The Courage to Choose Your Own Life w/ Jodie Cook | Ep 403

Summary

The Futur with Chris Do

Episode 403: The Courage to Choose Your Own Life w/ Jodie Cook
Airdate: December 6, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this candid and deeply reflective episode, Chris Do welcomes entrepreneur and author Jodie Cook for a profound conversation centered around the philosophy and psychological insights from The Courage to Be Disliked, a book that both have come to admire for its radical approach to personal agency. The duo dive into the fundamentals of Adlerian psychology, explore how it contrasts with Freudian thought, and, through personal anecdotes and honest self-examination, unravel how the book’s counterintuitive lessons are lived in real life.

The discussion is rich with direct quotes, memorable moments, challenging questions, and real-world examples. Jodie shares why she travels the globe with only a single, battered paperback in her luggage, while Chris draws parallels between the book's philosophy and tough-love lessons from his career, creative process, and team management.

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Key Themes and Insights

1. The Courage to Be Disliked: Why This Book?

• Jodie’s Relationship with the Book
  • Jodie reveals she only carries one physical book everywhere: The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga, a dialogue introducing Adlerian psychology.
  • She compares its primacy in her life to a Bible, and recounts how it replaced prior “bibles” like The 4-Hour Workweek.

    "I've told my friends if I ever say, 'In the book it says this,' they never need to say 'Which book?' It's always this book." — Jodie [00:49]

  • Chris, now halfway through reading it, expresses feeling both resonance and frustration with its dialogue-heavy, sometimes circular style.

    "The challenge I have with this book...I just don't think the dialogue is written very sharply between these two people." — Chris [04:47]

2. Adlerian vs. Freudian Psychology

• Core Differences
  • Freudian: cause and effect; the past determines the present.
  • Adlerian: Goal-based; you assign meaning to your experiences and can choose your future regardless of the past.

    "The past does not exist whatsoever. You can choose your life right now." — Jodie [02:32]

• Responsibility & Agency
  • The book's central message is radical responsibility and personal agency.
  • Chris links current therapy debates to this split, mentioning Dr. Nicole Lepera’s criticism by traditionalists and locating her closer to Adler than Freud.

    "Alfred Adler's approach...is completely different. He talks about purpose. You have a belief and you have to ask yourself, what is the purpose of this belief? How does this serve you? What goal is it?" — Chris [06:50]

3. Goal-Based Thinking and Self-Limiting Beliefs

• Victim Mindset vs. Goal-Directed Action
  • Jodie illustrates with Twitter:

    "My friend has the goal that Twitter is going to annoy him. Or he has the goal of anger...and then blames Twitter." — Jodie [09:16]

  • The Courage to Be Disliked asserts trauma and the past do not exist as objective realities; what matters is the meaning and direction we choose.
• Examples from the Book
  • The blushing girl: her blushing is not a barrier but an excuse, a self-created symptom to avoid risking rejection.
  • Relationships: We fabricate reasons to justify decisions (e.g., to end a relationship).

    "You desire them to become a bad person, so you look for bad things." — Chris [11:39]

4. Radical Personal Agency: Lessons and Barriers

• Taking Responsibility
  • Chris: “We have to take radical responsibility for everything that we choose to do. It's much easier for us to blame our parents, society, our boss, our lover, our partner...But the hardest thing to face is we're exactly where we are because of the choices we made.” [15:06]
• Agency as Empowerment (and Threat)
  • Jodie: “This book allows me to be the hero of my own life.” [19:50]
  • For both, agency is both liberating and daunting.
• Letting Go of Needing to Be Liked
  • The title’s meaning: Self-sufficiency enables freedom, but the cost of true freedom is being willing to be disliked.

    “Complete freedom is not needing to be liked by anyone, not needing to prove anything to anyone.” — Jodie [23:26]

5. Application to Real Life and Creative Work

• Personal Stories:
  • Jodie shares her journey giving up alcohol, uncovering an underlying belief: “giving up alcohol equals don't have fun.” Once challenged, her social circle and sense of fun actually improved. [28:15]
  • Chris describes navigating art school as an outsider, detaching his ego from his work, and creating “the work as common enemy” to accelerate growth. [54:00]
• Feedback, Criticism, and Detachment:
  • Discussion on creative critique—most people don’t want real feedback, just affirmation.

    "You made it a common enemy. You kind of allowed it to be the common enemy." — Jodie [55:28]

  • Both note the benefit of detachment: “When I create the work, it's all me, but as soon as I let go of the pen, the marker, or the mouse, it's not my work anymore.” — Chris [53:36]

6. Saying What You Think and Nonviolent Communication

• Liberation of Honesty
  • Jodie, inspired to "say what you think," shares a candid exchange with a friend:

    “Without thinking, I just went, 'You're full of shit.' And she just, like, bursts out laughing.” — Jodie [36:14]

• Chris’s Perspective
  • Chris does not censor bluntness, but has learned through experience to assess if people actually want direct feedback.
  • The importance of separating your goals and others’—not imposing your narrative onto their journey. [43:04, 44:04]
• Nonviolent Communication vs. Bluntness
  • The dance between honesty and judgment, and knowing your audience:

    “If you're a jerk, learn nonviolent communication. That's all.” — Chris [38:56]

7. The Messiness of Real-World Application

• Complexity of Practice vs. Theory
  • Chris confesses to moments of anger and regret with his team—insisting he’s responsible for his words but also recognizes the need for a more tempered, less violent reaction.

    "I accept that person. I've embraced that there is a violent person inside of me that can be provoked." — Chris [67:53]

  • Ownership: Even when team mistakes go public, Chris takes accountability.
• Ongoing Growth
  • Both acknowledge oscillating between theory (ideal) and practice (reality), learning from “gaps between theory and application and the messiness of it all.” — Chris [75:53]

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• "The past does not exist whatsoever. You can choose your life right now." — Jodie [02:32]
• "You have to ask yourself, what is the purpose of this belief? How does this serve you?" — Chris [06:50]
• "If your goal is just to not fall out, you're not going to pick up on them leaving their socks around...you would just be like, I don't care, it doesn't matter." — Jodie [14:02]
• "Once you become an adult, it's like you have agency. And agency is a scary word for a lot of people." — Chris [15:06]
• "Life is decided by the meaning that we give things." — Jodie [02:32]
• "It doesn't actually matter what happens... It was what we did around it." — Jodie [19:50]
• "We are meaning making machines. We want to have meaning to everything... That’s how we find order in the world." — Chris [31:12]
• "Complete freedom is not needing to be liked by anyone, not needing to prove anything to anyone." — Jodie [23:26]
• "If you're an all right person...you can say what you think all the time. And then if other people don't like it, that's okay because you'll go more in the direction of freedom and of not caring." — Jodie [38:00]
• "You can tell them what you want, you can tell them how to do it, but you shouldn't do both." — Chris [60:50]

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Timestamps for Core Segments

• 00:00–02:32 – Introduction to Jodie's minimalist lifestyle & her loyalty to The Courage to Be Disliked
• 02:32–08:30 – Alfred Adler vs. Freud & an overview of goal-based psychology
• 08:30–15:06 – Personal responsibility, Twitter example, stories from the book about self-limiting beliefs
• 15:06–23:26 – Choosing agency; what radical responsibility feels like; meaning of the book’s title
• 23:26–29:39 – Jodie’s struggle with social drinking and uncovering hidden beliefs; Chris's early life narratives
• 29:39–33:48 – Integrating detachment from outcomes/critique in life and career
• 33:48–38:56 – Popularity, authenticity, saying what you think, Ricky Gervais
• 38:56–48:42 – Feedback, nonviolent communication, portfolio reviews, separating your task from others
• 48:42–55:51 – The true purpose of critique, the role of goals, detaching from work
• 55:51–63:30 – Team, delegation, and trust; content creation and responsibility for output
• 63:30–77:53 – Chris on moments of anger, professional standards, and the reality of integrating theory into a messy, emotional life; closing remarks

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Conclusion

The episode artfully bridges the gap between philosophical theory and the “messiness” of real-world application. Chris and Jodie both urge listeners toward radical self-responsibility and honest self-examination—even when uncomfortable—and model how difficult, liberating, and necessary it can be to have the courage to choose your own story and to let others dislike you in the process.

Whether you’re a creative, entrepreneur, or anyone grappling with agency, identity, and self-limiting beliefs, this conversation provides thoughtful, practical insight—and a compelling nudge toward a braver, freer life.

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For show notes and additional resources, visit: thefutur.com/podcast

Transcript

[Chris]

Jody, I'm very excited to talk to you today because we're going to talk about your favorite book. This nomadic lifestyle that you have. You don't have many worldly possessions. Naturally. You have to like, live lightly. But you told me recently and I was surprised about this. You only have one book with you. You have many books, but you only have one physical copy of a good old fashioned analog book. And that book is.

[Jody]

The Courage to Be Disliked. And just to put it into perspective, I have 23 kilos of possessions in the whole world because that's the luggage allowance. And this forms part of my 23 kilos of possessions. I take it everywhere. It's so well loved. It's got highlights, it's got. There's just. Yeah, I read it again and again. I highlight in different colors every time I go through it. It's a. I just love it.

[Chris]

It's kind of like your Bible then.

[Jody]

Yeah, I think so. I've told my friends if I ever say in the book it says this, they never need to say which book. It's always this book.

Okay, Yeah, I guess it is. And it hasn't always been my Bible. I feel like my Bible used to be the Four Hour Work Week and before that was the E myth. And then it's been various different ones. But the moment I read this one, it became the new book, the real book.

[Chris]

Okay, you've been converted to the religion then. The Courage to Be Disliked.

[Jody]

Yeah, I could do a intro of the book type thing.

[Chris]

Yeah, let's do that in a second. So today's episode is going to be a little bit different because I have had the copy of the book mostly because I'm intrigued by titles of books. I buy lots of books. I don't read many of them and I just sit on the shelf and then Jody one day says to me on a pod, have you read this book? I'm like, I haven't, but I haven't. It spoke to me. The Courage to Be Disliked. I get the whole concept of the book right in the name of the book. And you go, you must read it. It's one of my favorite books. So I'm a new convert. I've recently am reading it. I'm not done. I'm about halfway through. I get the gist. And just to set up the book and just what I know of it so far, it does speak to me. Now I can't remember where I read this. Maybe it was a post by one of my favorite authors somewhere online that said something like Reading a great book is like someone putting your thoughts on paper. I was like, this feels like that kind of book. Many books I read, I'm like, gosh, these are things that I think about all the time. And it's so weird that some other human being who's much smarter, wiser than myself, much more well lived or worldly has written a book. And I'm like, wait, we think the same thing. So without saying more, Jodi, what is this book all about?

[Jody]

So this book is about Adlerian psychology, and that is Alfred Adler, who was a German psychologist and he was, was kind of operating at roughly the same time as Freud. And so you've got Adlerian psychology and it's very different to Freudian psychology. So Freudian psychology is all about cause and effect. Like, this happened, therefore this happened, this happened, therefore this happened. And lots of the Freudian psychology will go back into childhood and say, okay, if this happened in your childhood, that then meant this for your, like adulthood. But the Adlerian way of things is, it's goal based. And also it's very much in the book, it's called a, it's like a psychology for changing yourself, not for changing others. So it's nothing to do with your parents, it's nothing to do with anyone else. It's all to do with like, you and where you go from here in your life. And a real big thing in the book is that we can always decide what things mean and that life is decided by the meaning that we give things. And so I think the sentence that sums it up for me is if you imagine someone saying the sentence because my dad was an alcoholic, they could say, I am an alcoholic because my dad was an alcoholic, they could say, I am not an alcoholic because my dad was an alcoholic, they could say, I'm a success because my dad was an alcoholic, they could say, I'm not a success because. And so if it stands that you could be all of these things because of that thing, then that thing doesn't matter because you could put anything after it. So therefore it doesn't matter. And in the book they actually sum that up in the sentence, the past does not exist whatsoever. You can choose your life right now. And the book is between a philosopher and a student. And the student is designed to be just us, the audience, the people who are learning afresh what this is all about. And then the philosopher is that patient, wise, sage, like character who's going, yeah, there is this, but what about this? And introducing these sentences and then they unpack them and go really deep on them. Kind of similar to this, these podcast episodes. But it's quite nice because you get that back and forth in the book between those two people. And so it's like X happened, so I can't. X happened, so I can. Therefore the thing that happened doesn't matter. Therefore the past does not exist. Therefore you can go wherever you want.

[Chris]

From here, if I recall correctly. And my memory is still pretty fresh on the book itself because I've only been reading it the last couple of weeks a little bit at a time. Like you said, it's set up in a way that it's a conversation that's a story, rough story, it's fictitious, I believe, between a philosopher and a very challenging student. He becomes a student, but he doesn't start as one. They. They start debating about things. And I usually like these kinds of ways of learning that it's dialogue driven, it's story driven. Not a lot of science and data, so you don't have to remember things and you can just explore your own thoughts as they're arguing back and forth, forth. The challenge I have with this book, and I love this book, by the way, is I just don't think the dialogue is written very sharply between these two people. And the reason why I say this is because when I was a younger person, I took a philosophy class and our professor wrote this book on philosophy. So he explained the major tenets of philosophy by just us having reading really interesting stories. And each one was so captivating as a short story. Then we'd have this really rich discussion afterwards about what we thought it meant. And it was a really beautiful explained existence of time. Or not no time. And time is a fabrication. The existence or non existence of God and all these big ideas. So here we go. Freud is the one that most people know about in psychology, and he's the most famous. And he's the one who has said something like we have carnal desires for the opposite parents. Like, we crave to sleep with our mom. It's the Oedipus complex where we want to sleep with our mom or we want to sleep with our dad or something weird like that. Or. And I think a lot of the popular therapy is built on Freudian philosophy or, or psychology. And it's quite interesting because there's a lot of exploration of our past. And you mentioned cause and effect. The. The term for that, I believe, is causality, because this happens, therefore this must happen. And they're connected. So for example, if you rub a rabbit's foot. And that day you are coming to some good fortune, somebody leaves you extra money or something happens, or like you have a parking space available for you. Well, it's the rabbit's foot that brought me the luck. We assign meaning to things that have no meaning. That's where a lot of superstition comes from. And this kind of thinking is very popular because we'll watch a lot of self help people talk about this ad nauseam and they'll explore our past, our history, and help us uncover all these things. And Alfred Adler's approach to this is completely different. He talks about purpose. You have a belief and you have to ask yourself, what is the purpose of this belief? How does this serve you? What goal is it? And we can explore this together so our audience can understand this concept. But I want to tie it to something more recent. So a professional friend of ours, Nicole Lepera, Dr. Nicole Lepera, she goes by the holistic psychologist who has millions of followers on Instagram, has come under fire from people in her industry, her peers, who says her brand of therapy is really destructive, is victim blaming, saying that if you were abused by your mom or your dad, you have to take responsibility, you have to choose. And at first I didn't understand, like why they're coming so hard at her. And when I'm reading this book, it totally makes sense because they're at the Freudian mindset, they're the school of thought of Freud. And Nicole is obviously in the Adlerian school of thought on this. So it's fascinating to kind of park that conversation there to have this understanding of it. And I'd love to dive deeper into this. So let's get into it a little bit deeper. So can we help people understand like why putting our energies into the past is maybe not the best use of our time and our energy?

[Jody]

Yeah. So if the past does not exist, and also what Adler said was trauma does not exist, which might be partly that kind of argument. And why. That's a big sentence. That's a very big sentence to put out there in the world. And I can imagine that without the context, without the explanation, it's just like, what do you mean? This is real and there's that kind of side of things. But the goal based thing, I think is the thing that's the most useful because it's almost like cause and effect is quite a victim mindset. This idea that this thing happened, so I can't do this thing or this thing happens, so I'm doomed. And the student is very Much that mindset because he's like, oh, no one likes me, therefore I can't achieve my goals or I haven't got any friends, therefore I'm never going to be a professional success. But if you look at the Adlerian side of things and it's not cause and effect, it's good goals based. It's the idea that you have some goal and then you create the situation that mean that that goal then comes true. I have a friend, he really hates Twitter and he hates Twitter or X, I will feel like I will never call it X, but he hates Twitter because he, he thinks it's a really, really angry place with lots of miserable people and lots of low energy stuff. And when I go on Twitter, I don't really get that at all. I feel like it's quite a good place and I meet lots of cool people on it. And I feel like my friend has the goal that Twitter is going to annoy him. Or he has the goal of anger, he has the goal of being upset. And therefore he goes on Twitter, he finds the thing that's going to make him upset and then he blames Twitter. And it's like, it's not cause and effect because I can go on Twitter and have a completely different experience. So it's, the goal was this. And then you fabricated the situation to make that goal come true.

[Chris]

This is a very difficult concept for people to understand. And in the book, the philosopher and the student, they go round and round on this because the student eventually understands it logically. But he's a butthole. He keeps saying, but, but, but what if, what if? And I don't understand this emotionally. Okay, here's something that was one of those concepts that I think made it super, super clear because there were many examples. And I'm assuming it's a young man in this conversation, the student, and he's just fighting the philosopher the whole time, calling him all kinds of names, getting really angry. But the philosopher remains stoic throughout all of this. But, but basically he's saying like when you're in a relationship, in a marriage, let's say, for example, the other person doesn't change to become a bad person. It's you desire them to become a bad person, so you look for bad things. And his argument is like this. Now I have to say this. It's originally Japanese and is translated into English. So some of this may be like lost in translation where there are Japanese words and concepts that we, we don't have for in English. So some of it falls Flat, but. And it's written mostly from a male point of view. I just want to caveat that as well. So people read this, sometimes they're more gender inclusive, but this is really man. He. Lots of that stuff, right? So I want to have this conversation with you. Obviously you're not a man, so we want to talk about this. So he says in the example itself, not my example, it's an example in the book. He goes, the wife in a situation like this decides she no longer is fulfilled and happy in this relationship and wants out. And so to wrestle with her own ethical moral dilemma, this promise that she made to stay in this marriage forever, she decides to look for problems to then justify her reason for wanting to get out. And so she'll start to notice things like the person doesn't make dinner or leaves her socks around. This part, I'm just adding to it. And so she starts to become annoyed by this. And the philosopher says, well, that person has never changed. That person never did that from the beginning of the relationship. It's just now they have decided this is no longer suitable, and therefore they're going to find these problems. And for many people who are in relationships, I've been in relationships like this before. I'm like, God, it does feel like that sometimes. Like everything was cool and then now it's not. And there's a comedian who makes a joke about this. He goes, the reason why men and women fall apart is because a woman marries a man hoping to change him, and a man marries a woman hoping she'll never change. And both of them run into problems because she changes, wanting to change him. So there's all kinds of problems. So they want to hold on to this idea of the person they met, but for whatever reason, that's not what's available anymore. And the other person wishes, like, it's a. It's like a makeover project for them, like they're trying to make you into somebody else. And when they realize they can't, they don't want you anymore, or something like that. I'd love to get your perspective on this.

[Jody]

I think the interesting thing about the someone having the goal is they might be like, what do you mean? I didn't have the goal to be angry? Or I didn't have a goal to break up with someone, or I didn't have this goal, but it's. It might be that there's something behind the goal. So it's like, you don't necessarily want to be angry, but maybe you've got some Kind of addiction to the hormones that being angry brings. Or you like that rush. Or maybe you want something to go wrong because you get more sympathy when it goes wrong. Or maybe you want to fall out with your husband or wife because you want to. Like you said, you want to justify breaking up for a reason that feels right without you being the bad guy. So it's like, it's quite deep. It's like, this is my superficial goal. This is the actions that I'm putting in place to fulfill my goal, but really it's so that I can avoid something else. And there's another story in the book about a girl who wants to ask this guy out, but she said that she can't ask him out because she blushes. She's got this blushing thing. So she said when she stops blushing, she will ask him out. And so she went to the philosopher and the philosopher said, I know how to cure your blushing right now. And she's like, how? Tell me. Because she's kind of convinced herself that this is real. And he's like, just ask him out and it would all stop. And the idea is that she has the goal of not asking him out because she is afraid of rejection. And so she's created the symptom of blushing to get give herself an excuse for not asking him out because she's afraid of rejection. So the philosopher was like, ask him out. You find out straight away if you're going to be rejected or you're not going to be rejected, but you've then got no reason to blush because you're not hiding behind anything anymore. And it's such a. I agree. It can be such a mind. It can mess with your mind so much because you're like, hang on, this is. But I feel like once you see the world like that, it can change everything. And I think actually you could get on with your partner a lot better. But because if your goal is just to not fall out, then you're not going to pick up on them leaving their socks around or them doing whatever stuff you would let annoy you. If you had the goal to fall out with them. You would just be like, I don't care, it doesn't matter.

[Chris]

Yes. And in the story, I don't know, we don't know if any of this is real. Maybe it's just all story based. So she never actually has the courage to ask him out. But through mutual friends, she learns that the man she has a crush on actually likes her and then eventually asks her out. And then of course her magical blushing syndrome goes away, and then they get married or something and everything's cool and she no longer blushes. And so the story kind of wraps up kind of neatly because, I mean, it's a very hard concept to understand because at the root of it is we have to take radical responsibility for everything that we choose to do. It's much easier for us to blame our parents, society, our boss, our lover, our. Our partner, our spouse, all these things. But the. The hardest thing to face is we're exactly where we are because of the choices we made, especially once we've left home. Like, once you become an adult, it's like you have agency. And agency is a scary word for a lot of people. Agency means I have the ability to say, do and think as I wish, and no one's in control of me. And if we're talking to you in a place where somebody literally has a gun to your head and there's all kinds of laws that prevent you from saying and doing things that you want, this clearly doesn't apply to you. You don't have full agency. But much of the Western world has agency. You can do what you want. You just choose to listen to your mom or dad. You just choose to behave a certain way because it fulfills a narrative that you want to maintain. There's lots of ideas that are in this book that are going to make people's heads pop. What I'm surprised by, Jody, is, as I'm reading, I'm like, of course, duh. Like, why is this idiot arguing with the philosopher? These are all super logical. This is what I believe. Let's get on with the rest of the story here. And he just keeps interrupting. I'm like, God dang it. I have to read a book that is four times as long as the necessary because there's an idiot arguing with him. And I don't think even the arguments are very good. That's where I wish the dialogue were sharper. Like somebody who really had a good argument and they. They can handle it, but whatever. So we choose to be angry because anger allows us to act in a certain way. We want to have control. We care too much about what other people think, and we consistently live in the past because we don't want to take personal responsibility. Those are the themes I've gotten so far. And then our understanding of a superiority or an inferiority complex were all twisted. I won't talk about that, but that's as far as I got in the book. But I believe those are the major Themes.

[Jody]

Just one thing in case for accuracy. I believe that what happens at the end of the girl blushing story is that she gets to know the guy through mutual friends, and then she realizes that she doesn't even like him. And then she doesn't even ask him out or he ask out. He maybe asked her out, but she says no, and it's not a thing anymore. So she kind of gets out of it that way. Just in case. I'm just in case for accuracy. Quite, quite sure.

[Chris]

But I know you read it like a gazillion times. I've read it once. I thought it all worked out. I'm gonna check right now. Keep talking, please.

[Jody]

I have a theory on why the book might be written in that kind of way. Because as the student is interrupting the philosopher, you do get this sense of command, and especially if you've got it before everyone else has got it. It's almost like when you're at school and you have to read as a group and you've got these really slow readers and you're like, come on, hurry up. And you just get that sense of, like, get on with it. We want to go. But I think it might be firstly to make sure everyone does get it, because not everyone is as smart as you, Chris. But also maybe it's to make a common enemy. So you know Christmas crackers and Christmas cracker jokes.

[Chris]

No, I don't.

[Jody]

Christmas cracker jokes are bad for a reason. They're bad for a reason, because Christmas cracker joke writers need to make sure that no one finds it funny, because the moment a few people in the family find it funny, that joke has divided people. And Christmas is about uniting people. So if they can make it so sure that everyone is going to hate that joke, the joke becomes the enemy, not this divide that's going on at Christmas. So I wonder if it's almost like we can point towards the dialogue and the writing and how that's going on as the common enemy so that we can agree on it, so that we can find the stuff that we agree on with that common grounding. Potentially, it could just be the translation.

[Chris]

Okay, I'm not familiar with this. I don't know how to respond.

Christmas cracker jokes. Okay.

[Jody]

Oh, here it is. Apparently, she had the choice to join a group of friends and spend time with the man, and in the end, it was he who confessed his desire to be with her. Of course, she never dropped by this study again after that. I don't know what became of her fear of blushing, but she probably didn't need it any longer.

[Chris]

Okay. So somewhere between the two of us, I just interpret like things worked out and that's why she never returned.

[Jody]

Yeah. Okay.

[Chris]

Now I'm curious why you love this book so much.

[Jody]

Yeah, I think I love this book so much because I really like the phrase being the hero of your own life. And I feel like this book allows me to be the hero of my own life. And I think it's because the idea that it's not what you're born with, but it's what you make of that equipment feels like it puts a lot of power in my hands. And then I think that also, maybe it was 2020, and maybe it was surviving that time from a business perspective that made me feel quite like, oh, this is cool. It doesn't actually matter what happens and how much. Like, my agency shrank by, like, 25% in, like, a week. And we were all, like, a bit freaked out about what was going on, but because of being able to rebuild and. And kind of getting all the troops on board and being a bit of a kind of wartime CEO, I guess, I know that we managed to kind of turn that around, whereas there's other people who went in different directions and other people that weren't able to do that. But it's almost like, oh, that thing happened. But it wasn't that thing that happened that made the next thing a success. It was actually what we did around it. So it's like, you could say that about anything. It could be like, okay, so Covid's, like, crushed my company. Okay, great. I have an opportunity to rebuild it. Or, I didn't enjoy university. Okay, great. I have an opportunity to start my own business. Or when I started lifting weights, it was because I kept hitting this plateau with running. I kept getting the same 10k time again and again and again. And I guess it could be like, oh, I'll never make it as a runner, so I'll just give up exercise. But it's like. But instead it was like, oh, I'll probably never make it as a runner, therefore, I'm going to start lifting weights. So it's almost that pain pivot moment. It reminds me constantly that it's. That it's in my hands. And then I feel like it lets me be more intentional about everything I do, because I'm not just assigning some meaning to the past that's quite helpless.

[Chris]

I have lots of strange theories about what happens when we read books. When we read a book, I think a couple of options happen. Number One, we read the book, and the ideas are so against what we believe in that we reject the book outright. We read it out of intellectual curiosity, but we don't absorb or accept or apply any of those ideas. That's option number one. Option number two is we read a book and all of a sudden we come to this eureka moment. Like, somebody thinks the same thing that I think, how is this possible? And we have very different paths in life. And then all of a sudden it's like, how is this even freaking possible? And then there's the third option, which I can think of, which is we read this seeking some kind of answer. We don't have things worked out, and we find things in the book that are extremely helpful to us. So we decide we're going to go on a different branch in the timeline. The sacred timeline is broken. It splinters here. There's a fork in the road, and we take a different path and we become a different person. Maybe we're not 100% the person we want to be because we oscillate between the original branch, the divine timeline or the sacred timeline, and then the new timeline in which we're on and we oscillate between those. Maybe if you're into the woo, we're oscillating between two dimensions of existence, two planes of existence, and we vibrate between those two. So if we solidify ourselves on one path or the other, it becomes much clearer to us. But that's another path. I'm curious if any of those stories or my observations describe who you are and where you are on that journey.

[Jody]

Yeah, for sure. It was seeking answers. It was basically not having the courage to be disliked and then having the courage to be disliked in the book. That was the. Is the title. Maybe I didn't need to read the book. Maybe I could just read the title.

[Chris]

That's what I'm saying. The title says everything. It's a wonderful title. Were you in a point in your life where you felt vulnerable and seeking others to be liked and to be accepted?

[Jody]

Yeah, for sure. I don't know if it was 2020. I think it might have been beforehand. I feel like it's. It was a couple of years before that, but, yeah, for sure. I feel like that's literally my, like, life path at the moment. Getting better at that and caring less and less and less. So in the book, it very much talks about, like, it explains the title. It explains what the title actually means. And it talks about how the philosopher says to the student, you could be Happy right now. You can choose to be happy. And the student doesn't really like that because he's not sure. But the philosopher then says, you could choose to be happy right now. You choosing to be happy right now means changing your lifestyle, just choosing to change your lifestyle. But that takes courage because, because people might not like you. And so choosing your lifestyle and having the courage to do it means that you have to accept that you will not be liked by everyone, hence the courage to be disliked. And they also describe complete freedom as not needing to be liked by anyone, not needing to prove anything to anyone. Like that whole idea of self sufficiency. And then it also talks about the two life tasks. And the first life task is to be self sufficient and the second is to live in harmony with society. And so the student in the book, and this is, I feel like this is so many people, the whole live in harmony to society, live in harmony with society part is like where it falls down. The idea that someone's a, they're like a freelancer and then they start building a team and then they're like, oh, I can't work with people. Like I can't possibly have these team members. So therefore they're like, I need to go back to being a freelancer again. And really that's not the answer. Like the answer is to learn how to live in harmony with society rather than learn how to escape it all the time. So it's like another. Everything kind of comes full circle with it. But I think I was potentially in a place where I was falling victim to the life lie, which is also in the book, which is making excuses to avoid the life tasks. So not being self sufficient or not living in harmony with society or thinking, oh, I've got this big team, but wouldn't it be great if I didn't have this big team or wouldn't it be great if I could just be do freelance again or I don't know, it was going around in these circles of not having the courage to be disliked.

[Chris]

I think you gave us lots of concepts that take a lot of time to unravel. It took a long time in the book to unravel. And so people are listening to this. I'm going to assume they haven't read the book, they're searching. I assume anybody who's really curious about the world, who consumes a piece of content, is seeking some other way of doing something. Because if you're really happy and you're perfectly content, maybe you stop seeking these kinds of things. So I'm here for y'. All. I'm trying to listen to this through that year or that mindset and say, like, okay, where are we getting stuck? Jody, I'm gonna ask you to pump the brakes. I could tell you're very excited about this book. You've obviously prepared. This conversation is a week delayed because last week I was so sick and I'm still wearing some of the sickness on my face right now in my voice, which is okay. In the book, the philosopher says to the student, you are not happy right now because you're choosing not to be happy. And that makes the student have to confront this idea, and they're not ready to accept it. Which is, why would I choose not to be happy? I choose to be happy. I choose to have friends. I choose to be successful. And he goes, no, you don't. Then they have to go through most of this book to kind of unpack each and every one of these things. But let's just stop right there. Perhaps you're listening to this or watching this and saying to yourself, man, things aren't lining up where I want them to be. I'm not in the relationship I thought I should have. I'm not running the kind of business I thought I would have. How are you saying this is my choice right now? So, Jodi, let's turn away from the book for a second and try to, like, bring it to them right now. So I'm in a business and in a relationship that I'm not thrilled about, or I'm working in a job that I do not love, and I'm not thrilled. And I think especially very young people have this mindset. Let's make it tangible for them. Let's slow it down. Let's talk about this so we can understand it.

[Jody]

I think the idea is that you are not going to be choosing to be unhappy. You're not going to be choosing to have a career that doesn't fulfill you. You're not going to be choosing to have friends who you don't have anything in common with. You're not going to be choosing any of the symptoms, but there will be some belief or something in there that you are inadvertently choosing. And so in the anger story, it's like choosing to be addicted to the chemicals of anger. In the blushing story, it's choosing to be afraid of rejection. And often it's like choosing to not want to achieve great success and therefore potentially be ostracized by your best friend or something. It might be like some belief just thinking, I Don't drink alcohol now. But I used to. And I think it's been like 10, 12 years that I haven't. But before I stopped drinking alcohol altogether, I was carrying around these little beliefs that I just heard someone say. And it wasn't even anyone who was really that connected to me or anything like that. It was just that someone had said something like, like when I talked about potentially giving it up or drinking less or something like that, and they were like, oh yeah, but you've got to have fun. And it was like that little belief of you've got to have fun that meant giving up alcohol equals don't have fun. And so I was like not changing my behavior and creating like reasons to drink because somewhere I was choosing to believe that I couldn't have fun without it. And so I feel like the most powerful thing just about that is like really digging into, like, what is that thing that I believe that I don't even realize? I believe that's then having this domino effect on everything else that's then meaning that I am holding myself back in other areas without even realizing it.

[Chris]

What do you think is the deeper motivation behind you saying I wanted to keep drinking? Like finding this narrative, this belief that life is not fun without alcohol or life is supposed to be fun and you get to do whatever you want.

[Jody]

So it was potentially wanting people to see me as fun, wanting acceptance from a, whatever group of people to have them believe, oh, Jodie's fun. She's not like boring. And maybe it's from a really deep little feeling that I'm boring. And so it's like, oh no, I need to do this because I need to be fun because I need these people to think I'm fun. And then actually the thing that happened was I stopped drinking alcohol, started having better friends and then was fun because they were fun too and we had more shared interests. So it kind of works out once you find the belief. But I'm sure it was something to do with that. Some kind of people pleasing belief in.

[Chris]

There for a period of your life. Did you believe you were not fun, that you were boring?

[Jody]

Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, 100% yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I would be like at school, just in the, in sixth form, I would be like in the common room. And I was just looking around the room being like, I don't want to talk to anyone here. I just don't. Like my best friend didn't. She dropped out of the school, so she wasn't there. And I was like, I feel Like, I don't have any friends right now, but also I feel like I don't really want to chat to anyone. And I also feel like I haven't really got anything to say because I hate. I think you and me are probably quite similar in this, Chris. Like, I hate small talk. I'm not very good at it. I just like going really deep in a conversation very, very quickly. And that's not really what most socializing with most normal people is about. You can't really do that. There's like, not really. It's harder to go deep on that. So I definitely have that feeling.

[Chris]

Oh, wow. Okay, I want to talk about this a little bit. So I'm going to take myself to university. Of course, I'm a bit older than you, so it's a different time and place, but I remember the popular kids. And even in college, there are popular kids, the Euros, the well to do, and the people who had, like, designer clothing, while I'm like, just a scrub, spending my time in the library or the computer lab. My narrative wasn't so much like, I want to not be boring. I was like, I had this superior idea in my mind. Like, y' all just go ahead and do what you need to do, because while you sleeping, I'm going to keep going. This is the game of the tortoise and hare, and I didn't have those things to begin with. But that don't matter because I'm going to be the tortoise and I'm going to just keep working and you guys keep partying. Party your way to oblivion, my friends. I also thought to myself, you may have a backup plan. I got no backup plan. My only plan is to be successful at this. Because if I can't be successful at this, I have nothing. Like, all the bridges have been burned. I'm on the island. I'm in the corner. I painted myself in the corner. This must succeed or there's nothing else. And so every time I spent that time in the library or in the. In the computer lab, using those pieces of software that's exotic, that no one even thinks about, I'm like, yeah, this is going to be my competitive advantage. Good luck, friends. So contrast there between you saying, oh, you know, oh, these are not my people. It's so weird. And maybe I'm just weird myself. And it's kind of interesting, like, the two narratives that. And this is why I think this book is so important for us to discuss, because there is less cause and effect than we think there is. Certainly Cause and effect. But we arbitrarily assign too much causality to things that are just merely coincidence versus causal. If I light a match and I set a bush on fire, and then the whole hillside catches on fire, pretty clear cause and effect there. If I don't light that match and set this hill on fire, then it won't catch on fire. But not as much in life is that clear. Like if you're kind to somebody one day and then three weeks later you get a promotion, you're like, oh, there must be causality. Because human beings, as I've discovered, are meaning making machines. We want to have meaning to everything because that's how we find order in the world. And chaos scares us. The unknown scares us a lot. So we assign arbitrary meaning to all kinds of things. And then we carry these beliefs that started out as a little observation into like a core philosophy of ours. Okay, so we get to this point in which you are like, I'm still seeking too many people for their approval and to be liked and to be other defined. And you find this book and what happens to you when you read the book?

[Jody]

So, well, I guess going back to kind of the school days, like the weird thing was like, I was the popular kid. So then it was like I had the. I was like, yo, you're one of them. Yeah, I was one of them. Like the mean girls, the Regina George type character. But then I just kind of thought it was a bit fake because of who you have to be to be that person. And then if that's not really you, then it's not. It doesn't really fit. So then you're like, okay, so I like being one of the popular kids. I like being liked. I like being kind of adored in some senses, but it's not really me. And this isn't really what I actually care about. But then. So do I just fake the wanting to go out drinking and do I fake the kind of wanting to like buy new clothes all the time and caring about like appearances and everything? Or do I just change my lifestyle and then potentially be disliked? Which. Which is exactly the message in the book. Like, it felt very. It feels very real. I think that reading it in 2017, 18, 19, whenever I read it made that all make sense.

[Chris]

So you read the book and then you're like, I had this kind of suspicion about life and something in me knew that this wasn't right. And then you read the book, then the book speaks to you.

[Jody]

Yeah, for sure. And we, you and I were messaging about it. Earlier because we spoke in a previous episode and you said when you're talking to people or when you're just in life, the idea is just say what you think. Say what you think. And I feel like I've internalized it quite a bit since we spoke and now I just say what I think the whole time. And it's so freeing. And I think I did it to some extent before because I really like Ricky Gervais, the comedian, and he has this rule that if you think of something funny, you have to say it. And him and his brother always did it and it was like, even if it's terrible, even if it's so offensive, you still have to say it. And I feel quite safe behind the sentence, say what you think. Because I don't really have that many bad thoughts. Like, I don't think I have that many really offensive things that I want to say. And if I do, like, they're kind of funny. And so I find myself just not, like, reducing the time between talking and thinking. It was quite small anyway, but now it's like, just eliminated. And then if you do come out with something that is quite sharp and blunt, it's hilarious, and people find it really funny, and then you're like, cool, this is even more funny.

[Chris]

Well, this is kind of interesting. Can you share an example of something that you've recently feel liberated to say you? Yeah, please.

[Jody]

So a friend who's very woo woo and can be quite fluffy at times. And if you buy into the Myers Briggs philosophy stuff, I'm an entj. Chris is an intj. She is a infp. NFP is like, woo. It just fairies all the time. And so she's telling me about when the last thing that came up when she meditated and she was talking, it was like, about her career and making the next steps and stuff. And she's like, yeah. So I meditated and I had these things come up and they were realizations, and I had these realizations. She kind of started saying that I've written these articles and I haven't put them out there and I've done this and I should do that. And she's like, by the way, like, kind of looks at me and said, these are realizations, these are not actions. It doesn't mean that I need to act on any of these. And she just said like six things that could, like, actually change her whole career, which is what she said she wants. And without thinking, I just went, you're full of shit. And she just, like, bursts out laughing. And it's like it was because it was the first thing that came to mind. And I guess maybe there's a former version of me that would have been like, oh, yeah, what do you think about that? And how can we do that? But because she's just a friend, and because I'm on the journey of just saying what you think I just said it and then it was funny. And then it's like, oh, yeah, maybe I am. Maybe that is actually wrong. And maybe there's a better way forward here. So I think it's like. It's almost like it lets you saying what you think means you can just be more you. And if you're an all right person, then it's fine. So it's almost like be more you unless you're a dick, and then be less like you and more like someone who isn't a dick. But if you're fine, then you're fine, and you can just be you and you can say what you think all the time. And then if other people don't like it, that's okay because you'll go more in the direction of freedom and of not caring and of feeling somehow lighter.

[Chris]

Well, I want to examine this a little bit because I'm with you on most of this and I have a divergent point of view. So you say be more you unless you're a jerk, and then be less like you, because no one likes a jerk. But the problem with that is maybe many people who think they're jerks aren't really jerks, and so they're subjugating themselves or repressing these ideas. So my thing is, if you're a jerk, be a jerk. I don't care. You're funny. A lot of comedians are jerks. They say mean things, but they say it with the tone of voice that we can hear. I think the. The goal in life isn't necessary to be a jerk. I'm not condoning being a jerk, but if that's who you are, you need to do that. My suggestion to you, if you're looking for it, is if you're a jerk, learn nonviolent communication. That's all. So let's go back to your example. I think it's funny for you to say you're full of ass.

Now, if you had to unpack that and translate that to normal talk, what does that sound like in your brain without the profanity?

[Jody]

It sounds like you're telling yourself that because you are trying to avoid something. It sounds like there's A goal of not building your business, or there's a goal of not putting yourself out there. And therefore you're telling yourself that when you meditate, you don't have to take action on anything. It's just a realization, and there's something in there that's holding you back. And maybe you're telling me so that I validate it, but I'm not going to be that person because I don't want to contribute to holding you back. So that's. But that came out in those four words.

[Chris]

You're full of ass.

[Jody]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Okay, so you're full of ass is a funny thing to say. And because you have a tight relationship and the tone of which you say it, you both can laugh. And then the next bit of things that you say, it sounds like. Now each and every one of those comments is a more nuanced and clear way of saying what it is you're thinking. But they all sound like a little bit judgmental. There's judgment in each one of those statements. So what is the most optimistic, positive interpretation of what she shared with you? So I want to go so far to the right that we'll figure out what the neutral, nonviolent way of saying it is.

[Jody]

I think the most. Probably the most helpful question to have asked would be, what is that belief giving you? Or what are you getting from believing that? Because there's something in there that means if you know that you want to take action and you know what you want to take action on, and then you're telling yourself that the things that are coming up that are telling you that you should take action are actually just realizations and you can just let them go. There's something. There must be a beneficial reason to be holding that belief. Otherwise you just wouldn't. You would just let it go. So then I would probably encourage her to think about what that might be, which is hard. It's hard for anyone. Like, I think I probably have those as well, because there's always things that you're carrying around that you're not. Like, you don't realise. But then maybe that's why we need good friends to say, like four simple words to us so that we get there faster.

[Chris]

Yeah, I think we all carry things that we say we're going to do but don't do. And so I think we all can relate to this a little bit. So we enter into the conversation with a mindset that maybe I'm guilty of this too, and it's not my task to tell you what you should be doing with your task. So in my calm, cool, collected, distant, objective head, not in the conversation itself, I might have said something like, it must be so wonderful to have so many options that could lead to ultimate success, that your biggest dilemma is which one you need to do. And then let them figure out. Oh yeah, you're right, I get it. Like, get what? And I would play dumb. I'm like, get what? You know. And then that's how I would say what I think. If I had that infinite patience and wanted to say it in the least judging, nonviolent way. Instead of saying, you're full of ass, it's like you're saying to, to me, you have 17 ways of creating ultimate happiness, joy and fulfillment, but you don't want to take any of them because you have so many good options.

[Jody]

Maybe this is, I don't know if this is a girl thing, but sometimes I want people to be more violent with their communication with me. Sometimes it annoys me when people are non violent in their communication because I'm like, just say what you think. If that means having a violent way of saying something, let's do it. So then maybe it's a. I mean, everything's a projection and everything's a mirror. But it might almost be. I really like it when people call me out on my BS in a violent way because I find it very hard hitting. And if I'm ever going to like ask a friend for advice, I'd be like, tell me what you think and don't sugarcoat it. So then it might just be a projection of what I want from other people. So therefore, in a safe space, it's like, I'll say it because it's a safe space, but then it almost gives someone the freedom to talk back to you in that way.

[Chris]

Yes. So I think there's a reason why you and I get along so well, why we're doing these pods together, because we're very similar in that aspect. And I want to be clear to our audience listening here. When I went to see my therapist and the first day I saw her, I said, please tell it to me super straight and direct and as blunt as possible because I don't got time to like do the long version of this. I want to hear it straight and, you know, if it's cancer, tell me it's cancer. Let's not talk about it. And she goes, that's interesting. And we had a whole conversation about why I thought that was necessary and the reason why I got along so well with my Business coach Kira is. Because he would just say, like, who are those people that you're complaining about? I'm like, oh, I see where you're going with this. He wasn't going to take the long route. It's always the fastest thing. But I think you are rare in that that you want to hear it so directly and clearly. I guess I've just learned that until I meet someone who almost explicitly says that, I don't give myself permission to go there because most people can't handle it. They don't want it. And me telling them what their task should be is me trying to impose my will or control over them, which I don't want to do. Which is also in the book, by the way.

[Jody]

It's in the book. The separation of tasks.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Jody]

Your task is your task, and you should not impose on other people's tasks. Yeah, it's big. She did ask for my opinion, by the way.

[Chris]

Yeah, but people always say that. I don't really mean that. You know that, right?

[Jody]

Yeah.

[Chris]

You've coached a lot of people in your life. You know that not very many people can hear it. So I unfortunately learned this through a lot of trial and error because there's this thing in creative circles that we do called portfolio reviews. So you would assume somebody signed up for a time slot. It's not a lot of time. And they waited in line quite literally to talk to you. That what they would want is your direct, no BS, advice on how they can improve. Turns out that's not the case. Very rarely, that's what they want. They want to be affirmed most of the times. They want to be edified. They want to have small talk with you. It's really weird. There's a thousand things they want from you, only one of which is for you to be brutally honest with them. And even when they say, please be brutally honest with me, I said, about what? And then they'll tell you something else. I'm like, even in that language, that suitcase were to be brutally honest because they. This is why I think they say this because they were taught that you're supposed to say that to people to show them, like, I'm courageous, I am confident, and I will ask for this when in truth, it's not. We're all going through motions of what other people tell us to do to a degree.

[Jody]

So if you think about this through the lens of the book, then. And goals. Someone asking for a portfolio review, the surface level goal is that they want to improve their portfolio because they want to make it as an artist or a designer. But then the actual goal is. It can't be that. The actual goal is either to get the permission to go ahead to get validated, not feel like a failure, or the goal is to get some kind of feedback that means that they can use that as the reason that they didn't go for it. So, like, oh, I'll never make it as a designer because Christo said I won't, or like, I will make it as a designer because I'm going to do it regardless of what he said. What does he know? It's almost like it doesn't even. It almost actually doesn't matter what you say. What matters is their goal. And then they would create the symptoms around it.

[Chris]

Yes, I think there are infinite number of goals. One goal could be, I was told to be here today and everyone else is doing it. So if I don't shove my portfolio, then I'm a total loser and I do not know their goal. So I'm sad to admit this. I learned this rather late in this whole portfolio review process. Now I just ask them, what is your goal? How can I help you? We have 15 minutes together. What will be most helpful to you today? And once they started asking that question, then I started to learn their true goal, at least the one that was stated to me. One person's like, what do you think of my portfolio case? I'm like, of all the things you could ask me, you're going to ask me the most inconsequential question, which is, who cares about the mother freaking case? Really? I'm like, well, the case looks professional, it's well kept, and I think it opens easily. So looks good to me. Like, okay. I'm like, anything else? Like, no. I'm like, okay, well, what do you want to, you know, we have another eight minutes and like, nothing. Cool. Well, tell me how class was. So it's kind of shocking. Like, not in a gazillion years have you said, what's the number one thing that people want to know is my case. Good. That's pretty wild. And this is after doing not hundreds, but a lot of reviews where I'm like, yeah, so there's a typo here. This typography, the spacing, the rhythm in which you're creating is off conceptual. This is flat for me, or this is quite brilliant. But here's where you could have taken it further. That didn't help anybody, apparently. And people would go away crying because they didn't want to hear that from me. Kind of weird, huh?

[Jody]

Yeah. But then, you know how you get the. Often people have a teacher in their past where they think, I'm a success because that teacher told me I could be. Or, like, I'm a success because that teacher told me I couldn't be. A friend really loved the idea that this teacher told her that she would be a failure. And then she got invited back to speak at the school, and she's like, screw you. I was going to make it. I'm amazing. So it really actually doesn't matter what the person said. It matters the goal. And then you make of it whatever you will. So then where do people get their goals from? If it's not cause and effect, how do you just come up with the idea that you're going to have this goal? Like, how do you have the idea that I want to be the successful designer? Therefore, I'm going to go and see Chris, and whatever he says, I'm going to implement it because I've got the goal to do it. I don't think I quite understand where they come from if it's not cause and effect.

[Chris]

Yeah. I can't say that my individual experience speaks to what other people feel, because I realized I'm a little bit of a strange bird. But I'll tell you, like, when I presented my work in class, my goal was always to hear the unfiltered opinion and critique of the professor. Whether they're having a good day or a bad day, whether they liked me or disliked me didn't matter to me. My goal was to be the best designer I could become, and only through critique can I become that designer. So in some classes, I was unfairly, in that moment, criticized for things I didn't. I have to have absolute control over. And I did feel bad for myself, mostly because I promised myself, I'm not gonna put myself in a situation like this again. So I'll give you two examples. Okay. Example number one was, I'm a relatively poor student compared to my classmates. I don't have my own computer, which almost everybody does. This is in the early 90s, 91, I think. And I only have access to the computer lab. And so there's finite time in which you can get in there because our class is running all the time. And so we have an assignment, and I could not do it all. So I wound up sketching it. And the professor looked at the sketches, and some of the computer printouts said, this is not acceptable. I'm like, okay, I understand that that's not the assignment. I did the best that I could. And I just made sure I would get into every lab that I could after that. And so in that moment, I felt a little sad for myself, like, you poor little bastard, go get yourself a computer or whatever. And friends said, come over, use our computer. And then when I'd come over, like, they don't. They're not free, you know. So it was one of these things where you could wallow in self pity. I'm like, no, I'll never let that happen again. And I didn't want to prove myself, to prove that the professor was wrong. I accepted that based on the objective work output, I did not follow the assignment as given to me. I did feel pretty embarrassed and bad at that moment. Now jump forward to a different class where that's not the same problem. We were given an assignment to create a brochure for a city. Now, up to this point, the only time in which I've left America after arriving in America was to go to Hawaii with my parents in high school. That was probably the second time I've been on an airplane. Okay, Just to let you know how worldly I am. So I've really not left anywhere. Living in the valley in Northern California. And so now I'm designing a brochure for Rome, which I've never been. I don't know much about, you know, and everyone else has been everywhere, has vacationed and has traveled extensively. And so my first attempt at this, I was just ripped. Ripped by the professor. And he was very unkind. And that's okay. And he didn't understand that I was literally reading about all these. The city from a lot of different books. But we had a week to do this. It's not enough time. And he challenged me openly in front of everybody. He's like, have you read any books? I'm like, I'm working through that. And there are literally a pile of books on my desk where. But he don't care. They just look at output. They don't hear anything from you. So I'm like, okay. But by the end of that class, believe it or not, professor was very warm to me because I outworked everybody and even the classmates who said, we underestimated you. I'm like, that's okay. I may not have these experiences. I'm not as worldly as you all, but I can design like a mother effort. And I'm just going to keep doing this. So that's just my perspective on like when you get negative feedback, how you can interpret it. So what do you make of that, Jodi?

[Jody]

Is there any part of looking back at that story that gives you a cause and effect feeling? Do you look back at it and go, this happened when I was at school, therefore that led to where I am today?

[Chris]

I don't think of it like that, though. I know what you're talking about. Because some very successful people, people who have sold their company for a billion dollars, will go on stage and saying, I met with this person, their advice, and they're like, no, you're not worth it now. They work for me. And those are, like, good kind of comeuppance stories. And I'm not even sure that that as, like, a vengeance, kind of like, I'm going to show you your mother. But I think it just makes for a good story that people can keep behind and applaud because everybody likes that underdog, and it just frames the story better. I always felt like I have a dream, and my dream is to make it doing this thing. And I've accepted all the hardships that are going to come with it. And I will do everything in my power, despite what. Starting at. On first base, where everyone's on, like, third base, it doesn't matter, because I just know I will outwork every single person and I will get where I need to be. And I'm not there yet, but I will be there. And that's my burning motivation, is to prove to myself that I am who I say I am. That's mostly the narrative.

[Jody]

So the goal was just crazy strong then. So it almost didn't matter. If the critique came your way and it was something you had to change, fine. If the critique came your way and it was, you were amazing, you're going to be great. Fine as well.

[Chris]

I did it. Yeah, it's fine. Whatever. Yeah. Quite literally. Jodi. So you and I have not talked about this before then? No, because I've explained this to people.

[Jody]

Yeah. Okay.

[Chris]

Here's my magical thinking. And I learned this very early because art school, the one that I went to, can be quite hard on your sense of self, your identity, if you don't learn this way of thinking. When I create the work, it's all me, but as soon as I let go of the pen, the marker, or the mouse, it's not my work anymore. I don't even know who made it. I just put it up on the wall, and if they're attacking it, let's attack it together. It's like, yeah, that idiot, Whoever that is. Or, that was great. Yeah. Whoever did that was great. And then I would take it back. I'm like, what did I learn from this? So I practiced this level of detachment quite early on. Like, even in the first semester at art school. School. When I saw. I looked around the room, I was like, why is everybody so invested in their piece that they're arguing with a teacher? It kind of bothered me very much. Like the kid in the story arguing with the. With the philosopher. It just. Why don't you just accept it? You're the idiot in this. You understand? This is the professor. This is the wise person. Why you refuse to accept this? I do not understand. What a waste of effing time. And so what happened is, because I have objective data in that each student only cared about the critique in which, when it was their turn, you could literally look around the room. They're, like, looking somewhere else. They're not even here. And I was looking at every single piece as if it was my work. I'm like, huh? Wait, you see? You can't do that. Okay, okay. And. Oh, over here. So when they were learning one at a time, I was learning 15, 20 at a time. Because there were 20 students in a class. Class. And I could see that immediately, from week to week, the level of progress that I made was leapfrogging them exponentially. So much so that they started asking me for critiques while we're peers. That's how I already knew I had a lot of objective data to tell me. You're on the right path, kid.

[Jody]

So really, the common enemy was your work. You made it a common enemy. You kind of allowed it to be the common enemy. Because you also made it like, okay, it's on the wall. Who made this? Let's all critique it together. So then it wasn't a kind of power struggle between you and the professors or you and the other students. It was like, no, we're on the same team, and we're attacking this thing together.

[Chris]

There's just a lot of detachment. I didn't even look at it as an enemy because that would give me a perspective. It's just like, there's a thing. Let's look at how to make it better or if it's working, why does it work? I want to understand, because at that point, my vocabulary for understanding design was very low.

[Jody]

One of the instructions in the book is, do not get into fights. If there's a kind of power struggle that you have to walk away and let go of the idea of winning and losing, because that is a power struggle that you don't want to do. And it's like, if you step away from competition so you don't feel like you're in competition with other students, you don't feel like you're kind of trying to prove something in a power struggle with professors, then it allows you to do what the book says you should do, which is basically have only a healthy competition with the best version of yourself, with your own potential. So it's like, here's my work, and now we're going to talk about it. It's not even my work now. It's just a thing that we're talking about. But I know that when I kind of do internalize the feedback, I'm going to be able to use this to close the gap between me and my highest version of this amazing designer that I know I want to be, that I know I already am, that I'm becoming.

[Chris]

Yes, I see the future me. And this is where there's a lot of conflicting ideas, because I'm very detached, except for when it's when I'm doing it. And then once class is over, I can become a regular person again. And then the ego takes over again. It's like, are you the best person? Can you be better? Let's go for it. And then I'm comparing, but in the moment I'm not, because I feel like listening with that filter will diminish my ability to process. And there's this wonderful thing. So I shot a film, a documentary for each of the departments at Otis. So I would go to each department, and the fashion department, they do something quite interesting. It's very personal expression of your art in fashion. Right. And so they have the professor and they would critique the work. And the person who's receiving the critique was told not to do anything but to sit there and process and be 100% present. And then a classmate would take notes for them. And I thought, what a wonderful thing, because the classmate could care less what's happening. They're just objectively writing, this is great. This isn't. And they would give you the notes because I don't think you can actually listen and actually write any kind of real note. Most people cannot. And I thought that this was such a wonderful practice, but it was only done in the fashion department. And I thought, wow, When I learned that, once I was teaching again, I told my students, we're going to pair up. You're going to take the notes for John, and John's going to take the notes for you. You. And then you're Going to be able to read the notes. You have an obligation, a duty to take really good notes for this person because that person can probably only hear 20% of what's being said. Because they're so hurt in the moment, they're so emotionally attached to the work. It's an extension of who they are. So if you cut the work, you cut them. And that's why so many students, after the critique, quite literally during the class or right after class, during break, would go to the bathroom and cry.

[Jody]

Do you adopt the same mentality right now with everything you do online and getting critique or becoming better at it or being able to create something that's maybe very raw or very draft and very like, okay, this is the thing that I've created. And then send it out to the editor, the graphics person, the social media scheduler, whatever. Like, do you have the same level of detachment, being able to hand that over to other people?

[Chris]

I will tell you how we do it and then you, you tell me if it's a detachment or not. I show up, we record content. Sometimes I don't even know what we're going to record. Depending on who I'm working with. Sometimes I have an idea and we're going to do what I want after record. I have no idea what happens. I'm not involved in editing process. No one shows me edits. They don't show me anything. They just do whatever they do. And the next thing I know, I see it online somewhere because somebody told me they just saw it, like, oh, okay. And I don't even bother to check it. Most of the time, the only time I check it is because somebody says, oh, the audio quality is not. Or you guys have a typo, or that's a weird shot. I'm like, what is a weird shot? I don't even know what this is. I have to go rewatch it. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, team, there was a typo. Or can we not use a title like that because it's a little click baity. Let's try and work on this. So here's what I've learned a lot in working with creative people. You can tell them what you want, you can tell them how to do it, but you shouldn't do both. That's the mistake that a lot of people make. So people tell them what they want and then they tell them how to do it. And when you tell people how to do it, really bad things happen. One, you become a micromanager. Two, you inhibit people's own ability to add or contribute in a meaningful way, because they're just going to wait for you to tell them what to do. So you're robbing them of their autonomous creative thoughts and input. And you're saying to all of them, everybody who works for you, you are by far the smartest, most creative person here. I don't want to do that at all. So what I say is we create work to a certain standard. Let's all understand what that standard is. Our goal is to grow subscribers, watch time, and then potentially money, revenue, and you all figure out how to get there. We have objective measurements and when you look at it, are we ranked number one on this video, number 10, 10 of 10, or is it 1 of 10? And what can we do to improve the CTR? Because we know what our base CTR is, our click through rate, and when it goes above that, we know it's gonna perform really well relative to our own channel, not compared to other people. And so when they don't work, I just tell people whatever you're doing isn't working. I suggest you try something else, otherwise we're gonna get the exact same result.

[Jody]

Have you ever censored anything? Have you ever had something go out that you said that someone else has turned into a piece of content where you've said, no, take that down.

[Chris]

I cannot recall when that happened.

[Jody]

So then there must be a very high level of trust in the input.

[Chris]

What do you mean?

[Jody]

Well, if everything's coming from something that you've said or you've talked someone through or you've done, do you ever get the feeling like, oh, I shouldn't have said that, or oh, that was stupid, or oh, there was a better way of saying that, or do you ever get that feeling after where you're like, oh, I wish I'd said that instead. Does anything come up like that?

[Chris]

Yeah, every once in a while. So here's what I know about myself. I don't really have the patience or the interest to go and overwatch edits and say, yeah, can we trim here and move that around a little bit? So I know if I'm going to say something, I better say it right the first time because it's all fodder for the team. So if I say something really stupid, let's say if I were to say something sexist, misogynistic, racist, homophobic or something crazy, right, Whatever it is, I'm going to say something horrible, then I know that's going to be a problem because I have to tell the team Edit that part out because that's not a good look. So then I have to ask myself, if that were ever to happen, am I those things? Because why would someone who's not that thing say those things and believe those things? So my pursuit is to really think about the things I think about so that I don't have to think about the things I say.

[Jody]

Yeah. So then you have a very high level of agency and you hold yourself to very high standards. That means that you trust the input so highly that you can just say, do whatever you want with this. And then it works.

[Chris]

Yeah. Like for example, somebody's like, well, we're going to leak this footage. I'm like, what is it? What are we leaking? All things I've said. Well, I must have meant it because I said it. Maybe I didn't say it the right way, maybe I misquoted somebody. But I'm human and if you want to judge me for being human, that's fine by me. That's your task, not mine to worry about.

[Jody]

And do you have an idea of the timeline that that would hold true for? Because I guess you probably change your beliefs all the time or you grow and you read books and you have new perspectives on stuff and then eventually you get to the stage where you think, oh, that thing I thought last year. I don't even think anymore. So what's the timeline between the input and the output still making sense in your mind to the point that you wouldn't ever say, I'll take that down.

[Chris]

I've taken videos down. So it's been 10 years of content creation on YouTube fairly consistently, probably by eight years. Super like focused. First two years weren't as focused and I don't think there's something I did. I'm like, yeah, you know, I don't believe that anymore. Let's go change that. And the reason why is people need to remember this. I recorded my first video when I was 42 years old. So by some measurements I'm already middle aged at that point. So I kind of already know who I am and what I believe in. And I've done things in my life that I can recall and tell others. The danger of you creating content, I warn my children about this when they're like 13, 15, 17, 18 is. You're bound to have some crazy ass thoughts right now. You're going to regret some of the things you say. So just be mindful of that. Still be who you want to be, but just be aware that these things live forever. Once you publish them on the Internet. I have taken down a couple of videos, and I'll tell you why. Because in those videos, I was really angry with my team, and I just don't think that's a good example of how to talk to people. And if you played it again, I'll stand by it and I'll even tell you what. What's happened in the video just so people have context. But when people don't have context of what's going on, they're gonna say, like, what a freaking a hole this guy just brings on people to berate. And he's such a jerk. This is what's wrong with Hollywood. And blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's not. Not really. But if you just took that snapshot, I would say that's a fair critique of me. And I'll tell you literally what's happened, okay? So just so people know, I've taken those videos down because I'm like, yeah, I don't want that kind of energy in the world. It's not that I regret saying those things. And so here's what happens, okay? I have very young people working for me, and I'm at this point still relatively early in live streaming. Their job is to make sure we're streaming and they cut to the right cameras. And one person's job is literally just to read the comments and summarize them so I don't have to track them in real time. And so I'm the person who figures out the topic, prepare the deck, and I operate the soundboard. And what else am I doing? I'm operating my deck while reading the comments. So if you kind of look at me, it's like me on the Matrix, where I have 17 screens and I'm watching lots of different things at the same time. One person's job is to make sure we're streaming and that they're cutting to the appropriate camera feed. The other person's job, sole job, is to read the comments. That's it. So we get in, we're ready to record. Of course, I've been preparing for hours prior to this. We start rolling, and I do my intro. And then the person editing is like, chris, we have to do it again. We weren't live, like, okay, we do this four times. So you can imagine I have patience, but I have finite patience. But I don't have a high tolerance for ineptitude and incompetence. I just don't. So now I'm already on edge. I'm like, okay, tell me this time it's going to be the right time because I'm also thinking about our audience who are tuned in live, like, what the heck is happening to this stream? Your one job is to do that. And then later on, the person reading the comments is fumbling all over the words. I'm like, you know, you have half an hour to read all the comments and to put in your own words. You don't literally have to read the comment as it's written, just read the essence of it. And then both of them decided they've had enough and so they're getting a little lippy with me. And that's when they, they got the full brunt of this. Because I'm like, how many more jobs do you want me to do? If you can put the controls in here, I would just read all the comments myself and I'll control all the cameras and we'll get a monkey here to turn this thing on. So at that point I'm like, I'm done with you guys now. They didn't last that long afterwards because I just like, I need a competent person to just run the tech because I can't do all of it, please. And that's when I'm like, I've had enough, guys. Especially when you know you're incompetent and trying to get lippy with me. I'll destroy you right now. That's kind of what happened.

[Jody]

Oh, it's so interesting. So then, so it's basically. It's the low energy thing, isn't it? It's like if you know you're not your high energy self when you're doing something, then I can imagine that you would then want to go over. Like that would mean that you wouldn't trust the input because then you're like, hang on, that wasn't. It was kind of not really me, but at the same time it was me because that thing made me angry or. But then if you looked at that through the book as well, if you had, you didn't have the goal to get angry or you didn't have the goal for it to mess up. It was a cause and effect thing. Would you say it was a cause and effect thing?

[Chris]

I still take personal responsibility for choosing the words that I chose. I chose very violent ways of dealing with this. And whenever I've done so later on, I'm like the cooler head, as more stoic response would have been warranted here. And less violent version of whatever I said and did. But that's still me. And here's what People don't understand about me. So you see a person now wearing, like, designer clothes and jewelry, and people are like, oh, my God, he's all, like, iced out today, you know? And like, oh, it must be nice to be born into privilege. What they don't understand is I grew up for a good portion of my life, lower middle class, in really rough neighborhoods. When people got into fights, I got into fights myself. Like, physical fist fights with people that I don't even know, because this is how it was done in the hood. Now, luckily, my parents worked really hard, got us out of those situations where it did feel sometimes dangerous. I grew up in a neighborhood where there was a, like, a bigger, older boy who had a German shepherd who would send his dog after us when we were just kids. This is not your white picket fence, protected community kind of thing. And so there is still a little bit of that edge in me that never goes away. And I told people this, and there is a violence in me that if challenged and provoked for a period of time, will be released. And I don't want that person to come out. I've done a lot to not let that person come out, because now I have too much to risk. And I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody, but that person still exists. And I accept that person. I've embraced that there is a violent person inside of me that can be provoked to a point which I will then release, and then I hulk out, and that's what happens. And I fully accept that.

[Jody]

So back then, it's almost like the goal was so that people knew that it's a quality thing. The goal was that people knew that the live stream going wrong wasn't down to you because you did everything you could. Maybe the goal was to make sure that the audience knew that it was someone else. Potentially.

[Chris]

I could care less what the audience is thinking. I'm streaming. I don't even care. I would talk to you this way with or without the camera on right now. You guys, is it too much for you to just read English right now? I would say things like that. That's like, your job, isn't it? Can you summarize this in a way so that I can understand?

So I'm getting real snappy at this point because I'm like, there's only so many jobs I can do. And I've kind of had enough at this point. Like, I can. I'm not some kind of, like, I don't know. I'm not a doormat. I'm not a Cuck. You know, I'm not here to watch you do things. I'm like, I didn't pay you to do this job that you're not doing and only to sit here and to allow you to get lippy with me. If they weren't lippy with me, it'd be fine. I'd still be like, yeah, can we guys just take a minute and read that before you tell me? And I would be kind, you know, but they got real lippy with me and try to prove something to me. And that's when I'm like, oh. And I want to tell you this one thing. You know, when you watch these movies that are pieces of fiction, where there's a kid who's picked on in those movies and like the little pencil neck, geeky kid with the broken glass with a bandage or a piece of tape on it, that was me. Like when I watch those scenes, I'm like, that's not fiction, that's real. I remember these moments, right? Like when something fell out of my backpack and the kids would like throw it around the room. I'm trying to get it back from them. And then at some point I want to cry. And the other part is, I'm going to hurt you. So that flight or fight thing. So people don't understand this. I may appear to be refined and be very intentional with how I do things, but there is some violence in me putting it out there. So when you cross me, we're gonna go. And we almost got into a fistfight on camera one time, by the way, with my former co founder, by the way.

[Jody]

But then what is the goal like of that moment where you were surrounded by incompetence four times, false starts, all that kind of stuff. If you decided to select anger like in the, in the book, it's like, it's almost like you've got a toolbox. You've got a toolbox of all these emotions. And if you make the choice, if you assume that cause and effect does not exist, and you made the choice to select anger as the tool in your toolbox, what was the goal?

[Chris]

To be violent?

[Jody]

Yeah. To say people knew that you had that side to you.

[Chris]

I guess I can tolerate a lot. But at this point, you know what it is. I know exactly what it is. Now, my hot button is disrespect. When they got lippy with me, you disrespected me, and for which I cannot back down. Or I can, but I choose not to.

[Jody]

But is it to do with other people knowing that they can't treat you like that. Or is it impersonal? Like, what's the. What's the goal?

[Chris]

I don't know, but I've gotten into some pretty heated arguments with anybody and everybody in my life when they cross that line with me. It's. I'll give you a lot of latitude when you dis. If you were to call me a liar and said something I said was not true, and we're getting into words, and then we might get into more afterwards, I don't know. Just don't disrespect me. It's like, you can do lots of things. You can ask for money, you can ask for time, you can ask for advice. But when you disrespect me and I can tell you another story you want. I mean, I have lots of stories when it was, like, about to go here. There's a threshold. And so what people think, oh, Chris, you're a cool, cold, unemotional person, and people really know me and understand me. It's like, no, you're actually a really warm person, and the people really, really understand me. You know, like, no, there's a lot of hot emotion under that. It just. You do a really good job of regulating when those things get to come out. Like my older brother, I don't know this for a fact, but I'm pretty sure he's on the spectrum. He's very great at engineering and he's very binary. Like, he is as cold as cold can be. And so I don't think he's choosing. Whereas when I'm being cold, you understand that it's a choice because I'm being cool in this moment. But there's a lot of internal regulation that's happening right now.

[Jody]

I love this so much, but I like the way that getting around that now, if the goal then was something different and the goal now is just have the best show, have the best metrics, have the best whatever it is, then it feels like the way that you achieve that goal now is basically by making sure you hire really good people who you can trust to do that thing. Which is different from hiring people who may or may not get it wrong.

[Chris]

No, actually, I don't have the very best people. I can't afford it. I'm not committed to that just yet. What I do is I hire the people that can afford at the skill level that they're at, letting them know what the goal is and allowing them to grow into that role and having lots of latitude in between. So I'm not jumping on the person's neck because there's like three people, three different independent contractors who work on our media team on their neck because it's not performed well. I'm just like, it isn't performing well. Let's just keep an eye on this. Let's try something else. Or. This isn't hitting it. You just need to be aware of that. I'm not yelling at you. I'm not saying you're a bad human. I'm not threatening to fire you. But if you consistently do this and you're not trying to make it better, then eventually you'll force my hand to, like, hire someone else. That's it. So I'm not saying I've got the triple A team because we're all just trying to learn together in life. And I'm encouraged by that, that they want to try.

[Jody]

Yeah. And then because they have the freedom, they can try. Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah. They'll ask me, can we edit this way? I'm like, yeah, can we use that clip? I'm like, yeah, as long as you don't do something that violates one of our core values, we're good. Like, I don't want you to steal something and not cite or credit people or use a totally inappropriate clip. Or. There was an instance when one of my team members cut someone else saying something and it made it look like I was attacking them. And that person had a big problem with us. Like, I used to respect you, but that was a low ball move. I'm like, what are we talking about? I didn't even look at this. I don't even know. So I go into it, I'm like, okay, I take full responsibility. Everything my team does, it's going to be my fault. So I apologize to you. How do we make this right? They're like, oh, oh, no, it's okay then. And I told the team, team, I know that's on your intention. You would never want to hurt people like this, but can you look at it from this person's point of view and be smarter? Let's edit this thing out. And so they edited it out. And he said, if there's anything else I can do to make it up to you, let me know. So I'm still okay with that. And everybody's still working for me right now. Even if you do something like that, I got no problems.

[Jody]

So this is the courage to be disliked, plus nonviolent communication that makes it all work, perhaps.

[Chris]

Well, I live in the real world. I don't know how much of this philosopher and the student is real. It's good explaining ideas, but in the real world, it's a little messy, right? Yeah, it's a little messy. So I'm not telling you I'm devoid of ego or devoid of emotion. I'm always stoic or my task is my task and your task is your task. I'm always moving through all these things. So I think in our next conversation, I want to continue this with you about maybe one or two core concepts from the book, and then we can explore together, like how that is applied in real life, what has happened to you since reading that book and how far you've come versus how far you would still like to go in this. Because if you're looking to learn how to be courageous, to be disliked, and to let go of the need to make other people happy, I believe I can help you. I'm not saying this to you, Jody. I'm saying this to everyone who's listening to this, who might be intrigued by how I got myself here, because I'm real. That's a story. And we can find. I think life gets interesting in the gaps between theory and application and the messiness of it all. And I'm happy to talk about it. Now, we're gonna have to do a cliffhanger here, everybody. I want to thank you for just joining us, as always. This ongoing series between Jody and myself, I think we're. We know a little bit more about what we're talking about now. The previous episodes, we know nothing about anything, but we know something about some things now.

[Jody]

I think one tiny thing is that I think the conclusion to what you said is that you maybe need to write more books and maybe drop a link in the comments if that's what you want Chris to do. And I'm not trying to intrude on your tasks because we are very separate in these things. But, like, if you already have the answers to all the books that are already out there, let's write some more. Let's go.

[Chris]

You know, maybe I have to. I don't know. Maybe this is one of those life tasks I've been avoiding, that I need to. To get to the next level.