B (14:01)

Yeah.

A (14:02)

And you're not playing well at that. You're just like, I don't know how well people are playing on weed either, but. Yeah.

B (14:07)

Yeah.

A (14:07)

You're probably more likely to yell out pejorative slurs. Yeah. I think that. I mean, look, smoke. Smoking is still not good for you. So, like, you're probably. But. But we've discovered that, you know, there's other ways to ingest and, like, consume. And that's. That's what I think is part of, like, this youth culture thing about staying away from drinking is they're like whatever I do, droplets in this. Or I, you know, I. I have my gummy or whatever, however they want to consume, but they're just. They're definitely not drinking, man. They're not drinking like they. Like everybody else before them did. I used to run nightclubs for ages, and one of the big downturns we've seen has been in nightlife industry. I think the UK's losing a nightclub a week. There's not like an unlimited number of nightclubs. It's like one is shutting down pretty much every single week. And I asked a friend who's still in the industry why he thought that was the case, and he said, smartphones, man. Back in the day, you could be as loose as you wanted. You could sort of have that, Larry. Louty drinking spirit. At least in Britain, where you don't want to be recorded, of course, like, if you mess up and, like shit yourself in the middle of a nightclub in 2002, it's a story that you can deny the next day, and then after six months, most people have probably forgotten. Whereas if that happens in 2025, that's now concretized on the Internet for everybody to know and bring back up and make memes out of for the rest of time. I mean, it's. But imagine like, how the pro athletes of the 80s and 90s and early 2000s would just go out and just.

B (15:38)

Just destroy.

A (15:40)

Just destroy a woman's hopes and dreams. And then now they're all. Yeah, they're like, everyone's on edge. Yeah. Everyone's got a phone out. It's just. Yeah, it's. It's a totally different. By the way, do you ever think about why? Because I still remember that, like, why was house music and dancing in general so much bigger in Europe than here? People here were never like, let's go dance. I'm not sure. I mean, I guess why does any scene of any kind appear anywhere? We certainly have in the uk, like, a good house music culture.

B (16:13)

Yeah.

A (16:14)

A lot of people didn't have much else to do other than go out and party and drink. Yeah. If the weather's bad, then, you know, we're not going to go out to the ranch, we're not going to go and see the sunset, we're not going to go to the beach because all of the. It's fucking freezing cold all the time. So you kind of just zero in on the one thing that's reliable, which is beer. Yeah. Pubs or clubs. Yeah, yeah. No, I just remember, like, so many times, like, being in the States and having, like, European friends are like, why don't you guys. You guys don't like to go dance? I was like, no, no, we're not going dancing, bro. Like, like, no. And. And then I would remember, like, studying abroad, being like, oh, yeah, we would. That's. That was like a normal thing. Just go to a place that was just like, packed and everybody just. Loud music, dancing. It just was one of those things.

B (16:58)

Where I was like, it just didn't translate over here.

A (17:00)

I mean, there's still clubs, obviously, but it just wasn't the same type of, oh, I just want to go listen to this and literally dance. Like, that's what people. I felt like we're doing a lot more in Europe than here.

B (17:13)

These are the three decisions that I think everyone makes every moment. First, you're doing it right now. What are you going to focus on? You're going to be focusing on my story. I'm telling you. You'll be focusing on the next question you're going to ask. You could be focusing on how your stomach feels if you've not eaten. There's a million things you could focus on, literally. But we don't experience life. We experience the part of life we focus on. And so the bottom line is, I know my father and I had a different experience because we had different focuses that day. I was focused on his food. You know, what a concept. This is cool. He was focused on that he had not taken care of his family. And I know that because, you know, he said it about 20 times under his breath, and my mother echoed it, of course. The second decision, though, the minute you focus on something, your brain has to decide what does it mean? And meaning is what creates emotion. And emotion is where your life is, right? And so the quality of your life is the quality of your emotions. If you had a billion dollars in every day, you're pissed off and angry. Your life's quality is called pissed off and angry. If you got three beautiful children, a husband or wife you love, but you worry all the time. Your life is worry, you know, so his focus and then his meaning, that was the worst part, the meaning he gave it was that he was worthless and didn't belong here. And that usually leads to the third decision, which is, what are you going to do? And like, if you think, if the meaning is, if something happens, you say, this person is dissing me, you know, disrespecting me, or is this person challenging me? Or is this person coaching me? Or is this person loving me? If you think they're dissing you, you're going to have a very different emotional reaction than if you think they're coaching you or loving you. And then of course, that's going to change what decision you make, because if you're angry, you're going to make a different decision that if you're playful or generous or whatever the case may be. So those three decisions control our lives. But so your viewers or listeners, I give them an opportunity to take a look at it, because there's some patterns that you can make, some simple patterns and change your whole life. A focus. So the first one is, and I'd ask you two questions for you. One, Chris, is what do you think most people's answer to this question is? And the other is, what's yours? If you're ready. Ready to play? All right. It's real simple. We all have a pattern of focusing on what we have and at times on what's missing. Which one do you think most people spend more time focusing on what they have or what's missing?

A (19:31)

What's missing?

B (19:32)

What do you focus more on?

A (19:33)

What's missing?

B (19:35)

Yes. It isn't something that comes. The focus on what's missing is not something that comes with someone who is a failure. It comes very much with people who are very successful. And the question then becomes, if you're always focused on missing, how can you sustain happiness?

A (19:49)

You're in a permanent place of lack.

B (19:51)

That's correct. So scarcity is there, so you'll have drive, right, to keep staying on the hamster wheel of achievement. But you're not going to see much fulfillment, not in a sustainable way. It's impossible. It has Nothing to do with you or me. Right? It's just software. And we got a soul. We're not software. But you run your software so often you start thinking your mind is you versus my mind is a tool that I'm going to use, or if I don't use it, it's going to use me. So the majority of people do that. And by the way, during COVID that number exploded because so many things were taken from people. They were constantly focused on what's missing, and that produces nothing but pain. Second question, and I think I know your answer to this one. Which do you tend to focus on more? What do you think most people focus on more? What they can control or what they can't control? And then which one do you focus more on?

A (20:37)

I think most people would probably focus on what they can't control. I'm an even balance, I would say, between the two. I'm working quite hard to try.

B (20:47)

I was gonna say you strive. It's part of your philosophy, right. To focus on what can control. Right. So that's the part of the stoicism, whole philosophy of stoicism. Right. So. But most people. You're absolutely right. Now, in my seminars, it's different because I got 15, 20,000 people ask that question. And the v. The vast majority of them say they're focused on what's missing, but the vast majority of them say they do focus on what they can control. That's why they came. Why would they spend their money and time. They want to take control of their business or their body or their relationship, what the case may be. So they have a different belief structure. If you have both those out of whack, you got some real challenges. Most people have at least one out of whack, which creates stress, and then the third one, and there's many more than these. But just quickie for the people at home, and I'm asking them to do this for themselves if they want to. Where do you tend to focus more? Your past, your present, your future? We all spend all three. But where do you spend more of your time? What do you think most people do? Where do you.

A (21:38)

Let's say that you only had 10 exercises for the rest of time to build the best body that you could. What are you going to choose? Talk me through the philosophy.

B (21:48)

I've got a roster set up. So when it comes to legs, I think that the idea of a crazy heavy squats or leg press all the time as a quad builder, it just wouldn't be it for me because I'VE had periods of time where I basically did leg extensions exclusively. Usually when I diet, my leg extension volume increases because I mean, squeezing wise, activation wise. You know, if you slapped electronic pulse indicators, maybe you could get a real readout of how much they're activating. But for me, like, if I had to pick a quad movement, I would just kill it on the leg extensions because you can really pump them up, go a little heavier. Like, if I had to pick one, that would be it.

A (22:27)

Okay.

B (22:27)

Then hamstrings would be. I'd be a little torn, but I'd probably pick. I'm very torn. Either seated or laying curl, but either way, a hamstring curl, I've got to pick one.

A (22:41)

I'm afraid, Sam, you can't.

B (22:43)

I guess I'd have to pick the answer laying.

A (22:46)

I would have picked a little bit more stretch.

B (22:48)

Well, I just, like, not even because of that. Because you would actually, in a seated position, if you pull forward, would your hips not be more rounded over where your hamstrings tie in? So now they're actually more stretched. You feel your hamstrings stretch when you bend your torso to touch your toes, not when you're laying down. So like the idea when people talk about there's more stretch on the laying curl. Like, I don't. I don't even see it.

A (23:13)

Well, that depends if you're sat like this, because often there's handles people press themselves up.

B (23:19)

Yeah, yeah. So that would be.

A (23:21)

You've pushed this off as opposed to pulling yourself in. So I guess it depends how you position yourself.

B (23:25)

So I guess. But right now I'm on a kick of lane curl.

A (23:28)

All right, so quad extension, lying hamstring.

B (23:32)

And then for back, I'd probably just have to do regular pull downs. But you could also cheat them into a row by leaning back extra far.

A (23:41)

All right. Okay. Yeah, that's acceptable because you've just got the one machine.

B (23:44)

It's the same handle, it's the same setup.

A (23:46)

Okay. All right.

B (23:47)

But for me anyway, I need more lats because I want them to be wider. Like, the thickness of my back is actually fine. Like, I want them to extend out. Like that's what really gives that sort of look. Illusion.

A (23:57)

What do you think about when it comes to lat pull down hand position cues? What are you thinking?

B (24:02)

Because then you can change it up pretty drastically. Like if I do a lighter set, which is normally toward the end, I can put my hands extra far out and it's a little bit more like rather than pulling my shoulders up and down, which kind of gets like a lot of my lower lats, a kind of erector, like middle thickness, rather having wider hands and rotating around my shoulders. That gets me a little more upper lats, but. Or you could also make it super heavy and do a closer grip and you get a little forearm and bicep just from the nature of a. Like that's more of a compound movement of a row, but then you can really load it too.

A (24:38)

Okay. So quad extension, lying, hamstring, curl, lat, pull down with a little bit of fuckery on the handle.

B (24:45)

What's for. Yeah, for. For chest, I think I'd have to pick. Oh, I'm a little torn. But honestly, if I had to only pick one.

A (24:53)

No, you can.

B (24:54)

You've got 10 in total.

A (24:55)

So you can.

B (24:56)

But you get a lot of muscle group, so you gotta at least cover your bases. So I would say. There was a time when I would say incline barbell if I was on an incline barbell kick. But it's a little tricky on your shoulders because it's very like directly mounted. Like the only time I ever get my shoulders is usually inclined barbell. When I like it, I like it, but I wouldn't do it all the time. So that's where I would say dumbbell. But even then, dumbbell is very limited because you can go really heavy. And the individual loading and the fact that they can move out the entire way, you'd still squeeze at the top. You can rest a bench with a bar at the top because it's all just going through your bone structure. Not so much with dumbbells. So it's always adjusting. Yeah, you're never going to relax on the top of a dumbbell. But what I think I'd have to pick now would actually be a seated cable press. So if you've ever seen seat here, cable here, cable here, you pull it in, you kind of like this.

A (25:53)

Okay. Because that is staying neutral throughout that.

B (25:56)

Pretty neutral, yeah.

A (25:57)

Yeah. So you're not. You're not allowed.

B (25:58)

Not incline, not decline it kind of hands up a little bit because that's a much more versatile set. Because I can do it really heavy like a conventional press, but I could also go lighter and be much more squeeze emphasized because those are like the two bases I basically cover for every move, every body part. If I do a heavy one, I'm going to counter it with a lighter squeezing. And to do only one, I think you'd be limiting your stimulus. So that, that puts us at what?

A (26:26)

That's, that's Four now, so there's definitely on incline, dumbbell press, which I think for every guy is always going to be up there. For chest. It feels good on your shoulders. It's always one of the first movements that you do when you get into the gym. You feel like it's building the bit of the chest that you want, which is up here. But if you do a really light set, you just don't feel it the same as you do if you're on cable. So I understand that tension, especially because you're being pulled that way, not that way. Right.

B (26:57)

So you always have that kind of, you know, widening force, even at the top.

A (27:02)

Yeah, that's a good point. All right, so there's four. So extension, curl, pull down, cable press. Yeah. Is that on a little incline, 30.

B (27:12)

Degrees, just flattish, basically. Flat, flat loaded.

A (27:16)

All right.

B (27:16)

Because then you could also put your hands up a little and get more upper chest. Put it down a little, get more.

A (27:21)

You're being very cheeky here. Okay, number five.

B (27:22)

So five and six for arms would be. Well, for triceps, first I'd probably have to pick just easy bar curl, push down. So not the v bar, like 90 degrees is too much straight is also a little too much on your wrists. So a little camber. More like a 1 20. That's about right, because I can also do that light and squeezing. Or you can really, like, get into it and have some heft.

A (27:48)

What are you thinking about with cues for that? Are you more upright if you got a little bit of bend in the hips?

B (27:54)

Yeah, decently upright. But if you're. If you stand too upright, well, then now you're like turning it into an ab exercise because you're loading your arms downward and you have to keep yourself tense to stay there. So I. I'll hunch over it. Or if I'm doing a hard one, I'll put my head to the side of the cable and kind of like wrench it a little like that. Not for all of them, but for some of them.

A (28:14)

Okay.

B (28:15)

And then dumbbells is just dumbo curls. Like, it's hard to beat.

A (28:19)

Seated, standing, supinated.

B (28:22)

Would they count as different movements?

A (28:24)

Yes. Gotta pick one.

B (28:25)

Well, I guess I'd have to just pick standing.

A (28:27)

Standing, Supinated.

B (28:30)

So more of a regular. A classic twist of neutral at your, you know, your hips. Into supinated.

A (28:36)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

B (28:37)

Because just the. With some movements, being able to change the load completely changes the style of the movement. Because I could do the 30s and really hold it and squeeze It. Or I could try to do like the 70s and have it be a much heavier kind of brunt sort of thing. So that's all right. We're getting closer to six now.

A (28:56)

So you got four left.

B (28:56)

Yeah. So six. Now I can chill on shoulders because I don't. I haven't done a real shoulder workout for, like, years at this point because they're just. They're already big. Like, they don't relative. My arms need to grow, so I would want to add a forearm curl cable.

A (29:13)

Okay.

B (29:13)

So you're holding the 1D handle, you know, cable up here. I'm loading it down this way. Like, this is the force.

A (29:18)

Okay.

B (29:19)

And I'm just doing this.

A (29:21)

Okay.

B (29:22)

And it's not a huge movement.

A (29:23)

Yep.

B (29:23)

But it's like enough where you actually kind of thicken this up. And I used to do a ton of that. And then my forearms got big enough, and then I never did it again.

A (29:31)

At least now you're back on it because the arms have caught up now.

B (29:33)

I'll add it a little more, but it's. Yeah. And honestly, for just. I think it was a joke that Hugh Jackman or someone or Stallone worked their forearms like crazy. Because when you're acting, you're not always shirtless, but you're usually sleeveless. And having big forearms makes you look extra cool. So I guess after that I'd probably have to add a calf raise.

A (29:57)

Just because standing. Seated.

B (29:58)

Yeah, seated. Seated's a little bit better.

A (30:00)

Okay. Even though you're going to be hitting. I always get these the wrong way around.

B (30:04)

Gastron versus Soleus, Whatever. For me, I feel it and my calves will grow from it. So I've got my own anecdotal evidence of. It worked.

A (30:11)

Okay, got two left.

B (30:13)

So the next one has to be the cardio bike, which not many people would add because they're thinking, I don't even need to do cardio because it's not in their mind. But that's. Yeah. So seated. And then the pedals are like where my feet are over here.

A (30:26)

So it's kind of a reclined little bit further back.

B (30:28)

It's a reclined position and it's the easiest one.

A (30:31)

Little back rest.

B (30:31)

My torso does not move, so I can pedal as much as I want. And I'm just sitting playing on my phone for 30 minutes. You can do it. And also make it easy.

A (30:39)

Have you got a preferred machine for that? Like to pre core make a particularly good.

B (30:44)

Just some of them. They have little handles. Sometimes the handles are too close to where Your knees are. And you'll bump your knee on them. That's my only gripe. But I'm not picky. The one I have at my house is like. I mean, it's the equivalent of one that you would get for free if you picked it up from, like, the side of the road. But it still works. And actually that one's harder on a. Well, it reads harder because sometimes the math that they do to calculate calories burned, it's not completely. Because if someone like me pedaled for 30 minutes at X difficulty, at X speed, an Olympic cyclist, or like a marathon cyclist could do it at the same speed and the same difficulty, and he would actually burn less calories because he's more efficient and I'm less efficient. So it's not necessarily. I always aim for the same number. It's like, I know the feeling of, like, this is hard, but it's not too hard. Like, this is the right energy expenditure level.

A (31:40)

I did that on a. I've been getting into incline treadmill walking to get to zone two. Zone two, for me is really hard to hit. It's way faster than a normal walk on the road and it's way slower than a jog.

B (31:52)

And, yeah, my incline preferred is like 3.5, 5%, 3 point.

A (31:58)

Or for me, 3.2 at 15 is nice, but I don't know what the metrics are of the. Whatever the machine is. That was in the UK and it was 3.2, 15, and I was like, this doesn't feel right. Okay, I'll just keep going up four. Like, four still doesn't feel right. Five. What the fuck is this number? It got to 5.3. I'm like, about there.

B (32:22)

The speed is off. Is that miles per hour or kilometers?

A (32:24)

I don't know. Because it wouldn't be kilometers over here because it would still be miles per hour. Whatever. It was the exact same. You go, I can go to a new machine. And after you've done. You don't even need that many sessions. What, 20, 30 sessions before you go. I kind of understand how I'm supposed to feel and where my heart rate's supposed to be at. Like, just by a sense of breathing.

B (32:42)

Exactly.

A (32:42)

Okay, so you got one left. What's left?

B (32:44)

Yeah, one left.

A (32:45)

What haven't we done? We haven't. You haven't touched abs, you haven't touched glutes directly, you haven't touched shoulders directly. What else is missing? I think that's it. Lower back, I guess, if that's in a bodybuilding sphere.

B (33:00)

You'd want your lower back developed enough where it's got, like, a little texture, but if it gets too big, it'll take away from your waist, because the whole point is this illusion of wider shoulders and a smaller waist. So now that they're already developed, I probably wouldn't. I don't hit my abs because they get worked, you know, kind of secondarily from even doing dumbbell curls. I'm keeping myself stable. Like, once they're there and you're actually still working out, they're not going anywhere because you're. And then every time you look at yourself in the mirror, you're gonna flex them. Like, they get worked enough to be maintained. So that's like. That's why there's not a lot of ab workouts, because I did a lot before, and now they're just not gonna go anywhere. Like, same with shoulders. So I'd have to. I'm a little reluctant, but I can't think of anything else I'd want to do. I'd pick the adductor machine. That's where you're squeezing your legs together.

A (33:51)

Okay. Why?

B (33:52)

Makes your legs a little thicker in the middle. Because that's. It's this whole kind of, like, system of, like, kind of. It tie in. It ties in kind of below your knee, more hamstring. But it's this sort of just piece right in the center where if your adductors were completely undeveloped and you stood up straight with your knees straight, you'd have a really big gap between your.

A (34:14)

Legs, and you'd think you wouldn't be able to fully get that with the extension.

B (34:17)

Well, the extension is just quad, because that's like a knee flexion. And this is, like, leg. Well, you know, I don't even know what you call it. That. Yeah, yeah. The joke is the. Well, it's. I know there's, like, two versions of a joke, because they'll call that one the ball Crusher. Because that's. Right. That's when you're squeezing legs together. But the older. Like, the joke that people would say before was, that was either the good girl or the bad girl machine.

A (34:47)

One's forcing it apart. One's forcing it apart.

B (34:51)

I don't really. I don't want to perpetuate that name, but that was. That's kind of a reference to those.

A (34:56)

Okay, Very good. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Look, 2026 is the year that you're finally going to launch that business you've been thinking about for ages. Because as You've heard me harp on about making a to do list for the thing isn't doing the thing. Telling people you're going to do the thing still isn't doing the thing. But here's the good news. Shopify makes it unbelievably easy to actually do the thing. They make it very simple to create your brand, open for business and get your first sale. They've got thousands of customizable templates, so all you need to do is drag and drop. You don't need coding skills or design skills, can manage things like shipping, taxes, payments, all from one simple dashboard. And when it comes to converting browsers into buyers, they are best in class. Their checkout is 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms. And with shop pay can boost conversions up to 50%. Shopify takes all of the messiness of running a business off your plate so that you can focus on the job that you came here to do, which is designing and selling an awesome product. And right now, you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period by going to the link in the description below or heading to shopify.commodern wisdom all lowercase that shopify.commodernwisdom to start selling today. The single greatest skill you can develop is the ability to stay in a good mood in the absence of things to be in a good mood about.

B (36:07)

I think that tweet has been my theme for 2025. It's been, it's funny because that was the most shared tweet I've ever had. And it was, it was like, it's, it was almost not the opposite of Iran. It was fitting, right? It was completely fitting for the year. And it's been. Because, like this year I've had a just, I would say a series of unfortunate events that has occurred. And it's really tested my tools, right? Tools in the tool belt for reframing reality so that I can make my experience less, you know, miserable. And so I thought about that. It's like if I were to boil everything down of all the skills that you can learn, if everything that we do eventually becomes irrelevant, then the single greatest skill that you can develop is being in a great mood in the absence of things to be in a great mood about. And so one of the other frames on this is most people don't question someone who's in a bad mood. Like, I'm just in a bad mood. So it's like, well, if you can be in a bad mood for no reason, it's like, you might as well be in a good mood for no reason, because that one at least serves you. And so I've been trying to exercise, like, because there's on one degree, there's like, let's count things to be grateful for. On the other side, it's like, why do I have to have things to be grateful for in order to be in a good mood? Like, why is trying to find things a requirement of being in that mood? Like, can I not find things and still choose to be in a good mood? Because I've certainly not had things to be in a bad mood about and been in a bad mood. And so I've been trying to flex that, which is like, sure, we can find things to be grateful for. And when those things pop up. Yes. And of course it's a practice, you get better at it. But what if I can just be in a good mood? And so I've just tried to break that relationship between the two because then it makes it contingent on something that I can find.

A (37:54)

How successful have you been at that?

B (37:56)

Mediocre.

A (37:58)

Well, look, I think it's a lovely idea in isolation in theory, but I'm not convinced about how effective it is in practice for the reason that humans have a negativity bias. It's our psychological entropy and your ability to detect things that are a risk to you significantly better than your ability to detect things that are just pleasant. Like, this morning I texted you and I was like, hey, man, like, I really love the feeling I have of anticipation on a morning before we do a podcast. That's a normal, boring, mundane source of pleasure to me.

B (38:33)

Yeah.

A (38:34)

If I'm not really, really training myself to notice that, I just. It just fucking falls away with the fact that, huh. I asked for almond milk. And I bet this would have been better with, like, whole milk, if that's.

B (38:47)

The thing that ruins the day. And the thing is, you do notice it though, right? You do notice that. So I've had. One of my themes this year has been focusing on moments and on both the positive and the negative. And so, like, when we think back on. If I think back on last year, right, I don't remember probably 95% of the year I did the same things. And so it's like it just didn't get recorded. Like, nothing notable happened. And so really, like, when we think about a year, we really just recall a handful of moments and that's it. And those moments in time are usually very short. And so I've been trying to think about the bad Seasons as well. Maybe it wasn't a bad season. Maybe I had five bad days or really five bad moments that I then thought about for the entire season and turned what would have otherwise been five minutes times five into an entirely bad year. And so it's like, okay, well, if we can do that in the negative, can we do in the positive? Which is obviously the thing to exercise. But to the point that you said earlier about our ability to detect threat and risk at such better accuracy than our ability to detect good things, it's so interesting because if you use that side of your brain, not to derail us, but I think that has been one of the things that's helped me a tremendous amount in business. Because when I think about a business and I want to grow it, for example, I would think, okay, what are all the things that can destroy this business? And this is Charlie Munger. This isn't me. But basically he says, invert, always invert. And Einstein said that too. And it's because you get to use this, this way. Stronger horsepower engine of like, how do I grow my business? That's. You can obviously think that way, but the alternative would be like, how would I absolutely destroy this business in the fewest possible moves? And then when you list out those moves, you're like, cool, now let's do the opposite of that. And that has been, honestly, a lot of the. Some of the sources of my greatest kind of creative moments have come from these apparently obvious things that would kill us. Well, what if we did the even more obvious thing and did the. The opposite of what would destroy us? And it's worked. It's worked better than I deserve.

A (40:58)

So this is the problem.

B (40:59)

Yeah.

A (41:01)

You can be rewarded professionally for focusing on things that you do not want to focus on personally. And Ryan Long taught me this. He was talking about how he's comedian, Canadian comedian, really funny guy, spends all of this time, you know, dialing in these bits and obsessing over how it could be better. And then he says to himself, yeah, but I don't want you to do that in your relationships.

B (41:26)

No.

A (41:26)

Can you let that go? When it comes to the way that you show up for your partner or your friends or your body image or whatever, you don't get to compartmentalize stuff like that. And it is a very unfortunate irony of the world that the skill set you often need to become successful in business is the one you need to get rid of to be happy in your life.

B (41:53)

Yes. So I was thinking about what you were saying earlier with regards to Risk and our ability to detect it. So the other part of that that's been really interesting is we also not only do we detect more threats, we also overemphasize how catastrophic they could be. And the converse of that is we rarely identify the upside. And when we do, we typically underestimate the upside. And I think this is something that a lot of people don't talk about as much. Obviously I always have a business hat on, literally. But I think about this because I think this is where you said at the very beginning that people complain because they cannot accurately view reality. And so if we tie that to this concept, then it means that people will disproportionately blame the universe and then perceive significantly greater risk for them. Asking a girl out, starting a business, taking a loan, you know, asking a stranger to buy something, making a podcast, and for fear of what other people on the Internet will say or people who know them.

A (42:58)

Right.

B (42:59)

And so we catastrophize this side. But the flip side is, and you hear this a lot, when people do make it and whatnot, they're like, I never dreamed it would be this big. Now some people are obsessive and like, absolutely have thought through everything. I fall more on that side. But on the other hand though, a lot of people do get there and they're like, I never thought it was going to be this big. And it's because we typically just under emphasize the upside, which is where from the business perspective, it's like that's where the alpha is, that's where the outperformance exists. Where most people think, hey, this bet, it could go to zero. And you're like, I don't think it's going to go to zero. But even if it did go to zero, I have a 10x here. And so if I have a 50% shot at a 10x and the other 50 is zero, I should take that shot every single time, knowing that I'm going to be wrong half the time. It still makes sense to take. And so I think people are not good at making those risk adjusted return bets, obviously financially, but even in the very micro aspect of our lives. And so we talked earlier about cosmic irrelevance and the frame of the veteran. But there's a third frame that I think about a lot, which is I call it play it out. And so it's like, let's play. No, let's, let's sit in there. Because again, fear exists in the vague, not in the specific.

A (44:07)

And in the resistance.

B (44:08)

Yes. And so like when we have these. These specificities of like, okay, I'm going to start a pocket. I can't start a pocket. Like, okay, it's this big vague thing. But no, like, let's play it out. Like, let's see what actually would happen. So I'm going to upload something and then people don't listen to it. Okay, well, they didn't listen to it. Okay, well, then that's not a problem. Okay, let's say people. Let's see. Tons of people listen to it. Which, I don't know how that magically happens, but let's say tons of people listen to it and they all hate it. Okay. Immediately you have this anxiety that we're. No, no, no.

A (44:41)

But.

B (44:42)

But let's play it out. Like, what happens next? It's like, okay, is it going to change what I eat? Is it gonna change where I sleep? Okay, let's say. Let's say I, all of a sudden I lose all the money that I have. It's like, okay, well, I probably have a bunch of people that if I really needed to sleep on their couch or in a spare bedroom, I could do that. Okay? So I'm not really going to be homeless. And if I really didn't have enough money for food, I can go to a homeless shelter and get food, right? So it's like, wait, so my worst case scenario is like, I have shelter and I have food and I'm still breathing air. So that's the downside. And so there's this catastrophizing that we, because we. Our brains are spent, are meant to keep us alive. We literally think if we fail, we die. Like, everyone will ostracize us from the group and we will be alone and die. And so just actually playing it out, not one step, but like two more steps after that, you're like, okay, so my actual downside. Risk is nothing. But my upside is everything I've wanted. And even if I. Even If I'm at 50% off on that, it's still worth the shot. It's very healthy to have an inner critic. But it's also, it's the. There's the golden rule and then there's the. There's the platinum rule, right? There's the treat others as you wanna be treated, and then there's the treat yourself as you treat others. Most people are very kind. Like, you are nicer to me than you are to yourself. If you said the shit you say to yourself to me, we wouldn't be friends. And I think that thing of the inner critic has to be.

A (46:19)

It's.

B (46:20)

As long as it's process driven. I think it's. It's very, very healthy. It's like imposter syndrome. Okay. Feel like an imposter for a while. As long as it gives you. As long as you can get that to a granular level where it gives you something to work on. Like, the inner critic can't just be. It can't just be like, that's bad. It's gotta be, oh, that. That didn't work, so we need to change it. Or that one's. That one's not gonna work, so we're gonna write something new. It's got to be something that's like you're working towards something you're aiming up. And I think criticism is very important. I mean, Walt Disney used to do this thing where he had, like, the. He had three rooms, you know, this thing of, like, one for creativity, one for sort of management. Like, how would you do the idea? And then it was only in the third room that you were allowed to be critical. It's kind of fun idea of, like.

A (47:12)

Going to sort of compartmentalize, compartmentalise.

B (47:15)

While I do think that thing of, like, never refuse the muse, if you're working in anything creative, just write it down. Something comes to you. You just.

A (47:23)

Yeah, that's the naval one, right? Inspiration is perishable. Act on it immediately. Yeah, yeah. There's a. Tim Ferriss says the world rewards the specific ask and punishes the vague wish. And I think that sort of inner critic voice can expand out into, I don't feel good about the thing I did. Okay, well, that's probably the first place that everybody gets it. I'm not. Not really too sure about why, but there's some sense of discontent about something that just happened or something that I'm about to do. Probably very normal. You don't know where it's coming from, and you don't know what it's about, and you don't know what to do to fix it. Okay, so how about we get away from the vague critic and we move toward the specific coach with regards to this? Okay, so what precisely is it that you're concerned about? Well, I don't feel fully prepared for the presentation I've got to give tomorrow. Okay. Is that fair? Do you know that it's true? Do you think that you haven't prepared enough? Well, actually, I've prepared quite a lot, to be honest. I think this is probably just my fear. Trying to be sneaky and sort of Turn itself into a way that I'm going to believe it. All right, well, what are you going to do about it? Well, I'll just check my notes a few more times and actually, huh, it seems like I do know this pretty well.

B (48:40)

The inner critic. It's not often wrong. It's just, you can say it in a nice way. You know, sometimes it's right, sometimes you fuck up, sometimes it's not, it wasn't good enough. And that's okay. It's like, it's the, it's the idea of like going. It's not repetition, it's iteration. It's like lots of different, you know, doing the same thing again and again doesn't make you better. But tweaking it and knowing what to tweak is that you have to listen to an inner critic. I think the. Is it hormozy? Hormozy's so good for quotes. But I think it was self confidence without evidence is delusion.

A (49:24)

Some version of that confidence without competence is delusion.

B (49:28)

Yeah, it's, it's so true. And you do meet people along the way that have that incredible confidence or they, they, they sort of exude that and then they, they don't have the.

A (49:39)

The confidence to back it up.

B (49:40)

And you go, well, no, no, you need to, you need to be able to. So finding that I think it's very, I think without that inner critic, I think we would all be kind of delusional, wandering around going, yeah, you know, yeah.

A (49:50)

George says there's someone with half your talent, but five times your self belief making ten times the money.

B (49:56)

Yes. And that's true for every British person. There's an American.

A (50:00)

Exactly. Well, I mean, look, I think for the perennial overthinkers reframing this very well trodden landscape of inner criticism, a lot of the way that you can look at that is I'm fragile. You know, my self belief exists on a knife edge. It feels like I'm tightrope walking. Confidence, perhaps. But I think a better way to look at it is you're not fragile, you're just finely tuned. And in the same way as a Ferrari can go really, really fast, especially around a track, but if you don't treat it very well, it's probably gonna break down quite a lot actually. And if you treat it really well, it's still gonna have a couple of hiccups and days where it doesn't fully operate rightly. But yeah, you're not fragile, you're finely tuned. It's a nice reframe it's so easy.

B (50:52)

To be kind to other people and sometimes so difficult to be kind to yourself. It's like you wouldn't let someone else speak to a friend like that. You just wouldn't stand for it. And yet you're inner critic, you're just like, yeah, yeah, say terrible things to me.

A (51:05)

Just accept it as it comes. Yeah. That idea on you had position and disposition. This has happened a couple of times. I misremember things that guests tell me and then I write about the thing that I misremembered. And what you realize is that you've actually built on something that they didn't mean. And I think I told you about this before, but I'm going to. I'm going to tell you about it again. So this is after our first episode 18 months ago. Something like that. My chat with Jimmy Carr a few weeks ago inspired an idea I've been reflecting on how your trajectory is way more important than your position. If you're number two in the world, but last year you were number one. That is way worse than sitting at number 150. But being on a huge upward slope from 312 months ago, there's a few reasons for this recency bias. If your value is increasing right now, that means you have to be popular at the moment. By looking at recent trajectory, you are selecting for only the few people who are trendy right now, which is really all that we can remember. We can also romanticize where someone will be in future. If they're currently hot stuff. How high might they climb? Who knows? Maybe to the top, maybe even beyond the top. Humans struggle to realize that everything is temporary, including growth and decline. Instead, it's easier to label people as heroes and losers based on what we know of them right now. So we don't have to predict a messy future. There's an old saying saying that there's three types of people on the ladder. One at the bottom, one at the middle and one at the top. Which one is the best to be? The one that's still climbing.

B (52:32)

Yeah, No, I think it's fantastic. It's very well put. Yeah, I think that especially in show business, trajectory really seems to be such an important metric. And it's like you could be half the size of some other comic, but they've been around 20 years and they always sell out the arena, so who cares?

A (52:51)

It's like it's novelty dopamine. This is new recency buyers.

B (52:56)

Yeah. I think there's a thing this year where Oasis are playing and it's a big deal. People are very excited about it. And I think Coldplay are doing. I think it's 10 or 11 nights at Wembley Stadium.

A (53:12)

Everyone's like, chris Martin, bored of you, been around for ages.

B (53:15)

Yeah, well, of course you are. Yeah. Big band. But it's not like an event culturally, in the same way that Oasis coming together is. There's a narrative to that and a trajectory of kind of where they are. And Coldplay have just been steadily. Listen, and if Taylor Swift does 15 nights next year, it'll be a. Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course.

A (53:36)

Accepted.

B (53:37)

Yeah. So that thing of, like, other people getting excited about it and I think I don't know what it feels like to be, you know, in Coldplay at the moment. And maybe people aren't making as much fuss. I hope they're celebrating. I hope they're taking time to go. This is fantastic.

A (53:53)

Has no longer having the Olympia impacted your drive and passion in other areas of your life? You know, you've got the dad, husband thing, business, desire to work on yourself in a sort of. From a personal standpoint, how have you found drive and motivation separate and also wrapped up in what you were doing previously?

B (54:23)

I wouldn't say it directly decreased because there's no Olympia, but I think almost as like a byproduct of what the Olympia was for me of like, a schedule of a year, of, like, the first half of the year is X. You have some time off, you can recover, give yourself a break. And then you start to ramp up. You travel, focus on business, and then near the end, you go inward, you figure out what's driving you, what's pulling you back right now. Self reflect, spend time away from bullshit, focus on yourself, be selfish, work intense, schedule. And like, it was this, like, organized routine, and then all of a sudden it was all gone. And that on top of the singular goal being like, where do I put my energy now? I think definitely left me in a place of feeling a little bit lost, of not figuring out, like, where do. Do I still have the passion for anything? Where do I find that energy to put into something? What do I put it into? Does it even exist? Will it exist again? And then it kind of led to me. Then I had an injury. I stopped working out for a while and I just started to wake up in the morning exhausted and not knowing what to do. Going in and helping with this business, going on this trip for debt travel, and meeting here with the distribution center of all these little things, for all these other things that weren't really like, driving me. I didn't have like an important big role in them. I was just like kind of coasting through and I started to wake up and feel pretty lost in general of like, where do I. Where am I progressing to essentially? And that was when I was kind of like, what? I'm honestly, I'm still working through it. I don't have this answer, but thing I'm working for is just like empathizing with myself that I don't need to be constantly progressing towards something, that I don't need to be getting better and have this big goal and doing X and I can just sit and rest for a while and like, truly just like do nothing and be good enough as that is and let something come and figure it as it goes. And that's. That was tough for me, is tough for me. And speaking in proper verbiage of figuring that out. And the funniest little thing of what has made me feel better recently was working out again on a schedule and eating five meals a day and weighing up my food and having that little bit of structure of like, and not having to as well. It's like, all this stuff's going on my life. I don't know, I'm kind of lost. What can I do? Well, I can go work out again and I don't have to. So now I'm choosing to. Well, why you still work out so hard? Why are you training so hard? It's like, well, I just. Cause I love it. I feel good. Why?

A (56:46)

I used to do it 12 years ago.

B (56:48)

Exactly. And now it's all of a sudden I'm getting more and more excited to go back in the gym or even in prep. Last year I started like, oh, I have to go work out. And then all of a sudden I start to feel better day to day. And it's these little changes. And I realized this is truly how I fell in love with the gym and why I'm such a big advocate of weightlifting. Like, I honestly kind of hope I don't inspire people to get into bodybuilding because it's tough, it's fucked up, it's not good for your health. But I do want to inspire people to go lift weights, get in the gym and want to get jacked because it's such like, oh, I'm lost. I don't know what to do. Just go work out, apply some discipline, work hard, find something you love that's like, difficult, that shows you progress, builds confidence, and just go do it. And then from there, then you can clear your mind a little bit, have self confidence, start looking around a little bit more clear. Start looking inward and figuring out what is next for you and finding that next goal and working towards it. So for me, that's why I just fucking love the gym so much and I'm so grateful that I'm back to a point of loving the gym.

A (57:39)

This is the cash value. Oh, this was the price that you pay in retirement. I think, because what you're talking about, it's going to be difficult and things will be hard and you won't have the drive or the goal that you used to in the past. All of those things are kind of fluffy concepts, but they come into land. They actually sort of meet reality with I woke up on the morning and didn't know what to do. I felt tired a lot. I didn't want to train. I was short and snappy with my business partners. I found myself getting distracted with lots of little tasks because it made me feel important and like people needed me. I packed my calendar out and did. Because a lot of the time in advance of something happening, we probably have a good idea about what it's going to be like in the macro, but what we don't know is how it's actually going to appear manifest in life and it's navigating those things. So for instance, I've been sick for the last 18 months or so and that's been hard. And I knew based on what the trajectory was going to be, what was going to be tough, that I was going to have a lot of self doubt, that I was going to lose confidence and self esteem, that I would feel like I was moving backward, all of these things. But the way that that actually appears like the individual building block thoughts that you have, like that mean random little voice or that one night where you ruminate about that one thing or you're more sensitive to criticism and that one comment from that person. You can't really focus on your meditation as much like none of those are I am going to lose confidence. They are the individual incidents that contribute to my confidence has gone down. Even if you knew it was going to happen in advance and even if in retrospect you can say, oh wow, both of these things converge. Each of the little steps that occurred to make that happen kind of come out of nowhere a little bit because you don't know the effect of each little thing. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it's the packed calendar, the lots of travel, the I'm tired, I don't really want to Go train. I don't really. I'm not weighing my food. I'm maybe eating weird diets compared with what I used to. And this lack of structure feels alien and uncomfortable to me, but it also feels like relapse or rest or change or variation, but that's also uncomfortable because it's unfamiliar. And, yeah, each of these little building blocks is contributing to that. Like, I don't feel like me. I don't feel like me.

B (60:13)

Yeah.

A (60:14)

And not in the way that I wanted to either.

B (60:18)

Yeah. And it creeps in like that. And you have absolutely no idea that it's coming until one day you're like, I don't feel good. So it's definitely interesting. And I feel like you need to. You need to. I've needed to treat myself like a science experiment of, like, taking and removing pieces and see what's important. It's like, okay, bodybuilding was creating a bit of pressure and stress in my life. Is it everything related to that. Or was it the whole, you know. So, like, as I pulled out, like, well, I'm not competing anymore. I don't need to eat on a schedule. I don't need to train at the same time. I don't need to leave my phone outside the gym and be locked in and focus as much. I don't need to wake up with my alarm. I can kind of sleep. I can do all these little things that I can let go of because now I don't have to, because the goal is different. But then I started to not feel good. And it was like, okay, it wasn't those things that weren't making me feel bad, those were actually making me feel good. It was the outcome, like I said before. So now taking those things that from bodybuilding put in the back in my life and realizing, oh, wait, the structure and the discipline makes me feel better. It fills me with more confidence and ability to go do other things rather than taking away regardless of whether it's.

A (61:26)

In service of becoming Mr. Olympian.

B (61:28)

Yeah. And I mean, I know those things, but like you said, it was all of a sudden I was like, oh, well, I'll just cut one meal out because, like, I'm busy now. Oh, well, my shoulder's injured, so I'm gonna do my rehab. But, like, I don't really want to. You know, I'm not competing this year.

A (61:40)

Like, who even cares?

B (61:41)

Yeah, I'm busy. I'm going to reply to emails in between sets. I'm gonna sleep in because I went to bed late last night. Like, all these little things. Next thing you know, you're like, I feel like I don't want to do anything. And you're way harder to pull yourself out of that than if you caught it earlier. So that's life though, you know, there's no direct descent to the top. It's ups and downs and building a new self as you go. As a dad, you got one job. Love her. If you want to raise successful kids, especially boys, you have one job. Love his mom.

A (62:12)

That's so sick.

B (62:13)

It's crazy, but it's great in its way. It's beautiful in its way. And look, here's the funny thing. I mean, people often ask, what do I do? What should I teach my kids? It doesn't matter what you tell them. You could talk to them in a foreign language. All that matters is what you do. So the number one predictor, for example, of kids growing up and practicing a religion is whether their father practices their religion. Religion. There's like a 40 percentage point difference in the father and the mother practicing on the predictive ability, on the predictive capacity, on how, on how the kids are going to grow up and behave. And there's, it's almost certainly the case. It's because, I mean, when I was a little kid, I thought my dad was, you know, I thought he could lift the corner of the house. My dad was a math professor. He could not.

A (62:56)

Now I realize he was a nerd.

B (62:58)

At the time I thought he was cool.

A (63:00)

Nerd, yeah.

B (63:01)

Now that I'm a nerd, I recognize that. But, but, and my dad was very proud guy. I mean, he never would have bent the knee to any other man, but he was on his knees on Sunday and that had a big impact on a little dude. There's something bigger than my dad and I saw it and it like it's in there. Right. That's really important in every part of life. If you want to teach virtue, practice virtue, Be the person you want your kids to actually turn into and they will become that. Generally speaking, they'll become that person.

A (63:28)

Yeah, I was thinking about this generation. Both millennials and Gen Z are the progeny of parents who didn't have the tools to sort of relate or navigate in the same way as an infinite number of evidence based relationship coaches and the podcast world and the self help and all the rest of it. I think, I wonder how they should go about thinking. Well, I didn't necessarily have the best example in front of me because there was challenges here and we did have changing dynamics and motivations around the Acceptance of divorce. And maybe I did grow up in a non intact home and such, but that sets expectations for what a good relationship is supposed to be now. And there's this interesting. Not a burden, I suppose, but a responsibility, opportunity to be a circuit breaker. And to think, you know, Goggins talks about this so, you know, he explains about how his dad hit him a lot as a kid and he had a brother. And sometimes Goggins sort of took the beatings in place of his brother. But he also found out that his granddad would make his father stand in front of an open stove and if he moved, he would hit him with a belt as a kid. So you have this lineage, this like ancestral, literal ancestral trauma, but physically being passed down, plus also probably epigenetically being fucking passed down as well. And I asked David, I didn't even know that this was the case. It was really kind of beautiful of him to say on the podcast. I said, if you had a child, how would you hope to raise them? I do have a child. I got a 22 year old daughter. He'd never mentioned it previously and he brought it up on the episode and he said he basically sees himself as kind of like a dam, sort of a breakwater, this circuit breaker thing in between the series of mistreatments of people like no more. And I kind of think, I often think about that example when it comes to stuff like your parents didn't necessarily have the tools you do. You didn't have an example, but you.

B (65:39)

Have the opportunity and you have the metacognitive ability to manage your emotions so they don't manage you. This is the most important thing to keep in mind. And when we're talking about the psychology being biology, but we also have will, we also have a prefrontal cortex for a reason. That's the most important part of the neurobiology of all, is the C suite of your brain where you're actually making decisions, notwithstanding your proclivities. I mean, you've got these urges. We all have these urges. You look at a woman who's not your wife and you go, oh man, she's really, really attractive and all that. And then your prefrontal cortex, which is the behavioral activation system, the behavioral inhibition system, that's in the prefrontal cortex, Bis and bass, behavioral activation, right. And behavioral inhibition is more because I want to hit my son and my prefrontal cortex says no because my father hit me and I'm not my trauma. That's a perfect example of metacognition That's a perfect example of being the master of yourself. And we actually can do that. But you gotta have knowledge. You have to be strong, but you also actually have to have knowledge. And that's why all this stuff matters. That's how I teach happiness is. Happiness is really a process of understanding the science, practicing habits that go along with the science and then teaching it to other people. So you ingrain it in yourself. And that's anything that you want to do, anything you want to get better at. If you want to become a better golfer. Learn about golfing. Golf and teach golf. You know, doctors, when they're becoming surgeons, they always say, watch one, do one, teach one. That's how you become a surgeon. Anything in life actually follows that basic pattern. But you must have the knowledge such that the habits that you practice are not the habits that are just kind of lurking your limbic system and being epigenetically expressed from the misbehavior of people six generations ago or some crazy thing like that. We should not be prisoners of that.

A (67:30)

Yeah. There's this gorgeous idea from Robert Wright's why Buddhism is True.

B (67:34)

That's a nice book, dude.

A (67:36)

Blending evolutionary psychology.

B (67:38)

I know.

A (67:38)

With Buddhism. Because the. The book that got me into EP was the moral animal.

B (67:45)

Yeah.

A (67:45)

From 1991 or 1992 or something. And it's still. There's some of the stuff, a little replication crisis, but most of it's shit hot. I love it.

B (67:56)

The replication crisis. A big problem in my field.

A (68:00)

Yeah. A lot of people made their careers be true.

B (68:03)

And grandma would have said. I mean, I can find you a study that shows that. That conjugal infidelity will bring happiness. I mean, I'm sure I could. Right.

A (68:12)

Motivated reasoning by a researcher that for sure. Darling, darling. Honestly, I only did it. Not only did I not love her, but I did this for us.

B (68:19)

I know. Exactly. And besides, studies show so and anyway. So but, and, and, and but the whole problem if a study. And this is like you're talking about evolutionary psychology all the time and biology all the time. And this is my stock and trade as behavioral scientist for everybody watching. If your grandma would hear this result and say that's wrong, she's probably right.

A (68:39)

This episode is brought to you by whoop. I have been wearing Whoop for over five years now, way before they were a partner on the show. I've actually tracked over 1600 days of my life with it, according to the app, which is insane. And it's the only wearable I've ever stuck with. Because it tracks everything that matters. Sleep, workouts, recovery, breathing, heart rate, even your steps. And the new 5.0 is the best version. You get all the benefits that make Whoop indispensable 7% smaller. But now it's also got a 14 day battery life and has healthspan to track your habits, how they affect your pace of aging. It's got hormonal insights for ladies. I'm a huge, huge fan of whoop. That's why it's the only wearable that I've ever stuck with. And best of all, you can join for free. Pay nothing for the brand new Whoop 5.0 strap. Plus you get your first month for free. And there's a 30 day money back guarantee so you can buy it for free. Try it for free. If you do not like it after 29 days, they just give you your money back. Right now you can get the brand new Whoop 5.0 and that 30 day trial by going to the link in the description below or heading to join.whoop.com modernwisdom that's join.woop.com modernwisdom why do you think so many girls are drawn to therapy culture?

C (69:55)

Oh, I think it's a lot of things. I do think this is kind of a cliche thing to say now, but I do think therapy culture has replaced religion and that's not a new thing to say. People have been saying that for a long time. So Christopher Lasch was writing about that in the 70s. Frank Ferrudi writes about it really well now. But in recent years, since social media, I would say therapy culture has just escalated to the point where I think young women don't see it as a worldview, they just see that as kind of life. So they interpret everything through this therapeutic lens. So their lives, their relationships, their emotions, and I think it has elevated to the level of religion. So you think of all the kind of characteristics of religion, we just mimic them with therapy culture. So instead of praying, we just repeat our positive affirmations. Instead of seeking salvation, you'll go on a healing journey. Instead of resisting temptation from the devil, you'll reframe your intrusive thoughts. And so I think for young women in particular who are becoming less religious, this kind of therapeutic worldview has completely replaced that void.

A (71:16)

What does a therapeutic worldview consist of? What does that mean?

C (71:20)

Like seeing problems in your life, kind of pathologizing problems and experiences as something medical rather than I'm just experiencing this emotion or kind of age old anxiety now it's become a medical issue. So things like talking in the language of attachment styles and trauma and losing the language of just ordinary hurt and disappointment and things like that.

A (71:51)

And for some reason this is giving some kind of solace or comfort.

C (71:57)

Yeah.

A (71:59)

Order being brought out of chaos.

C (72:01)

I think it gives the comfort religion gives and the consolation of like you see young women on TikTok saying things like they won't pray to God but they'll give a request to the universe and like have faith in that. And so I think it gives all the comfort of religion but it takes away the inconvenient parts. So the any actual demands on you or kind of restrictions on your freedom.

A (72:27)

Or anything like that, being held to standards of behaviour, etc.

C (72:30)

So it has what women are craving in modern life, I think, which is belonging and security in something and faith in something. But it's a much easier version of religion.

A (72:42)

Slippery religion.

C (72:43)

Yeah, yeah.

A (72:45)

How many of these girls are in therapy, do you think?

C (72:48)

A lot. There was a study recently showing 32% of all 12 to 17 year olds in America have either had therapy, been on medication or had some kind of treatment in 2023 over a single year, one third, which is insane. And I was talking to someone about that statistic and they were like, oh, that's great, that's amazing. And I was thinking that's a bleak statistic. So yeah, I think there's the girls that are in therapy, which is a lot. But then there's also the girls who just like living in therapy culture. So it's just. They scroll through Instagram and it's all about attachment styles, trauma. They go on TikTok and it's like a trauma informed therapist telling them like red flags they should watch out for and stuff. It's just like there's the actual therapy, which I'm sure there is, there's useful therapists, but there's also just this culture which is just the world that they're swimming in.

A (73:45)

Yeah. So you're never able to switch it off. I think Alanda Barton was sat in that same seat as you. Big proponent of psychotherapy, I think trained as a psych therapist himself too. Onto School of Life, which isn't just a YouTube channel, but a psychotherapy facility here in London. And even he likes the biggest proponent of it, I think would very much say that there is a time for therapizing.

C (74:11)

Yes.

A (74:12)

And then there is a time to. Not in the same way as going to the gym. There is a time to train and then there is a Time to recover. And I wonder whether one of the criticisms that's common that I put to him was lots of people online, more old school people, more sort of typical stiff upper lip type people would say, you're not fixing your past's problems, you're dwelling on them. And by dwelling on them, you are ruminating too much. There is some evidence, I mean, a good bit of evidence. Rumination's not particularly fantastic for you. And finding this line between, yeah, mate, we don't want to deny that bad things happened and never alchemize them or transcend and include them into our life, and then on the other side, we don't want to wallow in them. But I suppose if you have the online environment that you exist within, permanently using this language, you're permanently having these structures and these thinking patterns reinforced and then it's how you begin to talk to yourself about what happens offline.

C (75:10)

Yes.

A (75:11)

And then you also have, you know, facilitation or medication or conversations with your friends, further embracing all of that. You're just entrenched in this all the time.

C (75:21)

Yeah. Well, I used to think, and I think a lot of people think therapy cultures particularly bad for men because kind of has a female approach to problems and it's about, you know, ruminating and often it's like if you don't have a female response, there's something wrong with you. It's kind of a red flag if you don't go to therapy. But I actually changed my mind on that and actually think therapy culture is worse for women because women ruminate more, they co ruminate more.

A (75:46)

It's playing into the weakness that they already have or the disposition.

C (75:49)

Yeah. If you think of an anxious young 14 year old girl, the worst thing you can tell her is to go further into her own head to get relief and to think more about her problems and to kind of search her life for symptoms. You know that if you told me that at 14, it's the worst thing I could have heard. So I actually think maybe some men do need to do that a little bit more. But the average young girl needs to kind of cut out.

A (76:14)

I wonder whether therapy, language and therapy culture for girls is what Jim? Language, gym culture, psalms, Testosterone, steroids at 17 is for guys.

C (76:30)

Yeah. I think it's a form of control. So it's like it's our version of control. You know, if we feel uncomfortable or feel an uneasy emotion, we're just like, I'm gonna categorize that and diagnose it. You know, that's My attachment disorder or that's my depression. And I think men do that. They have their own kind of self optimization trends and the gym stuff where that can become like a form of control to deal with kind of uneasy emotions. And I think, yeah, this is the woman's version of that. It's like we can't sit with it or just accept like a painful situation. So I often think about. So if you look at these kind of attachment style forums or girls talking about their attachment styles, very often they'll describe just a bad relationship and then they'll say, oh, it's my attachment disorder. So they'll be like, he cheated on me. And I can't get over it because of my anxious attachment. And it's like, it's so sad because they're actually losing the language to talk about the actual problem that they're facing because they're trying to get control because it's a lot easier to be like, oh, you know, I'm anxious, or he's avoidant. Then we have a terrible relationship and I've just wasted four years with someone. You get the control through the therapy culture. So that's where I see it becoming a danger to girls and young women.

A (77:52)

What's the difference between a nice guy and a good man? Yeah.

B (77:59)

Right about that in there. But a nice guy has.

A (78:01)

Is about some.

B (78:02)

A nice guy gets along.

A (78:04)

Yeah, do that. Yeah, I'll do that. They don't necessarily have discernment or judgment. Not sure what they stand for or stand against. It's like, yes, yes, yes. Sure, yeah.

B (78:13)

Hey, a good man has ideals that they stand for and they'll stand against. And when they're tested. A good man is not a nice guy. That's in the chapter of Manning Up. You know, that's. I was. That time when I was doing the rom coms, that's all I could do. I was feeling like my work was just me as a nice guy. And in life, I was not just a nice guy. Like I said, camilla's pregnant. I got a child coming. I was, I was feral with masculinity.

A (78:43)

And.

B (78:46)

In my work, maybe I was feeling a bit neutered. And I was like, well, I'm a.

A (78:53)

Good guy and a good man in.

B (78:54)

Life, but I'm just a nice guy. Work. Can I be a. Roles that can be a good man? And that was dramas, because in dramas you can stand for. Stand against something. You're ceiling for pleasure in your basement for pain are up to you. How do you feel about it? And no direction Go, that's too much or that's not enough. You got too angry there. Oh, you meant that too much. Those that, that didn't come in a drama, those come in a rom com, right? Because the emotions and how you feel.

A (79:23)

Are compressed to be in a buoyant.

B (79:25)

Level in the threshold that's up bouncing from cloud to cloud.

A (79:28)

Only dramas are as much pain, as much evil as you want to go.

B (79:32)

As deep dark you want to go get there, let's see how far you.

A (79:34)

Go, how high you want to fly.

B (79:37)

How close that sun you get for you, for you get burned. Go see how far you go. That's what you get in drama.

A (79:44)

Much more like real life.

B (79:47)

And so, you know, good guys, being a good, good. Being a good man's a lot harder for good reason. Not going to be most popular, not going to be always most affable. It also doesn't mean you got to.

A (80:04)

Be a dick or an.

B (80:06)

Just means sometimes you're gonna go, I believe in this. Is this for me? This is for me. And that is not for me. And because that is not for me, if you do trespass into my space upon me and my family, there will be. I will do my best to cause consequences. And I'm gonna let you know that I want. I hope that's a parent it because.

A (80:28)

I'm not going to intrude on you.

B (80:30)

But if you trespass that, I mean I'm. I'm going to stand up for it.

A (80:34)

And that we can talk our way out of that. Great. None. Doesn't always work that way. You know, good man's not looking for.

B (80:45)

Trouble, you know, but if it comes.

A (80:50)

And if he or something he cares.

B (80:52)

About, unless we're susceptible being trespassed on by trouble, a good man does what he can to do to stop that.

A (81:02)

So Aaron Bugsy tells this story. He famously had his house. A robbery attempt occurred on his very nice house in Manchester. Manchester's got some spicy individuals in it from the gang culture. And there is a CCTV video of him now by this point, this is I think 21 or 22, so he's been in the first movie. He has had multiple huge albums, world tour, rapping, done all the things most played fire in the booth, freestyle in history, all of this stuff, right? So you might think even though he came from below the streets, sort of he came from the sewers as a kid, he has a public image to keep up. Maybe he's got soft, the sort of velvet prison silk pajama problem. And he told me this Story and his girlfriend rings, she's in the house. These men are trying to break in. There's a barricade. So he's driving back with his sister in the car. He's driving back and there's a guy by the side of the road and you can see he's got a brick in his hand. So Aaron stops the car, opens the door and immediately says, mate, is that you? Blue shirt? That's such a nice blue shirt. And he's moving toward him. He puts his hands in the air like this. He's moving toward him. He's moving towards. He's moving toward. Hits this guy, brick drops, finishes him off, gets back in the car. And this bit's captured on CCTV and somebody overlaid it with the call to the police. So there's a 999 call going on from, I think, his mum who's in the house. These men are trying to break in. And you see him pull up in this Mercedes, this guy been in movies and all the rest of it. And it's a van of dudes. It's a van of men trying to break in. Yes. Yeah. Trying to rob his house. And see, he's rich, he's got something that we want. He's already dealt with one of them. I think he might have dealt with another one of them as well. And he pulls in, in this fancy Mercedes. You see this guy who has got kind of world at his feet, opens the door to his Mercedes, pulls his shirt off and just sprints at this van. And he. It was fucking electric, bro. He told me this story. So Electric.

B (83:19)

And that's on cctv? Yeah, that's great. There's best video he ever made right there.

A (83:24)

Huh. So hardcore. It's so hardcore. But, yeah, that's, you know, good man. Not a nice guy from the inside, it's very hard to know who you are.

B (83:34)

And one of the interesting things is.

A (83:35)

How people go a bit mad when they've spent too long alone. If you spend a long time alone, you sort of.

B (83:41)

You don't know. Certain thoughts go a little too far.

A (83:46)

And one of the great things about Company, you know, why do we need other people just to be able to kind of hold us slightly in check? In small ways and large, they kind of go, no, that thought is getting a little too extreme. Whatever they. They define us.

B (84:00)

But also the other thing that people.

A (84:02)

Help us to do, other people is give us a compact sense of who.

B (84:07)

We are that eludes us.

A (84:09)

So I see you and I go, there's Chris now, when you're all alone, you don't think you're Chris. You just think I'm consciousness in the universe. I'm just a giant net that's capturing thoughts and impressions. You don't know that you have a name, a beginning, a middle, or an end, et cetera. And when we're in company, people go, oh, you're that guy who does this. Or so other people's caricatured vision of us is actually quite helpful to us.

B (84:34)

Because you think, oh, you know, I'm.

A (84:36)

That relatively simple soul that other people unifies us, gives us a sense of story. Yeah.

B (84:41)

And also because, you know, if I.

A (84:42)

Look at you, you look unified. You've got two eyes, a nose, a mouth, you know, you're relatively compact, etc. But inside you, you don't feel any of that. It's. It's a. It's a vast, shapeless landscape. Is this, is self esteem related to imposter syndrome? I think imposter syndrome was already something that I was seeing a lot of, and now I'm seeing more about increasingly this sense that the world expects something of me that maybe I've even actually done previously. But I'm scared about whether or not I'm going to be able to deliver it. Look, I think it's.

B (85:19)

I know imposter syndrome causes people problems.

A (85:22)

But I'm reassured if somebody suffers from imposter syndrome, it's a sign of honesty, it's a sign of self awareness. Of course, it has its extreme versions, which, you know, causes people a lot of pain. But if someone is aware that they might be a charlatan or might be pulling off a confidence trick, that's honesty. That's great. That's a starting point. You know, it's just like somebody who knows they might be evil is a.

B (85:47)

Good person, you know, evil people don't.

A (85:48)

Worry, they might be evil. So it's, you know, you're likely to be authentic and genuine. If sometimes you think, am I a fake? That's a good sign. It's a good starting point, in the same way as identifying that you're a bad driver is a good starting point for not driving fast, but it doesn't necessarily make you better on the roads. So where do we go to? Where is becoming a better driver? Okay, my imposter syndrome. Thank you, Alain. You've told me that I'm not so up my own ass that I can't see my own flaws. Hooray. What about starting to work through that? What about starting to get a Better sense of our own capacities and capabilities. Look, a lot of it is bouncing against the world and testing yourself against reality. It's very hard to know your talents until you've had a go at something. And I think we all have this sense sometimes that some things come more easily to us than to others. You know, I don't know how great tennis players start, but they must have a sense, oh, oh, I was able to hit that ball, and that worked quite well, or a great writer is able to think. I was able to pull off quite a nice little sentence there. And that's the beginning of a kind of growing confidence. And you need that kind of start. And I think a good life doesn't require you to do everything. It requires you to do the things that you feel you're capable of and.

B (87:06)

That you're especially good at.

A (87:10)

It's no humiliation for me that I can't play tennis, for example, if somebody goes, you know, you're terrible, because I don't sense a talent, but I do sense talent in that tiny area of assembling words. That's the area that you know. But maths I can't do, you know, architecture I can't really do, et cetera. So many things I can't do. So it's about finding those little sweet spots. And one of the great puzzles in life is how do people find their vocation? How do people find their core identity, their talents? And I sometimes think of it as. It's like you're passing a metal detector over the ground. And very occasionally, something will let off a little beep, a beep of intensity, of interest, of heightened thoughtfulness. And you think, there's a fragment here below the ground of my true self. Now, my true self was shattered, or it. It came in disassembled form, it's buried, it's scattered over a vast area. And the task of life is to recreate it from hints. And I think that one of the great challenges, I think one of the.

B (88:10)

Big, big challenges, and it happens to.

A (88:12)

Every young person, is what should I do with my life? It's one of these central questions of philosophy, in a way, because unless you're a very rare person, you will have to assemble a vision of your future. It's not going to come ready made, and there won't be a voice from the sky going, you are an accountant or you are a downhill. It's going to be something you have to assemble, and you'll assemble it in bits. You'll have to recreate the original statue of you that was shattered a long time ago and that lies across a vast area. So, like an archeologist of the self, you have to build that up and you have to build it up out.

B (88:51)

Of those little beeps of interest.

A (88:54)

And I think a good thing there is envy. People speak very, very low and embarrassed way about envy. You know, you're not supposed to feel envious. I think very often when you feel a beep of envy, it's because there's a fragment of your true ambition and your true self in the life of another person. And rather than going, oh, I must run away from it, go, no, this is a clue. What is there that you are envious of? And often envy is a very inaccurate emotion. We envy the whole of someone when actually it tends to be a part of them that we want. And so we go, I'm envious of that singer, actor, business person, et cetera. You want to go, hang on, hang on. It won't be the whole thing. Drill into it what really is core here, and you might realise it's actually not their fame, their money, it's that they work with their hands, or it's that they live in a log cabin somewhere, far away from other people or whatever it is. So the best thing to do with envy is to see it as a guide for your own ambition, not a sign of your innate jealousy and inadequacy. It's a clue. I always think about envy as the only one of the seven deadly sins that doesn't feel good. Remind me of the other seven deadly sins. Gluttony. Gluttony. Sloth. Sloth doesn't feel good. You don't think sloth feels good? Have you not spent a good Sunday afternoon watching some horrible TV show on the floor? But think of the self disgust that sloth often brings, right? You know you're lying on the sofa and you know that you're, you know, you're squatting, scrolling Instagram, and you know that your better self is being eroded. And so there's guilty sloth, good sloth and guilty sloth. Yeah, yeah, interesting.

B (90:32)

I remember when I came out with.

A (90:33)

The first book, I was being interviewed, I don't know, some Today show or something like that. And the guy goes, so you lost everything in your 20s and now you're teaching people financial peace. How did you bounce back? And I, I remember it just hit me like, that was stupid. And I said, dude, when you fall that far, you don't really bounce. It's more of a splat. And he just looked at me just like that wasn't the answer. That fit the. It's not the narrative you're talking about. Yeah. And so the. The thing I would say, though, is, if someone's watching you and I right now talk about this, and they go, yeah, I'm in the soup. People do react two different ways to being in the soup. We all have the fear and then the momentary courage or the momentary hope followed by another injury, followed by another betrayal, followed by a momentary. We all have that. Then the choice you have to make, the individual has to make while we're in that. And I made that choice semi consciously, was, you can choose. All right, I'm going to quit. I'm going to adopt the victim language, and I'm just gonna sit down because I quit. And those are the people that never recover from their divorce. They never recover from their business loss. Or you can say, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm so lost. I don't know what to do. But I do know I'm gonna take the next step. The next step. I'm gonna take the neck. I'm gonna do the next right thing that's in front of me and the next right thing that's in front of me. And it might even not be the right thing, but I'm going to do the next thing. And sitting is not an option.

B (92:11)

I'm going to keep walking.

A (92:13)

So keep walking. If you're in this and the old country song, you know, if you're going through hell, keep going. But I meet people that. And they call on the show. It's like a lady called the other day, and she's talking about her divorce like it happened 20 minutes ago. And I'm like, how long ago were you divorced? 40 years. I'm like, honey, you're still living emotionally back in that thing. The language she was using was fresh, and she's still sitting there mad at him. And he's gone and gotten two other wives since then. I mean, you know. Right. Move on. And so. But that. It's real easy to quit in that. And it's not a quitter thing. It's just this natural reaction. I'm going to get up one more time, even though I don't feel like it, and walk out into the sun, get a little vitamin D, get a little prayer, meet with my buddy and let him make fun of me. And then I'm gonna get after it again. And I'm just.

B (93:08)

One more time. One more time, right?

A (93:11)

Yeah. I remember toward the end of my 20s, and I was really trying to sort of work out some of the predictors for when I felt better and when I felt worse, when I was. When I was in the soup, as you would say. And I remember I wrote it. Action is the antidote to anxiety, that you really don't fear the future when you're moving yourself toward it. It. And it's a vicious spiral because the very thing that's hardest to do when you are struggling is precisely the thing that would make you feel better. Right. You. Your motivation is at its lowest. You don't want to get out of bed, you don't want to go to work. You don't want to think of a new idea. You don't want to apply effort to something or pick up the bar or not eat the comfort food or whatever it is, stick to your routine. So. But then when you start to roll that boulder a little bit, it. It accumulates an awful lot of momentum, which is exactly how you see people get unbelievable outcomes. Like this seems superhuman. How does this. How does this person get so much done in a day? How are they so successful? How are they so balanced? All the rest of it? It's like, well, they are on the positive side of the same momentum that is currently kicking your ass. Exactly. Yeah. We developed a little theorem around here to talk to our team about this, called the momentum theorem. Focused intensity over time multiplied by God equals unstoppable momentum. And one of the things we talk about in the little book I did on it was just this idea that when you have negative momentum, you are better than you look. When you have positive momentum, you are not as good as you look. That's great. That's really important. So don't believe the lie either way. And so if you've got positive momentum, you are harvesting crops that were planted yesterday, not. Not this morning, that they were planted a year ago. Put them in the ground. And today I'm getting this fruit. And everybody thinks I'm a genius, but it was actually a year ago I was a genius. And. Or you got. You got crops going in the ground. There's nothing coming out of the ground yet. And you're planting, you're planting, you're planting. Nobody can see you, Nobody knows you're there. You're anonymous. But you're a lot better than you look because wait till this rain and the sun comes. There's going to be a crop in the spring, and suddenly you're going to be that genius. So, you know, that's stuff works. I remember talking about going through this stuff, this idea of walking, continuing to.

B (95:30)

Walk, something that you brought up.

A (95:31)

I love that. We were snow skiing the other day in Telluride and I'm a mediocre snow skier for a 65 year old dude, right? But I like to go down the hill and go fast. I enjoy it. So, you know, go. And so I'm skiing with my kids, like 40 and 30 years old, and they, they haul butt. I mean, they go. And so the old man's trying to keep up and he's huffing and puffing. So we jumped off a lift. We were running cruiser blues, you know, good and double blues, that kind of stuff. We had a black every now and then, but they were cruisers, they were groomedies. So we jumped off it and there's this one run on Telluride that when you get to the top of it on black, it's a, it's a, it's a groomed black and it's unbelievably steep. You can see downtown Telluride and it looks like you're going to fall into Main Street. When you fall, I mean, it's right there.

B (96:19)

It looks like a toy box.

A (96:20)

And there's nothing between you and Main Street. It's just air. It's that steep. It's an unbelievable. And I pulled up on top of that thing and I looked at one of the kids, you know, these 30 year olds, I'm like, they went, that's steep. And I went, yeah. And if I stand here about three more heartbeats, I'm gonna walk back because I'm getting really scared. So I gotta go or the fear's gonna take me over. And I thought, you know what?

B (96:43)

That's what I've done half my life.

A (96:44)

You gotta go or the fear is going to take me over. Because if I stood there, my heart rate was going. This was just the other day.

B (96:52)

I was scared.

A (96:53)

You know, it's like I was scared, but I thought, you know, what if I can, I can do this stupid thing. I can ski it. I know I can ski it. But I, If I stand here and think about it, it's gonna. The. The fear is gonna kill me. There's a. I want to give it a better term than cultivated stupidity. Conscious ignorance, maybe you could say, or tactical ignorance around things that. Yeah, a lot of the time there is. There is a period where you're supposed to plan, where you're supposed to reflect and ruminate and sort of think about stuff. But that can be a trap as well. And I Think that a lot of people who like to listen to shows like yours and like mine, they'll be thinking about their thoughts, they'll be thinking about themselves, they'll be strategizing. But there is just a, there is absolutely a time for straight action without having to ruminate too much. Yeah, you can get paralysis of the analysis before we continue. I've been drinking AG1 every day for years now because it's the simplest way that I found to cover my bases and not overthink nutrition. And that is why I've partnered with them. One scoop gives you 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics and whole food ingredients in a single drink. And now they've taken it Even further with AG1. Next gen, the same one scoop once a day ritual, but this time backed by 4, 4 clinical trials. In those trials, it was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels in just three months, and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times. Even in people who already eat well, they've upgraded the formula with better probiotics, more bioavailable nutrients and clinical validation. And it's still NSF certified for sport, meaning that even Olympic athletes can use it. Plus, if I ever actually found something better, I would switch. But I haven't, which is why I still use it every day. And if you're on the fence, they've got a 90 day money back guaranteed. Buy it and try it and if you don't love it, they will give you your money back. Right now you can get a free bottle of vitamin D3K two free AG1 travel packs, a welcome kit and that 90 day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinkag1.com modernwisdom that's drinkag1.com modernwiry so this was a longitudinal study that was done in a relatively sort of academic setting?

C (99:04)

Yes, he did a large scale longitudinal study and he's fantastic.

A (99:10)

Those three traits were predictive conscientiousness, which is being a combination of thoughtful and kind.

C (99:18)

You know, I'm not, I don't want to get too into definitions in case I misstate something, but the way I understand conscientiousness and there are different personality models, right? And each personality model and not all, not every personality. There's really no one personality model that has ever gotten it completely right. They've all been dispelled in certain regards. But the way that I see conscientiousness as a whole across different personality models is it's got a couple of Things combined. So it's not just nice. Nice to me can also mean low self esteem, a pushover trying to be liked. Conscientiousness may not even look super smiley friendly. It's more of an action. So to me it is somebody who's smart enough to actually notice and anticipate somebody's needs. My husband is incredibly observant and it's something that continues to also bring up admiration. So it's got that observational quality, intelligence and then also motivation. You can't be lazy and they're industrious.

A (100:25)

They go and get things done.

C (100:26)

They're industrious. Exactly.

A (100:28)

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. I was more thinking. I was trying to sort of interpret it, I guess, into the language of romance. But yes, if you're talking straight up, what is conscientiousness? I think good definition. They are flexible psychologically. If there is some sort of perturbment, they end up getting back to baseline in not an insane amount of time. If something occurs, they're able to adapt to it, which is maybe distinct, but kind of sounds a little bit like a subset of agency, which I would predict, put not too far away from consciousness.

C (100:58)

Yes, agency.

B (100:59)

Right.

A (100:59)

Okay, so you want highly agentic power.

C (101:01)

You were so smart.

A (101:03)

Thank you.

C (101:04)

I'm gonna have to up my game now on a different level.

A (101:08)

And then your final one, you want a degree of openness to new experience. Presumably that's somebody that just doesn't want to sit on their ass all the time. It helps to keep things exciting. But that is something that you can overshoot for. And you end up with someone who is going to be. Be very open sociosexually. They're going to be looking for high adventurousness.

C (101:28)

Predicts cheating.

A (101:29)

Yeah. Correct. So, okay, that's interesting is three traits. I guess a question would be, let's say that you are on an early date with someone or you're early into a relationship. What are some of the ways that you can adjudicate how much or how little of those traits your partner has?

C (101:48)

You know, this is the great question. I learned about these. I'm going to speak from my own experience. Okay. So I've experienced this because I knew about these traits before I met Ty and I absolutely intended to try this out when I learned about them. I was actually dating somebody. We were not happy. And that person, I would say, lacked these traits. Traits. Both of us probably lack these traits, to be completely fair. But we were in a conference together watching Tai Tashiro speak about this. And I remember Sitting there at this conference, not having a particularly good time with the person I was with and thinking, I can do this. I can follow instructions. And the reason I also thought that was because Ty Toshiro was emphasizing how difficult this is that our evolutionary brains really want. So if we're talking about a straight female, we want that strong jawline, we want somebody who's all brawn, we want money, we want height, we want protection for our young. I and. And he actually did this experiment where he had everybody raise their hands if they were a straight male, single. And so you had about a hundred men in this room raise their hands. And he was mimicking the average dating experience. So you go online, you're a straight woman, you want a straight man, single. And then he says, so how many of you are between the ages of 35 and 45? So let's say now you've got about 50 hands up. And then he said, how many of you are Catholic? And you've got maybe 20 hands up, how many of you make over 200,000 a year? You've got, I don't know, five hands up. How many of you are six feet tall? One hand. So you can see that this completely diminishes our pool. So really what he was doing was, in fact, the book he wrote is called the Science of Happily Ever After. And he talks about three wishes. Statistically speaking, you'll get married. If that's something you want, you're going to get married. Most people in society do, but you really get to choose three things, guaranteed, and then your pool goes down. And if you want hotness, height, and money, you might have a person who's a complete selfish. And that's where you think, like, are there those problems, ones that you're going to be able to deal with just because the person's hot in 20 years, or are you going to be so sick of their that you don't care how hot they are? So. So that's really what it comes down to. So your question was, how do we adjudicate this? How do we find somebody with these qualities? What I can tell you is that I knew it was gonna be hard, but I also know that I love science. And so if this was as sound as he said it was, I could do it. And I knew that the biggest thing, the biggest thing in my way was just to get rid of. Of that evolutionary urge for hotness. The night I met Ty. So I broke up with the person I was with that day. I moved back to California. I immediately got On Tinder. This was 2015, so Tinder was kind of it. And I also didn't know what I was doing. I was new to apps and got on Tinder. I will tell you what, with that mindset that I didn't care about hotness, money, or hype, I realized there were so many lovely, eligible bachelors, and so I was just swiping away. Swipe, swipe, swipe. Ty was one of the first people to respond. He was online, and so was this male model. And the male model was that baseline instinct in me. I was just like. And you. Even though you're putting up a lot of, like, ab pictures, I just can't help it. So I actually had two contenders. I lived them. This and Ty. I didn't know what he actually looked like. He was wearing a giraffe costume on his main picture, which I thought was funny. And there was some pictures of him working, but he had, like, hard hat stuff, so I really. I had no idea. He was hot in Australian and six two. I mean, I did win in this case, but I've been texting. I'm messaging him. I'm messaging this other guy. Ty is so wonderful, and he's just asking me these. These really intelligent questions. Sort of like this conversation, right? So you're one of those rare ones who has all of those qualities. Ladies, watch out. But he. I could just tell he was wonderful. And we're talking. You can tell if you know what these three things are. I could just tell. I just needed to be aware of them. It was there, and he kind of became more of a friend. And in the meantime, that this model is sending me, like, emojis of wet splashes and asking if I want a massage. Now, granted, I was on Tinder. I need to be fair. But. And I kept talking to the model. I just couldn't help myself. But after about 24 hours, I was done with the model guy. Ty was just becoming this friend. And then something kind of scary happened with my work two weeks later, and I realized I wanted to tell my friend about it. And that's how it evolved.

A (107:09)

If I was to just chuck a little bet on for something that's very, very reliably gonna happen over the next three years before the end of this administration, the mother of all blowups between Elon and Trump.

B (107:19)

So how do you see that happening? I've heard a lot of people. Charlemagne talks about this all the time. Trump thinks that. Sorry, Charlamagne thinks Trump is gonna put him in prison.

A (107:28)

Okay, that's a take. That I hadn't heard before, but.

B (107:30)

Yeah, but what do you. Now Charlemagne is very Democrat. Like, obviously he's gonna have some bias that goes into this, but. And how do you see that relationship going?

A (107:41)

I just think that when you've got two people with so much power and ego, and I do, from what I can tell, Elon's ego and that sort of self focused self belief, like, it's me, it's me. And like, I'm going to be the center of all of this seems to be ramping up. That is probably a pretty dangerous cocktail based on like some stories and stuff that I've heard about behind the scenes from Trump, about some levels of vulnerability and sort of like flimsy senses of. He doesn't like to be shown up, doesn't like to be sort of upstaged.

B (108:20)

And, and I don't know if, I don't know if Elon has the emotional intelligence of JD Vance to be able.

A (108:29)

To tiptoe around and yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir.

B (108:32)

JD and why I say do not treat that man lightly. I think he has, like, he came from like poverty. I think his mom was like a drug addict. Like, and then he ends up going to Yale and then he becomes the VP of a guy that he campaigned against and said was horrible and like a tyrant. Do you know the level of emotional intelligence it takes to go from like a broke middle America, broken family to an Ivy League institution to then VP for the guy who does not. He doesn't always keep in it. Like, you can say things about Trump, but if it's advantageous for whatever his plan is, he will forgive you. You know, he's kind of like Vince Mann in that regard. Like, whatever works for the thing, but like, that takes high eq. Even in that moment with Zelensky, he's managing Trump. Like, he's, he did have a moment for himself, but everything he said was. And you show respect to Trump and Donald Trump's office and what, so he.

A (109:28)

Knows the game he's playing?

B (109:29)

Oh, that's what I'm saying is don't treat him lightly. What our coastal elites, we always do is when someone has a kind of Southern accent, we think they're idiots and we don't even really pay attention to them. And that man is someone I see a problem with. JD Before I see Elon.

A (109:50)

But what do you think is going to happen with Elon long term? With Trump?

B (109:53)

Nothing.

A (109:54)

Do you think that he's going to dance through the minefield world?

B (109:57)

I, I don't think, I think he's acutely aware of his limitations in America. He cannot physically be president. If he could be president, I think there is a concern because eventually he'll go. When they have an impasse, he'll just go, well, I'll just run against you. He cannot. The, the laws dictate he cannot.

A (110:18)

So inevitably, you're going to have to bow down at some point.

B (110:20)

This is the highest. You're as high as you can go.

A (110:23)

That's only, that's only based on the fact that you can put your, the outcomes that you want for your project behind your ego.

B (110:30)

Yes.

A (110:31)

And I'm not sure which one is going to be the priority.

B (110:36)

The only other thing he could do is leverage the Democrats, which have already made him radioactive. Like, no Democrat can side with Elon. So Elon is as far as he can go in America. He can't go any further. Like, this is outside of being present. Like, there's that great line in Game of Thrones where, like, Cersei is talking to Littlefinger, and Littlefinger is like, you know, you know, Littlefinger, the character. And Littlefinger goes, you know, what I've learned over the years is that knowledge is power. And there's all these guards around her and them. And she goes, guards, slit his throat. And they all walk up and put a knife to his throat. And then she goes, guards, stand down. Guards take two steps back. Back. Guards take six steps back. And then she goes, power is power. And it's just so fire. And it's like, Trump has power. Power's power. That is the closest Elon can get to power. And I don't think there's another president that will allow Elon to have that access to power. So Elon either has to hope there's another person that he could ride with, with and establish relationship and, and maybe that's JD but he have to wait to the next administration anyway. So what he can't do is sour all the Republicans on him. Like, I, I, I cannot see the situation where they get into trouble because there's nowhere else for him to go. He either have to jump parties, which is very difficult after chastising the left, all this. Like, he's kind of made his bed and he's high. He has access to all these things. And I think it does benefit him the most if America is successful because all his businesses are tied up in America, he could jump ship to another country. But that's not the thing I worry about, because I think he's smart enough to understand the position he's in, eventually you hit the. This is what happens with all rich people is they that actually want to move weight around. You hit the impasse of government and you have people who are way less successful than you, way poorer than you, telling you whether you can or can't build a factory or do whatever you want to do. And in that moment they go, fuck, I just worked my ass off. I got fucking yachts and everything and now I gotta go kiss this guy's dick. Like, you saw them all lined up behind Trump during the inauguration. Zuckerberg, Basil, everybody went to kiss the ring and he set them up letting everybody else know they're kissing the ring. And I think Elon goes, I got the best seat. It don't get better than this. And this guy trusts me and believes in me. Me, I can't this up. And he's dealt with governors, mayors and all this other shit that he doesn't respect at all. So he's like, it's not going to get better than this. I, if, if I, I don't think he can ruin it is if they change the rule to let non citizens become president. Now we have an issue. But Trump would never change that rule because it's, that's his security blanket right there. It's, it's actually kind of like brilliantly done by Trump. It's ride with me against the left. Now Elon can't go to the left, so he has to be loyal to you. It's like he's Zelensky.

A (113:40)

Well, everybody that's associated with Trump is so unspeakable and toxic that they're never going to be allowed back.

B (113:46)

So now you got the loyalty built right there. Circling back to Chris's opening question.

C (113:52)

Is it possible that everyone's having less sex because of the Labubu male? But seriously, like, I mean, it's crossed.

A (114:01)

My mind sometimes too.

C (114:02)

Yeah, we need more polarity.

A (114:04)

Well, look, this is, to me, this just seems like the progeny of MeToo in many ways, that the message that a lot of men, the vast majority of well behaved, sexually disciplined, not pushy men, took was, I shouldn't be pushy. It's like, well, yeah, you already weren't that pushy and maybe you actually weren't pushy enough. So the issue with the message, don't be too pushy, is that the men who really need to hear it will ignore it and the men who are already predisposed to believe it will take it to heart. So what you end up with is this Weird selection effect where the bad actors still act badly and the ones who actually probably needed a little bit of a helping hand to go forward are like, oh, holy fuck. And maybe the Labuba man is just the final form of that.

C (114:56)

He's taking it too seriously.

A (114:58)

At the risk of just pouring petrol on this conversation and then flinging a.

B (115:03)

Match in, it strikes me that if your thesis is right, and in fact.

A (115:10)

Somewhere buried in all of this is.

B (115:13)

Actually a low level of sort of low level revulsion at labubuman and a.

A (115:18)

Yearning for a more. More direct and unmediated form of masculine sexual aggression.

B (115:25)

It has been suggested by people on.

A (115:27)

The Internet whose names I now forget.

B (115:29)

That this is in fact a factor in the extremely politically sensitive subject of.

A (115:38)

Migration into the country across the English Channel.

B (115:42)

As in there are. That there are progressive women who kind.

A (115:49)

Of, kind of enjoy the appearance of young men who haven't been laboobified yet. Wow. This is not because Labubu hasn't reached Syria.

C (116:00)

Labubu has not reached Syria.

B (116:02)

These guys are not noodle armed. These guys, in fact, have demonstrated considerable.

C (116:06)

Gumption in making it from wherever it.

B (116:08)

Is that they originated to England.

A (116:11)

I mean, it's a genuinely impressive level of gumption. Redemption.

C (116:14)

Yeah. Involved.

B (116:15)

Yeah. And I don't know, maybe spicy.

A (116:22)

Yeah, you really.

C (116:25)

So I. Okay, two things. One is so.

A (116:27)

So having. Having just.

B (116:28)

I'm just gonna say I'm gonna hand you the petrol cat.

C (116:32)

So I do actually agree with you.

B (116:33)

I was speaking to a journalist friend recently.

A (116:35)

No, you're not agreeing with me. You're agreeing with people on the Internet.

B (116:37)

Sorry, whose names I don't know. I was speaking to a friend, a journalist friend recently who had been in.

C (116:43)

Calais and speaking to these guys.

B (116:47)

And.

C (116:47)

He said like, what is really amazing is you'll talk to these guys about their life stories and it will be like, oh, yeah. So I came from Sudan and I.

B (116:55)

Walked across half of Africa and then I got to Libya and then I.

C (116:59)

Got enslaved and so I was taken to another country where I was a.

B (117:02)

Slave and then I was gang raped and then I somehow escaped from that and then I swam across the Channel.

C (117:05)

Whatever. It's like they tell this story and it's the most appalling thing you've ever heard.

B (117:09)

And they're physically.

C (117:10)

It's evident that they've been through this.

B (117:11)

And these are like 20 year old guys or something. And then that you ask them, why.

C (117:14)

Did you do it?

B (117:15)

And they're like, just like Manchester United. They'll offer some like, really weird, inadequate Answer. It's not even like I want access.

C (117:23)

To the welfare state because you could have got that in other European countries. It's, it's, it's quite like strange. And I do kind of get your.

B (117:29)

Point that there's an element of like crazy machones about it.

A (117:34)

Wow. If you're prepared to go through all of that for Manchester United, imagine what you'd do for your family and your partner.

C (117:39)

I suppose so. The only thing I would say though is that the impression that I get from a lot of women who are very, very invested in refugees welcome kind of stuff is that they really infantilize.

B (117:48)

These men at the same time. And there's a degree to which they're kind of scooping up the vulnerable, you know.

A (117:53)

You think this is a bit like.

B (117:54)

The American pit bull ladies phenomenon?

C (117:57)

Yeah, yeah. He's just misunderstood.

B (118:01)

I'll just add some, get it in there.

A (118:03)

It's O. This is another one of these discourses, actually, probably related obliquely to Labubu man. One of these memes that sloshes around in which a certain subtype of usually single American progressive women are accused of adopting actually obviously, murderously, sociopathically dangerous rescue pit bulls as a kind of proxy for the sort of man they would never dream of. Of admitting to fancying in real life.

B (118:34)

Right.

A (118:35)

Okay.

C (118:35)

So in a sense, you know, officially.

A (118:37)

They'Re only allowed to date Lububuman, and that's in fact the only people who.

B (118:40)

Are within their social circles immediately.

A (118:44)

And so they adopt a pitbull to.

B (118:45)

Just kind of compensate.

A (118:46)

So I see his lack of. I see you're Labubu man, and I raise you the newly nomenclatured himbo, which has actually come back around. The new dream guy is beefy, placid and politically ambiguous. Amid pitched debates about masculinity, the himbo stands stoically above it all as an alternative to the thinking man, the renaissance man, or the family man. Today's himbo offers just man a blurry image, a blunt political instrument, or just a caricature. The human equivalent of a smiley face. The himbo is in many senses unreal, a wish fulfillment fantasy. His true self is concealed behind a set of doe like eyes, the content of his inferiority forever unconfirmed. So is this like Ken in Greta Gerwig's but he says towards the end, if I'd realized patriarchy wasn't just about.

B (119:31)

Horses, I wouldn't have bothered.

A (119:32)

Hunk with a heart of gold. Hunk with a heart of gold. I think. Who was the dude that did Magic Mike. Who was the guy? The actor that played Magic Mike. Oh, Channing Tatum. Channing Tatum is often put forward as like him, but Channing Tatum follows me on Instagram, so I actually quite like him. But Hunk with a heart of gold. The human equivalent of a smiley face. What we've got here is basically, I think you're trying to cross the streams between Labuboo man in terms of disposition and front cover of a dark romance novel in terms of presentation.

B (120:06)

I mean, it's a tricky tightrope for women. Because on the one hand, you want, and this is an eternal conundrum, you want a man who is going to protect you and protect your children and provide for you in times of extreme threat.

C (120:18)

Right. But you also don't want someone who's gonna beat you up and beat up your children.

B (120:21)

Children. And so that's tricky, the line that.

A (120:23)

You'Ve got to perennially walk.

C (120:24)

Yeah. And so the himbo is.

B (120:27)

I love a himbo. Right. And the impression for my female friends is that himbos are very high status. I remember a friend talking to me about how attractive a himbo was, and.

C (120:35)

She said she really, really didn't want, I guess, a Labubu man who was, like, excessively intellectual. She said, if I came home and.

B (120:41)

He was like, I just read something in the New York Review of Books.

C (120:44)

I would kill myself. It's not what she wants from a man. Right. A himbo does kind of tread that tightrope. Like he's physically capable clearly, of doing.

B (120:55)

What'S needed if you're at risk.

C (120:57)

But he's so sweethearted that he would.

B (120:59)

Never turn on you again. I mean, skipping sideways through this sort of untidy territory, there was a piece.

A (121:05)

I think it was in the New York Times, which is often a sort.

B (121:08)

Of barometer for what American middle class women in their 30s think about stuff in general. I think it was the New York.

A (121:17)

Times, but it was somewhere in that.

B (121:19)

Zone, that discursive zone anyway.

A (121:23)

On a fascinating new trend of women marrying down.

C (121:26)

And what they were actually talking about.

B (121:28)

No, no, but what they were talking.

A (121:30)

About wasn't actually women marrying down. It was women marrying below their educational level. Actually, they were marrying financially. They were marrying up because these were women with maybe a degree and a master's or a degree and a PhD or something, but no money and a mountain of debt. It's like complex hypergamy who were marrying.

C (121:46)

Construction, you know, construction entrepreneurs or, you.

A (121:49)

Know, a successful plumber with several employees who was turning over you chunks of change and so, you know, in straightforward.

B (121:56)

Financial terms, you know, it's at least a match if not marrying up.

A (122:00)

But in intellectual and in terms of.

B (122:03)

A particular type of caste, as distinct.

A (122:06)

From straightforward economic levels, you know, she, she was exp.

C (122:10)

You know, some of these women were.

A (122:11)

Experiencing it as kind of marrying down.

B (122:13)

And I think there's something, there's something, you know, I think that speaks to.

A (122:15)

Your himbo in the sense that very sensibly, these, these extremely over educated women of married some guy who's going to appreciate their brains and also be able.

B (122:23)

To pay the mortgage, you know, without trying to compete.

A (122:26)

It seems like the himbo is economically prepared and maybe educationally underdeveloped, whereas the Labubu man is maybe economically underdeveloped and over educated. I mean, would you rather have a.

C (122:39)

Guy who can talk, Would you rather.

A (122:40)

Have a guy who can talk contemporary.

B (122:42)

Literature but can't afford to buy you.

A (122:43)

Dinner or some guy who can fix the plumbing when it goes wrong? He just doesn't care what you think about books.

B (122:49)

I have a funny story about this with my. It occurs to me my parents technically have that dynamic because my mum has.

C (122:55)

A PhD and my dad has an.

B (122:57)

Undergraduate degree and then became a lawyer.

C (122:59)

But Anyone who knows PhDs don't translate.

B (123:02)

Into big money, right? So my dad's always earned a lot more. But there was this funny story about a time when he was at work, this is the age for the Internet, and someone referred to King Lear in talking about office politics. He was like, oh, someone's behaving like King Lear in relation to someone and.

C (123:16)

He didn't understand what they were saying. And so he called my mom like.

B (123:18)

Very quietly and said, what happens in King Learn?

C (123:22)

It's a funny example of this, but there's something there.

A (123:26)

How much do women find that endearing? How much do women find needing to intellectually coddle their partner beyond up to a certain point, how much do they find that is oh, noble savage.

B (123:38)

I personally find that endearing. I don't know if I'm representing if.

C (123:41)

He'S also sort of generally red blooded.

B (123:42)

In his bearing and behavior and is.

A (123:44)

Also capable of fixing stuff around the house that goes wrong?

C (123:47)

I don't really see the problem is very girly.

A (123:50)

What about if it's the opposite? What about if it's somebody who can tell you what has been happening in the New York Review of Books but needs to call his dad if there's something broken in the toilet at your house? I mean, competence. Competence is very hot.

B (124:03)

Or should you know, right but this.

A (124:04)

Is competence within a particular domain. Because you can say the noble savage is incompetent when it comes to his intellectual development.

C (124:10)

I mean, I suppose, you know, zooming.

B (124:12)

Back a bit, you could probably make the case that we're currently in an.

C (124:16)

Age of flux where these never ending.

A (124:18)

Growth really does feel like it's come to an end.

B (124:20)

Politics is quite uncertain. We've got war in Europe for the.

A (124:23)

First time in a very long time and all kinds of things don't feel.

C (124:27)

As certain and safe and stable as they used to.

A (124:29)

And it could be that in fact some of these very instinctive mating patterns.

C (124:35)

Are shifting, are going to shift, or.

B (124:37)

Are perhaps already shifting in the light of how people assess their own prospects in that very much more uncertain way.

A (124:44)

World people want to become more high agency, presumably. We've said it's important, we've identified what it is, how it works, some ways that people can fall into traps to stop them from being it, some beliefs that those people have are there. Give me something, give me a pair of breasts. Give me something tangible up ease sake.

B (125:05)

I'd say so there's a few, right, so the first one that I've mentioned a few times, but I really want to actually get into it, which is the does it defy the laws of physics question. Because, okay, the going back to the brain is a question answering device. So if you say why or what's great about my life, it'll start finding answers. If you say what's awful about my life, it will start finding answers. And let's say we go to a venue together and the guy on the front door says, sorry, not tonight, mate. And then you go, okay, accept that social reality. And it's, well, does it fundamentally defy the laws of physics? Does it go against Newton's laws of motion? Chris, getting into Tiger Tiger tonight? No. Does it defy Einstein's relativity? No. And that point sounds trite, but then when you actually begin to understand that, well, you go, well, as long as it doesn't defy the laws of physics, anything is theoretically possible with human knowledge. And again, it sounds trite saying that, but you just look at the last few hundred years since the Enlightenment, when you have this period before it where nothing happened in humanity. We would just. Your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great granddad's life looked the same as yours. And meanwhile we have this change and the ability for humans to understand how things work and implement it into reality and happen to life and shape their environment that we just now completely take for Granted, like me getting annoyed at the flat Diet Coke on the Emirates flight is a big thing. The second thing, which is probably a little less esoteric that I really, really like as a metaphor, is when you're in the complete low agency and everything is super general and it's like I don't even know where to begin. I don't even know where to start. One thing I love doing a little experiment I got was going, okay, let's say have a problem right now. Now of had a friend at the minute who, who he's an extreme, but a friend we both know, actually he's an extreme workaholic to a point that I've never, I've never seen before. And he was talking about how it's a problem, he just doesn't know where to start. And I said to him, I go, okay, where are you at right now out of 10? And it suddenly takes this kind of general infinite universe all the way down to okay, well a bit of a binary choice there. And you can never say seven, right? So he goes, I'm a three. And I go okay. And I go, why? Why are you at a three, by the way? Like, why aren't you at a two? And he goes, to be honest with you, because I've actually like not worked tonight and I've come here to see you. I go, okay, so we're getting some specificity here. And I go, okay, well what would take it up to a 4? And he goes, well, if I left the office before 8:00pm I'd give that a four. I go, okay, great, got a little step down. What would take it to a five?

A (127:59)

What?

B (127:59)

Take it to a six? Seven, eight, nine, ten. I go, okay, first off, let's just do the four immediately. And then as soon as you have that, you have momentum. One of the things I love, and I'll probably put it in the piece of like a template that people can use, is just what I call the video game Apple Note. So you have, let's say for example to do list in Apple Note, build a website. The problem with that is that's starting the video game on level 56. So I had this fascinating realization that two, sorry, one person that I knew was the laziest person I've ever met, couldn't open his mail, couldn't get out of bed and make himself some food, but was one of the best video game players at that specific game in the world. I would spend 16 hours a day on this video game. And I go, well, do they have an agency problem? Or is their reality just a poorly designed video game? So the video game Apple know is just level one. Let's say whatever it is, whether it's from opening mail to going to Kitty Hawk and taking the planes into the sky, there's always a level one. And that's what video games are incredible at, that they adapt to where you're at and then just slowly move you up again. Completely the opposite of school. So level one is always just dump down thoughts on topic. And what I love about that is no matter how complex the thing is, from curing cancer to flying planes, to opening the you can always dump down thoughts and then you check it off and level two is create the next five levels based off level one. And what's beautiful is when you check level one, level one's small enough to start, but isn't overwhelming. So you have that video game bit of dopamine, then when you check it off, you're like, fuck, let's go, I'm on level two. And then each step is enough. So key thing with video game design is it's enough of a step to feel a challenge, but without overwhelm. And if it's too big of a step, like level 56, build website, that's too big of a step. You just are constantly in frustration. So you just quit the video game. It's a terribly designed video game, but breaking things down into micro steps is such a key thing in video game design and ultimately increasing agency.

A (130:01)

Yeah, I mean this is the Productivity 101. You write your epigraph, you work in seven year seasons, you work in three year blocks, you work in one year sprints, broken down into 90 day chunks, broken down into daily actions. And you know, minute by minute you've got your life planned out. And it's kind of trite because it's so obvious, but the smallest first step imaginable is how the Wright brothers managed to get their plane to go. It's how you launched your marketing agency in a different country. It's how this podcast started.

B (130:37)

Yes. And yeah, you need to be able to, if you can figure out ways that you can constantly make that first step. Because 50% of the battle is that first step. So if you have that great tool, another tool more related to. So we spoke earlier about the four tenets of high agency. You have clear thinking, you have bias to action, you have resourcefulness and disagreeability. On the disagreeability point, which I think is a huge, huge part of it, the question I like to ask people is who's Your favorite podcaster creator, me Thinker. So let's say all the people listening to it right now who have the Spotify wrapped with you, top of the list. What do you disagree with Chris on? Because there'll be a percentage. Nothing. Right. It's all good, baby. But there'll be a percentage of the audience, unfortunately, probably less so with your audience. But there'll be a percentage of the audience that says, Chris says sky is red, therefore sky is red. And that's actually a great disagreeability test because the amount of times I put gurus on a pedestal and then they'll start, they'll say a lot of wise shit and then I'll just start drifting without.

A (131:42)

Over their skis.

B (131:43)

Yeah, yeah. And then they'll start drifting and I'll just go with them. But that ability to say, who do you admire the most and what do you disagree with them on is a great disagreeability test.

A (131:52)

That's really lovely.

B (131:53)

Another one is who do you disag? Like, who do you. What's the. Maybe the strongest held opinion that you have have whether that's politically, business wise, theoretically, and who's the best person on the other side that you've heard? Can you answer those two questions?

A (132:11)

Have you ever read Richard Feynman's love letter to his wife?

B (132:15)

No. I read the pleasure of finding things out.

A (132:18)

Okay.

B (132:18)

But I love Feynman. Love, love, love. I mean, you can see a lot of influences.

A (132:21)

I might not be able to say this without crying, which is going to be very embarrassing, but I'm going to try. I. October 17, 1946. Darlene, I adore you, sweetheart. I know how much you like to hear it, but I don't only write it because you like it. I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write you. It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you. Almost two years. But I know you'll excuse me because you understand how I am stubborn and realistic and I thought there was no sense to write. But now I know, my darling wife, that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I will always love you. I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead. But I still want to comfort and take care of you. And I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you. I want to do little projects with you. I never Thought until now that we can do that. What should we do? We started to learn to make clothes together or learn Chinese or get a movie projector. Can't I do something now? No. I am alone without you. And you were the idea woman and general instigator of all our wild adventures. When you were sick, you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to to and thought I needed. You needn't have worried. Just as I told you then. There was no real need. Because I loved you in so many ways, so much. And now it is clearly even more true. You can give me nothing. Yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else. But I want you to stand there. You dead are so much better than anyone else alive. I know you'll assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don't want to be in my way. I'll bet you are surprised that I don't even have a girlfriend except you, sweetheart, after two years. But you can't help it, darling. Nor can I. I don't understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones, and I don't want to remain alone. But. But in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real. My darling wife. I do adore you. I love my wife. My wife is dead.

B (134:55)

Tough. To play the reverse out. It's like, would I want Layla to write that letter? And I don't think I would unless she was happy writing that letter.

A (135:28)

Better.

B (135:30)

But if the removal of me as a contingency of reinforcement for her meant that she couldn't find that in somebody else would sadden me. And so I've already. So like with Layla. I've told her. I tell her a lot. I was like, I'm going to die before you. Statistically, there's. I'm for sure gonna die before you.

A (135:55)

She's a little younger.

B (135:56)

She's younger and I'm bigger female. And she exercised like she's for sure gonna. And I was like, I want you to spend as little time as humanly possible from the time that I die to finding somebody else. You do me no service by making yourself miserable. And you do not discredit or dishonor me by finding somebody else to spend your life with. So, yeah, just. I only think about that from reverse.

A (136:23)

There's a. The joy of melancholy. Collie.

B (136:28)

Yeah.

A (136:28)

Is an interesting kind of emotion that's kind of complex, you know, this strange wallowing satisfaction in Wistfulness and, yeah, wallowing. Wallowing's maybe a little. A little more loaded, but melancholy, you know, there can be odd joy and sadness and a kind of beauty that you get to experience after something is gone that you can't experience during it. I've not had anybody in my life die. Only child with a mother and a father that's still alive like I've got. There's no one.

B (137:06)

Must be nice.

A (137:10)

But there's not been many things that I've lost. And this is me Monday morning quarterbacking. I don't know, but maybe.

B (137:23)

What's a mood setter?

A (137:26)

Modern women see Layla and think, I'll wait to establish myself in my career before I date or get married or have kids. But they forget we got married when she was 23 and we built this together. Love is one of the rare times you don't do life in order, but rather all at once.

B (137:54)

If you find someone that makes your world go round and makes the world make sense to you, where you both look at the same thing and say, oh, you saw that too. I feel like I was the only one. I think that for high achieving individuals, finding someone who sees the world the same way is incredibly rare. And when you find that person, you should stop what you're doing and then you should get them to stay with you. And it's been one of the best decisions of my entire life, marrying Layla. And. There's this, especially unfortunately for women right now. There's this huge put it off delay. There's no rush. But it doesn't actually take into consideration two things. One is that biology hasn't advanced with culture and society. You can't have kids past 35. I mean, you can, but you're a geriatric, you know, it's a geriatric pregnancy. Past 35.

A (138:54)

Ruthless term.

B (138:55)

Yeah, I'm just being real, right?

A (138:56)

Yeah.

B (138:57)

And so, I mean, this is like super prevalent and I know this is a much more common theme on the show, and I don't touch it very much, but I just say it more like, because I think it sucks.

A (139:08)

It's unfair.

B (139:09)

It's unfair. Yeah. It's objectively, it's not fair. Guys can wait their whole lives, they can do everything. And you have to, if you go to college, graduate college at 21 or 22, and if you want to have four kids, assuming that you have perfect pregnancies and you have exactly one year or 18 months between each one, okay, that's six years by the time you're done. And so. So if we rule out that geriatric pregnancy is our last, then it means that we have to basically, or we, you have to have your first kid at 29. Well, okay, maybe it'll take, let's just tack one year on of marriage to have the kid and be married. Okay, 28, you're married. All right, do you want to MARRY Somebody within six months of meeting them? Let's give it two years to give our logical brain in. Okay, so 26. 26, you graduate at 22, you have 48 months. And I think that again, this is. If you don't want kids, then all of this is null. If you do, then you have a very small window to piece that together. Now, of course, there's surrogates and maybe in the future, I'll say in general, betting on, I'll smoke cigarettes now because by the time I'm old they'll have a cure for it. I don't know, I just, I don't make those bets. And so it's easier to work with.

A (140:31)

Reality the way it is, not the way you hope it's going to end up landing.

B (140:34)

Yeah. To knowingly incur basically a guaranteed price for the potential of maybe a non existent solution is probably not the best decision making process. And to be clear, I say this. Layla and I, you know, we don't have kids, she's not 35. But I think that we have these unrealistic expectations that someone is going to make our lives, that they're going to complete us in some way. When I think that for me, the best thing that a partner can do is help you be the best version of yourself. I love what you said about really appreciating small victories so forth to go back to the nobility. And I kind of relate to that. An early Buddhist frame of these are the truths for noble beings. Not noble by birth, but noble by effort. There's a nobility in letting yourself feel deeply or be revealed deeply. Like to go back to that maybe conversation at dinner that went bad to say, you know, at the end of the day, I was there in good faith. Maybe I was unskillful. I said this or that. There's lessons to learn for the future. I was there in good faith. I was there with my whole heart, heart deep down. And I was brave enough to be earnest and sincere enough to kind of lay it out like, yeah, take pride in that. Healthy pride, you know, appreciate yourself for that. The heroism, the nobility in that and the uncommonness of that, to me, that's, that's where real bravery Is.

A (142:08)

That's really cool. Yeah, I love that. I get the sense as well that this is one of the reasons why allowing yourself to be puppeted by your own fear to not show up. There's an equivalent in the world of content creation, which is audience capture. So continuing to throw red meat that is predictably going to be liked by the audience, but doesn't necessarily resonate with you as a person. It's actually, you know the word grifter? Have you familiar with that? Right. Okay. So I asked. It's a word that gets thrown around on the Internet a lot for all manner of different individuals. And I genuinely was interested. I said, hey, for the people that use the word grifter, what is the best working definition of what that word means for you? Because it's just kind of a slight. It's a slur. It's like calling. Yeah, it's just a very odd, nebulous term that people tend to use for someone that you think might not be fully authentic. I mean, come on, let's get a bit more specific. And somebody said, said. And I actually really appreciated this. And this is currently my working definition. Somebody promoting a product or staking a claim that they wouldn't use or don't believe themselves. So it's. Here is what I'm doing out front. This is what I believe in private behind, I was like, huh, that's okay. I can work with that. That's like a functional definition, I think, for what people think they mean when they say that word. And my point is, with the audience capture thing, it's you not being you. It's you trying to be manipulative. In a way, it's this sort of meta you. It's playing Persona, not person, it's projecting, et cetera. And that conversation at the restaurant, that was ungainly or didn't go the way that you wanted. The difference between you showing up with vulnerable sincerity or just straight up sincerity, like, this is me and this is the position that I hold, and I said it. All right, Could I have said. Said it with a little bit more deftness? Yeah, probably. And, you know, could have delivered it, but I tried. Like, I gave it a crack and that was actually what I meant, I said what I meant. And that, you know, I can take some lessons from it. The difference between that and the lessons that you can take from that situation and a situation where you didn't say what you meant and you were still rejected is the kind of the last bastion of, well, I tried and, you know, fuck Like I guess, you know, you can kind of laugh it off. There is an ability to do humor in that. But where is the humor that you find that I compromised myself to try and be somebody else and that was rejected. There's an additional level of difficulty in getting past it. And I think it's just a nice justification for, yeah, showing up sincerely, showing up earnestly, you know, sort of playful seriousness, I think is, huh, why I have this additional level of protection for all of the fear that you are going to have by being seen and by this being me and by a rejection of that not being a rejection of a projection, but a rejection of a person. And that person happens to be myself. What you do gain in that is, well, at least I was myself. At least this weird character I tried to play, this role that I tried to perform wasn't rejected because to be honest, that's kind of more pitiful than the other way around.

B (145:45)

That's so true. I'm thinking the ways in which playfulness is a great aid to aspiration without attachment. And if we're incredibly not just earnest, but if we're self righteous or pompous about our pursuit of even a wholesome goal, that's not so good. But to be playful about it. I think about. I made a play using the word for a woman in my late 20s. I was part of this whole personal growth contest, text, kind of half a cult, I won't name it now. And so everybody was really deep in each other's business, kind of all knowing each other. And there was a woman in a relationship with like the head dude. So I was like a layer or two down from alpha and she was with alpha boy. And I fully played, went for it. I, it was public, it was known. I wrote these nice little notes, I told them what I was doing and I went full out. And I didn't know if I would get it. I didn't. And she was relatively kind and it was okay. But at the end of the day, I felt good about myself, that I, little Ricky, kind of the dork had still stuck my neck out and, you know, made a play for a particular woman. And I feel great. You know, I went for it, right? If I hadn't gone for it, I'd be thinking, you wussy, you should have gone for it. Why not take the risk? But what enabled it is there was a playfulness about it. It was like an improbable goal and I could be playful about it, which helped me be less attached to the outcome.

A (147:31)

My friend Charlie did a wonderful video breakdown of Jordan Peterson's most recent debate against 20 atheists. It was on the Jubilee YouTube channel. So it's a. A series called Surrounded. And it's. It's doing huge numbers. It's really cool. Kind of like speed dating for debate, I guess, is kind of the way that I would.

B (147:56)

Format.

A (147:57)

Yeah, it rings.

B (147:57)

We used to call them a fishbowl. You're in the fishbowl and you've got 10 or 20 people around you. Okay.

A (148:02)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And each person comes in individually and you do a bit, and then they move on and so on and so forth. And he does this comparison between Jordan when he did that Cathy Newman interview in 2019. So what you're saying is that really famous one in front of the purple background and this most recent one. And Charlie is very interested in charisma, and he's talking about likability. He's big into playfulness, and he's very deep into self work and mindfulness too. So I think that sort of percolates through. And he has this. He just compares them side by side. And I'd never even thought of this because the way that people change, especially over a long period. It's been six years, maybe seven years since that first debate came out. And then there's this new one, and if someone changes slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, you kind of. You don't really notice. Right. It's like, when did you get fat? It's like, I don't know, one day at a time. And he just makes a really lovely distinction between Jordan in that first one where Kathy's sort of pointing her finger at him and saying, so what you're saying is this thing. And he goes, no, I'm not saying that at all. I think that's silly. I think that's really. I think that's. I do. I think that's really silly. And you just have this. It's keeping him regulated. It feels more casual. It's much easier to get onside. It's a much more likable approach. Now he's standing his ground, but he's standing his ground in a sort of, you know, really fluid, sort of Bruce Lee kind of way. We've sort of touched on them a few times. But just do a rundown for me of the most commonplace is that people are getting exposed to the highest levels of microplastics. Yeah.

C (149:39)

So the. The most, I would say, common places one is drinking out of bottled water. Like bottled plastic bottles. Right. Like a lot of people drink out of plastic bottles, that would be a big source. Tap water that's unfiltered. So tap water again also has microplastics. Unfortunately, our oceans are contaminated. So microplastics are also found in a lot of, of fish. And particularly they accumulate in the digestive tract of fish. So if you're eating shellfish or clams or oysters or anything where you're eating the whole digestive tract or a sardine whole. Whole sardine, then you're going to be getting microplastics. Heat is a big, big one. Okay. I would say that is one of the main, you know, culprits when you're combining that with plastic. So a lot of your to go coffees that you're drinking from. Starbucks, Starbucks, anything like that is going. That is a huge one because you're, you're, you know, there's been studies looking at BPA leaching into liquid. When it's, when heat, like boiling water is applied, it increases, increases the leaching by 55 times, which is huge. It also increases microplastic, you know, breakdown. Right. Because you're breaking down the plastic, only.

A (150:55)

You'Re getting more, you're making the plastic smaller, which allows it to be permeating through the gut more effectively.

C (151:02)

Exactly, exactly. I can't tell you how many like to go coffees I've had in my life. And you know, another big source now this is like new coming out. I mean, this, there's been a couple of studies that have come out on this is tea bags, because you're adding hot water to tea. And the tea bags themselves are made of either polypropylene, they're made of nylon, or they're made of, interestingly, cellulose, which you would think wouldn't have microplastics. But I think they, they must be mixed thus, must be a mixture of stuff in there. And there's this new study came out, you know, really just a couple of months ago showing that you can get anywhere between millions to billions of microplastic particles per milliliter.

B (151:47)

How many, I mean, per milliliter, how.

A (151:49)

Many, how much is that compared with the normal sort of. That's a, that's a large dose.

C (151:53)

That's a lot. Okay, It's a lot. What I'm getting at is, you know, I, you know, there's not that. I, I think what's happening is the, the, the heat is breaking the plastic down. These tea bags are made of plastic. And so, you know, consuming these tea bags, again, when you're getting to goatee, it's like I, I now I'm like, all I can think about is like I'm consuming a plastic tea.

A (152:17)

Yeah, yeah.

C (152:17)

But you have to remember there's a lot of studies, at least with green tea, showing that, that green tea has huge benefits for cognition. It, it delays dementia, might even offset.

A (152:26)

The microplastics you've had to consume.

C (152:28)

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, clearly people are drinking tea out of probably tea bags. So it's not like, at least with green tea, it seems like there's some, there's some benefits. Right, but so, so those are some of the major sources. And then there's also, it's in our salt and then air. Right? So like that, that's another one. If you're living in a polluted place, if you're again, and you know, internally venting your dryer, dryer, ventilation in your house, that's a, another major source. And then another one would be also to consider would be black plastic. So I know you're like, what this is, this is kind of some new data coming out. Black plastic is often made from recycled.

A (153:08)

Electronics and you mean bits of plastic that are black.

C (153:13)

I mean black, black utensils like your black spatula or black plastic, you know, forks and knives or your, your black plastic lid on a coffee to go. Coffee cup, black sushi, the bottom of a sushi container, bottom of like a rotisserie chicken. If you've ever bought a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, that black, right. Black plastic, it's often made from recycled electronics. And recycled electronics often have chemicals in them that are added to prevent, prevent fires from starting. Like they don't want electronics starting fire. So they add these brominated flame retardants, which are carcinogenic. They are not supposed to be in food. They're not supposed to. They're not. You're not, you don't suck on your electronic, they're not supposed to go in your mouth. Right. So these black, these black plastics have very high levels of carcinogens that are normally not even found in regular plastics that were, you know, in, in things that we're consuming. And there was a study out of the University of Plymouth that found black utensils, black toys for babies, you know, they're putting in their mouth. They contain between 30 to 40 times the safe limit of these brominated flame retardants and other carcinogens and endocrine disruptors in them than. And then, then safe. So that's another sort of. And think about it. If you're Buying like a rotisserie chicken or like you get a to go pho or whatever soup and it's in like a black, black container. You got the heat. That's the added factor on top of that. Right. So that's another major source.

A (154:45)

What about dermal stuff?

C (154:48)

Yes. So again, we mentioned the phthalates, right. Which are in personal hygiene products. And that's something I do want to mention because you might think, oh, I'm looking at the ingredient list and there's no phthalate on there, but there's two different, different chemicals that are very, very sneaky because they mean there's phthalates and they're in a lot of personal hygiene products. One is fragrance. If the word fragrance is in the ingredient ingredients list, that means there's phthalates and parfum, not perfume, but parfume. That is another chemical that means there's phthalates. So you really want to look for phthalate free personal hygiene products. Again, very important, especially for people that are considering conceiving because those, the chemicals that are associated with the sexual, you know, disrupting sexual development in boys. And then the other one is receipts. And this is a really big one because maybe not for you and I. Right? Receipts are, they're thermal paper. And so essentially they're coated with BPA because there's a thermal reaction that happens when heat is applied to the bpa. It prints. It prints text on the receipt without actual ink. So that's how it works. And if you ever see like a white coating on the receipt like that, that's bpa. So the BPA in like plastics at least is kind of contained in a plastic matrix.

A (156:15)

Like this is just, it's purposefully liberated.

C (156:17)

Yes, exactly. It's, it's like free for all on the receipt. And so there's studies looking at people that handle a lot of receipts. The other, like when I was in.

A (156:26)

The airport, stuff and stuff like that.

C (156:27)

Yeah, I was in the airport on, coming, coming here and you know, I, the, the guy that was like handling the receipt, he's like, do you want the receipt? I'm like, no. And I saw him take it out and put it in the trash. And like, I thought about, there's this huge line of people.

A (156:42)

You're doing that 500 times a day.

C (156:43)

Exactly. And I looked at the guy and I was like, I was like, hey, dude, you know, I just want to tell you that these receipts are lined with endocrine disruptors that disrupt hormones.

A (156:52)

And he goes, you mean wish somebody had recorded this. Oh my God, this lady who's going through the airport. I met this lady earlier on today and she started ranting and raving about the receipts. Said it's sort of covered in this magic dust that's killing me or something. Like, I couldn't.

C (157:09)

I couldn't help my. I felt like it. Like I couldn't not say something, right. And he looks at me, he goes, you mean like testosterone? I was like, yes, testosterone. It's been show. It's been correlated with a decrease in testosterone. I was like, you need to wear nitrile gloves. So bottom line is bpa. It's lined on the receipts. Nitrile gloves can stop people from absorbing it. So people that are like, you know, basically any kind of cashier, anyone that's handling a receipt multiple times a day, highly recommend they wear nitrile gloves. Latex doesn't do that. Also, if you wear cream or hand sanitizer, it. It's been shown to increase the dermal absorption of BPA by a hundredfold off.

A (157:54)

Some people are like, I don't want to get my hands on the.

C (157:57)

I don't want to get Covid or whatever, right? How many hundred x 100x absorption. Think about how. How many times these reg. I've seen. I've seen them do it, you know, and then they touch the receipt. So I think, I think this is like something that's not really talked about. And here I am worried about my like one time exposure. So, you know, for people out there, it's like, yeah, you can opt for.

A (158:17)

A career of working in Target or something like that. That. So the first time that I ever learned about receipts, you won't know who this is, but Owen Schroyer, who is Alex Jones's sort of second in command, I went for dinner with him when I first moved to Austin forever ago. It was him and a bunch of other people. There's a couple of girls at the table with us as well. Just downtown in Austin. And the receipt came out and I was like, I'm sort of new here. I'll get the meal. That'd be nice. It'd be a nice thing for me to do. So I did it. And as I'm going to get the receipt out, one of the girls that sat around the table like, hits my hand away. I'm like, what? She's like, what are you doing? As if I was about to walk out into open traffic. I'm like, I was going to take the receipt and I was going to put the tip on she was like, are you crazy? You going to touch that? I'm like, so it kind of does show that the fringe insight from three years ago, some of that stuff ends up being a bullseye and sort of percolates around. Now. I'm not saying that all of it is, but some of this stuff ends up being legit, right?

C (159:13)

It is. It's definitely legit. And it is a concern, particularly for people that are handling them daily. Multiple times. Multiple times a day. And I don't know that I've really. I've seen a couple people wearing gloves at cash registers.

A (159:26)

Like they've got special ones that are like finger things. Have you seen those?

C (159:29)

I've seen those.

A (159:30)

An individual. So maybe just the sort of your first two fingers and your thumb or something, rather than having to wear sweaty gloves all day.

C (159:36)

Right.

A (159:36)

And I imagine that's, I mean, significant. Well, it gets through latex as well.

C (159:40)

It gets through latex.

A (159:42)

There is no way of getting it perfect. There is no complete. No finish line, no done. There is simply. What's the next experiment? There is only play.

B (159:50)

Yeah, yeah. So the. Yeah, so the way I think about that one is, so when is an oak tree perfect? When it's an acorn? When it's like a sapling? When it's like a hundred years old, when it's 200 years old? Like, when is it perfect? But yet somehow or another we have to be perfect, but it's not. It's just iteration. It's just. It's just evolution. Evolution doesn't end. The only thing that ends is an idea in our head and our egos. Egos can't exist if you actually really understand that there is no end, the ego has to evaporate.

A (160:25)

Say more on that.

B (160:29)

Right. So oftentimes the people who are searching for enlightenment, they think once they get the enlightenment, then it'll be done.

A (160:34)

Done.

B (160:35)

Right. That's just the ego talking. That's just, oh, there is going to be this end point where then I'm going to be happy. Like that. That. That is an ego thought process so that you. They can. So you can whip yourself and beat yourself up to get to that place. And it is just a way to convince yourself that what you want can't be found right now. So if I said to you, right now, without going into the past, without going into the future, you can't find any evidence from the past or any evidence in the future to find a problem with you.

A (161:11)

Yeah, that's funny.

B (161:12)

Yeah, there's none. You can't Find it. So you need an end. Because the other choice is to be in this moment, which is where the ego doesn't get to exist.

A (161:26)

I wrote this quote from Van Gogh this week in my newsletter that said, if I'm worth anything later, I'm worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is grass in the beginning.

B (161:38)

Oh, I like that. That's so fucking good.

A (161:41)

The same thing you're talking about, right? It is the acorn.

B (161:44)

Okay, I'm.

A (161:45)

Wheat is wheat, even if people think it is grass.

B (161:47)

Beginning. I'm going to geek out. Let me geek out for just a second. So today I got a text from somebody who, who is Zen teacher that I know. And he was worried about AI and. And so found out that I'm working.

A (162:00)

You're the guy to ask.

B (162:01)

Yeah, apparently I'm. Yeah.

A (162:02)

Are they coming for my Zen teaching?

B (162:04)

Say again?

A (162:04)

Are they coming for my Zen teaching? Tell me, Joe.

B (162:10)

Yep. And. And my response was just like everything. This river is going to find the lowest ground. So where it's going to end up is already determined. Determined. And it's the same thought process that you just said there. Like, even the action that I take and that all the people will take towards influencing AI, like all of that is set from that same kind of point of view. So our job is the same. It's like, show up with love. Do what you're called to do. You know, draw the boundaries, say the truth that you can see. But the whole idea of I have to manage my entire world to get to the place is just. It's just a huge amount of stress. It's all self talk.

A (162:56)

Yeah. Not real again. To sort of fly the flag for the insecure overachievers out there. The desire for control. If I can prepare sufficiently well, if I can know every different permutation of every different outcome, then I reduce down the play within the system. So it's so precise. So that what I think is going to happen and what is going to happen end up being so tightly correlated that there's no variance at all.

B (163:25)

Ah.

A (163:25)

Ah. Okay. There we go. There's a bit of certainty. Isn't that nice?

B (163:30)

Isn't that death?

A (163:34)

Yeah. I want the. I want. I. I want this wholly under control and absolutely predictable existence.

B (163:39)

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think about this in a slightly different way, but there is no life without tension. A cell doesn't exist without tension. Your lungs don't exist without tension.

A (163:52)

Salad cell.

B (163:53)

No cell salad. Doesn't exist without tension. Dude, I had this vision.

A (164:04)

I had this vision in my mind, I was like, why has he got, like, bits of fucking lettuce leaf hanging across a string? I had a tightrope walk, but it's just individual leafs of lettuce hanging over a salad bowl. Holy fuck. Wow. Yeah. Okay, getting back to it. A cell doesn't exist without tension.

B (164:22)

Yeah. There's just so. Life doesn't exist without tension. So the idea that you're going to be at peace when there's no tension, the idea that you're going to be at peace when you've narrowed everything down so that you don't have to actually feel that tension. Tension is death. So you don't find peace by having no tension. You find peace by enjoying the tension, of welcoming the tension, looking forward to the tension.

A (164:48)

Is safety got anything to do with it here? Is there a degree of unsafety?

B (164:51)

There is no safety. Safety is an illusion. What the fuck is safe? Like, we're sitting in, like, we're in Austin, Texas, in a cool thing. Like. Yeah, it's pretty safe. But hurricane, earthquake, fire. Safety is just something that we like to pretend exists. Yeah. And also, like a form of death.

A (165:19)

If it feels scary to say, it's important. If it feels scary to say, not saying it, it will hurt your connection. If it feels scary to say, not saying it prioritizes their imagined reaction over your truth.

B (165:33)

Yeah. Why?

A (165:37)

Why?

B (165:38)

So I'm not scared to say things that aren't important to me and vulnerable to me. So I could qualify that and say that quote. I could qualify that quote and say. Say with an open heart. To say it with an open heart. But. And I think that would probably be more accurate. But if I'm scared to say it, it means that there's something important and it's something vulnerable. If I say the important thing to you and I'm vulnerable with you, our connection deepens. Always the case. If I am not willing to say that, it means I'm scared of a reaction that you're going to have for me, which means I'm prioritizing you. You more than I'm prioritizing my own needs.

A (166:22)

Yes. Yes.

B (166:24)

I'm actually prioritizing my fear over our connection as well.

A (166:28)

And over yourself and.

B (166:29)

Yeah, and over myself. That's right.

A (166:31)

So it's.

B (166:32)

And so this is how I run my business. It's how we run our marriage. It's how everything. It's like. And this prevents resentment. Like, it's amazing. If. If I find something that doesn't feel right, I will speak to it. I might not speak to it right now. It might take a day. Because I'm not going to be heartless and like. And not pay attention to the person or have compassion or empathy for where they're at. But I'm going to say the thing that's scary to say or the thing that's bothering me and, and. And my expectation with the 18 or so people in our organization is that they do the same thing. Like, that's a. We tell them that's. That's the job. You gotta say the hard thing. We actually start our meetings with. What's the scary thing? You're not saying? Because that's what keeps relationships clean. That's what keeps the problems at bay. That's like stepping into it instead of trying to avoid it.

A (167:21)

I was trying to think about the difference between selfish and selfless. And this is a third one that's not either of them. So you're not being selfish because you're actually hurting yourself in it. You're not being selfless because you're killing the connection. I'm like, what the fuck is this?

B (167:39)

And you're not trusting them.

A (167:41)

Yeah, it's like, what is it? You know, it's one of those interesting situations where it's neither selfish nor selfish. Yeah. Yeah.

B (167:47)

That's really cool.

A (167:48)

Yeah.

B (167:48)

There's no.

A (167:50)

It's just destructive. Well, actually, it's kind of. It's destructive to the self and it's destructive to the other as well. I guess that's one way to put it. Right. It's like, it's bad on all fronts.

B (168:01)

Yeah. I remember having this moment where so. So we did this in our company and I was just like, we do this. We're gonna. If something's upsetting anybody, we talk about it. That's how we're doing. And one day I came into. And I was the woman who I, at the time, worked with most closely, and her name's Sarah. She's. Anybody who's worked in our. Or done anything in our organization knows Sarah. She's amazing. And I walked in, I was, like, frustrated. I was like. And she goes, oh, I'm so excited that you're frustrated. I was like, what? She goes, every time you're frustrated, it means that you're seeing something that we're not seeing and we're going to make a big improvement. So what is it totally, like, changed the whole, like, my. The way I hold my own frustration. It changed that. And then it also changed, like, how I, like, looked at the whole business because I was. Oh, wow. This is really important.

A (168:53)

It's like alchemy.

B (168:54)

Yeah.

A (168:54)

Doing that.

B (168:55)

Exactly.

A (168:57)

Why do you think it is that people are drawn to relationships that are very tough, that from the outside look turbulent, difficult, challenging. The classic I can fix him meme. What have you come to believe about that?

B (169:14)

Yeah. Could go in reverse there. So you're not going to fix anybody to tell folks out there? It's a common belief. Belief. People almost seem to have it as sport or hobby. Right. Like I'm going to fix. Go fix people. It almost just never such low odds that that ever ends up. Ends up working out.

A (169:31)

But why?

B (169:33)

Because people are. People are stable. You know, there's these really beautiful studies of personality where they track people for 40 or 50 years from the time they're in their teenage. Teenage years, the time that they're retired. Retired. And if you were neurotic when you were highly neurotic when you were a teenager, you're like the grumpy person at the retirement home. You know, it's just like a stable kind of thing, you know. Also if you were the sweetheart, really nice, always helping people out kind of person in high school, you're doing the same thing.

A (170:07)

Do you reckon that's the same for sociosexuality? If you were the girl that was sleeping around a load in high school, you're still the girl that's sleeping around a load in the retirement home.

B (170:15)

Well, you know, that is concern actually with older adults right now. So there's this std. STD concerns. One of the places is most acute in public health is among older adults. Yeah. Which is amazing. So, yeah, people don't change because traits are, you know, traits are stable. And folks might see these articles every now and then that, that you can change your personality. And that is true to an extent.

A (170:41)

Extent.

B (170:42)

But the number of people who will change their personality, like, like the rough way to put that is about 20 to 25% of people, like for example, who are neurotic will turn themselves into not neurotic people anymore. The remaining 75 to 80% will show stability over time. And the reason I like to put things that way is if you're in a position of choosing a partner, you know, this is a big bet, really. Right. And you're saying, okay, so I have this person who's high in neuroticism. Do I think that's going to change any 75% chance? Yeah. Going to be exactly the same way for the rest of my life. 25% chance they change. That's not a bet. I would probably want to make, you know.

A (171:27)

Yeah, it's interesting when you think about sort of what people are doing when they first find a partner. They're kind of. I get the sense, and you may tell me that my belief in personal growth and malleability is misguided and must be subdued. But you're trying to find somebody that is as close to the bullseye of what it is that you're looking for whilst making the decision rationally before you get into passionate love. Using evidence based insights from somebody as educated as yourself. Trying to find somebody that's close to the bullseye but also has, I would guess, as strong of a capacity to grow, to work on themselves, to be able to update their beliefs the way that they operate as possible. And it seems like those two variables, how close are you? Where's the starting point? And how capable are they of running and maneuvering towards something that is more healthy?

B (172:24)

Yeah, yeah, I know, exactly. So you're kind of identifying this trait that sits outside of personality reality a little bit. Right. Which is this, this interest and this, this persistence to grow as, as a person. And I think you're. Gosh, that's. If people want to put something in our top three, that would be another great trait to put in their top three.

A (172:43)

Capacity for growth.

B (172:44)

Yeah, it's capacity for growth and, and that dogged commitment to it. Because it's one thing you and I probably both know. People who have some bright idea every other month about oh, I'm totally going to change myself in this way usually has the word radical in front of it, you know. Yeah, I'm engaging radical self disclosure or something.

A (173:04)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Radical honesty, radical painting.

B (173:08)

Yeah. And I'm always like, you know, what I'm more interested in is, I mean that's cool and that's part of it. It's a necessary first step. But then how many people now have the dogged determination to actually make that happen? Because it's so hard, right, over the course of really years to you know, turn that huge ship around and make it so that you have this better range in your personality.

A (173:36)

You've got to be dead ass committed if you are going to actually do anything. I mean, yeah, you're right. I think the way to look at it is these forces, personality, whether it's infant upbringing, genetic predisposition, time, place, confluence, nature, nurture, whether it, you know, whatever it is, whether it's personality, whether it's attachment, style, whether it's values, whether it's ideological belief, whether it's all of that stuff. It is no matter which of those you're playing with, it is a marathon to try and get that to be nudged. And, you know, that's where, you know, the 20% sits, right? For the most part. These are probably, I imagine there's not many people that fluke themselves into lowering their neuroticism. It's probably, you know, the people that listen to podcasts like this one, you know, the insecure, overachieving personal growth maximizers who are really sort of trying to better themselves within the world. They're thinking very carefully, they're very reflective. You know, they, they, they're really trying to work on themselves. But that's a terrifying minority of most people.

B (174:52)

That's, that's, that's so true. You know, so maybe for some of your listeners who, you know, maybe are really into fitness, for example, if you think about, I'm always annoyed, like January 2nd in the gym when you can't get on anything, right?

A (175:06)

This overrun with all the crazy take.

B (175:09)

That's right, that's right. All these New Year's resolution people. I mean, the same exact mindset and outcomes could apply to something like personality. Like, okay, someone going to have this really bright idea like they want to get fit or they want to change their neuroticism, but who's going to be there even in March, you know, who's going to be there much less in December. And you know, as your listeners know, who are really committed to fitness, it's not even a year, right? It's the course of numerous years and being really disciplined and constantly evolving and learning about new things in nutrition and technique and other things that actually lead to a meaningful change in their body composition and their, and their fitness and their health. Same thing with your mental health and your psychological health. It's that degree of commitment and obsessiveness, right? To make some sort of long lasting change.

A (176:00)

I want to talk about something that's really important to me. So you're big into inequality, as am I. I grew up as working class, as it is possible. The only thing that was famous about the town that I grew up in in the UK is it had the highest teen pregnancy rating in the uk and then it lost that, so it didn't even have that anymore. Fatherlessness. Boys who grow up apart from their biological father are about two times more likely to land in prison or jail by age 30. Fatherlessness is a better predictor of incarceration than race or growing up. Poor young men are more likely to end up in prison or jail in the US than they are to graduate from college. If they are raised in any non intact family setup, regardless of family income, children in intact families are about half as likely to be diagnosed with depression. What do you make of that?

B (176:50)

I make it to be a serious crisis and I make it to. I believe in family and I believe we have got to create the conditions for young people to be good dads and good moms and to raise healthy children.

A (177:11)

Thinking about some of the groups that you've brought up today, one of the ones that's obvious in its absence is men. Why have the left tended to not talk about men's issues, do you think?

B (177:27)

That's a good question. And I think, I mean we start with. I think the underlying issue is that for a very long time women were second class citizens in this country and people were saying, does it make sense that you have women who cannot become police officers, soldiers, carpenters, governors, presidents of the United States? And that's wrong. If we believe in equality, we want to give everybody an equal opportunity. So I think there was that focus on that. I think the issue you're raising is getting more discussion and it needs far more. Is that what we have seen right now? I was on a plane coming from Washington back to Vermont, sitting next to a woman and she's visiting her daughter at the University of Vermont. And we were chatting and she mentioned to me that something like over 60% of the college of the kids in her daughter's class were women.

A (178:23)

Correct. Okay, two women for every one man completing a US college degree. Basically, yeah.

B (178:27)

All right, not a good situation.

A (178:29)

That's a bigger gap than when Title ix came in 50 years ago in the other direction.

B (178:33)

This is a serious issue and I think it is not incompatible to say that we believe in women's rights, the right of women to control their own body, that we don't want women to be second class citizen. But say it the same thing. Of course we want our young men to be able to have all of the opportunities that they deserve as well. And there has not been the kind of focus on that that I think.

A (178:58)

Needs to be before we continue. If you haven't been feeling as sharp or energized as you'd like, getting your blood work done is the best place to start. Which is why I partnered with Function because they run lab tests twice a year that monitor over 100 biomarkers. They've got a team of expert physicians that take the data, put it in a simple dashboard and give you actionable insights and recommendations to improve your health and lifespan. They track everything from your heart health to your hormone levels, your thyroid function and nutrient deficiencies. They even screen for 50 types of cancer at stage one, which is five times more data than you get from an annual physical. Getting your blood work drawn and analyzed like this would usually cost thousands, but with function it is only $500 and right now the first thousand people can get an additional hundred dollars off, meaning it's only 400 bucks. To get the exact same blood panel that I use, just go to the link in the description below or head to functionhealth.com modernwisdom that's functionhealth.com modernwisdom do you know Richard Reeves? He does the American Institute for Boys and Men Policy wise I have heard of yeah, he wrote of Boys and Men. So this is just a passage from an article he wrote a little while ago. So let me get you to react to this. Suicide rates among men under 30 have risen by 40% since 2010 and are four times higher than among young women. Male suicides account for as many deaths as breast cancer. Men are less likely than women to go to college or to buy a home. They're more likely to be lonely and more vulnerable to addiction. Young white men from lower income homes are worse off than their fathers on almost every economic and social indicator. There is a bigger gender gap on campuses today than in 1972 when the government passed Title 9 to prevent sex based discrimination in education. But today the disparities in college enrollment and performance are the other way around. There is no strong evidence that young men are turning against gender equality, but they have turned away from the left because the left has turned away from them. The problems of young men are not the confections of reactionaries. This is a story of elite neglect, not voter chauvinism. The Democrats have failed to address these issues under the Biden administration. The Centers for Disease Centered Control and Prevention has refused to acknowledge the gender disparity in suicide rates. The White House Gender Policy Council Council has not tackled a single issue primarily facing boys and men. There have been initiatives to promote women in STEM and construction, but nothing about encouraging men into teaching on men's health. There is women's health research initiatives, but no office on men's health. The Democrats and progressive institutions have a massive blind spot when it comes to male issues, and this was exposed in the election. At worst, men are seen as not having problems, but as being the problem. That was Richard. He's his policy wonky DC Fluffy I.

B (181:24)

Agree with much, not all, what he's saying. And I think, look, here is the issue. The world in the fight for women's equality. The world has changed. All right? 50, 60 years ago, men were the breadwinners in most households. Right? Men were the bosses, men made the most money. Men were the governors, men were the presidents, men were the senators. It was a man's world. That's the. And the fact that we have fought and achieved more equality for women is a positive thing.

A (181:56)

I agree.

B (181:57)

All right, But. But you're suddenly seeing. And I think half of what he says is very true. You're suddenly seeing men feel, does anyone give a damn about me? You know, what's going on in my life? Good. We want women's equality. What about me? Have we paid enough attention to that? Attention to that? I think we have not. And I think we need to do a better job. I don't believe. Belief that everything that Reeves is saying is accurate.

A (182:21)

I understand. I was watching that now infamous interview that you and AOC did on CNN last week.

B (182:28)

It was infamous. Fox television picked up on it.

A (182:31)

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's just gone everywhere. It's gone everywhere. Right.

B (182:34)

What was infamous about it?

A (182:36)

The. Well, this is what we're talking about. And then you kind of blew through when it was asked, is this going to be a challenge? That wasn't what I was interested in. Primarily, what I thought was real interesting was she said, the reason that Republicans have appealed to young men is a dangerous way. They are able to radicalize and target and exploit a generation of young boys in particular, away from healthy masculinity and into an insecure masculinity that requires the domination of others who are poorer, brown, and darker, or a different gender than them. Do you think Democrats have done a good job of giving men a positive vision about themselves? She's saying that this is an insecure masculinity as opposed to a healthy woman.

B (183:12)

You know, I'm not a great expert on this.

A (183:15)

Yep.

B (183:15)

I think this is a real issue, and I think we've got to pay a lot more attention to it.

A (183:21)

90% of anxiety is anticipatory. Not about events, but about control over them. And this link between uncertainty and anxiety being intrinsically related is so true. There's this wonderful idea called compensatory control.

C (183:36)

What is it called?

A (183:37)

Compensatory control.

C (183:38)

Compensatory control. Compensatory control.

A (183:42)

I'm gonna speak in a language that you may not be familiar. British.

C (183:46)

My husband went to high school in Britain.

A (183:48)

Okay, good.

C (183:50)

I just don't understand the big words. Compensatory control.

A (183:52)

Yeah, to compensate.

C (183:53)

Oh, compensate. Okay.

A (183:54)

Compensatory control.

C (183:56)

Okay, gotcha.

A (183:58)

When people were told to imagine an uncertain medical diagnosis, okay. They were more likely to see patterns in meaningless static on a tv, really. So basically, if you have a sense of threat coming from the outside, if you feel like controlling and uncertainty are very common in your life, you are more likely to construct narratives and personify and create archetype and myth and believe in conspiracy.

C (184:25)

Oh, really?

A (184:26)

Catch meaning where it's not there. This is from Matthew Syed. It was in the Times forever ago. It was actually around Covid. And he basically made this point that this is before lab leak hypothesis stuff was, you know, supported or disproven or anything. It was just a notion at the time. Time. And what he basically said was, it is far easier to believe that the release of some global pandemic is the plan of a malign scientist than it is the chance mutation of a silly little microbe. Because at least if it's a scientist, we understand there's motivation and there's desire and it feels like it's within our realm.

C (185:01)

Yes.

A (185:01)

And I think for many people, the. What feels like control in life is actually just a reminder of how little control we have. Right. Because we have the illusion of control. I can tell you what the weather is going to be in Tampa, Florida tomorrow within a pretty tight timeline. If a nuclear bomb went off in Russia tomorrow, Starbucks would open in Austin, Texas. Okay, So I have acute predictability, but I have long term chaos. Chaos. And trying to match these two, trying to work out, well, we've always not had control over the things that we haven't had control over. But never before have we had such an illusion that we might be able to have control over them. We've got this illusion of mastery. Wow. The modern world. I can message anybody on the planet immediately. I can consume the Entire World's news 24 hours a day directly streamed into my face. So maybe I should have more control than I do. And it's blurred the lines I think it's made distinguishing what we should let go of and what we should try and have agency over. Those lines have become more blurred than ever before. And I think that uncertainty about the future combined with the sense that I might be able to get some sort of a change enacted if I push. I think that those two worlds blending together has made it very difficult for people. And I think that's where the anxiety might become coming from.

C (186:27)

Well, one of the things that's interesting about anxiety, having been somebody that has not. Has struggled with it for most of my life and not understood it and not understood what to do in those moments and probably made every single mistake personally to make it worse. And also being a mom, mom who had kids who had anxiety and making every single mistake you could make. So I am personally responsible.

A (187:03)

You've got skin in the game.

C (187:04)

Oh, not only skin in the game, dude. I have bruises and broken bones when it comes to this game because I have fucked it up because I didn't know. I didn't know. And if you're somebody that has really struggled with anxiety and you then have somebody around you that's anxious, it then makes you anxious. And I can see now in hindsight all of the things that I did wrong. This is why I pay gladly for my children to go to therapy, adult children, because I'm like, I fucked you up in so many ways and I didn't mean to.

A (187:34)

Allow me to compensate.

C (187:35)

Yeah, well, let me support you in identifying the things that don't work and let me support you in working with somebody who can help you change the settings in your mind and who can help you understand when life triggers you, because it's going to. But to that point on anxiety that I want to talk about, I actually believe now that anxiety, if you can simplify what is happening in the moment, it will help you apply what every expert tells you you have to do. Because the world is so overwhelming right now. Now, whether you're talking about the world at large and AI coming, or the headlines that are distressing, or you're talking about the issues going on in your life, whether you are struggling to pay your bills or you're scared about the rising cost of living, or maybe you have somebody in your life that's struggling and you don't know how to help them. And any one of these things can cause you in this present moment to start to feel anxious about what's going to happen. And so in that moment, God, I wish I knew this. I wish I knew this decades ago. I wish that decades ago somebody could have explained to me that anytime you feel that alarm going off, because that's what anxiety is. It's just an alarm system in your body that is designed to wake your ass up in this moment moment. Either because there's something that you care about that you need to do. So it's coming online as an alarm to wake up your body and your brain to help you perform. That's one type of anxiety, like performance anxiety. That a lot of people get. Or you have the kind of more nagging chronic anxiety, which is what I had, which is this nagging sense that something is about to happen. And you then have this moment where you separate from your own ability to handle it. Like, I love Dr. Russell Kennedy's work.

A (189:51)

I love Russell.

C (189:52)

Yes, he's brilliant. Yes. And the fact that he says that all anxiety is separation anxiety, I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? It's not separate. I'm a grown ass woman. It's not separation anxiety. My son have separation anxiety. He's like, it's not separation from another person person, it's separation from self. Because, you know, if you've got a situation, let's just take for example, you know, something that, that I'm seeing, and you're probably seeing this too, from a global fan base. People around the world feeling incredibly anxious about AI, incredibly anxious about whether or not they're going to lose their job, incredibly anxious about the changes that it's going to have in the world. First of all, that's a normal thing to feel because it is completely out of your control if you get fired or not. It's completely out of your control if your job's redundant or not. It's completely out of your control how this is all gonna play out. And so in the moment where you feel this alarm going off, what happened in that moment is you started going, what if this happens? What if that. Oh my God. You separated from the one thing you can't control, which is your response to it. And so instead of going up here and going, what if this, what if that, what if the other thing, which only makes the alarm that you're feeling worse because when you go up here, you now double down on doubting your ability to handle it. And so in that moment, if you could take a breath and drop back into your body and into the moment and go, wait a minute, okay, so I don't know what's going to happen with AI. I don't know know what's going to happen with the state of the world. But here's what I do know. I know that through my attitude, my actions, I can handle it. I know that even though I don't know what's going to happen or what if this or what if that, I can also say, what if it works out? What if something bad happens and I surprise myself and I'm able to just figure it out. As much as it may suck when you start to drop back in and double down on the truth. And the truth is you can, through your attitude and through the actions that you take, you can handle even terrible things that happen. It doesn't mean you deserve it. It doesn't mean that it's not going to be terrible. But doubling down on your capacity is what will quiet the alarm. And it is what will retrain you to know that in those moments. Because those moments are coming and they're there for all of us in those moments when life really overwhelms you. There's nothing you can do about life, but there's so much you can do do to support yourself through it. And what I can now see, if you look at somebody like David Ross Marin, professor at Harvard Medical School, and he's also the one that has all the. I think they're called the anxiety centers. They're all over the U.S. he said, the single thing that people do wrong with anxiety is the moment you have that separation. Oh, God, what if this. And I can't handle it. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. And then you send yourself into a state of complete pain, panic. You freeze. And now you avoid the thing you're scared of. So most people right now, if you're worried about your job, I guarantee you, you know what they're doing. You're probably doing what Mel Robbins used to do. You're bitching to your friends, you're worrying about it, you're frozen about it, you're pissed off about it. But you know what you're not doing? You're not doing the one thing that you can do, which is fucking update your resume, learn new skills. If you're scared about it, lean into it. Ask yourself, do I even like what I do? Maybe now's a time to tighten the belt and cut back on all the spending I don't need so that I can create a longer runaway and figure out what changes I want to make. Because you're not stuck in the job. You're not stuck where you are. At any moment, you can fucking change. But if you do what I used to do, which is separate from your power to change and separate from your ability to change your attitude or to learn from somebody like you, you, or to get the support that you need, then you are going to trigger a bigger alarm and you are going to become the single biggest reason why you stay stuck. And it's in these moments, in these moments where life overwhelms you. That's the mistake I made for years and then the mistake I made as a parent. Oh, Jesus. My kid would be overwhelmed. And you know, as a mom, you're like, okay, no problem. Problem. You can do a sleep under, not a sleepover. Oh, no problem. You can sleep on the floor of our bedroom for six months since you're scared to be in your room. You know what I'm signaling? As a parent, I'm signaling I don't think you can handle it, and so you should be scared because I'm showing you that I don't think you can handle it.