#835 - 2.5M Q&A - Naval Ravikant, Quitting Alcohol & Having Kids

24:35But I'm looking for it. I'm working hard. Okay. I'm trying. I'm settling down. I'm settling on the process of settling and trying my best as quickly as I can. After Sun, any plans to have progressives like Kyle Kilinski, Crystal Ball, Hassan Arby, or politicians. So Rory Stewart was on, found him very good, Brian Class, quite progressive, Ryan Holiday, actually super lefty, although people don't give him credit for it. Obviously Destiny's been on, Dean Phillips, the Democratic presidential candidate was on, but I would love to get Kailon and Crystal, massive fan of both of them, impossible to get a hold of.

25:19If anyone knows Kyle Kalinsky or Crystal Ball or can do the intro, please feel free to loop us in because they don't seem to have email addresses at all and we've been looking for it. So yeah, I'd love to have a chat with them. I think both of them are very interesting. Hassan Abbey, I've been in touch with a little bit. Is he guy? Streams like 25 hours a day. So we'll see if we can make that work. Cato Devo works out. Have you filled the positions you're hiring for? Still ongoing, we got 6000 applicants, like six and a half thousand applicants for two roles. Sounds great, but actually kind of made everything a little bit harder.

25:57So that was a general manager and a guest booker. And we got just really phenomenal talent for both, but it's taking time to go through it. and my standards for the people that I want to bring on are obviously quite high, maybe unrealistic. So we're doing the assessment period, we're taking a time with that, but we are getting that. And hopefully there will be assistance to give me a little bit more time to actually read and have a life soon, because I haven't necessarily had that recently. Stuart Danger. Stuart Lee is the comedian's comedian. What are the podcasters podcasts? That's a good question.

26:33So founders is definitely one. That's the first one that comes to mind with David Sanra being on the show before. The nominal inside, he takes one book or one person from history and just breaks them down. That's great. What else do I think? I think Lex has a lot of podcasters listen to Lex's show. Oddly enough, decoding the gurus is kind of like the gossip. It's like a left leaning, more left leaning gossip thread for I know a lot of people in the industry listen to that or something similar to that QAnon anonymous, blocked and reported to very bad wizards. Like there's something from that area which is the sort of critique sphere thing.

27:23Like a lot of people take a lot of guys in the industry, listen to something from that. And then there was this whole, I don't know whether they're still going because I stopped seeing them on my YouTube, but this whole sort of critiques fear that was on YouTube. A lot of it was focused towards comedy and stuff like that. So to be honest, much of it, there's not many that are kind of underground heroes. Much more of it is like weather reports and gossip girl, but for podcasting. I would say Tim Dylan is probably one of those because the solo style shows lend themselves to easy listening and it's good to kind of get a...

28:04Oh, actually two more. Pirate -wise by Mike Solana, not necessarily a podcasters podcast, but certainly from a news perspective, I know a lot of people listen to that for their news that's in the industry. And all in podcast crushing at the moment, it's one of my favorites, comes out every Friday. the boys are great, I really, really love what they're doing. So there's some combination of history, news, news and tech, slash gossip, and then just exclusively gossip is kind of a little blender. Thomas H1944 didn't want to mention anything during the Duomo tour in Florence Chris Big fan and all the best.

28:44Thanks Thomas. Yeah, I went to Florence. I went up the Duomo and I very much appreciate seeing you there, even if you kept quiet. Astramac, do you think being articulate is a talent to be born with? I can only speak for myself and I got teased a lot in school for using different words. So one of the most common, like one of the earliest insults I can remember is that I should fuck off and read the dictionary again.

29:21So it's some of it to Nate. It seems or at least was like very precociously started for me begun. But it's certainly something that you can develop. And the goal is not to be articulate, it's just to be precise, right? You're looking to just say the thing that you mean. I'm actually actively trying to sort of dial back the complexity of the language that I use, especially when I'm writing. You know, some of the best writers, George Mack, Rob Henderson, Gwinderbogel, that are kind of in this online article, sphere stuff that I love. They don't use fancy words. They're very, very simplistic with their language.

30:05They're just precise. And I think that that's the goal, precision. So you can develop it. If you spend time listening to people who have great vocabularies, and then if you get a word, for instance, I read Meritricious and really loved it as a word and thought, that's cool. I really could do with that. It feels a hold I don't need. And then I try to force feed it into a bunch of sentences and bits of writing over the next couple of weeks. And now it's locked in. I've got Meritricious in the old Arsenal. But yeah, it's certainly something that you can develop. M -G -E dot squared. Crocs in sport mode are regular.

30:45Regular all day. I hate the way that Crocs luck in sports mode. If you see me in Crocs in sports mode, some shit is going down. Like it is really, it's fucking on. I'm running for a plane or I'm playing pickleball and I've got no other pair of trainers nearby. I've had to do it in Crocs, which I have done before. But yeah, I just think there's so much cooler without that backstrap on and I'll fight anyone that disagrees. Les Mills body coach, what's your experience with the Lasik? Is it worth it? Yes, 100%. I had fantastic experience. Obviously, if you read and I did, if you read the Nightmare stories on the internet, you're going to get a lot of people who's vision went blurry and it never came back or who had some mishap in their surgery and all the rest of it.

31:30So maybe the likelihood of that going wrong was 10 % and I'm just in the 90%. I don't know. But my experience is great. My vision is super sharp. It works on a nighttime. It was about a year that it took to settle. But I probably had it for about a year -ish now. Vision on a nighttime took a little while to settle down. There was this sort of flaring around lights, which sounds cool and looks beautiful on a movie, but it's really fucking annoying if you're trying to drive. So that was tough, but now it's great. I'm so, so glad that I got it done. So for what it's worth, I went to the OCL in London.

32:10I think it's like the optometrist's college of London or something, it's OCL of London. Anyway, you should be able to see it. Where's Edgeworth, unfortunate name? Do you work out at the same time every day or does it change to fit your schedule? It's the same time pretty much every day, 7 .40. Either doing class or with my trainer or sat on an assault bike doing Norwegian 4x4 and hating myself 7 .40 in the morning, which means I can get up at just before 7. Roll myself around until I'm ready to move, get in the car, get to the gym and then be done and back at my desk by 9am. That's the plan. Finish by 9am and 7 .40 do that.

32:52Rick Fulder, do you fancy game cricket when you're in Sydney? Yes, yes, I would love that, apart from the fact that the last time I tried to play cricket, I ruptured in the killies. So I'll watch and I'll, I could field, I could definitely field it from a loud standing slips. I would 100 % be down at field. Bat me down the order, put a runner in for me, so I don't need to actually do anything. I would be down to do that. By the way, coming to Australia for the first time ever, tickets are available at chriswilliamson .live slash Australia. Wednesday, the sixth in Melbourne, Friday, the eighth in Brisbane, and Saturday, the ninth of November in Sydney.

33:30I'll be there on stage. James Smith is going to be there as well. Sorry about that. Q &A, live talk from me, intro from him. It'll be great. So if you want to come and see me in Australia, Chris Williamson .live, slash Australia. Danielle Sinclair, 28. Have you signed the change .org petition for Alex O 'Connor to shave his mustache or are you in favor? I have seen this. I'm very pro Alex becoming as visually spicy as possible. I would love for him to start wearing skinny jeans, like cropped skinny jeans, get a high fade. I think that turning Alex into a fuck boy would be one of the great gifts that I could give the world, especially given my background in night life.

34:15I do truly believe that I'm the man to be able to make this happen. But I'm completely in favor. That guy's gone through multiple mustache eras, a full on beard era recently as well. Only his recent years as last year. You went for a sort of a stubble approach as well. I'm on board. I'm on board. Let the guy cook, right? Let his face cook. M -Mits -Mits -Mitsitar, Mitsitar, 88. When will you have Ben Shapiro on your podcast soon? That will happen soon. I promise. Nick at Tanakkovic. If you hypothetically weren't seeing results from the pod, would you still be doing it? Dude, I did this thing when nobody listened.

35:03Literally no one, when no one listened at all. There's days in 2018 where we did zero plays. We'd launched the pod. I was doing an episode a week. We had all of the plays, all of the backlog catalog history of all episodes were like 10, 15 episodes in. There was days where we did zero plays. I did this long before anybody listened and I will do it long after I'm cancelled. I enjoy doing the show because I enjoy the people I'm speaking to. If I ever stopped enjoying the people that I was speaking to, then I would stop doing the show. But it's not about the numbers. It's never been about the numbers.

35:37And that is, you know, the bros fall enough. Meme, it means that you're kind of immune to that because you were never doing it for that in first place. And it's the one thing that I found in life that I did, like not as a commercial pursuit. It was done. Everything in my life and my twenties was always about some form of money or some form of sort of positioning or whatever, and I did the show because I wanted to learn about the world and myself. I wanted to better understand myself and the world around me and it allowed me to do it. And that meant that anything else that came along, You know that scene in Peaky Blinders where Arthur Shelby and Tommy Shelby are talking and they say that they came so close to death during the First World War at the Battle of the Somme that everything after that was extra.

36:28That's kind of what it feels all the things, all the good things that have happened to everything after just getting to speak to people I'm interested in was extra. So yeah, and still be doing it. Beast. When you bring on Naval, do the thing. I would kind of need to make the call about when I would like to ask in that favor. I've got his WhatsApp. We've spoken. We spent a week together in Roatan at the start of the year. He very well may even say yes if and when I do it. But I need to plug. First off, plug at the courage. And secondly, it's only going to happen once, I think. So when do I want to do it?

37:09and pick the time appropriately, and pick the shoot and make it sort of really beautiful. This would, that would be like the crowning episode for me, I think, like the full, full circle. So I need to work out how I'm gonna do it, but it'll happen. Stay patient. Isaac Majango's, when you're gonna get the number one podcast is the number one podcast is the world's Tim Dillon on the podcast, number one podcaster in the world, Tim Dillon on the podcast. We were so close, I kind of teased that it was gonna happen and it was and then his schedule and mine both changed, but we are back speaking to his team.

37:54So again, give me time. I'm just slowly inching my way toward all of the people that we all want to speak to. It's just a fucking busy man, like they're busy and sometimes so am I. So, max Stevens, like you, I've drastically decreased my alcohol consumption. How do you differentiate between times to let loose and have a drink and times when you should say no? Easiest way that I found this has been to set either geographic or duration -based limits and then it means that you don't need to actually make this call because how do you differentiate between when you should let loose and have a drink and when you should say no?

38:32There's a lot of cognitive effort that goes along with that. And it's kind of exhausting to, am I going to do it tonight? Am I not going to do it tonight? And it just takes away from the enjoyment of the event. Should I have said, yes, I'm drinking or no, I'm not drinking when you start to do it or you don't? Like, you just don't need that. So for me, set a block of time, and within that block of time, a month, or three months, or six months, or a year, or whatever, you don't drink. It doesn't matter. You don't need to make the call, right? You've already made that commitment. And or on top of that, if you are away, if you're abroad somewhere for me, 2019, 4th of July in Nashville on Broadway with a quarter of a million people watching Chris Stapleton as someone play.

39:15I'm having a beer. I'm not having a beer at that. Even if it's simply for the sort of tribute to be able to raise it in the air, I'm going to have a beer. So beer I did. So I think that's the best way to do it. Don't differentiate between times to let loose and times to have a drink. At times, let's say no, just stick to, is it within the period I said I wasn't going to? And am I in a location that I said I wasn't going to as well? That's it. Rock Health 22. How are you? Like, really all of this instant fame must be taking a toll on you? Yeah, I mean, again, it's kind of hard to talk about the negative side effects of a ton of attention because it's like a millionaire talking about how difficult it is to file their taxes for all of the money that they've made or something.

40:01You know, it's a thing that lots of people are smart to have and that you created yourself and then you're whining about weird externalities that come along with it. It's odd. And again, this whatever version of fame that I have is like degenerate niche micro influencer fame. It's not real proper fame at all. What's interesting that's happened recently? I had the first time where the attention was, I saw the glimmer of it being too much, which was just like the frequency of people coming up was too much. That was new and kind of weird because up until now it's been whatever every hour, then it was every 30 minutes and it's every 15 minutes when you're out and about and that's lovely like the perfect cadence a couple of times an hour.

40:46Brilliant. I may love the pocket. Thank you. Other than that, like the other thing is I'm not built for the level of scrutiny that happens. I don't think, you know, I am very much at the mercy of other people's opinions quite sort of chronically uncertain about things that I'm doing. And this has gotten worse over the last year as I've started to do more therapy and do more emotional work because you don't hide away all of the things that you're feeling through bravado or distraction or, you know, comforting fibs that you tell yourself or whatever. It's all there, just staring you in the face.

41:23And yeah, this year's been a really difficult one to navigate. I think as all of this stuff's happening with the show, which is really great and flattering, but then also kind of difficult too. And who am I? And why does the world see me differently? And blah, blah, blah. And then also who the fuck do you think you are? I think the world sees you differently. You just do a podcast, what the fuck is this? But then you can't help, but feel the thing. It's very complex. And unpacking it is real interesting. So, I don't know, this is why I got a good bit of stick for talking to people like a billionaire, Andrew Wilkinson or whatever, about the fact that money might not make you happy.

41:59And people just either discredit him or say that it's an obvious insight. And I'm like, well, if it's so fucking obvious, why does everyone keep on trying to be richer, hoping that it's going to make them happy? And, you know, I'm really, really trying hard to lay the breadcrumbs behind me as each of these different stages occur in becoming better known or whatever. Like this was the first time that I ever felt that the attention was too much in person. And having lots of people following and scrutinizing the stuff that you do on the internet might sound like it's great and just ego inflating, but what it actually feels like is just an increase in hate because you don't remember the compliments, you only remember the insults.

42:31So larger platforms are largely just more negativity because you don't remember or you're fucking in Teflon for the nice stuff and your Velcro for the bad stuff. Like, trying to leave it behind me as I go. And that's my sedimentary layered rock archeology thing of that's what it was like. And that's what it is like. Whitley, dark matter, what life decisions, such alternative Chris would you want to see play out? I can't answer this question without spoiling dark matter. And everybody should go and read dark matter because the book is fantastic. I know that there's a series on Apple TV that I haven't watched yet, but a good friend told me that I should read dark matter and She was right.

43:12It was awesome Highly highly recommended I'm not gonna I can't answer that question without spoiling it I want people to go and read it so I might answer it in future once more people have read it There we are Doff telly yes What is the hardest part about being you most people can't see or understand? Ah, again, it's like the millionaire whining about is this is the inner, you know, when we talk about that sort of British need to minimize suffering or to not sort of be too bigheaded like that, that gives me this response like that.

43:55Look, I spend a lot of time on my own and I spend an awful lot of time under pressure, largely pressure that I put on myself. But the last couple of years has resulted in me just working more than I ever have on the show, not doing the things that I started the show to do. Dealing with scheduling, with guests, and how we're going to shoot and budgeting and contracts and negotiations with partners, and because as the show grows, we need to be able to fund all of these big shoots to get out to the guests. If I want to go and see Jordan Peterson in Arizona and shoot with him. I need to get together all of the money to be able to make that happen.

44:30And then we need to schedule it. And then we need to organize it. And then we need to get the guys in there. And then I still need to do the research and the prep. And then I need to sit down and have a conversation with him. And then I need to show that afterwards. Oh, there's ad reads to do before you finish up. So the toughest thing about the show is all of the things on the show that I still need to do. Like I am CEO, founder, operator, host, guest booker, guest researcher, like a chief of operations, a chief of marketing, the Instagram stuff, like everything, everything, everything. And I'm really looking forward to relinquishing that.

45:05I'm so ready to let go of that. And I've hesitated. I don't talk about how the sausages made on the show that much, because you guys aren't here to hear me whine about the very thing that you're here to watch. Like you're here to just sit down and enjoy the show and learn interesting insights from somebody who hopefully I love and you find engaging. And me, harping on about the minutia detail problems of the actual way that this thing you enjoy comes about to me just I've always steered clear from kind of showing you guys that and it does feel kind of like I've got this weird relationship with someone.

45:43I don't know who it is. There's like a someone that represents all two and a bit million of you and I try to sort of keep, you know, it's like you don't tell your mum things to not sort of worry her. There's like certain things I just don't bother saying. But that's the big thing. The show involves a lot of stuff that isn't just the show. And I know that that also sounds like, well, why bother going through? It's so complex. Why not just make it simpler? It's like, well, like if I want to achieve the things that I want to with the show, which is to push the limits in terms of the guests that I can get.

46:13And in terms of doing things people haven't done before, the world's first podcast on a video wall of 3D or on location or whatever the fuck we're going to do. If I'm going to do that, I need to be able to scale things up. I need to make it more sophisticated, but that's still come to this one point, this tip of the spear apex, which is just me spinning tons of plates and screaming into the ether, trying to hold it all together. And that takes up a lot of mental space, like way more mental space than I would like to admit. So that's the toughest thing I think at the moment, but I'm looking forward to having someone hopefully that can just be like a big, I used to stand on the front door next to these huge Jordy bounces, right?

46:53These are dormant from Newcastle. And I just want a big dormant in front of me. And hopefully that's gonna be the general manager slash CEO person that'll come in and they can deal with all of that stuff. And I just get to go back to doing what I love to do, which is finding interesting people and coming up with cool ideas. So hopefully that's what's ahead. Dime colon. Dime colon. Any plans to interview Mel Robbins and have you been to Japan or any plans to visit? Mel Robbins has been on the list for ages. She's got a new book coming out later this year. Speaking to the team, we'd love to get her on.

47:26Hopefully it'll happen. I think it's going to happen. Japan also, yes, turn of friends out there. Guy that asked the first question actually. Chris Cabin was out there. I'd love to go. But I've traveled a lot this year, so I'm kind of, I'm happy just being here in my new house. J -Clock, you mentioned you were newly single, how has your approach to life changed since? You mentioned you were newly single, how has your approach to life changed since I'm newly single? Ah, not much has changed to be honest man. You know, my last relationship was a long distance, So very much I was focused on work with brief periods of doing the girlfriend thing and then now Life's kind of just the same but without brief periods of doing the girlfriend thing Which is probably definitely for the worst because it's just allowing me to work more and more as opposed to giving me Justifiable reason to stop working more Not much has changed to be honest.

48:26It's certainly a very different world to the last time I was single which was four years ago So, you know, more before COVID, basically, very, very big difference, I think, which given that I was someone that spent all of that time researching it, you know, looking at mating crisis, online dating, the prestige and status that's associated with a platform and how that impacts mate preferences and so on and so forth. It's like, wow, I don't know. When you experience it firsthand, all of that stuff, all of the changes in the world and perverse incentives and all the rest of it, it's a real change.

49:05I can see why people are confused. Becky underscore Irish, why do you respect Dan Bill's Aryan? That's a good question. I do respect Dan, actually. Caviart, evidently, that doesn't mean that I agree with even everything, even anything that he says. One of the reasons, the reason that I respect Dan is that he says what's on his mind. Dan's superpower, he's not the smartest guy in the room, he's not the best looking guy in the room, he's not the most really anything guy in the room. But he says what's on his mind, his brain, or his like heart to mouth filter is one of the lowest of anybody that I've ever met.

49:48Like the thing that he's saying is the thing that he believes. Even if what he believes is wrong totally open to the prospect of that being the case, it's just really fucking impressive to be around somebody who just does that. And that doesn't mean that you need to agree and that doesn't mean that I'm fucking glazing him. What it does mean is he's a very non -fungible human in that way. There are not many people like him. And there was a lot that I think that everybody should have taken away from the episode that I do to them. Real Chris Sailor 95. Congrats Chris on 2 .5 million. I've been listening to Modern Wizards since early 2020 and it's been fantastic to be alongside you on this journey.

50:29Thank you. You got me hooked on Sleeptalkin earlier this year and now it's a regular gym playlist. What are the music recommendations do you have or what's on your frequent rotation nowadays? Keep up the good work. Big love to you and the team. Thank you very much. So, wearing the t -shirt today. Bad Omen's, they are fucking fire their most recent album. Actually, everything they've put out is so good, highly highly recommend Bad Omen's. What else have I been listening to recently?

50:59Paris, still getting into a bunch of that. I know they kind of ended up on the bad end of a shit ton of Me Too stuff. Architects, again, kind of an obvious answer, I guess, but they're fantastic. Who's the dude that is supporting sleep token in the UK? There's this guy that's supporting sleep token in the UK. Does a cranking my fucking hog? Let's see if this comes up. Of course, it's not going to come up because it's all one word. Let's see if I can get it.

51:34Come on, come on. Bill Murray. Fucking yes. I've got the Bill Murray BILM URI. It kind of throwback to mid 2000s, like emo style breakdowns. I started listening again to date to remember four years strong, Silverstein taking back Sunday. I'm really in my full on retro teenage era right now. So I'm going back to a bunch of that. What else? palisades. Bring me the new album is fantastic, like obvious, but bring me the horizon, great. And then a lot of Anjunidip, like that's the sort of two barbell ends of the spectrum is aggressive, sad, sometimes hopeful, emo core, post hardcore stuff, and melodic, fruity the deep house on the other end, like absolute dopamine Chris and serotonin Chris, those are the two.

52:34The effectos, high Chris, how can you trust your decision making confidently when you become more and more insightful into the flawed space of your mind? Good question. When you see through the transient biases and impulses that drive you towards certain things, not knowing if those destinations are the ones you want, how do you get over the indecisiveness that inherently comes from seeing through the charade? And for example, when I'm trying to feel if I want to spend the rest of my life with a girl I am seeing, I cannot separate the wanting of closeness and comfort from the of what really is good for me.

53:05I find it challenging to separate the immediate desire for closeness from the rational assessment of what's good for me. I just love your podcast man, keep it up, you're an inspiration and a role model, bro. Well, thank you very much. And I know, you know, the basis of this question is, how can you make decision -making making confidently when you become more and more insightful into the flawed space of your mind. Dude, it's all, for me, it's all explained by a quote, shock horror to the guy that fucking loves everything, explains everything with a quote. Ultimately, happiness and life comes down to the discomfort between choosing to become aware of your mental afflictions or the discomfort of becoming ruled by them.

53:41You can choose to be aware of your mental afflictions or you can be ruled by them. And I want to be aware of them. Yes. That is going to bring with it a whole host of insight about the fact that, well, fuck, I was so confident previously that this was the right thing to do, but now I see how inherently broken and flawed and uncertain and and winging it. Everybody including myself is, how can I have any, how did I ever make any decision before? How did I ever make any sort of big commitment? I think one of the problems that you have is that you increase the grandiosity and the importance of the decisions that you're making further than they need to.

54:22Most decisions are reversible in one form or another. If any decision is reversible, you can make it pretty much immediately. Because you can turn it round. Like you leave a job, okay, you go to do a thing, but you can get a new job, presumably, unless it's a very rare job or something that you're not going to be able to replicate. But if you're in a sales role, like everybody needs a good salesperson, so okay, leave the job, try the thing, and then go back to it. When it comes to your relationship, your idea of, and spend the rest of my time, my life with a girl, I'm seeing can't separate the wanting of closeness and comfort from the rational assessment of what's good for me.

54:57I don't know why the desire for closeness and the rational assessment of what's good for you wouldn't be the same thing. Like it seems quite rational to want closeness. It seems like if you're enjoying something, what's more rational than that. Also, I would try and pull you out of your own head. I'm aware that like I'm saying this, Mr. Cerebral, but the more that I've tried to sort of embody emotions in that way. In fact, there was a really great study done. There was a guy who needed either he was in an accident or he needed an area of his brain removing and this area of his brain was associated with emotion.

55:35And the problem was that they asked him, I think, what time tomorrow he wanted to have his next interview with the doctors that were conducting the study and it took 30 minutes for him to not choose until someone suggested a day and he just agreed because without any emotional valence, no decision, your priority set is constructed through emotions. Like it's just vibes, bro. It's so true. The more that I think about it, the more that I learn about life, the more I'm convinced that it's just vibes. So I actually think that relying less on rationality and not praying at the feet of that. Like if you did a thing and it felt good and you didn't regret doing it tomorrow, what else is there?

56:23Like it was right in the moment and it was right in the future. I don't think that you need to try and be able to predict every individual permutation like in fucking dark matter. You don't need to be able to predict how everything's going to go. You just find something that feels right, go with it. If it's a reversible decision, you'll be fine. if it's something that you can do step by step, that's also fine. You'll be alright. You're paying way more attention to all of this stuff than anybody else's. So if you can learn to just release a little bit more instead of tightening up, I think everything will be good.

56:53Bogdan, oh 402. What are your current goals in the gym? What are you focusing on right now? Need more vlogs about your training and routine greetings from Ukraine. Fucking Ukraine, bro. Wow.

57:09That is called these by the way, element of started doing a RTD salty sparkling drink. It's so good. Goes in the gym, just absolutely bro physique. Pushpull legs with a couple of additional sessions. One is the Norwegian 4x4 thing that I spoke about. We talked to Ronda Patrick trying to get a healthy heart and shoulders, thighs and tries on the Saturday with one of my boys and that's it. It's nothing fancy. It's what? One, two, three, four, five, and a half, five and a half hours of training a week, maybe a little bit more. It's great. Vlogs about training. Mike is retell one is coming up soon.

57:53George Heaton one is coming up soon. Chris Bumstead is coming up soon. So there will be more training. It's like the least legitimate person to be doing training vlogs in the world. The guy that trains five and a half hours a week. But here we are, we're doing it. Sci -psychos, 666, Hey Chris, appreciate your content. Congrats on the 2 .5 mil. Thank you. I have a question. How do you get out of a rut? Do you even have ones or just your podcasts requires you to never get under a certain level? This is really, that's a really smart insight. I am unbelievably familiar with getting into ruts and, you know, Throughout my 20s, I was pretty sure that I had some intermittent depression thing that would just come along and flatten me.

58:43And I had no idea why it was happening. And I would struggle to get out of bed for a couple of days at a time. It wasn't, it wasn't self -harming. I wasn't in the absolute depths of despair, but it was this very normal, very sort of mundane boring type of depression. It's just this malaise fucking thing that I was swimming in where everything felt heavy, getting out of bed felt heavy, going to work felt heavy, speaking to somebody felt heavy, so I just didn't do it. And I was working for myself, so nobody could tell me to do otherwise. So I'm very, very familiar with it. I actually do think that the pod kind of drags me through.

59:26I work very well with accountability and this may be a useful insight to other people to that one of the reasons that I've been able to stay so consistent with the show is that there is no way I'm not going to show up when there is a guest waiting on the other side. Think about how many times when you were in school or university or with a project for work or something where there isn't strictly a deadline and there's no expectation that you're going to do it. I'm just going to learn Spanish because I'm going to learn Spanish. I'm just going to complete this submission earlier or whatever you never do you never do because you just continue to expand and expand and you can justify to yourself you manana manana manana manana But if you were doing it with somebody else if you were sitting down to work together You're not not going to do the work.

1:00:13There's someone there looking at you You're the partnering this project or your your teacher at the piano or fucking Spanish or whatever it is that you're doing And the show has permanently kept me in the presence of an external countable person. And that's meant that I've never missed, I've never once ever missed an episode, ever in nearly a thousand episodes. I've never once not shown up. And I've been in like really sad moods, like really, really down moods, although they've gotten less recently. But I do think maybe 50 % of it is probably, actually, maybe a third of it is because Because I've habituated myself into not sort of permitting that milieu to take hold.

1:01:02Maybe another third is that I've improved my quality of life, sleep pattern, diet training, social circle, weather of where I live, lifestyle stuff. And then the final third is kind of what you said, which is that the pod just means I can't get under a certain level or else I can't perform. And I want to perform. And I care more about being good on the show and about keeping this thing, this thing that I care about going and proving to myself that I can do it. I care more about that than I am worried or prepared to indulge in me feeling sad. so yeah I think find a pursuit which is stronger or bigger than your bad moods is maybe a lesson to take away from that LJ Theog 12 what advice would you give to rising public figures about dealing with being recognized in public?

1:02:04harassment stalking not knowing if someone knows who you are want trying to make new friends, etc. I'm not sure I'm the person to give this advice. I would love to hear from the person who could give that advice. I can only talk about my own experience. For me, being recognized in public is unanimously good. Nobody has ever said, this isn't a fucking challenge. Okay. But no one ever says nasty things to me in public. No one ever sort of, I mean, what are you going to say? Like I didn't like that quote from John Paul Sartre that you said or you, you, you, you're actually not, not a public intellectual and like, bro, the fact that you've considered me to potentially be a public intellectual is a problem of you, not me.

1:02:43I never claimed to be one. Anyway, all the stuff in public is fine. Her assman's stalking, again, I don't know, I think I might be a bit boring, at least, like personally, quite boring. And also the right level of out there and not out there. The harassment -talking thing doesn't happen. No one seems to care. By look or by crook, whatever that's saying is, I seem to be getting through it. Not knowing if someone knows who you are when trying to make new friends, you seem to really be able to tell that pretty easily.

1:03:19Mark Manson has this insight about friends and fans and the sort of challenge in the tension between the two. But largely it's just been a mostly enjoyable experience with some mostly self -imposed problems and externalities when it's about the story you tell yourself about who you are. Tan -guy Ren -no -di 1261. Hi Chris, you've become my favorite podcaster by large margin. I barely look anywhere else anymore. Your insights, examples, aphorisms and quick laughs have opened my eyes to a new way of seeing the world. Thank you. Thank you very much. Here's my question, one I've been resting with.

1:04:01How do you raise the bar and the pressure on yourself to work harder and change when the cost of this hard work seems higher than the life you are already enjoying? What levers can you pull in your environment in your daily routine to force yourself to change and push harder when life is already pretty fine but could be better? This seems mostly applicable to employees like me who have a stable 9 to 5 but dream of more. Great question and I think it's a lot of people sit. You know, this is the region beta paradox. In many ways life is not that bad, but not that good. You kind of have this sense that you're maybe built for more, but you're not too sure.

1:04:36You would have to risk a lot, but not an insurmountable amount. You have to risk a bit, which even makes the fact that you're not taking the risk seem embarrassing because it's everything but also how much better could life be? It's largely giving up the good for the great and how do you motivate yourself to do it? So one of the things that I did, Tony Robbins awakened the giant within has a really weird, if you look unordable, there is a 90 minute version which is just workbook exercises. There's a bit of narrative in it too. I have no idea what the fuck he made this for but a friend sent it to me.

1:05:15It's so odd like this thing, it's 20 years old and it's not the book. It's awakened the giant within something. Just do a search and have a look through a bunch of them. And he has a few different exercises, one of which is think about a thing that you want to make a change with now and bring into the present moment. All of the ways it's cost you in the past is cost new now and will cost you in the future. All of the situations you've been through where you wish that you could have changed it. what it's doing to your life in the moment and all of the ways that in the future this is going to continue to curtail and limit your happiness and your fulfillment.

1:05:53And then do the opposite. Think about how much better life could be if you did do this thing. Whatever the thing is, whatever the change is that you're looking to make. And then he redefines change, making the decision to change as taking a physical action that moves your world to water. So there's no such thing he says, as making a decision, there is only taking an action. What does it mean to say, I've decided to leave my job? What does it mean? It doesn't mean anything. Just I have sent an email to my boss asking him for a meeting on Monday, that's taking a step toward leaving a job, deciding, deciding as bullshit.

1:06:30And I think for the chronic overthinkers amongst us, it's a very good solution. So that was something that worked really well for me. On top of that, what are you here to do? Are you here to kind of exist in this comfortably numb into quartile range middle period thing of life? Or do you wanna make some fucking waves? I wanna make some waves. I wanna do something that I look back on and I go, yeah, I actually, I made that happen out of nothing. I had an impact, I left dent, and that's not going to happen if you're sitting in good but not great. And that's fine for a lot of people, but I kind of get the sense that if you listen to this show and asking questions like that, that that's probably not for you.

1:07:20And unfortunately, the discomfort which includes potentially letting go of a good life to risk getting a uncertain great life is one of those prices that you have to pay. And that's why so few people do it. But if you want to do it, that's a step that you have to take. Aaron Munt, love your workmate. What's your favorite cologne to wear? So at the moment, I'm wearing Bacarat Rouge, the yellow version, not the red version. And any of my friends know that... Like, if I ever borrow a hoodie or whatever, that hoodie will stink of it for the next couple of weeks. One of my friends, this ad -bucket for the show Sky, I put his hoodie on on a plane maybe like a year ago and his girlfriend always wife fiance at the time Started complimenting him on how nicely smelled and he felt like he was being How do you say like?

1:08:17Naisily cucked by me from wearing this thing, but back at Rooge is fantastic I've been through a few cycles Penthalagons Hal Fettie is Fire that's really really nice. It's a little bit stronger bit darker There was this world in which everybody wore creed eventas in Newcastle and it became a meme smell so I had to stop wearing that. But yeah, back at Rouge at the moment is my favourite and those are the ones about us as well. D -Willie 8408. Do you wake up? Do you feel well rested waking up every day and if so, what do you attribute it to? I struggle with feeling well rested. It's seemingly random times.

1:09:01Alright, so yeah, that's a good question. This year I've had probably the lowest energy I ever have, largely because of fighting with health shit from this previous house. And no, I haven't. I'd love to just, you know, be the fucking picture of podcasting health and tell you, yes, I'm always great or whatever. But I'm not, I'm sleeping more than I ever have and feeling less rested, but that's Part of the recovery process for this shit. I'm going through I would do a mold check a toxic mold check on your house, and I would get some Immune markers, bloods of immune markers done Fuck what is it? What are they called?

1:09:42There's a couple of labs that do really great break if you just search for immune marker blood test That would be one of the first places that I would go to Maybe it's something in the environment. Maybe it's something in testosterone levels. Obviously you can get your tea levels checked. You can get just like a full blood panel done. MarickHealth .com slash Modern Wisdom. And then Modern Wisdom I think is 10 % off. If you want to get that done in America, if you're outside of America, go and speak to a doctor. But if you're sleeping well, you shouldn't be tired. And it means there's something else going on.

1:10:16So I hope that you find out what the solution is. Rasmus Karl Mann. Congrats. Thank you. Question. It seems as though I'm either really productive with work in periods, but my health and joy take a hit. I'm in full zen mode, living life, meeting more people in 100 % serotonin -rasmus mode. Very cool. But failed to get enough work done. So then I feel the lack of purpose and an overwhelming pressure to work harder. Do you run into this problem and how do you deal with it? Is the answer as simple as balance? Finding that seems arduous after all this time. fucking awesome question dude. So this is the issue that we have multiple sometimes conflicting goals in life and we want to try and do both serotonin chill meditation have fun with my friends thing and I also want to be in grind mode.

1:11:04My solution for this and this is something that I talk about on the new Hormosi episode is to have obsession in the micro and variation in the macro. I think the best way to try and work this in is to do, let's say, weekdays. You work hard in grind mode and then on a weekend you allow yourself a little bit more time to chill out and do stuff or if you find that you need to be more committed for a longer period of time, you do one month on and then you have a week where you take a little bit more time to have fun. And if that's not enough, you keep pushing it out until you find the right cadence and the right balance between the two.

1:11:41For me personally, I'm very much a creature of obsession and habit. So I need to be in kind of one mode. I'm either in holiday mode. I mean, then it's on a gondola taking photos of ancient fucking buildings that none of them are straight. Or I'm binning myself doing long days and allowing myself to just go fully obsess. I'm obsessive on both, right? I'm using my, I think, using my obsession to my advantage, completely dedicated to work, and then completely dedicated to holiday. And that pivot seems to work well. So it sounds like you're built at least slightly similarly to me. Allow obsession in the micro and balance in the macro, which is basically periodizing things, right?

1:12:31Health and joy, something that you need to focus on. So how often do you need to have health and joy and how often do you need to have the work thing in order to satisfy both of them and then as opposed to trying to balance them across a day, try and balance them across a week or across a month or across a year. That's a much easier way to do it. Same as Mike Israel said about getting a step count in. It's like, look, my goal is to hit, I think he does 11 ,000. So his goal is to hit 77 ,000 steps a week. And if he does 9 ,000 one day, he can do 13 ,000 the next day. The same thing goes for calories.

1:13:04It's not about how many calories you eat every day. It's about how many calories you eat per day multiplied across an entire year, right? So it doesn't really matter about how your balances of work within the minute, right? You're not trying to have a little bit of zen and a little bit of grind per minute to just scale that out. Why do it per day or per week or per month? Periodizing between the two, at least for me is my current working hypothesis and I reserve the right to renegimate and say that it was a fucking terrible idea not long ago. Dr. Brian Keating, you said you never aired your interview with Andrew Tate.

1:13:41Why not? Do you not worry about similar damage to your brand that comes from hosting anti -Semitic misogynist like Dan Bellsarian? What other interest is there other than he's supposedly rich? What's the upside there? Okay, so I think you might be a little confused about why I didn't share the episode with Andrew. I didn't say anything about it being damaged to my brand. I didn't post it because at the time, YouTube was taking down any COVID skeptical information. And then the reason that I didn't air it after that was because I actually felt a little bit harsh on Andrew. I don't have really any degree of loyalty or I don't have any obligation to not stitch him up with a big video, but it just seems like a shitty thing to do.

1:14:28It's not something that you do to somebody else to post a video of a quite gregarious person talking about a highly chaotic, rapidly moving news situation. Three years later, when we can kind of stress test a lot of the speculation that he was doing, and it would just result in him making a ton of claims that kind of maybe didn't come out to be true or whatever. I'm like, well, I wouldn't like that if somebody did that about me. And also, it's a bit out of date, and it's three years, and it would have been plainly transparent that the only reason that I was doing that was because he was a massive name, he was the most Google person in the world.

1:15:05So all of the incentives aligned for me to just not do it. Taking the second question just as its own, do you worry that similar damage to your brand comes from hosting anti -Semitic massagingists like Dan Bilzerian? So, Dan went straight from the episode he did with me to do an episode with Patrick Bat David. And that episode went up before ours went out. Patrick turned his around before minded, and then Dan started sharing some clips about Israel and his position on that. I don't care about his position on Israel. I didn't know about what his position was, And I didn't have a conversation with him about it.

1:15:46I think that what other interest is there other than he's supposedly rich What Brian you run a Science mostly science podcast I think if you were to look at Dan as somebody who has reached the pinnacle of the hedonism mountain and not think That there is something for us to learn from him that seemed quite surprising to me Maybe it's because running a science podcast you can't see the angle of this from a personal development lens but I think that there's an awful lot to learn from somebody who has been to the absolute extreme of fulfilling all of their gratuitous desires. It would be surprising to me that you couldn't see that there would be something to learn.

1:16:27When it comes to damage to my brand, I don't make judgments based on damage to my brand. I speak to people that I'm interested in about things I'm interested in. That's it, and I'm sure that you do the same on your show. So So it wasn't to do with damage, brand damage about Andrew Tate, and I will continue to bring on people that I'm interested in, regardless of what everyone else thinks about them. There's no username here. I'm just going to continue. As a mom of two boys, thank you for discussing issues and men face. The dating crisis topics and evolutionary psychology podcasts are amazing, and they've helped me to build up a library to reference as my boys grow up in this crazy world.

1:17:08In addition, my husband and I have in -depth conversations about how we want to raise our boys while keeping these issues in mind. Thank you. I appreciate that. I very much do. I didn't think about the second order trickle -down effect of mums listening to the advice for guys and then teaching it to their sons. But that's pretty cool. Are there any of the books or researchers that focus on male adolescent development that you would recommend? And not my area of expertise, but I would just stick to the big ones when it comes to sex differences. I think that you learn an awful lot from the world of evolutionary psychology about how men and women are in a more natural sense in terms of their typical biases.

1:17:52And you can learn an awful lot. The APU understood the universe by Steve Stewart Williams, the moral animal by Robert Wright, The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Height, Richard Reeves of Boys and Men, Billy Nomates, another good book, I also would be in there. That's a good starting point. And then in terms of followers, like George from the Tin Men is just the the absolutely best at this sort of men's rights, ascended third wave of Manusphere stuff at the moment, I think. So I will continue to find the people, just listen to the show. You don't need to, don't worry about new books or researchers, just keep listening to the podcast and I will continue to tell you everything.

1:18:38Michael, Rooney, 9, 3, 4, 0. Oh man, congrats. Thank you. Now you've been doing the news that for a while and have so many people reading. Do you think of yourself as a writer as well as a podcaster? I actually do, which is kind of cool. Didn't ever consider, I don't know, like writer just seems like such a a salubrious title seems like something that's you know that apa echelons should be able to say but I've written like over a quarter of a million words since I started that thing so I guess I guess I am writer and I really like it actually I really think it clarifies my thought in a way that just speaking doesn't just speaking gives me a lot but writing gives me something else too.

1:19:21So, yeah, I very much appreciate that. All right, I'm done. That's it. I appreciate you all, two and a half million subs, which is fucking wild. What are you gonna see over the next few weeks? You're gonna see Chris Bumstead, you're gonna see Leonidib, you're gonna see Will Tennyson, Jesse James West, you're gonna see Casey Neistat. Look at all of this, releasing all of this stuff at the very end, an hour and a half into an episode and so few people are gonna get to hear it. That's the little Easter egg that you get for sticking about. Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro is booked. He's coming on. I'm going to Florida to record with him as well.

1:19:54Well, it's coming up. That's kind of it. That's kind of, that's the next few weeks. That'll be happening while this comes out. I will be away. I'll be in Florida. I'll be recording. But I appreciate you all. Thank you for the support and the kind of questions and the patience of putting up with me while I work out how to navigate all of this stuff. It's very, very meaningful. I'll see you next time.