#124: The problem with reasoning your way through life…

30:47It's important. Everything we're doing is for what we get from it, even giving. because the feeling we get from giving is one. If we were numb from doing it, we wouldn't really enjoy doing the giving anyway. And so if you look at all of these people that are very altruistic and philanthropists, they're doing it for some reason, selfishly. I think we all are kind of wired, but it's a selfless approach, I think. I think the feeling is, the people that truly give and really enjoy the smile on the other person's face when they give have exhausted all of the other desires. And that's the ultimate one, impact.

31:32Because when you've made enough money that no more money changes your life, when you've slept with enough women that sleeping with another woman that's gorgeous doesn't really matter, and when you've lived in all nice houses and when you've bought all the things that you want, you still want something to make you feel good. so you opt for the greatest thing which is the impact and that the second thing on this is before that you said we're obliged to achieve extraordinary things we have an obligation to do so my thing on top of that is who's choosing what's extraordinary and who's defining extraordinary because you can look at the external things that are praised online, like making money or like traveling or getting in good shape or whatever it might be.

32:25But if you're getting a calling elsewhere after you sit in silence at 4am and you get some answers, there's probably going to be other things that are a lot more simple that should be championed. Because at the end of the day, like what do we really have? like none of this shit really fucking matters and so when i look at old people i gain inspiration from aspects of their life because you can look at old people and see what gives them fulfillment because if you know that they've lived a whole life similar to what we've done and they're sitting there at 70 years old and all they're doing is spending time with their kids and their grandkids and going out for a nice coffee with their friends and maybe having a little swim in pool and that's what they're choosing to do, not because they can't do other stuff, but that's because what they want to do.

33:10Maybe there's something in that, that actually the simple things are extraordinary, like being a mom and having children and being okay with doing that and being excited about that if that's what you want to do. Defining extraordinary is really important because a lot of the things that are deemed extraordinary are actually external and fleeting. They're not actually the things that deep down really matter. They weren't here decades ago and centuries ago. They weren't even on this planet. And it's not like the biology's changed in us. And so, yeah, defining extraordinary, not based on what other people think, but actually what you feel is great, is important as well.

33:55I've been workshopping this idea, and I can't come up with something that's piffy enough. but I've got this idea that if you didn't evolve it, you don't seek it. And I think that probably doesn't hold watertight for every single thing in the world. But to unpack that, if you didn't evolve it, you don't seek it. We don't evolve fancy cars. We don't evolve nice watches. We don't evolve a bigger TV. What we evolve is certain desires that need to be filled. So what blows my mind unpacking the world and trying to sort of break it down to a digestible level is looking at all of these distractions constantly that are so normalized and so ingrained in our everyday lives we kind of forget that they're actually not part of us we're guided so heavily by them and they're almost more real than this abstract thought in our head and this abstract idea of a desire deep down, that we well and truly think we actually want the car.

34:58We actually want the hot woman that doesn't actually have much to say and won't fulfill us and be a loving partner. We don't want those things. And it's the same when you argue about something. When you argue with someone, whether it's your partner, your friend, your relative, it's not about the dishes not being done. it's not about the fact that he rocks up two minutes late every time it's something deeper and i think looking through that lens of if it didn't evolve we don't seek it really helps you break away from those distractions and question okay did i evolve this no okay what's the underlying thing here what's the underlying annoyance oh well it's the fact that i've evolved this sense of wanting safety and this person's not giving me the sense of safety because they're two minutes late to every important meeting that we have with friends or family.

35:53So I don't feel safe. I don't feel like they're going to show up when it really matters. That's where you evolved. And that's much more accurate. And once you have a more accurate pinpoint on the map of your life, you can try and fix it. You can actually go in and surgically operate it rather than treating just the symptoms. It's funny that you talk about people running away from the cold hard facts. They see something that's the case for every single old wise person that they meet up with, yet they ignore it because their emotions drag them in another more shallow direction that's instantly gratifying.

36:31I've been thinking about this a lot recently with the whole diary of a CEO controversy. I don't know if you've seen this. A lot of people going, diary of a misogynist, Chris Williamson and Stephen Bartler. These misogynists speaking about the depopulation bomb, the birth rate crisis. How dare they discuss women's bodies and say that it's their fault that they're single 35-year-old cat ladies. And it's like, look, these are the two biggest podcasters out of the UK, my home country, but two of the biggest in the world. Stephen Bartlett's the second biggest podcaster in the world, about to be number one.

37:09Chris Williamson's eight. What does that mean? Let's unpack this. Let's use some logic rather than emotion. Well, they're in the top 10 podcasts in the world. We're living in a world dominated by podcasts where people can win elections with them. Okay, well, they've probably got access to some pretty remarkable human beings. Some would say the top researchers in the world. Well, yeah, that is the case because I've had them on my show too. and they're all saying the same thing about why our population rates plummeting and it's because people are pursuing other things it's because people are more selfish men and women by the way but all of these individuals that tend to be not so happy locked away in a moldy basement making iphone videos in 360p on instagram trying to debunk steven bartlett and chris williamson with blue hair yeah or green whatever's more unattractive they're running from the data the empirical evidence from the biggest experts in the world and i think sometimes and i say this as someone who doesn't like compromising either that's incredibly selfish on many fronts and i'm trying to work through it when every world-leading expert is saying something to you on one of the world's biggest podcasts, when every lovely old lady you bump into that's 80 years old and has seen it all time and time again is saying something's true, I wish I had more kids.

38:44I wish I spent more time with my family. Oh, well, the population's decreasing because these people are pursuing careers and they're chasing status on this front rather than doing what actually lines up the most with their biology for men and women, you go, nah.

39:08Well, I don't want to do that. So it's not true. Another bro podcast. Podcast Mike should be more expensive. You should get on a treadmill and put your hair back to normal color. You have too many piercings in the wrong spots and you don't have them there because you think they look good. If anything, you probably put them there because you're trying to do the opposite of what looks good to try and create a new trend to trick yourself into thinking that you're actually okay, but you're fucked up in the head. Hate to say it. Sorry from a privileged white man, but let's just face this here. It's like you hear this stuff time and time again, Are you just going to trick yourself into thinking that they're wrong?

39:58Yeah, you will. And I think when we think about this and talk about it, and I'm not going to speak for both of us, but for me, clearly it's a cope. You can't take any of it personally. The problem is, and the worrying factor, is they get so many other people agreeing with them, which makes me think that so many people are fucked. like there's there's so much and i'm not trying to be one-sided and like not explore the other option but i struggle to find any depth when i try and give it time i struggle struggle to find any any example with reason like and any logic well let me be the good cop here i'm going to be more compassionate than you, Chris, because I believe that there's a lot of bigotry online.

40:51There are a lot of misogynists telling women what to do with their body. And by the way, I'm honing in on the women aspect of this because the reaction videos, for some reason, and I'm not even going to explore why, they're always from about 35 to 40 year old, usually British women who are outraged at the fact that these people are speaking about women, even though they're not, it's men and women and what they should do so i'm going to be compassionate to those individuals they're the ones popping up on my timeline maybe there are loads of men making the videos too outraged but that's just not what i've seen from my algorithm all right don't have kids you'd be a terrible mother you'd rather pursue your career and making videos on instagram for a few thousand views than build the most beautiful connection and bring life into this world.

41:49Please don't have kids. I would pity them. It'd be horrible. It'd be a tragedy. Genuinely, please don't get knocked up because that's not a good thing for that human being. And I say this very harshly but I genuinely mean it like if you're so short-sighted that you think someone's a misogynist for advising you on what statistically will fulfill you more than anything else just go fuck yourself don't have kids and this is where I've come to after interviewing the likes of Stephen J. Shaw and speaking about the depopulation crisis endlessly. Some people don't want to be won over, and that's okay.

42:39I'm not going to encroach on their freedom and tell them to have kids and force them to and tie them up to some artificial inseminationary post. That's disgusting. I'd hate to encroach on someone's freedom that they so deserve. so if you want to be a boss bitch or a boss bastard for a man to coin a term then go ahead and do it go ahead and pursue your career get that seven-year degree to be a doctor but i'm not going to be there to dry your tears when you're 35 by yourself all your friends are getting married they're having kids they're more fulfilled than they've ever been in their life and you're alone.

43:21And it's worth bearing out for those people that maybe would want to have kids, but they're not aware of the pressing urgency. Those are the people that matter. Those are the entire point of these conversations. It's not these people that would never have kids. I think about 5 or 10 % of the population, they just never actually want kids. And that's okay. That's their choice. But the vast majority of people that end up being childless, the whole reason why it's such an important conversation to have with compassion and empathy is those people that end up childless, vast majority didn't want to be childless.

43:57That's why it's so sad. So let me outline some of the statistics. A woman turning 28 anywhere in the West has a 50-50 % chance of ever going on to be a mother. For men, it's 30. So if you haven't had kids by the time you're 28, you have a 50-50 % chance of ever going on to have them. Now, that's not to say that it's just rooted in your biology and that you're getting so old that by the time you're 28, your biology will let you down if you try to have kids. It's the fact that if people have a certain lifestyle at that age, 28 for women, 30 for men, they're not very likely to drop that lifestyle until it's too late.

44:39They're not very likely, 50 % chance, to go, okay, now is the time to pivot to kids before they run out of time. That's what's so sad. So I think there's an angle of mocking the people that are very evil and cold in this taketown. And it's always funny how they're punching up at these people that have big established media conglomerates. It's important to take those down and be a bit more ruthless. I have less empathy for those that are just doing it cynically, but I have a lot of compassion and I feel awful for those that did perhaps want kids, but they were tricked by a new world order, so to speak, and a new system that just prevented them from ever realizing that they need to get their shit together fast.

45:24You've got to surrender when you decide you want to have kids and you're a single woman at 28. It's not like you can click your fingers and have kids. I mean, you could, but you want to make sure that you've got the right father for those kids. And so you've got to go out and go into the dating world. Which is a responsible thing to do, to take that time. yeah that's what's so hard yeah and then you've got to you've got to meet them and then you've got to make sure that they're the right person and then you most of the time in this world you've got to get married um you know then you kind of after you're married you want to have two years of just like time together as a marriage and then you want to have kids and by that point you're 34 do you just want one kid or do you want three kids or like or do you want four i mean if you want four and you want you know a gap a year gap between the two then you've got two years after reach so you'd be having your fourth at 42 or whatever that is like it's getting a bit it's getting a bit late um there's a there's a quote from Andrew Tate and I'm not gonna uh reference this in the only aspect of money but he is referencing the term rich but I would use the term rich as in rich in any aspect that you want to apply it to so uh rich in rich in you know in clarity, rich in relationships, rich in money, rich in whatever, right?

46:47It's a quote that hit me because it ties in really well to this conversation around the hate controversy and all the pink-haired nose ring people online. And it's, the rich try and help the poor, but you can't help people that aren't willing to even help themselves. and a lot of the time the poor don't even want to help themselves which is why they're still poor because if they wanted to help themselves they would do something about it and if you try and tell someone how to make their life better or if anything share a thought or an opinion that has worked well for you in your life in hopes of connecting with them and resonating with them to the point where they go, oh, well, maybe I should apply that to my life too, because maybe that could have some utility in making it better.

47:45You can only help people that are willing to be helped. And unfortunately, there is a select portion of people that don't even want to be helped. And so anything that you say to them, they're not even hearing. They don't hear anything. It's like crickets. It's in one ear, out the other. And so the diffusion of responsibility often comes with a helplessness nature where they've actually surrendered to never changing. And they've surrendered to this idea of making their life better. So what they're doing is they'll deflect any new thought that will make it better so that they don't need to onboard that responsibility of going, okay, actually, you need to make my life better.

48:24Let's just try and make this shit life good. It pains me so much. it's one of the most horrible realizations I've had this year. After a childhood of helping people that I saw in my class that were socially challenged or going into secondary school, close loved ones that were struggling mentally, I'd always see that there was a way out. And I believe that wholeheartedly. And I do everything in my power to try and get people out of the situation that they didn't want to be in. And I've had a few experiences, different ones recently, where I've given everything I can. Truly, I can look back on it and no regrets.

49:12I gave everything to help that friend and I stuck my arm out, reached out to pull them up onto the lifeboat time and time again.

49:27But they just didn't stick their arm out back. They would rather drown. And it breaks my fucking heart because you don't want that to be the case with the world. You want to be able to pull someone out of the trenches. You want to be able to save people that you care about. And you don't want to accept this brutal harsh reality of life that certain situations are inescapable certain people don't want to save themselves but it's true

49:59and I hate that I resent it I have no answer for what to do and I think it's a better question for you is what on earth do you do if you have someone in your life that you care about that you want to save but they don't want to save themselves self? Nothing. All you can do is lead by example. I truly think when you tell someone what to do, they don't want to do it. The best leaders don't tell you what to do. They do the thing and you see them win and you get inspired to copy. The answer, I don't see value in telling anyone what to do like when you can when you can lead truly lead not manage that's a big problem with even people in the workforce and what i noticed is when people are a really good leader they advance in the workforce into a manager and the problem is their identity switch from being good at the tasks to managing and the best managers are the ones that lead from the pack If you look at the best captains of the teams, sport teams, they're not telling you what to do, but they show up.

51:17They're the first person at training. They're the last one to leave. And you go, oh shit, this guy's so great. What does he do? Oh, he's getting here early. He's leaving late. He's doing a little bit extra. He's respectful. He cheers people on. Okay, but he's doing great. He's getting the results. He's doing all of this. I'm not doing any of that. Do I want what he has? best copy or at least try and make my own version of that and unfortunately the more for me the more i get told what to do i repel it yeah i'm like fuck off don't tell me what to do but if someone leads and they achieve something that i want i'm like jeez i gotta pick up my game there's a there's an interesting part you said around before around i don't believe in god

52:10and I'm arriving in a state where I believe in God. I struggle with religion. That's a big announcement. Well, I don't think it is because I've said it before around like I believe in a God, a higher power. I have no idea what that means. But I just like there's way too many perfect things and synchronicities and connections and alignment that logic can't explain. I think if I shut that down, I'm going to strip away so much joy. I actually wrote a piece on this when I was trying to gain trust. When I look at religions, I feel a big thing that a lot of people can gain from it is trust. so they have trust that everything's perfect divine and right on time they know that there's someone that has a greater plan than them so when things get tough or bloody they know that that it's actually meant to be and i think religion can unlock that for people i don't think you need a religion to access that but um trust is a very powerful thing so i wrote a piece It's called I Guess I Have a Plan.

53:27I guess I have a plan. I'm not sure what that plan is, but maybe it's God's plan. I'm not sure what that God is, but maybe if I ask, I shall receive. I'm not sure what to ask, but I guess I have trust. I'm not sure what that trust means, but life is exciting. I should be excited. I am excited, only sometimes. Others, I feel pressure, uncertainty, doubt, fear, nerves, a constant lurking tingle in my throat, belly, mind, heart. But it's fine because I guess I have a plan. I'm not sure what that plan is, but maybe it's God's plan. A plan that has me going full force chasing a version of success I think is success, then my definition of success changes.

54:12So the plan has to as well. I sprint, I fall, I climb, I conquer, achieve goals I set full short on others, and get the end and realize it was all part of the plan. The plan I guess I had. I'm not sure on what that plan was, but I guess it was God's plan. I'm still not sure what that God is, but either way, things turned out just fine.

54:36There's something freeing in that. I wrote that on Christmas Day. and there's something freeing about like not knowing what to do i still don't really know what to fucking do like we're sitting here in malibu and like this life's great i'm very very proud and i'm very happy and content with life right now it's great i'm really enjoying it but i don't really know how long this feeling is going to last i don't really know like when i fly to thailand in a couple of weeks into a speaking engagement like I've never done before in a different round with a new topic. And then I, you know, go to Bali and drink a bunch of coconuts and meet my family and stay in a nice big villa and have masseuses come and massage me in my room every single night and maybe throw in a happy ending there, here or there, just because why not?

55:29Yeah. Right. Like coconut oil. Yeah. Extra oil. Yeah. Yeah. And like, you never know, like that might enlighten me in a different way and go, I just want to like drink more coconuts and get more happy endings. And like, that's fine. Sure. But at the moment, like I'm, I'm really loving life and I have a plan, but I'm not too sure. Like I have a goal, but I don't really know the route and there's something freeing and going, maybe it is God's plan. Like maybe there is an aspect of mystery and magic that I can't explain and that's okay. but there's something freeing in being able to believe that and it's made me want to explore it more which is why i've been deep diving a whole lot over the last few months but you said before you don't believe in god and what do you mean by that

56:22I think I struggle with conceptualizing God based on the current resources available, especially when you look at the history of different religions and how it kind of develops early days. You've got these gods that are representative of the different conditions of the world, like the sea coming in and the rain and wind and the sun gods, and it's all very rudimentary stuff. stuff that in that moment was the humans making sense of what happened to them what was most relevant to them when they were roaming around in tribes or they had basic civilizations and agrarian cultures that made sense to worship the sun gods that they would get better crops and then i'll do a fucking rain dance that they'd get the crops watered then it progresses as society advances and as civilizations are built, these gods become more complex, perfectly in tandem with these different civilizations.

57:21You get a love goddess and you get these more abstract ways of making sense of the abstract problems that emerge when history moves forward and stuff advances. And then eventually you get to Judaism and you get to the Old Testament and you eventually get to Jesus Christ and you get the New Testament after his death and resurrection, allegedly, and you get Christianity. And I kind of see it as this imperfect progression that tells a story. And it's a great story. It's a story of human advancement, but it's not true. It's a way of making sense of it. And there are all of these different things that are confusing and difficult to grapple with that we want an answer to.

58:12And I feel like a lot of the time when we don't have an answer for something, throwing in God to put that plaster on, it's a pretty good patch-all solution, especially when you define the terms as, you know, this omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God that's all over the place. Well, by definition, that gives you an answer to anything because god's everywhere so if you can't answer something just chuck god on it it's called the god of the gaps argument if you don't have an answer for something it was god why were you late elliot it's not that i was taking a shit and i took too long to wipe it was god it's divine timing actually because i was five minutes late we got to see that shooting star go across the sky we wouldn't have seen it if i didn't take so long to wipe my ass and was so poor at planning so i see it as this patchful solution and it's funny that it shows up in different forms that all point towards similar things now something like the book the untethered soul it'll mention that this is a sign of god's real existence the fact that you've got Christianity and Islam and Buddhism and Taoism and all these different religions pointing to the same things.

59:35Is that magical? Isn't that a sign that God must exist? He's dragging us in the right direction and we're getting misguided because we've got different cultural interpretations of him, but he's there and he's present. Nah, it's just that we're humans, so we have the same desires and we come up with similar solutions to fucking patch them up. That's my belief at the moment. And look, I think the evidence is more compelling for there being a God than there not being one. I think I will probably come around to believing in some form of God. I'm just an agnostic slash atheist at the moment because I don't want to hedge my bets on one God because I see where it leads a lot of people.

1:00:15Once you commit to such a powerful concept that trumps everything else, that gives meaning to life, that gives you free will, that gives you a value of even being human, that makes sex sacrosanct. It's very difficult to get yourself out of that. So I'm being cautious. I think meddling with this stuff, it's a dangerous endeavor and it's a brave one for anyone. That's why I respect Christians and religious people so much is because they've made that leap of faith. but the problem is when you jump from cliff to cliff you don't want to take the risk of jumping back when you've already made one gap and survived without falling down and scraping your body up and dying why would i go again so all bets are off for what's going to happen in the future to my belief systems i'm just a skeptical cautious agnostic at the moment because i see so many people where the religion becomes a dogma and they don't want to let go of that because it's inconvenient for them to and it kind of goes full circle you start off as this atheist skeptic that says there's nothing out there it's all material fuck having kids i'm gonna be a boss bitch blah blah blah and you're at the mercy of your desires there ultimately then you kind of enter this midwit stage where you're an agnostic and you go, I don't know what's going on.

1:01:38But then eventually you get to the peak, you reach enlightenment, you find God. He speaks to you. He calls to you. You see him there and it becomes dogmatic again. And it becomes an answer for the fact that actually you just wanted to do that thing and you're masking it in God. This is why I'm very skeptical of many American Christians at the moment. You bump into them all the time. I think performative christianity is on the rise and it's not stopping you see it so much in america these people that say yeah i found god and he showed me the light and i worship him at this church and he just so happened to afford me a home in malibu on the side of this church that would have otherwise cost me two million dollars but i got it for free like yeah sure it's just about god for you there and then your ass is on instagram and then baps are out on full display what are you doing have some logical consistency so that's what i'm striving towards like i just want to be logically consistent and at the moment if i'm sticking my wet marshmallow in another lady then i'm not logically consistent as a christian so we'll see yeah i think you gotta get there's a there's a hollowness that could result in a slippery slope that way too.

1:03:03Like, when you're too fixated on logic, you remove magic. And there's something special about magic. And this is that philosophical approach. And we were talking about it. I'm going to read you something. I had a conversation with ChatGPT. and the prompt was what's the problem with taking philosophy to the extreme I think this is interesting and the other reason for this is because I think the most amazing moments in my whole life are the ones when I look back on it I didn't plan them I can't really explain them I probably can't relive them I can't calculate how it all happened and it was just perfect.

1:03:53And I draw on those moments as like memory dividends. They give me a boost of energy when I just think about them. And then there's even more energy if I'm with the person that I shared the memory with and we relive them. And if I was too fixated on logic, it would kind of strip away my opportunity to even relive them. and if I want to build this book of memory dividends because then I get to relive all these moments and have all these amazing things, then certainly there's some beliefs that maybe I can't explain with logic, but they're a net positive in my life. And so I'm exploring those. But I think this is interesting.

1:04:36If I'm going to read you this. The problem with taking philosophy to the extreme. Reductionism kills experience. If everything must be explained logically, then love becomes chemicals, or becomes dopamine, beauty becomes evolutionary wiring, technically true in one sense, but experientially empty. When you reduce a sunset to wavelengths, you lose the feeling of standing there in it. Humans are not just reasoning machines. We are emotional, embodied, instinctual creatures. If you try to think your way through every feeling, you can end up detached from the actual feeling. You analyze grief instead of grieving.

1:05:14You explain attraction instead of experiencing it. That creates numbness. Philosophy can explain structure. It often struggles to explain meaning in a way that feels alive. Pure logic doesn't tell you why holding your child matters. It doesn't capture the sacredness of sacrifice. You can describe it, but not transmit it. Mystery is part of being human. There's something powerful about not fully understanding everything. Wonder, awe, love, faith. When everything must be intellectually conquered, mystery disappears and mystery is where a lot of depth lives. Is that a bunch of words for a philosopher?

1:05:52What do you think? Have you heard of Betty the botanist? No. So there are two scientists working in a lab. One of them is called Glenn, the other one's called Betty. And Betty's on break for a couple of days. She's out the lab for the weekend. Glenn comes in and he leaves this bouquet of flowers for her. It's February 13th, Sunday. She comes in on Monday and Glenn's away for the morning. So Betty works away and Glenn comes in that evening and says, Betty, good to see you. Did you get the flowers I got you? And she said, yes, yes, Dr. Glenn, I've analysed every single stem of them. I'd got my microscope out and I've seen the atoms colliding with each other within this plant.

1:06:40And I've looked at the chlorophyll and I understand the function of each individual inch of this plant. Magnificent, truly.

1:06:54and glenn just looks at her he goes betty you moron it's february 14th it's valentine's day i got you these flowers because it's valentine's day and i wanted to show you how much you mean to me how much i love you betty looks at glenn oh sorry i misunderstood And the point is that you can zoom in on every individual aspect of life. You can look at those flowers and you can put them under a microscope and you can marvel at the beauty of atoms and chlorophyll. That doesn't explain the meaning behind them. It doesn't explain the inexplicable feeling of love towards someone. That affection that pulls you closer than anything else does.

1:07:47You can't logic your way through that. you can't put it into a neat syllogism that's not what love is that's not what beauty is by definition you can't encapsulate it and that's what makes it so magical so philosophy has its limitations and we need to be cautious of that because you do risk literally carving away at this statue carving away at this marble and before you get the statue you end up smashing the whole thing that's what skepticism and hard philosophy does so you need to balance it i think that example specifically about flowers a philosophist would hate flowers the most redundant thing ever you buy them they die they have no utility like that's actually that's actually great i might i might buy philosophy like the philosophers i know just flowers you're me flowers so you're gonna buy flowers and be like well mate it's love all right get it in your head use some emotion you human what was the thing that you said you're going to put on your screensaver to remind you to not get too deep into philosophy philosophy look if you want to relate to other people and understand yourself more i think a screensaver just saying we're all emotional retards is the best way of encapsulating all of that that's what we are we're emotional fucking imbeciles that want to explain stuff but can't so we choose to just patch it up and you know what sometimes that's okay because the person that says they've got all the answers and that you're being an emotional retard they're just a snake oil salesman they don't know better than you.

1:09:39They're just pretending. So you should marvel at it. Look at the mystery of consciousness. Where is it? Love, beauty, where is it? Go and find it. Go and fucking search under your microscope, but I think it will all be in vain. Yeah, I've been thinking about this a little bit. Just understanding what really matters in life and asking those deep questions of like, like what do i actually want and what do i what do i not want as well um you know one of the exercises that i i like did and sam and i came up with it a while ago um health health time relationships htr and it was a it was a series of three questions broken up um for each area so So it's three series of three questions.

1:10:33So it's who do I want to be? Who do I not want to be? And who am I now? What do I want to have? What do I not want to have? And what do I have now? And then the final one was, so be, have, and oh yeah, what do I want to do? What do I not want to do? And what do I do now? And so it's quite powerful because whenever I was in a decision-making process and I was struggling with what to do, I would do this assessment for my relationships, my business and career, which I label as time because money's just stored time. And so I see that as a vehicle to unlock more time. And so I would do this assessment and ask those series of three questions in my health, my time, and my relationships.

1:11:24And it was this great assessment because what I did was I assessed where I was. And then I assessed where I wanted to be and where I didn't want to be in my health, my time, my relationships. So then what that did was the goal from that is eliminate all of the things that are getting you closer to where you don't want to be and increase the things you're doing that get you closer to where you want to be. And there's this freeing clarity that comes with that because a lot of time we can be overwhelmed. And what I found was if I just get clear on what I want and what I don't want and where I am now, I can then fill in the gaps.

1:11:56and uh yeah and asking those deep questions and maybe getting up at 4am and doing so in the silence or going to your favorite cafe and having your favorite coffee um and a nicotine pouch and just smashing it out uh is probably quite a powerful exercise yeah i think a key piece there is chipping away at that ego that we all have because if we're only just looking at that mountain that we were speaking about earlier if we're only ever looking at that mountain in the distance to climb, we forget to take the first step forwards. And our egos often wash us away and put us into a bunch of misery because it blocks us from doing the important stuff that actually gets us from A to B.

1:12:40That's why that question of who am I now is so, so important. It means that you walk before you run. And I've noticed this in various different areas of my life recently, but running has been a really good example actually where I'm nowhere near being a good runner now but I'm a lot better than I was I used to be awful and I've been pursuing it quite hard and like I'm proud of myself for working hard at something that I sucked at and hated and the reason why I've been able to do it pretty consistently is because I didn't really have of this deluded expectation of what it would be like to be better at running.

1:13:23It's important to have role models and to have this dream and especially myself as someone who's more skewed towards vision rather than the whip. I like having that. But I think for this specifically actually where it's a very painful task, stripping away that expectation, stripping away everything and kind of going into it blind and going, look, I'm just going to rock up and I'm going to do what's necessary right in front of me here rather than getting blocked by all the noise all the people on strava running 30 kilometers 40 kilometers at record paces just going away from that and going i'm gonna put one foot in front of the other and i'm gonna run and i'm gonna do it i'm not gonna stop and i'm gonna keep on showing up and by virtue of doing that i'm gonna get better and so you get better you don't get caught up in the noise you don't get caught up in trying to move the needle so fucking far that you break the scale, you just tick it along.

1:14:19One percenters. If you get one percent better every single day, you'll get 37 times better in the space of a year. No one's getting better. No one's getting better than you if you do that. And also, no one's getting 37 times better in a year. So what does it tell you? It tells you that it's very hard to even get 1 % better in a day. So stop trying to make big leaps because you think you're better than just ticking away at all the little useless, redundant details. You're not. That's what progress is. Progress is paying attention to the details. The devil is in the detail. And that's certainly true.

1:14:58That's certainly true. Because if you try and make these big leaps, you end up ignoring everything that's low-hanging fruit in front of you that would have made you succeed. It's there to be snapped up and it's easy and you know it's easy. That's why you're not going after it because you think you're better than going after the easy things. No, no, no, no, no. You do the easy things and you get better. So cut out that ego. And this is also what protects you from procrastinating. One of my great mentors taught me this. There are two reasons why you procrastinate. There are two reasons why you procrastinate.

1:15:32Either a task is too big or it's too small. And both are killers. If it's too big and scary, you're not going to do it because you have no idea where to start. But what goes under the radar time and time again for procrastination is seeing a task is too small so it's not worthy. It's worthy of your time. If it moves the needle, do it. Because there aren't that many things that are actually guaranteed to make you progress in life. So when you see something that you know will take you towards your goal in any form, you should desperately jump on that. You should be absolutely scavenging, ravaging around for anything you can hold onto that gets you towards your goal because it's hard to come by.

1:16:14So cut out that ego, cut out that rush, the shortcut. Every single title on YouTube, get rich in seven weeks. I spent 24 hours and I got a six pack. Six figures in the space of three days. It's all bullshit. It doesn't happen. It's not real, but we're wired to be maximalists. And Laura Comf, the neuroscientist, she's got a book called Tiny Experiments. She speaks about this all the time. She's got an entire work base set around this idea of the maximalist brain. In 2026, the biggest struggle for people that are go-getters is that the toxic fuel that comes with being a go-getter is having a maximalist brain.

1:16:58We've got this social media and these algorithms around us that always shows us the best and we want to be better than the best. So we pursue it. We try and max out. We looks max. We trans max. We goon max. We do all of this weird shit and it's taking it to the nth degree just for the sake of it. But the problem is when you have this maximalist brain, everything that isn't a win feels like a failure it disenfranchises you makes you want to stop so what Anne says is the solution is that we should implement more tiny experiments into our life we should switch from this maxing approach and we should be more like a scientist we should put a hypothesis out there and we're happy for it to be proven or disproven because either way it's data.

1:17:48We put it into our real world experience and we go, look, I wonder what happens if I run three times a week. So action, three times a week, running. Duration, for the next month. Start small, tiny experiments. I'm going to run three times a week for the next month and I'm going to see what happens. Now, ideally, my hypothesis gets proven right. I think this is going to make me happier. It's going to make me more fulfilled. It's going to make me more attractive so I'm going to get more swipes on hinge and I'm going to be healthier. All right, let's run the experiment. Let's get lost in the moment and let's enjoy it.

1:18:27I've got the action and I've got the duration. A month passes by. You look at your Strava. You've showed up three times a week. You've done it. You look in the mirror. Oh, fuck. I'm even fatter than I was when I started this experiment. The extra cardio has made me feel so entitled to reward myself with calories that I've put on 20 pounds. I've gotten less swipes on Hinge and my life's a mess because I haven't been doing my homework. I've been out running. All right, well, this experiment sucked and it was a failure. But now I know. On to the next one. And you keep on repeating and repeating and repeating.

1:19:11And those 1 % gains, they don't have to be positive experiments. You've gotten a 1 % gain from realizing what you didn't want to do, what didn't work and align with your values and your time and you in that moment. That's a fucking win. And the key piece there, I think, is patience, not wanting it all at once, taking the ups and downs that come in life and being okay with it. And I had a call earlier today with an older mentor that wants to take me on board and I was speaking about what I want to do in life and how I've got this mission. And I started getting whipped up and I felt my heart rate increasing and I was so passionate.

1:19:51You probably heard me from the other room shouting, I'm going to do this and this, I'm going to build this. Okay, slow down, breathe. There's an ancient saying. I don't know how old it goes back, but it's a joke that's done the rounds across different civilizations. There are two bulls at the top of a hill and they're looking down at a field of hundreds of cows grazing. Young bull says to the old bull, look at those cows. let's run down and fuck one of them the old bull turns to the younger bull says no let's walk down and let's fuck all of them patience do you want to fuck one bull or do you want to fuck them all do you want to fuck one cow or do you want to fuck them all I don't get what that means but but i i think we can we can run with that that's cool but um uh that maybe i need to get up at 4 a.m tomorrow and think about that the the the thing that i think is a nugget of gold here that we should unpack here is um this idea of wanting something and wanting it now and not having patience the bull wants the cow now so he runs down and he gets to fuck one whilst all the others uh all the other cows run away but the old bull he knows to play it carefully walk down sneak attack fuck all the cows yeah i would say that the old bull is like i've already fucked enough cows i don't really need cows anymore i'm just gonna stay up at the view and watch the sunset and watch all the cows fight over the scraps and fuck each other yeah probably like all of those green haired people with the fucking if anyone has if any woman has a piercing a septum piercing saying she's trouble um but i think we talk about this this thing around people wanting things and they're wanting them now get rich in three days look maxing and all of this it's missing the point and it's fleeting and this is like andrew tate's counter argument to clavs i don't think you should do anything i think you should take steroids i think you should get botox i think you should do all of this.

1:22:06It's missing the point of what actually matters, I feel, because that's a shallow, short-sighted view that is fleeting and hollow. The only reason the six-pack's valuable is because it's hard to get. If you go and plant a six-pack on someone, they're not going to show up in a way that makes them feel really good about themselves. The six-pack represents patience. It represents discipline it represents courage and it represents getting up on the days you really didn't want to and if you are handed that you don't even appreciate it so what's the point of even having it it's like uh tate said on the steiny episode sounds like i'm all i'm listening to is tate but he's completely true i do listen to a lot of tate um but it on the on the steiny episode sign was like who's wealthier me or you and tate's like what do you mean he's like well if we go inheritance for inheritance and he's like what inheritance is like my dad and tate goes that's not yours he's like well it will be in my bank at one point but the thing around that is you look at people that inherit a lot of money yeah it might make their life a little bit more stress stress free it might make them feel like they need to worry less but fulfillment being actually happy in their skin feeling deserving of what they have feeling patient and calm because of all the chaos that they've overcome none of it so what's the point of having the outcome if you didn't earn the stripes that you get from doing the outcome yourself so this patience piece is deeper than just saying patience it's actually the thing that matters like the hard days and the showing up on the days you don't want to are actually the thing that you look back on when you obtain the thing.

1:24:02If you obtain the thing without going through any of it and it was smooth sailing, you're going to keep going. You're probably going to self-sabotage. You're probably going to destroy your life because your perception around what you have is not even worth it. Like the pursuit wasn't there. So the prize isn't valuable. and uh and i've been pondering on this because it ties back into this uh feeling of like doing what the soul wants to do because it removes yourself from the actual outcome itself it makes you really enjoy the process itself because you realize that that's the thing that matters and not on a surface level way of like it's not about the destination it's the journey like yeah it's true but that holds no weight and no one is keeping their head there no one's like eyes are pierced wide open thinking about that profound quote at night no one gives a fuck about that quote it's not about the destination it's the journey it's fucking gay yeah it's gay yeah and uh and so but but it is because it holds no weight but i think when you actually think about what it means that holds weight it's not about rushing to these destinations and yeah you might be able to fake your way until you get there and then it can unlock more doors and then it can elevate your journey and fast track your success.

1:25:26But really, it's not going to feel as great. And what I like to do here is I like to zoom out the time horizon here and I go, okay, we're going to be alive for another 80 years. If it takes me 10 to achieve something instead of two, I've still got 70 more years. am I going to be more fulfilled by actually trying instead of skipping my way to the top because but it takes me 10 years instead of two will that mean that the other 70 are going to be better will that mean that the other 70 I'm going to be more calm will it mean that the other 70 I'm going to be able to respect others and respect myself and be more proud and have more patience and have more joy, maybe.

1:26:09So if I'm getting pulled towards a journey that maybe takes a little bit longer, but it's more aligned and it's going to allow me to build the character that I'm actually going to be proud of, should I take the longer route? And for me, I'm kind of at the space where I feel like there actually is value in that. And it's not about taking longer to do things. It's not about like being complacent, but it's actually just about listening and going, okay, like, is this thing that I'm so eager to get actually going to change my life for the long run? And I'm not sure. I feel like it is very short-sighted a lot of time with the way people do view things.

1:26:49Yeah. The guys that eat the best puss, they take the girl on a journey. They don't just try and slurp it all out before it runs out.

1:27:03What? I mean like if we were to use that lens for the 60 % of people that listen to this being women, um, which is awesome. Congratulations for making it this far into the podcast with two young men. But, uh, if we actually look at that lens, like eating puss that was harder to get is far greater. Like the, the chase is actually quite valuable. Like it, it, it's so much more rewarding. So maybe that's why the no sex till marriage thing actually does hold weight. If you've, if the woman's actually saved themselves for marriage, I don't like. They're not a performative Christian. Yeah. If you're a performative Christian and wants to like wait again, like I can respect you to some degree.

1:27:50Like I can, but at the same time, like I struggle to understand it. It's like, what are you, what are you actually doing? like um i i think i think about this i can't believe we're darvin down here let's go there um i think about this this approach because um i heard this story i got told by a friend of mine that slept with someone that i knew and she preaches online that she wants to wait till marriage again and all over her walls are bible verses and this guy fucked this girl two hours after knowing her goes back and is having sex with this girl with bible verses on the wall and i'm like what are those bible verses doing like it's all performative there's probably an article that could be written on the performative christian i'm gonna write it i'm keen you should write it.

1:28:49And if you've written it before this comes out, then I'm putting it in the show notes because I am very attracted to Christian women. I think the morals, another actually big piece about why I'm attracted to them as well is they can have a lot more depth and wisdom for their age because they've learned spirituality. So it's forced them to look inward earlier. So the non-Christians and the atheist women are actually more young and they lack depth a lot of the time. I've gone on dates with women that are not Christian and they're young and they feel young. But you can meet a woman that's grown up in the church, that's been very reflective and introspective and asked deep questions, and they can be 21, which is they're like prime and they're gorgeous and have depth.

1:29:49The struggle I have with younger women is that they, I struggle to relate and connect and have deep conversations and mind stimulating conversations. But the Christians actually can be a bit deeper because they, they have thought from a young age. Have you heard of the Christian woman paradox? No. Well, of course you haven't. I just fucking made it. I've been struggling with this so much as someone who's not religious. the women I'm most attracted to in the world beautiful souls they're all Christians and it's like there's this paradox going on where I don't know what to do because I genuinely respect and love their souls not this superficial wishy-washy stuff on top obviously they're beautiful too and that counts towards it but I get this deep connection with them unlike any secular lady I'd ever speak to, unfortunately.

1:30:43But what on earth do I do? Because if I pursue this lady that I'm really interested in, I have this respect for as a by-product, I'm going to encroach on the very thing that I respect. I'm going to take it away. I'm going to impinge on her values. She wants to wait until marriage to have sex. I don't believe in that because I'm not religious. Do I keep on pursuing her do i pretend to believe in god and sign up for a religion and wait until we get married just to satisfy her well no that goes against her religion too because that makes me the performative christian and it will never work as well and it will never work so you're caught between a rock and a hard place where you feel this depth that you've never felt before this intellectual curiosity towards life and this ability also to look at the emotional faith element of beauty and love that others just don't get they haven't been exposed to those conversations they're just scrolling taking a big sloppy shit on tiktok looking at different dancers and brain rot the fuck are they going to talk about green hair all the thing Septim piercing, tattoo sleeve hair with a butterfly and an angel.

1:32:02The other problem is a Christian woman wants a Christian man. And so it buds heads. It really does. And they can say that it's not going to, and I've found this out recently. They can say it's not going to affect it, but it actually is. Because they want a Christian man. like if you were to unpack the religion and the way that it works is the woman submits to the man and the man submits to God and the way the woman in Christianity can submit to the man is if the man submits to God because she knows if she submits to the man and the man submits to God she's actually submitting to God and so if the man in that piece doesn't submit to God then she can't ever fully trust you as the man, which is what she needs to respect the man.

1:32:59And so if you don't, then she can't. And it makes sense. It makes sense. And I get it. I get it. And so it is something that I'm wrestling with, wanting the morals of a Christian woman. And also, who knows where I'm going to arrive at as well? I don't know yet. Do you know what my Christian friend would say to both of us? What? She'd say, you want your cake and you want to eat it too. Yeah. You want to have it all. You don't want to buy in. You don't want to make this brave leap of faith and sacrifice all the conveniences in your life that are sinful. But you want all the good stuff. You want the fruit, but not the tree.

1:33:36Tough shit, buddy. That's not how it works. So maybe we're skirting away from something that's true. And it seems to work. Everywhere you look, it builds these beautiful empires and civilizations that progress humanity forwards. It gives us this objective morality grounded in a god and a doctrine. It lets us meet wonderful human beings that we respect and are intrigued about more so than anyone else we've met before. Well, maybe that's because it's true.

1:34:15maybe that's true i guess i have a plan i'm not too sure what that plan is and maybe it's god's plan god's plan god's plan yeah i uh i love this it's been great anything else you've been pondering on or um writing about or reading about or what's been exciting at the moment it's been weird being here in Malibu with you and I've appreciated you hosting me but it's been just a whirlwind coming off the back of redlining a trip in the UK doing my first live event a bunch of cool podcasts and leveling up the show and then suddenly just being hit with the calm and the space to think and it's everything we've spoken about today like the reason we speak about this passionately because it's because it's our actual life it's what we think about truly we're not just faking it and what's been troubling me is having the space to think and not having the diversion the divertissement it's painful man and that sounds like this champagne problem boo-hoo i'm in fucking malibu with a bunch of palm trees and christopher griffin and space to think like sucks to be you it's it's wonderful and i'm so grateful for it and i love it um but just been a lot to unpack And that's been interesting and thinking about where my priorities lie and realizing how much of my life is just diverting from the fear of boredom, the fear of losing access to hope, all of this stuff, however it manifests in eating too much or pounding caffeine or watching YouTube or filling up my calendar.

1:35:54And just trying to reflect on that and see what's necessary, what I want to keep and what perhaps I should get rid of. So that's been interesting. Yeah, it definitely, I also recognize how different my life is. Like when we were last together, you were going to do some quiet time in Cape Town. And I'm like, dude, I am turning up the gas for the rest of the year. I'm going here, here, here, here. We're doing a production here, here, here. We're going to get this money here. We're going to interview these people. I'm going to go to Australia. I'm going to do this. and then like that was the last time we met and then we both did that i went and sprinted you went to cape town and then it's almost like this thing just hit me in australia where i was at my good friend david's house and and he had this beautiful wife and there's kids and this awesome place and he would go get a smoothie every day and we'd sit down and have these deep chats about what matters and and it was all just resonating and hitting me so much and like I just got fully frozen in my tracks I I got that frozen in my tracks that I booked to fly home early I came back here early I I was supposed to come back I was supposed to go to Hawaii on the 8th of Jan and be there for a week and then get back here on the 15th and I literally was like no I'm booking it and I had the day after I got back from Sunshine Coast I hopped on a plane you got back here like before before New Year's yeah I got I got back here and like it hit me dude and I got here and I was just I just went I want this like abundant slow life and um and so yeah I'm toying around with at the moment there's changes and um I'm I'm really loving it I'm very grateful when um it's this weird polarity where it's not slowing down and stopping.

1:37:52I'm still progressing. I'm still striving to make lots of money. I'm still doing this, but I really don't want to sacrifice my peace. And so it's one, one, I think we wrap it up here. I really want to, uh, not sacrifice my peace and we might need to buy a new light. Um, but, uh, we're going to sign out. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you so much, dude. It's been a pleasure to have you here and I'm excited for the next week to have you here And if you guys have made it to the end and you're still tuning into this dark set with the light turned off, thank you. Screenshot this and tag us on your Instagram story to make it to the end.

1:38:30I'm going to leave Elliot's details in the show notes in the description below. And just leave us a five-star review. And also, if you can comment on Spotify or YouTube, wherever you're listening to this, comment a takeaway, comment an insight, and maybe comment where you're at in your life. and what's been pulling you closer towards where you want to be and pulling you away. Just share some lessons and some insight and I'm going to read them and respond. But I appreciate you, Elliot. Thank you so much. And we're going to sign out. Appreciate you. What a way to end. Love you, brother. What a way.

1:38:58Love you too, man. See you, bro. Bye-bye.