#148: Thomas Petrou: Your desires are being manipulated

25:19That's a horrible investment. So I feel like we're screwing kids right off the bat from when they go into school. Yeah. And then even on top of that, there's actually a level of onus on the parents as well, especially the wealthy parents that are funding it. Because what I've noticed as well is wealthy parents that are funding the student fees so that they can go to college without having to onboard a loan, the student's perception on money and the kid's perception on money is completely skewed. Some wealthy families don't even tell their kids how expensive it is. And so they go to a school like Pepperdine or something, it's$95 ,000 a year or whatever the price is, for four years and onboard$400 ,000 in fees accrued.

26:09And the student doesn't even, and the kid doesn't even think okay, like that money's real. There's$400 ,000 here. What could I do with that? Yeah. And what could I actually, like the concept of money is completely skewed. I think that can fuck the kid up as well because then when it comes out to making money, their concept of it is completely skewed, what it takes to earn it. How can they appreciate their job making them pennies for what they're actually doing? How can they appreciate that job and how can they appreciate the money that they're making when like they're not even understanding the concept of money and what actually went into achieving the degree that they actually went in and did because their parents just funded it all as well well it should be treated like an investment for a business yeah you go like you should have a business plan for your college career and a lot of people don't think about that because they i always say that like college is like training wheels for real life for a lot of kids it's like oh they you know they did to do their laundry but they don't have to pay like utilities or any of this stuff.

27:09It's like, oh, it's all wrapped in this magical loan that I have to pay off that I don't really understand the interest on or when the interest is going to start accruing. Because most of the time, I'm sure there's better high schools in other parts of the country. And I'm sure kids do learn this stuff. But I didn't know anything about interest. I couldn't even comprehend that when you get a house, like when I got my first home loan, I was like, what do you guys mean on the amortized loan that your interest is so early on? So you're just basically completely screwed because they're counting on you refinancing.

27:37Like I remember my first house, my, my, my first house payment was insane. It was, uh, I think like 17 ,000 something dollars a month for my first mortgage. And when I got the first, uh, statement in and I was like, what do you mean out of the 17? It's like 15 ,200 is interest. I was like, this is criminal. I was like, this is absolutely insane because nobody had taught me that. So when I went to like buy my first house and you know, there's a lot of parents out there who do teach their kids this stuff and that, and they really do educate them. But that wasn't in high school. they didn't teach us any of that and also they didn't tell us hey by the way half these jobs are probably going to be gone due to the internet and ai and uh so we really do need plumbers and we do need people to do physical jobs that are making now way more money than the people i know that are in extreme debt i'm like i met every plumber every painter every business i'm they're all in seven figure businesses all of them and i'm like yeah because the more you get all these like tech pros that don't know how to do anything you got all these people from a city who like can't change their own tire will not learn how to do it it which blows my mind first of all that men because me i'm like one of those men that's like annoying about it where i will watch every person that i've ever let come in my house for plumbing for ac for anything and i just like learn and absorb and steal the tool from them that's like how i view it it's like i don't want to like to me i'm like it's embarrassing if i have to tell mia like let me call a plumber to fix this like I'm like, no, I should fix it and I should know how to do it.

29:02And with the tools of AI and YouTube and everything, you should never have to call anybody if you're an able-bodied man. That's just like, I'll stand on that any day of the week. Like, learn how to do it and then judge if it's worth your time. Yeah. Like, I hate that shit. I hate when men are like, oh, I got to call AAA and you have a spare tire in the back. I'm like, no. Yeah. Get your ass back there. Jack up the car. Take this tire off. You are an embarrassment. Yeah. I think it's just fascinating with the motives of people and why they're even doing things like uni and college and all of this.

29:38Like even you spoke about how it's not spoken about in high school. I remember vividly, and I was really diving into business when I was in my final grade 12 of high school. I didn't go to college or university or anything. And in grade 12, I remember like I was just learning about business and I wasn't really listening in class. but I remember in math class there was at the very end of grade 12 in the term after all your results already done they don't contribute anything to your results as your final year results it was like a final we had like these final exams that were like uh or like it was not even exams they didn't even exam us on it it was literally just education after we'd already done our exams.

30:20It was like things. That stuff where it didn't contribute to our grades, we were learning about P &Ls and profit and loss states. And I was like, so you're telling me that you judge us on algebra and you give us our scores to set us up for life and to get us into university on things that we are never going to use. And then we brush over and skim over a profit and loss statement i'm like i'm like dude you're not even teaching us how to budget and everyone's switched off there because it doesn't even contribute to the grades i just go there's got to be something wrong with that but even if we go beyond beyond this right we're looking at this this age of of of people wanting to grow on social media people wanting the really flashy lives and and achieving all the cool things which by the way like you've achieved a lot of the stuff that people are striving, that people want, that young men go, like, that's the life that I want.

31:16There's been many moments that you've shared to me off camera around how you achieve certain things and then they felt numb straight away. But what we learn, and I'm keen for you to elaborate on this, but what you learn actually wasn't about the thing. And now fast forward all of these years, you've still got the things, but you enjoy them a whole lot more. Can you talk to me about the massive, quick climb in success that you achieved and how it started to feel quite hollow and why that was? So for me, I really went from, I went very quickly from making a few thousand dollars a month doing Postmates while doing YouTube full time.

31:59So that was my day-to-day job. All I did was do the lunch hour, do the dinner rush, and then I would film a vlog every day. Like that was my life from 17 till 20. And then I kind of took a, after four years total-ish of vlogging, I like wiped all those, archived them all and like spent time figuring out what I wanted to do. And then I went down the TikTok road, started Hype House, all this stuff took off overnight. So I very quickly started making a lot of money. And I'll never forget, like when my, when I had like over 50 or a hundred grand in my bank account for the first time, I thought like I would get a call from Chase Bank that was like, you were moving your account to something like different.

32:40Like I genuinely didn't even understand because I'd never had more than like a couple thousand dollars in my bank account. I thought I would get like some private Chase clientele service for having more money or whatever. This is not how it works. But I didn't even understand the saving account interest or any of that stuff. But so I quickly, I kind of was like, there's a term for it, but like when you go from broke to making a lot of money, you usually, if you haven't been taught about like investments and buying real estate and all these things like, and I had a lot of friends that were in that, that had good parents that helped them finance all their money or budget all their money out, invest in properties, all this stuff.

33:23I just spent all my money immediately. Like I told you before, like I spent$34 ,000 on cats. like I just like instantly had that money in my bank account I was like let me go spend it um I bought a lot of dumb jewelry and stuff like that and it what I realized is that what I was doing is material to me can be a representation of the work so like you see like a lot of people like exit their company and they'll buy like their dream car or they'll buy their dream house or whatever and it's like the thing is just a representation of the work you put into it So if you exit a company for$50 million and you buy your five or$10 million dream house, and then you buy your$2 million worth of cars, whatever, the material is just a representation of the work you put into that company for 10 years.

34:11And I think that that's what I was viewing it as like, oh, I'm finally, I spent years and years on this. Like, let me buy the car that I've always wanted. And then I also have like an unhealthy relationship with struggle where I thought that the fuel and the fire that I had came from the struggle. So what I did is like when I, when I bought my first, um, supercar was I had just paid off my Tesla that I had bought. And that was like the first nice car I'd ever got paid it off and then instantly put it down on the Porsche 911, the GT3 RS. And my monthly payment was like three or four grand a month or something at the time, or three, I think around like 3 ,000.

34:51And I was using that as fuel to be like, I need to make three grand every month minimum. And I was making a lot more than that at the time. So it wasn't like a horrible financial decision, but I was using it as fuel. So what I noticed was that, and this is kind of more like the psychology and I don't really understand this, but I kept constantly putting myself in a position to struggle. So I would get one car payment and then another car payment. And then I had a house that was$45 ,000 a month for a bunch of people to live in. And I was like, if I don't make 45 grand a month right now, I can't afford this house.

35:27So it was like, it was lighting the fire under me. And when I bought my first house, all in all, I had put in around$700 ,000 as a down payment by the time. And I bought it with two other people and they put in some money as well. but at the time when the house closed, I had, I think$4 ,000 in my bank account. And like, there was a mortgage coming in of 20 grand a month plus other expenses. And like, we had deals that were coming in that were anticipated, but they could have been dropped. And then I would have had to figure it out. And I got car payments at the time, like all these horrible decisions that I was using as a way to fuel myself to continue to work hard and to wake up every day and be like, I have this stress.

36:09I need to get through it. I need to survive. I need to make more. And what I realized, like it all piled up at a lot and like 2022 ish where I had all these lawsuits. I had all these personal relationship issues. I had all these like family issues. I had all these things going on at the same time of having this extreme financial stress. So from the outside, it's like, Oh, look at this. He has a 12 ,000 square foot house. He has these supercars, this and that, but it's like, no, I actually have to make 50 grand a month or I'm going to be bankrupt tomorrow. And so like that part of it is something that I didn't even realize I was subconsciously putting myself in that position.

36:44And it reached a point where like I had all these lawsuits going on and just like nightmares. And I was the most depressed I ever was at that house. Like I hated my life. I hated waking up there every day. I was not happy. And funny enough, like I still have the cars because that's like one of the escapes I had. Like I love driving. I love driving fast. It's like, unfortunately, I wish I didn't like cars at all. I wouldn't have them now. I don't, I don't care about the status side of them. I just love driving them. But I was like so focused on the image of those things that I was doing anything to just achieve them and feel like I was, I like kept myself in this limbo of just constantly working to achieve, but I'd already gotten there, but like, you're still filling that up.

37:24And I told you before that's what we talked about off camera, but the day that I picked up my Huracan and I was like so happy about it was the same day that I was getting my R8 back that had been twin turboed and the happiness on the car lasted and this is in the we're like in the middle of shooting a reality show so there's cameras installed in our house watching us everywhere they like bugged mics places that we didn't even know so I'm like completely miserable I like snuck away in the morning to go buy this car didn't tell anybody we're supposed to be shooting something else. Um, and I bought it, I was happy for like 30 minutes.

37:58And then by the time I got home, then my, my Ari was coming back from getting twin turbo. It took like months and it was so fast. It like killed my interest in the other car I had just bought. And I was like, it kind of hit me like, okay, well you're just buying this to feel good for what? Like an hour, 30 minutes. That's like, Oh yeah. I'd go in the garage and look at it and be like, Oh, this is so cool. and then that was it. And you realize like at the end of the day, it's just another material object that you might be so excited for. And I realized like when I was broke, like I would get so excited about like a package for something I was ordering.

38:39And I realized like, you should really have enough going on in your life to where you're not so excited about one material thing and you should have a deeper fulfillment. And that's something that I think it's pretty normal when you make a lot of money in your early 20s to kind of like go down that road. And, you know, like I'm lucky that, um, I've had a great girlfriend the whole time. So like, I didn't have to worry about other aspects of my life being a nightmare or a mess or like drifting off, but definitely on the financial end, like it was easy to just be like, well, I want another car and another car.

39:08And like, that's all I'm focused on right now. Instead of realizing like, how about sit and think about the way that your life affected you growing up and how it impacted your relationships with people. why you feel no fulfillment or where that like depression is coming from or why you're so unhappy or why you're putting this you're putting yourself in this position to be so stressed and so I realized like once I sold that house and I was really I mean it was it was a 10 bedroom house and it was just me and I by the end and I was like it's so hollow and like dead in here and horrible and so once I sold it I was like I want to find a house and like make it our own and like redo it together and make it like beautiful and our way and all this stuff.

39:50And I feel more at home there every day than I ever did at any of the other house I've lived in. And I grew up, I moved a lot when I was young. I think I had lived in 15 or 16 different places before I graduated high school. So I moved around all over. I never had like a childhood at home the way that a lot of normal people do. And so then I moved pretty much every year after once Hype House started or even every six months. So then I lived in that house and, uh, the big house for a long time. I'd lived there for four years. And then now this house we've only lived in for a year and a half and it feels more at home than ever, like than any house I'd ever lived in before.

40:28Yeah. And I think you, you know, you've designed it exactly how you want to and rechanged everything and knocked down walls and got your hands dirty and try and do it all yourself. And And I think it's just one of those things where you've, from my perspective, what I've noticed is like you find joy in the thing itself of like the building of it all and how excited you get even just showing your friends about it and like even the intricacies of all the little things and how like the shower was and everything about it, right, is like so close to you and it's it's something that's brought you probably more joy and more fulfillment and i think it it's like yeah all of this stuff costs money and yeah it was expensive but it's like some the joy that you were brought from it and and also probably the environment you said felt like home whereas when you're in the house with 10 bedrooms and all these people that were just potentially using you and and uh and like just literally there for what you could do for them um it started to sap the energy out of you which is why the car felt hollow yeah definitely i was not happy in the where i was living and i mean the business that i was in for a long time is just it's a very superficial business and it's a very how can you hand me or help me like what it really is a um when friendships are based on like an exchange or what you can offer them and i think that that's very, very common in the social media world is it's very hollow and there's no depth.

42:08And you kind of realize like, if you're not at an extreme value for people, you're not important. And I think it's really interesting. You'll see like, you know, if someone gets canceled, the amount of people that stop being friends with them, or you see when someone gets, uh, if their numbers drop, all of a sudden everybody disappears and stuff like that. It's like, it's very interesting to see the way people treat each other in this business. is that not crazy though like it's it's insane it's insane yeah and you'll see people that have been like treated like shit for years because they weren't famous then they blow up and then everybody's like wants to be their friend again and i'm i'm like not really built for the social media side of that and like the fake friendships and all that i i've tried to be as real as possible to everybody in my life always and i think that for me like i don't i look at myself as like i'm I'm nowhere near perfect.

42:58I've made a ton of mistakes in my life. I don't try to hold judgment on others. And I think this is where the religious aspect really helps me is because sometimes like there was, there's been people who have lied about me. There's been people who have said some horrible things about me, things that are like so untrue that I'm like, these could be like lawsuits and I could go down that road and all that. And I was like, what am I going to like stoop myself to this level and feed into this evil game when like those people are fighting their own demons. Like if someone comes out and says the worst thing about you and it's completely untrue, what is that person going through in life that they need to get ahead in that way?

43:36Like you really got to think about like the type of person you are. Like I sleep every night. Amazing. I like hit the, hit my head on the pillow and I am out. I have no worries. I have no regrets, no doubts, no nothing. I'm like, I was a great friend. I've been great to everybody in my life. I have tried my best. I am, I've made mistakes. I'm not perfect, but I don't have to be like, Oh, I would have killed someone for a little bit of success, or I would have ruined someone to get one step ahead in life. Like I am not like that. And I feel amazing for not being like that. And this industry has a lot of people like that, that I think we'll have to, everything comes to roost at the end of the day and the horrible things you do.

44:14It's like, we've talked about. Like if someone goes and cheats on their girlfriend, what if you end up getting married and then you cheated on your wife and then your kids find out one day or she finds out 10 years later, or it eats up at you every day for 10 years. Like eventually it's going to catch up to you. And that's how the things that when you, especially when you intentionally do wrong, like, you know, we all make mistakes. We all sin. We all do these things, but if you intentionally hurt someone, you intentionally lie, you intentionally, it's always going to come back around. And that's something that I'm like a very, very strong believer in, whether it's in this life or the next, like you want to try to do right by everybody as best you can.

44:55And like, none of us are going to be perfect, but that's something that like, I feel good about knowing that that's not who I am and that I didn't have to make sacrifices for other people's lives and stuff like that, just for me to get ahead in life. I was able to just do it through hard work and dedication. And like, to me, that's more fulfilling than having 25 supercars, but I have to like sabotage everybody around me to get there. How does your relationship with God help you do right to all the people around you? This one's interesting. This is something that like I get into with a lot of people.

45:33And I mean, we can go down that road, but you're like questioning right now, right? Like you're learning, but you're not. I'm diving deep. I'm very fascinated. Very curious. One of the big things that I have, if you take away Christian ethics and if you take away Christianity as a whole from our country and our nation, my question is what is morality without the Bible? What is morality without God? it's if you don't have these rules to live by that's why i say like something like cheating it if you are perfectly clean with the way you cheat on someone as in like you wear protection you have no risk of getting that person uh getting giving your other partner or your your primary partner some sort of disease or something take away that aspect of it it's just the physical act there's nothing wrong with it without religion like this is the thing about of societies, we all think like, first of all, if you think that you create morality, then you think you're God.

46:36So if I say like, well, it's, oh, it's all based by the collective. It's like, what do you mean by that? Because then by that remark, then slavery was not wrong when the collective wanted it. Like that you can't go down that road because then any society can decide anything. They can decide the murder is fine. But is it fine or is it morally wrong? And that's what people will tell you when they don't believe in objective morality is they'll say, well, that's just morality. That's human nature. And you go, yeah, but I believe that's instilled by God. And if you remove that, then any society can make their own rules.

47:10And that's a very dangerous road. And if you just look at the psychology of it, like who's going, if you get rid of religion completely, you get rid of all of our morals that are built on a Christian society, which is what we currently live in the Western world. That's why I love when I like talk to atheists in that way. First of all, I think atheists spend more time thinking about God than people who are religious, but people who are atheists, they always say like, oh, um, we create our own morality as a society, or we have an, uh, an inherent morality to us as humans. And you go, that's just completely not true.

47:44There are murderers, there are rapists, there are, where's that person's morality? It's like, no, that person is acting in a way that they think they're God and they can make those decisions. It's like, if you really want to walk with God, you can't kill someone. You can't cheat on your wife. You can't do these things because it's against, it's an eternal sin to go down that road. And our society is much better following those rules than abolishing them. And if you abolish them, then who decides what the new rules are? A group of people like me, or like, you know, like does, does the president get to decide for everybody?

48:22And then it switches every four years or eight years as we have a whole new set of morality, like in a whole new set of rules. No, clearly that doesn't work. That's why we've stuck with Christian ethics for so long. And it's like that one blows my mind because I never hear a good answer of where morality comes from. Because if it's just inherently human, then every culture could have their own rules. Like, why is it that all these societies murder is wrong? Why is it that something that's stuffed for so long? It's like, yeah, you can say like, oh, there's some biological aspect to it of like, we should try to procreate and create more people and try to build a society because we can be more functional together.

48:57Yeah, but if someone cuts you off on the highway, why can't you shoot them in the head? It's like, because it's morally wrong. You're not allowed to. And that's like, but if you take away the religious aspect of that, then why aren't you allowed to? It's like, if you really think about it, like a big one that people bring up because it's controversial all the time is like incest. You go like, why is incest wrong if it's two consenting adults? it wouldn't be if you take away christian morality and you take away the bible it wouldn't be wrong there'd be nothing wrong with it so like that's what i'm saying like but why do we know it's inherently wrong why do we look at people and go that's disgusting yeah see fuck that's a bit of down look having if you if you remove if you remove religion morality is incredibly subjective and based on on like trying to like to think that the human brain can decide on what morality is and what it isn't it's like to think that the world evolves around what's going on up here is kind of crazy yeah and like i said like any society can just decide different rules at any time yeah so like the thing that i've been deep diving in the reason i'm so fascinated is what i try and look at is like what's the utility in a specific belief and so the thing that brought me so much closer to god was falling in love with a woman and i found myself adding all these rules into my life because i didn't want to do her wrong so then i thought if i could develop the love i have for the woman, but for God, that would level up every other area of my life because I would add all these rules, not as a cage, but as like, uh, there's a freedom in the rules.

50:49There's like a, there's like a, like a moral compass dictating all of the decisions that I make in every area of my life. And I noticed myself being like, okay, like, I don't like this book of rules. I don't like this thing. Like I'm finding a lot of friction because my life is so good. Like I've never been in a better place in my whole life. Why would I add another rule book into my life? So then I found myself going like this. And then I realized after I fell in love with this woman, I went, my life got better. So much better. I stopped falling for lust. I stopped responding to these girls texts that were just trying to, you know, use me or trying to distract me.

51:30Like fundamentally, my life got better when I added more rules by bringing this chicken to my life. And so then I go, okay, so if I could develop that love for God, what would that look like? Well, it's like you're saying too, it's all perspective. Yeah. You go like, you can look at, okay, well, if I'm faithful and I get a partner that I love and like you get a girlfriend and a wife and that is a limitation. If you view it in that way, you say like, oh, I can't talk to all these different girls. I can't go out whenever I want. I don't have any rules to my life because I'm not just free on my own.

52:05or you look at it as a, not as a limitation, but as a way to grow. It's like, first of all, like you're saying, like, yeah, as a man, there's no bigger distraction than being on Snapchat and dating apps and stuff like that on Instagram, DMing girls till one in the morning, two in the morning. It actually hurts your career in every possible way. But it's so easy to look at that as like, and it comes back to idolizing that. And this is another thing that I, with the relationship with God, I think that people when they have a lack of religion they put religion into something else so you'll notice this with any other cultish type of group of people is that I view like vegans treat veganism like their god and especially if they don't believe in god because that is their way of life and you notice this in politics too people become very very in line and it starts to like trigger them if someone believes something different than them because that is their god And that's something that like is, I think, horribly detrimental for society.

53:08I think that's why we have so much divide in this country is because that is there. If your God is being a liberal or your God is being a conservative, then anything that goes against that is going against your religion. It's going against your belief system. And that is a threat. So if you're able to put God in his own category and that becomes, I can't do anything without God. and this is my belief and these are my morals, then you treat politics very differently. You don't view it as like this person is my idol. This person is my God. This person is who I should follow or this ideology is what I should follow, especially when it's constantly changing.

53:49Like that's also why I think religion is a staple for people is this old book has worked for so long. And look, people have done wrong using the Bible, but that doesn't mean that the Bible is wrong. This is like a big thing that I talk to when I talk to people who are atheists. They'll say like, look at the Crusades. Look at these things that these horrible acts that people have used the Bible to justify. You go, that doesn't mean that the inherent text is bad. That just means that people have interpreted it in a wrong way. Yeah. Do you not think that just literally by virtue of the term, by virtue of the fact that there's many religions with many different gods, religion does create divide because it's Muslims and us, Jews and us, Christians and us.

54:38And so it actually does create divide. Definitely. And so how do you combat that when it's like, okay, there is a lot of divide in the country, in the world. But, but I would even go to say that, that religion is an aspect that does create divide because just like a vegan gets mad when someone, uh, like just like a vegan gets mad when someone like is eating meat. Like when I say to my Christian friends that I went on a date with a Mormon and they arc up, you know, it's like, like, it's like, well, what is the connection here? Like there is a divide. I think, I think inherently as humans, we're going to have divide just on cultural differences, religious differences.

55:25I think though, what makes somewhere like America great is that we have so many people with these different cultures and these different ideas. But at the same time, you don't want to fragment a society with, you really can't have, like people always talk about like how great multiculturalism is, which like I agree. I like, I grew up in San Diego. I grew up with a million different cultures around me. I think it's amazing. But at the same time, we have to have the same morals. like you really can't have neighbors that think murder is fine and then you don't yeah like we really do have to come in line with that and that's why i'm such a proponent of christianity is christianity is and i i just i'm not a theologian by any means but i just recently reread the bible front to back again and the old testament is a lot starker on what you can do and it's a lot more firm and it's a lot more traditional.

56:15The New Testament is you are able to, like the best way that I could explain it is it's, I view it as like one of the most accepting religions of anybody, as long as you accept Christ in your life. And even then it's not a, you're not ever attacking people on their other beliefs. You, you want people to believe in Jesus this and you want people to read the Bible. And also when you go back and read it, you realize how much of history has been, has impacted by the Bible. And you also realize that for me, at least it's a good way to just point your life in the right direction. That's kind of like what I view it as.

56:57It's not something that you're going to read and then magically you're a perfect Christian the next day. It's also that we're all sinners. That's like the first thing is when Jesus comes and says that if you even look at another woman, you're already a sinner in any way of lust. So not just committing adultery. That's what in the Torah is if you commit adultery or committing a sin. He comes and says, you're a sinner if you even look at another woman. So the whole idea is like, we're all sinners because nobody will ever be perfect except God. And that's what it does is it sets a standard for you to reach perfection.

57:31And this is something that I have always said this and like people will look at me and say like I'm a really good partner to Mia and I'm a really good boyfriend and I strive for being the perfect boyfriend because I'll never achieve it so it's the same thing of like I have an extreme fitness regimen I wake up I do 10 miles then I go to the gym I do jiu-jitsu three to four times a week I like do this and be like how do you do that and I'm like because I'm striving for being perfect because I'll never hit that mark so you might view it as like, oh, you run 10 miles every day. That's crazy. Like you're, oh, you're doing so much.

58:06You could probably take a day off. That's what people always say. It's like, well, I should be doing 25 miles a day. I should be doing 50 miles a day. Cause I'll never hit that goal. So it's like, I don't even drink water during my workout. Cause I view it as a reward when I'm done. And then if I sneak water halfway through the workout, I'm like, yeah, like it's like a way for me to, I'm setting my goals so high that it's okay if I miss the mark a little bit. And I think that works with everything with fitness. I think that works. So like, okay, if you, if your goal is you right now, you eat 5 ,000 calories a day of horrible fast food.

58:38And then your goal tomorrow is I'm going to be absolutely perfect. I'm not going to eat fast food anymore. And a week later, you go to McDonald's once you had it once instead of every day. So it's like, because you're striving for doing it perfectly, you're a little leeway room. You're still way better off than you were before. So I think that's what Christianity does for your life is I want to be perfect. I want to live like Christ. I want to do right by everybody. So when you chase that goal, if you do wrong by one person, you're a sinner. We all do it. But you're trying to achieve being like Jesus and you'll never make that.

59:14You'll never hit that mark. And like, that's a big part of why I think Christianity is so attractive to a lot of people. And I know that we've talked to this before, but I don't really believe in the whole, because yes, technically, if you repent and you accept Jesus in your life, you could do horrible things and then you can become a Christian. But I think that that is a very, I think that's a talking point that a lot of people use to discredit Christianity because it has to be genuine. So anybody can say anything. Anybody could say, I accept Jesus in my life. We all know the, what's the term from the performative Christians.

59:49Everybody knows that. There are plenty of people that I have met some people that are at church every Sunday morning are from the outside, perfectly publicly amazing Christians that are some of the most evil people you'll ever meet. That's why I think it's important. That's why in the New Testament, I forget which parable it is or which chapter of the Bible it is, where the woman on the side of the street that gives the denarii or their version of the dollars back then, that she gives so little compared to the tax collector that has a lot of money. And he says, Jesus says that her donation is worth more than his because he's giving a little bit when he has a lot and she's giving a little bit when she has nothing.

1:00:38So I think that that's a good way to kind of like a good example of if you're just a church dweller and you go every Sunday and you pretend you're not walking with Christ every day, you're worse off than the person who doesn't even know what he's supposed to be doing. You're worse off than the person that's never picked up the Bible because you're willingly doing the opposite. And I think that like, that makes you more of a center. Like, so, so then there's a level of accountability to show up after you've discovered that way of life. Yeah, definitely. Damn. It's fascinating. Well, there's more, I mean, if you're, it's like when someone, I think it's always funny when someone does like these horrible things and then it comes out, um, that they're like sober.

1:01:23And I'm like, well, if you're sober, like I don't drink, for example, it's just not my thing. I don't do any drugs. I don't do any of that stuff. It puts more accountability on me. Because if you see a video of me doing something horrible and I'm like losing it or beating the shit out of some guy on the street, I don't get to be like, oh, I was drunk. Like I was out of my mind. I wasn't thinking straight because I'm sober. I don't drink. I don't do that. So it's almost the same way of like, well, if you've read the Bible, you've read how you're supposed to be and you're doing the opposite, you're worse off than someone who's never picked it up.

1:01:57Yeah. Do you think there's like a, and I guess malicious is subjective in itself for some people. Like, like I wonder if someone that's murdering someone actually thinks it's malicious or have they somewhat tricked themselves into, into thinking it is. But what I'm getting at is like, like for me, there's, there's a piece of like, no one follows the Bible in its entirety fully to a T, right? Like that would be, you'd be perfect. Yeah, it doesn't exist. And so it doesn't exist. But I guess the piece that I've been exploring is I'm going like, maybe I'm not following it to a T, but I mean, I don't even know it to a T, but like.

1:02:40And the moral compass is the thing. Because someone asked me, right? A Christian asked me, they go, if you didn't grow up with religion, how do you know the difference between good and bad? How do you know the difference between right and wrong? And like, how did you make good decisions on what you did? And I didn't have an answer for it. I was like, I actually don't know. And then I thought about it and I went, well, I actually think the thing is, is there any malicious intent? And am I like, is there any evil? And that was my decision-making process. Okay, like, am I doing them wrong? And so, like, yeah, they're rules, but if I break them, like, is anyone getting hurt from it?

1:03:20And that was, like, my decision-making process. It was, like, not black and white. It was kind of, like, me making my decisions. But I guess there's, like, a piece that I'm looking at it here because you're going, like, okay, if you learn all of this, then it is your duty to follow it. But then a lot of it is all just an idea and a belief anyway. so then I'm trying to because just like if you read a book that's not the Bible is it our obligation to follow it and like to like follow it in its entirety or just because Jesus is a belief that more people believe it means that we should follow it or whatever it is and so I kind of guess where I'm getting at with this is I'm like trying to assess it in its entirety and then go like does this belief have utility in making me a better person making the world a better place if so then I think it's my duty to show up in that way.

1:04:12If not, or if I feel like there's something else that makes me show up in a better way, maybe I follow that. And I've been trying to discern the difference between doing things and not based on that lens. A big part of something like when we talk about the morality of someone asking you, how did you know what was good and evil? How did you know what was right and wrong? The way that I explain it to people is you're already born on third base because you're born in a Western country, in a Western society. So growing up, you're already in a Christian inspired world. So all of our laws are come from Christianity.

1:04:51So you grow up knowing as a baby, the murder is illegal. So illegal becomes wrong in your head. So, which is just another way, it's a sin. So you're already, you're programmed as a kid for Christian values. That's why I say like people, a prime example is like, why can't I go 150 down the road? It's like the whole reason we have these rules is because there is a higher risk that you might hit someone or the accident might be more deadly or this, but why is that wrong? This comes back to like, it wouldn't be a law if it wasn't a risk of hurting someone else. And a big part of almost all of our laws are based around theft, whether it's theft of intellectual property or whether it's theft of someone's life.

1:05:35like it's all taking something away from somebody else for the most part that's just a christian value you're not allowed to steal from someone you're not allowed to take their life from them you're not allowed to take from others that's the thing without them giving to you so like that's something that we're like we're born on third base in a christian world so even if you say i'm a complete atheist i don't care i'm not going to read the bible i don't you're already abiding by most of the rules that we live by that are laws that were made because of a Christian society. So it's like we took the best parts of the Bible and we put them into our laws.

1:06:11Like that's why we get so upset when politicians and people and they take advantage of these rules and they print money the way that they can for themselves and they let people get away with these horrible things. It's because inherently it's wrong. Like that's why we have such a deep attachment to it. It's because we know what's right and wrong. And I would say that God has instilled that in you from birth. So even when you go through, it's almost like God knows you're going to go through a phase of doubting. And that's what you're supposed to do. Like, that's why I like Wes Huff so much. He questions everything about the Bible.

1:06:42And he's like a true theologian that will study it left and right and front to back. And he wants to know everything. Like, I like listening to people like that because I want people to debate because that's how I learn. It's like a big thing. Like we talked about before is it's hard to know what in the Bible is parables. Because you're still, you're not reading the word of God. You're reading the word of man translated from conversations with God. So you go like, I'm not, God didn't just give us a book that he wrote and said, live by these rules. It's like, these have been written. Some of these have been retained through generations before they were ever first written.

1:07:17So it's like, we have things like the 10 commandments. Those are a few things that they have on stones that are old, but they're still not from the original time of the Torah. So we don't really have like a rule book that God gave us. I think that's kind of the point is that you have to read this and interpret it and do right by others based on that inherent feeling in you. But also you wouldn't have that feeling. It's like a lot of men, you know, like I think I'm, I think porn is really bad for people and me having unfettered internet access too young. like I was able to see things I shouldn't have at a very very young age but even then when I was watching that stuff at 12 13 I still felt wrong after you know what I mean like why why inherently did it feel wrong like that's that's one of those things like it felt like oh I shouldn't be watching this yeah what do you think it is in us that makes us feel like the things are doing are wrong when we like we know they're wrong deep down i think i think we're gifted by god to have that and i think so it's like an internal moral compass that like makes you know when you're stepping over a line that's why i say if you if you pick up a hundred thousand dollars left on the side of the road and you have no questions you have no answers there's nothing tied to it do you take it it's like most people would just take it but are you going to think about it like yeah you're probably going to be like i mean most people would take money on the side of the road that they find because it's cash or this that you can't find the person but is it morally right yeah and then and then i guess and you have to live with that yeah you have to live with that so does the weight of that is it worth see that's that's fascinating but it goes to everything though because if you set your that's why if you set your standards very high so it's like if you set a standard for yourself to work out every morning and you skip it, you're also doing that to yourself.

1:09:22You're stealing the future success from yourself by not doing it. So it's like you really should apply that to every aspect of your life. If you're a bad boyfriend for one day, you're taking that gift of being a good partner away from your girlfriend. So you should view it like that in every day. and that's something that it's hard because I grew up in a way where there's things that I look back and go like how could my family have done that to me and all you can do is say like well maybe that happened to you so that when you have kids you're a perfect parent in every way you can even though you're still going to make mistakes and make and have flaws like maybe it's just a learning lesson for you and also like I know I know a lot of people that have grown up very, very, very well off, amazing parents and this and that and a lot.

1:10:09Sometimes they have very hard like identity issues and they don't know who they are or they never worry about finances. So it's really hard for them to find purpose because a lot of us are driven by, I want to be successful because I don't have what I want. So a lot of men are like, I want a Ferrari and I'm going to work my ass off till I get a Ferrari. So if you're given a Ferrari at 16, sometimes those kids end up being like, well, what can I accomplish? Yeah. And where does that purpose come from without a drive for anything? Yeah. It's making me think of a piece I wrote or a discovery I had around, uh, the transition of your state of love.

1:10:49I wonder if I can find it because I found myself falling in love, right? And I found this newfound drive that I had for life to level up. And then I found myself fearing of losing the love and I found that same newfound sense of drive and I realized that during a transitional state of your love you get like a newfound motivation for life and so I'm trying to piece it into God right because for me it was in the reference of this this woman that I fell in love with. But if you can picture yourself in a future that's greater than the one you have now through your relationship with God, a partner, what that brings for you, it gives you a fuel like no other.

1:11:42It gives you a fuel of something to show up. When you can put yourself beyond you, where you go, So like when I show up as a bad boyfriend, I'm removing the opportunity for my partner to have the experience of a good boyfriend and you put it outside of you. It's like when I show up in a bad way to this woman, I'm removing the opportunity of having a strong relationship that my kids are going to look up to as their parents. Like when you can make it greater, it gives you a drive to show up in a better way. and also like a lot of people don't realize that everything in life that is good is delayed gratification you don't get your fitness results on day one you get them after years and years you don't go walk in the gym and bench three 315 pounds takes you years hard work dedication same thing with a partner it's like you being a good boyfriend or a good girlfriend or a good partner, it's going to compound over time.

1:12:43So you're not going to be the perfect boyfriend on day one, but if you spend 10 years, then you get married and you're the perfect husband is your goal 10 years from now, you're just compounding that. You're just delaying that gratification. That's what life is all about. You work the job for years so that it pays off down the road. And that's the thing that I feel like nowadays, it's very hard with the internet and with the and everything is everyone wants instant gratification. It's like, that's why I think porn can be so damaging for especially young guys. It's like, the whole point is you're supposed to get out there and try to go sleep with a woman because it is difficult.

1:13:20It's a process and you're supposed to be able to treat them really well. You're supposed to wow them. You're supposed to have this whole process that has now been taken out and instantly been put on your phone. And it's the same thing where I saw this actor, he deleted his phone because he said he didn't want to see anything through the eyes of someone who worked to get that. He said, like, I've removed Instagram off my phone because I didn't want to see someone post that they were at the Eiffel Tower when I haven't seen the Eiffel Tower. So he was like, I want to go see that in person. And I was like, it's actually like a, it's an interesting way to look at life of like, well, it's very easy to think like, well, I've seen everything because I've seen it all online.

1:13:59It's like, but you haven't really seen everything. yeah and then i guess this ties back down to a fuck i love this this ties back down to the thought of what's the reason of getting the thing in the first place well it's actually the person you become along the way and the journey of that and if we think about our life it's not about getting all these things with the click of our button because it doesn't even have the value the value comes from the challenge it took to get there right it's as stoic as it gets and and so if anything, why are we trying to get things so quick? Because when we get them, if they happen quick, we're not even going to appreciate them.

1:14:39So then it's like, okay, well, how can I optimize for the feeling of its value, not just obtaining the thing? And oftentimes to actually appreciate the value of the thing, we need to earn the thing by going through the journey of it. Well, the journey is the special part. And on top of that, like if you're obsessed with the end goal only, you're going to get really empty when it's done. So you'll notice a lot of people that win the Super Bowl, they have to change their goal. Because from middle school, when you're playing Pop Warner, and then you go to high school and play football, and you go into college, then you make it to the NFL, your dream is to win the Super Bowl.

1:15:20And then once you do it, it's like that's the peak of football. you've done it and then when they leave a lot of the football players like have an issue with when they leave the nfl there is no experience like the flashing lights the the catching the final touchdown of the game throwing the final touchdown of the game being a part of that massive moment though it'll never be the same again that's where it comes to like that inner fulfillment that you need and that's why you have to be obsessed with the process of becoming a great athlete of becoming your goals so high and trying to achieve them.

1:15:52That's the whole fun part of life. And I think, yeah, I think now people would, I mean, look at all the people that win the lottery that waste all the money. It's like, cause you didn't work for it. You just got given it. And is that really going to, everybody thinks that that's why I bring up like the broke mentality or, or a rich mentality. I know a lot of people that have made financial mistakes that blow through their money that if you gave them a million dollars tomorrow, it'd be gone. Gone. Because if you don't change the habit of what got you to being broke today, it's usually not just circumstance.

1:16:26Like some people, yes, 100%. There are some people that have just had horrible, horrible things happen, you know, like horrible health issues. You know, like I think that's one of our biggest things is medical bankruptcy in this country. Like that's horrible. Very hard to maneuver after that if you lose your legs or something. It's like I give a lot of the grace to those people. but most people who make these horrible financial decisions whether they make five grand a month 10 20 30 you'll be in the same boat if you don't fix the habit yeah yeah i think it was tony robbins talking to alex mozi and he was explaining the astronauts that landed on the moon have you heard about this so the all of the astronauts that went onto the moon for the first time apparently like I don't know the exact thing Tony Robbins was saying it but most of them either became drug addicts or killed themselves after it and and the crazy thing was they'd reached the peak they'd they'd landed on the moon and come back to earth and then they're sitting there going what next like how can I top that and it's like this crazy thing where you just look at like athletes is a little bit different as well maybe it's the same but for athletes their identity gets tied to the thing.

1:17:43So then when they try and remove themselves from the sport, they're like, fuck, that is me. That's all I am. And so then there's like a problem because a lot of people, a lot of athletes transitioning out of sport and really bad mental problems because they like go, well, that was me. That was my whole identity. That was my life. They're tied with it. It's like when you ask who you are, I think that's one of the biggest things that they tell you like when you stop being an alcoholic and you quit is to not say like, oh, I don't, or they say like, stop saying like, oh, I'm an alcoholic, so I don't drink or something.

1:18:15It's just you start saying like, oh, I don't drink or I don't I don't feel like drinking. It's like you got to change your mentality around it, because if you say like, I'm an alcoholic, you don't realize how much your words have meaning. You're you're setting your identity with I'm a recovering alcoholic. Yeah, it's like, no, no, no, you're not an alcoholic. You're you're sober. Like you just say, I don't drink. Yeah, you have to change your mindset around because you're tying who you are with that so it can be very positive and it can be really negative so it's like yeah if you're an nfl player and everyone's like oh what do you do and you're like i'm an nfl player it's like well you're also someone underneath that yeah because once you leave it's going to be very difficult to transition out of that yeah it's the same with uh uh the alcoholic piece is is massive like if you were to ask a person that doesn't drink hey man do you drink they would say no man i don't drink But if you were to ask someone that's doing 30 days sober, who's an alcoholic trying to get off alcohol and they're really trying to quit it.

1:19:17Hey, do you drink? I have been drinking, but no, I'm 30 days free. I'm like that language of like, oh, I'm 30 days free. That's like showing you that you're on a diet. It's like if you want to keep the six pack all year long, you don't have a diet, you have a lifestyle. and and and like it gets wide into your identity that you are one of a healthy fit person not just someone that's on a diet and i think like the the piece there is it's like that whole thing of like being the person that you actually want to become and it's like that like showing up in that way uh naturally just makes it so much easier you're not creating friction it's like you're not like diet means restriction from something else lifestyle is like i want to do this but i would tie it back to like you said about the bible is less of a rule book it's more of a it's a way to live and a lifestyle and so it's very similar like the way that you're right when people want to get in shape they're like oh i'm not allowed to eat carbs anymore it's like yeah but one day you're going to start eating carbs and you're going to get right back to where you were that's why you have to like you do have to have a big lifestyle change if you want to do anything yeah If you want to be a better partner, if you want to be in better shape, if you want to be a better father, a better son, a better, like you, you have to change who you are and start identifying with what you want to be.

1:20:40And like, that's very hard when you, I mean, I think that men have a lot of pressure, which I think is actually a good thing. I know that, um, I'm part of that. I grew up around my grandfather who was born in the thirties and he was, you know, very stoic Greek man. and I think that right now we have too many soft men in society. I think that they're too sensitive and I think that I know people don't like to hear that because it feels like, oh, you're putting down men or you're not allowing them to feel how they want to feel. No, I think also just like shut up and get over it and I think that we've been babied way too much as a society.

1:21:16Like nobody gives a fuck how you feel and I know that sounds harsh but it's like women are a lot more allowed to have those feelings because us as men, we are supposed to help care for their feelings. It's like when a woman tells you a problem and she doesn't want an answer. She just wants to talk. Let's go back to men not doing that. Like, I don't want you to just talk to talk about how you're depressed today or this and that. It's like, dude, you're going to go down a really bad path. And I've seen a lot of people go to it. Your mind is so powerful. You hear it all the time. I have anxiety. I suffer from depression.

1:21:53It's like every day you say that You're going to continue to suffer from depression Especially if you don't know why It's like well you keep telling yourself every day Anything Oh I'm a procrastinator It's like look are you ever going to fix it Or are you identifying as a procrastinator And that's what you're going to be for the rest of your life You're always going to put everything off So when you're a father and your kid needs you You're going to I'm a procrastinator Sorry I'm not going to get that done right now It's like why are you using your words to identify With something so negative Like you should say, oh, I usually put things off, but I'm, I'm, I'm going to do it right now.

1:22:29Or I don't want to, I usually do this, but I'm not going to do that anymore. Like, and then if someone asks you like, oh, are you going to get that paper done on time? Yeah. Stop saying, oh no, I'm a procrastinator. I'm just not going to do it. And then follow through on it. I'm a massive, I think weak men has, has to be one of the biggest problems in the world right now. A hundred percent. It's like, it goes downstream in everything. Like then the women don't feel safe. Then all of a sudden they now need to be a boss bitch. Like they need it. It's like, dude. I was telling Savannah this because we were having this discussion.

1:23:09And it's funny because she's a woman. She puts all the pressure on women. And because we're men, we put all the pressure on men. So like I view the responsibility of like, I think that a lot of people blame like the way single mothers treat kids and like you see all the metrics go down when they're with a single mother versus in a nuclear household. But I blame the men who leave. I blame the men who are not active in their kids' lives because I'm like, you're the problem. Your kids need you. Your daughters need you to show how you treat their mother so they know what to look for in a man. And you need to be a good example for your son on how to treat women.

1:23:47because if you're gone out of the picture, that's how you get the guys who treat girls like shit. You have all, because they grow up, like I grew up with mostly a single mom was where I lived most of the time. And what it did for me is it made me want to protect my mom. And she went through some rough patches and there was a lot going on. So it was, my view was wanting to make sure my mom was okay and be a protector. So that led me down the road and making sure that any woman I was with or any friends that I had that were girls, I wanted to protect them, make sure they're okay. And that's, I think, men's duty.

1:24:18But if you're a man and you're not involved in the, and women don't feel protected around you, they don't feel safe around you. You're failing as a man. And if you're sitting there in the corner, shaking, saying, I'm anxious when a robber breaks in, who the hell is going to protect anybody? Like that is not your job to put that pressure on women. And that people take that as like, oh, women, oh, so you're saying women can't do it. It's like, no, it's our duty to protect you. Our duty to go to war for you. Our duty to fight for you, to make sure that you are okay. If you have our kid, you need to feel like, oh, I'm fully confident in who my partner is going to be.

1:24:57Fully confident in who my kid's father is going to be. Women are picking very differently than the way men pick when they come to a partner. Women are thinking about, how is this person going to be to our kids? Men, we should think like that too. But for the most part, men think like, oh, this girl's beautiful. That's the start. And then, oh, I love talking to her and I love being around her. Like, that's really what men wanted. They want someone to make them feel comfortable. They want to feel comforted by their wife. They want to feel like they're, you know, at home. Women want to be protected.

1:25:29They want to feel secure. They want to feel like if shit hits the fan, you got this. You're going to, we'll never be living on the street. You will always work a job to pay for everything. You will always like go above and beyond. You will always protect us. And it's funny that people look at that as like a negative thing with women. I don't view a problem at all like it's so funny when girls will get like judged for like oh you she's a gold digger or this or that I'm like you know if you're only going after money yeah but if you're going after a man with like the work's hard and you want a man that provides in the sense like yeah women have always done that for all of history that's what they've wanted to feel secure there's nothing wrong with that yeah and then I guess and then I guess like if a woman has the option to have one of those men then of course why would she not yeah why would she not it's like is but on both ends just like how women i've noticed like a lot of the girls that i've talked to as friends and stuff like that these really high expectations for men they also need to temper that if you're not going to be the most elite partner ever because you also have to look at like if you if your goal is like i want a 6-2 guy um making 500 grand a year minimum i want this this this it's like okay then you better be perfect yeah like you better be in shape you better be in the gym every day.

1:26:40You better be running. You better be doing this. You better be ready to be an amazing mother. You better be ready to sacrifice your whole life for him. You can't just be like, well, I want all this, but I'm not going to do anything. Yeah. And also though, this is interesting. You said you were chatting with Savannah and she was blaming the women and you were blaming the men. The key piece here though is that's because you guys both have agency and take ownership most people live in the victim and they will blame the opposite the men will blame the women the women will blame the men and like i get messages all the time and there'll be women being like yeah but like here's the deal it's like i am an attractive woman i i i'm independent i work i make all this money i do all this stuff and men just are poor and they're weak and then they always leave me and they always do this and live in this sense.

1:27:38And I'm just like, well, firstly, like maybe you should look within because maybe the men that you want don't actually want what you have. Yeah. Maybe they just don't. Maybe like you've made up this story in your head that success for a woman looks like having all the things that you've just listed to me But then because you've developed all of that and you want a man that's up here, maybe the men that you want don't even want what you have. And so then there's a level of agency that needs to be had here of going like, okay, well, maybe if I want these men, what do they want in me? Is it me or is there something else that I can develop that is actually going to attract them or not?

1:28:23And the men do the same thing where they go, there's no, I hear this all the time. there's no good girls out there anymore. I'm like, there's none. There's none. Or is it the girl whose ass is on Instagram that you DMed isn't the greatest girl or whatever. It's like, come on, come on. Yeah. Where'd you meet? You brought her on Tinder. Yeah. She might not be the gold star you're looking for. Like you guys got to set your standard at where you're at too yeah yeah i i just think i i look at i look at that whole dating scene and dynamic and and it it honestly like it is confusing and the whole landscape is this because you're getting all the media and everything getting pushed to tell you to do one thing and then you ending up alone and not really fitting in and then you're like a bit confused it's like media telling men to open up and be just be vulnerable and and like you know do all this thing and then and then they're telling the the women to like be independent you can't trust a man like all of this and so then you've got this whole dynamic where like you guys are actually developing characters that either each other are not attracted to so of course you're being alive yeah and i mean culturally it doesn't help with the messaging that's pushed on everybody i agree that i think that that has a big impact on especially dating culture and the way that men and women look at each other i think that they don't look at each other sometimes as complimentary like they are everyone who knows when they're in a good relationship there's a reason why like you feed off of each other and you grow off of each other and you grow together it's because like if you're, you know, like we were made for each other and we were made to have kids and to grow that family unit together.

1:30:09It's literally how we were designed biologically. And now we have like people that are looking for the wrong things in a partner. And I think that social media does a very big disturbance to that. I think that a lot of the men that I know that they, that are like constantly dating, it's very difficult for them because they, they look online at the wrong things. so they're like oh right now i like burnettes and then the next week they like blondes and then redheads and then they're dating a girl they're like but there might be a prettier girl out there or there might be this girl or look at what this girl's body looks like and this that's like you're going to be really unhappy doing that for 10 years because you're never going to find perfection to you if you keep looking like that you know can we can we dive deeper on that for a little second so the the man jumping around the man being with that girl but thinking the grass is greener like and maybe we tie this into a biblical approach or your your lens of this especially seeing you've been in a relationship for what six years now yeah like how have you been able to navigate that uh that relationship with obviously Mia but then also like the relationship with with lust and lossful thoughts and the nature of being a high achieving man, having options, the grass is greener, there's always that prettier girl in the red dress.

1:31:34Like, how have you been able to navigate that? I think that that feeling like you got when you fall in love, it changes your perception on a relationship. like I've been in love with Mia for six years and we built a partnership and a bond and you you kind of stopped looking at before when I was because I was in a long relationship in high school and then I was single for about a year and at during that time you know I talked to a lot of different people and like thought that was what I wanted as a man and I think because I had been with one girl for so long from when I was 13 or 14. I kind of romanticized the idea of like being a player, sleeping around, doing all this.

1:32:21And when I did that, it was, it brought me no fulfillment. And I think that that's something that's really interesting is like, what, like we've talked about the cars and we've talked about with these things, you kind of, I, why do you idolize it? It's honestly, cause it's kind of pushed on you. Like, to be honest, like the reason I thought like oh it'd be so much fun to like hook up with girls left and right and do this stuff is cause like you see a movie and that's what the player in the movie does that's what the rich guy in the movie does that's what the handsome guy in the movie does it makes you feel all good but I feel like we're kind of programmed but why is it that when we see a 40 year old guy doing we're like that guy's a loser like I think that a lot of a lot of girls will tell me like oh well men will idolize a guy sleeping around like kind of kind of like until you get too old kind of when I see a 35 year old at a club I'm like oh what are you doing bro where's your wife where's your kids and then you're they're like oh I'm 44 I'm still partying I'm like should have chilled that in the 20s like let's get that over with and that I put that pressure on other men but you know like I'm not perfect you know like I it's I think that your focus as a man should be looking for a partner that you feel like you can grow a life with a woman that can be the mother of your kids.

1:33:38And I do get that now a lot of guys feel like, well, you know, some girls have taken it back in a way of like, they, they say they're taking back their sexuality and they can sleep around, be promiscuous. They can go out to the clubs all time, all day. And it's not going to matter their body count and this and that. It's like, I think it matters for both men and women, whether they want to admit it or not. Like, I think that that's very damaging long term and for your self-confidence and for the way that people will look at you. I don't, and if you want this super high achieving man or you want this really high, uh, perfect woman in this night, and you're not setting your standard for yourself at that same level.

1:34:15It is one of those things that you go like men, like you said, like they might want something different than what you think they want. They might want a, a woman to stay home and take care of the kids. That might be so a lot of, a lot of people that I know that are very successful men, they want a girl that, yeah, of course they want to be attracted to her. They want a beautiful woman, but they really want one who's going to like stay at home and take care of the kids while they work. And that's hard. Now that is like something that not every woman wants that life and not every man is going to be able to find a woman that wants to live that.

1:34:50But from what I've seen, a lot of the women that have kind of been sold this, this story of their perfect way of life and go work at the corporate nine to five and go build your career up. We've kind of like isolated men and women as businesses, both being this like provider that works all day and this and that, it's like hard for them to find each other now because they're, they're so busy with their lives that sometimes like, I know a lot of people that are in those types of relationships where they feel like they're, they drift apart all the time because they're both gone 12 hours a day. And they're both like, it's hard to build a life together at that route.

1:35:24And with, with how expensive everything is, like they're struggling to get by that, that's not a way to build the framework of a family. and like that's why I say like I'm very blessed like Mia doesn't have to make money if she doesn't want to and like I encourage her to do music and to post online and like do what she wants but she's not in the position where she has to and like that's great for our relationship because she's been able to be happy and flourish and my job is to protect her and to provide for her and that's a blessing as a man it's the biggest gift it's the biggest you think like oh no I want to do it for me it's like no I don't.

1:36:00I always tell me, I'm like, if I never, if we were never dating this whole time, cause we started dating before I had any money and like, I was not doing well and stuff like that. Um, but I always say like, like I wouldn't have a house. Like I went my whole life. I never put a poster up in a room. I'd never decorated. I'd never done anything. I was like, I would live in a warehouse with cars and a bed and a gym. And I'd probably never have to leave. Like what women do is you're like, Oh, I want to have a nice looking house. So that when she has friends over, it looks nice and that she feels good in here.

1:36:30And like, she's happy with, I don't need brown curtains and nice things. This and that, like, these are things that women want. They homify your home. And that's what men need. They need that balance. Yeah. I think I love the phrase where they say they make the house a home. A hundred percent. And that's why it's funny that people think that if you, if you want to live a life where you want a woman to be able to take care of your kids, to provide the, it's so funny that they think that like you're putting down women, like they can't do more. I'm like, it's actually that I respect them. Like, I think it's funny though.

1:37:01Like my grandma did a work. She came from Greece. She was like, uh, she supported my grandfather and took care of the kids. And I'm like, we had more respect for her than him. Like he was the man of the house and the way that he stood the law and stuff like that. He would yell at us and this and that, but we had so much respect for my grandma. I never looked at it as like, oh, she's just his wife. Never. Like when you think of your grandparents like that, you always think of what especially if they have a great relationship you have a lot of respect for them as a team as a team yeah you don't look at it as like oh he runs the household and she's just his woman like that's really not the perspective i have of it yeah and you know what you also get is like when you're like you don't look at like i don't know about you but like do you look at do you look at relationships that are in their 50s and their 60s and you and when you think about the wife, do you think about how good she is as a mom, how lovely she is and how kind she is?

1:37:57Or do you think about how drop dead gorgeous she is? Oh yeah, no, not at all. You don't think about it at all. And so then you go like, okay, so like the actual thing for probably three quarters at least of the relationship is beyond the thing that made us start speaking to the person in the first place. Oh yeah. Like men initially were kind of objectifying women and then it progresses beyond, okay, how are they as a person? Can they be the mother to my children? All of this. But then you get past a certain age and the looks is such a meek measure of actually what they are in your life. Well, also the thing with looks that's interesting is like, once again, I think that we, why do we think that a six pack and jacked arms and this stuff?

1:38:45Why do you think that's attractive? It's because of the work put in. It's the dedication. Why is the money attractive? Especially, to be honest, I know a lot of girls that won't talk to trust fund kids. Even though they might like the lifestyle they live, they hate the kids. Yeah. It's like, but why is it they're attracted to the money if they worked for it? Yeah. Because that is an attractive quality. So it's like, that's why when you look at women and you go like, it's a great quality when they're great daughters. When they love babies. when like that's something that you notice like i know a lot of girls that you like friends that i've had over the years that like they they're like oh i hate kids i hate babies i hate that i'm like don't say that around a man like that's really a turnoff like he's gonna look at that like what do you mean you hate babies you hate little humans like you hate the very thing you put on the set to reproduce or like women it's really i think it's like very nurturing women love animals and love dogs and love like that is a good quality like men look at that and go like oh look how much she loves this puppy that's sweet like she'll love our kid like that's you do look at those qualities and no it's true though when you get when you get older you definitely the looks don't matter it's more of like when you see an older woman it's not about like oh look at that mom she's so fine or whatever it's like you look at who she is as a mother but you also look at like if they're in shape you go like oh wow she's still keeping herself in shape I have a lot of respect for that.

1:40:16When I see a 50 year old guy at jujitsu or the gym and they're like fighting hard with these 20, I'm like, dude, you're probably a good dad. Yeah. Cause you're putting this work in at 50. Yeah. You, what you just said there about, uh, the women like the guy who's made the money himself. A hundred percent. That is a fucking, that's a nugget of gold because whenever you ask a woman what she likes in the man that has the money, they always say, I love how driven he is. Exactly. And so the money is a byproduct of being driven. I tell the girls all the time, what do I look for in a guy that I want a successful guy this time?

1:40:55Stop going after the guy that is a millionaire. Go after the guy that's making a hundred grand a year right now, but all he does is grind because he will be a millionaire. Give him time. Give him grace, give him time. And in this today and its day and age on the men's end, you have to give grace for the leeway. Every, every guy wants, you know, like in their dream fantasy world, it would be some girl that's never had a boyfriend that is just like been waiting for you their whole life. Then you're not going to get that. It's just like very rare, very uncommon. You have to give grace of like, yeah, they're going to have had ex boyfriends and they're going to have bad relationships and you can't judge them based on that fully.

1:41:35Just like if you've gone and slept around, she shouldn't judge you for that too. You, you got to give each other grace, just like she wants a millionaire, but you're making 90 grand a year, but you're grinding. It's like, you guys got to come back down to reality and you can't like customize your dream person because it doesn't exist. Yeah. Or she wants a millionaire and you don't have that right now. What a gift, something to strive towards. And that she gets to be with you. You want motivation. You've got a girl that you are so deeply in love with that's choosing you that wants to be, want someone that can provide like a millionaire can what a gift the most common thing in suicide notes for men i feel useless and i feel worthless you've just been gifted an ability to be useful and worthy i say this all the time isn't that great like every time i meet men that are like very lost yeah i always i always joke with uh mia about this but i'll say like that guy just needs to like go knock some girl up i'm like he'll instantly have purpose i promise you like i'm I'm like, and I don't wish like an unplanned pregnancy on people in that way.

1:42:41But I'm like, I love the quote that men will do nothing until they have to. Then they'll do everything. It's like one of my favorite quotes. Cause it's true that like somehow if you had four kids tomorrow, you'll somehow make it work. You'll somehow put food on the table. You'll somehow. So it's like, you kind of just have to take the dive and do it. Cause you might not, you might not be able to think you can do it. Like when you ask parents, they always say, I never felt ready. They're always like, most people just have kids and they don't say like, I knew the day I was ready. They're still freaking out in the hospital.

1:43:17They're like, oh shit, we're about to have a life. Yeah. That never goes away. That is part of you forever. Yeah. Yeah. So good. I want to find this piece that, uh, I want to find this piece that I wrote on, um, this might not even be that relevant to what we're talking about but it's something that came to my mind and it was i was writing love is real um and i i said this this was actually when i was when a girl that i was in love with was going to be uh she was like questioning our relationship and was like and i was like i had this like feeling of like oh gosh she's gonna leave me i said you know love is real when a man who feels unshakable in almost anything feels a rush of anxiety running through his whole body when the thought comes to his mind of losing the woman he's in love with.

1:44:07Not even a rush of anxiety well describes the feeling. It freezes him. Nothing else matters in that moment. But because he is unstoppable, he reminds himself that it doesn't matter, that he has trust that whatever happens is the right thing, which is true. He means that, but just how he couldn't explain and justify the feelings he had when he met this woman, he can't explain and justify the thoughts of losing this woman. It's the exact same feeling as when he met her, just one experience ends with a smile, the other ends in sadness, a lurking thought that makes him question his unstoppable-ness.

1:44:38But hey, he's been here before, and when he got heartbroken, what happened? It was a new fuel to the fire like no other. His whole life changed. The only other fuel that matches the fuel from heartbreak is the fuel from falling in love. Huh, isn't it crazy how heartbreak fuels you to level up, but falling in love equally does as well. So it isn't the fact that you're heartbroken or you fell in love. It's the transition of your state of love, regardless of whether it feels good or bad, they're equally as life-changing. The key decider on whether you let it make you or break you is if you have agency.

1:45:12If you live in victim consciousness, you will drown and then end up in the exact same place. If you want growth, take agency and look within. The transition in your state of love is a fuel to the fire like no other. And what I'm thinking there is you knock up a woman, there's a new sense of love and accountability that you have for that as well. You fall out of love. Oh my goodness, I need to level up as a man so that I don't do this again, so that I don't take that relationship for granted. I am in love. Oh my goodness, this woman is going to rely on me as she should. It It is my duty to provide for her.

1:45:54I've got to level up. The transition of that state, getting hit with something out of the blue when you're least expecting it is a drive like no other. It's like a fuel to the fire that like fuels you in a way that will level you up leaps and bounds beyond most things. 100%. I think that it's easy to take for granted either a partner or family or anything like that that you feel like you're kind of entitled to instead of you're blessed to have. I think that's a good difference in view of how you should be looking at it. And then on top of that, yeah, I mean, I think that us as men rely on, you see a lot of men that when they get the partner, things fall in line.

1:46:41Like they get the job, they're working all day, they're doing all this stuff because they'd have someone who's relying on them. I think that we're kind of built that way. I think a lot of men are kind of fine with anything. Like if you take away Mia and you take away my dogs and my cats and the other, like they'll, they all rely on me every day. If you take that away, like I'm fine in a cabin in the woods, but it's like, is that good for me? No, that's the worst thing for me. Like if you put me in a garage in the middle of nowhere with all my cars and a gym and a movie theater or whatever, and that's like all I need.

1:47:14That's the worst thing for me. Building a home is good for me. like striving to be a good father one day and a good husband and a good partner. And like those things will better me as a man, not just giving me what I think I would want being alone. Like that's, that's really not anything to be proud of. And also like, like you're saying, like when you look at people older in life, you don't look at some guy that's 50 and be like, oh, he slept with 200 women. It's like, okay, where's his kids? Yeah. How's it? Is he a good dad? Is he a good husband? Has he been good to his family? Do his parents love him?

1:47:49Do this? Like you really, as you get older, you realize what's important. And you always notice that when people are on their deathbed or on that time, they never look back and say like, oh, I wish I worked more or, oh, I wish that I had done more drugs and partied more and this and that. No, it's like, oh, I should have been a better dad. I should have been a better partner. Should have been a better, like that's their first thought is because that maybe that's what really matters to us deep inside. and I think that right now we have we just have a lot of young people that are very lost and I don't blame them life is very difficult right now but also at the same time like it's always perspective like look owning a home is difficult right now especially if you live in California it's very expensive it's very difficult I don't think that should ever let stop you from chasing your dreams and striving to achieve that because like I said before if your goal is I'm gonna own a a house in Malibu, that's my dream.

1:48:41And if that becomes out of your price range, which it is for most people, the houses are minimum three,$4 million minimum in Malibu. You go, okay, well maybe you end up in Calabasas in a$2 million home, but you still did great. You still ended up in a great spot. You might've been striving a$20 million house in Malibu and you didn't get that, but you ended up 20 minutes from the beach in a nice house or in like, because you chase such a high dream or you get the house in Malibu and you're super happy for a minute and then you kind of adjust to the house and realize it's just a place to live. So I think, yeah, I think striving for, you really want to strive to be the best version of you.

1:49:24See, there's a bit of an unlock that I'm having here as well. Just in relationship to faith and God and Jesus is when we look at what matters, right? And the things that we're going to look back on and wish we did more of, they are kind of linked to a lot of the lessons in the Bible. It's like the, I wish I treated my kids better. I wish I wasn't as evil. I wish that I showed up in respect to others. I wish I was kind to others. I wish I was in service of others. Like, I wish I stopped evolving the world around me. And I wish I like was able to like, all of that is quite powerful to adopt and to be now.

1:50:09And, um, and it is quite interesting just looking at like the way people act in the world and what's going to help us get to the end of our life and be happy with what we've done and like get to our fifties and be grateful for the work we did in our twenties and our thirties. I think that that's a, that's a better goal. I think to strive for, because I think that even at 50, you'll be, you'll have new dreams and new goals and new things to focus on. And I think that's just kind of what we're cursed with as man and blessed with. It's like, you always have a goal. You always want to accomplish something.

1:50:45You always want to get better. You always want to be better. And that's why the habits are important to get now. It's why the fitness habits are so there's, there's this amazing chart about how difficult it gets to get in shape the older you get. Every decade you get older, it gets harder for you to get in the same shape of when you're 20, 25, 30, you're like the peak of your physical health. You will never be able to get to that as easy when you're 40. It's going to be a way harder climb. It's going to be harder on your body, harder on your joints, harder. So you want to get those habits done young.

1:51:19And it's the same thing, like you're saying, like with business, with being a partner, like you want to be better now because those habits will stick through to when you're 50 and then you'll be like well i'm so glad i did that work and now i have new things i want to accomplish before i'm 80 and it's hard to walk around and then at that age your your goals adjust you go like i just want to be able to do a mile walk i just want to be able to do these things and it's like there's this guy who looks out at the gym that i work at and he's 93 or 94 and he's in there every day and i'm like you know he's not doing a lot of weight or anything like that but i'm like i'm impressed that he's in here every day like that's probably his goal yeah so you just have to kind of accept the reality of what position you're in too yeah i think it's really cool i remember being in in indonesia and i was on this island and and there was this guy who was in it was his like 68th birthday and the dude was jacked like the dude was and he wasn't like on roids jacked the dude was like athlete jacked yeah like like clap push-ups and like all these things and like i'm looking at him and he's happy he's bubbly he's on this holiday he goes here every year his wife it's it's like around his wife's birthday or something and all of these things is happening and like you look at how like stoked he is and how jacked he is and how healthy and fit he is and how liberated he feels to be able to keep up with the young guys and then you just start to look at those things and just go wow there's like there's something cool about looking at your life when you're 50 and what that looks like and then and then acting in a way that's going to make that guy proud of of the younger self and the younger version of you because yeah I think it would be interesting to see how much our actions would change when we live in that lens yeah I think also always remembering you'll I think the quote is like you'll you always whatever age you are now you'll always wish you were before so pretty much past 18 like I don't think most people want to be 12 again or whatever but you know when you're 25 you wish you could be 21 again.

1:53:33And when you're 40, you really wish you could be 25. And then when you're 60, you wish you could be 40. And when you're 80, you wish you could be 60. So it's like going down. I'm lucky where I don't really have that with age. I'm 27 and I feel great. I try to be in the best shape of my life every year. I try to strive for more and more. Like I can run more than I now, than I could at 21 by far. And that's also with that strive. blindfolded yeah that's also why i strive for so much is like when i whenever people so whenever i tell people like i i run 10 miles every day they're like that's not possible or you can't recover from that and this and that it's like well i can maybe you can't like i don't i don't know like i guess that's all the mindset thing as well it is like yeah i'm not broke like i i can't that's the mentality it's like i freaking ran from my house to malibu it's like with no training, no trail running experience, nothing.

1:54:32Just woke up and it was full mind over matter. And it was hard from start to finish. Yeah, I think it's important to have the belief that it can be possible and also just bending the boundaries of what is possible just to see if the boundaries are actually even real. Because oftentimes we just make up all these things in our mind and they're just stories, but they actually don't hold any weight. And then once we break them, then we start to see that there's more and more out there. But then at the same time, you do run crazy things and you do put blindfolds on your face. And then Mia puts it on her Instagram and then I message her and she literally comes back and goes, I think he's broken.

1:55:09I think someone unplugged him or something. That's what it feels like sometimes. But you just got to push yourself to the limits. Yeah. I appreciate you coming on the show, dude. Thanks for having me. It's been a great time. and I feel like there's lots of value in here for a bunch of people. You've lived a life lots of people dream and I think you've got a lot of wisdom to share from that journey. Now we've got to run back to my house. Yeah, we've got to leave all this here and just run back and then hope that God packs it all up for us. Oh boy, the boats are coming. I appreciate you, bro. We'll sign on that.

1:55:44We'll see you guys soon. Bye-bye.