Instagram or something right the algorithm gets me to And they'll be like videos I'll see of guys who it should be a girl who's made it He's like looking into the camera and he's putting on like cream or some shit.

41:50Then he's doing his eyebrows. He's doing his beard and looking cute. Then he puts on hair product and he's like doing this. And it's like he'll have loads of likes, validation. Girls who are attracted to him. Guys who are looking up to him. But it's very interesting that that's like, that's how a girl would be posting on Instagram right now. I guess that a lot of the stuff that guys typically do when their young doesn't probably come across that well on TikTok. It's just you and your boys playing Xbox and your pants, your pajamas, like in your bedroom in your parents' house. Like, why is that?

42:18That's not very exciting. I wonder whether this is downstream, at least in part, from me to, and women being more concerned about aggressive, dominant men, especially when they're young and vulnerable. Maybe they haven't had sex, or maybe they're starting to become sexually active, and they're thinking, actually, if I'm with someone that seems like halfway like a best friend, that's almost like an anime character, cuddle toy, equivalent of a boyfriend. I wonder whether they feel more sexually safe and secure. That would be something that I could absolutely see. And then with them, so many people taking birth control, they're more likely to be attracted to more of the feminized creatures.

42:56Well, feminized creatures, yeah. Which is that we had a kid in a Donna school, actually, who said his girlfriend went off birth control and it's exactly what you had spoke about with Louise Perry that his sex life went to sheer and she watched your podcast. I sent them the link and they said that that's basically what's happening right now. Yeah, I had a friend who, girl friend who swings both ways, mostly lesbian but bisexual, or something. She'd eat you alive, you don't, you don't understand into that war game. And for one week out of every month, she says that she's straight again. Like she's not on hormonal birth control, but for the week that she's ovulating.

43:37Yeah, so that change in, that change in hormones. And this is one thing that I don't think guys really understand just how aggressively women get ragged around by that internal manipulation like guys are very hormonal in short bursts and it's not reliable like you can't track it based on the moon's position But we are not in the same way that women are and women I think for the most part are a lot more controlled by emotions. They feel the moat, they tend to feel emotions more deeply, but there's a predisposition and then socially it's more acceptable so they don't tamp them down as much. Like it would be really, like if we could swap places, I would hate that.

44:17Like I've just got, you know, I'm looking on my calendar and I'm like, oh yes, I've got the podcast with Hamza on Tuesday and I've got the podcast with Owen McMannison Wednesday and I fuck. Like I start my period on Thursday and it's gonna kill it like I don't want that. I wouldn't want that. But yeah, it's, it'll be interesting to see what the next few years have in store. I wonder whether, well actually that's a question. If it's such a case that young guys are optimizing for this super pretty boy TikTok look, why did Andrew take Resonate so much with that same age group? Because it's the guys who aren't optimizing for that.

44:54So it's like, let's say the counter culture. Yeah, whatever percentage it is of the guys who are going for the sort of femboilor, and they're, you know, being proper cute, wearing the dress and saying, yeah, this is positive masculinity, whatever. There's an equal or even greater number of guys who have just been silence and, you know, living the quiet lives of desperation, where they feel like that's odd, but they've not been able to speak up about it because they know that that's hate speech. And so when you see Take Go viral, he said, basically the things that most men have wanted to say, but haven't had the courage to do so.

45:21So he's just attracted a different audience compared to the likely fanboys out there. Yeah, for every cultural movement, in fact, I can teach you to predict the future. For every cultural movement that occurs, if there hasn't yet been a counter -cultural movement, that's what comes next. So 2020, you have COVID, everyone gets shut down, no one can go outside. 2021, Megan D. Stallion releases Hot Girl Summer. You didn't get to party last year, so glam up, make the most of yourself, go out with your girls, have casual sex, you have a fun time. 2022, you have feral girls summer. Don't shave, don't wash, no one cares about what you think.

46:03Every single time, for every like, simp, there's a sigma, for every alpha, there's a v -git and carnival. Every movement has to have, it's like a thermodynamic law of culture. Every movement that has to be a counter movement. For every left, there has to be a right. And yeah, I think you could quite easily predict it. If I didn't know that that sort of underground, more femboi trend amongst teenagers was happening, but if that's part of the fashion, it absolutely makes sense that take comes in. And presumably he doesn't know about it either, but he just managed to strike at the right time. One of the other things you've been talking about a lot recently is the life cycle of a creator, the perils of audience capture, stuff like that.

46:45What have you reflected on that? Being a content creator who goes viral, especially when you're young. It's kind of like being the the hot guy in the gym So you'll recognize it. It's okay. Look, you're the hot guy in the gym. Let's say you're secretly taking steroids as well you go in there and You say hello to the first gym girl and the PT and the other guy the old guy you fist bump everyone You know you're feeling nice and relaxing. This is your environment. You're the king of this location You go over there's other guys there who are copying you there's girls who are looking at you This guys who are asking if they can join your workout your hot shit and you know it and it feels awesome That's like when you're popping off on the the algorithm That's what it feels like everyone wants a piece of you your DMs are being flooded.

47:27It's so cool That guy realizes that steroids aren't actually not that healthy for him And so he makes the hard decisions to take a step back from that and he walks in He's still got residual like residual attention and the same people are still into it, but it's kind of starts going down and down and down. That goes not really into it anymore. That guy's not paying attention to it anymore. Those people are copying someone else now. The new Jim Chad walks in, the one who's still taking gear. And that's when it really disrupts you. You're mental shit. This is someone else popping on the YouTube algorithm in your space that you were like the king of.

47:57So there's like, you know, other creators who are popping off in self -improvement or masculinity. And this is when you get really fickle and emotional. Okay, maybe I should do like that. Maybe I should start taking gear again. and you do it for like two weeks and you're like back to doing that thing again but then you top stop it again because you realize it's unhealthy and it's like your brains all fucked up Think it way how do I get these people to like me? Well, I don't actually care about them liking people like it'd be nice if they didn't like me again Like you know, but was last time I posted a video and I said one out of 10 on the YouTube algorithm It's like crack.

48:22I need it again There's you've still got like your the OGs who are still watching and you know that's nice But it's not enough You're still the guy who for example you come in and there's five people watching you in the gym You're still the guy who posts and there's a hundred thousand people who are watching you which is more than basically every stadium out there, but it's not enough because you used to be hot shit, used to be the guy who gets 500k, 1 million, used to be the guy who had a lot more subscribers. And it's, it can drive a person insane getting that the peaks and troughs of the content game.

48:55And I'm in the trough from last year, I basically took a massive step back from YouTube. I posted every single day without fail for maybe about a year and a half, which and barely any of your creators have ever done that daily upload streak that I did. And my videos had animation, like custom animation. People don't realize that it was costing about a thousand dollars per day to put one of those videos out there. And my business was suffering. I was literally losing money every month making these videos, but I thought it was like a very purposeful thing to send out this message that the young guys of self -improvements.

49:25And in the end of 2022, I decided that I just wanted to stop the entire thing. I let go of my team. I stopped posting to YouTube. I started posting like maybe once every few weeks or once a month or so And I put all of my focus into a Donna school, which is like my online community That's like kind of like where I bring guys in and we help them with teachers and support and they get advice from me every single day And I put so much effort into that that I just didn't really have the bandwidth to also grow YouTube at the same time Even though I wanted to so I became that fickle entrepreneur of the fickle youtuber who like I'd start posting again daily for a few weeks, but then I'd lose the bandwidth because my priority is that, you know, the guys who are paying the money.

50:04So I'd go and stop it again. Then it's like, you know, I look like I'm, like, I don't know, fickle, emotional. I'm on and off. I'm bipolar as fuck, like ADHD where I'll go hard on YouTube again for a little while. Then I'll drop off again. Then I'll go hard on again. Then I'll drop off again. And I don't really have the regrets because I've been able to build like a wonderful product. I just want a massive competition. I met Alex Amozzi some of them. But it does fuck with your head when you're not at the top of your space anymore. Hmm, I think definitely one thing to take away from that is the most popular job that young kids want.

50:39They're in primary school kids is they want to be YouTuber, a content creator, influencer of some kind. It's like, well, that right there is what, that's if it goes right, that's what your future has in store. That's the best that you have to hope for. Unless you absolutely thread the needle and then hit the top and then just keep going. So, yeah, I think everybody has this in microcosm. It doesn't matter whether you're a content creator or someone that works at a normal job. You get a degree of self -worth from the content that you put out on the internet, even if it's just your family photos from the weekend or whatever.

51:16You outsource your sense of self -worth to the crowd. Everyone knows kind of what you've gone through. Everyone's had one post or one video that's kind of popped off on Instagram or TikTok or whatever. They're like, oh yeah, that was nice. Maybe, maybe, contact creation is my thing. I am kind of funny. And you realize how quickly audience capture comes in. And you know, if you're going to rise with other people's inflations, you're going to fall when you're on the other side of it too. You kind of use this analogy about taking steroids and then stopping because you realize that they're not good for you.

51:50It seems to me like you were trying to draw some sort of analogy that you like transcended some more toxic type of content that you were producing previously. What was the message that you disagree with your previous version of yourself about? The videos that got me viral were one heavily edited and so like high dopamine videos, which when I look at it, I'm supposed to be helping these guys live a better life. And I was making the kind of videos that like sat in their dopamine by I had like hit market and shit come up, I added explosions, green screen, I had all these like extra animations, effects, everything.

52:23And so I felt like I was almost making the situation with like people's poor attention spans even worse. And so that was... I think just to interject there, I don't think that you necessarily were. There's an idea in internet marketing that you'll be aware of, which is sell people what they want, teach them what they need. And like you can come for whatever you think you're going to get. Like because you are the end of the day you are competing with the best on the planet at Limbic hijack right because if they don't watch you they are watching mr. Beast and mr. Beast is going to continue to play that Limbic hijack game.

52:59He's gonna have the escalating ever increasing set of stakes and it's gonna be tensions gonna be explosions and his are actually real and I think I would be I would spend some time fact checking just how true that was for yourself It's a good story and I don't disagree that like fully pushing the dope mean button isn't a fantastic idea But if that's seven minutes or ten minutes, it's someone spent learning about themselves or about meditation or that's the thin end of the wedge that then gets them into some meaningful stuff I don't think that that's a disservice like we do it very differently, but we often use inflammatory titles or thumbnails, we very rarely do both, but it's like come for the clickbaits, stay for the insights.

53:45Like why are seven million American men unemployed? Question mark, these men are not working to really in depth conversation with the demographer that breaks down exactly why you have this massive unseen group of guys that are unemployed, not looking for work and not in education, employment or training, their needs. For non -alcohol conversation, but like why are seven million American men not like unemployed. It's a kind of a spike. It's because why should we contribute to a world that doesn't care about it? I'm like, I am, I will push that button all fucking day long because people are going to come and they're actually going to be like, wow, I walked away from this having a great understanding about this topic.

54:24So just to interject, I wouldn't do the previous version of you so harshly with that. And the same thing goes for everyone else as well, like this is an insight from Sam, given you just seen him, I can teach you this one. But some of them was kind of like one of the original personal development wealth influences. He had this penthouse apartment with a motorcycle in it. I have no idea how he got it up there. All he drank was La Croix and Quest bars. He's like an OG of internet marketing. You know on school .com which you have a platform on and Homos, he just invested in. And I went to a retreat with him in August last year.

55:03And I was asking him why he stopped uploading content and he said, because I felt like I had to live up to in private the things that I was saying in public. And that made the fucking hairs on the back of my next stand. I felt like I had to live up to in private the things that I was saying in public. Well, I really think that you need to be careful about the stories that you tell yourself about things. You know, you say a lot of stuff with conviction, which I appreciate. But you need to fact check your uncertainty as much as possible. Because if you're smart, you can make yourself believe things.

55:41It's one of the problems of being clever. One of the issues of being clever is that you can convince yourself of stuff that isn't true. Right? That's really fucking vicious. So we're looking back and going, oh yeah, you know, playing the dopamine game. Maybe that was like, it was like cheap or it was tacky or it was whatever. It's like, all right, that's a nice story. Is it true? Like is that actually what was happening or is there a different angle that I can look at this from and I think that's that's worthwhile Refraction mm Yeah, what you've just said about some has um I don't know it's made me have like it an insight I feel like I Don't really even know who I am Like I remember speaking to you once probably around two years ago where you mentioned it casually that I had gotten a great deal of fame and attention when I was still fairly young.

56:36I was 22 when I started YouTube. I was 23 or 24 when it popped off and it was on a global level. And I even caught myself a few days ago wondering like, what do I want and what are my morals and values compared to what I know will get me views on YouTube? And it's very hard to distinguish between the two because it's also my business. and it's also my financial livelihood and my families. And so it's a very difficult game to play when you've got the judgements of thousands of people. And you know, a lot of people think that the hardest part of being a content creator is the hate. I always thought that that was the problem I'd have to deal with.

57:16The hate is like, it's fine. Just close your eyes. Just start reading the comments. It's fine, honestly. But it's actually the positive comments that will steal your soul from you. Because you're getting the positive reinforcement for a certain kind of behavior from potentially thousands or even tens of thousands of people. And suddenly you start acting like that type of person again and again and again. When that might not have actually been your real value. I love it. It's too in private the things that you say in public. You're looking around and everyone's patting you on the back. It's like, well, I'm going to keep doing that thing, right?

57:46Every pat is like a dose of crack for me. Of course, I'm going to keep doing the thing. And again, two years later, and you realize, wait, I'm not even an asshole. I don't know why I'm speaking like this one. Come around, I'm actually a nice guy. Yeah. Yeah, dude, well let's unpack this a little bit. It's something that I want you to go through with you. Obviously you've been through this sort of recent relationship breakup. And there's definitely been a lot of pivots, like hard pivots that I've watched you make over the last couple of years since we've known each other. You sort of went to Dubai for a little while, dropped out, I was gonna go and be a fighter in Thailand.

58:15Then you came back, then I'm in my dad era. I remember seeing a video from you that's like, I'm in my dad era in up in the Scottish Highlands, basically completely isolated you in this check. And then that doesn't work. I can now I'm in this next year. I mean, the money making era and it seems to me like that's kind of the thing that's captured you a lot at the moment. Money is the God. Basically, more money is always going to make you better. I've heard you say that desire is good because it creates dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction is good because it creates success. But it only creates a very narrow band of success.

58:42It creates success exclusively in terms of chasing resources. It doesn't take, give you peace or fulfillment or solitude that you actually care about. So one of the things that, you know, from a guy that's about 10 years older than you, I'd just tread carefully with your convictions. Like I know that what your audience comes to you and we are often attracted to people that sound like they have certainty. There's a guy called Peter Zion, who's a global geopolitics expert. That guy has the most fucking conviction of anyone I've ever heard and people pray to him like he's a god, because he just says things like this is what's going to happen with oil over the next five years.

59:24This is where China is heading and what will occur by 2050. This is the state of the WEF right now and this is where we can see that they're going like, it does know it seems like it's caveat. It's like this is what's going to happen and people will be seduced by your amount of certainty. It's like this is what you need to do. These are the steps that you have to take. This is the way that it has to be. But I think the problem you have there is as soon as you posit an ideal, you can then compare yourself to that ideal. And if this ends up being wrong, like if actually the thing that you need to do is become a fighter because fighting men have always been warriors and then three weeks later, you're like, I don't know, fighting's not for me.

1:00:02And then it's like, I'm in my dad era, like I can't wait to start for relationships gone. Like the more hard the steak is that you hit into the ground, the more difficult it's going to be to pull back out. So if I was to give you advice, I think that like treading more carefully and being open and honest about hey look This is what I think feels best at the moment and this is what I'm experimenting with and training things like a game and training things like an experiment or a hypothesis to be tested as opposed to like a commandment to be proved I think would make life a lot easier for you And you know, like I want to see you do well.

1:00:41I do but I also can see how you rye a lot of people up. I can see why there are comments on the internet that's like, fucking, why would you take relationship advice from Hamza? Because it was so certain. Like if you'd gone in and you'd said, dude, I, you know, everything feels really great with the misses at the moment. And I think that this is what's right, but you know, there's also this that's in the back of my mind. I'm thinking about this and all the rest of it. I feel like you're bringing people along for the journey, but no one likes anything more than tearing down someone that was certain that got it wrong.

1:01:15Right. You know, it's the smart arson school. It's the guy that has every single answer and then he puts his hand up, says the wrong thing, and he's like, oh, right, mate. So yeah, I think, I think treading carefully would do an awful lot to just dampen that blow. And it would also allow you to be more open and honest about things because you're living up to in private what you say in public would begin to converge more because you will have uncertainties. You will be chronically uncertain all the time. What is it I need to do? Like how should I look to move forward? So, there's some insights.

1:01:49I feel that if I don't speak with that certainty that my advice won't be taken as seriously. That may be true. That may be true. You're not going to be a Messiah who comes in and says, well, this water might become wine and we might turn this fucking like one fish into five thousand but you know it might only be five. I don't disagree but like what are you here to do? Are you here to make popular lies? Are you here to tell people on the internet to track the journey that you're going on? Like you've already got more money than you need than you ever thought that you were going to earn? You're already more popular than you ever thought you were going to be.

1:02:25So why not have the next period of the arc be okay I'm just going to tell the truth and especially if as it seems you know this is one of the perils of young fame If you haven't worked out who you are before you have incentives from people on the internet encouraging you to be somebody else You're never going to work out who you are for as long as you're owned by the people on the internet So ultimately what are you looking to like you're looking to bring this into land at some point? I know that you want to have a family. I know that you want to get into you know like a committed long -term relationship Like do you want to continue to play this game where you like I'm 36 you're you become 36 and you're like I still don't really know who I am Like, do you really want to do that?

1:03:05Because I don't see what, unless you begin to be prepared to be more open and honest online, I don't see the moment at which you're able to separate yourself from the content. It's so immersive, you're spending all of your time in the forums. And again, like for the people that are listening, this is you, every single time that you compromise, the things that you do, or the things that you say in order to appease the people that are around you. And the reason that I can talk about this is because this is what I did for like 15 years, right? When somebody asked me a question, I would not think, what do I think?

1:03:41I would think, what does Hamza want to hear me say so that I will become as high status and popular and well liked in his opinion. And I got into the top of the top of the professional party by industry, the love island thing, all the rest of it. But you're never ending, you're never going to connect with the things that you do or the successes that you have in your life because they're not real. They're not you. Like you didn't do those things. The persona that you made did those things. Like the persona doesn't receive love. It receives praise. You're always existing one layer away, your one degree separated from your accomplishments and the work that you do.

1:04:25And even if someone says, dude, I fucking love, I love one that did the thing, you know in the back of your mind, yeah, but that's not really me. You don't see me. You see the role. You see the fucking mystique. You know, like you do not need to see the real me. You do not need to see the real me. Like that's what you're doing. So it's like fucking well played Russell Crowe as gladiator well played Chris Hammsworth as thought no one's applauding them They're applauding the actor right they're applauding the actual character that they play and that's why People feel hollow in victory or alone in a crowd because no one sees them.

1:05:02They don't see what they're doing The most common compliments I've ever gotten is You've changed my life and it's from guys who tell me deep stories, they were suicidal, they were depressed, they were anxious, whatever. And when I got that compliment, it does nothing to me. And I've always wondered why, like, I don't give a fuck. When someone says this to me, it does zero things to me. Even any compliment I get with my work, it often does not. It only does something because I use it as a way to get status and recognition from other people, you know, to screenshot worthy of other people. And I've always wondered why that is.

1:05:37And I think you're so right because what they're really saying is like, your persona helped me, the cult leader Hamza helped me. It wasn't like you. Yeah, and it, you know, I think for the guys that are a bit older, at least from what I can see, the message is great, the positioning is great, the optics are great, all of that stuff's great. But you wouldn't be working this hard at trying to do personal development if you weren't tearing yourself up inside, trying to find out who you are. So if that's the case, what are we doing here pretending that this is a fucking messiah? Like you don't have the answers and that's fine.

1:06:11Yes, people will come to you and you're going to grow the platform from that, but I think you have an opportunity over the next few years to really make a hard pivot into I can be uncertain about things. I can be fearful, I can be vulnerable, I can be open, I can be scared, I can be ashamed, I can be guilty, I can be all of those things and I can still be proud of myself and I can still be successful. And I think that you'll really connect with what it is that you do. And this is again, I'm saying this to you and you might as well be a mirror of what I'm saying to myself. This great quote from Neil Gaiman that says, the moment that you feel that just possibly you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself, that's the moment you may be starting to get it right.

1:06:54And I think he's true. I think that's the way it works. Wow. Well, thank you for saying that. It's my pleasure. I wanted to get this across to you today because I think that you have the opportunity to be a really good influence on the guys, but crucifying yourself on like the cross of your own platform. I don't know. I think I don't think that's noble. Like to do that, to play some like massively not that you have been but like some slightly deceitful game for like a fucking decade and then come out the other side of it and be like I don't care about it. Like I didn't feel like it was me. I didn't do that thing.

1:07:36And again, this is every single person who at the Watercooler when asked a question of like, hey, how's, like, can we your opinion on this thing? Give me your opinion on the new Doon movie. You're like, Jim, it is, I actually really didn't like it. Like sci -fi kind of, it's just not my thing. If Doon's popular at the moment, right? Most people probably want to hear you say, so amazing. Oh, wasn't it amazing? Did you watch it in IMAX? Oh, I watched it in IMAX. Did you get Sour Patch Kids? People don't always want to hear what they want to hear. So as a perfect example, I had a text conversation with someone that previously I would have not dead, ever dead, say anything that I thought might have upset them.

1:08:18And they asked me about someone that had been on the show, and I was like, do you know what it is? I actually really like him. Like I think that it's takes a great, and this is good, and that's good. And he was like, I think he's a fucking dick. And I'm like, all right, well, like I quite like this thing. He did nothing. And I was like, there is no world in history where that actually lowers this other person's perception of me. That's just my opinion. Like people don't always want to hear what they want to hear. They don't just want you to agree. They just want to know what you think. Like they want to know, hey, when they say, what did you think of the Doon movie?

1:08:54Idiots may want to just hear the thing that they can agree to. But anyone that's even remotely insightful wants to go what did you actually fucking think about that movie? What do you actually think about that creator? What's your opinion actually on relationships? Not what do you think is an acceptable thing that will make you popular so that I can like you know like just playing that game That's not what they want to hear what they want to hear is what you actually fucking think about something and that's actually unique Like that's genuine the unique because it can't be copied But people can copy anything if it's just a formula.

1:09:25It's like, no, well, he's not following his instincts. We can just fucking reverse engineer this algorithm. Hmm. Well, it's very much like what we were saying with dating women and being vulnerable, showing your authentic side. It's like, maybe I'm still trying to learn the skill of showing that to the world, really. Well, it's very hard. And God, fucking hell, man, there's a young guy who's still... I mean, you're so much further ahead than I was. And everybody in my audience is. Like all of the people that are in my audience are like, you know, there's always those jokes about me at 14, this generation at 14, and me at 14 was like, you know, head to toe in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pajamas, like Rootscape or something.

1:10:06And like this, this this generation's like, you know, partying in a hum - a hummer or something like that. But it is kind of the same with personal development too. Like, I look back at me. Oh my god, these teenage kids that listen to this show or any show on the internet. You're asking yourself questions that it took me to 28, to even know existed, not to answer. To even know that that was a question that you could ask. To even think that truth is something that's important. To even realize that vulnerability and emotions are something that you should integrate, not be fearful of, or not hide away, like all of this shit.

1:10:44They're like, Wow, that's fucking cool. For my own personal benefit, what are some questions you think I should ask myself? If money in status were no object, what would I do? If I was less afraid of other people's opinions, what would I say?

1:11:05What actually makes me happy? Does success make me happy? What is my definition of success? What is my definition of success if money was taken out of the equation? What is my definition of success if money and followers were taken out of the equation? Because that's what you're optimizing for. What are the things that I'm hiding from myself? What are the emotions that I'm unprepared to feel? What are the things that I feel the most shaming guilt around? Like, and again, this is, I could be drawing for my own fucking journal here. But I'll send you some stuff that I've written that I think would be useful for you.

1:11:43But those are some, and most of them are you trying to unpack assumptions about yourself. It's like, hey, I think this thing, but I really don't know if I do. And I really want to work out if that's right. I think I think this thing, let's stress test it a little bit. You are so right. I feel like there's a transformation I'm going through, which is to really find myself. Like these have been some very formative years. Like, I finish university, I graduated, I got into entrepreneurship, but I've done it. I'm doing psychology. Shot, shot, all right. But I've been through this, this, this, this last few years with so much change.

1:12:25But whilst it's felt like a lot of people have been watching my every step. So it's like even the way I sit or I walk has been crafted. Yeah, it's been crafted for the image. And it's like, do I actually want to walk like with the alpha male body language? Do I actually want to be man -spreaded right now? Or is it just because I'll get like, you know, there'll be a comment of someone saying that my legs are too close together. Honestly, well, I mean, dude, I'm wearing fucking crocs and shorts and I'm sure that there will be a number of people that have got a problem with it. But hey, guess what?

1:12:57That's what I was wearing earlier on. Like that's what I wear on the house and I'm not absolutely not totally bereft of being at the mercy of other people's opinions, but One guy that you should maybe even do an interview with for a donnis school, Dr. Robert Glover, no more Mr. Nice guy Beyond outstanding phenomenal. He has three the three constituent parts of an attractive man and he says a man who Has a mission No, it's where he's going and it's having fun while he's going that. It's like, hey, that's fucking easy to do. Like, having fun while he is doing a thing. Like, okay, so he's fully embodying what it is that he's, that he's spending his time doing.

1:13:47Like, he's actually integrating that into himself.

1:13:55I'm getting so many insights. I wasn't expecting this to be like a coaching session. Well, again, maybe it'll be interesting. We haven't done many episodes that were have opened up, but then I also don't speak to that many people that I'm as close to as you. And also not people that I'm invested in. I genuinely do want you to become better. But one of the other challenges I think of young guys is what does authenticity mean? I've heard these things about what women want or the world. And for women as well, I'm sure, you know, maybe they, it's kind of uncool for young women to become mothers or whatever at the moment.

1:14:32It's like, I just, I really just want a family. And I'm terrified if I say that that people are going to think that I've like been conned by the patriarchy. or I really want a career and I'm terrified that the right is gonna call me some like want to be boss bitch Check so people compromise the things that they want to do all the time and Yeah working out what you actually what like what what are you and I think that this is the most the most legit criticism that I saw like post your breakup was that Talking about trying to keep a like an alpha masculine in facade, like the James Bond style of talking, going, like it just doesn't work.

1:15:16Like it's one of those beautiful things that may work in like theory, but just can't work in practice because no one can keep up at facade for the rest of their life. So the best thing that you can do is just be as authentic as possible with the person that you meet. And if that involves you opening up about your weird love of manga or like the fact that you just every Sunday morning, I fucking love watching the rugby. Or like I've got this weird, I really love going bird watching. Whatever the thing is that's your thing, like that is your competitive advantage because there is a check out there who would fall in love with someone.

1:15:53They're like, do you know what it is? I don't care about birds at all, but the fact that you're an on -northologist that you have something that you know where you're going and that you're having fun while you're doing it, there is nothing that's more attractive to me than that. And Hormuzzi says this about Layla, who's like, I'm sure that if she had the choice, I wouldn't wear a vest and shorts to dinner every night. But she is way more attracted to the fact that I do what I want to do, and she can trust that that's what I want to do. Then me compromising and doing the thing that she thinks that she wants.

1:16:24It's again, like, she doesn't want you to wear what she wants you to wear. She wants you to wear what you want to wear. You know what I mean? See, with the James Bond thing, I've seen the criticism as well. maybe I probably didn't word the message as well as I should have. It's not that you should be keeping up a facade with your woman. But rather, I think that your time with your woman and with people should you should present your best self to them. I think too often in relationships, people get very complacent. They stop putting in effort for each other. So what I what I meant was not to be faking some character, some persona, but rather like like my mistake was, for example, When I met my woman, I'd take her out on dates with with siege other in this like polarize sexy time And you know, I was putting in a lot of effort to be a gentleman six months later It's like we we're spending loads of time together.

1:17:12I'm lying there I've got like stains over my top. I'm not even speaking to her in the romantic way that I used to I'm not opening the card Let's go back to the beginning there. How authentic was what you were doing in the beginning? I think it is Yeah, like how authentic was that to you? So why did you zero in on something that wasn't that later on if it was authentic? Why did it change? It depends what you mean by authentic because look Is it inauthentic for me to be wearing this jumper instead of like the bathroom? I was just I mean yet I kind of you know I wasn't born in the jumper But if I came here in the bathroom you would have thought I was one of the crackheads on the street, right?

1:17:47So it's like what what is the definition of of authenticity? You know, I was like I burp. I fart and stuff. Am I really it's like is it inauthentic? if I don't do that in the podcast, like in some ways, yeah, if I'm holding it, yeah, in some ways, but it's like, you know, they're standard. To degree decorum. That's it. And so it's like with your woman, I think it's worth putting in the extra effort to keep up that extra, like that level of effort and presentation because it's what they're attracted to. And also it's like, why wouldn't you use that as an opportunity for you to present your best self to the world?

1:18:16Okay. So let's just run this to the extreme. You're a guy or a girl that gets into a relationship and you just every, if you're a check every single night when he comes home, your makeup's perfect, the hair's done, you've got the Budwa, like five piece underwear on underneath and you've cooked him dinner and your rubbys shoulders, like that's making an effort, but it's also setting an unrealistic standard that you were gonna have to live up to later in the relationship. The same thing goes for the guy. Like, I had the door is held open and every single night there's a different playlist that I've curated that day based on my emotion that I feel.

1:18:50And you can pick this however you want. You can do the perfect cocktail of psychedelic drugs because you're like a new agey couple or it's the rough sex because you're like a very sexually active couple or it's the gym training session. Oh, you know, pick the pathway that you have. I think that the thing you need to do is just like, try and be what, try and start a relationship as you mean to continue it. That doesn't mean that you can't put your best foot forward but people will always feel a change in like an acceleration or a deceleration. And if you've set, like, she thinks that she's dating, like this guy, but when it actually comes to it, I really quite like reading for like half an hour and I need my space, but I've just obsessed her with physical affection for the last six weeks, the first six weeks of our relationship.

1:19:42And then when I actually want to do the thing that I want to do, which is like, hey, I feel like I'm gonna go in the other room and I just wanna read, I should like, I sometimes need a bit of space to myself. Like, that's cool. If that's part of you, if that is, well, he wasn't doing that before, that is a big fire alarm. I'm really worried that you don't like me because I think he didn't use to do this before and now I'm really worried. And then you have to say, well, actually, that is me. That guy is me. And what I did for the first six weeks is kind of some, like I sort of shaved that bit of me off.

1:20:17So I understand what you mean. It's a delicate balance between putting your best foot forward. I'm wanting to, you know, like, again, you don't need to talk about your athletes, fucking your flatulence on the first date. But also to be like, hey, look, this is me. Fucking crocs and bad hair or whatever and all. And weird bird obsession and book reading and stuff. And sometimes I need a little bit of space. But like, that's the person you want, the person that loves that is the person you want chance of longevity, because you don't ever need to be anyone else. You just need to be yourself. And I think that that is what people are trying to optimize for.

1:20:55They're trying to optimize for that like hyperauthentic approach. I think you just need both. I think it's like what percentage. I remember I actually journaled about this. I said that the problem it felt like in my relationship was that I went to like 98, 99, 100 % of the sort of relaxed, this is me. Yeah, I leave shit stains in the soil. And it's like, yeah, sure. And you know a lot of authenticity, especially in a long term relationship. Not in the toilet. Authenticity stops at the bowl of a toilet. But it's, it's, um, you need the right percentage. I skewed too far to the side. This is why I like, I don't, I kind of revolting against the message you're given right now.

1:21:31Because I went fully into the sort of natural, this is just who I am. You got PTSD from being a lazy guy. Yeah. And it's, I've experienced what it's like showing that side to, to your woman, but also or just to yourself and I don't like that side of myself. I like having your woman as an opportunity for you to dress up nice and put it in. You know, like just put on your best foot to why not turn on like the charming part of you more? And you shouldn't 100 % I'm not saying to fake it. Like I like being authentic and I'm not saying that you need to do that 24 -7. But maybe the balance is somewhere like 70, 30, 50, 50.

1:22:05When it starts getting 100 % or 95 on each side, let's say you're almost fake in the charming side of you. Yeah, that's a problem. Well, let's say if you're just being like too relaxing the only thing you do now with your girl is like you tell her to bring some KFC and come over to your place and that's all she sees you as and your hair is getting all scrappy You've not been like dreaming you'll be it because you've already got her right? You may as well start bulking again like that's then that's a problem as well because this another guy who's putting in the effort Who'll walk past with like a fresh fade with a confidence and nice clothes and he'll speak to your girl in like a sexy voice and She's not gonna cheat or anything, but it's like you'll probably feel like oh damn like I used to be that guy who used to put in so much I used to be the guy who would flirt with her and I don't do that anymore.

1:22:44I just kind of assume I've got her now. That's a very interesting framing to not, and I think that that's much more accurate because like the classic red pill approach would be, and she's going to leave because Alpha fucks beat a book and like, you know, this is the new guy and she's going to trade up and blablabla and it's like, dude, have you ever actually been in a relationship with a chick for a long amount of time? Do you know the reality bending distortion field that is female attachment? Like it is vice grip fucking no more nails shit and They will go to the ends of the earth. There's women that stay in relationships with guys that beat them that cheat on them that do all Sort of horrific things like and you think that because you've got a bit pojis.

1:23:23She's gonna leave no But what's it gonna tell you about yourself especially if you see that other guy and you go oh, fuck Well, there's another thing actually that's interesting and it'll be cool to see your arc as you to slowly plug toward death, that aging gracefully as a man is something that's really interesting. So I've only noticed my age, like at all, probably since 34. I think so up to 34, every single year just everything got easier, apart from like injuries and shit in the gym, which is just me being stupid. Everything just got easier, more competent, energy levels, like attractiveness, all the rest of the bits and pieces.

1:24:05And obviously attractiveness is very subjective. But then 35, 34, 35, I was like, Hey, I got like gray beard, hasn't here. And like, I actually, if I sit in the sun for ages and I frown, like it takes a little bit of time for the frown to go away. That's kind of straight, that didn't used to happen before. And it does take a little bit longer to recover from workouts. Like that is, and I dig sometimes I have to, if I've drank a bit more water than usual, but nowhere near as much as I used to, I've got to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I'm like, oh, that's what getting older is.

1:24:41Like those things there, that's what aging is as a guy. And I don't think that we have a particularly healthy culture around teaching men how to age gracefully, because for women, there's a lot to talk about that. And it's ruthless because so much of their value is kept in their youth, which is proxy for their fertility. But for guys, it's like, oh, guess what? You're never gonna be as strong as you used to be. You're never gonna be as lean as you used to be. You're never gonna be as fast as you used to be. And that's gonna continue happening. And you're like, well, I took so much of myself worth from my strength and my leanness and my speed.

1:25:17I took so much of myself worth from the fact that I could outwork or outhustle or outgrine people. It's like, well, you're kind of fighting gravity here. And that's something that I've been thinking about recently. It's pretty interesting. Does that not like terrify you? No, particularly. I think that there is a good argument to be made for every guy that takes a lot of value from his looks going through a really serious injury, because as soon as it rips away your ability to take yourself confidence from your physical condition, you have to find it somewhere else. So for me it was the perfect timing.

1:25:54Two disc herniations followed by a Achilles rupture, like one year, one year, one year, sorry, one year, one year, a year in between, and then another year. And it meant that as the guy that had taken all of his self -worth from how big he was, and being like the most jacked, most lean guy in most gyms, I was like, oh, fuck, like I'm not, I'm not that guy anymore. So where am I going to take my self -worth from? And I think your looks are a depreciating asset. Your mind isn't appreciating asset. Invest yourself worth wisely. Like, what are you focusing on? You really got this, this is it. The way that you look is going to be the thing that you derive the most of your self -worth for the rest of time.

1:26:39Are you investing in the most highly volatile stocks and bonds? and oh, actually, I know that this one goes down. Like, guess what? This one isn't just volatile. I know it goes down. Like, that's not where you'd invest yourself worth. It wouldn't be where you'd invest your money. So it is, but like, it's happening. Like, the will come a day when the first gray beard comes in. First gray beard hair comes in. You're gonna go, all right, well, Chris warned me about this and I kind of guessed at some point it was gonna happen. So I guess this is what, like, aging feels like, am I gonna just, am I gonna fight against this?

1:27:17Or am I gonna be like, well, just as well that I don't take all of my self worth from the darkness of my beard? Hmm. I think about death all the time. But, you know, the memento morey, like stoic practice, where you think about your death and it makes you more grateful for life. And honestly, I do that with a smile on my face. I do it with this like wholesome feeling where I feel grateful and I've had a good impact on people. What gets me the most is when I think about family and people that I love dying and I have to stay alive for it. Like if I think about my mother passing away, she's getting older now.

1:27:54She's like, no, 50 something. That's what scares me the most. I see the trend. It's like when you see your parents getting older and you're like, like, oh damn, people get older, people's parents pass away. And I don't know why, but you saying all this just gave me the insight of why I've always found that so hard to think about why it's always broken my heart to think about it because there's so much left unsaid. There's like, there's a non -abusive non -traumatic relationship error that we've not had Joshi yet. We like coming from like my household and a lot of your brown followers will know this is like, like there's a lot of abuse, trauma and neglect and hardship and expectations.

1:28:40And we've kind of crossed that now. It's like we've gotten to this point where there's actually quite a lot of respect in our household. I've retired everyone. My siblings work in my company now. But it's like there's so much still left unsaid. And so when you visualize someone passing away before you can say what you needed to say to them before that they could say it. It's like it's not going to come out because if it does everything comes out. It's the bottled up emotions that I've had for 20 years. Right. Why was I loved him consistently? You should speak to Charlie Hooper about this. So Charlie took his entire family on an MDMA facilitated site.

1:29:13Did you read? Did you see it? I've talked about this in this with us. Yeah, I mean, speak to him. Speak to him about it. He'd love to have a chat with you. And yeah, he, I think he had a tense relationship with his dad. I'm maybe getting this wrong. So I'm sorry if this is misquoting. I'm pretty sure that his intention was to bring the family in and he's got a brother and maybe a sister and then mum and dad. His goal was to try and repair his relationship with his dad a little bit and do this stuff. He's suddenly turned to psychedelics. He was full on psychedelic warrior. He thought, this is going to be fine.

1:29:51I'll hold space, even though I'm going to be under the M -DMA influence as well. I'll hold space. It's going to be beautiful. Dad's going to open his heart. he's gonna see all the rest of it. Five minutes in, Charlie's crying his eyes out. He was like, fuck! It's supposed to be the other way around. And yeah, I don't know, man. I mean, I can certainly tell you this, that as your parents get older, the incentive to tell them things that you know he's going to hurt them gets less. So there is no better time than basically right now. And every day after this is gonna get worse. Because after you say a thing, after you have a difficult conversation, especially with the parent, especially with the parent if they haven't done a ton of like introspection and self -work and they haven't maybe got the emotional tools to be able to, does this mean that I was a bad parent?

1:30:39Does this mean, oh my god, like you know, I just thought I'd raise this son and what does this even mean for my sense of identity? It could really hurt them. The goal is to help them understand you and help you understand yourself and all the rest of it. But it's gonna take time to reintegrate that. But the older that they get, the closer that they get to end of life, the more the voice in the back of your mind is like, Like, what's the point? Like, why do I need to, why do I need to have this conversation? Am I really gonna like let this memory linger, like toward the twilight of their years?

1:31:11It's like that now is the time to do it. Once you've done a bit more therapy, then's the time to do it. I say to my boys that gratitude has been one of the most important habits that helped me with my family. A lot of young kids think like, it's the money and you know, that's what will improve your family relationship in some ways in my life, if your parents were working like undesirable jobs, but the greatest thing that I've done to improve my relationship with my family was writing them gratitude letters, where I took some time to write down what I was grateful for. And I remember the first time I actually thought of doing this, I was watching some online course about mental health.

1:31:43And I was in this resentful mood of like, no, but what do I have to be grateful for? You know, they did this, they did this, they did this. But I started to write anyway, like one thing after the other until it all came out. And it was the first time I promised it, so I could dick, but it was the first, I was 21, 22 years old that I actually thought like nice things about my parents that they had actually been terrific for me that they went through so much. They brought me to the UK when I was three years old. And I even just thought about logistically, like how difficult that would have been back then before the internet was really a thing.

1:32:15My dad is like, you know, like lining up outside of a building, but you didn't have Google Maps. You didn't even know what time them it opened. Like for us, that's scary as fuck is how do you, how do you just go somewhere? Like I need to check the Google reviews first. Like, but my dad used to tell me this, like I asked him at this point. Actually, I thanked him for it, sent him like a picture and I asked him like, it must have been so hard to bring us here. And he said he, in his exact words was in Pakistan, I had 500 people who worked below me. Like he had status in his job in the UK I worked as a labourer but no regrets I did it for my family.

1:32:53And I asked him what even was the process back then to move us to the UK, it must have been so difficult. And he said he had to go to Islamabad like a different city of Pakistan and he said you have to line up in the mountains and stuff for like three hours, four hours before the building opens. And it always used to piss him off because he'd be lined up next to the basically the peasants. and all these nice cars would pull up just before the doors would open and the owners would step out and replace themselves with their servants who'd been waiting for them, you know, they'd outsource their position in the line.

1:33:24You'd come in and you didn't even know if you were going to get the visa that day or not, you have to come a few times, fill out the forms and stuff. His visa got declined and yeah, and you know, it must have been such a process to bring us here. Our application got denied, then you had to do it again and And we came to the UK and we suffered so much racism. He had a decline in his status for 20 years. He's worked as a laborer, as a guy, you know, like a brown corner shop taxi driver, taking all the racial stereotypes, taking bottles and punches to the face from drunk people, picking them up at like 3am outside of nightclubs.

1:33:59Because you know that scene very well. Imagine a Pakistani taxi driver outside of nightclubs. That's what he did for years to put us all through like the education system. My mum's always been like a housewife, so she never brought an income which meant that he's worked like a mule for us This was all going on and I literally still Struggle to write down what I was grateful for up until the tap opened and I feel like so many young men when I speak to them And they say oh, you know my parents don't support my dreams and they're doing this and they're like this and my dad's done this Well, let me fold something that's even more difficult in go on how guilty do you feel about your resentments towards your father knowing how much he sacrificed for you Yeah, quite guilty It's awful.

1:34:35It's awful. It's one of the most difficult things that people can deal with to think there was so much that they did that was perfect for me and look at all of the things that my mum stopped working for 10 years. Dad, to raise me, dad managed to get an entire family through, like, you know, three quarters of a person's wage, a state primary, state secondary, state six form, first person in my family to go to university, all that stuff. But then to think, look at all of those sacrifices and yet look at the patterns that I wish that I hadn't developed from the things that occurred, from the externalities, from the unmet needs, even though they didn't know that they weren't unmet, from the emotional coping mechanisms that I ended up having to do, from the things that I kept from them because I was so ashamed of talking about them because I didn't feel safe enough to be able to express them.

1:35:24And then to go, oh, how on earth can I have that as a problem when they did all of those things for me? Look at all of the sacrifices. How ungrateful, how shameful, how how atrocious is it for me to say, oh, but it will be my emotions and my integration and what about my regulation and stuff like that. It's like, look at all the things that it didn't. It's like, yep. And yet, that exists too. It's like the mark of someone that I think is emotionally mature is being able to hold contradicting emotions in your heart at the same time. Like, hey, guess what? Resentment's a thing. And sometimes you're going to feel resentful and sometimes you're going to feel grateful.

1:36:09And I think that trying to marry those two is a rough one. You know, you saying that made me think about my own actions and the man that I'm becoming where I'm ruthlessly optimizing for business. And I'm optimizing for kind of the same pathway that my father did, right? It's just the finances. And if other things are neglected, if I'm that ADHD father who's really loving with full conviction, yeah, I love you guys so much and then I just fuck off the country. I'm so, I'm much my children just seeing me in a bathroom and show it. Well, that's the question I asked you while you're on when I was saying like, the desire is good because it pushes you towards success.

1:36:49But like, it's what is the definition of success? Now for my dad and for your dad, that didn't have the luxury that me or you have, their definition of success was put food on the table, don't get kicked out of the house, right? Like pay mortgage, make sure that lights are on, maybe have money for like Christmas's and birthdays and stuff like that, like that was their goal. But if you have the luxury of choice, It's like, okay, well, what does success look like for you? Why are you playing by the same rules that your working class under class immigrant father did to just optimize for as much money as possible?

1:37:29Is there not maybe a different definition of success that you could use, which is a little bit more balanced? What if, you know, like again, you've already said, the father that kind of shows his love through his toil, but emotionally or in terms of like affection time maybe isn't quite there, probably like quite a classic immigrant mentality, first generation thing. All right, well, you have the opportunity to be the breakwater here. Like you don't need to pass down this weird ancestral trait, this odd habit. It's like, you get to choose and you've got the luxury of doing it because you don't have You don't have the necessity to keep the bread on the table for the family.

1:38:14Is this a cope if I say that chasing after the business results and the money is kind of like the fun thing that you mentioned before? Like Ali Abdall said this, he interviewed someone and he said, oh yes, it's very convenient that all the rich people say that it's really fun for them, that making money is the thing that you find fun. It's very convenient. Am I so... You're in a Citadel. Yeah, am I like so deep in the conditioning that chasing after the money and the business success is the thing that I find fun? Or is it just genuinely enjoyable? Because business is a very, it's basically a game and it's got trackable metrics and scores which is very addictive.

1:38:50You have a positive impact on the world if you're doing it in the right way. It's the money itself is very beneficial as well. But for example, this season when I'm really into entrepreneurship, genuinely, I'm having a great time. Now I could be, I could be cope it, right? Maybe I go home and cry, but I'm like, oh yeah, shit, like I'm actually depressed. I'm doing. I don't know. I certainly think that periodizing anything is a good idea. And I think that that's one of the reasons why just caveating your conviction, a conviction, especially given that you're so public facing, and this is again the same for anyone that doesn't have a platform, but just start saying things around the water cooler or to their work friends or to their family or to their spouse.

1:39:34They're like, well, you said that thing. And now you have to feel like you live up to it, right? What you say in public, you feel like you have to live up to in private. The advantage of periodizing anything, whether it's monk mode or even a relationship, is like, okay, well, I'm just finding out. I'm just finding out if this is for me. And if it's not, it's not value judgment on me or not what I get to do is close this loop and like tick that off. So Naval says it's far easier to achieve our material desires than to renounce them. Basically, you can drive a shit car if your last car was a Ferrari because you know what a Ferrari feels like.

1:40:09And I think that the same thing's true here. It's like, you don't know if you like or load entrepreneurship until you've gone both feet into it for a good amount of time. Then you come out the other side and you go, okay, well, is this still serving me? Or am I serving it? Is this a habit that's in control of me? Or is this the sort of thing that I maybe have outgrown? Or is something else I'm gonna do? I had to do that with the way that I looked, like from the gym, from the nightlife thing, from standing on the front door. I had to even during that career, I had to period those things because I was the guy on the front door and then after a while, I was like, are you really gonna be the dude, all the 18 year old chicks come up to wanting VIP bands at 29?

1:40:48Like is that really what you're gonna do? Or are you gonna pass this down and delegate some of the boys? I had to take myself out of them. I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna be the front facing guy anymore. I'm gonna be the exec. I'm gonna be the dude that recruits the dude that are gonna be the new Chris. Okay, well, that's like a loss of identity. How do I go through that? So I don't know whether it's a cop or not. I certainly think that asking yourself questions like, if money was no object, what would I do with my time? Like, when do I feel the most alive? Not dopamine, like, connected, genuinely connected.

1:41:20One good frame that George Mack has is a dopamine, I mean George and Serotonin George, and there's Cortis all George as well. And he says, the more time he spends in Serotonin George, Serotonin George is melodic deep house, walks in nature, conversations with friends, amazing quality coffee, it's pickleball, it's learning a new sport, it's going and watching live music, it's all those things, right? It's love, it's affection, it's connection, it's ringin' your mum and telling you that telling you like something cool that happened in your day, it's that. dopamine George is growth of the business and it's a great thread that Elon just retweeted on Twitter and it's more newsletter subscribers and it's money and it's bank accounts and it's travel and it's novelty and it's new and it's intense and it's rushy and it's compelling but he wants to be in serotonin George and then cortisol George is all of the executive function problems but cortisol George doesn't exist in any way related to serotonin George.

1:42:17You're never getting and court is all from the serotonin shit you do. You only get it from the dopamine shit you do. So the bad and the calf good are related together and then the bit that's in the middle is the bit that you really like. And I think optimizing for serotonin hamza would probably be a pretty good idea. Where can I get that from? Not the like, oh, this guy sent me a message that said that I really changed his world. And it's like, yeah, that should be serotonin hamza, but it's fucking not, it's dopamine hamza, right? because it's another one on the dashboard of, look at how many people's lives have changed and all the rest of it, but you're not sitting in the emotion and being like, ah, that's something that was meaningful to me.

1:42:55That really, really worked. Okay, so at first, first analysis, serotonin hums are two things are coming up. It's one of great workout, like when you're hitting PR after PR, it's not even about the dopamine. It's just like, it feels awesome that you've worked hard and you're seeing the progress of your efforts, especially if it doesn't feel random. You know, those random moments when like, you haven't had good sleep, you had shit diet, you still hit a PR, it's like, what the fuck is this? It's like, it's when you've actually really worked hard on it, you've been nailing the sleep, nailing the diet.

1:43:24Then you come in, you hit a PR, feels awesome, especially when you're coupling that with friends, that leads to the second point, which is like, not just the deep conversations, but I feel like, for me, I really like the goofy ones. I like when I giggle, it's like, you know, I've got to do that all for male thing, but like, I like giggling, but I like telling funny jokes and just laughing at my own jokes and everything. They're the two I can think of right now, which bring the realest part of me out. Yeah, for me, it's going for dinner with people that are coming through town showing them a really cool restaurant that they've not been to before.

1:43:54And then going for a walk afterward and you digest in your food and you maybe play with ideas. And this is interesting. The other one for me is pickleball. Like I just lose myself in this, basically, intense, in this sort of racket -bally sport outdoors and I'm getting fresh air and this competition. But it doesn't dump me in Chris's fucking left on the edge of the court. I'm not doing it. Actually, this is a lie. I was playing with a girl a couple of weeks ago and she said, um, it was two games to two, best of five. And we're walking back to the baseline before about to start the next game. And I'm like just fully in the competitive, like hyper masculine thing.

1:44:31And I'm like, right, okay, so that girl, the chick on the other team, like her backhand's really, really poor. So if we can look to push it across there, we need to, like when we're driving, we need to be up to the net a little bit quicker. So both of us are a a little bit slow on that. And I really like the thing about it. She's like, hey, hey, hey, yeah. And let's not forget to have fun. And I was like, yeah, yeah, that's it. I've just totally forgotten it. So we get captured even in our most like serotonin moments we get captured by the dopamine side. Dude, I really appreciate you. I'm really glad that you came to see me.

1:44:59And I'm looking forward to seeing what happens over the next couple of months for you. What can people expect? What do you think's gonna be the next? What's the remainder of 2024 got in store? Honestly, who knows? Every week is different. I might have children soon. I might turn to Islam. I might not. Sooner and next week in five. Before we finish, there's a quick question I had to say for you. Your ability to articulate your thoughts is amazing. Do you have any advice for someone trying to learn that skill?

1:45:30I worked very hard at it. So I purposefully practiced for a long time. I have done 760, 770 podcasts in six and a half years. So that's a lot of time and attention, right? I listened back to probably the first 50 or 100 episodes that we did and cringed at all of the weird verbal ticks that I had and deprogrammed most of them consciously. There's this great story about Tiger Woods, so Tiger Woods gets towards the top of his game. He's one of the best in the world, but this inefficiencies in his swing, you know, he started playing golf literally as soon as he could walk, probably even before. And he's just brought with him some old patterns that he needs to get rid of.

1:46:19The problem is for him to reinvent his swing. He's one of the best golfers in the world. To reinvent your swing, you're going to get way worse. You're basically starting from scratch. You're not even starting from scratch. You're starting from scratch with habits that are going to creep in, that are going to ruin the new thing that you're doing. Even worse than kind of starting from scratch in some ways. But he did it. And that allowed him to take himself from being one of the best in the world to being perhaps one of the greatest of all time. And I thought about that when for probably about 18 months from maybe 2019 started 2019 to the middle of 2020.

1:46:51Actually, probably more like 2020 to the middle of 2021. The show got worse because or at least my communication skills got worse because I wasn't just saying what I felt. I was obsessing over the way that I said it and you can't think about the thing that you're doing whilst being in the process of doing it. Like it takes you out of the what you want is the flow, right? What we had today is an idea and it's kind of not right into this thing. It's a bubble. That's what you want. But if you're thinking, okay, make sure that you pronounce your S's correctly and what's your tongue position and we mustn't say the word like and don't say too much and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1:47:24You can't do both of those things at once so the show got worse. So the tips that I would give would be you need to speak in a rigorous manner. And what I mean by rigorously is that you're actually trying to be as precise as possible. Precision is what people want with speech. And precision is using the right word. It's not the one that's too fancy, it's not the one that's too simple, it's not more, it's not less, it's precise. It's the number of words that you mean. reduce the friction from brain to mouth. Okay, so you want to be rigorous with your speech. What are some of the ways that you can do that?

1:47:55Have a 30 minute conversation with a friend once a week where you record a fake podcast. So, funds are out of the room except for one that's in the middle of the table, put the phone in the table in front of you and have a conversation. Have a conversation about something that one of you's interested in maybe even text each other earlier in the day and say, hey, we're gonna talk about what's gonna happen in the 2024 election or we're gonna talk about who's gonna win between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson and all, we're gonna have a comment, whatever it is, pick whatever you're interested in. And then listen back, and listen back to all of the awful, to curling ticks and strange things that you say and that you do and realize that you, I found the first ever episode I did of this show, I kept saying, mm -hmm.

1:48:36All the time, mm -hmm. Because I wanted the guest to know that I was listening, that I was paying attention and I said, this is good, go on. Hey, guess what, you can do that by just nodding. Like, you know, the invention already existed. You didn't need to do that. So I was, okay, well, that's, I don't like the way that sounds when I listen back. How can I do something that achieves the same end without completely molesting the listening experience with me? So fake podcast once a week with a friend, 30 minutes, listen back to it. I would say listening to people that communicate in a manner that you like and immersing yourself in that content.

1:49:20Some great communicators, Jordan Peterson still, especially old Jordan Peterson, like 2017, 2018, 2019 Peterson's phenomenal, a lander botan from the School of Life is maybe one of the most easy to get into because he's not got this unbelievably slick communication style, but he gets the words out and a beautiful manner. So especially for the Brits, he's a British guy. He's sort of a, I think a bit of a bumbling kind of likable British man and he sort of talks a little bit, sometimes he gets a bit of it and but it still comes out very nicely. He's like, okay, so he can kind of add his charm and his personality and Shapiro, obviously fantastic.

1:49:58Rogan also really, really great. Sam Harris. So like, yeah, pick your creator of choice, but find people that speaking a precise manner, immerse yourself in what they say and listen carefully and don't listen at two -time speed, hear the cadence. Where are they leaving pauses? How are they using silence correctly? How are they actually sitting with the body of... Are they saying words that sometimes elongate? Are they over -articulating words in some ways to add a little bit more emphasis on it? And just after spending enough time doing this, you go, okay, well, it's just like being around a friend.

1:50:30You know, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You are the average of the five YouTube creators that you listen to the most. So those are some things. And then finally, if you do really, really want to turn it up or if you just feel like this isn't enough of a hammer blow, going to an improv class will be phenomenal. I did that before my live tour that I did last year. I did two courses of improv. If you think that you've got social anxiety or that your mind doesn't work quickly enough, go to improv and for a couple of weeks everybody gets it wrong and everyone sucks.

1:51:00You know, they celebrate successes and the way they celebrate success is, sorry, they celebrate failures and the way they celebrate failures is when you do something, when you mess up, like they're playing a game and you said being instead of bang or whatever, you have to put both hands in the air and say, I failed and you bow and everyone claps. And it's getting rid of the social anxiety. Okay, it doesn't really matter so much. It doesn't matter. I don't care about that. It's okay. It's all right to fail. It's safe. Safe for me to fail. improv is great. Speech coach is a great miles that's speakwell .co .uk.

1:51:29It's the guy that I use, still do use, phenomenal. Toastmasters, I haven't done it, but I've heard that it's okay. But honestly, most of that stuff, and it's just time and attention, and then when you're speaking to people in a bar or whatever, just think about, okay, precision. Say the thing that you mean to say. Dude, have you seen that most recent, whatever, whatever, and there you go. It's like, okay, that's a conversation. I'm just saying this stuff. And once you get out if you're your own way, it gets a lot easier. Well, thank you for the conversation, my friend. My pleasure, man. Why should people go?

1:52:02They want to keep up to date with the stuff you do. Just search Hamster on social media, you'll find me. The most well -known Hamster on the internet. I really appreciate it. Thank you for coming to see me.