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The Diary of a CEOThe Diary of a CEO

Chris Williamson: Why your ladder leans on the wrong wall

How to design 2026 with subtraction, hidden metrics, and one brutal question; covers the deferred life trap and reflection between Christmas and New Year.

Chris WilliamsonguestSteven Bartletthost
Dec 29, 20252h 27mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 5:05

    Intro

    1. CW

      (Suspenseful music plays) Stop taking life so seriously. No one is getting out of this game alive, and in three generations, no one will even remember your name. And if that doesn't give you liberation to just drop your (beep) problems for a moment and find some joy, I don't know what will, because there'll never be a time when there's no problems in life. And that's why this time in between Christmas and New Year is a really wonderful time to plan big dreams and goals for the year. So let's talk about that. Chris Williamson is one of the world's leading podcast hosts and thinkers, and now he's back.

    2. SB

      Educating us on how to build discipline, turning goals into results, what's stopping us finding love-

    3. CW

      And what makes a good man in today's society. The single best question to work out what you should be doing next year, what would have to happen by the end of 2026 for me to look back and consider it a success? And it usually comes down to only a few things. The first one is, in order to pick something up, you have to put something down. So setting the bar unrealistically high does not increase your performance. Like, you'll probably lose 20 pounds and get a boyfriend. You can't do that and move cities and start a new business. So make the assumption, "I can do no more than I'm doing now." Second thing, if your life was a movie and the audience were watching, what would they be screaming at the screen telling you to do with your life? "It is obvious. Leave the relationship. The job is not working for you. The killer's hiding in the cupboard." Because if you're not careful with how you design what it is that you chase after, you can spend your entire life realizing that you climbed a huge (beep) ladder that was leaning up against the wrong wall. And is there anything else? So there is wonderful upside in trying to conquer and trying to achieve mastery, trying to really drive yourself to go and do stuff. But I'm not like, " (beep) your feelings. Just hustle and grind until your eyes bleed," either. Because one of the biggest lessons I've taken away from this year is, suppression isn't the same thing as strength, and it's a good thing for guys who feel their emotions to show that they feel their emotions, right? Like, I've been at some of my lowest points over the last 12 months. It felt like my better self was slipping through my fingers. I realized my emotions are legitimate, and denying myself that is not helping anything at all. What happened? (Heartbeat pounds) (sighs) I see messages all the time in the comments section that some of you didn't realize you didn't subscribe, so if you could do me a favor and double-check if you're a subscriber to this channel, that would be tremendously appreciated. It's the simple, it's the free thing that anybody that watches this show frequently can do to help us here to keep everything going in this show in the trajectory it's on. So please do double-check if you've subscribed, and, uh, thank you so much, because in a strange way, you are- you're part of our history, and you're on this journey with us, and I appreciate you for that. So yeah, thank you. (upbeat music plays) Chris, my audience care a lot about changing their life for the better, and I think at this time of year, change is front of mind for everybody. Everybody's thinking about New Year's resolutions, who I want to become in 2026. But when you look at the stats, 23% of people quit by the end of the first week of January their New Year's resolution, the thing they aimed at. Mm-hmm. Roughly half of people will quit their New Year's resolution, the change they sought, by the end of January, and only about 9% of people will keep their New Year's resolution for the full year. So I guess my opening question to you is, does this time of year matter at all? Is it a useful, productive time to be thinking about change in your point of view? I think the world is split into two camps. Uh, one camp says, "There is no difference between January 1st and December 31st. Like, why wait? It's December 10th. Just do it now," and the other camp likes the idea of there being a culturally appropriate moment to stop doing something and start doing something else. Most people need to realize that they're already spending tons of time worrying about the future and the past, by going back to this thing that they regret. "I wish I'd done this differently. Oh, I- I- I have, uh, uh, rumination about something that occurred. I have a sense of, uh, wistfulness for something that I've maybe missed and grief for something that I've lost." And then they're concerned about the future. They think, "I'm uncertain about this thing that's going to happen. I could plan. I could try and come up with a solution for this." So you're already worrying about the past. You're already doing reflection and planning, just in a very unstructured way where you don't get to choose when it hits you in the face. This is a culturally appropriate moment, like a- a scheduling appropriate moment for you to just step in and think, "Okay, in between Christmas and New Year..." People that work in retail, God bless you, people that have got- (laughs) got to go back to work and do that thing, but usually there's a bit of downtime. Mm-hmm. It's a little bit slower. It's Boxing Day, you're chilling out on the couch, and you're kind of thinking, "Wow, I was here again at mum and dad's house, or with the in-laws or whatever. What was I doing last year? What was it like last year?" You're already in a little bit of a reflective mode. There is no special magic super secret squirrel sauce in January 1st, but it is a good moment to check in because life tends to slow down a little bit. Mm-hmm. Work ten- work, uh, time is a little bit more slow. And you're already doing this. You're already thinking about the past and the future, and this is just a good structured opportunity to check in

  2. 5:05 – 11:58

    Choosing a Productive New Year's Resolution

    1. CW

      and do it. I guess the- the question that everybody should be asking themselves is, "What should I aim at?" And- and is there such a thing as aiming at too many things? What- what- what is a good goal for change? And when you think about all the people you've interviewed and the change you've seen in your own life- Mm-hmm. ... what- what does a productive New Year's resolution or productive goal sound like, and how do I- how do I get there? Yeah. It's very overwhelming. Uh, if you realize, "Wow, I can do anything I want. I could look at my entire life," that's terrifying. That's absolutely terrifying. One thing I would say, this is your opportunity to change anything, behaviorally. You can change anything you want. Not everything you want, right? That's the problem. You can become anything you want behaviorally, but you can't be everything you want, so you need to pick a small number. The single best question to work out what you should be doing next year, what would have to happen by the end of 2026 for me to look back on 2026 and consider it a success?I think that really helps to just give you a bit more perspective, and it usually comes down to only a few things. You don't usually have so much in your mind when you do that. Setting the bar unrealistically high does not increase your performance. Imagine this, imagine that you went into a buffet and you made your plate as big as possible. You said, "I want all of these things. I'm going to put all of this stuff on my plate, and my stomach is going to expand to be able to fit it."

    2. SB

      Hmm.

    3. CW

      That's not the way that our stomachs work, and that is not the way that our workloads work. So, first rule, in order to pick something up, you have to put something down. Don't assume that just because you've loaded more onto your workload plate, your work capacity will expand to be able to fit it into your stomach. No, that's not the way that it works. Assume, make the assumption, "I can do no more than I'm doing now." I can switch stuff, but I can't add more in. Maybe you can. Maybe you're gonna be able to squeeze your phone time, maybe you're gonna be able to become more efficient, more productive, whatever, but it's safer to just assume, "This is the pie that I'm playing with, and in order to pick something up, I have to put something down." That's a really important thing because at the moment, it's December 29th, and wh- I'm full of gusto and motivation, and I can't wait, I'm gonna crush it. And yeah, for the first week, maybe you've got that, but if you're using motivation and enthusiasm to work yourself through your goals, your goals are predicated largely on a fuel source that you don't have control over. You don't have a massive amount of control over your motivation over a long amount of time. Like, it comes and then it goes. You want something that's a little bit more rigid. So, in order to pick something up, you have to put something down.

    4. SB

      I think that's a really important point because (laughs) when we think about the goals we'll start setting at this time of the year, all of them are asking for more time or more energy. Like, pretty much all of them ask for... "I wanna start running. I wanna start going to the gym," whereas, as you say, that means I'm gonna have to take something off the plate.

    5. CW

      Yep.

    6. SB

      And we don't think about subtraction at this time of the year, typically. We don't think, "I'm going to spend less time with my friends. I'm gonna cut out Netflix." We think of addition.

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    8. SB

      But logically, there's still just, just the 24 hours in a day and the, the finite amount of ene- body budget that we have in terms of energy. So are you saying that I have to create both an addition and subtraction list and make sure that they equal out, they net out to zero?

    9. CW

      That would be optimal. I think one question that you really should be asking yourself... Let's go through a bunch of uncomfortable questions people can ask themselves. That could be cool.

    10. SB

      Okay.

    11. CW

      How would I spend my day if I wanted to make 85-year-old me as miserable as possible? What is it that I did over the last year that made me right now feel... It's a, this constriction.

    12. SB

      Okay.

    13. CW

      I've, I, I don't like how, I don't like my relationship with my phone. I spend a lot of time on my phone. I don't like how, uh, my mornings aren't very productive. Uh, I've noticed that when I'm with my friends, I'm not very present. I've noticed that I spend a lot of time on my own. I tend to isolate when things get difficult. I've noticed that I've got into the habit of not telling the truth when people ask me a question. I've noticed that I've got into the habit of not advocating for my needs when I should do. I don't hold my boundaries sufficiently well. Like, this is why the reflection part's really important. So, what would I do to make 85-year-old me as miserable as possible? How would I spend my day, and in what ways am I already doing that? Well, a lot of those are gonna cross over. That Venn diagram is not gonna be as far apart as you might think it is.

    14. SB

      I've heard you ask the question before about if someone was watching this and it was a movie.

    15. CW

      Yeah.

    16. SB

      What, what's that question?

    17. CW

      So I mean, I mean, it's, it's the, this question is so fantastic. If your life was a movie, and the audience were watching up to this point, what would they be screaming at the screen telling you to do with your life? They would be s- "It is obvious. Leave the relationship. The job is not working for you. The killer's hiding in the cupboard." What would the audience be screaming at the screen telling you to do with your life?

    18. SB

      So you've asked three questions.

    19. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    20. SB

      And I'm gonna ask you those three questions.

    21. CW

      Okay.

    22. SB

      So the first question you asked was about, what would have to happen at the end of next year to look back and consider this year a success?

    23. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    24. SB

      So for you personally.

    25. CW

      I want to spend more time thinking about ideas and less time caught up doing admin. Uh, admin is a drain on me. I don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy emails, I don't enjoy the operations of that sort of stuff.

    26. SB

      Spend time making or...

    27. CW

      Yeah, I wanna be in maker mode, not manager mode-

    28. SB

      Okay.

    29. CW

      ... would be a way to put it. Uh, I want to spend more time with my friends. Uh, I've been solopreneur, grind set, you know, pick it up and lift it type thing a lot for the last forever. More time with my friends, more time connecting with people. So, that's two things. Like, if I can do that, spend more time with my friends and less time doing admin. Now, one of the problems that you have is, uh, and I wanna lose 20 pounds and I wanna get my bench press up to 200 kilos, and I wanna do this, and it g- it's like, really? Like, do you really, really, really want that? Because when I think about it, I have, like, much more gentle goals.

    30. SB

      Mm-hmm.

  3. 11:58 – 19:05

    The Real Thing You Should Be Doing

    1. CW

    2. SB

      The other question was around if this was a movie and the audience was screaming at you-

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      ... what would they be screaming?

    5. CW

      "You're already doing enough."You're already doing enough. Stop whipping yourself into submission, thinking that your happiness sits on the other side of the next set of goals that you're going to achieve. You've already achieved goals that you said would make you happy. So if you haven't made it now, if this isn't when life is going to begin, then when- when- when are you going to start? There's this, uh, wonderful idea of the- the deferred life hypothesis. Deferred life hypothesis is basically the sort of common belief that our life hasn't yet begun, that what's happening now is a sort of prelude, it's an intro to our life truly beginning. And upon reflection, what a lot of people realize is that this prelude that they run through was a mirage that sort of faded as they approached, and they were actually just running toward the end of their life. Like, they're permanently putting things off. I get it. People have got realistic structural monetary requirements. They've got to get up, they've got to go to work, they've got to fucking change the nappy, they've got to walk the dog. They've got things that they need to do. That's not what I'm talking about. My point is, everybody thinks, a lot of people think, in one form or another, that, "My life will begin when." They're holding their happiness hostage. They're in a holding pattern, like a plane that can't land for some reason. It's like, what if that- what if that never changes? What if your problems in life are never ever going to go away? What if problems are always going to be there? What then? Oh, wow. Well, I'm never going to arrive. That means I need to start living now. And I think for me, there's definitely a lot of, um, "I will get there when," once the tasks of today are completed, once the problems are gotten through. There'll never be a time when there's no problems in life. Problems are a feature, not a bug.

    6. SB

      I sometimes w- wonder if this is a trait of just human evolution. Like, it makes survival sense for it to be hardwired into my genetic code to strive, to basically continue to strive, like, to continue to conquer, to continue to build. And in fact, maybe if my ancestors didn't have that, we wouldn't be sat in a room now with all these lights and fancy cameras and s- such because, you know, this is the consequence of a species that strive. And so I wonder if this is, like, the curse of being human, which is we just endlessly strive and then we die-

    7. CW

      Of course.

    8. SB

      ... and because we did, our- our offspring have a higher rate of survival. And, like, when I speak to people from, you know, like, East Asian traditions and stuff, they talk about being at peace and being at one and being satisfied and all these things. But it seems so alien to me to be satisfied.

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. SB

      I- I- I think I live in a dichotomy where I'm, like, well aware nothing will change my happiness, and then at the same time, I'm completely striving as if it would.

    11. CW

      Well, of course, that's the human condition. We habituate in both directions. So if your ancestors had been satisfied when they got to a cave, when their family grew and they needed a bigger cave, then what? You don't just go and find one bush. You find a ton of bushes and then you expand and that gives you additional security.

    12. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    13. CW

      But unfortunately, in the modern world, that causes us with an infinite amount of things that we can do and can chase after. We sacrifice the important for the urgent. The urgent's always in front of us, the email, the next meeting.

    14. SB

      Yeah.

    15. CW

      And this is, again, why should anybody care about doing an annual review? Why should anybody care about the new year? Well, you're busy living your life for almost the entirety of the year and this is one moment where the urgent can just take a tiny bit of a backseat and the important can come through. Who have I been over the last year? What do I want from next year? Every single year is a chapter of your life. For next year, it's chapter 38 for me. What do I want that chapter to be about?

    16. SB

      Do you think there's a single- a single change you could make to your life that would yield the greatest return on happiness? Like, if you could go into your own hardware-

    17. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    18. SB

      ... and rewrite the code a little bit?

    19. CW

      I think less striving would actually make me happier. I think that a lot of striving and a desire for success comes from a sense of insufficiency. Like, "If only the world recognized my brilliance, then I will be validated." And it takes a long time to realize that you don't fix internal voids with external accolades. And the problem with that is it's an unteachable lesson. You try and tell people that money won't fix your happiness problem or fame won't fix your self-worth problem, "You should see your parents more. Time in a hammock is never wasted. You don't love that pretty girl, she's just hot and difficult to get." Like, all of these things are only lessons that you can learn once you've got there. And people who haven't yet gotten there think, "Well, that's easy for you to say." And then when they arrive, for some reason, they seem to evangelize the same insights, like somebody that's just gone through religious revelation. So either one of two things is true. People who achieve a thing are lying about the fact that that thing didn't fix their problems, their internal void with external accolades, because of, they're part of some cartel that's trying to pull the ladder up after they've just gotten in.

    20. SB

      Yeah. (laughs)

    21. CW

      Or, it's the truth, but it's- it's a- an unteachable lesson. You will not understand that that thing outside won't fix your internal void until you get there. And I- I actually think, it's a Naval quote, "It's far easier to achieve our material desires than to renounce them."

    22. SB

      (laughs)

    23. CW

      Like, if you want a Ferrari, it's much easier to actually work real hard and try and, like, oh, get some nice car, whatever it is so that you learn that the car isn't the thing that you want than it is to rid yourself of the desire for the car overall. And that's not to say that getting a Ferrari is easy, it's to say that getting rid of the desire is essentially impossible.

    24. SB

      I think me and you are probably two guys that, at some deep level, had some kind of internal void. Is that a accurate statement?

    25. CW

      Of course. Are you speaking in the past tense?

    26. SB

      (laughs)

    27. CW

      Have.

    28. SB

      Have, yeah. (laughs)

    29. CW

      Yeah.

    30. SB

      You've now accomplished so much. You're, like, one of the biggest podcasters on planet Earth. You're- you're famous. People know who you are.

  4. 19:05 – 20:00

    The Idea That "I Will Be Enough When..."

    1. CW

    2. SB

      And my last question on this is, when I asked about the change to your code that you'd make, you talked about fixing the striving. What's been the downside of the striving?

    3. CW

      There's a, a common sense of not enoughness. Like, "I will be enough when..." Right? Because you can either run away from something you want or run towards something, uh, run, yeah, run away from something you fear or run towards something you want.

    4. SB

      And what's the consequence of that not enoughness?

    5. CW

      It's a sense of lack. It's also a provisional life. It's putting life off. "I will be happy, satisfied, peaceful when..."

    6. SB

      And is that a thought you have?

    7. CW

      It's more like an embodied sense.

    8. SB

      You feel it?

    9. CW

      Like, I feel it. Yeah.

    10. SB

      You feel it?

    11. CW

      I very much feel it. It's this striving. It's this pull. It's this sort of magnetism moving forward. But yeah, dude, uh, if your life was a movie and the audience were watching up to this point, what would they be screaming at the screen telling you to do? It's usually a very reliable indicator of where you should be putting your attention.

  5. 20:00 – 23:09

    How to Find Success

    1. CW

    2. SB

      So as we think about next year, the- the things one should aim at.

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      Um, what, I- I've heard you, I think you said on the High Performance podcast, you said you're really obsessed with understanding what success actually is.

    5. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    6. SB

      So I w- I also, just before we go into the more practical things-

    7. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    8. SB

      ... if someone's sat at home, and I know people come up to you on your tours and ask you questions like this a lot, if they're sat at home trying to figure out what success actually is for them-

    9. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    10. SB

      ... is there a framework or a principle or a method to figure out what it might mean for them? I've heard you talk about two ideas which I love, which is the region-beta paradox-

    11. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    12. SB

      ... but also the Parable of the Mexican Fisherman-

    13. CW

      Yeah.

    14. SB

      ... which I think bo- both stayed with me in a profound way.

    15. CW

      Yeah. So three things: success, region-beta, uh, Mexican Fisherman. What success looks like for any individual person is going to be different. For you, knowing that you really want a family, there's people out there that are like, "I'm not that fussed. I don't think that that's on the cards for me," and that's fine. Other people might really, really want to put the workload down and step off and, and go and do the dad or the mum thing. Unfortunately, you can't take somebody else's purpose or success. Like, that's, that's... you, you can't wear it as a suit. It's a bad idea, right? 'Cause it's gonna not fit. And, um, wonderful line, "Let go or be dragged."

    16. SB

      (laughs)

    17. CW

      If something doesn't fit, eventually it's gonna hurt wearing it. And that means if you're not careful with how you design what it is that you chase after, you can spend your entire life realizing that you climbed a huge fucking ladder, a very, very long ladder, that was leaning up against the wrong wall.

    18. SB

      Hmm.

    19. CW

      And, uh, you need to ensure that you don't do that. And this is why we need to just sit with ourselves, sit with a little bit of reflection. And that's why this time in between Christmas and New Year I think is a really wonderful time to do this. So, how do you work out what it is that you want to do? The big-picture goals are going to be hard for you to, to get to. But if you just think one year ahead, "What do I want over the next 12 months?" I think that usually helps you, and maybe you wants to be in a relationship. "I want to be in a committed relationship with someone who really loves me." Okay. Now we can start to talk about a plan to do that. But you need to have a little bit of silence. It's like a problem with permanently being busy stops you from being able to listen to fleeting thoughts that are in the back of your mind.

    20. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    21. CW

      And that quiet voice is usually the really powerful one. But the- there's a, a wonderful line, "The answers you seek are in the silence you're avoiding." The answers that you seek are in the silence you're avoiding.

    22. SB

      Do you meditate?

    23. CW

      Of course.

    24. SB

      You do?

    25. CW

      Yes.

    26. SB

      Mm.

    27. CW

      Yeah. Do you?

    28. SB

      No.

    29. CW

      Do you wish you did?

    30. SB

      (sighs) I think the, the, the definition of meditation is quite blurry, because for me, when I'm... I- I will have a shower for, like, 30 minutes-

  6. 23:09 – 39:11

    The Hidden and Hurtful Metrics of Success

    1. CW

    2. SB

      The other thing that I, I love that you talk about is what it, when we talk about metrics of success, you talk about observable metrics and hidden metrics-

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      ... of success?

    5. CW

      Yeah. So, a lot of the time we'll trade a hidden metric for an observable metric. Something that's observable would be your job title or your salary as per year, how many people know you, your bank balance, the size of your house, the car that you drive.

    6. SB

      Things people can see?

    7. CW

      Yeah, of course.

    8. SB

      Okay.

    9. CW

      The only way that your success can be judged is outwardly. So naturally, we trade something which people can't see for something that they can see. For instance, lots of people would trade a longer commute for a higher salary or a, um, a better job title. One of the problems that you encounter with that is that the length of your commute is one of the most correlated, uh, stats with your happiness. Longer commutes reliably make people more miserable. And what's the hidden metric that you've lost by doing that? Well, that's less time with your family, with maybe your kids that are growing up, with your wife to connect. That's less time to pursue your own passions, even if your job is your passion.So, what about, uh, a more stressful career? Gonna move into a different industry that's way more stressful, but it pays more. Observable metric. What's the hidden metric? What about the peace of mind that you have as you go to sleep at night? What about what that does to your health and the quality of your relationships and your ability to be present on a weekend? So you're not able to turn your phone off 'cause your last job was 9:00 to 5:00, but this one is 24/7. Well, (sighs) it's difficult to say 'cause you're like, people want and need real resources. I want to improve the quality of my family, that's a noble thing to do. But after a while, you have to admit, if you already live a comfortable quality of life, and you trade it, you, you trade your happiness or your, your peace in order to get more, you're making a bad choice because you're going to sacrifice something that you want, which is happiness, peace, connection, for something that's supposed to get the thing that you want, which is money, job title, bigger car.

    10. SB

      Which I think links to the story of the Mexican fisherman.

    11. CW

      Yeah. Parable of the Mexican fishermen. Uh, an American businessman was away on holiday in Mexico, and he got taken out by a fisherman, and he asked the fisherman, "So what do you do each day?" The fisherman said, "I spend each morning out on the water. I fish a little, I catch some food, I take it home, and I sit in my house with my wife and my family, and we eat what I've caught for the day." The American says, "That's stupid. That's a stupid idea. What you should do is you should get a bigger boat, and then you could catch more fish, and then you could go sell it at the market." The fisherman said, "Why would I do that?" He said, "Well, once you've sold it at the market, you could buy some more boats, and you could get your friends to come and work for you, and then they could catch more fish, and you could start to sell it wholesale." Fisherman said, "Why would I do that?" He said, "Well, then you could create a canning factory, and you could export it back to the UK, and you could have a huge business." Fisherman said, "Why would I do that?" He said, "Well, then, you'd be able to retire and fish a little on a morning, catch some fish, and then spend the afternoon with your family."

    12. SB

      (laughs)

    13. CW

      And it's the same lesson as Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, which is this young boy goes on a huge, big journey, and he finds out the thing that he was looking for was in the back garden all along. But that's an unteachable lesson. And the big lesson behind The Alchemist is going on a massive journey to end up back where you started is not the same as having never left. And this is what an unteachable lesson is. You have to go to the top of the mountain to get up there and go, "Oh, damn it. Damn it. Like, I thought that was gonna be the answer. But now that it's not, I can rid myself of that. I've crossed it off."

    14. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    15. CW

      And it's so unpopular. It's so unpopular to talk about this online because everybody that doesn't have a thing assumes that the thing will fix their problems, and that the people who have got there achieved it and say that it didn't are ungrateful. Like, "Oh, my God, the thing that I want, and they're just casting it away. Like, how dare you? How dare you say that the thing that I know I want isn't the answer to my problems?" And yet, reliably, everybody that gets there says it's not the answer.

    16. SB

      That's very true. Just thinking back to all the goals that I wrote in my diary at 18 years old, and then it's no surprise that I, that I have none of those things now. They're all, like, material things and outcomes I was looking for, but-

    17. CW

      Let me give you another one. A great question to reflect on. Knowing what I know now, what advice would I give myself 12 months ago?

    18. SB

      Do you know what mine would be? Mine would be around, it would be around, around prioritization. It would really be around s- the saying no. Like, we, we don't really teach... It goes back to what you're saying about add- adding and subtracting, but my life would be much better if I was s- even 10% better at saying no to things.

    19. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    20. SB

      It would be so much better.

    21. CW

      Yeah.

    22. SB

      I'd be so much more succ- the upside-

    23. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    24. SB

      ... isn't like 10% upside. It's like 50, 100% upside because of the compounding force of focus.

    25. CW

      Okay. So, that's what advice you would have given yourself 12 months ago knowing what you know now.

    26. SB

      Yeah.

    27. CW

      Guess what?

    28. SB

      What?

    29. CW

      It's almost certainly what you need to hear right now.

    30. SB

      100%. Yeah. (laughs)

  7. 39:11 – 41:54

    The Cost of Alcohol on Your Habits

    1. CW

    2. SB

      What's interesting is, it's one of those areas where you don't understand the hidden cost until you really give it up for a while, and the, uh, and I think about my own relationship with drinking, and I stopped drinking at 30 years old, I'm now 33, and I had just drank because I'd just drank. I'd never ran the experiment of just giving it up for a while, and I, and then, at like, uh, you know, it must, maybe it was at 31 I thought, "Do you know what? I'll have a drink again," because now I could really A/B test it.

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      I'd had a year of not drinking-

    5. CW

      Uh-huh.

    6. SB

      ... decided to have a drink again. It ruined three days of my life. I had a couple of glasses of wine, didn't get drunk. It ruined three days of my life because of the, the domino effect it caused, which, it meant that I got worse sleep that night, and then because I got worse sleep that night, I ate more poorly the, the next day because my, my dopamine system or whatever, the cortisol system was all messed up.

    7. CW

      Fatigue resilience, yeah.

    8. SB

      And then I, I podcasted worse, I didn't go to the gym the, the day after, s- that, that day or the day after because of that, 'cause I felt really bad. I then slept worse, and I can track all of this on my week, hashtag ad, hashtag sponsor, hashtag investor, whatever.

    9. CW

      Hey.

    10. SB

      Yeah. And I was like, "Oh, my God, (laughs) th- those three glasses of wine had this hidden domino effect that I must have been living with-"

    11. CW

      Yeah, so many-

    12. SB

      "... for my whole life."

    13. CW

      Dude, so many people want to build habits, they want to build meditation routine, they want to go to the gym more consistently, they want to improve their eating habits, and they don't realize that the thing that's stopping them from doing that is sat at the bottom of the glass of wine that they have four nights a week. It's tough. Some people are able to do it, and they don't mind. The cost-benefit ratio for some people is great. I'm just saying, try. Just try. Try six months. And the reason that you need to put an end date on it is that you have, it's like running a race where you know that there's a finish line.

    14. SB

      Yeah.

    15. CW

      If there's no finish line, it's really hard to run the race. How are you motivating yourself to get there? I think that 90 days would be the absolute minimum. 30 days isn't long enough. You need longer, right? And especially given that the hardest bit is the start, which means that you've paid all of the pain at the very beginning to not actually get any of the benefits of this being my new habit.

    16. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    17. CW

      Do it with an accountability buddy. Do it with your partner. Say, "Hey, I listened to those two British idiots talk about how not drinking might be a good idea. Why don't we do that? Why don't we try going sober until July?" You haven't missed a summer, right? The summer's just about to kick in, so if you think, "Ooh, I can't wait to get back to drinking," you can have a, a beer in a beer garden. A huge proportion of people will not want to go back to drinking. They'll do it, take time off, get into it, and realize, "I actually don't like this. I love the fact I got more reward from building good habits, from now having a meditation practice, from now getting up on time, from being able to go to the gym more. I've become more dependent on that than I ever was on the

  8. 41:54 – 46:25

    If You're Not Okay, You Won't Choose Healthy Habits

    1. CW

      alcohol."

    2. SB

      Th- this is an idea. Y- when we talk about habits, and when we read these habit books, we're, we're often aiming at, like, the ninth domino in a set of dominoes.

    3. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      And I was just thinking then, like, the conversation probably needs to start with, what are, like, the foundational things? What is the first domino? Because we know from science that what I choose to eat is heavily impacted by my hormone balance today, and my hormone balance is impacted by my sleep, my emotional regulation, all these things, so a, a lot of people aim at n- domino number nine and think, "Oh, we'll change that one," having no idea that actually, this is downstream from a set of other foundational decisions. And I, you know, even as someone that sits here with scientists and experts all the time, if my, like, core state isn't good...... the, the chance that I'm gonna pick the right thing or go to the gym is extremely low.

    5. CW

      Being smart is basically pointless unless you're at peace.

    6. SB

      Hmm.

    7. CW

      Like, any amount of intelligence can be overridden by ego, or insecurity, or immorality, or bad incentives, or impatience, or poor sleep.

    8. SB

      Yeah.

    9. CW

      Sleep is, as far as I can see, just, it's the, the pebble at the top of the avalanche. It's the gateway drug to everything else being horrendous. Your caffeine use is impacting your sleep. Your phone use is impacting your sleep. Your alcohol in an evening time is impacting your sleep. If you think that you drink in order to go to sleep, you're not sleeping, you're sedating yourself. Okay, so if we can sort the sleep out, how many other things open up? But you don't sort the sleep out, you sort the caffeine intake out, and you sort the nighttime phone use out, and you sort the drinking out. And then, oh my God, I've got all of this extra willpower. The thing that I thought was the issue, which was I c- kind of always feel a bit tired and sluggish in the morning, or I always want to eat salty foods around midday, or oh, I always f- uh, you know, I'm, I always just can't think too straight for the first couple of hours. It's like, the problem might be hiding at the bottom of the glass.

    10. SB

      We think the cause is actually a symptom. I just noticed this because, you know, when I, I changed a couple of core foundational things, like exercise and sleep, everything became, everything was lubricated.

    11. CW

      What's your highest ROI New Year's resolutions?

    12. SB

      Oh, my highest ROI New Year's resolution was actually a change in a previous resolution. So my previous resolution in 2017 was, I am gonna go to the gym every day. A- it, uh, ended up being a terrible resolution.

    13. CW

      It's a horrendous resolution.

    14. SB

      Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, so 2017, it was go to the gym every day. And I got about four or five months in, I missed a day, the resolution's done-

    15. CW

      Yeah.

    16. SB

      ... because it was a comp- it was a completable resolution-

    17. CW

      Right.

    18. SB

      ... in an area of my life where I didn't, I need an incompletable resolution.

    19. CW

      Right.

    20. SB

      So 2018, my resolution became consistency in the gym.

    21. CW

      Okay.

    22. SB

      And this is when everything changed, because consistency is a s- uh, a thi- a goal I get a shot at every day-

    23. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    24. SB

      ... irrespective of what happened yesterday. And it-

    25. CW

      I've got the rule, I've got the rule.

    26. SB

      Yeah.

    27. CW

      Let me give you the rule.

    28. SB

      Okay.

    29. CW

      This is from all of the habit stuff. James Clear's been on my show, I think he's been on your show too.

    30. SB

      Yeah, he has.

  9. 46:25 – 48:29

    The Biggest Learnings to Stay Consistent

    1. SB

      The other trap that I've noticed in that is, one of my friends, uh, had great success with a new habit with going to the gym for like three or four months. He, he messages us in the group chat, he says, "I finally cracked it. I finally figured out-"

    2. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    3. SB

      "... how to do this." And I said to him at the time, I said, "Listen, mate, like, the best d- the best thought I've ever had that's made my habits be consistent is the realization that you never crack it. And actually thinking about the day when I fall off the horse and what my strategy is for getting back on the horse."

    4. CW

      (laughs)

    5. SB

      Like, being really, really cognizant of the fact that at some point, I'm gonna eat the sushi-

    6. CW

      Mm-hmm. (laughs)

    7. SB

      ... and it's gonna fuck up my belly. Or s- or I'm gonna be on a flight from Australia, and I'm gonna land, and it's gonna be midnight, and-

    8. CW

      Yeah.

    9. SB

      ... and like, having a strategy to get back on the horse, and this just deep belief that you never crack any habit-

    10. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    11. SB

      ... has been the single most important thing for me being consistent.

    12. CW

      Yeah, yeah.

    13. SB

      Because when it happens, and I feel unmotivated, and that guilt can creep in and say, "You fucked it," I have a, "I was expecting this."

    14. CW

      Yes, of course.

    15. SB

      (laughs)

    16. CW

      It's not a, a bug, it's a feature.

    17. SB

      Yeah.

    18. CW

      This was the price of entry, it's the cost of doing business, of trying to do behavior change, that it's not always going to work.

    19. SB

      Hmm.

    20. CW

      Um, another one, another great, uh, resolution, ten-minute walk after every meal.

    21. SB

      Interesting.

    22. CW

      Huge, huge ROI, dude, crazy. So it's called a postprandial walk. Um, and what it does is, it helps to regulate glucose, it gets your blood sugar moving. Your, uh, stomach, because of the contralateral movement of how your arms and your legs work, the muscles actually cross across your stomach, which helps you to digest food. You know this. You have a huge, big meal, you're having a great conversation, and you sit there, and you're like, "Oh, I mean, this conversation's so great, but I feel awful."

    23. SB

      (laughs)

    24. CW

      "This f- this sucks." If you just, after you go out for dinner, uh, if you've got a lunch break from work, eat your food, ten-minute little walk. Uh, again, I challenge people to do it and not say that it makes them feel really good. You go for dinner, you're with a friend, you're out with a partner, you're meeting somebody for the first time, say, "Hey, do you wanna... Why don't we have a little stroll?" Sometimes it can be freezing outside, whatever, you know, do what you can. "Let's go for a little stroll." Makes a huge difference. Huge difference.

  10. 48:29 – 53:11

    Burnout, Imposter Syndrome, and Anxiety

    1. SB

      What about matters of productivity?

    2. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    3. SB

      Do you think much about this? Because again, this time of year, people are thinking about procrastination, productivity.

    4. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    5. SB

      They're trying to get more done, they're trying not to doom-scroll so much, be on Netflix, waste time, and I think a lot of the guilt does come from feeling like we're unproductive.

    6. CW

      Absolutely. Yeah. There's a wonderful idea called productivity dysmorphia. So it's the inability to see your own success.

    7. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    8. CW

      It's like, uh, to acknowledge the volume of your own output. Uh, so it sits at the intersection of-... burnout, impostor syndrome, and anxiety. Uh, it's- it- you think of it like ambition's alter ego, basically. Like, the pursuit of productivity spurs us to do more, while robbing us of the ability to savor any of the successes that we achieve along the way. So first off, people are not particularly good judges of how productive they are. I think so many people are whipping themselves into submission, saying, "You're not doing enough," because in the past, that motivated them to do more.

    9. SB

      Yeah. (laughs)

    10. CW

      And after a while, you have to accept, "I'm- I'm doing quite a lot." And if you were an athlete on a sports team and your coach only ever pointed at you when you made a bad play, you wouldn't feel particularly motivated by that. But a lot of people have this sense of productivity debt. They wake up every day feeling as if they're already behind, and only if they dominate their entire day perfectly can they drag themselves back up to some minimum level of acceptable output. And only then can they go to sleep that night without feeling like a loser. This means that you- your set point is loss, and the best thing that you can do if you crush the day is get to a draw. You never win. And then there's this sort of weird drill sergeant in the back of your mind that's saying, "All right, you can have a little bit of a break now, but just so you know, as soon as you wake up in the morning, it's all gonna happen again." And, you know, I'm speaking to a very particular type of- of mindset here. The- there is a huge cohort of people on the internet who do need David Goggins screaming in their face, telling them to go harder and sort their life out. The sort of people that listen to your show and listen to Modern Wisdom are probably not in that camp.

    11. SB

      Do you know what's surprising? I am in that camp. I'm in the camp of productivity dysmorphia.

    12. CW

      Mm-hmm. Of course, you are. Why is that surprising?

    13. SB

      (laughs)

    14. CW

      Look at what you've built. How could you not do that with- if you were seeing how much you did?

    15. SB

      I- I can't really think of many days, and just for context, when I wake up in the morning till, you know, 2:00- 2:00 AM at night, I'm working, but I can't think of many days or really- uh, none c- none come to mind, where I've- I've got in bed and thought, "You were productive today."

    16. CW

      Fucking crushed it.

    17. SB

      "You met the standard."

    18. CW

      Productivity debt.

    19. SB

      Yeah.

    20. CW

      You woke up feeling like you're already behind.

    21. SB

      100%, because of yesterday and the week before and the month before, and the to-do list.

    22. CW

      Well, you see- you see your own shortfalls from a front row seat, right? And this is one of the curses of people who have big dreams, uh, goals for themselves. The- the size of their goals is always greater than their ability to deliver them. And we assume that by having very, very, very high standards for ourselves, that that's- it- you- what i- what is it? Um, shoot for the stars, and even if you don't get it, you'll end up on the moon, something like that.

    23. SB

      Or the clouds.

    24. CW

      Yeah, whatever. Um, that's great for a while, and it's very good at the beginning of your journey. But after a while, I think you just need to give yourself a fucking break, dude. Like, people are destroying themselves in this perpetual sense of not enoughness. They're always chasing the next thing. So, that's- all of that is for me to say that people, uh, want productivity, desire productivity. I'm just trying to say you're probably working real hard as it is. That being said, how much do I think about productivity, and how can we, like, twist the- the knife a little bit more to give people some- some tools? Best question to ask yourself, uh, if I could only achieve one thing today, start of every day, if I could only achieve one thing today, what would that be? You're only allowed to do one thing, and it's the big thing. It's usually the scary thing. It's usually the thing that you probably don't want to do. How many times does someone go and clean the cupboard in the kitchen that hasn't been touched for six months? Rearrange- I'll rearrange all of the plates, because they don't want to have that conversation with their boss, because they don't want to face that particular piece of work which is, like, big and scary, and I don't really know how to tackle it, how to begin. You will do everything that doesn't need to be done in order to avoid the one thing that does. It's because it's a big scary task, that people will endure months, years, decades of misery, to avoid a couple of days of pain. And that makes sense. It's a good trade in some ways, but over time, you're going to accumulate an awful lot of discomfort.

    25. SB

      It reminds me of what Nir Eyal said when I interviewed him about

  11. 53:11 – 1:00:43

    The Two Main Reasons for Procrastination

    1. SB

      procrastination is the avoidance of discomfort.

    2. CW

      Awesome.

    3. SB

      Um, and he really said that most of human motivation is just the avoidance of discomfort. Uh, 'cause I- I tried to test his idea. I was like, "What about having sex? That's surely the pursuit of pleasure." He was like, "No, you get horny, which is a form of discomfort, and in order to alleviate it, you go and have sex or you pursue-"

    4. CW

      Yeah.

    5. SB

      He said all- all of our behavior is driven by discomfort. So in your example of I've got a big- I've got to start the manuscript for my new book, but I end up cleaning the house, it's 'cause-

    6. CW

      Sounds like a personal example.

    7. SB

      No, but it is. It's like, you know, I remember how long I procrastinated on starting my new book, because it's like being stood at the foot of Mount Everest, starting a book.

    8. CW

      It's huge.

    9. SB

      H- when you think about procrastination, which is part of produc- becoming more productive-

    10. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    11. SB

      ... what- what in your mind are the causes of me- me avoiding the thing that I should be doing?

    12. CW

      As far as I can see, there's two main reasons for procrastination. The first one is you don't know what to do. So you have this big book in front of you, but nobody's ever written a book. They've written a sentence, and then that sentence is accumulated over time into pages and paragraphs, and then a book appears. Or you've reviewed a book. You've looked at the edit. You've made a decision about the color for the front cover. But you do what's called a next action from, uh, Getting Things Done, David Allen's productivity strategy. People want a really, really great productivity strategy. Getting Things Done by David Allen is- is about as good as you can get. You do a next action. So I'm procrastinating over a task. What is the next physical action that I can do that pushes me toward that goal? I need to write an email. Well, you better go and open your email client, right? If you don't have your email client open, it is impossible for you to send the email. Well, actually, before that, I need to sit down at my desk. Actually, before that, I might need to put my pants on. Okay, pants are on. Hooray. I'm moving.I'm down at the desk. All right, there we go. I opened Instagram. Fuck. Okay, closed Instagram. Email client, that's the next action. So any bit, what is it? Like, uh, uh, completing a marathon is just a ton of steps, one in front of the other, and it's just one foot in front of the other. Do this really, really big thing by breaking it down into small chunks. That's the first reason, in my opinion, for procrastination.

    13. SB

      Before we move onto the second thing-

    14. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    15. SB

      ... it reminds me of something Jordan Peterson said to me about, um, why people don't change their life. He said, "People don't change their life because the first steps to doing so are so embarra- so small that it's, like, embarrassing."

    16. CW

      Correct. (laughs)

    17. SB

      And he told me this story of a guy who he was trying to get to change his life. This person wouldn't leave their bedroom, plates stacked to the ceiling, messy bedroom, and on day one, he walks in, they put a vacuum cleaner in there, they do nothing else. Day two, they come back, they plug it in, nothing else. Day three, they come back, they turn it on, nothing else. And by the end of the 30 days, this guy is out of his bedroom, his room is clean, and he's out in, out in the world, which he was scared of.

    18. CW

      Hm.

    19. SB

      And it always made me think, like, the, the first step to real change isn't some great leap which is gonna cause huge cognitive dissonance and discomfort. It is often so embarrassingly small that we don't think it's consequential.

    20. CW

      Yeah.

    21. SB

      And I think about that with my life all the time. I'm like, actually, maybe the first step here is just, like, buying, buying a notepad. You know, to start writing my book.

    22. CW

      There is definitely a sense that focusing our attention on a small step kind of reveals the smallness of our lives.

    23. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    24. CW

      That, like, "Oh, my God, I said that I, I sat down at my desk, like how pitiful. Is this really how small I've become? I should have this big cathedral of achievements and monumental stuff." And you go, "Well, yeah, but how do you get there?" And they go, "Well, we gotta lay the first brick." Um, so humility, being humble and, uh, compassionate to yourself. Okay, I, I, I did a thing today. I went for a walk, felt like crap. I ate this bad sushi last night and I, you know, I did one thing, did one thing, one small thing that moved me toward my goal. So anyway.

    25. SB

      And maybe that's because we never get to see that first small step. We get to see the outcome. So if I'm thinking about becoming a podcaster and following in your footsteps-

    26. CW

      Mm.

    27. SB

      ... I see you've got this fucking digital screen with, where you've got Matthew McConaughey sat in the set of-

    28. CW

      I do.

    29. SB

      ... his movie and I'm thinking, "Fucking hell. (laughs) God, that's a long way to go." (laughs)

    30. CW

      Well, the beautiful thing about a lot of the stuff on the internet is that, uh, it is archived for the rest of time. So you can go back and watch my first ever episode, which is me in my old office for the nightclub stuff that I did, and my business partner yelled at me afterward, 'cause I kicked everybody out so that I could record, and he's like, "You can't keep doing this. It's not your studio. It's our office."

  12. 1:00:43 – 1:05:57

    America and UK: The Differences in Success Approaches

    1. CW

      and maybe not even that.

    2. SB

      No, I have no idea. (laughs)

    3. CW

      Okay, so it was, uh, it was the same week that the Spotify Wrapped came out.

    4. SB

      Yeah.

    5. CW

      And in the top 10 in the world, there's me, you, and Jay Shetty.

    6. SB

      Yes.

    7. CW

      So it's three Brits. I think we're punching above our weight-

    8. SB

      Yeah, 100%. (laughs)

    9. CW

      ... uh, with regards to this. The lady who wrote this article basically said it was-... a rejection of our patriotic inheritance that we were trying to do self-improvement at scale, that whatever happened to the British stiff-upper-lipness, where we sort of feel stoically satisfied in our own loneliness and misery. That's like an almo- almost the, an exact quote.

    10. SB

      Really?

    11. CW

      Yeah, it was really, it really made me sad, and it made me sad for a few reasons. First off, the UK is not exactly showering itself in glory at the moment. There is an entire content bucket of American streamers reacting to news from the UK and going, "Oh, the downfall of the UK with the whatever." Whether that's true or not, the optics aren't great coming out of the UK at the moment. And you've got three people who have done it. I don't know whether Jay is from working class, but I'm from as working class as working class can be. I know that you're like even lower than me somehow. Congratulations. And, uh, wherever Jay is from, and you've actually got these three guys who are genuinely trying to make the world a better place, really working hard at it, and your main takeaway was not during a time where the UK is kind of eating shit on the global stage, congratulations to three people who can show young entrepreneurs, people that want to do personal development, improve their own lives, that maybe you can do it too, and maybe we all got lucky. I don't know. But it made me real sad to read that. And this isn't just that I was like, "Oh, it would have been nice if the U- the UK, like UK press had backed us and said, 'Good on you guys.'" But on top of that, it just reminded me of a, a, a mindset in the UK that kind of has like Stockholm syndrome for their own sad moments, for their own like zero-sum, like tall poppy thing, and I- I really don't like the tall poppy syndrome in the UK, and, uh, it made me sad to, to, to read that.

    12. SB

      If I had one wish for people in the UK, and if you're listening now, there's a high possibility you're in the UK, is lift people up and be positive.

    13. CW

      Dude.

    14. SB

      Like clap for strangers. If someone does something, if someone falls flat on their face in the pursuit of a big goal, clap for them because that was amazing, at least you tried, because their success paves the way for us all to fall and fall flat on our face. But right now, there's a bit of an inversion of that. I was in San Francisco last week, and I swear to you, one w- woman came up to me. She told me three times she had failed at her startup. She's now back living with her mom, and she wore it like a credential and a badge of honor because in that room it is.

    15. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    16. SB

      But back home, that's a hit piece. (laughs) That's a hit piece. Look at you.

    17. CW

      (laughs) Look at this stupid, delusional woman who tried to do this thing. It's evidently not going to work. How embarrassing.

    18. SB

      Oh, yeah, she, she's... Her employees have been let go. She owes this much. All these things. It'd be framed as a negative. And actually when I read the thing, the, the Spotify top 10 thing, yes, we're all doing self-improvement stuff, but for me that's kind of beside the point. We, we buil- we built media businesses, and there's not a lot of, in terms of competing with America and competing with the re- rest of the world, it's crazy that three British entrepreneurs managed to contend with the United States, the home of media-

    19. CW

      Yeah.

    20. SB

      ... more capital, more brand partners, more access to talent. Everything is here it seems. And for, for three Brits to do that, I was so proud. I don't... I actually don't need anyone to tell me, like to be... Like I was so proud of you. I was so proud of Jay because that is um, it's a real underdog thing, and many of us started a lot later than the people who featured in that list.

    21. CW

      Yeah, we, we, you, you know the Indiana Jones movie where he's like running and the big door's coming down, the big stone door, and it's coming down real slow and he's running, running, running, running, running. He slides underneath and he grabs his hat as he comes in.

    22. SB

      (laughs)

    23. CW

      I kind of feel like that was us in the podcasting world. We just snuck in-

    24. SB

      (laughs)

    25. CW

      ... before this sort of explosion and, and you know, we rode, uh, rode the, the increase in platform size. But yeah, look dude, having people around you that genuinely are prepared to watch you take big swings is something I wish I could gift to the UK. Like the way that I would put it is Americans want you to succeed in case you take them with you on the journey.

    26. SB

      (laughs)

    27. CW

      And the worst parts of British culture don't want you to succeed in case you leave them behind.

    28. SB

      Hmm.

    29. CW

      And I, I know that there are so many people that this is just a mimetic issue, that if you had one key mover within a group, that that would start to spread and spread and spread. But to, to the people in the UK that are doers and are builders and are actually making stuff happen, like you have one of the hardest jobs in the world, because not only have you got to get over the lonely chapter, the challenge, the difficulty, the procrastination, the getting up early. I've got to stop drinking caffeine 90 minutes after waking. Holy fuck, there's so much on my plate. You have this additional gravity of a culture that doesn't tend to celebrate success and risk-taking in quite the same way. So if that's you, I think like power to you. I, I, I really do. And there is a community of people out there even if it feels lonely now.

  13. 1:05:57 – 1:07:27

    I Wish Britain Celebrated the Success of Its People

    1. CW

    2. SB

      What do you think of, of the UK versus US conversations generally? Do you think it's really as bad as you hear on X or on social media?

    3. CW

      Uh.

    4. SB

      Do you think the UK is really as doomed?

    5. CW

      I don't know, man. I mean, I hesitate... I don't like to throw a ton of shade at the country that I left three, four years ago now, uh, because it does feel a bit like pulling the ladder up after I got, you know-

    6. SB

      Yeah.

    7. CW

      ... the last lifeboat off the Titanic and me going like (blows raspberry) , "Sorry." I had my problems while I was there. I had, I had my, my criticisms of the UK while I was still in the UK. I wish the people were more positive some. I wish that there was less tall poppy syndrome. I wish that risk was, um, more celebrated. You know, we have the same number of universities in the top 10 in the world as America-

    8. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    9. CW

      ... but we produce 80% fewer entrepreneurs. And what is entrepreneurialism? It's like vision, it's risk-taking, it's being prepared to do something that hasn't been done before, and uh, it... the... Uh, maybe there's some- something else that I'm not seeing that's part of the... Maybe it's the weather, you know. Maybe it's the fact that we're a waterlogged island or that the population density is ten times that of the US.But there's something, I feel like, bottom up that's putting a bit of a restriction on people, and, and, and, yeah, it, it was a shame, it was a shame to see the, the UK press was just living out the exact cultural script that I assumed that they would. Um, shame, shame.

  14. 1:07:27 – 1:08:29

    Ads

    1. CW

      (page turns)

    2. SB

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  15. 1:08:29 – 1:18:06

    I Never Thought I'd Amounted to Much

    1. SB

      (page turns) Productivity. Have we closed off the book of, uh, things that really... One of the things I've, I've read in your newsletter as well as it relates to productivity is just this idea that a lack of confidence kills more dreams than a lack of skill.

    2. CW

      Mm-hmm.

    3. SB

      And confidence, I think, is maybe one of those big foundational things that sits at the very top of the stack of dominoes to be able to do anything, which is like, "Do I actually believe I'll be able to?"

    4. CW

      Mm-hmm. Well, let me give you this. Uh, I think a lot of people assume that self-belief is kind of the answer to what it is that they're looking to do. You can just do things. You can just do it anyway. You can do it tired. You can do it with no self-belief. You can do it when you don't want to. You can do it when you think it's not gonna work. You can just do things. And I've learned that you can have no self-esteem and show up anyway. You can have no self-belief and things still go well. Ryan Holiday says, "Self-belief is overrated. Generate evidence."

    5. SB

      (laughs)

    6. CW

      Fuck yeah. I want evidence. I want an undeniable stack of proof that I am who I say I am. And I, I am, I'm the poster boy for imposter syndrome, dude. Like, I, I never assumed that I would amount to really anything. But I'm pretty stubborn, and being stubborn has meant that I've just kept showing up. And uh, that stubbornness feels even more in reach than consistency. Consistency is pretty in reach, right? Don't miss two days in a row. All right, well, fucking write, write 500 words a week. Start a Substack and write 500 words a week. You can probably do that, you can probably find 500 words a week. It'll take you half an hour. Write 500 words a week. After a year, you're a writer. Congratulations, you're a writer. You have the license to be able to call yourself a writer. How fantastic. And then, who knows, in four years time, you've got... Penguin came knocking. Maybe there's a book deal for you. How fantastic, now I'm, I'm a published author with Penguin. How fantastic is that? But it starts by just going, "I'm gonna see what happens if I do this little thing."

Episode duration: 2:27:55

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