#848 - Will Tennyson - Male Body Dysmorphia, Fat Loss & Insane Challenges

23:41You mentioned before that you had this ambient sense of surveillance or the people watching you. What would you say to people who feel socially anxious or awkward or like they are being uh, surveilled by everyone else? You're not. You're really not. Like the amount of times that it's it's kind of like in the in the the obese video. I was talking to another guy and he was also fat and he said the first time he went to the gym He felt like everyone was looking at him, but that's just an internal thing that you think so that's that's your own battle But you just have to realize that like you're just like everyone else like it like back in school I was the one kid who I would get a note for not doing presentations so I would knock up in front of the class I was terrified so I would always make videos and that's how I fell off the YouTube because all of my projects I would make a video for it but But to me, it was almost the same thing, just being on a video versus being a person, the more that I think about it, it's just like, it's still you.

24:45It's only you, everyone's watching you. And when you look around the room, like when I'm watching, like, when I think about it now, I look back a lot now, but like, you know, hindsight, you look around, no one's laughing. How old do you now? I'm 30, I just turn 30. I'm 50. Thank you, yeah. Which is a weird one. It's my strategist over there. The one with the unnecessary power of glasses on inside. I did his 30th birthday today. Happy birthday to you. I'm actually at a hard time with that one, to be honest. Why? This my kid kind of dark. But I've always been somebody, especially my 20s where you birth days kind of just meshed together.

25:22And I've also never been one to think about death ever. But as I turned 30, I started to think about it a lot. Like I've also been like obsessing with it. And I'm not sure why. And I kind of see things completely differently now. Like I think when my 20s, I kind of just saw like, this is my life and if I walk down the street and I see an 80 year old, that's just someone in my life and that's just who they are. They're just an object of my life and I'm never gonna be that. But the second I turn 30, I'm like, holy shit, I'm gonna be that one day. So I'm kind of like finally, as weirdly as it sounds, like seeing the fact that I'm aging.

25:59And it's maybe kind of like, you know, reflect a lot. I've thought about that a lot recently. I've had this conversation a couple of times, but as a guy, basically, until you're probably about, I think it was about 32, 33 for me, you're just not aware of mortality. You're not aware that you're aging. And then probably 34 was the first time. I was like, oh, I've got a couple of gray hairs on my beard. are and workouts actually take a bit longer to recover from. And if I have a late night, even if I'm not drinking, that kind of hits me the next day, like a mild hangover. Like what, I used to be made of rubber and magic.

26:40What is this? It's weird. And it's a conversation that I'm really keen to have more about what it means to age gracefully as a man because everybody talks about it for women and rightly so. Again, their primary source of value to the world in many ways is their beauty and their youth. But I think we have quite a well established conversation about that for women. But for guys, what does it mean to know that you're never going to be as lean as you were before or as muscular as you were before? And because dudes aren't supposed to take their sense of self -worth from the way that they look, what does it matter if you've got wrinkles?

27:14You know, that's a sign of being a man. Skin cares for pussies. Like just fucking take the sun in the face with no UV protection. But especially given that young guys are having more body dysmorphia problems and that everybody's, whether it's a zoom face or just the ubiquity of social media or even just photos, the fact that everybody's taking more photos of themselves and what's going on, everyone is able to scrutinize their condition and their age much more. So yeah, I think it's a weird, did you have, because I had this shame around being bothered about the fact that you were noticing that you were getting older, like you shouldn't do this isn't a masculine embodiment in order for you to think about this?

28:03No, right. I'd say I'm quite, just me. I'm an open book with my emotions. I would say like I'm, I think one of the main reasons why a lot of people enjoy watching my content is because I'm so okay with making it fool of myself. I'm so okay with not being the best and I'm just a great person to just be like, okay, I'm just gonna go and learn and just be a fly on the wall and just watch you do your thing. I was just shooting a video yesterday and we are doing this mobility test and I know that I was probably the worst person that he's ever seen. And me being in the fitness space, I'm okay with it because it's just like it's not that serious.

28:43And I think just like men take themselves so serious so they're not allowed to feel. And I just don't understand. Like for me, I think like showing your emotion is sexy. You know, being playful is definitely a really good

29:00pressure release valve, I think. So Charlie Hooper that does charisma on command teaches people how to be more confident charismatic, especially in communication. He taught me this thing me probably three years ago now, and he taught me about how people don't always want the right answer to a question that they ask you. So for instance, somebody asks you, what did you do for a living, and you make up some really elaborate rude, and you take them on this. You know, I used to work as a vet, but then I saved this one particular dog that had to take back to Jamaica, and I just decided I was going to sell Lucy cigarettes on the beach for, actually, no, that's a lie, like I work in finance.

29:38I know that that's such a lame joke, but so few people are prepared to not answer a question trying to get it as right as possible. I think this is drilled into us partly from school, and then also from wanting to be seen as serious thinkers as somebody who's sophisticated and has insight, you know, can be efficient on the ball. But so many of my friends that I love being around the most give me the most wrong answers. So that regularly, regularly will make a joke about something. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I fucking, all right. But what really, thank you about that. But their first go -to is not necessarily the right thing.

30:13And I think that kind of in YouTube, the same thing, if somebody takes themselves to seriously, or even around work, like people know this, if there's an opportunity for you to lighten the load, a little bit, I think it's good for everybody else and to service to them and to service yourself to kind of just be a little bit lighter. So I have written, you know, this is a big thing I'm working on in the show at the moment, trying to add a little bit more sort of playfulness, which I think is like the best term being playful with it. And I've got written on a post it, no, just above where the camera sits, play.

30:44I've got that. Just to remind me, you know, you can make this conversation a serious academic topic or whatever, try and find the element of play in it. And we realize that play is something that you're supposed to do with sports or with pickleball or, you know, whatever, dance or whatever it is that you're doing. We don't think about it in day -to -day communication so much. So yeah, I think that injecting more play into serious or unserious topics is a pretty good way to go about it. I just think that when you get older, you feel like you can't. I was just walking with my wife and I saw this little kid and he was just running on the field screaming.

31:21I was just like, oh, I wish I could do that. She's like, then why don't you? I'm kind of just like, oh yeah, I'm absolutely like, I can't fold out by your wife. Yeah, like why not? And I feel like you get a certain age and I think that's what's wrong with this Did you then run toward the child screaming because that's the sort of thing where it will get you? Yeah, I know I rested. Yeah. Yeah Have you seen Nikikado avicados recent I have re -transformation? Give me your thoughts on that That's insane and it's I'm just like What what was going on like because they said he posted a video seven months before that one So how much was he shooting in advance?

31:58Like, what was he doing at the right way? Did he get liposuction? It looks like he has no loose skin. At least around the face. Yeah, I mean, even when you see him, with the t -shirt on, t -shirt is quite snug. It's like you don't see any loose skin. So it's pretty crazy. I'm almost like a loss of words because you don't really know. I'd love to know. Did he do it? Did he work out? For the people that don't know what we're talking about. Nicky Cardo avocado was a mukbang eating video on YouTube influencer who got how heavy do you think he got? I think it was 411 pounds. Okay, for 400 pounds, not that high, not that tall of a height, and then released a video the other day.

32:42The most Luke I am your father semi -sociopathic like semi. Yeah, tell me. So, daring down, saying that it was you have all been part of the biggest social experiment in history, so, I mean, like, one of the best YouTube videos I've seen in a long time. Like, awesome. Like, really, oh, this isn't Mr. Beast dropping a Lamborghini into a car crusher that's kind of unique or whatever. This is outright insane. Yeah, it's like 40 million views too. Yeah. And no one knows really how it's happened. I mean, I, I wish he would share that. I think that'd be super cool. I think he has to. How can you just leave that loop open, surely?

33:26I mean, based off what we saw, I think he might. He just seems like that type of guy, just like it's the mystery of it all. How hard would you have to work to get from 411 pounds down to 160, 170, something like that? That would be life -consuming. Like you don't have to change every aspect of your life. Like it would be, like I feel like 411 pounds, like not many people can do that. Cause I think for a lot of people, like people don't really realize how hard it is to get that fat. Like we get to like, a lot of people get to 250 and you're stuffing your face, but then you just, you can't possibly maintain the increase.

34:05So I think to get to that level of like fat, like you are doing some like serious shit, man. Like it's like you're like having idea, freaking like cheese and you're like going to sleep. Like so everything that he does has to be completely changed. So I can't imagine how hard that would be. Yeah, you've lost a person. You've lost a person in a bit. Yeah, off you. Yeah. Couple people, I would say. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's very impressive. And also kind of concerning that everybody was sort of drawn into the same thing. One of my favorite writers, Gwendo, wrote the definitive audience capture article about Niccolò.

34:52And he's a smart guy. Gwendo is really, really smart guy. And I sent him the video and he said, oh, I saw the most recent mukbang he did. I was like, no, no, no, no. Did you see the video he dropped yesterday? And he went on and was like, oh my God. Like this is the most wild, incredible twist to the story. I really don't know, man. I mean, it's quite remarkable that if this was all planned and he's like, I'm gonna get to this and then I'm gonna get down, the guy has balls. If he's got a definitive proof, you know, holding the newspaper up, so to speak, that's wild. Yeah, because that's what I'm also thinking.

35:23I could just, is this like way in the past? Like, you know, I don't know. Oh, he could have released the video, it could have been a video that was recorded. I mean, even that. So there's only two ways that this has happened, right? either. He recorded that before he got fat and is now releasing it but I think he's got different hair. So he recorded it before he got fat to then release it now he is secretly fat but hasn't told anybody. Or he actually did get fat and is now lost all of the weight and he's talking about that. I don't know which one's more incredible. I don't actually know which one's more shocking.

35:57They're both crazy. Wild Nikikado if you want to come and talk about it on the show you know where I am. Um, they're just so, so fascinating. But yeah, to see a normal dude, relatively normal dude, go through that. I'm going back to your videos. What's the hardest challenge that you've done? Oh, I do want it recently. I went to Denver. I got you. Just going to Denver was hard. Yeah. But, uh, man, um, I went to the North America's highest gym. It was an all -my, like an hour and a half out of Colorado. And I worried that for, I don't know, let's say. But I did this challenge where I had 10 challenges and they get progressively harder.

36:48And then at the altitude, it was also my first video, so I landed and we went. And I had to do like, I like maxed out on squats, and I maxed out on overhead press, maxed on bench did like all this cardio. And by the end, I was on this thing called the Jacobs ladder. For the tense challenge, and I'm on it. And this is the first time ever where I thought my body was like shutting, my body was shutting down on me and I couldn't control it. And I was like, I was going and then I'm pretty sure like a lot of it, I kind of don't remember to be honest because I kind of I blocked out. I blocked out and I kind of came came back up because I wanted to finish it so bad.

37:26And then once that was done, I almost couldn't walk. And then I just started perfusely crying. Once it was done, I couldn't control my emotion. I just started crying. And I was like, holy, you OK? And I'm like, I don't know. I just, I don't know if I'm OK. It felt like such a traumatic experience for some reason. And it took me a couple of weeks to actually feel OK again. Wow, and then a lot of the comments are like dude like That was fucking dangerous like because I got like my blood oxygen. Yep, level test. It was like 80 Not good not good. Yeah, I didn't really know at the time So I was like okay, whatever like I'm taking a video like it's gonna be cool The worst it is the better kind of like that's my yeah thing and then Everyone's like dude like that's really dumb.

38:11You can add our heart attack. How high is it, you know? 10 ,361 feet. That's really high. Yeah. Yeah, so like I got home. It's a gym on the mountain. Yeah, yeah My wife yelled at me. What if we want to have kids and you go out to these stupid videos and all that? You won't be here early. I'm about to eat again, don't worry. We'll get back to talking to Will in one minute, but first I need to tell you about AG1. Over the span of about a year, I tried pretty much every green string that I could find trying to work out which one was best. And I came across AG1 and have stuck with it for over three years because it is the most comprehensive, highly tested and rigorously formulated on the market.

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39:16Right now you can get a year's free supply of vitamin D3 and K2 plus 5 free AG1 travel packs and that 90 day money back guarantee By going to the link in the description below or heading to drink AG1 .com slash modern wisdom. That's drink AG1 .com slash modern wisdom What's it like? What's life like sort of stringing all of these challenges together gaining 20 pounds in a week Waking up a foray and to do Mark Walberg's morning routine just eating protein bars for a day Is that not a high personal price to pay? Oh yeah, yeah, it's a blessing and a curse. I would say I think it's like a blessing like sometimes I almost every video or every video that I shoot, I always have a moment where I kind of stop and I'm like I'm doing this for a living right now.

39:59It's so fun, it's so cool. But then I'm a person who I thrive on routine and schedule. And I take my lifting quite seriously. So when I go away for traveling and I can't do it or like I'm doing someone else's routine, it throws me off. So it's very difficult to kind of stay on track with all that stuff. And again, it kind of like similar to me being fat, where would I be if I didn't do this? I'm kind of like where would I be physically, like in terms of the gym if I wasn't doing this? Because I take this stuff pretty seriously in terms of like the lengths that I'm willing to go to make a video, like travel, do a lot of stuff.

40:36I post it very consistently. And I put, I very much put that first before myself, which is probably not the best thing to admit. I don't know. I, you know, we did the same thing. There was a period just before COVID started and then straight in. I kind of had the inclination before COVID and then when COVID began, you know, I still remember the message. I should print it off and put it on a wall, but I play. I sent this message to my editor, Dean, who was, It was only me and him for 500 episodes. And then there was me and him in a Mormon assistant for 650 episodes. And then finally we actually got a team.

41:16By remembering our message to him, it was like, I want to turn pro with the show. I want to stop messing about. I want to dedicate everything I have to becoming as good as possible. This means learning YouTube, learning thumbnails, getting a speech coach, getting a comedy coach, getting an improv coach, working on my diction, working on my questioning, getting better guests, getting better advertisers, working on all of the stuff, everything, I want to dedicate everything I've got. And then, you know, a pandemic shutting down the world isn't great for many things, but it's good to focus your attention and stop distractions.

41:44So I know what you mean that you put it ahead of other stuff and it might not be, I don't know. I think it's a good thing to admit in that you're dedicating yourself to a pursuit. I think there's a fine line. Like for me, I had this, I had this, Yeah, I mean, I started my channel with my dog, Ollie. Like, he was like this little fellow and he was like very much so a character. All I do is intro with them and stuff. And he's like, I've only ever remembered life with him. He was 16. So, he passed away. Or, yeah, he passed away, but I was at the house and my dad was like, we have to put him down.

42:22Like, because it was just getting so bad, I fainted. Like, I've never fainted. I'm not one who's to faint. I fainted in the kitchen. and I was like so devastated the next day I shot a video. I had to like, I swallowed it and I went and I shot because I was like, I have this on my schedule and I'm gonna go shoot a video and I put it down and then once that was done, I just like, burst it out crying, but then the thing is I just, I kept on putting it down, but then I never dealt with it. So then you deal with it like years later. So I dealt with it this year. How was that when it finally came back around?

42:56horrible. And then it makes me kind of upset. I'm like, yo, like this is like this animal. That was like my brother was such a huge part of my life. And I just like didn't take a time to like appreciate that aspect of my life to go shoot a video. That's just like for a week of my channel. You know, it's not like anything significant. And I couldn't even do that. So it really made me reflect and has kind of given me a better relationship now with how I approach things. How so? I will never put YouTube in front of myself anymore in terms of how I feel mentally or anything like that. Huge part of that is because of my wife.

43:44She's very much so like very, she's like a hippie, spiritual meditation. She's like, you'll just like, she's like a good balance. Yeah, she's very not really into the social media stuff. So she very much like grounds me and she's like, you have to like touch some fucking grass. Yeah, take care of yourself and you know, if you do that, like if you pull back a bit, you're actually making progress, you're going forward and like I never really saw like that because I think in social media specifically, we see like, you know, when you're not posting, in your feeling. And the more that you post, the more views that you get.

44:19You think that everybody loves you. And in the second, you kind of go away. It's like you're like, you kind of get worried. You get a little bit worried. And then I kind of tried like, like, I used to do two videos a week. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this week. I'm just gonna do one video a week. So I used to post Thursday and Sunday. I stopped. I didn't post a video on Thursday. And I just sat there and I hit 10 a .m. And I'm like, okay, this is okay. No, there was like nothing happened. You know, so it's kind of just like, Again, it's like learning. You're just maturing in this space.

44:48Deconditioning is. Yeah. So, it's just like realizing that it's not the end of the world. You have a life outside of this and just make it work around you. Tim Ferris talks about decentralizing your identity. So, some of the worst times of his life were when all of his sense of self -worth was taken from Tim Ferriss, the podcast, or Tim Ferriss, or Tim Ferriss, or whatever. And now he wants to be Tim Ferriss, the friend and Tim Ferriss, the Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu practitioner and Tim Ferriss, the wood whittler, or whatever it is that he's doing. And he talks about decentralizing your identity. I think that's really cool that you don't put all of your sense of self -worth into this one thing.

45:29Because on one side, that's where obsession comes from, which gives you an awful lot of success. But on the other side, it makes you kind of fragile in a way. It would be like having your entire net worth just invested into one stock. And I'm not convinced that you're just going to get ragged around by the market. Oh, we're up 10 % today. Oh my god, we're down 20 % today. Supposed to having an ETF, the index fund, trading portfolio, and multiple things. Yeah. Multiple groups of people, one maybe up, one maybe down. The gym may be going great, but maybe business is a little bit back. My relationship might be fantastic, but maybe family life's a little bit off.

46:03Whatever it might be. I think that's a good way to think about it. But on the flip side, that's a luxury that I think you have and that I have to some degree too, because we've reached some form of escape velocity to get out to the platform size and kind of the momentum that you need to. So this is the thing that, again, talking about the Lonely Chapter, and I really love discussions like this where we talk about the real sort of hidden pain or the unsexy nuance. The unsexy nuance of most advice is that what somebody who is big enough for you to care about their advice is giving you is probably not the tactic that they did when they were at your level.

46:50100%. So for me and you, to start talking about work -life balance, which by the way I don't have, but for you to start talking about work -life balance is all well and good. But you didn't get to three million subs by doing that. So what everybody needs to think about that's taking advice from the internet is not, what does this person say that they would do now? Because they are not you and this isn't, don't look at what somebody says they would do now, look at what they did when they were you in the past. You know what I mean? Oh, absolutely. And it's funny that you say that because I've watched a lot of podcasts and I was watching asking him, how would you start a YouTube channel to like people and he's just like, I just focus on making the best video possible.

47:36And you know, just only put put the best video possible. So like what he does now, but it's like, no, it's like, you got it. Like can you even speak in front of a camera? Like get the reps and start uploading, get comfortable in front of the camera. Like, you know, just just like be kinder to yourself. Like take things like slowly and then you know, build up over time. So I definitely feel like people take on the advice of the people who, you know, Who made it that talking to themselves now and not to themselves when they start exactly Yeah, and that's what you know, I think that Unsexy but actually what should be quite inspiring nuance is that If you're sufficiently obsessive and if you just don't stop you'll end up being successful, right?

48:17That's it like The main reason that people fail the things is that they just just don't keep going. And the reason that I, in some ways, I've got this new perspective on the jaco, Goggins, Homozy, sort of hard work is all the matters perspective of the world. The reason that I think that's really interesting is that if you were to ask somebody, what is it that's your ex -factor that caused you to be so successful in whatever domain? and they were to say, it's this, you know, mues, it's this talent, you know, I sort of just take inspiration from whatever, what that sounds like is something that's really easily accessible and not that hard, but what it actually is is ineffable and fucking inaccessible to everyone.

49:02If they say, I'm not that smart or that, like, diligent or that talented, I just didn't stop. You know, well, anyone can do that. Problem is, it's difficult. So in a weird way, someone who takes most of their success or derives most of their success from working really, really, really hard, yes, it's a very long journey, but the route is perfectly mapped out for you as opposed to someone who's relied on talent or some kind of blessing or I'm just naturally funny or I just did it or whatever, like something that you can't replicate, you go, okay, so maybe the distance that you went is shorter, but I have no idea how you got there.

49:40You know, does that make sense? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So I think about how the advice that I would give to someone who's, I'm prepared to do whatever it takes in order to reach escape velocity. I've lonely chapter or whatever it is. So all right, obsess over it. Don't stop. I think it beyond obsess. There has to be a good reason as to why you want to do it. Like you look at a lot of, you ask a lot of kids in high school. It was something crazy, like 80 % of them want to do social media. Kind of go, yeah. But it's like if you ask almost 100 % of them, I don't wanna speak for all of them. It's probably for the wrong reasons.

50:17They're probably like, oh, like, I wanna do YouTube fitness because all I do is work out and eat. No, you don't. Like come into this for like a couple of weeks, you probably are gonna quit because you don't really realize this is more than a full -time job. It's literally life -consuming. It's all you do, planning videos, scripting videos. This is the smallest part. Exactly. No one understands it gets actual production. It's actually a business. People don't, what annoys me is that people don't see social media as an actual real job. And I'm like certain types of social media are not a real job.

50:49There are certain types that aren't like - What was that, D? If you were doing, I've seen a lot of vlogs where it's, this is my hot girl walk afternoon in New York City. And all that you do is get up, have a pumpkin spice latte, you're filming yourself, there's no editor, there's nothing that needs organizing. It's a day in the light, it's permanent day in the life vlogs over and over and over again, but there's no travel. The complexity of going to the highest gym in the world or putting on a fat suit that you've had to get from some medical website that's supposed to be for doctors and then working out, okay, so am I allowed to like, am I licensed to film here?

51:21You're going to Paris soon. You need to get visa to be able to go there. You need to check if you've got the rights to be able to film there. You need to be able to do DIT to manage the footage that comes out of there. you need to have everything back to blah, blah, blah. The increasing complexity. So, yeah, anybody that's thinking about doing YouTube as a career or any kind of social media, it's like, hey, guess what? The actual YouTube bit is the smallest part of that job. All of the other stuff, it's lots of flights, it's lots of packing and unpacking, it's lots of email. It's a ton of email.

51:51Yeah. It's that. That's what the life is. The amount of people, like my parents' friends, that they would call my parents up and be like, is Will ever gonna figure it out? Is he still doing YouTube? Did people just don't understand? They just were like, oh, you can make cute videos. You know, it's just crazy. It blows my mind that people can't see. There's a lot of effort that goes into running stuff. But also on the flip side, that's a kind of moat that you build around you. You know, it's the same as some musician, artist, or powerlifter that steps up to their stage of choice. And everyone goes, oh my God, did you see how easy easily gemal just lifted a thousand pounds or whatever and you go, I mean, it looks easy, but there was a lot that went into that one five -second display of strength that you just seen or some musician that goes and plays a phenomenal song and you go, man, he's just got such a great voice.

52:42You go, he's trained a great voice, which is different. Another video you did, you were one of the first people to break Brian Johnson into the mainstream. What do you make of that arc? Do you feel responsible for him being everyone now? Oh man, I don't know about that because I feel like he's just a very interesting guy in general He has his like quirks that he's bound to be he's bound to be out there, but that was such a cool experience I don't have you ever met him. I have you have met him. Yes. Yeah, he was such a great guy And I was kind of like a lot of people I just don't know what to expect when you go into situations like this, but he was just He was equally like crazy, but just also like just normal.

53:26Like you just like, like when the camera's off and you just like talked to him, he didn't like, I thought he was gonna be like some like, could I even like communicate with you? Like a scientist. Matt scientist, yeah, but just such a good dude seems so happy like the team that he was both just seemed so great, but that day was just like insane. What was it like? It was just like, it was crazy because like, it was so like, we couldn't talk to him leading up to it. We had to talk to his assistant. and it was like, okay, you have to be here exactly at this time. Like, we cannot be a second late, because he has to be gone at 11.

53:56So like, you don't have much time, there's no reshoots. So like, we gotta go and do this. This is all in life, so like, we barely cut it. And we go, we show up, we open the door, the video starts. And I'm like, oh, okay. So like, I actually, in the video, I'm like quite, I'm like, kind of like frazzled, because I wasn't expecting it, because usually we kind of talk a bit, but it was just like, let's go. Let's get into it. It was like non -stop. Genuinely went through his morning routine that took us a couple hours with not even a second of break. It was like, we're gonna take these 60 pills. We're gonna put this on your head.

54:26We're gonna measure this. Oh, like the sun UVs this, I can't go outside. It's just crazy. I cut my water at noon. He stopped drinking. To enhance the sleep. Wow. And so you must consume an awful lot of water in the morning. Yeah. In order to be able to get sufficient water across the day. Yeah, and that opened my eyes to like I began starting to take sleep way more seriously because he said in the video He's like sleep is one thing in your life that should be non -negotiable And I never really kind of got it and he's like you have to go to bed at the same time every night wake up same time for me I'm religious 10 p .m.

55:00Bed 8 a .m. Wake up in other news this episode is brought to you by Hillsdale College in a world where truth and knowledge feel harder to find Hillsdale College stands apart They believe education should be about more than just a degree. It's about understanding what truly matters, liberty, character, and the pursuit of truth. Hillsdale offers over 40 free online courses to help you learn the timeless ideas that have shaped our world, so you can think critically and live freely. Whether you're diving into history, politics, or philosophy, Hillsdale's courses are designed to give you the tools to think for yourself.

55:31If you need a place to start, you can check out their introduction to Aristotle's ethics. You'll learn Aristotle's teachings about human nature, the meaning of the good life, and the virtues necessary for happiness. If you want to learn more, head to the link in the description below or go to hilsdale .edu - slash modern wisdom to enroll. There is no cost and it is easy to get started. That's hilsdale .edu -slash - modern wisdom. It seems like sleep consistency is arguably maybe as important as sleep duration. It's getting, it's pretty close. Absolutely. duration and consistency would be one and two.

56:07And yeah, it's funny you say about the UV thing. I was in Rohatan off the island of Honduras at the start of the year for this biohackers conference and I knew Brian was going to be there for a day and a half and we'd been WhatsAppping and I saw him walking back from maybe breakfast or morning walk or whatever. They had an umbrella and it must have been because the UV was sick. I've always wondered why the fact that you have that umbrella with them, it must be because because the UV was too high and he didn't want it to hit his skin. And when I was there in LA, that was during the time of the fires.

56:38So it was something to do with, like, he didn't want to breathe out the quality there. So like, he's like, I haven't been outside in five days. And I think this is kind of, this is kind of crazy. It makes you kind of wonder, like, is it worth living your life like this? To potentially, we don't even know. So this is the thing, I've thought about that question a lot. The sacrifice that he makes in order to live longer, sacrifice of quality and order for quantity. And I think the thing that people don't realize about Brian is that he, at least on the outside, I'll never know the inner workings of his mind.

57:08I think he takes so much pleasure from the process of doing this thing. It's the same as people that look at Holmosey and go, why would you work so much? That sounds like hell. You don't understand what he does for play is his work. His work is his recreation activity. So it would be like me saying to you, I can't believe that you play so many video games. You must get tired and want to do some work. And you go, no. So for him, that's the way it works. And the same for Brian, there is just this inherent, like embodied enjoyment that he has. Oh, and you can see it like we're in the kitchen at the end.

57:41And the nurse comes down. Brian, we need your semen sample. And then he's just all like giddy and like happy. And he like looks me as like, I mean, if you were to try to have a stronger erection than my semen sample, you might also be giddy and happy. You never know. True, that's true. Yeah. Based on a stronger erection than a 17 year old son. And I'm like, that's great. Have they measured them both? I wouldn't be sure. I wouldn't try. Stronger erection than his 17 year old son. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well he did transfuse, infuse blood. Right? They swap. Well I don't think he gave his son blood, but his son gave him blood.

58:11Yeah. Yeah man. I mean, look, it wouldn't do for everybody to be Brian. But I'm very glad that there's someone who's pushing the limits in that regard. Because we're going to be able to take a lot from that. coming back and telling us what he's learned. Yeah. It's very, it's very, very interesting. He also invited me for lunch and in row at any invited me for lunch, but I didn't realize that lunch was nutty pudding. And I was expecting a nice sandwich, you know, maybe some fries or something like that. And I turned up and I had nutty pudding. nutty pudding. It was pretty good. I liked it. It was okay.

58:50It wasn't his. It was made by some chef. So they'd repurposed it with local cacao and whatever. I'm fucked, they've done. One of the other recent pivots that we've seen is this sort of ascendancy of hybrid training online, which as far as I can tell, means lifting weights and running. I think. What do you make of this sort of new world of? I was thinking about that a lot. I didn't really understand, like there's so many people who I know that like, you know, there's no way. I can see them running and all of a sudden they're running. And I think it comes down to you like, A lot of us have been lifting for so long that to get progress is so hard to come by that we need another Outlet to game progress and when you start running for the first time Like you're your time to start increasing like you're getting those because you sucked so bad Yeah, like you're getting those new gains again And I just think that people are falling in love with that process to see like the actual progression And then people are actually liking running better than the gym because the gym is just so once you get to a certain point It's like you're scraping for a few pounds versus weekly you're you're beating your time by a minute So I don't know if this is gonna be something that lasts very long or it's I don't know what you think I wouldn't I honestly wonder how much of it is downstream from Nick there.

1:00:00I Just look I there is an entire generation of young guys on the internet who just see this jacked as fuck guy Waking up before the sun rises, sprinting around a track and goes okay I want to look like him so I'll do what he does everybody wants to everyone wants a bodybuilder physique There's just a lot of questions about how you get it. But the difference is that Nick had that physique before he started running. He was huge. He's actually significantly downsized. Has he really? He still looks like a big boy to be going around a running track. Oh, he's a big boy. I mean, he used, like, he's like two -thirty.

1:00:34And I was like, one -ninety -five. But he's still peeled out of his body. Peeled, yeah. So yeah, I don't know, you know, high rocks. I got in trouble for calling high rocks professional burpee broad jumps a couple of weeks ago. Have you done one of those? No, I heard a lot about it though. Yeah, I mean, it seems to me that CrossFit really dropped the ball and, you know, they had it. They had the methodology, they had the gyms, they had the brand, they had the dudes with their tops off and the chicks in bootie shorts, they had it. And then just the most spectacular public face planting of a brand, culminating in somebody dying of the games, I'd want to nail in the coffin.

1:01:12Oh, yeah. That's terrible. I think, literally. And yeah, I think high rocks is filled in the hole that CrossFit was for a lot of us. So I got this idea of the Manel Paws or the training Manel Paws, which a lot of dudes go through. They get to 28, 29, 30. They're tired going up a set of stairs. They can't touch their toes. Their flexibility is not so good. Like, my elbow, you know, I've been putting it off for five years, but anytime I go, I look at a W bar and an easy curl machine and I think, so they find a new training modality, which is maybe a little bit more holistic, community -oriented, Brazilian Jiu -Jitsu, Thai boxing, yoga, YTI, high rocks, running, run clubs, whatever.

1:01:59And that, I think, is pretty reliable. The only difference is that we had CrossFit for maybe ten years ago, so like, I'm 36, like my era was CrossFit when we got to that age, and now the ones that coming up now yours is high rocks run clubs. So I think it goes a lot to do with like the longevity kind of like trend now. People want to be like not just to meet head. I want to be functional. I want to be able to like again go up the stairs like you're saying and be able to breathe. So I think I actually do think it's a change for the better. Hmm yeah. What advice would you give to people who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of fitness this information that's available on the internet.

1:02:43Choose one. Because it's like a lot of things. I mean, even for me, you would listen to what one person says. You like that person, but then you watch another video and that person is slightly different and then you're like, what the hell I'm going to do? So I think just find a source that you believe that you trust and try it and give it a couple weeks and don't deviate from that. It's even hard now, even if I see a video where it's like, oh, you're right. an idiot if you don't do this chest exercise. And then I see it and I'm like, should I swap it with what I'm doing right now? But it's like, if what you're doing right now is working stick with it and then keep that like in your toolbox for a little later.

1:03:21So it's kind of just find one person that you enjoy, try it out for a bit. If you don't like it, okay, well, you try to now you know, find somebody else. What are your, or who are your favorite sources of fitness information? I got Mike Israel. He, he very much so inspires a lot of how I train. You know, when I got to work out with him, was a cool experience because you really, like you're not just, you're like your bodybuilding, you're not just moving the weight. Like you're feeling every single second and like you're making every wrap last. Definitely him, love the myo wraps. I don't know if you did any of that with him.

1:03:58Yeah, Jeff Nipperd, good friend of mine. I like the science approach, defend this. I don't like any kind of guesswork. I'm not into like the bro style of training. I like when there's like a scientific backing it makes me feel like I can like rest at ease. Richard, yeah. But again, this is kids nowadays just simply don't know what it was like 15 years ago trawlingbodybuilding .com forums and there's some guy that says that he grew his doubts by doing this one particular exercise and taking blueberry extract in an algae and bottle with dextrose and And you go, yeah, yeah, that's what I need. But now you have the Mano Henselman, the Lane Norton, the Isra Tails, the Nippards.

1:04:40Like you have people who peer reviewed evidence -based diet and training. And you know that what they're saying is backed up with something beyond what the big guy in my gym once said, dot, dot, dot. So yeah, there is this degree of reassurance. The flailing around, I don't know whether you ever felt this, if your training had plateaued and you didn't know why and you also didn't know what you were supposed to do to fix it. That kind of is largely gone now. You just know, okay, there's an answer out there. Yeah, exactly. Very quickly Google What happens if my arm gains plateau? Oh, well, you're gonna do this.

1:05:16You're gonna do it and then we're gonna come back with whatever I'm gonna use the hoppy strength app or whatever It's a really different world which I think it's good really good, but at the same time Like a lot of people who I like you know, I got hang out with sometimes like film with jacked huge The incredible shape, 20 years old. I'm like, okay, so what are we doing today? I'm doing your workout. I'm gonna follow your program. They're like, what do you want to do? I don't know. They don't know I do what I do. No idea what I do. Totally fluked, be massive. Do they come, he reps? I don't count.

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1:06:47You mentioned exercises earlier on in chest exercises. If you only had 10 exercises that you're going to choose for the rest of your life to build and maintain as much which must so as possible. What are you gonna pick? Full body, everything. Fizik is being held together by 10 exercises. How do you choose? Hacksquat. Okay. Why? Quad main quad builder. Okay. Glutes. Hacksquats interesting. All right. I love Hacksquat. Remainian deadlift. Okay. Bobbell. Yeah. Barbell remaining deadlift. All right. Inclined barbell bench. Classic. Yeah. that preacher curl. Also in W bar. Yeah.

1:07:34Pull up. The squat of the upper body. I actually had to argue over head press, which I'm gonna say over head press. Also good to love that. Love the vaccine loads so fun. I'm a huge compound guy. Right. Yeah. Over head press lateral raise for sure. An overhead tricep extension. Have I not hit everything? Armstrong's remained at the left. Yeah, true. I want to say a cavalry has to be politically correct, but I don't know if that's true. You can choose to have little cops with the rest of your life if you want, but why am I locking yourself in? I probably do some sort of a chess supported row for the back.

1:08:13Yeah, four. Like a horizontal pole. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Maybe a weighted dip. That's a fucking good selection. like that's nice. It's old school. Yeah, I very much like that. I think I've asked that question to maybe 10 people do on the mobile app. Yeah, I think you're maybe the first person that hasn't said incline dumbbell press, but I'm pretty sure everybody's put laterals in. Yeah, hanging leg raise is the most popular app exercise. She's pretty interesting. and just even Israel said the same thing. Mariantara used maybe got the best midsection in the history of physique, said the same thing.

1:08:57So I'm like, listen to you. The hack squad, I never even think it's just a machine in the gym that I just ignore. I think it's every gym, bro's favorite leg exercise. I have to think. You might be right. I avoid axial loaks, I got about back. So I'll do walking lunges, reverse lunges, step ups, leg press. I just refuse to bend at the waist. And if I keep a neutral spine, I can hammer my legs. But yeah, it like single leg, like Romanian deadlift. I like that. I do like that. Isra Tell took me through a couple of workouts this week. If you've done his lying down, like, front raise thing, so you lie on the floor, you put a cable machine on the very bottom setting.

1:09:51And then you lie like this and go like that. I can imagine that. So you're using the friction of the floor on your ass cheeks to stop you from sliding toward the machine. But that was a weird one. What else did we do? that was a little bit. So you're saying, I would watch that video and be like, oh, I gotta throw that into my routine. But that's cool. Like when you have someone that you trust, but again, it's just trust. You've got a person, I have reliable evidence that this guy knows what he's talking about. That's, do you remember Jeff did that short about maybe three or four months ago that lean away single arm cable race?

1:10:29I promise you, that next week I went in a golds gym in dinner in Austin, Texas. Three different dudes in there. I was said to my trainer. and I'm like, we should try and do this thing. One of the guys came over and said, you know, you watched that Jeff video about the side delts, I was like, yeah. So everyone's watching this. I did the same thing, we did a video with Jeff and we did a reverse peckback variation I've never seen before. Okay. I go to the gym the next day and everyone's doing it. It's really cool to see though. Yeah, yeah. But it also shows that there's still, I know you know, it's a good argument for the X market is saturated and there's no place for me to get in.

1:11:06Like, who would have said three years ago that there was room for kind of nerdy but jacked evidence -based guys to come in and just dominate all of YouTube? Very few. So I think trying to deconstruct what the principles are. Certainly one of them is the legitimacy of what you're saying has to be there. That's the fundamental thing that it's removed a lot of the guesswork. most of them are quite personable and sort of likable and enjoyable to be around. They don't take themselves too seriously. What else do you think contributes to it? I think they have to have a strong resume. Legitimacy, credibility, credentials.

1:11:52But it's funny because then you have that side of the spectrum, but then you can have the other side where you're like, if you admit that you have no idea what you're doing and it just worked for you. That also could work. Trentons versus being somebody who just shows you and doesn't say anything. Like for a lot of my videos when I do like work out advice ones, I'm very quick to be like, I don't know at all what I'm doing. Like I just take in information for people who I work with and it works for me and people appreciate that. And I think getting out will be a skis. Yeah. Yeah. Going back to the mental health piece, how is your mental health now?

1:12:35You had this concern about surveillance and vigilance and people staring at you and then you decide to spend an entire career having people watch you. But you're also 30, so there's this sense of self -expectation. I'm supposed to have my life together by now. I surely should be an adult by the time that I'm 30 years old. What's your relationship with your mental health like now? Very good. Like when it comes to stuff like that and like how I, with the stuff that I do, like I don't, I don't, it's crazy how I, I'm like, I don't give a shit. Like with the obese video, my grandma's like, you went into the mall like that?

1:13:13I'm like, yeah? And she's like, you couldn't pay me to do that. So I feel like I'm very like, I'm willing to do anything. And I kind of don't really care anymore. And a lot of people ask me like, how did that change for you? And it's just, I don't even have an answer for it. And I think YouTube and doing this and having people like follow me and support me has allowed me to feel okay with who I truly should be and who I've always wanted to be. The biggest thing I struggle with now is I have insane imposter syndrome. Insane. Like even me being on this podcast right now. Like on the way here, I was like, why?

1:13:47And that's something I've always had about myself. I'm just always a person who So I can never appreciate anything that I've done. I can never feel like I'm worthy of anything and I feel like I don't deserve it and I feel like it's gonna get taken away from me. And I've always felt like that, even like trying out for hockey teams, it's just like I shouldn't be here. And I don't think this ever gonna be something that goes away from me.

1:14:15When you talk about Imposta syndrome, How does that? Because it seems like there's two things going on. One is the inability to congratulate yourself on a job well done. But the other is a feeling of not being worthy of the opportunities or the rooms that you get yourself into. Is it both of those things? Both of those things are heavily. So they happen kind of separately or are they just kind of congealed into one? Congealed into one for right? Right, okay. Yeah. So very, very much so, like, very intense for me. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I have a hard time, like even like meet and greets. I'm always like, wow, like people are going to line up to meet me.

1:14:52I don't understand why. And I don't even know how to explain it. But given that you enjoy your content so much and given that you have limited self -awareness to your concerned self -consciousness, why do you think that this thing still lingers? It feels like you've conquered a lot of the challenges mentally that you had when you were a bit younger, but there's this one vestige, you know, bad monster lurking under the bed that's still there. Why do you think this one's still there? That's probably going to unpack. I really don't know. It's the biggest regrets in my life are because of it, where I was a high level hockey player and I didn't go and pursue certain things because I feel like I wasn't worthy, even I didn't deserve it and I couldn't do it.

1:15:48And I feel like I just shouldn't have been there because I felt like other people deserved them more and were better than me. And that has very much stick with me. And I don't know why. And it's something that I hate. Hmm. So the inability to congratulate yourself on a job well done, I'm intimately familiar with. The imposter syndrome thing has actually largely dissipated over the last 18 months for me, something that I was intimately familiar with, but I don't really feel anymore. And I don't know, not really too sure where that came from, I think, the live tour that I did last year helped quite a bit with that because there was nowhere to hide.

1:16:31So it was me on stage for 90 minutes. There wasn't even slides. It's just me talking to a room. And I think that was just such a like Navy SEAL hell week of Inescapable if you mess up it on you if you do well. It's on you thing. I think that was kind of a formative experience and then suddenly being in and the room, so to speak, of the guests. And then there, you know, sort of very nice comments. And then doing Rogan twice helped a lot with that. Had it have gone badly, I don't know how I would have felt. Maybe it would have, maybe I would have, like, that would have proven to me that I didn't deserve to be in the room that I knew all along.

1:17:19And there's also a little bit here where you think, well, hang on. should your imposter syndrome really be fixed by other people's even your own judgments on your performance should it not come from some inner place where I just believed in me and so on it but I don't know I get the sense that we all want validation and we want to be respected by people that we respect so trying to have some ascetic man in a cave just sort of meditating his way through I I don't need worldly possessions and I don't need to be told by the world that I've done a good job and so on and so forth. I think that's just unrealistic for most people's psychology.

1:18:00Maybe it would be the best way and it's the gold standard where you just do it and you don't give a fuck when anybody else thinks. I don't think that's realistic for most people. Very much could be an unaware defense mechanism for myself where, you know, just in case something ever happened. It's a protection. It's kind of like I expect it to happen. Something like that. Even like a lot of my - Always got that door open. Yeah, even my achievements, like through all this thing, like it's like I've achieved things that I've never thought I could in my life. Because I thought so like poorly of myself.

1:18:35And when I hit them, my dad's like, dude, like, oh my god, congratulations. And I'm just like, thanks. Like yeah, I never like take a moment to be like, like to appreciate the wins. and I think it's just maybe me just being like, I don't know, I don't know when this is gonna end for me, kind of thing. Mm -hmm. So I was writing the other day, I haven't got round to finishing it off yet. I think you and me, in slightly different ways, pretty good role models for people that don't believe that they can do a thing. But they end up doing it anyway. I didn't have a massive amount of faith. I just sort of enjoyed the thing and then before you know it, you've got some degree of success that the world sort of bestows on you.

1:19:31But presuming that you need to be able to believe that you can do it before you do it is like such a fallacy to me. Like, Yes, would it be great? Would it be even the gold standard for you to just believe it and then see it and then go and do it? Yeah, fantastic. But so if you're going to be waiting until you believe that you can do it, you're going to be waiting forever for some people with some sort of pathologies and lacks of self -belief. So yeah, I kind of like the idea of being a good example of someone that never really had faith that anything was going to work and just kind of experimented and fucked around and then found out.

1:20:13I think a benefit to me, I don't know about you, but I think a lot of people who maybe you probably talked to who end up being YouTubers and stuff are living, this is what they wanted to do. And it was either like, this is the route I'm gonna take and there's no other option. For me, this is not even like on my radar. I wanted to be a chef. I was gonna go to culinary school in a fact kid. Yeah, chef in a fact kid. Yeah, but I was gonna go to culinary school and again, my passion from just making projects of school is making videos. and I didn't have, once I finished school, I didn't have an outlet to make videos for anything.

1:20:44So I was like, okay, I'm just gonna make, I literally made videos myself on my own time with no intention for anyone, anybody to watch them. And I didn't even know anything about YouTube, didn't know it was really monetizable. I just started putting them out there. They still out there? They're not. God damn it. No, yeah, thank God, thank God. Yeah, thank God, yeah. But I just started putting them out there. And it was just, I think it was a thing of like, There wasn't a direction I was going with it. I had no expectation for myself. I was like purely just doing it. So you enjoyed it. So I enjoyed it.

1:21:16And then I started in June 2019, and then by January one, I had 100 ,000 subscribers. And it kind of just all happened so fast. So I don't think I necessarily even like have her had a chance to even like doubt myself. I can tell I got to a point where I'm like, I guess I'm not going to culinary school. I'm doing this. You've already reached escape the last time. Yeah. Yeah. And again, the difficulty in motivation for stuff like that is that you've set up a success fail binary based on the outcome of the thing that you're doing as opposed to you were making videos before anybody watching them. I would happily have these conversations if no one was.

1:21:57So there is no, all of the judgment of success and failure kind of doesn't really matter, which makes you largely immune to it in some ways. Yeah, it is a kind of a superpower to do something that you would do if No one else knew that you were doing it and that's why it's very hard for me to See my progress because I very much still see myself which I think I should as They got the kid who like started on his iPhone making videos, so I don't really recognize a lot of like my progress Which I also think I should be recognizing it But I just think it it's all kind of happened so so fluidly that I'm still very much in that mindset.

1:22:30Do you associate? to create sacrifice and pain and discomfort with a good job being done. Do you sort of draw that line between the two that if something happens that's good or successful, but that it doesn't come with an associated bucket of pain that it wasn't as worthwhile. Yes. Right. So that's a huge pattern that I had and still have. So I think that's one of the, one of time doing something before you get any public recognition for it is that you almost learn to love the discomfort and then you have this weird version of kind of like survivor guilt where if something good happens but you haven't had the discomfort that you had in the beginning that you think it's undeserved or it shouldn't have come along that way, you know what I mean?

1:23:27Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's a very strange, like, reverse blessing, a curse that you've kind of given yourself. You build this habit in the beginning that you can't dispense with even though you no longer need it anymore. You don't need to be whipping yourself through this thing. And it still sticks with me. Like in a two certain degree, I'm like, I'm a big, like, for some, like, kind of sick reason. I'm like, the more that I am on the brink of dying in some way in a video, it's going to do better. So I'm like my blood oxygen is 80. Perfect. What about 79? What about 70? I'd be like better. I'd be like even better.

1:24:03And like that's a horrible mentality. It's a dangerous dynamic doing what you do. Yeah. And then on the other side, if it's like if a video was too easy, I get anxious. So I'm like, yo, this was, this is, this can't do well. It was too simple. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm sitting with my body who works with me. And I'm always asking for reassurance. I'm like, is this okay? Is this okay? Like it's, this is going way too smooth. Like it can't be like this. Strange one. interesting dynamics. What's happening next? What are you doing next? I am going away to the UK for the first time to shoot some videos.

1:24:34UK and Paris. Yeah. Gonna shoot some videos with Nagano, Frances Nagano, Eddie Hall, Magnus Nippo. Couple of people I've been wanting to do for a very long time. So it's cool to see it all kind of coming together. That's fun. Yeah. Will Tennyson, ladies and gentlemen, where should people go? They want to keep up today with all of this stuff that you're doing. Yeah, you've got a Will Tennyson on YouTube, will tell you on Instagram, those are the only two. Mainly just post on YouTube, very inconsistent on Instagram, everything else. Thank you. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me on.