Joe Hudson: How your Emotions Drive your Success & Fulfillment

Joe Hudson 0:00 People who are just like, "I'm just in it for the money," they're never hyper successful and they're never long-term successful. They might get the money, no doubt, but their process of getting to that money is incredibly hard.

Ali Abdaal 0:10 What you're about to hear is an interview that I've just wrapped with the incredible Joe Hudson. Now, Joe is a former venture capitalist turned philanthropist who is now the executive coach to some of Silicon Valley's most famous and rich [laughs] executives and CEOs.

Joe Hudson 0:26 The search for purpose assumes that you weren't born with it, and so it chases it away. So emotional decision-making is... it's actually what drives us. We're all having emotions all the time. There is no waking moment where an emotion isn't happening. The question is, are we conscious of the emotion?

Ali Abdaal 0:41 So in the conversation, we talk about the relationship between success, money, fulfillment. We turn into talking about emotions and how to feel emotions and emotional fluidity. We do a little bit of kind of therapy for me around like my fear of reading negative reviews of my book and seeing negative comments and what that says about feelings and emotions and ego and all that fun stuff. We talk a little bit about parenting, which is kind of interesting, and we end with some thoughts about what are the key differences between people who are successful and happy versus people who are successful and unhappy.

Joe Hudson 1:08 We only get triggered at the stuff that we actually think is true about ourselves.

Ali Abdaal 1:11 Oh, yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:13 Being able to take an attack and learn to s- keep an open heart destroys the ego.

Ali Abdaal 1:17 Joe Hudson, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

Joe Hudson 1:19 I'm doing well. Good to see you again.

Ali Abdaal 1:21 Likewise. Thank you so much for coming on.

Joe Hudson 1:22 Yeah, of course.

Ali Abdaal 1:23 Um, for people who might not know who you are, how, how, how do you describe what you do for work?

Joe Hudson 1:28 [laughs] That's an incredibly challenging question for when you really get into it, but the short answer is that I coach some of the most famous CEOs in Silicon Valley and executives in-- across the country.

Ali Abdaal 1:39 Yeah. Nice. So what does that mean? For s- for someone who doesn't know what coach means, like, how would you describe how you, how you work with them and what, what sort of companies are these? What sort of CEOs?

Joe Hudson 1:48 Yeah. So the, the, the way that I do the work is that, well, I was a venture capitalist for years, and so I will work on business things with them. But oftentimes the thing that's holding them back from business is holding them back in other parts of their life. And so we're gonna dig into what that is and solve the underlying problems, not just the top-level problems of the business.

Ali Abdaal 2:07 Got it.

Joe Hudson 2:08 So typically, if I can see somebody who is having a problem in one part of their business, you can usually find something in their personal life that corresponds to it, something that happened in their childhood that corresponds to it, and when you can tie that pattern together and undo it, then the business frees up, and then they free up, and they're more fulfilled, happier.

Ali Abdaal 2:26 How, how, how does that link work? B- because y- you would assume, let's, let's say someone like Elon Musk-

Joe Hudson 2:31 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 2:31 ... m- maybe he's got problems in his personal life, but-

Joe Hudson 2:33 Yes

Ali Abdaal 2:33 ... his businesses are flourishing. So, like, how, how do problems in a CEO's personal life end up manifesting in the business?

Joe Hudson 2:39 Uh, I mean, there's every dozens of ways. And so, yeah, so you can be absolutely miserable and have a successful, uh, career, for sure. Uh, but what typically happens, and there's some, you know, hyper-successful people where this is slightly different, but what typically happens is that at some point they wake up at, like, forty years old, they're like, "Oh, I have a billion dollars and I'm fucking miserable and I'm getting divorced and it's very public and I'm getting lots of money taken from me, from my wife or, or I'm, like, losing half my fortune and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the board doesn't like me and now they're trying to find another CEO," and all that stuff kind of falls apart for them. That's clearly not for all of them, but that's an, a typical thing where they have gotten the success and then they realize they got everything they wanted but they didn't actually get what they needed.

Ali Abdaal 3:26 Yeah. Okay. So o- o- one of the things that I wanted to talk about in this episode was how do you get worldly success, but at the same time, while also being emotionally and spiritually and, like, personally and relationally fulfilled.

Joe Hudson 3:39 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 3:39 And it sounds like that's the sort of thing you kinda help these, like, ridiculously rich, massive company CEOs with.

Joe Hudson 3:45 That's correct. Or it's, in some cases, I help people grow massively successful companies. So it's, some of them I've worked with when they're smaller and then they've grown into something amazing, and sometimes it's I'm working with somebody who's already doing something amazing.

Ali Abdaal 3:57 Okay.

Joe Hudson 3:58 Um, so, so generally I think about it like this. In, like, the nineteen seventies you could either be a businessman or you could be an environmentalist and you couldn't be both, and somewhere in the nineties they, like, Walmart as an example said, "Oh hey, we can actually help the environment and still be like a great successful company." And Lee Scott, who was the CEO of the time, said when he did it, it was like sweeping thousand dollar bills off the floor. And so an example that he gave, which I loved, was he-- we asked the employees, "Hey, how do we help the environment?" Some kid in a break room said, "Hey, I, I have an idea. Why don't you take the lights out of the Coke machines in the break rooms at Walmart?" Savings to Walmart was one point five million dollars a year at the time, but electricity prices is probably more like three million now. So j- that's an example of what, where that transition happened where you can either be a businessman or an environmentalist and to where we, you can actually be both. And I think the same transition is happening in our society now. You can be a successful businessman and not be fulfilled and, you know, do things that just feel horrible to you, but at least you have the success that you think is gonna make you happy or you can do both. And if you're gonna do both, what you find out is it actually makes you more successful. It's like sweeping thousand dollar bills off the floor.

Ali Abdaal 5:14 Ooh.

Joe Hudson 5:14 So it's the exact same thing when you really figure it out. So an example of this is if you focus, say, on your own enjoyment in a company

Joe Hudson 5:23 where you say, "Oh, how do I sell not just to be effective, but so that I can enjoy it and be effective?" Then you're gonna be a better salesperson and than if you're just thinking about being effective.

Ali Abdaal 5:35 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 5:35 And so it's an amazing thing where, you know, I, I am thinking of one CEO in particular right now where it's, it's this beautiful thought process. He's, he's like, "I don't know. Can you be happy and run a company?" And I was like, "You thought it was possible to real- build like a ten billion dollar company and you can't like conceive of the fact that you can do it while you're happy?" Which is really more about their upbringing typically than it is about what reality is.

Ali Abdaal 5:59 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 5:59 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 6:00 So I l- I love this concept of You know, the, the, there was a line you threw out at this, uh, retreat a couple, uh, a couple of days ago, which is, "Enjoyment is efficiency."

Joe Hudson 6:09 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 6:09 And I thought that was super interest- So, so, so my book is literally called Feel-Good Productivity, and it's about this exact thing-

Joe Hudson 6:14 Mm

Ali Abdaal 6:14 ... about how actually by focusing on enjoying the process, uh, and finding ways to, to have fun, you actually become more productive, more creative, less stressed, and we dove into some of the research around that.

Joe Hudson 6:23 Correct.

Ali Abdaal 6:24 But even as someone who literally has it on my... I literally have an iPhone wallpaper that says-

Joe Hudson 6:27 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 6:28 ... "What would this look like if it were fun?" I still don't take the idea itself that seriously-

Joe Hudson 6:32 Right

Ali Abdaal 6:32 ... because in my mind there's always the sense of like, well, I could do the thing that's fun or I could do the thing that makes money.

Joe Hudson 6:38 Right.

Ali Abdaal 6:38 And that often takes me in, like, a weird... puts me in this weird, like, fork in the road where I then have to think, okay, so if I... I s- I, I have to be okay with leaving money on the table then in order to enjoy my YouTube channel, and yeah, I guess I'm okay with a couple million a year in profit, but like if I grow the business, then it's gonna make other things less fun for me.

Joe Hudson 6:56 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 6:56 And I have all this narrative around surely success and, like, worldly success and money can't actually come from enjoyment, even though I've literally, like, written the book about it.

Joe Hudson 7:05 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 7:06 And I'm like, this is kind of weird. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 7:08 So a couple things to think, think about. The, the metaphor I love is that I had a girlfriend in college and she used to play tennis, and she would serve and hit, you know, very well, and the coach put out the basket that you collect balls in and sh- said, "Serve and hit it." And so she would serve and hit it, and she'd hit it four out of five times. And then he took the basket away, he put a quarter in the middle, and he said, "Serve and hit it." And she didn't hit the quarter once, but if you put the basket on top of it, she would've hit it five out of five times. And so highly successful people, none of them are in it to make a billion dollars. None of them are in it to make a billion dollars. They're in it maybe to prove that they're smarter than everybody, to win a game, to save the world, to better the world, to, to get to space, whatever it is. They have some vision about how they're gonna do something that's really... that isn't about the money, and the money is like the, the pigment, uh, that a painter would use or an instrument that a, that a, a, a guitar player would use. It's, it is the means to an end. And so if you think about that for a second, that people who are just like, "I'm just in it for the money," they're never hyper-successful

Joe Hudson 8:13 and they're never long-term successful. They might get the money, no doubt, but, uh, but their process of getting to that money is incredibly hard. And so if you just look, like Bill Gates, it wasn't like, "I wanna be the richest guy in the world." It was, "I wanted to build this. I wanted to win," blah, blah, blah. So it's a similar deal with enjoyment. If you have a goal that's beyond the making of money, that is how you actually become hyper-successful. That is the quarter in the middle of the basket so that when you serve, you hit it. Because typically the way that humans work is when they get to the goal, they ha- this feel... they feel good for a moment. They don't feel good because they hit their goal. They feel good because there's n- nothing that they have to want for a moment, so they can just actually enjoy the moment.

Ali Abdaal 8:56 Mm.

Joe Hudson 8:56 They're like, "Oh, okay." And then immediately this new goal comes in, and so getting to goal actually creates a lot of anxiety for people. So, "Oh, my... I gotta get to a goal. I gotta get to a goal." There's anxiety to that, and then it's like... And so you can... If you ever play, like, a sport like tennis or anything like that, it's like game point, all of a sudden there's more pressure and you don't play quite as well. You get in your head. It's that same thing. So if you create the goal beyond money, and it's actually your true goal-

Ali Abdaal 9:24 Mm

Joe Hudson 9:24 ... then the money kinda is part of getting to the actual goal, which is far beyond it, and you don't have that anxiety of like, "Oh my God, the money's gonna go away."

Ali Abdaal 9:33 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 9:33 "Oh my God, I gotta have the money." That pushes money away. Just like if it, if I was with you, if I was like, "Oh my God, you're gonna go away. Oh my God, I, I don't know. What... If I have to keep you here, like, what do I have to say?" All of a sudden you don't wanna be around me. That would-

Ali Abdaal 9:46 Yeah

Joe Hudson 9:46 ... just fucking suck. Like-

Ali Abdaal 9:48 Yeah

Joe Hudson 9:48 ... so it's the sa- same thing in our life.

Ali Abdaal 9:51 Okay, so let's say someone's listening to this and, you know, we have a lot of, let's say, people in their, uh, mid to late 20s who are-

Joe Hudson 9:57 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 9:57 ... maybe kind of fairly early on in their career-

Joe Hudson 10:00 Yes

Ali Abdaal 10:00 ... and they've realized that they hate, they hate their job-

Joe Hudson 10:02 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 10:02 ... and therefore they, they discover Ali Abdaal on YouTube or The Deep Dive podcast and they're like-

Joe Hudson 10:06 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 10:06 ... "Oh, there's this path that you can start a business to make money, and then you can quit your job one day," which was sort of what I did in a-

Joe Hudson 10:13 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 10:13 ... somewhat roundabout way with medicine.

Joe Hudson 10:14 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 10:15 And a lot of content on YouTube is focused on the money goal, how to make your first 10,000 a month.

Joe Hudson 10:20 Yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 10:21 A lot of the videos that we title, 'cause we A/B test titles and we realize that when you put how to make $10,000 a month as the title, people click on it.

Joe Hudson 10:28 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 10:28 Whereas if you put how to build a business you enjoy, no one's gonna click on that. Like we-

Joe Hudson 10:31 Correct

Ali Abdaal 10:31 ... we actually tried that. We tried [laughs] we, we like l- we, we tried a video which was all about how to have a business you enjoy-

Joe Hudson 10:37 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 10:37 ... and absolutely tanked, and we just changed the title to how to make your first 10K, and boom, suddenly it went viral.

Joe Hudson 10:42 Right. Right, right, right.

Ali Abdaal 10:42 So a lot of people are focused on the goal of making money.

Joe Hudson 10:44 Which is why a lot of people are poor.

Ali Abdaal 10:46 Oh, tell me more. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 10:47 Well, it's just that. Like if you really wanna be rich, go read Berkshire Hathaway books and study how the people who became very wealthy became wealthy. Like that's how... Like a, a 10,000, how to make $10,000 in video, like in general what that means is I want to want to be rich. I don't actually want to be rich. I w- I am, I've identified with the wanting to be rich. "Oh, one day I'll be able to make it. One day I'll get my dad's love. One day I'll be able to feel safe." But it's, you're actually identified in the, in the grasping of it. You're not identified in the having of it.

Ali Abdaal 11:20 But if I don't have the thing, how can I identify in the having of the thing without having the thing?

Joe Hudson 11:24 Yeah. So this is a great, great example. So one of the tricks that I will teach people about getting a, like, stuff in their life that, that is... So they're like, "I don't have stuff. I'm poor. I need stuff." That's what they're thinking they are, and then that's what they are.

Ali Abdaal 11:40 Okay.

Joe Hudson 11:40 Whereas if they do gratitude every day for all the crap that they do have, like look at everything that, uh, I mean, "Wow, I can go out and eat. I can get a cup of coffee. I have like the ability to go to this school, or I, I have blah, blah, blah." And you start identifying yourself as somebody who has stuff, and if you do that on a regular basis like a deep gratitude practice where you emotionally feel it, everybody I've ever seen who does that With some discipline, they start accumulating wealth-

Ali Abdaal 12:06 Mm

Joe Hudson 12:07 ... because they identify as the person with something instead of as the person who doesn't have something.

Ali Abdaal 12:12 Yeah. Yeah, o- one of the things I've often heard from, um, kind of successful entrepreneurs on this podcast is that if you focus on being of service-

Joe Hudson 12:22 Yes

Ali Abdaal 12:22 ... and providing value to others, the money just sort of takes care of itself.

Joe Hudson 12:25 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 12:26 And people who haven't been through that process just will think that that's total BS-

Joe Hudson 12:29 Correct

Ali Abdaal 12:29 ... because it w- we still have this narrative of like, "I can either do good or I can make money."

Joe Hudson 12:35 Right. That's the quarter in the middle of the basket for them.

Ali Abdaal 12:39 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 12:39 Being of service is a great quarter. It feels really good. It allows you to feel, like, fulfilled. For most people, it makes them feel fulfilled, but some people, their quarter is just winning, or their quarter is going to space or whatever it is. But the money just takes care of itself when you have a focus beyond making the money.

Ali Abdaal 12:56 Okay.

Joe Hudson 12:57 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 12:57 So how, how would you go about identifying what that true goal is?

Joe Hudson 13:04 Yeah, so that's a really interesting thing. The search for purpose, which is something that happens for a lot of people in their 20s, particularly, like, 27 to, like, 30, there's, like, this crazy search for purpose that happens. Um, the search for purpose assumes that you weren't born with it.

Ali Abdaal 13:18 Yep.

Joe Hudson 13:18 And so it chases it away. It's like being a jealous lover, right? If I'm a jealous lover, at one thing I'm like, "I want you, I want you, I want you," I'm also pushing you away because I'm being a dick, right? So, like, this is the

Joe Hudson 13:29 movement. It's the same movement when trying to find a purpose. If you're like, "Oh, I have to search for a purpose," you're actually pushing it away, rather than saying, "Oh, I'm living my purpose naturally." If you just naturally look at the books you read, if you just naturally look at the things that turn you on, that excite you. Purpose is kinda... Someone thinks purpose is like a career often.

Ali Abdaal 13:49 Mm.

Joe Hudson 13:50 But purpose is how you do stuff as much as what you do. I can find purpose in a lot of things. Anything where I feel like I'm contributing to humans, feeling, um, getting to know themselves, understanding themselves, becoming more authentic is incredibly fulfilling for me. And so I can do that working at the post office, or I can do that doing what I do. Obviously, I'm gonna be more fulfilled doing what I do 'cause I get to do more of it, but you can find your purpose just in any interaction. Like, what's the interaction? How are you doing this interaction? What's important to you about the interaction? That's in your purpose. But to go out and search for it, it basically has no faith in it, and it pushes it away.

Ali Abdaal 14:31 One thing I've heard from a, from a lot of people is, you know, around this idea of, hey, uh, you know, one approach to the purpose thing is like, "Oh, let me go out there and find it."

Joe Hudson 14:41 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 14:41 The other approach of sort of maybe what you're talking about is, you know, w- what are the things I find myself naturally drawn to-

Joe Hudson 14:47 Yes

Ali Abdaal 14:47 ... and naturally doing that feel fulfilling?

Joe Hudson 14:49 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 14:50 Some- sometime- sometimes I'll s- I'll say this 'cause I've, I've heard other people say it, and I'll-

Joe Hudson 14:53 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 14:53 ... I'll say it in, like, a video or a Q&A or something, and the response will be something like-

Joe Hudson 14:56 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 14:57 ... "But what if I'm 25, I've got my job, I hate my job, and all I do in the evenings is watch Netflix, and, like, I don't, I don't feel like I have the thing that all these other people seem to have that draws them towards this purpose?"

Joe Hudson 15:08 I would say, "Oh, so when you were 15 years old, all you had was parents that you didn't like, that you didn't wanna have to deal with, and all you had was Netflix, and you're just recreating that with your job." That's what I would say to them. I would say that typically when somebody's like, "Oh, I hate my job," I... "or I hate authority," or, "I hate the fact that I'm, you know, oppressed by this economic blah, blah, blah," typically that is a reflection of their relationship with their parents.

Ali Abdaal 15:39 Okay.

Joe Hudson 15:39 So as an example, for me, my personal story in this, I remember I was a venture capitalist, and I wasn't particularly successful at the moment. I was young in my career, and I was reading this story about a guy who is, like, a peer of mine who'd become a billionaire off of a single... Like, the, the venture capital company didn't wanna make the investment. He made the investment. It was one of the most successful things ever to hit Silicon Valley, became a billionaire. Two years later, boom, and I felt, like, a kick in my stomach, just, "Ooh!" And I was like, "What? What is that?" So I felt it, and then I just let my body tell me when the first time I felt that was, and I was like, "Oh, that's the feeling I had, like, trying to obtain my dad's love," which I w- wasn't able to do. And, and I was like, "Oh, th- my relationship with my mo- with money is a lot like my relationship with Dad." [chuckles] Like, it's like I just transplanted a relationship because my dad wasn't around anymore. It's like, boom, we're just gonna put money onto that thing. And so oftentimes money... For me, it was Dad, but oftentimes money is a projection of something that happened in your childhood, something that you needed, that you had to... Like, there's some people, like in, like a lot of investment bankers, it was like, "If I perform, then I will get love." And so it's like, "If I perform, then I will get money." And then there's the people who's like, "I can't do anything to get the love, I can't do anything to get the money." For some people, it's like, "I'm oppressed by that person's love, and so I'm oppressed by the money." And so a lot of times money is just the projection that we put onto it. It's not actually what we think it is.

Ali Abdaal 17:10 Yeah, 'cause I guess, you know, a few, a few years ago, if I'd, it, i- if I'd have known the, the financial position I'd be in now, I would be like, "Oh my goodness," like, "You never have to work again. You're so rich," and stuff.

Joe Hudson 17:20 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 17:20 But now I'm, I'm, now I'm thinking, "Well, how do we grow our business from 5 million to 10 million?"

Joe Hudson 17:24 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 17:25 And there's part of me that feels... There's part of me that's like, the reason I wanna do that is just, just for fun because-

Joe Hudson 17:31 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 17:31 ... I enjoy the game of entrepreneurship.

Joe Hudson 17:33 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 17:33 But there is a part of me that's like, "Oh, but I feel like I still don't quite have enough, and I kinda still feel like I need a bit more."

Joe Hudson 17:38 [chuckles]

Ali Abdaal 17:38 But then I speak to people who have got 250 million in the bank, and they also feel that thing, that they need a bit more.

Joe Hudson 17:43 Yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 17:43 What's, what's going on there? [chuckles]

Joe Hudson 17:43 Yeah, so, so my, my story was fa- somewhat similar. I was, like, interacting with a couple billionaires at this time, and I was driving a car, and I w- I, I wasn't interacting with them f- as a coach. It was, like, very early in my life, and I was driving a car, and I was thinking about all the shit that I didn't have and how much more I needed, and I was like, "Eh, you know, the billionaires I know, they think the same way. Huh." I'm having the same experience as a billionaire.

Ali Abdaal 18:05 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 18:06 And it was like this moment where I kinda saw through the veil for a minute of like, "Oh, there's no way that this satisfies me. There's no way that this can satisfy me." And when I recognized that, that's actually when money started flooding into my world. Now, there's a lot of ways to get money to flood into your world, but it flooded into my world in a way that was, like, incredibly enjoyable and not something like I was striving to get so that one day I could be happy. And that's the, that... I think that's the main thing, is that it's a carrot on a stick that never actually fulfills.

Ali Abdaal 18:38 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 18:38 But being fulfilled actually gets you money.

Ali Abdaal 18:41 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 18:42 Because people wanna be around people who are fulfilled.

Ali Abdaal 18:44 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 18:45 Like, oh, you come, you could... Let's say you're a salesperson and you feel fulfilled, you... Like, the people around who are you're selling to are like, "Oh, I wanna be around that person 'cause he feels fulfilled," or whatever it is you're doing. So it's actually a superpower, and it helps you make money instead of the reverse, which is one day, once I get it, I can.

Ali Abdaal 19:02 Yeah. Yeah, this is what often doesn't sit right with me about some of the content I see on YouTube around how to make money, which is like, "Hey, you know, it's 2024, AI is a thing, so, like, do an AI whatever."

Joe Hudson 19:14 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 19:14 Or, "It's 2021, start a social media marketing agency."

Joe Hudson 19:18 Right. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 19:18 And I'm always like, the, the, the goal, like, for, for people who... Like, I s- I see this a lot in people who try starting YouTube channels for the money.

Joe Hudson 19:26 Yeah. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 19:26 Like, it's never gonna work-

Joe Hudson 19:27 Right

Ali Abdaal 19:27 ... if you start a YouTube channel for the money.

Joe Hudson 19:28 Right. Right.

Ali Abdaal 19:29 But w- weirdly, if you start a YouTube channel to share a passion of yours that can add value to other people's lives, the money is more likely to follow.

Joe Hudson 19:36 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 19:37 And you can't guarantee how much money it is.

Joe Hudson 19:38 Right.

Ali Abdaal 19:38 But, you know, a sh- a spiel I often give to people is, "If you make a video every week for two years, enjoy the process along the way, and try and get a little bit better each time, I guarantee it'll change your life."

Joe Hudson 19:46 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 19:47 "I can't put numbers on it, but trust me, it's gonna change your life."

Joe Hudson 19:49 Right. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 19:49 And I do not know a single person who has actually done that for two years whose life hasn't been changed.

Joe Hudson 19:53 Right. Exactly.

Ali Abdaal 19:53 But then it's like, because the... I guess because it's uncertain and there isn't a clear cause and effect, like, direct relationship, especially for people who, you know, like I grew up in a very sort of academic, chasing-y kind of environment where-

Joe Hudson 20:07 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 20:07 ... it's like I should only do a thing if it's good for the CV.

Joe Hudson 20:10 Right.

Ali Abdaal 20:10 And then that approach, it's like you can't see directly how focusing on enjoyment or focusing on building a business you love is going to translate to financial success.

Joe Hudson 20:19 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 20:19 And therefore you think it's not possible.

Joe Hudson 20:20 Okay. So, so let's just... And so there's a lot of myth there, so I wanna dispel, like, a couple ways to dispel that myth. The first one is if you go to a high-end real estate agent and you say, "Who are your clientele?" They're gonna tell you the same thing that the economist is gonna tell you. It's like 15% of them are doctors, lawyers, high-paid people working for somebody.

Ali Abdaal 20:39 Yep.

Joe Hudson 20:40 CEOs, executives, something like that. The rest of them are entrepreneurs. So CVs, it's like right. Best case scenario, you're gonna be like a lawyer who's gonna make less than you make as a YouTuber. So the, the entrepreneurs are the wealth creators. I mean, even the inheritance is like the he- inheritance worldwide is something like 15% or 10%, and the rest of it is entrepreneurs. And so it do- like, the whole CV thing, it's just a, a, a, a s- like, how do I stay safe? It's just a freaking question of like, can I stay safe? Can my kid be safe? Is everybody safe? Like, that's all that really is a question of. It's not... And especially in the world of AI, we call it just the opposite, which is, like, how many lawyers are gonna be needed and when AI develops by fi- or doctors or-

Ali Abdaal 21:27 Yeah

Joe Hudson 21:27 ... right? So we... There it's like stocks and bonds. Stocks feel like they're scary because they go up and down quickly. Bonds don't feel scary, but then they just crash, and you get like a massive recession. So I feel like it's that. It's just a, a way of looking at risk. But the other piece that I would say is, like, you can look out any window anywhere, and you can see thousands of ways that people made money. The window itself, the argon gas inside the window, the, the, the glass making company, the fuel that made the glass, the electricity that you're seeing out, the road sign, the... Every one of those things somebody made money doing, and most of them, multiple people made money. There was a person who installed the road sign. There was a person who made the steel. There was a person who painted the road sign. There's all those companies. So the idea that money is scarce is ridiculous. Like, it is all over the place. It is, it is just the thinking that is constricted. It is not like, uh, some shortage of it. And so how to make money, when somebody says to me, "Here's how you make money doing this specific thing," nine times out of ten they're making money on me by training me to do that specific thing.

Ali Abdaal 22:38 Yep.

Joe Hudson 22:38 It's not actually... And it, and there may be a way to make money doing that, and they might have done it, and they might actually want to share, but there's also a, a way for them to be making money doing it.

Ali Abdaal 22:48 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 22:48 But there is a way to make money doing anything in the world, and so money is... Doing business and entrepreneurship for me is far more of an art form than it is, um, than it is re- So if you're playing... I-- We talked about this for a second, but if you're playing music, then you have to have notes. If you're... You can do anything. You can plant trees as an entrepreneur. You can cut them down as an entrepreneur. You can take guns off the street as an entrepreneur. You can manufacture guns as an entrepreneur. Anything you wanna do, you get to do. It's an expression of who you are, and when you align that, when you say, "Oh, making money isn't something I have to do to be me. Making money is an expression of me," then things smooth out considerably.

Ali Abdaal 23:28 Ooh, nice. Nice. That's good. Um, so you've got an 18-year-old daughter-

Joe Hudson 23:34 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 23:34 ... who's just going off to college very shortly.

Joe Hudson 23:36 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 23:37 Um-

Joe Hudson 23:38 Ugh

Ali Abdaal 23:38 ... how are you thinking about the whole balance between, you know, let's say she wanted to study, I don't know, history. A lot of parents would be like, "Well, you can't do anything with a history degree other than be a history teacher," and like-

Joe Hudson 23:49 Yeah. That's what she wants

Ali Abdaal 23:50 ... or like... Oh, really? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 23:51 It's not history, but she- liberal arts college. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 23:53 Yeah. So how do you, how do you think about this balance between I want my daughter to have a financial s- safety net-

Joe Hudson 24:00 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 24:00 ... assuming you weren't rich-

Joe Hudson 24:01 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 24:01 ... um, and, like, I want her to follow her passion-

Joe Hudson 24:03 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 24:03 ... kind of thing?

Joe Hudson 24:04 That's a great, great question. So, uh, my daughter, uh, this is a great story and I give it to any entrepreneur I'm gonna tell it in a long way

Ali Abdaal 24:13 Please

Joe Hudson 24:14 Uh, the first one is I had a, I had a barber, and the, the, the barber was a painter, and he was not able to sell his paintings. And I said, "What's the problem?" He goes, "I don't like getting rejected." I said, "I'll tell you what. I'll give you $2,000 if you can get rejected 50 times in six months." And now I'm the only person who hair he cuts because he sells paintings

Ali Abdaal 24:34 [laughs]

Joe Hudson 24:35 And it was just switching the idea that rejection was bad to rejection is good. So I was sitting with my daughter one day. She was a junior in high school. She's now a s-senior, just about to graduate. And I said, "Hey, I notice that you're really avoiding rejection." And she said, "Yeah, I am. I, I don't like the feeling." I was like, "Great. So I'll give you $2,000 if you get 50 rejections." She's like, "Rejection of what?" I'm like, "I don't know. What do you wanna do?" She's like, "I wanna go to Panama this summer," or, "I wanna go to s-someplace speaking Spanish this summer, and I wanna study science." I'm like, "Cool." Like, somewhere in the environment. So I'm like, "Cool. So that's what I'll do. You get 50 rejections..." So she started writing letters. She wrote other letters, and everything happened, and she got this job in Panama on an island. She got an apartment, not... Like, she made the job, and by getting rejected tons of times, and she was gonna go out for, like, two months and... Except for the paperwork didn't come through. And she's like, "I don't know what I'm gonna do." I'm like, "How many rejections have you had?" And she's like, "Oh, I've only had," you know, whatever it was, 30. I was like, "Well, you're not... You didn't make the $2,000." And she, like, thought about it for a minute, and so she ended up going to Sacramento, sitting on the steps of, like, the Capitol building or one of the buildings there, though she needed the paperwork, and asked every person with a suit if they could help her get the paperwork done. She got the rejections, and she also got the signature that she needed, and she ended up in Panama. So what do I think about what college she goes to? I don't think it matters at all. That's what matters. What matters is that she is willing to face that and be in herself while she faces rejection and goes after what she wants. That's what's gonna be successful. It's not gonna be a resume. And I can... How many entrepreneurs who didn't finish college? Bill Gates, Zuckerberg. I mean, Matt Mullenweg. There's just tons of them.

Ali Abdaal 26:32 Nice. That's a great story. I love that. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 26:34 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 26:35 We're just gonna take a little break from this conversation to talk about Brilliant, who are very kindly sponsoring this episode. Brilliant is an interactive platform where you learn by doing. They've got thousands of lessons on maths, data analysis, programming, and AI. I've been using Brilliant for the last five years, and the thing I love most about Brilliant is that they really focus on learning by doing in a very interactive sense rather than just consuming the content. They've got a first principles approach to learning that helps you build understanding from the ground up rather than just absorbing information without really knowing how to apply it. Brilliant's lessons are crafted by an award-winning team of teachers and researchers and professionals from MIT, Caltech, Microsoft, Google, and a bunch of other fancy places, and the courses on Brilliant really help you build your critical thinking skills through problem-solving, not just memorizing things. So while you're building real knowledge on specific topics, you're also becoming a better thinker. Now, I personally think that learning something new every day is one of the most important, fun, and energizing things that you can do each day, and Brilliant makes daily learning super easy with their curated lessons. They've also recently launched some lessons on large language models, which is the technology that powers things like ChatGPT. And so given the rise of AI tools more recently, if you understand how they work, that can help you get an idea of how to use them to get your best output, uh, which can be super helpful for whatever industry you happen to work in. Anyway, if that sounds up your street and you would like to try out everything Brilliant has to offer, then head over to brilliant.org/deepdive, and that will give you a 30-day free trial and also 20% off the annual premium subscription. So thank you, Brilliant, for sponsoring this episode, and let's get back to the conversation. So coming back down to this, this idea of how to be successful and fulfilled at the same time.

Joe Hudson 28:02 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 28:03 Um, one thing that I know you talk about in your podcast and in, in your videos is emotions.

Joe Hudson 28:08 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 28:08 Now, I was hoping we could take a bit of a left turn into emotions because emotions are something that I've... I think I, I sort of struggle with, and I was a, I was sort of life coached on your podcast-

Joe Hudson 28:18 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 28:18 ... which is also on this podcast channel, wherever people are watching or listening to this. And

Ali Abdaal 28:23 I s-still don't really get the whole, like... Yeah, I, I don't, I don't really get the whole emotions thing. And I don't, I don't even know what I mean by that, but-

Joe Hudson 28:34 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 28:34 ... okay. Well, well, what I think I, I mean by that is that there are some people in my life, um, who seem to feel a lot of things.

Joe Hudson 28:42 Yes. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 28:42 And then there's me and a small number of other people in my life who don't seem to not really feel things.

Joe Hudson 28:47 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 28:47 And when someone asks me how I'm feeling-

Joe Hudson 28:48 Yes

Ali Abdaal 28:49 ... I kind of go a bit blank and I'm like, "I'm, uh, fine, I guess."

Joe Hudson 28:52 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 28:53 And I did one of these, like, positive/negative affect score thingies, and I basically scored zero on propensity to feel ne- ne- propen- pro- propensity to feel negative emotions.

Joe Hudson 29:04 Right.

Ali Abdaal 29:04 But I also scored fairly low on propensity to feel positive emotions.

Joe Hudson 29:07 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 29:08 And this was in, um, the book that Oprah co-wrote with Arthur Brooks, I think, and it was, it was sort of... They called it the, the judge archetype.

Joe Hudson 29:15 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 29:15 Someone who has, like, low negative affect, but also low positive, low-ish positive affect.

Joe Hudson 29:20 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 29:20 And so I'm pretty tranquil most of the time, good vibes.

Joe Hudson 29:23 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 29:24 What am I missing about, like, what people are feeling with emotions, and is it possible for someone who doesn't really feel emotions very strongly to start then feeling emotions?

Joe Hudson 29:31 Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff, and I wanna transition with a story about money and emotions-

Ali Abdaal 29:37 Great. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 29:37 ... which I, which I look. Um, so my wife and I, we do these, um, really intense executive retreats. Those... For, like, 12 people. It is really intense. A lot of emotional movement. Uh, w-we say no to a lot of people because of the intensity of it. And when, when we're doing that, we're working from 7:30 in the morning till about 10:30 at night, seven days. It's exhausting. People are crying, getting angry. All this stuff's happening. And we're at the end of it. We're tired. And my wife and I were talking about how there was this trade that we could have made 10 years back that would've basically amounted for, like, $70 million. And we were like, "Oh- What would life have been like? We were just kind of contemplating it for a minute, and we were like, "Oh, that would've been bad." Like, we would've, we would've stayed married, I'm sure of it, because of, like, our dedication there, but we might not have started this business, like the coaching and the, and the trainings and the facilitation and the classes and everything. And so, um, then I asked her, I said, "Hey, if somebody offered us a billion dollars for this business right now, and the only caveat was that we couldn't compete, we couldn't do anything in this field anymore, would you take it?" And we both thought about it, and then we both went, " [sighs] " And then we both looked at each other like, "Yeah, no, we wouldn't. We wouldn't do it." Came home, told my youngest daughter about the story. Three days later she comes over to me and she's like, "I've been thinking about my billion-dollar idea." I'm like, "Oh cool, you want to make a billion dollars?" She's like, "No, no, no. I want an idea so good that I wouldn't sell it for a billion dollars."

Ali Abdaal 31:10 Oof.

Joe Hudson 31:11 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 31:11 Man, that's good. That's good.

Joe Hudson 31:14 I couldn't... That's not a head decision.

Ali Abdaal 31:16 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 31:16 That's an emotional decision. That feeling of like, oh my gosh, like my head was like, "No, of course sell it for a billion dollars," right? The, the, the emotion. And so the reality is neurologically speaking that if I took the emotional center out of your brain, you would s- like almost cease to make emotions. Your IQ would stay the same. You could take an IQ test, it'd be great, but to... It would take you a long time to decide what color pen to use. It would take you a long time to decide where to have lunch, to the point where your life would completely fall apart.

Ali Abdaal 31:45 Mm.

Joe Hudson 31:45 So we actually don't make logical decisions. We use logic to decide what we think the emotional response of the situation will be. So-

Ali Abdaal 31:55 Wait, so we, we use logic to decide what we think the emotional response of the situation-

Joe Hudson 31:59 Yeah. W- uh, like if we do this, are we gonna feel happy? If we do this-

Ali Abdaal 32:02 Oh, okay

Joe Hudson 32:02 ... are we gonna feel sad? So think about like how much have you done to feel safe? How much have you done to feel loved? How much have you done not to feel like a failure? How much have you done not to guilt your mom? How much... Right? How many-

Ali Abdaal 32:13 Yeah, loads. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 32:14 Right, exactly. So that's actually how we make decisions.

Ali Abdaal 32:16 Oh, okay. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 32:17 And logic is just being used to determine wh- how we're gonna feel. So then the way to think about this is like, "Hey, I'm gonna tell you you're gonna be homeless. As it turns out, you're gonna be homeless. The good news is you're gonna fucking love it. It's gonna feel so good. Every day you're gonna be like, 'This is the most amazing experience of my entire life. I'm so grateful.'" All of a sudden homeless doesn't sound so scary.

Ali Abdaal 32:39 Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. That sounds, that sounds pretty good.

Joe Hudson 32:40 Right? [laughs] So, so we're, we're, we're avoiding the emotional experience, we're trying not to have them, we're deciding to get to an emotional experience. That's how our neurology works. It's how our system works.

Ali Abdaal 32:51 Okay. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 32:51 And so, so emotional decision-making is, it's actually what drives us. So we're all having emotions all the time. There is no waking moment where an emotion isn't happening.

Ali Abdaal 33:02 Okay.

Joe Hudson 33:02 The question is, are we conscious of the emotion or are we not conscious of the emotion?

Ali Abdaal 33:06 Sure. In my case, I think I'm very not conscious of a lot of these emotions.

Joe Hudson 33:09 Right.

Ali Abdaal 33:09 'Cause, uh, when you phrased it that way, it's like, "Oh yeah, of course I started my first business to feel more safe," and of course the YouTube channel was an out- outlet of that, and of course there's some aspect of it that, some aspect of feeling loved that I get from, uh, nice comments and people coming up to me saying, "You changed my life."

Joe Hudson 33:24 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 33:24 And it's like all, all of these are feelings that I'm, I'm... Like, the, the feeling is almost the goal.

Joe Hudson 33:29 Right.

Ali Abdaal 33:29 And the thing that I do to get to the feeling happens to be the YouTube channel or the podcast or the whatever-

Joe Hudson 33:34 Right

Ali Abdaal 33:34 ... the thing is.

Joe Hudson 33:34 Exactly. So when you think about it that way, so if you take a kid and who'd been physically abused, as, as an adult you put a quarter in one hand and a key in another hand, they won't be able to tell you which one is which, even though you and I would because we're, we haven't been physically beaten. So the way it works is that we stop feeling the stuff that hurts too much, right? That's, that's the way the neurology goes. And so if it was really hard to feel emotions, if emotions weren't safe, if you were... If love was removed, if you were ostracized for an emotion, we just stopped feeling them and we started to contain them. It requires musculature holding, it requires different things to happen to the body. It's uncomfortable. And so there is a natural progress of, like, how do we start to learn to feel our emotions again? And then how do we express those emotions? And then how do we get to fluidity with those emotions? And that process is amazingly useful in life. It's, like, a big part of everything that I do when I'm coaching folks is to have them, help them get through that process.

Ali Abdaal 34:40 Nice.

Joe Hudson 34:40 So as an example, somebody gets super overwhelmed, "Oh my God, I'm overwhelmed 'cause I got so much busy," blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. It's like that's just a stuck emotion.

Ali Abdaal 34:48 That's a stuck emotion.

Joe Hudson 34:49 Stuck emotion.

Ali Abdaal 34:50 What do you mean by stuck emotion? Like...

Joe Hudson 34:51 Like, it means they have an emotion that is too intense for them, so they're compartmentalizing it.

Ali Abdaal 34:56 Okay.

Joe Hudson 34:56 They're saying, "No, I can't feel that right now because if I feel that, everything's gonna go crazy." So they try to compact it, push it down, and then that's the overwhelm. And so whether they slow down enough to, like, be able to integrate it or they express it, which is a far quicker way to get there. So I've seen people, like, in this, "I can't solve the problem. I don't know what to do. Grr, grr, grr, grr, grr." They have, like, a, an expression of anger and then boom, clarity. "Oh. Oh, I know what to do now." And so logic works like this: it goes A plus B equals C, and then therefore A minus C equals B. And emotions work like this: "Mrrr, ah. Oh. Oh, I got it."

Ali Abdaal 35:34 Okay. So what are the-

Joe Hudson 35:38 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 35:39 W- or what's the roadmap here? If, like, I would like to get to emotional fluidity, whatever the hell that means-

Joe Hudson 35:44 Right. Yeah

Ali Abdaal 35:45 ... like from my starting point right now-

Joe Hudson 35:46 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 35:46 ... like what are, what's, what's the roadmap, and I guess what are some, some of the starting steps-

Joe Hudson 35:50 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 35:51 ... that I or someone listening to this who feels in that position where they're like, "Yeah, I don't really feel my emotions particularly well." Like-

Joe Hudson 35:56 Right

Ali Abdaal 35:56 ... how do we, how do we do that?

Joe Hudson 35:57 So, so emotions are... So emotions come in where we have them and we go, "Oh, that's uncomfortable," or, "That's comfortable. I want it or I don't want it." And so you're kind of making these decisions. The end of emotional fluidity is I, "I love having every emotional experience and they move through me with ease, but I don't feel controlled by them."

Ali Abdaal 36:18 Oh, okay. Yeah, nice

Joe Hudson 36:19 So that, that's basically how it works. What typically happens somewhere in the middle is somebody has an experience of someone who's really angry or really sad, guilt-tripping them, or scared all the time, and they feel oppressed by that emotional experience and they're like, "I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna control the emotion"-

Ali Abdaal 36:33 Yep

Joe Hudson 36:33 ... which is kind of the middle of the journey.

Ali Abdaal 36:35 Yep.

Joe Hudson 36:35 So the first part of the journey is, okay, I have these emotions, they're relatively fluid except for they cause me pain in some way-

Ali Abdaal 36:42 Yep

Joe Hudson 36:42 ... and so I start trying to manage, repress, compartmentalize, push down these emotional experiences because that's how I'm gonna be happy. That's like... Then at some point you're like, "Oh, wait a second, this isn't working. This is giving me cancer," or, "This is making me depressed because I haven't released my anger," or whatever it is. And then once you've, you're there, then you're like, "Okay, I'm gonna start to learn how to feel and express these feelings."

Ali Abdaal 37:05 Yep.

Joe Hudson 37:06 The feeling, the feeling part is, is, is, can be done in a lot of ways. Meditation can be a way to do it. Meditation can also be a way to repress emotions, so you can use it either way. Breathwork is a great way to start feeling some of the emotions.

Ali Abdaal 37:20 Mm.

Joe Hudson 37:21 Um, I did it a horrible way. So like [laughs] so my personal story on this was I was, um... When I was young, my parents thought me crying meant they were bad parents, so what they did was they made fun of me when I cried so that I wouldn't cry so they wouldn't have to feel that stuff. And so they took pictures of me crying, and then they put the photograph in an album. [laughs] And when I was, like, 24 years old, I was flipping through an album. Uh, for those younger, they, we used to take photographs and put them in albums. [laughs] And, and I, I was like, "Oh. Oh, shit. Like, that's probably why I haven't cried in so long."

Ali Abdaal 38:00 Mm.

Joe Hudson 38:01 So I took it out, put it on my desk. I said, "I'm gonna learn how to cry."

Joe Hudson 38:04 Six months later, three months later, whatever it was, I hadn't cried. I was like, "Oh, shit. So I guess I'm gonna have to fake it." That's what... This was my thinking. I had no guide on this. So I lived in Los Angeles, I went up to, like, 10,000 feet and I took a trail and then I went off-trail so that nobody could hear me crying 'cause it was so shameful, and I would fake crying once or twice a week.

Ali Abdaal 38:26 Ooh.

Joe Hudson 38:26 And then one day I just started crying and it was actual tears-

Ali Abdaal 38:30 Yeah

Joe Hudson 38:30 ... and I actually cried, and I cried for four days. I could have stopped, but I didn't want to.

Ali Abdaal 38:33 Cried for four days?

Joe Hudson 38:34 Four days. Four days of just pshh.

Ali Abdaal 38:36 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 38:37 And holy crap was my life so much better after crying for four days.

Ali Abdaal 38:42 Huh.

Joe Hudson 38:42 So like, like just the weight... Just, like, for anybody who's listening to this, here's an experience you can do. Stop feeling right now. Take... Yeah, no, you don't think you have an emotion, but there's some emotion. Do anything you can to stop feeling right now. You have to constrict a muscle. Your, your eyes literally-

Ali Abdaal 39:00 Mm. Yeah

Joe Hudson 39:00 ... when you go like, "Uh, yeah, exactly."

Ali Abdaal 39:02 Kind of holding onto my- [laughs]

Joe Hudson 39:02 Right.

Ali Abdaal 39:03 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 39:03 That takes fucking energy.

Ali Abdaal 39:05 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 39:05 And if you do that habitually, you're constantly in that pla- And so to actually feel the emotion releases all that stuff, 'cause you don't have to hold back to do it. And you get a lot of clarity because it used to be I would do stuff to avoid sadness. So I would make a business decision to avoid sadness. Now I'm like, "Sadness is great. I love sadness. I cry, I feel better. This is fantastic. Why would I ever avoid feeling sad?" And now I have a business decision,

Joe Hudson 39:32 oh, there's 50% chance sad, but it's the right thing to do, I'm gonna take it.

Ali Abdaal 39:36 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 39:36 Before, 50% sh- sad, it's the right thing to do, I'm not gonna take it.

Ali Abdaal 39:40 Okay, nice. So this is reminding me of a podcast episode I did with my brother like four years ago.

Joe Hudson 39:47 Okay. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 39:48 Um, and so my brother and I, and like out- outside of this podcast we have another one that we just chat every now and then.

Joe Hudson 39:53 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 39:53 And I had discovered that week that there was a forum thread on some celebrity gossip forum about me where people were saying mean things about me.

Joe Hudson 40:02 Oh.

Ali Abdaal 40:03 And so I thought-

Joe Hudson 40:03 I'm so sorry. That sucks.

Ali Abdaal 40:05 Yeah. Oh, well. [laughs] So it was, it w- it was, it was interesting 'cause I thought, "Hey, what a perfect chance for me to practice my stoicism chops," and started reading through this thread.

Joe Hudson 40:14 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 40:14 And in the... And, and I was so excited by this that in this podcast episode I was like, I said to my brother, "Hey, Tame, you know, let's, let's go through some of these comments." And we started reading some of the comments and he was like, "How do you feel right now?" And I was like, "Oh, you know, I feel fine." And he was like, "Because you literally look like you're about to cry." And I was like, "Hmm. Well, fine, I will grant that I'm feeling a little bit of maybe something."

Joe Hudson 40:37 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 40:37 But, like, I didn't want to admit to myself that I was feeling sad or hurt by these-

Joe Hudson 40:42 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 40:42 ... comments from these fucking strangers on the internet-

Joe Hudson 40:44 Right

Ali Abdaal 40:44 ... stuff.

Joe Hudson 40:45 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 40:45 And we ended up clipping that thing and it, it's gotten like 50,000 views, this, like, conversation between me and my brother.

Joe Hudson 40:51 Right.

Ali Abdaal 40:52 And a lot of the comments are like, "Whoa, yeah, it's, it's clear that Ali is really feeling something-

Joe Hudson 40:56 Right

Ali Abdaal 40:56 ... but is just completely refusing to acknowledge

Ali Abdaal 40:58 the feeling of these emotions."

Joe Hudson 40:59 That's right.

Ali Abdaal 41:00 And now, and then so fast-forward four years later, like to two days ago, you and I and a couple of other friends were chatting over dinner-

Joe Hudson 41:06 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 41:07 ... and, uh, this friend Kelly asked, "Oh, how are you feeling about the book?"

Joe Hudson 41:10 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 41:10 And I said, "Yeah, I don't really know. I, I haven't, haven't read any of the reviews," 'cause I've heard from authors that you shouldn't read the reviews.

Joe Hudson 41:15 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 41:15 And both you and Kelly suggested that in an, in a, in a gentle way that reading negative reviews can be a very sort of spiritually en- enlivening and it- it's good for the soul-

Joe Hudson 41:24 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 41:25 ... kind of thing.

Joe Hudson 41:25 Yeah, if it's done at the r- with the right stance towards it, for sure.

Ali Abdaal 41:28 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 41:28 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 41:29 And so like-

Joe Hudson 41:30 If you're looking to disintegrate your ego-

Ali Abdaal 41:31 Yeah. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 41:31 ... trolls on the internet are fucking fantastic, yeah. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 41:35 So it's, it's, it's almost like I'm avoiding reading re- reading reviews because, I mean, I made the mistake of just before the book came out looking at Goodreads and the, we'd sent out the advance reader copies-

Joe Hudson 41:44 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 41:44 ... and they're more critical than, than the standard, standard readers.

Joe Hudson 41:47 Right.

Ali Abdaal 41:47 And I saw some two and three-star reviews on Goodreads and I was like, "Ugh." And then I was like, "Okay, I can see why these authors gave me the advice of never to read reviews," and then I started avoiding them-

Joe Hudson 41:56 Right

Ali Abdaal 41:56 ... to the point that now if anyone almost like puts, brings up the Amazon page I almost don't want to see-

Joe Hudson 42:01 Right

Ali Abdaal 42:01 ... how many stars there are and how many reviews there are, 'cause I, I want to avoid some kind of feeling.

Joe Hudson 42:05 Yeah, that's right.

Ali Abdaal 42:06 And it was only like two days ago when you and Kelly both mentioned this, I was like, "Oh, shit-

Joe Hudson 42:09 Right

Ali Abdaal 42:09 ... I'm thinking I'm trying to avoid some k- some kind of feeling."

Joe Hudson 42:11 Right.

Ali Abdaal 42:11 So-

Joe Hudson 42:12 Exactly

Ali Abdaal 42:12 ... where, where am I in this like levels of emotional fluidity in, in this specific context, I guess? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 42:18 All right. Well, in th- that specific context you are You have not learned to enjoy the f- the emotional experiences that are-

Ali Abdaal 42:25 Yeah

Joe Hudson 42:25 ... coming up. And, and it's-- and this is the hardest part for people to grok. "You mean I can enjoy helplessness?" Yes. On the backside of helplessness is the feeling of empowerment. On the backside of sadness is the feeling of relief. On the backside of anger is a feeling of clarity. And so, and, and this has been known for a while. Like, in traditional Chinese medicine, they talk about it in, in, in Tibetan texts, they talk about how they, they call them, like, the five poisons equal the five virtues, and how they, they basically... And the way I look at it is this. You have a tube, and that tube, let's call that tube anger.

Ali Abdaal 43:01 Okay.

Joe Hudson 43:01 And you twist it this way, and it's, "I'm not angry." And you twist it this way, and it's like, "You son of a ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba." And you twist it this way, it's, "Nice dress." But untwisted, it is Gandhi. It is Martin Luther King. It is Mother Teresa. It is, it is a clear boundary with love. No, that's not... Because we don't get angry at anything unless we care about it.

Ali Abdaal 43:26 Mm.

Joe Hudson 43:26 There's always care in anger. There's always love in anger, and there's always a boundary in anger. And so when it's unconstricted, that's what it ends up being.

Ali Abdaal 43:35 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 43:36 And so, but if you're trying to resist it, it kinks, and then something else happens, avoidance or whatever.

Ali Abdaal 43:43 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 43:44 And so that's how I s- I see it is, is that, that, that tube, all your job is to do is not constrict it, and then when you don't constrict it, it gets fluid. That's the fluidity part of it.

Ali Abdaal 43:55 Yep.

Joe Hudson 43:55 And then it actually feels different. So think about it this way. If you went to a party and everybody didn't want you there, you would act one way.

Ali Abdaal 44:04 Yep.

Joe Hudson 44:04 And if you went to the party and everybody wanted you there, you would act a different way.

Ali Abdaal 44:07 Yep.

Joe Hudson 44:08 Your emotions are the same. Your emotions show up and you want them, they're gonna act one way. Your emotions show up and you don't want them, they're gonna act another way.

Ali Abdaal 44:15 Is this this, uh, w- was it on your podcast that I heard this, like, like, joy is the matriarch or some-

Joe Hudson 44:20 Yeah, yeah

Ali Abdaal 44:20 ... like what, what, what-

Joe Hudson 44:20 Yeah, yeah. No, that's again-

Ali Abdaal 44:21 ... what did they do? Just like, yeah. What-

Joe Hudson 44:22 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 44:22 ... what's that idea? [chuckles]

Joe Hudson 44:23 J- yeah, so joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions, and she won't come into a house un- unless her children are welcome, basically. And so what it means is that if you are trying to repress anger, you are not ma- there's no room for joy. So joy is just kind of the natural state. Joy and love, they're the natural state, and as long as you're not containing some emotion, there's room for them when they show up. And so you see that all the time in our retreats.

Ali Abdaal 44:52 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 44:52 When people remove their emotions, all of a sudden they're just more joyful, just like I was after I cried for four days. I was like, "Oh, goodness gracious."

Ali Abdaal 44:59 And by move their emotion, like what do you mean by move their emotion? Like-

Joe Hudson 45:01 I mean, like, get it out of their muscles, so express their emotions.

Ali Abdaal 45:05 Mm.

Joe Hudson 45:05 And it is really important to s- express them the right, right way is strong, but so you can express your emotions in such a way that creates shame.

Ali Abdaal 45:14 Yep.

Joe Hudson 45:14 And then that's not gonna be very helpful.

Ali Abdaal 45:16 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 45:16 So expressing your emotions by, like, yelling at somebody or being sad at somebody or being scared at somebody, which means trying to control them with your emotions, you're gonna create shame. It's not gonna actually move your emotion.

Ali Abdaal 45:28 Yep.

Joe Hudson 45:29 Whereas, oh, I'm gonna get angry, and, and then I'm actually gonna find a place where I'm loved after my anger, so it's not like I'm-- there's a shame thing. That's the best possible way. So you're moving the anger, you're yelling, you're doing whatever you have to do, but nobody... No, you're not hurting anybody with your words. You might be having them, but you're not doing it at somebody. That emotional expression is the thing that allows you to start falling in love with the emotional experiences.

Ali Abdaal 45:57 So is it sort of like, you know, how kids with anger management problems, you tell them to get a pillow and punch it in the garden or something like that sort of idea?

Joe Hudson 46:05 Yeah. So there's... The, the interesting thing, there's been a tremendous amount of research. So somebody's gonna geek out and go, "Let me go look, do the research." So there's a tremendous amount of research that shows

Joe Hudson 46:14 if you la-- start moving anger, you're gonna get angry more often, and that's absolutely the case, just like when I got sad, I got sad more often.

Ali Abdaal 46:23 Yep.

Joe Hudson 46:23 Like, but what happens is that, like, a lot of it has been piled up, and then it moves out, and then all of a sudden there's just less anger, less passive aggression.

Ali Abdaal 46:31 Mm.

Joe Hudson 46:31 So when you repress something like anger leads to a lot of depression, passive aggression, feelings of stuckness. So if you're listening to this, you're like, "I feel stuck." Nope, you're just not moving your anger-

Ali Abdaal 46:41 Mm

Joe Hudson 46:41 ... cleanly. "Oh, I feel depressed." Nope, you're just not moving your anger cleanly. Passive aggressive. No, you're just not drawing your boundaries and, and moving your anger. So, so the, so as you start moving them, it, it just kinda, it, it for a while it gets eh, and then it starts calming down, and then all of a sudden then you have this emotional fluidity. It's like riding a river. It's not like being controlled, being thrown over the rapids.

Ali Abdaal 47:08 Where does the idea of chemical imbalances in the brain fit into this model? 'Cause like the thing that you just said, well, if you, if you have depression, it's... Well, I, I, I can im-

Joe Hudson 47:18 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 47:18 ... almost certainly imagine there are people listening to this-

Joe Hudson 47:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Ali Abdaal 47:19 ... like, "Whoa."

Joe Hudson 47:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold on a second.

Ali Abdaal 47:20 "Depression is chemical imbalance. Hang on."

Joe Hudson 47:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 47:23 "SSRIs work."

Joe Hudson 47:24 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 47:24 "This guy's full of shit. Fuck you, Joe Hudson." [laughs]

Joe Hudson 47:26 Oh, how on the... Okay, you did a lot of things there. Uh, SS- SSR- fuck you, Joe Hudson, that I thank you for. I like that.

Ali Abdaal 47:32 [laughs]

Joe Hudson 47:33 Um, SSRIs, they don't actually work 100% of the time.

Ali Abdaal 47:37 Mm.

Joe Hudson 47:37 Like, there's plenty of research that shows that that's not the case. Also, yes, there are chemical imbalances that this is not all forms of depression. I would call this more in the dysthymia, low-level depression realm. What I can tell you is I do know a lot of folks who I've worked with who have... And I'm not, I'm not diagnosing anybody, but I, there's a lot of people I've worked with where they've had depression, and they, that depression has been relieved, but it's not just from anger. So the way I look at consciousness generally is there's the head, the heart, the gut. That's a metaphor. Um, but when you approach healing, if you approach it in that way, it's usually far more effective. So the head is intellect, the heart is the emotional, and the gut is the nervous system. Or you could call it roughly, roughly for those who are, um, neuroscientists out there, the prefrontal cortex of the head is like the human brain, the mammalian brain is the heart, and the gut is more of like the nervous system, reptilian brain. If you hit them on all three levels, you're gonna have much more transformation, so you wanna hit them on all three levels. And so depression, um- I would say the head is the negative self-talk-

Ali Abdaal 48:43 Yep

Joe Hudson 48:43 ... which is actually how it's defined in the DSM, um, in dysthymia anyways, and it's like constant or increased negative self, basically I would call it self-abuse. So you wanna change that, the way that you talk in that, which can't be done by trying to change it, but there's a whole bunch of tricks on how to change that. And then there is, uh, the heart, which is the emotion, which is a release of anger, sometimes sadness, but often anger. And then the gut part of it is about feeling safe. It's because anxiety and depression go hand-in-hand, so you wear out your adrenal glands and, eh, and then depression ensues. So it's a three-part thing. If, if I'm working with someone who's depressed-

Ali Abdaal 49:23 Yeah

Joe Hudson 49:23 ... that's, uh, that's my approach, and it's not 100% effective, but it's very effective a lot of the time.

Ali Abdaal 49:29 Okay. So it's like-

Joe Hudson 49:30 And just by the way, on that one, you have to go into a lot more detail to figure that one out.

Ali Abdaal 49:35 Sure.

Joe Hudson 49:35 Um, but I do have a, a podcast on it that, like, you can actually get into all the details of how to-

Ali Abdaal 49:40 Oh, perfect. We will link that in the show notes or the-

Joe Hudson 49:41 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 49:41 ... video description, wherever people are watching or listening.

Joe Hudson 49:43 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 49:44 Um, so it sounds like in this model there are a bunch of different emotions, and these emotions are almost like pipes.

Joe Hudson 49:50 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 49:51 And for certain people, the pipes are kinked to the point that they don't identify or, or they, or they don't consciously feel when this emotion is showing in the pipes.

Joe Hudson 50:00 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 50:01 Or they twist the pipe in a way that makes them, that convinces themselves that the emotion doesn't exist.

Joe Hudson 50:06 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 50:07 And a lot of the goal of emotional fluidity is to unkink the pipes and then ideally start to enjoy the process of the emotion flowing through the pipes.

Joe Hudson 50:14 You can't unkink the pipes without enjoying the-

Ali Abdaal 50:17 Okay.

Joe Hudson 50:18 Yeah, yeah. So-

Ali Abdaal 50:18 The enjoyment happens first and then-

Joe Hudson 50:19 The enjoyment is the thing, yeah. And so, so yeah, so typically the way I would think of those stages is first, you know, the identification that the emotions are having, then there's the management. There's often a management stage. Sometimes you need to learn how to label them, depending on the particular thing, and then there's the expression of them, and then there's the place where you fall in love with them, and that creates fluidity.

Ali Abdaal 50:40 Hmm. So okay, so m- you, in my tangible example of I'm afraid to read, read book reviews-

Joe Hudson 50:46 Right

Ali Abdaal 50:47 ... or see negative comments written about me on the internet-

Joe Hudson 50:49 Right

Ali Abdaal 50:49 ... how might I a- approach becoming more comfortable or loving those sensations or whatever?

Joe Hudson 50:54 The very best possible way, and this is gonna sound... But the, like, if we had a good relationship and I was coaching you, what I would say is I would have your girlfriend hold you, literally physically, like, hold you, and then you read, read the, the, the negative reviews. And, and, and, and I wouldn't have her try to make you feel better. It's really important. So you don't want, like, someone to be like, "It's okay. It's gonna be all right," because basically what you're saying is, I mean, you're invalidating the emotions or-

Ali Abdaal 51:28 Yeah

Joe Hudson 51:28 ... you're saying, "Your emotions are making me uncomfortable. Stop it."

Ali Abdaal 51:31 Oh, okay.

Joe Hudson 51:31 So you don't want that.

Ali Abdaal 51:32 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 51:33 But you want just someone who's totally with you in the experience and saying, "Right, I love you."

Ali Abdaal 51:38 Yep.

Joe Hudson 51:38 "You can be sad. I love you. You can be upset. I love you. You can be angry. I love you." And just actually just someone who's sitting there loving you as you're having the emotional experiences. And then your job is to make sure that you're breathing so that you're not constricting the muscles and stopping the emotion. And in your particular case, like, I would watch out for, like, jaw te- like, holding the jaw or holding the throat tightly, which is where a lot of the emotions get held.

Ali Abdaal 52:01 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 52:02 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 52:02 Yeah, I did a, a breathwork thing for the first time this morning-

Joe Hudson 52:05 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 52:05 ... here just in the, in the space behind us, and I felt a lot of, like, vibration in the jaw-

Joe Hudson 52:10 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 52:11 ... and also, like, in the, the ulnar nerve position of the f- fingers-

Joe Hudson 52:15 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 52:15 ... and stuff. But, uh, like, there was a lot in the jaw.

Joe Hudson 52:17 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 52:17 And also sort of just under the ribcage-

Joe Hudson 52:19 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 52:19 ... on one side.

Joe Hudson 52:20 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 52:20 And I was like, "Huh." Uh, 'cause I've l- I've listened to some of your podcasts and I was like, "Oh, okay. Is, is this the whole, the whole, like, jaw tension thing?" Yeah, is there any relationship between, like, breathwork and this emotion stuff?

Joe Hudson 52:30 Absolutely, yeah. Like, um, when we do the in-person retreats that are off, you know, we don't, we don't advertise them or anything like that. When we do those, we do breathwork and emotional release work.

Ali Abdaal 52:42 Hmm. On the note of, okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna try this thing with my, with my girlfriend, the whole holding and-

Joe Hudson 52:48 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 52:48 ... as, as, as we read negative reviews.

Joe Hudson 52:50 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 52:51 Um-

Joe Hudson 52:51 And then feel whatever it feels. But, like, it's like a kid or as, as the person today in the coffee shop said, like the swan, it's like, so the emotion starts to rise. The mind starts to tell you things like-

Ali Abdaal 53:03 Yep

Joe Hudson 53:03 ... "They're not rational." Yep, you're right. It's not rational. Or the mind will tell you, "If I'm sad, I'll be sad forever. If I'm angry, I'm gonna destroy my world. If I'm scared, I'm gonna be incapable."

Ali Abdaal 53:12 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 53:13 And the job is to say, like, "Oh, I've been listening to you for 30 years or so. I'm just gonna listen to the emotions for 20 minutes."

Ali Abdaal 53:21 Hmm. Nice.

Joe Hudson 53:23 And then allow yourself to just feel the emotional experience that's happening.

Ali Abdaal 53:26 Okay. So if anyone's listening to this, I'm gonna go on a bit of a mad one reading negative Amazon reviews, but I would appreciate some positive ones as well.

Joe Hudson 53:31 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 53:31 So if you haven't yet reviewed the book [laughs] .

Joe Hudson 53:33 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 53:34 Um, on the note of... So okay, so o- one thing that I really struggled with and continue to struggle with to an extent-

Joe Hudson 53:40 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 53:40 ... in my relationship is-

Joe Hudson 53:42 I wanna say one thing. One, back up on one thing.

Ali Abdaal 53:44 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 53:44 But also just, like, don't overblow your nervous system.

Ali Abdaal 53:46 Okay.

Joe Hudson 53:46 So do it into a point where you're just like, don't, don't go out of regulation to do it. Like, I have done that many times. You will recover, but it's a far quicker process to, like, feel it into a point where you're like, "Okay, that's enough," and then-

Ali Abdaal 54:00 Okay

Joe Hudson 54:01 ... then go back to it.

Ali Abdaal 54:02 Okay.

Joe Hudson 54:02 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 54:02 So small doses rather than like a mega dose.

Joe Hudson 54:04 It may be small, maybe just depends on your system.

Ali Abdaal 54:07 Sure.

Joe Hudson 54:07 Just don't, don't blow yourself out.

Ali Abdaal 54:08 Okay. Nice. Um, one thing that I've struggled with and still do is the idea of, like, how to emotionally support my partner.

Joe Hudson 54:16 Oh, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 54:17 And you mentioned, like, uh, it's like I, I don't, I don't really have any good models for this. Um-

Joe Hudson 54:21 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 54:21 ... I didn't, I didn't have a dad growing up and, like, I don't... And so it, it, it's often weird for me to under- to, to think how would, like, a 30-year-old dude offer emotional support and like, like wha- what does that even look like?

Joe Hudson 54:34 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 54:34 And in the sort of a, a thing in my head was like, "Oh, it's gonna be okay. It's all right." Like you see that stuff in the movies.

Joe Hudson 54:39 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 54:40 How do, how do I emotionally support my partner? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 54:42 So the wa- I, the way I did with you.

Ali Abdaal 54:44 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 54:44 And you actually felt it. So if you go, like, back on the tape or the podcast, you said, "Oh, I got these terrible reviews." And I said, "Oh, I'm so sorry."

Ali Abdaal 54:50 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 54:51 I'm right here with you. I'm empathetic.

Ali Abdaal 54:53 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 54:53 I'm not trying to fix you.

Ali Abdaal 54:55 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 54:55 And I, and I'm just right here with you.

Ali Abdaal 54:56 Yeah. So you wouldn't say, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm sure the book is actually good," and blah, blah, blah, and all that kind of stuff.

Joe Hudson 55:00 Yeah. Just like, yeah, I'm just, uh, just empathetically being with somebody is all that's really required.

Ali Abdaal 55:04 Okay.

Joe Hudson 55:05 Not wanting them, them to change. Just, just literally I can sit in loving attention of you and your emotional experience. And m- especially men in America, especially men in Western civilization, man, we have gotta go in there and fix it, but it's really not required, and it als- often makes people feel very unseen.

Ali Abdaal 55:22 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 55:23 Like, 'cause what you're telling them is like, "You're wrong for feeling this. It needs to be fixed."

Ali Abdaal 55:26 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 55:26 Instead of like, "Oh, I love you, and you can feel this, no problem."

Ali Abdaal 55:30 Yep. What if [laughs]

Joe Hudson 55:31 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 55:32 What if w- and, and might say, okay, w- what if the spouse is upset because of something that I have done?

Joe Hudson 55:39 Same thing.

Ali Abdaal 55:40 Okay. So just like sit in loving attention and-

Joe Hudson 55:42 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 55:42 ... like-

Joe Hudson 55:42 Just be like, "Oh, I really..." Uh, if you wanna go big-

Ali Abdaal 55:45 Yeah

Joe Hudson 55:45 ... this works.

Ali Abdaal 55:46 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 55:46 But it can be really hard.

Ali Abdaal 55:47 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 55:48 Um, is, "Oh, ri- I hear that you're really upset with me. I wanna hear all about it. Tell me, tell me what's bothering you."

Ali Abdaal 55:54 Yep.

Joe Hudson 55:55 Yeah. W- how, how do you wanna handle this? What's going on? Like, what do you want from me? I'm not, I, I'm not gonna sit here and agree to whatever you want from me, but, but I wanna hear about it. I wanna, like... And what you'll notice is typically when somebody's given that space, they'll, like, explain. They'll go, "Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah"

Ali Abdaal 56:10 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 56:10 "Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. Actually, I think it's just I need this."

Ali Abdaal 56:16 Oh.

Joe Hudson 56:17 Because it's the emotion that's stuck that's actually causing the problems, it's not-

Ali Abdaal 56:21 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 56:23 If people are allowed to have that movement, then-

Ali Abdaal 56:25 Yeah

Joe Hudson 56:25 ... typically they get to a much more... Yeah, and it's unbelie- like it's a, it's a, if you can do that in a marriage, it's like a, like, like such a cool superpower.

Ali Abdaal 56:34 'Cause I guess the temptation there is to, to defend ourselves.

Joe Hudson 56:38 Correct.

Ali Abdaal 56:38 Be like, "Oh, but like, I didn't mean the, the... Uh, come on, like, the, the," blah, blah, blah. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 56:44 Yeah, yeah. Right, which is basically two people, one person feels like they've been attacked.

Ali Abdaal 56:48 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 56:49 This person defends themselves.

Ali Abdaal 56:50 Yep.

Joe Hudson 56:50 They feel like they're defending themselves, but this person feels attacked by the defense.

Ali Abdaal 56:54 Yep.

Joe Hudson 56:54 And so that's all that's happening is t- both people in a fight, typically in a marriage, it's like both people feel like they're defending themselves, and both people feel like the other person's attacking them.

Ali Abdaal 57:03 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 57:03 So yeah, the dropping of the defense absolutely, like...

Ali Abdaal 57:08 Okay, I'm gonna try this. This is good.

Joe Hudson 57:09 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 57:09 I need to remember this, the dropping of the defense.

Joe Hudson 57:11 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 57:11 Drop the defense.

Joe Hudson 57:12 It's, it's not unlike reading the, uh, bad reviews.

Ali Abdaal 57:16 Okay, yeah, nice.

Joe Hudson 57:17 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 57:17 Like being able to sit with a negative emotion.

Joe Hudson 57:20 Yeah, exactly. And, and, and sit with the negative emotion and allow it to the point where it actually becomes quite enjoyable.

Ali Abdaal 57:26 Oh, okay. That's fun.

Joe Hudson 57:27 It cleans out.

Ali Abdaal 57:28 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 57:28 It, like, it cleans you out. It's an amazing experience.

Ali Abdaal 57:31 Okay. And what about if [laughs] um, let's say the partner is upset because something at work, she, she, she thinks she did something badly.

Joe Hudson 57:43 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 57:44 And I look at the thing and I'm like, "No, it's actually really good."

Joe Hudson 57:47 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 57:47 And I wanna offer reassurance that, like, she, the fact that she thinks it's bad is actually, let's say, it's not actually bad.

Joe Hudson 57:53 Right.

Ali Abdaal 57:53 It's like, it's actually, actually really good.

Joe Hudson 57:55 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 57:55 And, like, there's, there's all this, like, perfectionism imposter syndrome that she's feeling about the thing.

Joe Hudson 57:59 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 57:59 And I kind of wanna reassure her that like, "No, the thing's actually good."

Joe Hudson 58:02 Right.

Ali Abdaal 58:02 I feel like this is counterproductive anyways.

Joe Hudson 58:04 Yes. Totally.

Ali Abdaal 58:05 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 58:05 Totally counterproductive.

Ali Abdaal 58:06 [laughs]

Joe Hudson 58:07 Um, I mean, it, it's not counterproductive to say it once.

Ali Abdaal 58:10 Yep.

Joe Hudson 58:10 To say, "Oh, actually, my opinion is that it's quite good."

Ali Abdaal 58:12 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 58:13 But to try to chase her into her happiness or to try to push her into her happiness-

Ali Abdaal 58:17 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 58:18 So there's a great story about this. There's a, it was, he was a Quaker man, and he suffered, like, this big depression. And, um, I love this story. And he had a great community of people, and everybody showed up and they said, "Here's what you should do to not be depressed," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. One person came every Tuesday and just washed his feet. And he said, "That did more for me than anything else because everybody else was agreeing with me that I was broken. The person who was washing my feet was the only person who was saying to me, 'You're not broken. You're complete just as you are.' And that was the message that I actually needed."

Ali Abdaal 58:56 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 58:56 And so chasing someone to feel better is more of an expression about you not wanting to feel that way. It's more of an expression of, "Oh, I don't wanna feel that uncertainty. I don't wanna feel that like, uh-"

Ali Abdaal 59:09 Yeah

Joe Hudson 59:10 ... and so than it is about them. And so it's far better to just be like, "Yeah," like, "cool, you feel like, ah, yeah, you feel like you didn't do good enough. Ugh, that sucks." [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 59:23 [laughs] Nice.

Joe Hudson 59:25 Yeah. And also energetically, like in-

Ali Abdaal 59:26 Yeah

Joe Hudson 59:26 ... a relationship, like one person holds one side of the, one side of the emotional experience and someone holds the other. So, like typically, I've seen this tons in companies and in relationships. One person's really worried about money, one person's not worried about money.

Ali Abdaal 59:39 Yep.

Joe Hudson 59:40 And then all of a sudden, one person's like, "Oh, I'll start worrying about money," and then the other person's like, "Oh, come on, relax about the money." Like, that we hold these roles. So if you wanna hold the role of the optimist, everything is good, then there's no other place for her to be but in the, "Oh wait, is it gonna be good enough? Is it good enough?" And, and being in the doubt.

Ali Abdaal 59:58 Hmm. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 59:59 And so drop that role and, and kind of insist that she can drop the other role.

Ali Abdaal 1:00:05 This reminds me of a story I don't, uh, of, of a story in like the world of, uh, in the world of, uh, customer success [laughs] or customer support.

Joe Hudson 1:00:14 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:00:15 In that if a customer comes to you with a complaint, there are two chips in your hand. One chip is, "This is a big fucking deal." The other chip is, "This is not a big deal." And the chip that you take, the customer has to have the other one.

Joe Hudson 1:00:29 Right.

Ali Abdaal 1:00:30 So if you take the chip of, "This is not a big deal"-

Joe Hudson 1:00:32 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:00:32 ... the customer has to take the chip of, "This is a big fucking deal." Whereas if you take the, if you take, "Oh my goodness, I'm so... I know this is a huge deal, like you must feel absolutely terrible," then the customer has to be like, "I, it's, you know, it's not that bad. Like, calm down." [laughs] Kind of thing.

Joe Hudson 1:00:44 Exactly. Yeah, that's right. That's absolutely right.

Ali Abdaal 1:00:46 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:00:47 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:00:47 So in my quest to help my partner feel less imposter syndrome and perfectionism by reassuring her that her work is good-

Joe Hudson 1:00:53 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:00:53 ... she almost, I almost force her to take the position that, "No- My work is actually shit [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:00:57 Yeah, yeah. But, and by... Especially if it's pushing. If it's like a one time-

Ali Abdaal 1:01:02 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:01:02 ... oh, actually I think it's great.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:03 Mm.

Joe Hudson 1:01:04 I remember one time I did this experiment. I had a... Long time ago, I had an employee who was like, "This is shit," and I, I was, like, chasing. I'm like, "No, this is good. This is what I want from you," and it-

Ali Abdaal 1:01:13 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:01:13 ... wasn't working. And, um, and then, th- then, so I kinda ba- basically took, like, a completely different position, and they're like, "It's shit." And I w- and I was like, I was like, "Yeah."

Ali Abdaal 1:01:25 [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:01:27 And then they started to defend themselves and started to say why it was so good.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:30 Yeah. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:01:31 [laughs] I was like, "Yeah, see, you knew it was good."

Ali Abdaal 1:01:33 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:01:33 And they're, and they-

Ali Abdaal 1:01:34 Nice

Joe Hudson 1:01:35 ... yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:35 It's a good mind trick. Um-

Joe Hudson 1:01:37 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:01:37 ... one of the things you said earlier on is that you, uh, enjoy or, like, get a lot of fulfillment out of helping other people express their authenticity or words to that effect.

Joe Hudson 1:01:48 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:48 Um-

Joe Hudson 1:01:49 I wouldn't use the word help. Maybe I did, but I would try not to, but I would say, yeah, any way I'm of service to that.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:54 Nice.

Joe Hudson 1:01:54 Great.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:54 Okay, why not the word help?

Joe Hudson 1:01:56 Because, again, it says that they're not capable of it-

Ali Abdaal 1:01:58 Oh, okay

Joe Hudson 1:01:58 ... without me.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:58 Cool.

Joe Hudson 1:01:59 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:59 Um-

Joe Hudson 1:01:59 Or often can mean that to, in people's minds. That the word itself isn't a problem, it's just the way people interpret it.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:04 Okay. Nice.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:05 On the note of authenticity-

Joe Hudson 1:02:07 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:02:07 ... uh, and one thing that I sort of brought up to you sl- slightly ear- earlier this week, is that, um, one issue that I have is, and I'm sure a lot of people listening to this have this as well, 'cause I get a lot of emails about it, is, you know, wanting to be authentic to one's self-

Joe Hudson 1:02:23 Yes

Ali Abdaal 1:02:23 ... makes a parent upset in some way or another.

Joe Hudson 1:02:26 Yes. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:28 How does one deal with this? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:02:29 [laughs] Yeah. I've... So the, there's a co- a couple ways to look at it. One thing that if anybody's really, really working on this, there's this weird show on Netflix, maybe you can find it and link it in the show notes. There's a weird show on Netflix, uh, called Magic for Humans, and there's this, I think it's episode three or something like that, where he does an episode on guilt, and he's got all these moms around the table, and all the moms, they're just like, "Oh yeah, I'm really good at guilt. Guilt is, like, the coolest thing." Like, "Oh, I re- like, yeah, I can really get them to do what I want when, when I do guilt." So if you have a mom like that, you, like, you should watch that because it makes you see that it's like, uh-oh.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:06 Yeah. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:03:07 You know? I thought she was really sad, but is she? Like, what's going on there? Uh, but generally, the thing about guilt is that it, it, it creates a, an emotional eddy. Guilt, shame, judgment, they basically s- make the emotions kinda run in place, so you don't actually get the fluidity.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:23 Mm. Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:03:23 So they're an emotion that kind of, like, that create an, uh, an eddy of the emotional experience. So one of the greatest things to do is if you couldn't feel guilt, what would you have to feel?

Ali Abdaal 1:03:33 If I couldn't feel guilt, what would I have to feel?

Joe Hudson 1:03:34 Yeah. So your mom wants you to-

Ali Abdaal 1:03:38 Be a doctor

Joe Hudson 1:03:39 ... what? Say it again.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:39 Like, stay being a doctor or whatever.

Joe Hudson 1:03:41 Stay being a doctor, right? And you-

Ali Abdaal 1:03:42 She's, she, she's actually, like, for the record, she has, uh, this used to be a problem in the past. She's now chill with me being a YouTuber.

Joe Hudson 1:03:49 Right.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:49 But let's just use that as an example-

Joe Hudson 1:03:50 Right

Ali Abdaal 1:03:50 ... 'cause I think a lot of people have this, where-

Joe Hudson 1:03:51 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:03:51 ... the parent wants them to do career X-

Joe Hudson 1:03:53 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:03:53 ... and they actually want to do the liberal arts version of career X. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:03:56 Yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:56 And the parent's like, "Oh my God."

Joe Hudson 1:03:58 Right. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:58 Like, that's terrible. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:03:59 Exactly. Okay. She wants you to be a doctor.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:01 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:04:01 And if you couldn't feel guilt, what would you have to feel? So the idea is that we're feeling guilt because of that.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:09 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:04:09 But if you said that's just not on the table-

Ali Abdaal 1:04:11 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:04:11 ... not possible-

Ali Abdaal 1:04:11 Guilt is not on the table, so what would I have to feel? Shame. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:04:14 [laughs] Same, same.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:16 Okay, fine. I can't feel guilt or shame.

Joe Hudson 1:04:18 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:18 So what would I have to feel? I would have to feel... Selfish [laughs] comes to mind.

Joe Hudson 1:04:27 Selfish and shame are really close to each other.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:29 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:04:29 Like, so guilt would be I feel guilty for doing this thing.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:32 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:04:32 Shame is I'm feeling guilty for being myself, or I feel like I'm wrong when it's something I've done is wrong-

Ali Abdaal 1:04:37 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:04:37 ... one is I'm wrong. They get very confused. Selfish, selfish we could go off on forever because selfish just means you're not doing what your mom wants you to do.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:45 [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:04:46 Generally. Um-

Ali Abdaal 1:04:48 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:04:48 ... or whoever.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:49 Yeah. Sure.

Joe Hudson 1:04:49 You know, um, when parents call kids selfish, that's generally what it means. Um, but I'm just saying, like, if you couldn't, you couldn't feel that selfish as a shame, like, what's the, what's the key emotion underneath that you would have to feel if you couldn't feel like you were wrong for, bad for not doing the thing?

Ali Abdaal 1:05:08 Maybe acceptance. That comes to mind. Like, acceptance that my mom feels sad about this thing, and I'm okay with that.

Joe Hudson 1:05:14 Exactly.

Ali Abdaal 1:05:15 Where does the phrase "I'm sorry" come into this? If ha- if I'm, let's say, having this conversation with my mom-

Joe Hudson 1:05:20 Uh

Ali Abdaal 1:05:20 ... I feel like I'm sorry is like, "I'm, I'm sorry you feel that way," but then that comes across as inauthentic, and it's like-

Joe Hudson 1:05:24 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:05:24 ... I'm sorry is also a bit of an admission of culpability on my part, and it's like, how do you feel about the phrase I'm sorry?

Joe Hudson 1:05:29 I love the phrase I'm sorry. So I'm sorry is such a great phrase because it's actually one of the most successful transformational tools that you can, that you can use. So if you can do an upright, what I would call an upright apology-

Ali Abdaal 1:05:41 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:05:41 ... and we have, like, all sorts of documentation on how to do an upright apology on the website and whatnot. If you can do an upright apology, which means I am not leaving myself, I'm not feeling bad about myself, I'm just actually don't want, I don't want to be like this in the future, I don't want this to happen to you in the future-

Ali Abdaal 1:05:57 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:05:58 ... and you're just like, that's where you come from, it is one of the best ways for you to stop a behavior. So if you-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:04 Okay. Wait, wait, wait, what do you mean?

Joe Hudson 1:06:05 Yeah, so-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:06 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:06:06 ... um, if you can say to somebody like, "Oh, I'm so sorry that I treat, that I yelled at you" right there.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:13 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:06:13 Not with shame, but just like-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:15 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:06:15 ... "Oh, I'm so sorry I yelled at you."

Ali Abdaal 1:06:16 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:06:16 And I can do that three or four times, I will stop yelling.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:19 Mm. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:06:20 So if you do a really upright apology, and you really feel it-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:23 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:06:23 ... and you allow the feel, but you, as soon as you go into shame, then you get the stagnation-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:27 Oh, fine. Okay

Joe Hudson 1:06:27 ... like guilt. And then you're gonna keep on doing it over and over and over again.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:31 But in the sense of I'm so sorry that I quit being a doctor or whatever the thing might be.

Joe Hudson 1:06:35 Yeah, so in that particular case-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:36 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:06:36 ... then, then the question is this, I said to you earlier, it's like, "Oh, I'm sorry that they did that."

Ali Abdaal 1:06:41 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:06:41 I'm not responsible.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:42 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:06:43 I'm just, that, that makes me sad that that happened. Like, I'm, that, that sucks.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:47 Mm.

Joe Hudson 1:06:47 That's all it is.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:49 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:06:49 And so it's just like, yeah, I'm, I'm, like, I'm sorry. It could be I'm sorry that I can't, I can't be inauthentic to make you happy right now.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:57 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:06:57 That would s- and I understand that that stinks or-

Ali Abdaal 1:06:59 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:07:00 ... that's probably not quite right. But something to the effect, I'm sorry that I'm sorry that my choices are hurting you. I, I really do not want you to hurt

Ali Abdaal 1:07:09 Okay, nice. And if the response is, "Well, if you were really sorry, you would stop doing it."

Joe Hudson 1:07:12 Yeah, and my response would be-

Ali Abdaal 1:07:14 [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:07:15 ... "No, I'm... I, I... That would be doing something that doesn't feel aligned for me to stop you from hurting. I don't want you to hurt, but I don't wanna have to do something that's not authentic for me-

Ali Abdaal 1:07:25 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:07:25 ... to have you not hurt."

Ali Abdaal 1:07:26 So it sounds like you're just selfish then.

Joe Hudson 1:07:29 Absolutely.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:31 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:07:31 I'm absolutely selfish. I'm-

Ali Abdaal 1:07:33 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:07:33 Yeah. I want to take care of myself. I also want you to take care of yourself. And whatever you need to do to take care of yourself, given the choice I'm making, I wanna support you in it, even if it hurts me.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:44 How'd you get so good at this? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:07:46 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:07:47 What's the, what's the training program for the-

Joe Hudson 1:07:49 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:07:49 ... for this, for this sort of thing? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:07:50 The, the big training program is to realize the thing that you're defending isn't there.

Ali Abdaal 1:07:54 The thing that you're defending isn't there?

Joe Hudson 1:07:56 Yeah. So if you're defending yourself, "No, but I'm really... I do, da, da, da, da"-

Ali Abdaal 1:08:00 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:08:00 ... it means that you actually think there's something bad in you.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:03 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:08:04 And there isn't.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:05 Okay. Uh, so if someone said to me, "Ali, you've got a really slow typing speed," I wouldn't defend myself 'cause I know objectively that my typing speed is really fucking fast.

Joe Hudson 1:08:13 Correct.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:13 'Cause like it's just-

Joe Hudson 1:08:14 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:08:14 ... okay, [laughs] k- k- kind of thing.

Joe Hudson 1:08:16 Right.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:16 But if someone said to me-

Joe Hudson 1:08:17 Ooh

Ali Abdaal 1:08:18 ... "Ali, you-

Joe Hudson 1:08:18 You can't feel your emotions

Ali Abdaal 1:08:19 ... you're a selfish prick," or like, "You don't"-

Joe Hudson 1:08:21 You can't feel your emotions.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:22 Yeah. Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:08:22 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:23 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:08:23 This wouldn't be a problem if you could feel your emotions. That would-

Ali Abdaal 1:08:25 Yeah, yeah

Joe Hudson 1:08:25 ... that would make you... Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:26 Exactly. Where I'm like, "Yeah, you're right. I can't feel my emotions."

Joe Hudson 1:08:28 Right. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:28 "Maybe, maybe it's something I need to work on" kind of thing.

Joe Hudson 1:08:30 Right. We only get triggered at the stuff that we actually think is true about ourselves.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:33 Ah, yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:08:35 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:35 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:08:36 Yeah. So-

Ali Abdaal 1:08:37 And so this is why reading negative reviews is kind of like ego destruction. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:08:40 Yeah, exactly. That's right. And I'll give you-

Ali Abdaal 1:08:42 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:08:42 ... a great example of this. Um, like-

Ali Abdaal 1:08:43 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:08:43 ... we were just out hiking at the... And I was on that hike with a friend, and he's like, "Joe, you're a dick." And I was like, "No, I'm not," you know. But this was years ago.

Ali Abdaal 1:08:52 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:08:53 "No, I'm not. Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah." [laughs] And he's like, "Jesus, why defend it? You're just a dick. Like, take pride in the fact that you're a dick. What's the problem?" And I was like, "Ah, okay, let me relax into that for a moment." I'm like, "Yeah, I can see ways that I'm a dick. Yeah, okay, I'm a dick."

Ali Abdaal 1:09:10 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:09:11 And in that non-defensiveness-

Ali Abdaal 1:09:14 Hmm

Joe Hudson 1:09:14 ... the non-defending of being a dick, I just stopped being a dick. Like, it just, like, reduced. Like, the... I had a behavior where there was definitely a way, like, I would push to get something that I wanted, and that just... That went away because I wasn't defending it anymore. So the thing that we resist persists. You've heard this before. This is the resistance. The defense is the resistance. So there's like... Yeah, we're all selfish. Yes, I'm selfish. I... Why would I defend that? I'm not gonna... I'm, I'm not g- uh, there's nothing... I don't think there's some bad part of me that I have to prove is good.

Ali Abdaal 1:09:51 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:09:52 So what's to defend?

Ali Abdaal 1:09:53 Hmm. [sighs]

Joe Hudson 1:09:56 And yeah, the being able to take an attack and learn to s- keep an open heart destroys the ego.

Ali Abdaal 1:10:02 Take an attack and keep an open heart.

Joe Hudson 1:10:04 Heart.

Ali Abdaal 1:10:05 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:10:06 To... The troll says the thing-

Ali Abdaal 1:10:07 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:10:08 ... and you keep an open heart while reading it.

Ali Abdaal 1:10:11 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:10:12 And that'll create a ton of emotional fluidity, it'll move a lot, and it'll... It just destroys the ego because-

Ali Abdaal 1:10:17 Oh

Joe Hudson 1:10:17 ... the ego has to defend itself and-

Ali Abdaal 1:10:20 Oh, I'm excited to read these negative reviews now.

Joe Hudson 1:10:21 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:10:21 In, in small doses.

Joe Hudson 1:10:22 In small doses.

Ali Abdaal 1:10:22 Bit by bit, a little at a dose.

Joe Hudson 1:10:23 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:10:24 Um, okay. Uh, I have s- s- so many thing... Okay, let's start with this. Um, what is enlightenment, and would you say that you are enlightened?

Joe Hudson 1:10:34 [laughs] Okay. So, I mean, there's so many different versions of what enlightenment is and, you know, there are... Even within Buddhism, there is, which is where the term-

Ali Abdaal 1:10:46 Mm, mm

Joe Hudson 1:10:47 ... and some Hinduism, where the term enlightenment showed up. I think Christ consciousness is another example. So there's a lot of things. I, I take a slightly more h- um, Western psychological view of enlightenment, and so in the human development domains. And so the way I think about... And so maybe in Buddhism, this might be considered awakening. Some people would call it enlightenment, blah, blah, blah. But the way I look at it is there's three ways to do it. We'll just do two of them. One is a sense of self. So you're a little kid, your sense of self is very solid and, and we know that because if I say to a little kid, "What do you want for Christmas?" They say, "G.I. Joe with a kung fu grip." And you're like, "What do I want for Christmas? G.I. Joe with a kung fu grip." They can't really discern themselves from the world.

Ali Abdaal 1:11:31 Okay, yep.

Joe Hudson 1:11:32 And then as they get a little bit older, they can discern themselves from the world. They're like-

Ali Abdaal 1:11:36 Mm

Joe Hudson 1:11:36 ... "I want a G.I. Joe with a kung fu grip, but mom wants a Tesla."

Ali Abdaal 1:11:39 Sure.

Joe Hudson 1:11:39 "Dad wants a tie or whatever."

Ali Abdaal 1:11:41 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:11:42 And so our sense of self moves from that to, "Oh, I am the family. I am the tribe. I am the nation. I am humanity. I am the ecosystem." So as we develop-

Ali Abdaal 1:11:54 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:11:55 ... we start seeing our sense of self as everything, like... And so people who are like, "I wanna take care of the environment"-

Ali Abdaal 1:12:01 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:12:01 ... it's because they see the environment as them and that they're... There's an interdependence and it's not like something that's separate.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:06 Okay. But like-

Joe Hudson 1:12:07 At some point-

Ali Abdaal 1:12:08 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:12:08 ... at some point, the sense of self becomes universal again, and it actually feels like a memory. It's like, "Oh, I remember this." That sense of self becoming universal again, where you're like, "I am everything and everything is me"-

Ali Abdaal 1:12:19 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:12:19 ... and there's some distinction. You can go further on where it's like, "I am nothing, I am everything," but, like, let's just leave that out for now. That moment is what people call awakening or enlightenment.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:28 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:12:29 When that moment persists-

Ali Abdaal 1:12:31 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:12:31 ... that's usually what somebody would call enlightenment.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:34 Okay. Yeah. 'Cause I was reading, um, a book by Jed McKenna, which is a-

Joe Hudson 1:12:38 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:12:39 ... famous writer

Joe Hudson 1:12:39 I know it.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:39 And he calls it, um, abiding non-dual awareness.

Joe Hudson 1:12:42 Yeah, non-duality.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:43 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:12:43 So that would be another way to describe awakening or enlightenment is non-duality. I-

Ali Abdaal 1:12:48 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:12:48 So that's, that's the s- from the sense of I. There's also a sense of time that goes along with it. So little kids, if you say to them, "Oh, your birthday's in like three months," they could give a crap.

Ali Abdaal 1:12:59 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:12:59 "Birthday's in three days," "Ah," they get really excited.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:01 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:13:02 The average American They can see out like three and a half years. They can, you could, they can think about things longer, but they'll sign a mortgage-

Ali Abdaal 1:13:09 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:13:09 ... that will blow up in four years-

Ali Abdaal 1:13:11 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:13:11 ... because they're not really considering. And then you move into, like, seven generation thinking-

Ali Abdaal 1:13:17 Okay

Joe Hudson 1:13:17 ... which is a, the American Indians, uh, the, the, the Native Americans, they would, um, they talked about, like, you couldn't really know a valley and, or a, a location until you'd lived there for seven generations.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:30 Huh.

Joe Hudson 1:13:30 And when you're making a decision, you're making a decision for seven generations.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:33 Right.

Joe Hudson 1:13:33 That was, like, that thought process. So you're actually thinking about the expanse of time, like, when your work stops m- mattering about, like, today or tomorrow and your start, work starts mattering about future generations.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:44 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:13:45 This is kind of where that moves. Again, there's this point where it kind of implodes on itself and infinity doesn't become a length of time, it becomes like the depth of a moment.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:55 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:13:55 So there's

Joe Hudson 1:13:56 a sense of self-sense of time.

Ali Abdaal 1:13:57 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:13:58 And those are easy ways to see how that works in the system.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:02 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:14:03 Another thing that happens, especially with, like, the mental one, is that the, oftentimes the negative self-talk-

Ali Abdaal 1:14:10 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:14:10 ... loop will really change. There won't be a lot of it because you start seeing through all your thoughts. All your thoughts become true and not true, and so none of them you take very seriously, so you can't, like, someone's like, "Oh, that person thinks you're an asshole," and there's some part of you that's like, "Huh, l- look at that thought."

Ali Abdaal 1:14:26 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:14:27 "Yeah, I don't really particularly believe that." And in that spaciousness is a lot of, like, the lack of defensiveness and stuff like that.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:34 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:14:36 That's a lot.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:37 Yeah. Nice. This is good. So th- um, I am me, I am my family, I am my tribe.

Joe Hudson 1:14:45 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:46 But it's not like I am, right? Like, it, like, I don't... Like, my mom doesn't feel like she is me, but she really cares about me.

Joe Hudson 1:14:52 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:52 So b- is that, is that the same thing?

Joe Hudson 1:14:54 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:54 Oh, fine. Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:14:55 That's, yeah, that's the same thing.

Ali Abdaal 1:14:56 And there are some friends of mine who really-

Joe Hudson 1:14:57 So, like-

Ali Abdaal 1:14:57 ... care about the environment-

Joe Hudson 1:14:58 Right. So she-

Ali Abdaal 1:14:59 ... and I don't particularly

Joe Hudson 1:14:59 ... she really cares what your actions are, like where you live and everything-

Ali Abdaal 1:15:02 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:15:02 ... 'cause she's very identified with you as her and her as you. Like, she would be like-

Ali Abdaal 1:15:07 Identified with

Joe Hudson 1:15:08 ... my, my, like, so my kid-

Ali Abdaal 1:15:09 Okay. Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:15:09 ... if they did something embarrassing, I'd be like, "That's embarrassing for them." But I wouldn't say like, "Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed by what my kid did."

Ali Abdaal 1:15:17 Ah, yes. Right.

Joe Hudson 1:15:17 So because I'm-

Ali Abdaal 1:15:18 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:15:18 ... not really identified in that way.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:21 So identified mean, like what does identified mean?

Joe Hudson 1:15:23 Yeah. So it means that I, I'm... A good way to say it is, like, I'm taking it personally.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:29 Oh, okay. Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:15:30 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:31 Okay, fine. So, huh.

Joe Hudson 1:15:33 It's ve- like very hard for me to take things personally.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:35 Yep. So are you enlightened? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:15:37 [laughs] So I don't really believe in the enlightenment term, but-

Ali Abdaal 1:15:40 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:15:41 ... the voice in my head is, like, there's no negative repeating voice in my head and my sense of identity is very universal. I am everything, I am nothing.

Ali Abdaal 1:15:48 Oh.

Joe Hudson 1:15:49 That's true. And, and what was interesting about that is I was very identified with that for a bit. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:15:54 Oh, nice. Yeah. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:15:54 There was very like, "Look at me, I'm this," and now it's like, you know, it's like hair color. It's like, it's not, it's not relevant.

Ali Abdaal 1:16:01 Okay. Interesting. 'Cause I've been listening to some Alan Watts lectures where he also talks-

Joe Hudson 1:16:05 Oh, yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:16:05 ... about how, like, the, the quest to destroy the ego becomes its own ego trip-

Joe Hudson 1:16:10 Correct. Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:16:11 ... kind of thing.

Joe Hudson 1:16:12 Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I went through like s- many, many years sitting on a pillow, meditating, looking out a window at a tree and reading non-dual teachers. Like, I just went through, like-

Ali Abdaal 1:16:22 Why? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:16:22 ... trying my hardest to-

Ali Abdaal 1:16:24 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:16:24 ... get to awakening and enlightenment.

Ali Abdaal 1:16:25 Okay. Wh- why? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:16:27 Uh-

Ali Abdaal 1:16:27 How did this-

Joe Hudson 1:16:28 Yeah. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:16:29 And how does this vibe with the whole venture capitalist, philanthropist, bringing, coach for CEOs who are billionaires kind of thing?

Joe Hudson 1:16:34 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:16:34 Where does all this fit into the picture?

Joe Hudson 1:16:35 [laughs] Uh, historically it was, I was doing investment banking. I went to a meditation retreat. I got a taste of unity consciousness, and I was like, "Whatever the fuck that is, I'm after it."

Ali Abdaal 1:16:46 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:16:46 And then I chased so, so hard for it-

Ali Abdaal 1:16:49 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:16:49 ... which made it harder and harder to, like-

Ali Abdaal 1:16:52 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:16:52 ... see that it was actually just what I was by my nature.

Ali Abdaal 1:16:55 How old-

Joe Hudson 1:16:55 So the more I chased, the more it pushed away.

Ali Abdaal 1:16:57 How old were you at the time?

Joe Hudson 1:16:58 25 years old.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:00 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:17:00 Something like that.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:00 So 25 you had this experience in a meditation retreat-

Joe Hudson 1:17:03 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:17:03 ... where you're like, "Oh, sh- oh, shit."

Joe Hudson 1:17:04 And then I dedicated my entire life to it for a decade.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:06 Oh, okay.

Joe Hudson 1:17:07 Yeah. And I didn't do venture capital until 35.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:10 Oh. How do, how do you dedicate your life to meditation? Do you like literally just-

Joe Hudson 1:17:14 I literally only s-

Ali Abdaal 1:17:14 ... or some-

Joe Hudson 1:17:14 I, I made-

Ali Abdaal 1:17:15 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:17:15 ... $12,000 a year. I made almost no money. I worried about money quite a bit.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:19 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:17:19 Uh, I had all those things that people, like, so everybody out there who's like, "Oh, that rich guy, he doesn't know about money, da, da, da," it's like-

Ali Abdaal 1:17:25 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:17:25 ... actually, yeah, I was incredibly poor, worried about money, and stressed about it all the freaking time.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:29 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:17:30 And, um, but I just was totally dedicated to this thing. I was, I was a, I was avid about it. And so I tried everything I could. I, I did meditation. I did the Hoffman process. I did somatic healing. I did breathwork. I did everything I could possibly do for... I, I was dedicated to it.

Ali Abdaal 1:17:48 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:17:49 And, you know, I could do high-paying work because I did international stock lending, so I could go out and, like, make a lot of money for a couple weeks and then I would just be back in the room sitting, meditating for seven hours a day.

Ali Abdaal 1:18:00 Isn't that really boring? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:18:03 My wife sure thought so. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:18:05 [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:18:07 Um, it wasn't for me. No. I got... What happened somewhere along the line, this question arose in me that was just like, "What am I?" essentially. And, and it's not, you know, you can say, "I'm Joe," or you can say, "I'm a human," but, like, what is it that I've always been, always will be, that can't be taken away, that's never been changed? And that question just naturally showed up 10 times a day, and I was on a hunt to find the answer to that, only to find out that it was the question that was the brilliance, not the answer.

Ali Abdaal 1:18:40 Yeah. This is what Alan Watts also talks about. It's like-

Joe Hudson 1:18:43 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:18:43 ... the, the hell? Um-

Joe Hudson 1:18:44 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:18:44 ... okay. So you went on this 10-year-long journey, and then so what happened at the end of it?

Joe Hudson 1:18:50 I was taking a pee at a meditation retreat and-

Ali Abdaal 1:18:52 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:18:52 ... I was like, "Oh." I was, I was... Okay, so backing up for a second.

Ali Abdaal 1:18:57 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:18:58 So I was, like, lucky and unlucky. I was unlucky in the fact that when I tasted it, I put a lot of effort into getting it. So-

Ali Abdaal 1:19:05 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:19:05 ... and that really slows down the process. The more effort-

Ali Abdaal 1:19:07 Putting in effort

Joe Hudson 1:19:08 ... putting in effort-

Ali Abdaal 1:19:09 Okay

Joe Hudson 1:19:09 ... really slows down the process.

Ali Abdaal 1:19:11 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:19:12 Because it, it's the same thing as, like- You know, ask for advice, you get money. Ask for money, get, get advice. Like, it's the same thing. It's like if you're running after it, you're also pushing it away.

Ali Abdaal 1:19:23 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:19:23 And so, um, and then, and so that was very unfortunate, but it was great because I got to learn a whole bunch of stuff.

Ali Abdaal 1:19:31 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:19:31 And then at the moment when, like, I was going to the bathroom and it was like, oh, no. I am that, basically was the answer-

Ali Abdaal 1:19:40 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:19:40 ... which is a non-answer.

Ali Abdaal 1:19:41 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:19:41 But the answer kind of evaporated.

Ali Abdaal 1:19:42 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:19:43 And then the next thought was, this never ends, which is where I was very lucky. And so-

Ali Abdaal 1:19:49 This never ends? Okay

Joe Hudson 1:19:49 ... this never ends was the thought.

Ali Abdaal 1:19:51 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:19:51 And the reason it was lucky was because there's this thing that happens where people have that awakening moment, and they think they're finished.

Ali Abdaal 1:19:58 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:19:59 But evolution doesn't end.

Ali Abdaal 1:20:00 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:20:00 We don't stop evolving.

Ali Abdaal 1:20:02 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:20:02 Um, and that's when your identity kind of gets solidified as the awakened one-

Ali Abdaal 1:20:07 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:20:07 ... or something like that.

Ali Abdaal 1:20:08 Sure.

Joe Hudson 1:20:08 And so that, luckily for me-

Ali Abdaal 1:20:11 Hmm

Joe Hudson 1:20:11 ... I know people who, who stuck in there for 10 years.

Ali Abdaal 1:20:13 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:20:13 So, like, when I was there, and I, like, I know those people who identify that way. I was just at a wedding recently, and they're still identified that way.

Ali Abdaal 1:20:20 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:20:20 And it will, it will undo itself.

Ali Abdaal 1:20:21 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:20:21 It just will take whatever time it takes. But for me, for whatever reason, I was very lucky in the fact that it was just like, yeah, this never ends. Like, I, I, there's never an end to the growth and to the movement, which is why I stray away from enlightenment because enlightenment seems to connote a finished-

Ali Abdaal 1:20:39 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:20:39 ... done, and that's not, I haven't ever seen that. And I, I know a lot of folks who, a lot of folks in our courses have had awakenings, a lot of people in the meditation retreats that I've done that's, like, it's not an uncommon thing in-

Ali Abdaal 1:20:51 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:20:51 ... the circles. And I, and everybody still is growing and-

Ali Abdaal 1:20:55 Hmm

Joe Hudson 1:20:56 ... but there is a, there's a peace that you can access at any time, and that's another interesting thing because that can become an emotional avoidance. So I've seen people, like, access that peace. Like Alan Watts was a drunk-

Ali Abdaal 1:21:06 Hmm

Joe Hudson 1:21:06 ... as an example. Like, and his daughter will openly talk about it. Wonderful teacher, amazing person, but it was like it wasn't done. It wasn't finished.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:15 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:21:16 And so, yeah, so it just like-

Ali Abdaal 1:21:19 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:21:19 ... it's just, it's, it's a never-ending thing.

Joe Hudson 1:21:22 But you can access this peace, and in the access of the peace, you can escape into it.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:27 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:21:28 And what they... And it's interesting 'cause you find those people, and they're like, "Yeah, peace." I'm like, "Yeah. Where's the joy?" "Joy? But I got the peace." And at some point you kind of wanna, you get back into the human skin. You get back into the emotional thing. It kind of feels like you're going back into hell a little bit, and then all of a sudden you learn to, like, move all the emotion and boom, joy.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:51 Okay. So I have... So I've read a few of these texts. I've read Spiritual Enlightenment, Jed McKenna.

Joe Hudson 1:21:56 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:56 I've recently finished A New Earth and The Power of Now.

Joe Hudson 1:21:58 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:21:58 And started reading Grist for the Mill by Ram Dass.

Joe Hudson 1:22:01 Yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:22:02 And-

Joe Hudson 1:22:02 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:22:02 ... Waking Up by Sam Harris ages ago-

Joe Hudson 1:22:04 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:22:04 ... and stuff. So it's like all of the things you're saying, I, uh, I'm sort of connecting to the stuff that I've read.

Joe Hudson 1:22:09 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 1:22:09 Um, one thing came to mind when you said that it's, it's never finished, uh, is that in Jed McKenna's book, he, there's, there's this line where he says, "You know, at some point along the journey you'll meet the Buddha, and when you do, then you should kill him."

Joe Hudson 1:22:21 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:22:21 Kind of thing. And he, he says in the book, like, "Don't think about this too hard. Like, y- when you get to the point, it will s- it will suddenly make sense."

Joe Hudson 1:22:28 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:22:28 And like, but like for, for now, just like ignore it-

Joe Hudson 1:22:31 Yes

Ali Abdaal 1:22:31 ... kind of thing.

Joe Hudson 1:22:32 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:22:32 And a lot of these, like, spiritual teachings seem to also make this point that you, that you made, which is like the harder you try for it, the, the further it goes. But also you kind of do have to try, but also you don't really, like, have to try, and it's all feels a bit hard to-

Joe Hudson 1:22:49 Yes

Ali Abdaal 1:22:49 ... use words to describe.

Joe Hudson 1:22:50 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:22:50 Kind of thing.

Joe Hudson 1:22:50 So the, the, so to geek out on this-

Ali Abdaal 1:22:52 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:22:52 ... the reason for that is because the teaching is, like, pointed at what is in front of it. And so I wanted to do this thing when I was in the searching mode. I wanted to get four different teachers, ask them the same questions and see how they answered differently.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:08 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:23:08 And the name of the film that I wanted to call it was Four Fingers, One Moon.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:12 Okay. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:23:12 Because they all answer it slightly differently, but they're all kind of pointing-

Ali Abdaal 1:23:15 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:23:15 ... at the same thing.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:16 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:23:17 And so you can say you have to, you have... The one way to say it is, oh, you have to, like, destroy the ego-

Ali Abdaal 1:23:23 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:23:24 ... to become awakened. The only problem is, and then you're in a war with yourself-

Ali Abdaal 1:23:27 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:23:28 ... called the ego, right? So then another te- but it's a good pointer.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:32 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:23:32 It's a good thing.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:33 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:23:33 Like, it's useful for a moment.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:35 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:23:36 And then someplace along the line, it's useful to say there is no such thing as an ego.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:39 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:23:40 Like, it doesn't exist. It's, it's a, you're, you're, it's a phenomenon that you made up in your brain.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:44 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:23:44 It doesn't even exist. It's just a concept, and then that creates like a, a, a, a spaciousness so you can see something different.

Ali Abdaal 1:23:51 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:23:52 So all they're trying to do in their teachings, even though they're a little bit different, is to create enough space for a moment so you-

Ali Abdaal 1:23:58 Hmm

Joe Hudson 1:23:58 ... can actually feel what's actually looking out behind your eyes.

Ali Abdaal 1:24:03 Okay. So if I wanna shortcut the process [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:24:06 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:24:06 Not spend 10 years meditating seven hours a day.

Joe Hudson 1:24:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not necessary.

Ali Abdaal 1:24:10 What do I do? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:24:11 Um-

Ali Abdaal 1:24:11 What's, what's the process you'd recommend?

Joe Hudson 1:24:14 Yeah. So the, the process I would recommend is the, the, the part that I got right, luckily, was, and by luck, um, is that I was actually doing the emotional healing work at the same time that I was n- doing the non-duality. And I heard it expressed recently that a lot of time, like the,

Joe Hudson 1:24:33 I thought this was pretty accurate, that a lot of the, like, emotional holding makes it harder to see the truth of who you are.

Ali Abdaal 1:24:40 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:24:41 And so I think it works on that level. But mine, but the other thing is I noticed that it's, it's just natural for us to get there. Like, this is just human development. This isn't, this isn't, like, spiritual or something special.

Ali Abdaal 1:24:53 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:24:53 It's just, like, if you continue to, like, look at yourself and discover yourself, see what you are-

Ali Abdaal 1:25:02 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:25:02 ... pay attention, it just is going to happen.

Ali Abdaal 1:25:05 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:25:05 It's just, it's nature. So it's like, it's like saying, "How do I learn how to walk?"

Ali Abdaal 1:25:11 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:25:12 Like, you keep on kind of trying to walk and then, then walking happens.

Ali Abdaal 1:25:16 Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:25:16 Like, d- does a baby actually try? Kind of, but kind of not.

Ali Abdaal 1:25:21 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:25:21 Like, it's just gonna happen either way.

Ali Abdaal 1:25:23 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:25:23 So it's, it's a very similar thing to that. It's like this is our nature.

Ali Abdaal 1:25:27 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:25:27 And, and the interesting thing about it is because it is like a memory-

Ali Abdaal 1:25:31 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:25:31 ... oh, it's, it's like it's always been there too, which is-

Ali Abdaal 1:25:34 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:25:35 ... really interesting and strange. But, like, we don't ever, in our work, we never talk about it as a path to enlightenment.

Ali Abdaal 1:25:42 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:25:43 But you'll read reviews where it's like, [laughs] a person's like, "I fucking meditated for seven years, and what the hell are you doing?" I do this one little exercise, and I have this awakening moment.

Ali Abdaal 1:25:53 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:25:53 What the fuck? Now, that doesn't happen for everybody. That was a ripe moment for him at the right time-

Ali Abdaal 1:25:58 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:25:58 ... doing the right thing, but it's not uncommon in our work.

Ali Abdaal 1:26:01 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:26:02 But we never talk about non-duality. We never talk about awakening.

Ali Abdaal 1:26:05 Why not?

Joe Hudson 1:26:06 It just happens because it... Oftentimes when people start striving for it, it gets in the way.

Ali Abdaal 1:26:12 Hmm. So-

Joe Hudson 1:26:14 But, but-

Ali Abdaal 1:26:15 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:26:15 ... doing that emotional thing, that's a great exercise for it, like, to, like, be undefended, that, like-

Ali Abdaal 1:26:20 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:26:20 ... be undefended. That-

Ali Abdaal 1:26:21 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:26:21 ... that's a great if you wanna do something. But even that, notice it. Okay, you're gonna go be undefended.

Ali Abdaal 1:26:27 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:26:28 Is that a doing or is that an undoing? Is that an effort? Like, try to effort being undefended.

Ali Abdaal 1:26:35 Ooh, interesting. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:26:37 Right. And so that's why they're pointing to it. Yeah, you have to do something. Go be undefended.

Ali Abdaal 1:26:41 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:26:41 So it's a doing, but it's kinda not a doing because if you try to do it, you're defended.

Ali Abdaal 1:26:45 Yeah. How, how do you feel about the word spirituality?

Joe Hudson 1:26:48 Uh, it's like Christianity or, or Buddhism or Judaism. It's gonna trigger somebody.

Ali Abdaal 1:26:54 Yeah. Yeah. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:26:56 [laughs] They're all pointing at the, at, at something similar with slightly different, you know, whatever, you know. They're thumbnails all... They're different thumbnails all at the same video, so to speak.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:07 [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:27:08 And so I try to use words as much as possible that don't trigger folks.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:12 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:27:12 I try to just use, like, regular words, and it's why I somewhat stay away from the... You stay away from, like, the... I, like, I never call myself a spiritual teacher.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:23 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:27:24 I ra- and, and I'd rather have it be, like, applied self-discovery. Like, our conversation started with, you know, business and how to make money.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:33 Mm.

Joe Hudson 1:27:33 I wanna think, like, these tools, it's like how do we apply them to creating a world that we wanna live in?

Ali Abdaal 1:27:39 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:27:40 They're not really useful otherwise. If I just learn how to meditate, I can fool myself all day long. God knows I did for years.

Ali Abdaal 1:27:46 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:27:47 Whereas, like, if I'm actually interacting in the world and they're applied, I know if these things work. I know what's real or more, more real. [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:27:56 What, what's your take on reincarnation, multiple lives, all that jazz?

Joe Hudson 1:28:01 I have none.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:02 Yeah. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:28:03 Yeah. I don't know. It doesn't-

Ali Abdaal 1:28:05 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:28:05 Yeah. It doesn't.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:06 It's not that when you have that moment of awakening, you suddenly realize, oh, this is just one life out of 10,000 lives or some- something like that?

Joe Hudson 1:28:13 Things like that happen. Uh [laughs] but to me it's like the way I look at it is no matter what my belief is, I don't know how that's gonna help anything.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:24 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:28:25 I don't know, like, I don't know how that belief system or whatever the experience is that I can make a story out of-

Ali Abdaal 1:28:31 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:28:31 ... explaining it. It's just living in the future in some other way. I don't... It doesn't ever seem to really be a benefit.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:38 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:28:40 You know? And they're usually turned into stories to create morality, and morality stops us from listening to ourselves. I'd much rather have people deeply listen to themselves because that's our nature, and our nature is good.

Ali Abdaal 1:28:54 So instead of being like, that there is, you know, th- there are some things that are just right and wrong kind of thing, which is what a lot of r- religious people-

Joe Hudson 1:29:01 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:29:01 ... will often say.

Joe Hudson 1:29:02 Yes. Yeah. So, uh, uh, I mean, this gets in a really touchy subject, but it, like, to geek out on it for a minute, um, if your boss says to you, "You gotta, like, work twice as hard," it's not gonna be really fun. You're not gonna really enjoy it.

Ali Abdaal 1:29:19 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:29:19 If you are sitting there working and you're like, "Oh, wow. W- I wonder what could happen if I do this twice as hard," and you're like, "Can I do this twice as quickly?" And you, like, create a game with yourself-

Ali Abdaal 1:29:28 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:29:28 ... it can be incredibly enjoyable.

Ali Abdaal 1:29:30 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:29:31 So morality, it takes the joy out of being moral. Like, it becomes an obligation. It becomes a should. It becomes something that I have to do, and it takes a long time to actually get to the joy of it.

Ali Abdaal 1:29:41 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:29:42 But being good to people is joyful. To being bad to people is disconnecting. It's painful. It sucks.

Ali Abdaal 1:29:48 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:29:49 So I'd rather have people listen to themselves than follow an idea of what's good or bad.

Ali Abdaal 1:29:55 How do you feel about the word should? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:29:57 [laughs] I don't know. I don't think it's effective. So I think, um, if there's, if there... If anybody's listening to the podcast, you probably have some habit that hasn't changed in a decade or five years or three years, depending on how old you are, that you've been telling yourself should change.

Ali Abdaal 1:30:16 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:30:17 And the reason I know, know that is because you're telling yourself it should change. Uh, the thing about all those habits that haven't changed, you're telling yourself they should change. It's just not an effective mechanism for transformation.

Ali Abdaal 1:30:30 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:30:31 Shoulding yourself just doesn't work. It's a resistance. It's shame. It's shame, so it stagnates. It's a resistance, so it persists. Look at everything that did change. The other way to do it is the reverse. Look at everything that did change of who you are in the last five years-

Ali Abdaal 1:30:46 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:30:46 ... and how many, how many of those needed a should to change?

Ali Abdaal 1:30:50 Hmm. Surely there's like, uh, you know, I sh- I should be a less abusive spouse [laughs] to my partner, or like m- m- uh, sh- surely there are some, there are some shoulds that are genuine shoulds, right?

Joe Hudson 1:31:01 I, I think all the shoulds are genuine.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:03 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:31:04 I, uh, I'm just saying that they're ineffective.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:07 Oh, okay. So if I'm saying I should be a better partner to my spouse-

Joe Hudson 1:31:09 It's not gonna make-

Ali Abdaal 1:31:10 [laughs] It's not gonna make me a better partner

Joe Hudson 1:31:11 ... it's not gonna help you be a better partner as I... I, I want to be a better partner to my spouse is gonna be far more effective.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:16 Oh, yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:31:17 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:18 Oh, okay. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:31:21 I should is like, you know, tell your kids you should, they should do shit, and it's great way to make sure that they don't do the shit that you tell [chuckles] me they should do.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:29 On that note, so I was, uh, I was giving a talk a couple weeks ago, and a parent came up to me afterwards when I was, like, signing books and shit, and she said, "Hey, you know, my kids, they're teenagers, and I just can't seem to motivate them. And, like, what advice do you have?" And I was like, "Well, I mean, I'm not a parent, so take this with a pinch of salt." But, like, I didn't, I didn't really know what, what to say to her because I, I, I had a sense that, like, it's really hard for a parent to motivate a teenager, like, whatever that means.

Joe Hudson 1:31:59 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:31:59 And I was like, "What, what are you trying to motivate them to do?" And she said, "Oh, I want them to take their studies more seriously." I was like, "Okay." "So that... Oh, s- so that they can, they can actually get into a good university because at the moment, they spend all their time playing, playing video games. And so I've been telling them that they should watch your videos, and I've been trying to put your videos in front of them to say, 'Look at this guy. You should listen to what he says.'" And there was all this should-ing going on, and I was like, "Ooh, hello. There's, there's something here," but I didn't quite have time to get into it, and I didn't really know what to, what to say to her.

Joe Hudson 1:32:23 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:32:24 So I just said, "Look, man, all of these, like, bros, all, all, all of these, like, super successful, like, teachers and stuff that I know, their kids don't listen to them either, so, like, you know," [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:32:32 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:32:33 "It's, it's probably all good." But like, how, how would you approach that? Like, a parent saying, how, "How do, how do I motivate my child to take studies more seriously?"

Joe Hudson 1:32:41 I would say, "What are you trying not to feel?"

Ali Abdaal 1:32:44 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:32:46 I mean, when you're telling their kid that they-- you should be different, what you're basically telling them is they're not good, that they're broken in some way, that they need to be... They, they, they need to be managed.

Ali Abdaal 1:32:56 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:32:57 That, that, that there's-- broken so much that they have to be managed and controlled-

Ali Abdaal 1:33:00 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:33:00 ... to be a good thing.

Ali Abdaal 1:33:01 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:33:02 So, like, why the fuck would you wanna listen to anybody who thinks you're broken?

Ali Abdaal 1:33:07 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:33:08 Why would-- I would, like-- That's not the person I-- Like, I want the coach who's like, "I see you as whole and complete, and I know you're gonna get there."

Ali Abdaal 1:33:14 Mm.

Joe Hudson 1:33:16 Right? That's who I wanna listen to. That's, you know? Like, criticize your kid all the time, why would they even wanna listen-

Ali Abdaal 1:33:21 Mm

Joe Hudson 1:33:22 ... or be around you? So to, to me, it's like, I have a great-- I love the teenage years. I freaking love them. And it's funny 'cause I, I, I mean, I talked about the two thousand dollar thing, which I've only paid for something like that, like, once for one kid and kinda this other weird time for another kid. But my kids are totally naturally motivated because they just are listening to themselves. Kids who are listening to themselves, they, they're motivated. Kids who have been taught not to listen to themselves, but listen to their mother, they're usually not motivated.

Ali Abdaal 1:33:57 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:33:58 Unless the only way they got their mom's love is through achievement, then they might be motivated, but with a lot of fear.

Ali Abdaal 1:34:05 Mm. Some, some parents will say, "Well, I'm not gonna let my kid jump off a cliff. That would be terrible. And therefore, when I see my kid doing th- doing this thing," which I viewed to be the equivalent to him, like, taking cocaine, you know. "If all your friends were taking cocaine, would you expect me to just, like, step by and stand by and let you do it?"

Joe Hudson 1:34:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:34:22 How does this... Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:34:24 Yeah. I mean, if you're at that point, you might need to, but it's getting-- it's, like, preventing yourself from getting to that point.

Ali Abdaal 1:34:30 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:34:30 Like, I... Meaning, like, that only happens after years of your kid being told that they're bad, wrong, and you criticizing them.

Ali Abdaal 1:34:39 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:34:39 Why else would they need to do cocaine but to, like, escape the negative voice in their head that you gave them?

Ali Abdaal 1:34:46 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:34:47 I'm, I'm being ruthless about it, but it's absolutely true.

Ali Abdaal 1:34:50 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:34:50 Like, I've never met, like... Outside of, of course, there's some neurological atypicalness or some-

Ali Abdaal 1:34:58 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:34:58 ... some chemistry, but if that's the case, you don't have much of a chance of managing it anyhow. Addiction comes with shame. Shame is the, the lock that holds the chains of bad habits in place.

Ali Abdaal 1:35:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:35:13 You want your kids not to have bad habits, teach them that there's nothing-- that they don't need to be ashamed of themselves.

Ali Abdaal 1:35:20 One thing we were talking about earlier is, um, hand-in-hand parenting.

Joe Hudson 1:35:23 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:35:23 I wonder if you could just do a bit of a, like, a quick explainer of what is hand-in-hand parenting and why is it... W- why did you raise your kids using this methodology type thing?

Joe Hudson 1:35:34 Yeah. It's pretty much the same thing. It's, it's actually... So the reason I did it is because my wife said, "We're gonna do this."

Ali Abdaal 1:35:40 Yeah. [chuckles]

Joe Hudson 1:35:41 And at this point in our marriage, I had realized that she was right when it came to kids most of the time, especially young kids.

Ali Abdaal 1:35:47 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:35:48 So I had come up with a, uh, a methodology, [chuckles] and it was do whatever she says for three months, and if I don't like it... D- don't, don't resist whatever she says. Do whatever she says for the first three months, and if I don't like it at that point-

Ali Abdaal 1:36:00 Hmm

Joe Hudson 1:36:00 ... like, but do a good, a clean experiment on it.

Ali Abdaal 1:36:02 Yep. [chuckles]

Joe Hudson 1:36:03 So I did the clean experiment on what she wanted, which was hand-in-hand parenting, and it was freaking remarkable. And basically, it's very much centered around that same thought process of, like, if they all- if you allow your kids to feel their emotions all the way through-

Ali Abdaal 1:36:19 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:36:19 ... express their emotions all the way through, they get back to connection, they're not overwhelmed anymore, and they go back to just being the kid that is, like, this wonderful, loving child. And if you look at little kids, like two years old as an example, if they see that you're out of attunement, they'll go, "D- Dad, I love you." They'll, like, try to bring you back into attunement. That's how badly they wanna be in attunement and connection. And so that's their nature, and the job is to just help them live their nature, which is to move the emotions through them so they can get back to connection. So hand-in-hand parenting has five basic, um, rules, and, and Patty Wipfler is much better to speak about this than, than I am, but it's, uh, having a place where you can, uh, off-gas whatever emotions you're having about raising kids, so in a way that's not gonna hurt the kids. Um, that's called the listening partnership. There's, uh, stay listening, which is allowing their emotions to be big and just sitting in loving attention of them, similar to what I was suggesting for you. There's, uh, play listening, which is playing with the kids so that the fear can move. Um, and so it's like playing in a s- kind of roughhousing way with kids so that they can actually move fear that's been moving through them. Um, having gentle and firm boundaries, [smacks lips] uh, which is like staying close and insisting. It's like, "I'm the adult, this is what we're doing." It's just very gentle but very firm. We're not gonna go out of it. And then the last one is, uh, going down the rabbit hole where you basically like have special time with the kid and you go into their world and join them.

Ali Abdaal 1:37:54 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:37:54 You don't try to make them in your world. You're just like, "Tea? Tea it is. Let's do tea. Come on. Oh, is that really a elephant over there?" You know, and you're fully going down the rabbit hole.

Ali Abdaal 1:38:03 Yeah. And so what sort of age group is this useful for? [chuckles]

Joe Hudson 1:38:05 Uh, like, uh, zero to eight.

Ali Abdaal 1:38:08 Okay. Cool.

Joe Hudson 1:38:08 Yeah. And there's some usefulness in... I mean, I used this with CEOs when I was a VC. Like- [chuckles]

Ali Abdaal 1:38:14 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:38:14 ... like, it's, the book is great even if you're not a parent. It, it teaches you so much and the doing it with the kids was a huge spiritual practice for me. It was, it is the thing that allowed me to feel all the emotions, that allowed me to get to emotional fluidity because if my kids were sad, I needed to feel it or I-

Ali Abdaal 1:38:34 Hmm

Joe Hudson 1:38:34 ... was gonna be tied in a fucking knot. "Er, just stop. Just, uh, just eat a cookie and stop being sad," or whatever the hell it was.

Ali Abdaal 1:38:40 Yeah. 'Cause I guess it's easy to take it personally if your kid is sad or if your partner is sad.

Joe Hudson 1:38:45 Yeah. Or you just don't wanna feel sadness, then you're gonna get agitated.

Ali Abdaal 1:38:49 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:38:49 You can be on a plane and if a kid starts crying, like you can just stand up, look at the entire-

Ali Abdaal 1:38:54 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:38:54 ... plane and you're like, you can just, "You weren't allowed to cry as a kid. You weren't allowed to cry as a kid," and see all the agitated people. [chuckles]

Ali Abdaal 1:39:00 Oh. Interesting.

Joe Hudson 1:39:01 "You weren't allowed to cry."

Ali Abdaal 1:39:01 So is, is the book, like, uh, what's the book called?

Joe Hudson 1:39:03 It's called Listen.

Ali Abdaal 1:39:04 Listen.

Joe Hudson 1:39:04 By Patty Wipfler. But they, the organization is called Hand in Hand Parenting and Parenting by Connection, and that is, they have so many great resources. So if you ha- if you have young kids and it, they have resources just like, "Kids are biting, this is what you do."

Ali Abdaal 1:39:18 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:39:18 As long as you know the five tools then-

Ali Abdaal 1:39:20 Yep

Joe Hudson 1:39:20 ... it's pretty easy.

Ali Abdaal 1:39:21 Nice. And I'll put links to all of that.

Joe Hudson 1:39:22 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:39:22 Um, when you are rich, how do you not spoil your kids? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:39:28 [laughs] Yeah, you know, that's an interesting question. So I th- I've thought about this a lot. Um, [smacks lips] so the thing about it is, it, there's a difference between spoiling a kid and then f- teaching a kid that they, uh, of like buying off a child.

Ali Abdaal 1:39:47 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:39:48 So are you giving them money so that you don't have to feel emotion or so that they don't have to feel an emotion?

Ali Abdaal 1:39:53 Mm.

Joe Hudson 1:39:53 That's one question.

Ali Abdaal 1:39:54 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:39:56 What I notice is that kids who are used to having a certain kind of lifestyle will probably maintain that lifestyle if they're like loved and like they're respected and supported. So I don't have a problem in particular of like allowing them a particular lifestyle.

Ali Abdaal 1:40:13 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:40:13 But what I'm not looking for them to do is avoid their emotions through money.

Ali Abdaal 1:40:17 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:40:17 Because that's where like the troubles start coming. And the other thing is I don't wanna hand them money unless they know they can earn it. So meaning, so I've seen, there's this great family that I worked with for a while. I just was so impressed with this. They had hundreds of millions of dollars and it had been passed on generation to generation successfully and kept on growing and they were like, "Okay, if you don't wanna make money, then you just get X amount and you can like live comfortably but not great." It's like, you know, good middle class job-

Ali Abdaal 1:40:48 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:40:49 ... kinda thing. If, however, you want to be a part of the thing and decide where the money's gonna go and blah, blah, blah, then you have to take a million dollars and start a company that gets you X millions of dollars. They had like kind of this hurdle.

Ali Abdaal 1:41:03 Oh.

Joe Hudson 1:41:04 And if you did that then you could be... Because they didn't want anybody controlling the wealth who was scared of losing it.

Ali Abdaal 1:41:11 Oh, okay. Nice.

Joe Hudson 1:41:12 Because the, because what happens in the second generation of wealth typically is that they get scared and get really tight-

Ali Abdaal 1:41:18 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:41:18 ... and they're scared of losing it instead of, which makes money go away.

Ali Abdaal 1:41:22 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:41:23 Right? Like you as an entrepreneur, I as an entrepreneur, we take risks all the time. That grows our money.

Ali Abdaal 1:41:28 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:41:29 If we were scared as entrepreneurs our businesses would shrink and shrink and shrink and shrink.

Ali Abdaal 1:41:33 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:41:33 So I love that thought process. So I'm, I'm thinking about it that way. I'm not thinking about as spoiling as much.

Ali Abdaal 1:41:38 Hmm. Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:41:40 You know?

Ali Abdaal 1:41:40 'Cause there are some people that I know who, uh, have decided that like the kids are gonna get zero inheritance or that the kids are gonna get only as much inheritance as pays for their education and a house or whatever.

Joe Hudson 1:41:50 Right.

Ali Abdaal 1:41:50 Like do you have any kind of s- system like that or?

Joe Hudson 1:41:53 Um, I w- I mean, once my kids are out of school I will, I won't be giving them money unless they have like a good reason.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:00 Yeah. [chuckles]

Joe Hudson 1:42:01 You know? Like I, it's not like because I wanna buy a car, but it's-

Ali Abdaal 1:42:03 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:42:03 ... like I will support you growing as a human-

Ali Abdaal 1:42:07 Yeah

Joe Hudson 1:42:07 ... with my money. I couldn't think of a better way to spend it.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:09 Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:42:10 But I'm not going to like throw money at you to solve a problem or any there, so you can avoid an emotion.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:16 Nice.

Joe Hudson 1:42:17 Yeah, I haven't thought much about what I would do if I died with the money.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:20 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:42:20 But, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:21 Okay.

Joe Hudson 1:42:22 I don't think it's gonna make much of a difference. I mean, the way that my kids are with money right now is that they generally are respectful of it. They appreciate it. They're grateful for it.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:31 Yeah.

Joe Hudson 1:42:31 Which is I think the most important thing is that they're just like, they see it as a, as a blessing for lack of a better word.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:38 Hmm. Okay, so bringing things full circle. We started off the conversation talking about this relationship between, uh, money, success, fulfillment. How do you become, how do you achieve success while also enjoying the journey along the way?

Joe Hudson 1:42:50 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 1:42:50 And we kind of took a bit of a rollercoaster ride through emotions, through enlightenment, spirituality, parenting-

Joe Hudson 1:42:55 Yes

Ali Abdaal 1:42:55 ... all, all those sorts of things.

Joe Hudson 1:42:57 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:42:57 I guess if someone's gotten to the end of this, of, of this episode-

Joe Hudson 1:43:00 [laughs]

Ali Abdaal 1:43:00 ... if, if you were to, if you were to imagine the people you've coached-

Joe Hudson 1:43:05 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:43:05 ... they're all successful by society's definitions-

Joe Hudson 1:43:07 Yes

Ali Abdaal 1:43:07 ... by any stretch of the imagination.

Joe Hudson 1:43:09 Wow.

Ali Abdaal 1:43:09 Uh, but some of them are probably enjoying their life and feel fulfilled, and some of them probably don't. Like what are the, what are the key factors that differentiate someone who is success- successful and fulfilled and happy-

Joe Hudson 1:43:21 Yeah

Ali Abdaal 1:43:21 ... versus successful and unhappy?

Joe Hudson 1:43:23 Yeah. I, what I notice is that there's seven key factors.

Ali Abdaal 1:43:27 Oh, great. [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:43:28 [laughs] And, and, um- It's actually what we, what we teach in, um, what, like our long course. And so I'll go through just some of them, but they all kind of revolve around the same thing. Like, one of them we've already discussed, which is, um, wants are more effective than shoulds. So they're moving from their wants and they're willing to be vulnerable enough to share their wants and feel their wants, like in this weekend wh- I started with wants. Um, what I know... Instead of shoulds, they're far more fulfilled, far more happy.

Ali Abdaal 1:44:00 Hmm.

Joe Hudson 1:44:01 Um, if they focus on connection over perfection is another one. So perfection, like, and whether this is a business where I wanna make the perfect product or I want a product by, create a product by connecting with my customers, the second one's always gonna work better than the first.

Ali Abdaal 1:44:17 Hmm. Yep.

Joe Hudson 1:44:19 And so it's the same thing and, like almost everything. It's like there's some weird... Like if you're gonna do a book, you kind of like need to spend a little time with perfection because it's in print forever or whatever. But, um, but the book that you try to make perfect is not gonna be as good as the book that you really f- feel connected to, connected to while you're writing it, and connects to the people that you're writing it for. So that's another one as an example. Love over defense we've touched about a little bit as well. People who still stay defensive rather than being open-hearted, even in their boundaries, even in saying no, even in, you know, actually being incredibly competitive in a, in a, in a business environment, but still can be open-hearted in that far more. So those are some of the examples.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:05 Hmm. Nice. And where can people go to learn more about these if they want to find out the rest and stuff?

Joe Hudson 1:45:09 Yeah. There's, um, a couple ways. You can get on the website, but also in our podcasts, we have one podcast on each seven.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:15 Oh.

Joe Hudson 1:45:15 So and when we do the online courses, what we do is we make the podcasts available for free. And but the courses is where, you know, the exercises like what we did the other day, where it gets really deep and really intense-

Ali Abdaal 1:45:27 Hmm

Joe Hudson 1:45:28 ... and you get to experience it in your bones. That, that we do in the courses.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:31 Okay, cool. So we'll put a link to the YouTube channel, the podcast, the website-

Joe Hudson 1:45:34 Cool

Ali Abdaal 1:45:34 ... and all the free stuff.

Joe Hudson 1:45:35 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:35 Um, and then if people want, they can explore the paid stuff.

Joe Hudson 1:45:38 Exactly.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:38 I'll, I'll be attending your Groundbreakers course in a few months.

Joe Hudson 1:45:41 Yeah, yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:41 That should be fun.

Joe Hudson 1:45:42 Looking forward to it.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:42 Um, final question. So I am turning 30 in about a week.

Joe Hudson 1:45:46 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 1:45:46 Uh, any tips? [laughs]

Joe Hudson 1:45:47 On turning 30?

Ali Abdaal 1:45:48 Yeah, or any, any advice for someone who's just about to turn 30?

Joe Hudson 1:45:54 Yeah. A couple things are weird about... Well, things I didn't know when I was 30. One is like oftentimes for men, their prime is 40. So you think that like there's some idea that you're kind of passing your prime, but somehow like 40 is like this time where like there's this confluence of energy in your system, your body is doing great, your mind is doing great, you've learnt all this great stuff. So that's one thing that I would tell anybody who's 30 is like,

Joe Hudson 1:46:20 don't... Like, th- nothing is like, nothing has gone over the cliff, nor is it going to. I, I've actually liked getting older every year, but, but there's definitely like a feeling of primeness in the 40 years old. I think the only other thing I would say is, what I notice is that like from like 28 to 30, there's a major... From 20 to 30, there's like a turning that happens in, in humans generally. They go from kind of thinking they know everything a little bit, and they feel like even if they're curious and learning, there's kind of like this brash, "I can do anything," kind of feeling, and that starts flipping at 30 years old. There's like a, like a couple lessons to get learnt, and there's like, "Wait, I, maybe I don't see things as much as I thought that I would see them." Um, and it's uncomfortable, but it's also like incredibly relieving at the same time because it allows... It like, it softens us in a way. And so I would just say like enjoy the softening. There's a lot... Like, as we get older, there's like less to prove, less to show, less to get to, and like, and if you can enjoy that softening, oftentimes things explode, blossom that you could never even imagine, but it's also just super enjoyable to enjoy the softening.

Ali Abdaal 1:47:34 Amazing. Joe Hudson, thank you so much.

Joe Hudson 1:47:36 Pleasure. Thank you.

Ali Abdaal 1:47:37 All right. So that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are gonna be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast. Or if you're watching this in full HD or 4K on YouTube, then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode. That would be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well, which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode. So thanks for watching. Uh, do hit the subscribe button if you aren't already, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.