James Smith: Become Confident In 100 Minutes | E174

1. 0:00 – 1:30

   Intro

   1. JSJames Smith0:00

      I was failing. (instrumental music plays) That was the point for me where I was like, "I need to do things differently." Hardest thing I've ever done.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:08

      It's James Smith, free-talking personal trainer. He's helping you get confidence.

   3. JSJames Smith0:12

      Some see James' curse-filled rants as confrontational.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett0:15

      Oh, James, can be an arsehole. (beep) James, good to see you again.

   5. JSJames Smith0:20

      Self-esteem and confidence is decaying. When you're at that place of feeling that you don't have enough confidence, it's actually a crossroads. It's a left and a right, action and inaction. Whatever you're not changing, you're choosing. Dating is such a big topic, because people either don't have the confidence required to meet someone, or they might not have the confidence to leave someone. We're allowed to be ignorant with these things, and we're allowed to be wrong, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't endeavor to get the best possible outcome.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett0:47

      What are you not confident about?

   7. JSJames Smith0:49

      I constantly have these battles in my head. "Why did I create this fuss? Why did I have sweat patches from such a simple interaction of being uncomfortable?" I have the same insecurities, the same fears, feelings of inadequacies. Sometimes my biggest fear is... Losing is not the same as being defeated. You have to be audacious. You have to put your head above the parapet. I'm sure I'm gonna be absolutely slammed for saying this.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:15

      So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

2. 1:30 – 5:40

   Why did you write a book about confidence

   1. SBSteven Bartlett1:31

      James, good to see you again.

   2. JSJames Smith1:33

      Thank you very much for having me back.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett1:35

      It's, uh, it's... I've got to say, we don't have many guests back, but, um, our conversation was so inspiring and surprising to me. When I, I messaged you the other day and said, "If you're ever back in London, I'd love to have you back on," and then I learned that you'd written a book about confidence. Why did you write a book about confidence?

   4. JSJames Smith1:55

      Well, it's kind of interesting that through my entire career, I've learnt something personally, and then I've, you know, taught other people kind of the processes. So the first book, Not a Diet Book, I went through years of fitness industry bullshit that we spoke about before.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett2:11

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JSJames Smith2:11

      And kind of by the end of it, through my own journeys, I was like, "I could teach people about this." And I didn't want to write a diet book system. I was like, "Let's, you know, break down everything and put it into a book." Then the second book offer, I was like, "I can't do another one." If I'd written a second book about fitness, it would've said a lot about the first. You know, when people do sequels to things, I'm like, "Oh, you must've done a great job." And I kind of realized by accident that my work/life balance was pretty good and wrote the second book. A lot of the things we spoke about in that last podcast were based off I'm Not a Life Coach. Now, a kind of strange thing that I say to people is, "I'm not a very confident person." I have the same insecurities, the same fears, the same feelings of inadequacies as the majority of people. But I kind of have a set of values and a way that I see these problems where I can break them down and dismantle them. And in the book, in the first chapter, I say, "A lot of people sit back, and they think other people are confident as if it's a trait, like height, or people said it's a superpower." But straightaway, I actually typed that, in the first part of the book, I was like, "Confidence is a superpower." But then, superpowers aren't accomplishable by mortals. It's almost something out of your reach. And I'm a big believer that confidence can be within people's reach. And even chatting to people in the same profession, they have a problem or a fear, uh, of judgment, of whatever it is, and if I could spend five minutes with that person, I can motivate them to post on social media, to prospect more with their business, whatever it is. And I've realized it's not something people are lacking, it's more so the way they perceive and view their reality.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett3:50

      What are you not confident about? People, I think, would be surprised to hear that you have insecurities and inadequacies and there's things you're not confident about.

   8. JSJames Smith3:57

      Everything. Body image, which is why I ended up going down the first huge 10 years of my life with Not a Diet Book. I was overweight as a kid. Even now, I constantly have these battles in my head through, "How should I look? What should I be doing? Shall I be dieting?" And I think that's why a lot of people resonate with what I say, because a lot of what I say to them is also for myself. A lot of... You know, I say to people, "Look, I know this is how you're feeling 'cause that's how I feel myself." And (sighs) it's, it's an interesting one. Even with dating, with professional life, some of them I feel like I kind of got lucky. I'm not a massive believer in luck. And I kind of tripped over some of the steps to becoming confident. And even working in door-to-door sales, where working for npower in Gloucester, knocking on hundreds of doors a day, it allowed me to perceive issues in front of me as a numbers game, and then I had the average of knocking on 100 doors to make a sale. Suddenly things didn't seem so daunting, and people would go, "Oh, you'd need to be really confident to knock on doors for a living." I was like, "Well, not so much. If you appreciate there's a certain amount of times you need to do something before you experience success, it's not so scary." Email marketing, I knew email marketing would work. I sent emails every day for 10 months. No one bought. In 10 months, someone bought finally. So, it was an appreciation of the numbers. Social media, four and a half years I posted near about every day before I made any money from it. Things aren't so much scary or to be feared. It's how you look at those things in front of you that really kind of break down the fear. Because we're all capable of doing things, but we like to almost push things further away than we can reach

3. 5:40 – 9:23

   How deep are our confidence issues?

   1. JSJames Smith5:40

      so that it gives us a reason not to do it.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett5:42

      One thing that really blew my mind is I had Liver King on the podcast, right? This is a man, for anybody that doesn't know him, who is jacked. He walks around with his, with his top off. Um, he's very, you know, direct and loud, and apparently confident. But at the very end of the conversation, I asked him to tell me something he's never told anyone before. And what he said blew my mind. He said...... coming on this podcast today, and speaking in front of people, cripples me to the point that I can't sleep. And then he tells me that, uh, between the age of 10 and 14 years old, he was bullied horrifically, beaten up every day, had no friends. And, and I, I ref- I was trying to put the pieces together that, um... And you, you kind of, uh, allude to it at the, the start of your book when you start talking about the different types of confidence, that he might be confident in some ways, but the s- social confidence was literally knocked out of him at 10 years old. So, in social situations where there's a chance of rejection from the crowd, which is what happened to him in school, he is still crippled to this day. It appears to me that there's a real variance in people's, um, social confidence, which is, originates from their, like, early self story. And really, that early self story, I'm trying to understand how much of that determines our confidence today. Because there's tricks and tips, and the five-second rule, and all this stuff, but if, how... Do we really have to go back and fix that shit that happened to us at 10 years old on the playground?

   3. JSJames Smith7:18

      No, I don't think so. And that's kind of the important thing. I don't think it's like a trauma that we need to hold dearly to ourselves. But like you say, so for instance, if you were to say, "James, there's 3,000 people out there, I need you to perform a talk with no preparation," I'd be like, "Cool." But if you were to say, "Hey, there's a girl at the bar and I need you to go approach her on a Friday night and try and get her number," that would... Ho, I'd be like, "That's, that's scary to me." So, it's, it's kind of like double standards. Like you say, some situations, everyone has a certain lacking type of confidence, even the most confident of people. And that could be because when I was 12, the first girl I asked out said no. It could be that, or it could be because I've done more talks. And I think that at the root, core of everything is, is a form of repetition. And people that aren't confident to do things, they need to find something they have the level of courage to do and get to that point. And for instance, that's something I don't need to work on, and as I'm in a relationship, I probably shouldn't be working on this either. But if I am petrified of talking to a girl, or a, or a guy, for any women listening, or either either (laughs) , for whoever's listening, maybe I don't have the courage to ask for their number, but I might have the courage to go say hello, or to compliment them, or to, you know, do something chivalrous. And if people can then do that, then maybe from there they can move on. And I think it is one of those things where everyone has, like, a gaping hole in their confidence. And for Liver King, it's an interesting one. At first, I was actually very anti-him because he is obnoxious. He actually has a very similar approach to what I do (laughs) , like in your face, this is what I believe in, if you don't believe in it, that's cool. But I can sometimes look at him and appreciate that a lot of people are not being who they are, they're being who they need to be. And I feel I resonate with that side of him, where as I'm sure you've realized, on social media, so I'm very much like, "Listen mate, you know, do this calorie deficit, you know, fuck off," all of that.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett9:09

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JSJames Smith9:09

      But really, I'm not like that. I portray the person I need to be. It's one of those things where a lot of the time people need to appreciate that maybe everyone around them is fearful of everything like you, but they're more focused about being who they need to be,

4. 9:23 – 12:57

   Our pain points in confidence

   1. JSJames Smith9:23

      not worrying about who they are.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett9:25

      In the, in th- the start of this book in chapter one, you s- you investigate this idea of pain points as it relates to confidence. What do, what do you mean by pain points?

   3. JSJames Smith9:32

      So, we can look at this in the form of sales as well. So, I cannot sell to someone unless I understand their pain points, and I use an analogy that probably is the one I've had most experience with, with people in the gym, they come, they sit down, "Hi James, I wanna get fitter. I wanna lose a bit of weight, I wanna tone up." And I'm like, "That's not really what you want. That's not a pain point. That is a knee-jerk reaction to what you think I want to hear." And when you delve a bit deeper, they go, "Oh, my husband's not fucking me. You know, every time I stand up in a meeting, I've gotta pull my top down over the layers of flab that I have. I don't feel confident in areas of my life that I should because I'm so crippled by the confidence I have with my physique. I'm not taken seriously." Re- the pain points are deep, and people need to draw on those, because the day that you're getting out of bed, and you feel like shit, and you're tired, and you wanna give up, I wanna be toned isn't gonna do it. The fact that your real pain point is that you're lonely and you're getting older and you're worrying about the fact you might not find a compatible companion ever, that is a strong enough pain point for you to change. Being more toned isn't, so...

   4. SBSteven Bartlett10:34

      Interestingly, for some, you know, I know people that are in that exact same situation, and I've, I've debated for many a year whether if someone's, you know, the situation you described, that, "I'm getting older, I'm lonely, I'm scared I'll be alone forever," I know people in that exact s- exact same situation that are exhibiting the fear of the consequences of a life- lifelong loneliness, but they still don't do anything about it. Uh, is there such thing as, like, wanting to want to be someone?

   5. JSJames Smith11:02

      Is there... I'm not sure, to answer your question, but one of the things I would say to that person is, you're in the... and I'm only using this as an example. I think dating is an analogy I love to use. I actually use it when I talk about business talks. I say marketing is like dating, you know, and we won't get down that too much, but you look at the person at the bar, you, you feel the fear. Rather than counting down from five, "Five, four, three, two, one. Oh my God, I've got the confidence, let me go talk to them," they could instead just, for a flash of a moment, just think to themselves, "I'm lonely. I don't wanna be lonely. What out of these two things is more uncomfortable for me? The idea of going another week, another month being single, or the idea of talking to a stranger?" And surely, when you ad- level those two things up, the pain point of being lonely should be much worse than the pain point of talking to a stranger. If you feel undervalued at work, the idea of talking to your boss and expressing how you feel, that's a pain point. You're like, "No, that's gonna make me feel uncomfortable." But then the pain point of feeling undervalued and not being given the bonus you were promised a year ago, you level them up and you're like, there's always two directions in which you can go. And you've tweeted and mentioned this before. You say, "Saying nothing is still saying something. Doing nothing is still doing something." And they also say whatever you're not changing, you're choosing.And these are really important because that person, and again, same analogy, whatever it is, when you're at that place of feeling that you don't have enough confidence, it's actually a crossroads. It's a left and right. It's a dichotomy of action and inaction. And if you are controlled by fear and you don't muster the courage to do what you need to do, especially by using the pain points to motivate yourself, you are choosing inaction. By doing nothing, that is a choice. And people just seem to think that, you know, not starting the passion project, not posting or s- s- expressing something on social media, they seem to think if they do nothing, that it's a void

5. 12:57 – 20:19

   The base of confidence and how we build it

   1. JSJames Smith12:57

      in our reality. But it's not. It's still a choice of inaction.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett13:00

      I used to think of, like, conf- c- people ask me about confidence a lot, and it's taken me quite some time to develop my thoughts on it because, you know, when you... I think level one of the confidence, um, self-help guru is like, look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself you love yourself. Like, that's like step one. And then eventually (laughs) , hopefully, your thinking progresses when you f- find the holes in that thinking. And then I arrived at the conclusion that confidence as we kind of col- like, say it, talk about it in culture, I know there's multiple definitions and lots of nuance, but confidence as we describe it in culture is really just, um, is based on the evidence you have in yourself. Like, all beliefs are based e- are evidence-based, subjective, correct or incorrect evidence, and therefore, if it is evidence-based, the only way to build your confidence is to go and get evidence. Um, and I say this because there's a lot, there's a narrative that you can just kind of like write down in your book or, or look yourself in the mirror and say, "I'm gonna be confident, I'm gonna be sexy, I'm gonna be a millionaire," which I don't think is factually supported by how other beliefs work.

   3. JSJames Smith14:07

      So confidence, so when I started writing the book, I wasn't sat there like, "I know everything about confidence." I was sat there going, I couldn't answer if you were to say, "James, what is confidence?" When I start writing, I go, "I don't know." So that's why I was so excited about writing it. But one of the interesting kind of ways that I wrote about it and one of the points was if you imagine confidence on a spectrum with anxiety on one end and confidence on the other, anxiety is predicting failure and confidence is predicting success. And that is a really important thing to think about because our expectations massively influence the outcome of things. And like you say there, if people just go into a room and go, "I'm, you know, I'm amazing, I'm whatever," it's not really gonna work. Even as one of your previous guests said about interrogative self-talk, asking yourself questions is a more positive thing. Instead of saying, "I can do this podcast today and do well," I ask myself, "Can you do well in this podcast today?" And the answer, "Oh, do you know what? I did all right in the last one."

   4. SBSteven Bartlett15:05

      Yeah.

   5. JSJames Smith15:05

      "It got a lot of downloads." So it is one of those things that is in so many different spectrums and it has so many different meanings, but a lot of it points towards predicting success in things. And even if you don't have the evidence to predict success, we should be able to be wrong. If there's something I want to accomplish, m- I can't let my mind and my thoughts take over. I must, in some sense, be overconfident and predict success. But if I'm wrong, that's fine. But what I can't do is just set every single default to being, this isn't gonna work, because if you don't think something's gonna work, you've already tripped at the first hurdle. And there's a guy, David Robson, writ- written a book called The Expectation Effect, and in that book, uh, they got a group of people, I can't remember how big the study was, but they lied to them and said, "This group have got a gene that is going to hinder their turnover of oxygen and this group over here doesn't." They got them to perform fitness tests and the people that were told they had this gene mutation performed a lot better than the people who didn't. And even just being primed with a lie completely changed their output in a fitness test. So, schools don't teach confidence. Society doesn't really breed confidence because, although on one hand, confidence is essential for innovation, if we don't have confident people, you know, Elon Musk, he was confident enough to say, "That rocket, we could land it back on Earth," and people went, "No, you know, you're crazy." But society doesn't care if you're confident or not. Society doesn't care if you talk to that person or not. Society doesn't care if you get a pay rise. No one in the world is gonna come along and care about your levels of confidence. It's something we need to do ourselves.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett16:43

      On, in that example of them priming two, you know, there's being two groups and they tell one of them a lie, and then the one that believes that they have a genetic advantage performed better, right?

   7. JSJames Smith16:51

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett16:52

      So is it, is that not the case then for lying to yourself?

   9. JSJames Smith16:55

      So fake it till you make it. I don't particularly like that terminology. In, in the book, I write about it because what's your, what's your metric of success in that? To fake it until you get recognition for something? I think with that and with the book and with expectations, you've got manifestation and the placebo effect, and they're intertwined, but they're both separate. So manifestation, I think, is a very dangerous thing where people think, "Oh, I'm just gonna think about success, you know, I'm gonna meditate about success, I'm gonna get it." But then things like the placebo effect is also a powerful thing. Uh, sham surgeries that were performed on people, they would be cut open, they would do nothing, they'd stitch them back up, and up to 50% of people reported feeling better. That's crazy. When people take, uh, well, 30% of people that took the vaccine in the trials that were given the no vaccine felt ill afterwards because they thought they were gonna feel ill. I've seen as well, and I didn't put this one in the book because I couldn't find the study. The size of the pill you take as a painkiller, even with placebos can impact the levels of pain that people, you know, report disappearing. So although we can't say, you know, "Oh, just, you know, pretend you're gonna be confident, pretend all of this," in the same sense, we do need to instill a level of belief in ourself that we are able to accomplish stuff, and if we try and we falsify that optimism and it doesn't work out, we create another building block to step on. And behind everyone who's an expert in anything, there is a level of mastery. And-Failure is put in such a negative light in society. But failure is the, most cases, the pathway to development. So even if we do, you know, point the dial towards optimism, if things don't go right, that's fine. We're allowed to be wrong. We're allowed to make mistakes. You're allowed to try that endeavor that you want and for it to all fuck up.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett18:44

       I think that I was just thinking about that then, the, I guess, the difference is with the placebo effect, you don't know that it's a lie. Whereas, if I look to myself in the mirror and said, "You are, in fact, Jesus Christ," I would know that that was a lie. And so placebo, I guess, you know, the placebo effect stuff can work. And even in that operation, they didn't know they were being lied to. In that, in those two control groups where one of them believed they had a genetic advantage, they thought it was true. The problem is we can't actually lie to ourselves. And I, the, the example I always give sometimes when I speak about confidence on stage is like, if I had your mom in a headlock and I was pointing a gun at her and I said, "You have to believe I'm Jesus," well, she dies. Everything's on the line. And all you could do is pretend. You couldn't actually believe I was Jesus. If, if everything was on the line, you could only bl- And so that for me was the clearest evidence I needed that I can never really lie to myself about who I am.

   11. JSJames Smith19:36

       It doesn't have to be a lie as it could be even just a change in narrative. So I remember so many times throughout my life just before I was about to go on a date with a stranger, which I found incredibly daunting, it's one of the reasons I drank on dates for the first 25 years of my life. But that voice in your head, you don't have to lie to yourself, but the voice in your head goes, "What if this is the worst date I'll ever go on?"

   12. SBSteven Bartlett19:56

       (laughs)

   13. JSJames Smith19:56

       But all you need to do is change that to say, "What if this is the best date I'll ever go on?" That's all I'm saying. And that is a change in expectations. It's a different change in thought. It's a different perspective on your reality that's upcoming. I don't think we should ever lie to ourselves, but we should at least turn the dial towards optimism because we are inherently pessimistic with

6. 20:19 – 22:30

   What is audacity? A: Airing your opinions

   1. JSJames Smith20:19

      our, with our biases.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett20:21

      Audacity, you talk about that being one of the most important things. Um, you describe it as being at the forefront of any of the successes you've experienced in your life. What is audacity, and how do you define that, and what role has it played for you?

   3. JSJames Smith20:34

      I had a lot of opinions in the fitness industry. But by airing them, you open yourself up to a lot of criticism. You open yourself up to hatred. Five years ago, I don't think anyone, by a couple of my ex-girlfriends, hated me, right? You know, no one. Now, there are thousands, thousands of people, because you have to be auda- audacious. You have to put your head above the parapet to really, you know, put yourself forward even, as we said before, with this podcast. You had to be audacious one day, as someone who'd never done a podcast to go, "We're gonna do a podcast in here."

   4. SBSteven Bartlett21:07

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JSJames Smith21:07

      And you, you had to sit there and believe for a second, "We're gonna make this the UK's leading podcast."

   6. SBSteven Bartlett21:11

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JSJames Smith21:12

      And in some respects, behind anyone's level of success, there was an audacious endeavor at the beginning, whether it was to do a podcast, whether it was to start a business, whatever it was. And I think that that's, again, something that's not fully bred into people. You know, if someone has an idea, you know, go put, put that idea out there, be audacious with it. You know, don't be afraid to be wrong. Don't be afraid of critics. And ultimately, for me, something that I kind of understood was, there are gonna be a lot of people that are never gonna be interested in what you're doing, and they're never gonna be interested in a book that I release or whatever. I can't take their criticisms to heart and fully understanding that there are people out there that are gonna dislike me. But I can't worry too much about that because they're never gonna benefit my net equation. They're never gonna come to a talk or buy a book or anything like that. So audaciousness is like a, an essential element for progress in this. But you need to be armed with understanding that there are gonna be haters, that there are gonna be people that are gonna not like what you say or what you do, and there's quite literally no one out there that doesn't get criticized for something. So audaciousness does have that dark side to it. But for people, again, being audacious with your endeavor, what if it's the worst thing

7. 22:30 – 26:42

   Happiness recipe

   1. JSJames Smith22:30

      you ever do? Then again, what if it's the best thing you ever do?

   2. SBSteven Bartlett22:32

      Since you came on this podcast last time, I've been asking guests similar question, which, which is about this in- ingredients list of happiness. Have you ever heard me say this to anybody?

   3. JSJames Smith22:40

      I've he- I've heard you say it, but-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett22:41

      Okay. Just want, just to ask that just in case you had a premeditated response. But the question I ask people is, um, if happiness was a, a list of ingredients on a, on a recipe, um, in different weights and quantities, what is missing from your list of ingredients that would make you perfectly happy?

   5. JSJames Smith22:59

      Well, John, I don't, I haven't thought about this.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett23:01

      Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

   7. JSJames Smith23:01

      I haven't thought about this at all.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett23:02

      Yeah. (laughs)

   9. JSJames Smith23:02

      I don't really look at my life and go, "What's missing?" And even some things I could say, oh, so, you know, a permanent visa for Australia. But I quite like the fact it's not happened yet. I'm looking forward to it-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett23:13

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JSJames Smith23:13

       ... if it does come. And even if I don't get residency in Australia, I kind of relish the challenge of what I would have to do to then get it again. So all of the things that are lacking from my life also seem like little challenges that I'm excited for. But honestly, I know a lot of people have a facade for happiness. I'm progressing in everything that I'm doing. And as I said before, even on the back burner, I love jujitsu, competing a bit at the moment, I teach classes, uh, on a Friday evening, I have that. And so much of my values does revolve around my work, the book doing well, my professional life, but then also at the back burner. I've, I've always said this, that I could just get a dog, open a little jujitsu dojo with my savings, put it near the beach somewhere, hopefully in Australia, and I could just teach people jujitsu for the rest of my life. And I look at that, and I go, on some days, that's better than my existing life, you know? So-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett24:05

       (laughs)

   13. JSJames Smith24:06

       It, it's one of those things where I, I don't really dwell or use any mental or cognitive ability thinking about what's missing. I don't think that's a productive way to use cognitive effort.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett24:17

       I, I think I, um, I sometimes question the balance of things in my life. And I, I, sometimes I wonder whether it's society telling me that I, that the balance is wrong or whether it's, you know, your girlfriend telling you the balance is wrong.... happens a lot. Um, or whether it's, you know, something else. But I, I think more in terms of the balance of things. So for example, I might be going to the gym too much, or I might be working too much, or I might not be working enough. And those are the kind of things that I, I, I think I spend some time thinking about, usually upon getting feedback.

   15. JSJames Smith24:48

       I foolishly, for a long time, used to say that I was fortunate that I'd never struggled with mental health problems, and in some respects that's true. Because there is a, a bit of a throw of the dice with how, you know, our baselines of certain hormones or whatever, and there's trauma that can occur in people's lives. But a friend of mine who suffered with depression quite heavily, he said to me, "You are not aware of your habits that protect your mental health. And you need to go away and think about the things you're doing to actually, you know, uphold this." Because the way I see mental health now, and this could be quite controversial, is like a table, like the one in front of us, with many legs. And the legs can be completely subjective. Am I going outside enough? Are my family relationships good enough? How's my professional life? How's my bank account? Whatever it is. And you can kick away one of the legs and you'll be okay. But people, if they don't realize that legs from the table are disappearing, it only takes that one final kick before it topples over. For me, being comfortable not working too hard, not traveling too much, not stretching myself too thin is something that is really important to me. And I haven't drunk in probably about six weeks at the moment, and as I'm getting older, I'm really losing and diminishing my relationship with alcohol. Because when I was younger, my values for happiness didn't sit around productivity. I could play Xbox all day. But as I'm getting older, my values are changing, and productivity is so important to me that drinking alcohol now inflicts that. And even now, I, I think to myself sometimes, drinking makes me less happy, because it negates my levels of productivity. And it's only as I'm getting older that I'm starting to realize how important that is to me, and I think that when we're younger, we don't quite see it that way. We kind of look to use alcohol in, especially in the context of confidence. People can buy bottled confidence, and they buy it in the version of alcohol, because it breaks down those social struggles that they have. It makes them feel more

8. 26:42 – 28:24

   Productivity

   1. JSJames Smith26:42

      confident, or more importantly, it makes them care less. And as long as we have alcohol available to us, people don't need to work on their inadequacies when it comes to social interactions or having the competence to do things.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett26:53

      When you talk about productivity in that context of, you know, uh, you value it more now than ever, do you mean professional productivity?

   3. JSJames Smith26:59

      In all sense, whether it's having the energy on a Sunday morning to go, "Do you want a game of tennis?"

   4. SBSteven Bartlett27:04

      Yeah.

   5. JSJames Smith27:04

      You know, I'm rubbish at tennis but I like... You know, you know when you throw a ball for a dog how happy it is? That's me chasing a tennis ball around the tennis court. I'm, I'm awful, but I enjoy just doing that. Or productivity with work, where so many times I'll be in the shower and I'll have an idea, and the idea really excites me. And people around me know that when I do have an idea and I want to do it, you have to leave me alone to kind of hash it out, especially if I have a video idea. We could be going for breakfast. If I have a video idea, I'm almost like, I can't enjoy breakfast while I've got the idea in my head. When I'm hungover or tired or, you know, on the road with tours and book signings or whatever, if I'm trying to burn the candle too much, I lose that spark to be able to have these creative ideas. And four or five days into a stretch of not having anything creative come in, I feel the pressure. I haven't posted in a few days, and to me that's important that I stay on top of those things and, you know, be creative and come up with new ideas. And I even have a set of standards that's pretty peculiar, where I do look through my comments sometimes, although I know comments are the most poisonous place to go. The weight of one negative comment outweighs 100 positive. But when someone says, "That's your best video yet," I've accomplished something. That's what I want. So, when I do go these long periods of time without being productive in that sense, it starts to drain on me and I'm starting to think, "What am I doing that's making

9. 28:24 – 31:39

   Are you a workaholic

   1. JSJames Smith28:24

      me happy that's taking away happiness from other areas of my life?"

   2. SBSteven Bartlett28:27

      Professionally, would you consider yourself a wo- a workaholic?

   3. JSJames Smith28:31

      No, but that could be denial. Because I like working, and (sighs) it's, it's a difficult one now where I do have to distinguish things where I can't watch a film on my own, because I don't see it as productive. But if I watch a film with my girlfriend, that's fine, because I'm, it's almost like a blocked out in the calendar professional time. But then at the same time, I do like having downtime to train jiu-jitsu, skateboard to the beach, have a dip. I'm not like on my phone all the time. I do like leaving my phone in my car when I do stuff. But I couldn't think of anything worse than retirement. This is why I kind of feel everyone is, not brainwashed, because I can't expect everyone to have the same values as me. But when everyone's like, "Oh, you know, buy a house, pay off the mortgage. In 50 years you can retire with that." And I'm sure that's great for some people. My dad loves being retired. But me, that's my idea of hell, to wake up with nothing to do or no problems to solve. I think people underestimate that human beings for thousands of years have been problem solvers with much worse problems than what we have today. And the idea of just stopping that at a point in time just drives me crazy. But then I'm not sure if I'm just potentially wired differently to other people.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett29:40

      And you, you talked about your girlfriend, that you've, you've been in a relationship for how long now?

   5. JSJames Smith29:44

      (inhales) Over a year. So, do you know what? I've always been very skeptical of talking about relationships on podcasts.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett29:51

      (laughs)

   7. JSJames Smith29:51

      Because by the time they go out, I'm no longer in a relationship. So-

   8. SBSteven Bartlett29:53

      (laughs)

   9. JSJames Smith29:54

      ... uh, it's, it's one of those things. But yeah, I'm incredibly happy and I think that there has to come a point where... I actually did a magic mushroom trip, uh, probably two years ago. And, uh, about eight of us, we sat by the beach, um, we just thought shit out. And what was crazy was, if we went and got trollied on alcohol and, you know, were absolute ch- caused chaos, that's legal. But for eight of us to take some magic mushrooms and sit and think about life and share what we're experiencing with people, that was illegal. And I had time to reflect on, I do see different areas of my life, like races-And I like to be in competition with people that don't even know I'm in competition with them. For years, I'd have a list of social media competitors that I'd never spoken to, and I'd work tirelessly to beat them. Uh-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett30:40

       Jo- Joe Wicks?

   11. JSJames Smith30:41

       Uh, yeah. And do you know what?

   12. SBSteven Bartlett30:42

       (laughs)

   13. JSJames Smith30:42

       They've... And there, there was an element of envy and bitterness, and that fueled me in some respects. But I sat there on the beach, and I thought to myself, "What if you win the race of having the most money and the most notoriety and the most, you know, fame? But your friends that did the nine till five and worked to retirement, got the wife and the kids and the happy life." And also, my mom and dad, my family is very, you know, traditional. I thought, "What really are they gonna prefer? Me coming home in a Ferrari, or me coming home with a family?" And that was a really big insight in my mind to what's important to you? That I impress my family, yes, because I want them to think that their investment of, you know, even now, 33 years, is gonna pay off. And I want them to one day sit back and go, "We did a good job." So it's very important that I please my parents. And I thought, "I've really got to make sure that I don't finish the race of life and have the money and the fame, and realize that I was in the wrong race." And that was such a big epiphany for me. And I realized at that point that I was going to

10. 31:39 – 33:53

    Your relationships

    1. JSJames Smith31:39

       have to work harder in relationships.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett31:41

       How many relationships did you have? Give me a history of your sort of dating track record.

    3. JSJames Smith31:46

       Someone just sighed in the background over there. No, so-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett31:48

       (laughs)

    5. JSJames Smith31:49

       ... I never really respected them or took them seriously, because I thought that my young 20s and even my mid-20s were more important to accomplish other things. And it was only as I got to my late 20s that I realized, "Hold on, maybe these values might be good for professional life, but they won't be good further down the line, in 10 years time." In Bondi, there's a lot of wealthy older men that have got the sports cars and the young girlfriends, and I don't envy them at all. I don't ever think, "Oh, I'd love to be 40 with a 25-year-old girlfriend." I don't ever think like that. But I think it's just been one of those things where Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset, talks about having a fixed mindset, um, and an open mindset. And I appreciate that for so many things, you could come in today with so many problems in the business and my mindset is, "Let's do this, let's do this. We'll do this, we'll turn this up, we'll do better on this. We'll be fine." But with relationships, I was very fixed, where if something went wrong, I was like, "Oh, this, this is your fault, and we should stop this right away." And you can appreciate in some people's lives, when things get tough, they either take the option of developing and becoming better, or they blame other people and discontinue. And I was fixed. And I only kind of realized that when I was older, and the negatives in your 20s that fuck a relationship aren't that severe. If anything, I was like, "Oh, I get to work more. You know, I have more time to myself."

    6. SBSteven Bartlett33:09

       How long was your longest relationship?

    7. JSJames Smith33:11

       Probably about a year.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett33:12

       Okay, so the, the current relationship is up there with your longest ever?

    9. JSJames Smith33:15

       Don't tell her that. That'll put extra pressure on it, but yeah, it is. And I think that especially, there's a, there's some crazy things going on in society where there are more women over 30 without children than under 30. And I think that that's, that's a statistic that Chris Williamson brought up on Jordan Peterson when they had a chat. And I was like, "We're all not appreciating family life, like the generation before us." And I don't, I don't think it's important that we take their values as our own, but I think it's very easy, like a kind of rip in the sea, to get taken out without realizing that there's so much in our lives that we can prioritize

11. 33:53 – 45:35

    Monogamy

    1. JSJames Smith33:53

       that aren't the most important things. And my friends that got married and had kids and families very early, there are some that feed the confirmation bias, "Oh, don't get married, mate." Or, you know-

    2. SBSteven Bartlett34:03

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JSJames Smith34:03

       ... but the majority of them are very happy. And just before we started talking, um, I was gonna mention like the, I think it's called the inner citadel, where if you can imagine that someone, uh, for whatever reason, um-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett34:14

       Is this in response to the question I asked about monogamy?

    5. JSJames Smith34:17

       Yeah.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett34:17

       Okay, so before we started recording, I asked James if he believed in monogamy.

    7. JSJames Smith34:21

       So imagine you've got someone who injures his leg and they have to chop his leg off. I might butcher this when I'm saying it. He then might end up being angry at people that have two legs and make up his own reason. "Actually, do you know what? Two legs is waste of... You know, you don't need that. You only need one leg." And because something didn't work for him or his, his surroundings didn't suit what happened to him, he decided to tear everyone else's down. So when we talk about monogamy, where there are people that are in open relationships, I often look at them and, do you know what I was gonna say without causing offense? Fuck 'em.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett34:51

       (laughs)

    9. JSJames Smith34:51

       I was like, "Who, who hurt you?" You know, like, at what point did... It is a societal structure being monogamous, but it's because there's a huge benefit to doing that. You're talking about sacrifice, you're talking about, you know, primitive urges or whatever it is. But at the base of that, you get to support a family better. So I believe monogamy is good for loads of reasons. I do believe in it, and also my mom and dad are still together, they're each other's first girlfriend and boyfriend. But I do find that people that come along and try and tear down your beliefs of monogamy, they're the people that it didn't work for them, so they want to burn the system. Same in the dieting world, where you've got plus size models promoting body positivity. I think there's some absolute credit to that. I'm a personal trainer sitting across from you with that six pack, but I think to them, they got fucked over so much in the pursuit of trying to get in shape that they decided to tear the system down for everyone else. You know, because it didn't work for them, they have to go around and, and influence the way you see it. So I think that's one of the kind of ways that I see things like monogamy. I think for the majority of people, it's perfect.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett35:52

        But you're still gonna get... Well, I'm assuming here, but gonna get temptations. And that, you know, that when we think about the monogamy discussion, I had this conversation with my friends the other day. There is (laughs) I'm gonna stitch them all up, I don't care. Uh, there's six of them, and it's split down the middle whether they believe in monogamy or polygamy, um, or whether they believe... I wouldn't say polygamy is necessarily that some of their beliefs, it's more like is one partner for life the right thing? Is marriage the right thing? Or do you have like a child with somebody maybe, and then the future you're probably gonna end up with somebody else? Um, the stats around, around this are sh- are showing, I believe, that people are struggling to stay in marriages, um, as society develops.How, how do we not- h- like, are you not scared that you'll lose the thing? How do you not lose the, the spark?

    11. JSJames Smith36:44

        So remember what we said about the expectation effect?

    12. SBSteven Bartlett36:46

        Mm-hmm.

    13. JSJames Smith36:47

        If you go into a relationship expecting that you're gonna cheat or you're gonna break up, I don't think that sets a good foundation for it. Again, I would like to go into a relationship and potentially a marriage, or whatever, fully believing in it, but being happy to be wrong. And if I get divorced later on in life, as long as I tried my hardest and I committed, I can take that, I can take that as a loss, or whatever it is. But somehow in this debate, we've lost the ability to try your hardest at something. And do you know what? If 10, 15 years down the line, you do lose it, be amicable about it. Don't destroy someone's life and make them feel like a piece of shit because you cheated on them or whatever. Instead, just call a spade a spade and be like, "Look, we might not be the same people we were when we met." I think people should try their best and try and build a stable home to bring up a child, because that's what I've been exposed to. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I also don't think that people should force the marriage at the point that it's broken, 'cause I think that two people under a house that resent each other trying to bring up a family, they'd probably be better just having parents in two different households and get more gifts for Christmas, or, or whatever it is. But-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett37:48

        Do you think cheating is a lack of discipline?

    15. JSJames Smith37:50

        In some respect- Do you know what? The majority of it, yes, because we do get urges. And I think, you know, we're, we're fucking, we're monkeys in suits, right?

    16. SBSteven Bartlett37:58

        (laughs)

    17. JSJames Smith37:58

        We, we are chimps at the end of the day. We are organized apes. We have come from a lineage of fucking each other up for so long. Like, you go back a hundred years, a thousand years, the wars that we've had, all humans have ever done is get territorial on bits of land and kill each other, right? Savages. You know, you watch Braveheart, you're like, "Wow, imagine being a, imagine being a soldier back then." Or you watch 300 and you're like, "Wow, these guys were spearing each other then going for lunch." So, you know, we are forcing our DNA and, and who we are into this kind of preset mold of, you know, do you take you to be a ? Of course there's gonna be a lot of people that don't suit that. I think at the moment as well, there's so many options. There's so much availability, so many secret places to slide DM, LinkedIn private message, or your Soho House app that can be used like Tinder or whatever it is that-

    18. SBSteven Bartlett38:46

        I had no idea you could do that on Soho House app.

    19. JSJames Smith38:49

        Neither did I. But-

    20. SBSteven Bartlett38:50

        (laughs) Yeah, bullshit.

    21. JSJames Smith38:51

        So like, uh, there's, there's so many different places that, and avenues people can go. You know, back in the day, if you wanted to take someone for a date when you've got a wife, you could be seen out, you could be seen, you know, talking to that person. I think the repercussions of being a shit house are probably a lot less severe now. And I think that the way society is going, it is worrying. It is definitely worrying that there are so many options. And what was that website? Was it Ashley Madison? It was a dating site for married people.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett39:19

        Oh, right. Fuck.

    23. JSJames Smith39:19

        So if you wanted to be like, "Look, we need to be hidden away at a bar." And it had millions of users. So straight away, I think it was brought down by that hacking group Anonymous, or whatever. I could have got that wrong. But, so there were so many people. It, it could also be other things like a lack of confidence in your partner. It could be a lack of confidence in your relationship. It could be all these things. But in my mind, I think better that you, you go for something that feels right. If you're someone that sits here and goes, "I do not wanna get married." I'm not saying that, you know, it's gonna fit everyone. But I think if you're someone that importantly there are sacrifices, and when I look to get married, it's not just about the relationship I have with that person. It's about creating a stable platform to bring up children. But again, we're almost bred in society like we can never be wrong. Ignorance is not a bad thing. We are all ignorant to so much. The majority of people couldn't tell you anything really substantial about history. You know, we don't know that much about so many things. I don't know what the motorways are called in the north. All of these things. So we're allowed to be ignorant with these things, and we're allowed to be wrong, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't endeavor to get the best possible outcome.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett40:21

        I, um, I remember my girlfriend said to me one day and it... You know when your girlfriend says something and you kind of rubbish it at the time, you deny it, and then later you're thinking about it? It's one of those things. She said to me, she was like, "Do you actually want to be in a relationship? Or are you doing it because you know it's the right thing to do?"

    25. JSJames Smith40:34

        That's a very important question.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett40:35

        (laughs) And, and it's, and it's funny 'cause a lot of what you're saying was related to, you know, you know you should, it's the right thing to do, et cetera. But deep in your core, you know, and you talked a little bit about the fact that we're all monkeys and what would the monkey want to do? Would- Do you actually want to be... If you could have an alternative option, would you choose the alternative option where you have the upsides of the relationship and also the upsides of being single? Is that what you believe (laughs) most, most people would choose?

    27. JSJames Smith41:02

        I could be getting this wrong as well, but there's something called the hot-cold empathy gap.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett41:05

        Right.

    29. JSJames Smith41:05

        I think that's what it's called, where when we're angry, it's very hard to imagine being calm. When we're hot, it's very hard to imagine being cold. When you're in one state of consciousness, the opposing state feels very hard to reconcile. So, when you're single and you're fucking strangers and you're feeling very numb afterwards and thinking, "Why the fuck did I do that?" Post-nut clarity, uh, as a lot of people call it.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett41:27

        (laughs)
12. 45:35 – 50:07

    Dating

    1. JSJames Smith45:35

       is accepting you're wrong even when you're right."

    2. SBSteven Bartlett45:38

       You talk a lot about dating in, um, in the book at different times. Chapter 6, you talk about dating apps again and your relationship with dating apps and how, uh, you've been, you've had kind of like an on-off relationship with dating apps. When I was thinking about writing my next book, one of the topics I was gonna write about was modern dating because it appears to me that there's a generation that have kind of been caught in the trans- technological transition almost.

    3. JSJames Smith46:03

       So-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett46:03

       See what I mean?

    5. JSJames Smith46:04

       ... it's, it's really, it's a very big topic. Um, when I was writing the book, I was thinking, "Fuck, this isn't a dating book, mate. There's gonna be a lot of married people reading this." And I said to them two things, I go, one, "There might be something in there that doesn't change your life, but it could fucking change someone else's," right? And even if you don't have many friends, you could instill that in your kids or whatever it is. And dating is such a big topic because it is actually an incredibly big pain point because people either don't have the confidence required to meet someone or they might not have the confidence to leave someone. And when I spoke about the sunk cost fallacy, people remaining invested in something purely based off their previous endeavor, whether it's time, energy, resources, there are so many people out there that if you ask them why they're with their partner, they give you the amount of time they've already invested. "Oh, I've been with them four years."

    6. SBSteven Bartlett46:49

       Yeah, they don't wanna throw it away.

    7. JSJames Smith46:50

       So you're already giving people confidence to leave a relationship. And if you think, you've got professional life, home life and health, that's three things, a lot of advice we need to give people is around dating. And it's been maybe three years since I've touched alcohol on a date because I realized how much alcohol skews the dating scene as well. And even my girlfriend won't mind me saying this, but it got to the point where I would drink to kill nerves before a date, and you might meet someone and straight away look at them and go, "This isn't gonna work." But then three drinks in, you go, "They're kind of all right." And then before you know it, you've shagged a stranger on a weeknight, you're hungover at work and you put yourself off dating again because you know that when you first met them, you didn't want that, and the next day you did, and you're, you're painting dating in a negative light. And even how I met, uh, my girlfriend now, I would say to people, "Let's meet and do something, whether it's going for a swim in the sea, going for a walk. Have you got a dog? Do you wanna get a coffee?" And I actually like the idea of moving with someone. The two places I find the most, uh, organic conversations are driving and walking. Driving, when you're not sat-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett47:54

       Mm-hmm.

    9. JSJames Smith47:55

       ... facing each other and it's not quite so interview-esque, people really open up. And they're also in a place that's very relaxing for them. And when you go for a walk and there's movement involved, I feel it feels less interview-esque. If you say to me, like, "Let's remove dating out the context, I want you to sit with a stranger and drink alcohol with them with a small chance they'll be compatible," I'd be like, "No." Imagine, you know, that's ludicrous. I don't wanna do that. But when you break it down again, like the fear and insecurities, whatever, okay, if a date is too much, what about getting an ice cream at the beach? Okay, that's something I can do. And as long as you're not trying to lose weight, doing a swim on a Monday, an ice cream on a Tuesday, a coffee on a Wednesday, people will think you're a bit promiscuous, but you know what I mean? Then you can get more dates in. And again, we're going back into my marketing analogy. Surely seeing five people in a week for 20, 30 minutes each is gonna be better for your general building of prospects than it would be getting smashed on a Thursday night and shagging a stranger you're never gonna talk to again. So, even the way people perceive dating can be-... hugely changed. And you talk about dating apps, there's one in London, it's called Thursday.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett48:57

        Yeah, I know, yeah.

    11. JSJames Smith48:58

        Where was that when I needed it?

    12. SBSteven Bartlett48:59

        (laughs)

    13. JSJames Smith49:00

        You know? Uh, because there is so much small talk on social media where, "Oh, yeah, what are you doing this weekend?" I like that idea, but it's giving us one of many walls we can hide behind, because dating is difficult. And it removes, "Sorry, I've got a boyfriend," uh, fake numbers, which, "Oh, I must have given my number wrong." Uh, people are hiding behind that. And confidence isn't like an award. It's not like a trophy that I give you to go on your wall, "Well done. See, you're about it, you're confident." It's more like fitness where if you stop training it, you will lose it, and you will lose it a lot quicker than you probably would expect. So, people don't realize that with so many things, they're paying into this, a bit like fitness, a bit like going to the gym or going for a run. And when you put up this massive stop, like, "I'm gonna use dating apps," although some people do find love and meet their forever person on there, without realizing it, they are reducing them, their ability to train that area of them. A bit like when you maybe don't do work for a week, you go back and sit in front of your laptop, you're like, "Fuck, how does this work again?"

    14. SBSteven Bartlett49:59

        Yeah.

    15. JSJames Smith49:59

        So there is a negative definitely that goes along with the positive, like Newton's laws, where you've got all this convenience on

13. 50:07 – 55:40

    How do I help my friend that isn't changing?

    1. JSJames Smith50:07

       one side, you're definitely breeding weakness on the other.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett50:09

       What is it that you, when you know that someone isn't going to fulfill what they say they want to do, what are the cues of that? Like, I was just thinking, 'cause I've, I'm thinking about a particular friend who continually says, says they wanna go to the gym, and they continually say they wanna change their life. But there's just no, um, there's, but there's been no change in like 10 years. And as a friend, I'm getting, like, exhausted by try... You know, sometimes I'm like, I, I talk about it a lot in the podcast with, when I have psychologists and stuff on, I'm like, "Am I overstepping my mark for even wanting to help them?"

    3. JSJames Smith50:42

       It's a difficult one. I'm the same where I've actually found myself turning into an asshole-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett50:47

       Yeah, I don't wanna be an asshole.

    5. JSJames Smith50:48

       ... with my friends because I, I feel like maybe there's that point I'll get to where it finally will click-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett50:53

       Yeah.

    7. JSJames Smith50:53

       ... and then I realize I'm actually ruining the relationship a little bit.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett50:56

       Amen.

    9. JSJames Smith50:56

       I'm like, "Are my friends now resenting me 'cause I'm trying to help them?" And yeah, it, I had a bit of a, not a falling out actually, but having a chat with a friend, and he said to me, "Oh, it's all right for you?" And we were living together at the time. And I said, "Well, I didn't live with someone who had a fucking million followers when I was starting my business."

    10. SBSteven Bartlett51:14

        Oh.

    11. JSJames Smith51:14

        And, you know, like, and I said that to him, and I said, "When I was starting out as a PT, I didn't have any friends that I could lean on to do stuff." And I was trying, I said, "Look, I'll do anything you want for you to start this business. I'm here for you. You can have my Instagram for a week and promote your business, whatever it is, like..." But then you say, "Yeah, the, the talk and the actions don't always add up." And then you get to a point where you're like, "Do I want what's best for them or do I preserve the relationship?"

    12. SBSteven Bartlett51:38

        In that situation, what do you think the blocker is?

    13. JSJames Smith51:40

        Belief.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett51:41

        Belief, yeah.

    15. JSJames Smith51:42

        I think they want it, but they don't really think they can do it.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett51:44

        Confidence? Is that the de- similar thing?

    17. JSJames Smith51:46

        Yeah, and they, they portray confidence in some areas of their life tremendously. But I, I think the main thing is belief. I think they want to believe they can do it, but they don't truly believe it. And unfortunately, action must come first, and you must actually prove to yourself that it can be done, and that requires a lot of work without any gratification. People don't realize that... You say about everyone knowing how to lose weight on the outside, it's almost like a, a macrocycle, but really the microcycle are the tiny habits in between. So someone can go, "Oh, I need to eat less and move more," but like you said, that's nuance. Really, we dive that down. We go, "Okay, let's go no food till 1:00 PM. Let's go, uh, you know, two big meals, maybe one snack, whatever." And then we go, "Okay, 10,000 steps a day." Although that does attribute to the macro, the big thing that's happening, we still must give them the small steps, whether it's with a business where you say like, they, you know, their big macro strategy is to post more on social media, but the micro is one post every day, answering someone's questions, doing this, doing that. I think that if people's first stepping stone to where they think they need to go is too big, they'll never take the step. And what I do as a coach in many facets of my life is to make that first stepping stone so small they have no other option to take it.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett52:58

        Super interesting, 'cause what you said there, you know, at the start, the start of that was, um, about how you, i- in essence, people f- people want evidence in order to start. But the truth is when you start, you get the evidence. And I see that a lot in people, you know, people coming up to me saying, "I've got this business idea." They'll come up to me in the gym all the time and say, "I've got this business idea." And then you'll hear the next thing they'll say is all the excuses that they've put in front of them starting. And I really mean that, like it literally is like, "I've got this great idea. I think it's gonna change the world, but..." And then they explain all the things that are imperfect about timing or funding, or, "I just need to wait for this or this or whatever." Um, and really un- under- underpinning all of that is a lack of belief. And, like, you're right, like when I started, I'm sure when you started, um, I didn't have evidence. I didn't have sufficient evidence that I knew what I was doing, but I gained the evidence which resulted in belief from stumbling forward in a very messy way. For some reason, people, a lot of people need the evidence first.

    19. JSJames Smith54:00

        And we have this as well with imposter syndrome, and some people rebuke im- imposter syndrome, but we need to realize that every single person is going to feel like an imposter. You get someone mature going, "Nah, not me," but we will. And I like to point out to people that you will at some point be an imposter objectively. Even being a parent for the first time, you have no previous experience bringing a child into the world. So the beginning, you need to pretty much lie to yourself and go, "I'm a good parent." And then after three months and your young baby or child hasn't got any bruises on his head, you're like, "Oh, I've got evidence I'm a good child."

    20. SBSteven Bartlett54:31

        Mm-hmm.

    21. JSJames Smith54:31

        "You know, he didn't fall over and hit his head on a table or whatever." And the same in any endeavor, your first podcast you did on Diary of a CEO, you would have had to say, "I'm a good podcaster" with no evidence that you are. But then 100 episodes in, you go, "Oh fuck, I'm actually all right." You are very good, by the way, as a podcast host.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett54:47

        I think I just acted like one.

    23. JSJames Smith54:49

        But then again, you're, you're being the person you need to be.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett54:51

        Yeah.

    25. JSJames Smith54:52

        And that's a massive part of confidence as well. The, the first thing that people need to have a real clear vision on is who they need to be. And that was the first thing that projected me from...... not being a inherently confident person. Should've seen the sweat patches I had from the last episode, you know. And I'm not trying to masquerade that fact. I'm not trying to hide it up or be, you know, dishonest with people. Instead, I have so many internal conversations with myself about who I need to be today. Because we do need to become a persona in certain situations, like being a father for the first time, like doing your first business sales pitch, like starting your first podcast or your first, first day as CEO when you get promoted. In a business, you might go from director to managing director. There is an element of you having to be an imposter. But you have to take it upon yourself with beli- beliefs that you can do it, because you can't get

14. 55:40 – 57:14

    What do you need to work on?

    1. JSJames Smith55:40

       the evidence that you're good at it before you start.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett55:43

       If I spoke to your girlfriend and I asked her, I said, "What does James need to work on?" What would she say?

    3. JSJames Smith55:49

       Ooh. "Oh, yeah, nice per-" No, uh-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett55:52

       (laughs)

    5. JSJames Smith55:52

       Patience.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett55:54

       Interesting.

    7. JSJames Smith55:55

       I've a very active mind, and I'm actually in the process of trying to arrange getting a ADHD test as an adult, 'cause people I know that have been diagnosed in their older life say it's really benefited them understanding how their mind works. And sometimes I get so excited over doing things that will please me, I have blinkers on to other people, whether other people wanna relax right now, or other people, you know, don't wanna be in the room when I'm filming content or whatever it is. And I feel that sometimes I need to be more patient and go, "Okay, here's the idea, write it down, do it tomorrow." That's one of the things that it's only after I've done it where I think, "I have no consideration for anyone else then," because I created a pain point in my head that I wanted to action that. And I always break down our personalities, and this could be a really weird way to think of it, like a tribe, you know, whether you've got lefties and, you know, people on the right, whether you've got aggressive people or calm people. We're all part of an ecosystem that we need the audacious people that, you know, are gonna be impatient and do things. We need the critical thinkers and people that are more logistic with that. But if you look at the 16 personalities, none of those personalities are confident. Confident isn't a personality trait. You've got debater, entrepreneur, all of these things. So people need to appreciate that even though as an ecosystem we all need to be vastly different, confidence

15. 57:14 – 1:00:20

    Building confidence with evidence

    1. JSJames Smith57:14

       doesn't sit as a personality trait. It sets, it's almost like a, a set of values that each and every person can have, 'cause some things that we have are predetermined, like height, and yes, height can be influenced by the amount of nutrition you get growing up or whatever. But ultimately, it doesn't matter if you're introvert, extrovert, whether you're patient, impatient, everyone really confidence is your almost set of beliefs you have surrounding something based on previous experiences. I could get you, the most least confident person ever, so I'm a shy timid sat here, I go, "What are you like at driving?" 93% of people will say they're above average at driving, which doesn't make sense as a statistic. Human beings are, are massively capable of being overconfident as machines. Most, uh, exoneration cases are from faulty eyewitnesses. So whenever anyone's exonerated, I think maybe 70% of the reasons why are from faulty eyewitnesses. If I said, "Was that guy wearing a red top?" You'd go, "Yeah, yeah, definitely was." So we do have the ability to be overconfident. We're just not utilizing it in all the areas of our lives that we should.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett58:16

       That, that kind of brings me back to that point about, um, about evidence when you said the thing about driving, because if I've never crashed a car, I would, I think I've got evidence of, um, being good at driving. But then in other facets of my life, I might not have that evidence. Yeah, I think, I've, I'm really trying to understand that, that point about evidence. Is confidence just a, a result of the evidence we do or subjective evidence, whether correct or incorrect, that we've gained in different areas? Like, I could be, you know, if I'd crashed my car every day, I could be really confident on stage and on podcasts and in dates and whatever, if I've, if I've had loads of positive reinforcement in terms of evidence there, but really un-confident in cars.

    3. JSJames Smith58:52

       So, uh, in part of the book, I, I come up with my own kind of theory with this, and I say that we must take into account that the history of someone will have an im- an influence on how they perceive the world, but that doesn't mean it's fixed. So you might have, you know, asked some people on a date and never got a successful way face to face, but that doesn't mean you're doomed forever. You know, you might go, "Oh, you know, my ability to talk to someone to get their number is just not that good." Well, how many people have you asked for their number are three? It's not something fixed that we can never develop. On the other side of things where people will be overconfident in certain scenarios, it's also the availability bias turns into this as well, where we make decisions based on the information that's available to us. So I've had a fun deep dive with this where, uh, people have a fear of flying. Much more people have a fear of flying than they do a fear of driving. But driving that same distance, as far as fatality, is much more dangerous. Your chances of dying driving are tremendously higher. Shark attacks again in Australia, everyone goes, "Oh, don't you go in the sea. It's really dangerous." I go, "Mate, you're, like, so many times more likely to drown than you are to get bitten by a shark." But no one's getting in the water being afraid of drowning, and that is the biggest cause of death, I believe, on Bondi Beach where I live. So much of what we perceive the outside world to be is really created and curated by what's available to us, and our friendship circles are massively, you know, influenceable in that as well. Even you having three out of six of your friends that don't believe in monogamy, that's going to influence your availability bias

16. 1:00:20 – 1:02:02

    Picking your passengers

    1. JSJames Smith1:00:20

       of what you think is capable in a relationship. There's so much more to the topic of confidence than just your, your history. It's also your current and who you're with.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:29

       I guess, even that, that friendship circle or all those, you know, that is a, a form of evidence as well. Like, if my friends are telling me that I am a, a useless scumbag, whether they're saying it directly or just with a facial expression, um, that is adding somewhat to my self story, which is this formation of evidence I have about myself. And that could lead me to be pessimistic in my endeavors or, or optimistic. Are you saying to, like, are you advising people to chop these people out of their circles?

    3. JSJames Smith1:00:56

       The term I use is picking your passengers, where if I said, "You've gotta drive eight hours tomorrow," that's one thing. But if I say, "I'm putting someone in the car with you," that's something completely different altogether.And for eight hours, you would be so meticulous on who you go with. I'm sure that if it was someone you didn't really get on with, you'd be like, "Can we not just get him a driver and drive him up?" You know-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:15

       Hmm.

    5. JSJames Smith1:01:15

       ... your space in your car is so, you know, private to you and important to you. And again, even when you are traveling around or whatever it is, having people with you that are going to drain you of energy becomes almost like a cost. And by going on your own or with someone better picked, you're going to be able to improve your productivity, your sense of the way you see things. So we do need to appreciate that people we surround ourselves with are either going to be a headwind or a wind in our sails. They can be the neutral lot, but we must take note of that. And I'm not saying that if anyone causes you any issues, get rid of them, but you need to weigh it up in the long term. Because if you're with someone who's got a pessimistic outlook on life and the world, and they're not going to change irrespective of how much you help them, they will hinder your net position. So the values of how much your net position is important to you and your family and people around you, you might have to make the decision

17. 1:02:02 – 1:07:46

    Utility of deprivation concept

    1. JSJames Smith1:02:02

       to let that person go.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:04

       In the book, you, you reference Jordan Peterson. Um, you talk about this utility deprivat- utility of deprivation concept, a word, a phrase I've never heard before. Um, please explain it to me and why you felt it was contextually relevant to this topic.

    3. JSJames Smith1:02:19

       I went down a rabbit hole on Jordan Peterson. You know, I don't agree with everything he says. That's, that's the t- that's the term of 2022 isn't it?

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:26

       Everyone's- (laughs) Yeah. (laughs)

    5. JSJames Smith1:02:26

       You know, disclaimer, I do not agree.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:28

       Yeah, yeah.

    7. JSJames Smith1:02:29

       But I do agree with the majority of things he says. And masturbation is something that we kind of just, you know, porn and OnlyFans, we're kind of like, "Oh, you know, let people live," but, you know, there are some OnlyFans models being murdered by their fans. Whereas some of us might think, "Oh, it's good for society." We've got porn where men can access more naked women in an hour than a man could ever access in a life 20, 30, 40 years ago. That, again, Newton's laws of opposites, uh, a reaction, opposite reaction, that's gonna be doing things to people. And if I'm in a bar and I'm like, you know, "Oh, I really wanna talk to that person again," I'm using a dating analogy, it could be anything. If I go home and masturbate to some really hot people in porn, I'm gonna be like, "Oh, no, I'm just getting another beer with my mates," you know? So having that utility of deprivation, and if you abstain from... And I'm not saying, I'm not anti-porn or no-fap or whatever they call it, I'm just saying to people to consider the implications. If you stop, if you're someone who's lonely and you're single, could abstaining from masturbation improve your net position? Fucking probably, because you're gonna be in a position where you can't just get the gas out the release valve every now and then that suits your purpose. Because even some people are getting desensitized to sexual intimacy because of the amount of time they're spending watching porn. That's not good for anyone. Imagine you get to 40 and the idea of actually fucking someone doesn't seem as good as the idea of watching porn. And this is something, especially with young people, they realize, well, the reality of having sex when you're 16 and what you've watched on porn is vastly different. So we cannot say that this is just a net bene- net benefit or a net positive thing for people. So the utility of deprivation is to appreciate that sacrificing some things in your life has a positive effect. To stop drinking, for instance, will have a net positive on other areas of your life. To stop eating junk food, or at least reduce the amount, or reduce your adiposity, the amount of body fat you have, there is a utility to depriving yourself. Although porn is great, fast food is great, and all of these things, although that's great, there is a utility and a benefit to depriving yourself of them.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:26

       Have you deprived yourself of masturbation?

    9. JSJames Smith1:04:28

       Masturbation in general? I'm in a healthy relationship, so I haven't really got the time to do it, as I did before.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:34

        (laughs)

    11. JSJames Smith1:04:34

        The urges are there sometimes, don't get me wrong, because it's also a form of escapism. You know, people might fantasize about sleeping with other people. And I think that if any...

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:43

        You haven't got the time to do it? That's bullshit. (laughs)

    13. JSJames Smith1:04:45

        No, but like, yeah, that's, that is bullshit. You're right.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:47

        (laughs)

    15. JSJames Smith1:04:47

        That's my, I'm kind of trying to fill the gap there with like-

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:49

        (laughs)

    17. JSJames Smith1:04:49

        ... some kind of defense from...

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:50

        You could probably do it now and I wouldn't notice. (laughs)

    19. JSJames Smith1:04:53

        (Laughs) No, you said not to make the table make a noise.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:55

        Yeah. (laughs)

    21. JSJames Smith1:04:55

        So it's, it's one of those things where, you know, I'm not saying make it illegal, get rid of porn. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that we need to take note of the, the conveniences in our life, and-

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:05

        I completely get that. I'm just asking from a personal perspective. It's the thing that I've been thinking a lot about, 'cause I'm in a relationship as well. And, um, I do believe that my intimate relationship with my partner will not be as good if I masturbate all the time, and my desire won't be there. So if I masturbated at 9:00 PM and then I got in bed with my partner at 10:00 PM, I'm gonna want to sleep. You know (laughs) what I mean?

    23. JSJames Smith1:05:25

        (laughs) And especially if they, if you've somehow misinterpreted where you're at in the day, and then an arm-

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:30

        (laughs)

    25. JSJames Smith1:05:30

        An arm comes around and goes, "Hey, babe," and you're like, "Fuck." Yeah.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:33

        (laughs)

    27. JSJames Smith1:05:33

        So there, there will be a lot of female listeners that can't appreciate to the full extent what it's like to be a man once you've ejaculated. And they call it post-nut clarity and all these things. I'm sure I'm gonna be absolutely slammed for saying this, but it is a change in, in psychology, like instantly. There's no other way that you can experience it. Again, the hot-cold empathy gap. When you're horny, you can't imagine not having a sex drive. And when you've not got a sex drive, you can't imagine being horny.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:55

        Hmm.

    29. JSJames Smith1:05:56

        But, you know, it's one of those things where we just need to take it into consideration. And for someone, if I was to sit opposite someone today and go, "Could your life be better if you stopped drinking as much?" If they say, "Yeah," you should probably fucking not drink as much. "Could your life be better and your dating life be better if you stop wanking to porn?" Yeah. Well, maybe stop wanking to porn or at least do it less.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:14

        I think my entire life would be better if I stopped wanking to porn. (laughs)
18. 1:07:46 – 1:09:40

    What is your goal?

    1. JSJames Smith1:07:46

       quite to the extent of inaction on this side.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:48

       What is your goal? Like, what is your... Do you have a goal in terms of your life? When you think about what you're trying to achieve right now from being here, from what you've done over the last month, what is it, what is it you're trying to do?

    3. JSJames Smith1:08:00

       I was... I got to Shoreditch, uh, this morning about quarter to 7:00, couldn't get a coffee. So I'm walking down the road to try and find something. And I ended up going down the road and a lady just said, "Thank you." And I said, "What for?" And she goes, "You've, you've changed my life." And I was like, "Thank you," and I, I was talking to her. And she started crying. And I get very awkward. I get awkward when someone gets me, like, a birthday present. When people are like, "Ooh, get the cake out," I'm like, "Oh, for fuck's sake." I... Even at Christmas, it feels weird to be given gifts. I just feel very awkward and I feel like me just going, "Thanks for that," isn't enough. So then I find myself putting it on like, "Guys, you didn't have to. That's fake." I just... It weirds me out. So when people compliment me in real life, I get very awkward. And my friends laugh about it, they're like, you know, "Relax, mate, she's just saying thank you." And then she started crying and I was like, "What have I done?" And, to me, this is still a very, very strange thing that a stranger would cry seeing me when I've never met them, spoken to them on the phone, or messaged them. So, from that interaction it's apparent that there is a net positive effect for what I'm doing. And I do take pleasure in that, even though I do find it incredibly awkward. So, for me, that small interaction there kind of pays into this pot that... This little crusade I'm on of trying to eradicate bullshit and I'm definitely roughing up some people on one side, but on the other side, I'm making people's lives better, I think, "Fuck, this... That makes me feel good." And that's a selfish endeavor. I'm helping people because it makes me feel good. But I'd like to continue that. And at the same time, I live, I live a great life. You know, it s- sounds really cliché, people go, "I have something that other people will never have," and that's enough, and that's how I feel all the time. So,

19. 1:09:40 – 1:18:50

    The worst day of your life

    1. JSJames Smith1:09:40

       yeah. It's a bit crazy.

Episode duration: 1:43:33