James Smith: How To Create The Life You’ve Always Wanted | E120

James Smith 0:00 We've spoken about quite a few things today that I've never really-

Steven Bartlett 0:02 Hmm.

James Smith 0:02 ... spoken about.

Steven Bartlett 0:03 James Smith, the world's fastest growing online personal trainer. But he's much more than that.

James Smith 0:08 Like a driving instructor, I should not exist in your life in six months. Why is it so acceptable for people to invest money into fitness professionals and them still be there three years later? 'Cause if you do your job well enough, your client leaves. If people were truly happy, I would've been, "Shut the hell up then," and I wouldn't have experienced so much growth from pointing out the inadequacies. I don't like people that presents a solution without education. It breaks me to think of the tens of thousands of people who gave up on their ambitions because they went the wrong way for advice. And when they fail the plan or don't finish it, they blame themselves. Where the hell have you come to the conclusion that you would not succeed following your passion? I just wish that maybe earlier on someone had said to me, "Okay, you're not doing well here, but this doesn't mean you're not intelligent. There is something else that you could very well at."

Steven Bartlett 0:54 Quick one. Can you do me a favor if you're listening to this and hit the subscribe button, the follow button, wherever you're listening to this podcast? Thank you so much. James Smith, the world's fastest growing online personal trainer. But he's much more than that. He's an author of three books. His third one's about to come out. He's unapologetic. He is outspoken, and he says it how it is. And that's meant that he now reaches millions of people online every single week. Now I had an expectation on James. I've seen him on social media, I've seen the types of things he says when he's on telly. But the guy I met today, deeply self-aware, unbelievably humble, and so incredibly wise. And because he's so honest and straight talking, I walk away with some lessons that I genuinely believe will stay with me for a lifetime. You are gonna love this one. Trust me when I say that. Without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. (instrumental music)

Steven Bartlett 2:07 James, you've listened to this podcast before. Um, so y- you probably know that I tend to start in a similar place. I tend to ask my guests about their early years. But when I was reading about comments you'd made about your early years, one of the things you said is it's not- not much very interesting happened.

James Smith 2:23 Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things where it's like ther- there's so many things to talk about. Let's not go there. As a young child in school, didn't have a huge amount of friends, and I think that primary and secondary school, if you had to pick five people that are never gonna accomplish anything in life, I would've been in that- that group of people. Uh, I was diagnosed with learning difficulties, which kind of been disputed. I remember Jimmy Carr talking about getting that laptop, and it's true, he had to see an educational psychologist, and at the end they were like, "James' reading and writing speed is very quick. We think he's just lazy." And throughout school, I was in the cloakroom, and they give you extra time on exams, which I didn't need because I was so bored. I'd be done with the exam 20 minutes before everyone else and just sat there, not through being intelligent but like, "I can't be bothered with this." And a lot of behavioral issues at school. Uh, if I look back at that, I almost feel like my brain was only functioning at 20% throughout the whole education system, probably up until college and dropping out of university in my first year.

Steven Bartlett 3:29 And you were adopted?

James Smith 3:31 Yes. This is a open topic. And I even, before this podcast, I was like, "I wonder if any other high achievers are adopted." I found Steve Jobs, Jamie Foxx, uh, Marilyn Monroe was in the list. And I was trying to figure out if I could draw any, you know, relations to other people that have done it. I've even read books where someone on Instagram is like, "Oh, if you're adopted, you should read this, because it resonated with me." And I bought these books and talks about abandonment and senses of, you know, unfulfillment. I didn't- I didn't really relate with any of those topics. So, I think that as far as a kind of dream adoption story, I ended up in the Smith family. You know?

Steven Bartlett 4:15 Hmm.

James Smith 4:15 Blonde hair, blue eyes. Mom and Dad still together now. Each other's first girlfriend and boyfriend. So I was incredibly fortunate with that.

Steven Bartlett 4:22 Having come all this way in your life e- and learned a ton from the books you've written, and I know that's such an introspective process, but all the people you've spoken to, all the DMs you must get, are there any sort of dots you've connected now that have made you realize that being adopted was in any way consequential to who you were to become?

James Smith 4:41 It's difficult. I'm still discovering it. Uh, you know, with relationships, I think it's a very interesting one. I've had conversations with other adopted people and they- they say too, like, "You become very attached to people very quickly," because, you know, it's a very strange thing never seeing a blood relative before. So, you might look at your parents and other people look at their parents and, you know, uncle, they see features. I've never had that. And you never feel like your parents aren't your parents, because I'm a strong believer they're who bring you up. But then, sometimes in relationships, maybe I'm a bit cold, maybe I'm a bit too intense. I'm always judging that and over-analyzing it. And people ask me as well, they're like, "Oh, do you think you're this way 'cause you're adopted?" And suddenly you're overthinking a lot.

Steven Bartlett 5:27 Hmm.

James Smith 5:27 You're like, "Is it? Is it not? Is it something that's a big part or a small part?" And it's very difficult to get answers for that.

Steven Bartlett 5:35 When you go through school and you go through, like, early- the early teen years and then you've got people telling you you've got a learning, um, issue and then they're giving you special treatment and all these things, at that part in your life, having like, bounced around a little bit and not really fit anywhere in terms of the system, do you think in hindsight you- you were learning that you were, like, not good enough?

James Smith 5:55 100%. And I think that I definitely wore that for the next four, five years, where I thought, "The only place I'm gonna be accepted is a bottom position in a corporate."... gig. 20K a year, I started off on 18. Sales department, I'm gonna have to cold call people and kind of work my way up slowly. So, that's what I did for my early 20s. Worked in a sales department, 18K basic, then jumped to another one for 20K basic. I thought, "Well, I- I'll do this for five to 10 years, get to a management role. Do that for five to 10 years, maybe get nearer directorship role." And I think that's what a lot of people who have failed the education system think. They're like, "Well, that's what people do. Oh, I might try recruitment," which I also did for a year.

Steven Bartlett 6:39 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 6:39 And everyone said, "Oh, you'll earn good money, but you'll hate it." And I'm, I'm 22, I'm like, "How can you earn good money and hate it?" I did recruitment, it was good money and I hated it.

Steven Bartlett 6:47 (laughs)

James Smith 6:48 So, it was, it's one of those things where definitely I do feel that if we paint people... When we see people get bad grades at school, we should, you know, have a more open conversation about, "Okay, you're not doing well at this, what do you think you'd be good at?" And, um, I mean, even in the last 10 years. "Don't play video games, there's no future in that." No, there is.

Steven Bartlett 7:08 Yeah.

James Smith 7:08 You know? Don't spend all day on your computer, there's no future in that. No, there is.

Steven Bartlett 7:11 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 7:12 So, I just wish that maybe earlier on someone had said to me, "Okay, you're not doing well here, but this doesn't mean you're not intelligent. There is something else in a lateral, you know, pathway that you could do very well

James Smith 7:24 at."

Steven Bartlett 7:24 What would you say to someone... And I imagine there's a lot of people listening to this now, who are driving in their cars now on the motorway, 'cause I see them upload the podcast when they're like driving, they're on the treadmill on Monday morning, et cetera. And they're in that job where it... But there's that voice inside them that's saying, "Do you know what? You could have done more, and you, you've got so much more potential." But they've believed the narrative. The like corporate, just climb your way up some shit ladder.

James Smith 7:46 I've two answers to that. The first, so many people are hitting quotas working for someone else's goal. So, in recruitment, people go, "Ah, I just don't think, you know, I'll be able to accomplish much on my own." I go, "Okay, but you're doing something you don't enjoy and you're exceeding at it. You're excelling at it. You've hit quota for three years in something you're not passionate about. Where the hell have you come to the conclusion that you would not succeed following your passion? How have you come to that conclusion? That's ridiculous." Now, the second thing is, although this has been disputed, I'm a big believer, and I'm sure you will too, in income society that after you earn a certain amount of money, there's a tapering off effect. And it's very difficult to, to say that because straight away people's defense is, "Well, it's okay for you because you've, you've gone past that, that curve. I'm still on the way up." And I say to them, "You'll probably work in your career for another 10 years, because you think in 10 years time, you're gonna have enough money to eventually be happy with your situation. What if that bet is wrong? What if you've just lost 10 years and you're not happy?"

Steven Bartlett 8:52 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 8:52 What if... I think the two people... There's two ways of thinking. Some people think it's an exponential return, where they'll go through misery for long enough and then boom, they're just happy. I said to them, "How do you think millionaire CEOs wake up out of bed like, 'Oh, my God, life is so good'"?

Steven Bartlett 9:08 (laughs)

James Smith 9:09 It's the exact same, they wake up same as you, "Oh, I can't wait to have a cup of coffee." And then the other one is more of a linear scale, where they go, "Okay, 30K this much happiness, 40K this much, 50K this much." I say to them, "What if in 10 years time you're wrong?"

Steven Bartlett 9:23 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 9:23 10 years is a lot more than 10 years between 30 and 40. 10 years is a lot more than 10 years between 20 and 30. Imagine... Always think in the back of your mind that that bet is gonna be wrong. And if you could fast-forward to 10 years time and see that you made the wrong bet, how would you feel?

Steven Bartlett 9:39 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 9:39 Now, think about that before you make a decision.

Steven Bartlett 9:41 That's so true. You know, I... Uh, link up, link up TV did a, published a video with me the other day and the ti- they put the title as like, "Money Won't Make You Happy," which is not what I said, but I understand why they're doing it, we've got to get them clicks. And, um, I did see, I saw the comments, it said a very similar thing. It was like, "Oh, it's easy for you to say." I'm like, "Well, it would take someone that's made a million to tell you that a million isn't it." I couldn't have told you when I was broke.

James Smith 10:02 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 10:02 Like, so... And also, I have no incentive to, to like put you off, uh, getting rich. I'm just telling you and letting you know that up here, my happiness didn't scale proportionate to my wealth.

James Smith 10:13 Exactly.

Steven Bartlett 10:13 Uh, to a point. So, as you say, 75K per household, apparently it starts to plateau. Just letting you know.

James Smith 10:19 I always say to people, it's very important they understand this, all wins feel the same. All wins.

Steven Bartlett 10:24 It's true.

James Smith 10:25 You don't get an Uber surcharge on dopamine. The way our brain chemistry works, you know, okay, pleasure, serotonin, dopamine, you don't get a 1.7 surcharge because you're wealthy.

Steven Bartlett 10:34 Right.

James Smith 10:34 So, you know, when you secure a deal at mid-level, high level, or you know, stock exchange level, it's the same dopamine response. And it's one of those things where people go, "Oh, my God. Okay, yeah." And buying a car, whether it's a Lamborghini or a brand new Golf, people cannot comprehend that that win feels the same. And I love to tell them, I'm like, "No, it exactly is." And when people set goals, and I don't like the conversation going into fitness, but they say, "I want to lose 10 KG." I'm like, "Lose 1 KG, damn it."

Steven Bartlett 11:04 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 11:04 And then celebrate that, because that feeling of stepping on the scale and accomplishing something is the same at 1 KG as it is at 10.

Steven Bartlett 11:11 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 11:11 You've just denied yourself a long way before you're allowed to be happy, which I think is what human beings are really bad at.

Steven Bartlett 11:16 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 11:17 We won't let ourselves celebrate wins at the level we choose. Not only do they feel the same, we get to determine where those wins are.

Steven Bartlett 11:24 Did you find that success wasn't what you thought it would be?

James Smith 11:27 Well, this is interesting, because... And people don't believe me when I say this, I never intended for this. I never had dreams of being what I would, I would consider it wealthy. And people will watch this and they'll go, "No, no, no. The other guy's wealthy." And I'll say, "No, no, no. And from a subjective standpoint, I've been able to buy my friends and my family dinner without having to check my bank account for like four years."

Steven Bartlett 11:47 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 11:48 That's something that I didn't have for the 28 before it. That's wealthy.

Steven Bartlett 11:51 Yeah. (laughs)

James Smith 11:51 Right? And, um, it, it's one of those things that I never really wanted. If I'm completely honest, my goal as a personal trainer was 10 clients, three sessions a week, pay me well. I don't want 30 clients doing 30 hours, I want 10 that see me three times a week. I'll be in London or I'll be in Sydney. If they skip a session that's £150 an hour, they won't mind 'cause they're good high-level clients. That was it. That was the goal.

Steven Bartlett 12:16 What happened?

James Smith 12:17 I became process-orientated probably 2015, where on social media, for the first time... Investments don't really interest me that much. And this is another crazy thing people hate me about. The social media investment did. I will post something useful every day here for years, 10 years or so. And in 10 years time, "Hey, guys, here's a book." Ching. Make 20 grand, whatever. And as I was posting into email marketing, I wrote email marketing emails for 10 months before I made a sale. If you'd met me nine months in, you would have thought I was fucking insane. "Hey, James, what are you doing?" "I'm writing emails." "To who?" "300 people." "What about?" "My online PT program." "How many of them buying it?" "Oh, none so far." Social media, three years in. "What are you doing?" "I'm posting every day." "How much money have you made?" "None." People would have gone, "You're fucking mental." Nowadays, they go, "Okay, fair play." But the in- the, the momentum that I wanted, I just wanted a life where I didn't have to seek clients, they'd seek me. I just wanted a life where I could post about a book and money would appear in my account. And after doing that for three, four years, I feel like the table's hot and I enjoy being at the hot table. And rather than looking at an exit strategy, I've created a life that I love where send a marketing email, market my brand so I can get people to email, manage my academy, you know, promote books and write them. I have everything I need. I'm, I'm like on a wave that just never seems to end. And that to me, I mean, Carol Dweck, one of my favorite authors, Becoming Is Better Than Being. I never wanted to be anything in particular, so there's no gold medal depression at the end, right?

Steven Bartlett 14:00 Hmm.

James Smith 14:01 Remember that from your podca- uh, that's, that's not there for me.

Steven Bartlett 14:03 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 14:03 Because I've never set an Everest peak. I've never set that. So this wave that's moving for me, I'm just happy. And do you know what? I've j- I joke around all the time, I'm like, "If this ends tomorrow, what a ride." You know?

Steven Bartlett 14:16 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 14:16 And I don't think enough people see it that way where, you know, I know you've had the pleasure of taking friends on a private jet.

Steven Bartlett 14:23 Hmm.

James Smith 14:23 I did that once and I was like, "Wow."

Steven Bartlett 14:25 Yeah.

James Smith 14:25 If I, if I die tomorrow, they'll be like, "Rest in peace," though. Hopefully they'll cry.

Steven Bartlett 14:29 (laughs)

James Smith 14:29 "Oh, he took me on a jet to-

Steven Bartlett 14:30 No more jets.

James Smith 14:30 ... Ibiza for one night."

Steven Bartlett 14:31 Yeah (laughs) .

James Smith 14:32 And, um, I... If this all came crashing down, I'd be happy with that because I never set it, you know. There are so many boxers who wanted to be heavyweight world champion, they never made it, they've got to go to the grave with that. Almost feel like there's a element of being unbeatable when I never set a precipice to reach.

Steven Bartlett 14:49 Extravagance. Yeah. I mean, Mo Gawdat, which is one of my favorite podcasts I've ever done here, talks a lot about that, that, you know, unhappiness is an essence when our expectations of how life is supposed to be going go unmet. And he's the, they call him a h- happiness expert, genius on the topic, and even billionaires, they have expectations of their steak tasting like Japanese Wagyu, uh, perfection, 10 out of 10. So if it comes and it's a nine out of 10 steak, they are often furious. "The fuck is this?" "Medium rare," I said. Right? Whereas you take that exact same steak, you give it to, you know, someone else that's on 18K a year, they'll be like... That 'cause their expectations are lower and there's, their b- all o- overall standards are lower. They will be over the fucking moon. Same steak, two different people with two different sets of expectations.

James Smith 15:32 It's interesting as well, where, uh, next time you're at a table with people that are very accomplished, I noticed the people that have experienced the steak that much, they're so much more involved in conversations because that's the only thing that can interest them on that night.

Steven Bartlett 15:47 Yeah.

James Smith 15:47 They've had 10 un... And this is something that petrifies me, where sometimes I feel like I wanna be successful but not too much.

Steven Bartlett 15:52 Yeah (laughs) .

James Smith 15:53 Because once you've eaten at every five star restaurant in London, like you say, your standards have been set, once you've dated 10 models.

Steven Bartlett 16:00 Yeah.

James Smith 16:00 Standards have been set. And I almost do feel sorry for sometimes the Bezos, the Billzerians, you know, I think, "Wow." I'm like, "What, what are you doing each day to excite you?" And this is why, not to hijack the conversation, but Brazilian jiu-jitsu for me is like a nucleus of my focus, my attention, what I care about on a daily basis because nothing can really impact that. And I will never be able to get to a status where no matter w- no matter who I am, what I do or what I accomplish, when I step on the mats, we get in belt order. For years at my old gym, we all wiped down the sweat after the mats, like, you know, black belts, get our gis off when we do it. And it's so important to me that I know that for the rest of my life when I can still train, I will never be too big for that. And I think that there are so many high achievers that love that connection to it. And I feel sometimes with people that are super successful, they're not getting beatings enough. They're not.

Steven Bartlett 17:01 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 17:01 For me, I can, I remember, uh, did a business-to-business event. I flexed when I was there. I was like, "Hey, guys." I was wearing a gold Rolex, which I actually just sold this morning. And I was there, I was like, "Hey, you know, uh, here's, here's what it's like flying first class. Wear an obesity..." Oh, you know, I always flex on the business tour. Next day, went to compete, lost in the first round. You know, turned up, I was like, "Wow." It's like, "Thank you for that. Thank you."

Steven Bartlett 17:23 Hmm.

James Smith 17:23 "My weekend, I would have been taking off as far as Europe- "

Steven Bartlett 17:25 Yeah (laughs) .

James Smith 17:25 "... if it wasn't for getting beaten up on the Sunday."

Steven Bartlett 17:27 Do you know what? So, so many people have told me about Br- Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the way they speak about it isn't like it's a sport or a martial art, it's more like a, like a philosophy for life almost. It teaches you life lessons. And I, so many people had told me that in a row that I thought, "Do you know what? I fucking need to give this a shot." And I really enjoyed it, even though it was one, a one-on-one session and I was in Indonesia for two hours. I was like, "I need to do this more often."

James Smith 17:49 You know, like marketing, social media, email marketing, you are gonna be awful for the first six months. You are.

Steven Bartlett 17:56 Yeah.

James Smith 17:56 But if people persevere through that, and again, I remember where I learned a lot of my business now, so I was, I was in Victoria, I was in a DoubleTree Hilton, I was in a room with 200 personal trainers. We all learnt the same thing that day, and I remember the faces of the people in there and I never saw them again.

Steven Bartlett 18:11 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 18:11 I've never seen them on socials, I've never seen them on Instagram, on TikTok, anywhere like that. And I think to myself, "We all learnt the same thing, just not all of us stuck with it through the, the...... the painful times where in email marketing, you, you spend six months and you don't make money. In jujitsu, you spend six months and you don't beat anyone.

Steven Bartlett 18:27 Hmm.

James Smith 18:28 You have to say to yourself, "Right, I'm happy to endure this because I know come the other side, I can reap the rewards."

Steven Bartlett 18:34 Hmm.

James Smith 18:35 And it's very difficult in this day and age to say to someone, "Let's do... We're gonna get you to do something where you physically are gonna be powerless for six months."

Steven Bartlett 18:43 It doesn't sell well, that narrative.

James Smith 18:45 But then when you get, when you get through it, similar to people... I, I love the email marketing analogy. Now, so many people in the new rich can send an email and that's their day's work done. 'Cause they persevered, they built the relationship. They managed to cultivate an audience who are ready for it. Same with jujitsu. If people just commit to it, and like you say, when people talk about it, you're like, "This isn't a coincidence." It... I drink less, I party less. I, you know, have now ambitions of teaching my future kids. I have ambitions of teaching white belts. When I go back to Sydney, I'll say to my gym, "Hey, the... No one wants the fundamentals class."

Steven Bartlett 19:17 Hmm.

James Smith 19:18 "I'll have 'em. I'll have 'em." Same with PT World. I never wanted to train athletes. I like just first time sharing... You as a housewife, and she has to make sure the kids are at school on time. Teach her how to deadlift? I was like, "That's what brings me pleasure." And I think that I'll really enjoy teaching the white belts. And for so many people, they have so much that they are kind of working for in life, but nothing that's such a slow, gradual progression like a martial art in the middle.

Steven Bartlett 19:45 You've highlighted there one of the things that evidently made you successful was that commitment to consistency. And like, I mean, you would, you would have seen it in your social channels, because every successful person I've seen and I speak to says the same thing. "First couple of years, fuck all. Then..." It would... I mean, that's the laws of compounding. It goes slow, then it goes really fast. You would have seen that. So that's clearly one of the things. But what else made you... And because there's a lot of people on Instagram giving advice, and there's a lot of fitness people and whatever else. Why you, of all of them?

James Smith 20:13 It's interesting where I think that having a conversation with me now, you'd probably assume, or you'd come to the conclusion I'm different to my socials.

Steven Bartlett 20:21 Yeah.

James Smith 20:21 I've always seen social media as a crowded room-

Steven Bartlett 20:23 Yeah.

James Smith 20:24 ... where, you know, a podcast is where we're sat together driving somewhere for three hours. Let's talk, let's relax, let the conversation wander. But on Instagram, on TikTok, whatever, I have 10 seconds to capture your attention. And I love the idea of polarizing people. I said in my first book that imagine you invite me to a barbecue in Shoreditch and someone talks about Formula 1, and I go, "Oh, I fucking hate Formula 1." Someone goes, "What?" I go, "Look, I just... It doesn't interest me." And someone's like, "He's brought him the first time and he's shitting on Formula 1." 10 people at the barbecue, three of them will be like, "Do you know what? I also agree with you. I think it's shit." And they'll remember me for saying something controversial, rather than, "Oh, yeah, it's good, isn't it? Oh, Lewis Hamilton, yeah, so good." You know, so many people want to get in line with an opinion that they're no longer remembered. So I took it upon myself, and it was almost by accident. I do my lives every day, I do videos. Then something would piss me off. And I'm not a violent person, so I'd just channel it into a video. And it would get a lot more likes and shares. And I was like, "Hold on, what's going on here?"

Steven Bartlett 21:24 Hmm.

James Smith 21:25 So again, I would post 10 videos, and it would be the one where I was a bit more aggressive. And over time, I learnt that there were certain things people wanted in a certain way. And it wasn't the six-packs, the chicken and broccoli, the food prep. It was being passionate without compromise about different topics. And I do swear as a person. I am crass, I am vulgar, and I do make very inappropriate analogies for things. I put that out. Like I said, I only ever wanted 10 clients. Only ever wanted 10 clients. So if half the people that see a video hate me for it, that's fine. Because as long as the other half is 10 people that would do business with me, again I'm invincible. And I've always had that mentality that I only need 10 people like me to make a living. And if I do those 30 hours at £150 an hour, six hours between 6:00 AM and 2:00 PM, I can live a dream life and be wealthy, even though it's barely breaking 100 to 200K a year. As long as I can buy dinner for my friends and family, I can be wealthy with 10 people. And people completely misconstrue social media for that. They go, "I need everyone to like me. I need a million people to like me." You know, I first flew first class with 28,000 followers. And you don't need that many people to like you to do well. And I wish, I wish people could understand that, because social media's become a popularity contest. It's not, this is not a popularity contest. This is a means of you getting people over the line to like you enough to do business with you.

Steven Bartlett 22:57 It's so true. I, I, I did a lot of talking on stage where I was looking at people like Piers Morgan and Kanye West and Katie Hopkins, and what, what you've described there is what I've always said, which is you don't have to like these people, but the conversation orbits around them. Now, your barbecue analogy there, by you saying, "Oh, the Formula, Formula 1 is shit," everyone then comes over to you. And the conversation is, centers around James' opinion, and that brings attention to you. I said to my friends last night, 'cause I did a tweet and it's got 20,000 likes, and it's like going fucking crazy and everyone's talking about it. I said, "Listen, you're not gonna be able to build a personal brand in 2022 if you're not..." I said this, my friend, to my friends last night in our WhatsApp group, "If you're not prepared for someone to call you a C-U-N-T. If you're not, if you're not willing to accept someone calling you a C-H, C-U-N-T, it's gonna be incredibly hard to get, um, the attention you need for the algorithms to turn in your favor." And that means, in your case, and as I've seen for many, just being yourself. And-

James Smith 23:53 But there's a cost.

Steven Bartlett 23:54 There is, but you can be selective with this as well. So, uh, if I have an argument against the keto diet-

James Smith 24:01 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:01 ... I don't advocate the keto diet. So if a load of people that are zealots in the realm of the keto drink diets hate me, that's fine. I'm starting fire on someone else's property. Then, you know-

James Smith 24:12 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 24:13 ... I s- I support vegan from an ethical standpoint, but I don't like this self-righteous, uh, you know, sanctimonious element of veganism. Like a religion. It's been hijacked. A bit like, um, I've often said, like...

James Smith 24:23 Feminism, what a fantastic cause, hijacked by a few to give it a bad, sometimes bad rap. Veganism's the same. But then I can have a little bit of a, a cheap shot and joke, you know, satire content with a vegan. And then suddenly, "Ah, the vegans are up in arms sharing this. This is unacceptable." Again, I've started a fire on someone else's property. And the people you've cultivated to like you go, "Oh, that's actually really funny." Or, you know, so you can be very selective with who you pick arguments with. I did one about bodybuilding where I said, "Hey, if you wanna, you know, diet down for six months to show off your insecurities versus someone else's, cover yourself in fake tan and call it a sport, you do you." Right? The bodybuilder community went mental and everyone was like, "Is this guy stupid? He's a personal trainer." I don't coach bodybuilders. Yet thousands of them shared my post. My following went up, and little did they realize, it was their followers that maybe invested in them but don't agree with their values.

Steven Bartlett 25:19 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 25:20 They went, "Hold on. I'm supposed to hate this guy but I agree with him." And now their eyes are on me, not someone else. Being selectively hated is brilliant, and now I even look to the comments section for new content. Someone goes, "James, well, when are you gonna start training chest?" I'm like, "Hey man, when are you gonna start, you know, stop going on people's profiles you don't follow to make content?" You know?

Steven Bartlett 25:42 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 25:42 There are so many, like arguments now that I can see from the negative comments that I can then turn into content.

Steven Bartlett 25:48 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 25:48 So, again, it's one of those things where people need to appreciate there is a power in being disliked. And if I turn up to, you know, an event that's supposed to be fully booked and it's not got bums in every seat, I might go, "Ah, I might need to, you know, rein it in and really reconsider what I do for a living." But as long as the talks I do have people in them, as long as I'm still getting support for what I'm doing, I feel like I must be tiptoeing the line enough. Like I say, it's, it's passion without compromise. I'm gonna say what I feel, and I don't care. I think it was Seneca, "If you don't wish to be criticized, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." And, you know, that's how I feel.

Steven Bartlett 26:29 And are you being yourself or are you playing a character?

James Smith 26:33 It's always caffeinated James, you know? Me when I've had three coffees, that's who people get. Behind the scenes, I'm a bit more relaxed, quite happy to disagree with people 'cause there isn't a, an interest in it for me. If someone walks past me on the street saying, "I love Formula 1," I'm not gonna say, "Hey mate, come back here." (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 26:50 "You're fat and I hate Formula 1." (laughs)

James Smith 26:51 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, and the same again where, you know, I'm, I'm not argumentative away from social media. If I see people, you know, chatting hate about me, I don't get involved in it.

Steven Bartlett 27:02 Hmm.

James Smith 27:02 I'm not really that, that person.

James Smith 27:04 Um-

Steven Bartlett 27:05 What about Joe Wicks? What about that beef?

James Smith 27:07 Do you know what? That's-

Steven Bartlett 27:09 Stirred, stirred the pot there a little bit. You said some comments to him about, um, you said there's some dishonesty there, um, regarding what he does.

James Smith 27:18 So, this is something where I haven't gone back on my word, but about six months ago, I took the podcast I did about him offline. Not, I just, I felt like I'd been a bit harsh, you know? At the time, I'd got 10,000 followers, I'd had my first taste of growth on social media. And, you know, beefing rappers, you need an arch enemy, you know? You need someone to be able to go at so you can kind of go back and forth. I actually emailed Joe about four years ago, five years, seven years ago.

Steven Bartlett 27:44 (laughs)

James Smith 27:45 And, um, I emailed him and I, I found out that he'd seen one of my videos. And I thought, "Oh, shit." I never expected him to see it, ever. I was posting content, I was, "Oh my god, I might have hurt someone's feelings." So I emailed him, I said, "Hey, Joe, just to let you know, one, I will be coming for you a bit. But two, you never get put down by people above you." That's all I said. And he emailed me back ages ago, and I continued the endeavor and there were still things that-

Steven Bartlett 28:11 What did he say?

James Smith 28:13 Do you know what? Coming back, I, I think he said something along the lines of he hadn't had an email like that before. It didn't stop me though.

Steven Bartlett 28:18 Right.

James Smith 28:18 So, there were a few things that frustrated me. One, I don't like people blanket prescribing solutions to people. I don't. And there's, I don't like anyone that presents a solution without education. You know, the teach a man to fish-

Steven Bartlett 28:34 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 28:35 ... analogy. So, I had clients that were paying me but also bought his plan. So straight away, there was a bit of a conflict and I remember looking through the supplement stack. And I was like, "Branch chain amino acids, leucine." I was like, "Well, I don't know why you're popping these leucine pills. For my protein, they're massive." Like a pelican trying to swallow each one. I was like, "Unless you're vegetarian or vegan, you don't really need this." Then the branch chain amino acids, and I was like, "You don't really need to be consuming another six pills with this." And then I was like, from an ethical standpoint, I don't, these people are very over supplemented for jumping around their front room. Then there was the one size fits all plan. One of my clients was a type 1 diabetic who got sent it, and I was like, "Don't eat that." (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 29:12 Hmm.

James Smith 29:12 You know, this is not, you know, specialized for you. And the amount of volume that was being given to people is, it's very easy to make people tired. This is what frustrates me as a trainer. I actually want to stimulate people in the gym, get them moving. And if there was ever a boundary of the maximum they could do, I want to come under that every day. A lot of people are stressed, under slept, under nourished. Smashing people in their front room every day I don't think is the solution out of this. So I picked some holes in the programming, picked some holes in, uh, you know, the supplement issue there. But the main problem is this. People would've gone there, seen him on TV, GMTV, seen the book sales and gone, "This is my savior." And when they fail the plan or don't finish it, which I think a lot of people do, I think, I'm not saying that objectively, they blame themselves. And this is what kills me. So many people, maybe hundreds of thousands of people would have done a one size fits all plan, all doing the same exercise regime. I could not sustain HIIT training at 32 every day in my front room. It would break me. When they do eventually fall off that and the meal plan, cooking everything from scratch, which again, I mean, we're sitting next to Huel.

Steven Bartlett 30:18 (laughs)

James Smith 30:18 That's a market that's come off the back of people not wanting to cook from scratch. When they fail that plan, they're gonna blame themselves.And the voices in their head are gonna say, "I didn't want it enough. I'm not motivated, I'm not committed. I'm not cut out for this." And you can hear it in my voice now, this is something I'm passionate about. It breaks me to think of the tens of thousands of people who gave up on their ambitions because they went the wrong way for advice. "If people love it, and they love cooking from scratch, this guy is probably the guy for you, try his plan, not mine." But it almost felt like physics. So many people went to something, it created gravity that other people weren't. And it's my feeling that that let a lot of people down. And if it didn't, I wouldn't have experienced so much growth from pointing out the inadequacies. If people were truly happy, I would have been, "Shut the hell up then," and I would have just gone away and not existed on social media.

Steven Bartlett 31:09 So what's your plan? How does it differ?

James Smith 31:11 Imagine, uh, we have you, the consumer-

Steven Bartlett 31:14 (laughs)

James Smith 31:14 ... it's like selling, I'm selling.

Steven Bartlett 31:16 (laughs)

James Smith 31:16 You, the consumer. The principle of fat loss is a calorie deficit.

Steven Bartlett 31:19 Yeah.

James Smith 31:19 The fact that we need to create an energy deficit. Um-

Steven Bartlett 31:22 Just for anybody that doesn't understand, that means burning more calories than you're consuming.

James Smith 31:26 Then you expend.

Steven Bartlett 31:26 Yeah.

James Smith 31:26 And this doesn't make it simple science, but, you know, let's just say to people, like money in the bank analogy, if you earn too much than you spend, you're gonna accrue money in the bank.

Steven Bartlett 31:34 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 31:34 That is what fat is. It's not from toxins, it's not from, you know, whatever you're led to believe. Now, everything in between those two, how it works and the person, there's a method. You know, keto, 5:2, intermittent fasting, all of these are methods that dress up the principle for the consumer. It's almost packaging something for the person. With me, rather than giving them the method first, I put them straight in bed with the principle, and I say, "Look. This is how many calories I think you burn on a daily basis. I think you should try eating 15% less than that. Here's a protein target. Go away. If it works, we've hit it. If it doesn't, we're still too high. If you gain weight, you know, we've, we've really missed the mark here. This is how it works." Really educate people to all the things they need to go. Like a driving instructor. I should not exist in your life in six months, apart from the guy that taught you to drive.

Steven Bartlett 32:21 Hmm.

James Smith 32:22 Why is it so acceptable for people to invest money into fitness professionals and them still be there three years later?

Steven Bartlett 32:27 Hmm.

James Smith 32:28 The PT model is almost flawed in some respects. If you do your job well enough, your client leaves. So for me, even when my clients that I'd had face to face for years, I was at a gym for four years, I said, "Look. You can pay me more than the rate that you pay anyone else, but in three months time, if you can't do this on your own, I'll give you your money back." Because I should be... People arrive at fitness like getting in the car for the first time. They're like, "What the hell is this third pedal? What's a clutch? A clutch? Dad, what the hell's a clutch?"

Steven Bartlett 32:54 Yeah.

James Smith 32:54 "I remember learning to drive, I thought that was go and stop." And rather than just getting in the car and driving, I need to explain to them, "We need this to change gears. The indicator must be done before we start to brake. This is your mirrors." And the fitness world doesn't have that anymore. There needs to be some ruthlessness with this, where I say to people, "Look, this is the education you need. You need to learn how to do this for yourself." It's one of those things where I have a big problem with people monetizing and not giving that solution. You know, I think it's so important that we teach people these fundamentally so they understand. And I'm not an extremist. You look at me now, I'm, you know, just before downstairs we were talking before the podcast about, "Oh, have you been on the front cover of Men's Health?" I was like, "No, no, no, I don't agree with that." I don't think these are physiques that are obtainable to most men in our country. I think, you know, that's like saying, "Hey, you can't be happy till you earn quarter of a million pound." Yes, that's great, but most men won't get there.

Steven Bartlett 33:48 Hmm.

James Smith 33:48 So how about we set the goal something more realistic? Ant Middleton, another one of your guests, friend of mine, he got criticized for not being lean enough for the Men's Health cover. We got a guy, climbed Mount Everest.

Steven Bartlett 33:58 (laughs)

James Smith 33:58 You know, like, "Oh, sorry, mate, you're not lean enough. You haven't shaved your chest r- recently enough." So, it's one of those things where I think there's a lot of, a lot of work to be done, with not only teaching people how things work, but also in setting the, the finish line. So from entrepreneurship, you, the new rich I think is great, because we have such subjectivity between how much money your business can make. But once you get the freedom to work remote and live your life, well done, you've done it. And I think that if someone, especially men, can get to the point where they're happy to go for a jog topless, you've done it. There don't have to be abs there. If you can go for a jog topless or you can, you know, wear a s- pair of Speedos on holiday, well done, mate, you've done it. And I think we need to have that approach with fitness.

Steven Bartlett 34:39 I've had so many people tag me on Instagram, even on Telegram and in my Twitter DMs, in a picture of them starting their Huel journey. And it's one of the most amazing things in my life that I get to do a podcast, which of course needs money to, to, to fuel. And I have a sponsor like Huel, who I genuinely believe is gonna help every single person who starts their Huel journey change their life. Because this podcast, the central intention of this podcast, is to help people live better lives. And we get to sit here and I get to promote to you a product which has not only helped me change my life, but is gonna help millions of people and is helping millions of people live a nutritionally complete life. It's so, it's such an incredible product. And for me, the reason why it's incredible look- is because it gives me my protein, it gives me my vitamins, minerals, it's plant-based, it's low in sugar, gluten-free. It does all of that in a small drink that tastes good. There are other products, there's foods, there's the hot and savory collection, many other things. But for me, this ready-to-drink is the absolute savior of my diet throughout the week, where I'm moving at such pace. Look, I don't wanna labor the point, but if you haven't tried Huel, give it a try. And if you do, tag me. Instagram, wherever you try it, give me a tag. Anyway, back to the podcast.

Steven Bartlett 35:52 You're in the business of helping people change their lives, hopefully. That's, I guess that's, I'm guessing that's part of the goal is to help them become a better version of themselves. And a lot of people listening to this will have a friend or they'll have a, I don't know, a family member or someone that they, they wanna help change their life. What have you learned about those that actually do take the steps, commit, change their lives, and those that just kind of say it? And how do you, do you, are you able to identify them super early and say, "This person's got no chance?" Is there like a warning sign where you go, "This, this person's just all talk"? And do you give up at some point on people?

James Smith 36:26 Uh, face to face, I had to, because there was a finite amount of energy in which I could give people. And I had to sack clients.And I'm sorry, someone could take your slot, pay me the same amount of money, but I could make progress with them. And sometimes they come back a different person. The main thing I learned, I wrote the first book, Not a Diet Book, and then I realized it was a precursor. And my theory is that, you know, in my videos, in my content, I say fat people, I say obese, and I use the C-U-N-T word openly. But I don't think people are gluttonous and greedy. I think that, yeah, from an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense that if we're surrounded by copious amounts of hedonic food that we should be consuming it because we have done for hundreds of thousands of years. But people don't want to be this way. So I came to realize that so many people, before we look at calorie deficit, we need to look at other pressing issues. Do you like your work life? Do you like your relationships? Because if you come home from a work you're not passionate about, from a job you're not passionate about, and you walk straight in through the door to a relationship you're not passionate about, me telling you to eat less means doing less of the only thing you might enjoy every day. So there's a big life constructionist issue that comes up. And actually I find as a PT, I was asking this. I was like, "You always, you always moaning about your boyfriend. Why, why don't you break up?" "Oh, we've been together five years." And since now, I now know that's the sunk cost fallacy, where they're making a, a decision based off the previous investment, not the actual reason if they wanna be in a relationship. So with the second book, I was like, well, before we even get into this commitment, wanting it, do I give up on this person? I'm like, right, we've got Steve. Repetitive, yo-yo dieter, sticks to the deficit for three weeks, then he falls off. I go, "Steve, mate, do you like your job? You know, do you like it?" "No, well, I've been there eight years." "Do you like your relationship, Steve?" "Well no, you know, I'm missing him, and..." Or the other way around. Sabrina's like, "My boyfriend's a wanker." Whatever it is. And I've come to realize that if we can help change those things in th- those people's lives, suddenly everything else seems a lot, a lot easier. There's a lot less boundaries, a lot less effort. So in a cheesy way, we almost need to address the foundations that people are building on, because if you haven't got this... And, and again, imagine you're in a job you hate on 50K, and you take a pay cut and start a venture with your best mate for 30K. You're gonna have less pleasure in your life, less expensive trainers, less private jets, whatever.

Steven Bartlett 38:46 (laughs)

James Smith 38:47 But suddenly you have a job you enjoy. And if you're getting enough satisfaction between 7:00 when you wake up and 4:00 when you come home, you won't need to get it from food.

Steven Bartlett 38:54 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 38:54 And then they drop a bit of weight, and then they start feeling better, and then they go, "Oh, do you know what I could do with a bit of muscle on this arm?" So then they start going to the gym, and then they make friends there, and... So this whole conversation surrounding, you know, motivation, I don't think it's a positive charge of motivation. I think that too many people are carrying a negatively charged career and a negatively charged relationship status.

Steven Bartlett 39:16 So you view like a poor relationship with your diet or food as more of a symptom of negativity or lack of fulfillment or lat- lack of satisfaction in other areas of your life?

James Smith 39:28 'Cause I've actually been there. When I worked in, uh, so I worked in sales, and I hate phone calls. So it was the wrong job for me. I don't... Even now when people call me, I'm like, "What do you want?" They're like, "What do you mean? You know..." "Are you, you all right?" "I'm fine until you called me." So, um, and I used to get to work, I always used to have peanut Nutella sandwiches, two slices of toast. I wasn't even hungry. Peanut butter on one, Nutella on the other, put them together. I'm having a 500 calorie, just a bit of toast just to kill time from my mundane existence at my office. Again, there are, there are so many people doing this. And in my time in corporate, I realized people are doing the absolute bare minimum to get by. And I always say to people, "The second you join a, a big corporate business, they're gonna pay you the least amount of money for the most amount of your life. And if you don't construct how you want your life to look, they're gonna do it."

Steven Bartlett 40:12 Hmm.

James Smith 40:13 And a lot of people don't like how that construction looks like, and then they wonder why they're feeling malaise or, you know, depressed or disheartened. And it's because you let someone else build your life for you.

Steven Bartlett 40:24 Hmm.

James Smith 40:24 And it's very important for people to unattach from that. And then if they can... And this is another thing where I'm sure you, you'll be able to relate to this. Some of the best things that have ever happened in my life have come off the back of opportunities not going my way and my back's been against the wall.

Steven Bartlett 40:41 Oh, yeah.

James Smith 40:41 Um, I'll probably get shot for saying this. Doing an event, uh, later on this year at Sydney Opera House, which is mad massive-

Steven Bartlett 40:48 Wow.

James Smith 40:48 ... which, um, for me, is an incredible, incredible feat. Because four years ago, I remember being so skint in Sydney, living in a hostel that I went to Opera Bar to apply for a job behind the bar. And they said, "You have to have a qualification to serve alcohol." I was like, "I'm not doing this."

Steven Bartlett 41:05 What the fuck?

James Smith 41:05 I remember reading, uh, Tim Ferriss's Tools of the Titans on the ferry back to where I lived. And it goes, "If someone put a gun to your head, would you work harder?" I was like, "Oh, shit. Yeah, I would." I would call up all my existing clients, I'd get referrals. Then I'd call those referrals and I'd close them for sales. I'd give them money back guarantees. I would quite literally just do a lot more. And then I came to realize, "Okay, I'm gonna go home and do that." And within five months, I joined Fitness First and then bought my way out of it. And it's crazy that people are so afraid of being in this position where they leave a career they're unfulfilled with, that they're gonna be stuck and lost. But anything, when your back's against the wall, you find another version of yourself that works harder and does more and puts themself into uncomfortable situations. And my favorite thing to say to someone is like, "How many times have you let yourself down, really, in your life? How many times have you really woken up and gone, 'Oh, I've really let myself down'?" And even if you have, you got out of it. And most people, they haven't. And why the hell do you think you're gonna let yourself down now? Where's that come from?

Steven Bartlett 42:06 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 42:06 Where's that bullshit assumption come from? Probably the people you hang around with. Probably the, the naysayers in your life that may be saying it 'cause they wanna protect you. And so many people in that kind of world of just not fulfillment. And I always say, again, please do not mistake passion with being good at something, 'cause if I get you to do anything for three years, you're gonna be good at it. Don't call that passion.You do recruitment for three years and you can close people, "Oh, yeah, straight, yeah, FTSE 100, I'll get him top four," whatever, doesn't mean you're passionate about it, it means you're good at it-

Steven Bartlett 42:41 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 42:41 And people really need to distinguish that.

Steven Bartlett 42:44 There's gonna

Steven Bartlett 42:45 be a ton of people listening to this now that are in that situation. They're in a, they're on their way to a job this morning, you know, that they don't particularly like, and, but they're, they're gonna say, uh, "Well, James, I've got a mortgage to pay and I've got a couple of kids." And you know, you'll get this a lot of time 'cause I get it all, I get it every day. "Got a couple of kids and it's easy for you guys to say 'cause you, you know, you're single and you've got all this money now, but I can't just leave this call center, James. I've got Timmy that needs to go to school and I need to give, you know, buy his books for his book bag." And what do you say to those people that are feeling like they've, they've kind of built a wall too big to climb over?

James Smith 43:17 It's a very difficult one. And again, I can never say, "Or just do this," because when I'm talking now, I'm talking to James of 22-

Steven Bartlett 43:26 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 43:26 ... similarly to how you would talk to yourself at 18.

Steven Bartlett 43:29 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 43:29 I can't talk to every age group listening to this podcast, so I'll try to talk to the one I know best.

Steven Bartlett 43:33 Yeah.

James Smith 43:34 But there's two kind of ways out. There's one where some people do need to make a risk because they may see no options now, but where are they gonna be in five years? A lot of the time things get worse with time, not better in these situations. Unfulfillment, passionless existence, all of these things get worse. If your relationship is on the rocks, you don't just give it four years. Something needs to be done. Sometimes you do need to rip the cord. But to people who are genuinely past it, because people did read my second book and go, "Well, I just can't do this," I said to them, "Well, okay, make sure your kids know this." Make sure if there's one valiant thing you do, is fall on the sword and say, "Right, for me, I will sit out the next 10 years, but those kids, every time I talk to them, every day they're at the dinner table, every step they make in life, instill that into them." My dad said to me, like, my whole life, he's just always said, "You're a long time dead." He always just drilled it into me my whole life. Every time I've wanted to do something, he's like, "Well, you're gonna be a long time dead, son." And there's n- it, it helps me understand there is no time to, to dwell, to wait, to see things out. And I think that, again, that's one of the things that people don't think about enough. You know, we are all slowly dying. It's such a weird thing to think about. People go, "Oh, I'll just give it a few more years." Don't have that. Time isn't on our side. Our existence as a human being is... If the universe could talk, it would laugh at the amount of time we have to live. And some people, again, what's the worst that could truly happen? You've got a mortgage call, have you got enough to survive two months?

Steven Bartlett 45:08 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 45:08 Two months. And if you can't give everything to something for two months, maybe don't do it at all. Pe- personal trainers as well, they, they say this all the time at my business talks, "Oh, you know, they're doing minimum wage hours, six, seven pounds an hour wiping down machines between trying to run a legitimate business, and they're afraid to go alone." Okay, if I gave you seven pounds per hour and put you on the gym floor, and gun-to-the-head mentality, you need to make a business where you're gonna wipe down machines for your whole life, of course they're gonna do it. The, the intensity, the audacity, everything they could give to people is gonna be incredible. I think it's baffling that people write themselves off before they even make the decision. And in some respects, them going, "I've got kids, I've got a mortgage," I appreciate all of those things, but is this a bullshit hurdle you're putting in front of making change in your life? I could be wrong. I don't know, but it could be. They need to ask themselves that. I can't ask them that.

Steven Bartlett 46:05 One of the things you said that was really interesting, you said, "I don't feel deserving of my success." And I've, I've heard you talk a little bit about impostor syndrome. Do you suffer with impostor syndrome?

James Smith 46:15 I kind of back out of it very quickly every time I, I feel the emotion. Everything to me is just weird. It's just weird. People want a selfie, I'm like, "Yeah." I'm like, "This is a weird part of my day. Let's embrace it." This is something that up until 27 no one ever stopped me for a photo or acknowledged my work. 32 now, give or take, 15% of my life. So for 85% of my life, that never happened. So everything to me is just... You know, I, I joke around at speaking events, I go, "Hey, I'm gonna get found out soon. Until then, I'm gonna milk this for everything I can." I do, I do feel it a lot. It's a strange one, especially at home. Like, uh, I'll go out with my mom and dad, someone will say, "Oh, James, can I get a picture?" I, I now chaperone my dad when he goes into London. We went to Twickenham few weeks ago. And I don't particularly like going to watch sporting events anymore. It's cold, you know, t- trains are so crammed, all of this. But if my dad's going, I'll, like, "I'll come with you. I'll make sure no one barges into you." Especially when people are exiting Twickenham, I'm like, "Fuck off."

Steven Bartlett 47:11 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 47:11 And, um-

Steven Bartlett 47:12 Purple belt. (laughs)

James Smith 47:12 Yeah, yeah. "Watch out, mate." You know? And, um, even I see it on my dad's face. He's like, he's like, but he, he doesn't... My parents don't have social media. They don't, they don't exist in that world, but I can tell they're kind of proud of it. And I was like, "Do you know what? If my parents are proud of this weirdness, I'll embrace it, and I'll be happy to embrace it." But yeah, it's, it's just incredibly strange. It's again why I need someone else to negotiate all rates and what I get paid and speaking appearances, because whenever... Even getting the invite for this podcast, I was like, "Fucking hell."

Steven Bartlett 47:43 Hmm.

James Smith 47:44 I was like, "I hope I can keep up the conversation for an hour." It's even, I have the biggest fear whenever I have guests on my podcast. I'm like, "What if I run out of things to ask after half an hour?"

Steven Bartlett 47:52 Where does that come from? That sort of, like, that almost self-doubt and inse- almost insecurity?

James Smith 47:57 I think that a lot of my confidence, not, not all of it, but a big chunk of it is a facade, an essential facade. I need to play the character. Confidence to me isn't about who you are, it's about who you need to be. It's about how, how I need to talk in this interview, how I need to present myself, the things I need to get passionate about. In some respects, when that fades... You know, I'm just a PT on the gym floor in Bracknell. I worked on a, you know, a trading estate for three, four years. And the craziest thing is, I was happy. I was happy then. I wouldn't... You could come meet me four or five years ago, "Hey, James, man, how's your life?"

Narrator 48:33 (laughs)

James Smith 48:34 I went, "Oh, you know, fucking hell, I could do with a bit more money. You know, I could do with-"

Steven Bartlett 48:37 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 48:37 "... you know, an expensive watch." It was never like that. I used to ridicule my clients for flying business and buying Rolexes. I was like, "What a waste of money." Now, to my other friends, I'm like, "You should really try business." (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 48:48 Yeah. (laughs)

James Smith 48:48 And, um...Yeah, I've- I've definitely had a complete flip on that. I don't know where it comes from, to be fair. But to be, be honest, it's probably the family. I spend a lot of time with my family and my friends. I don't really have any mega successful influencer friends. Everyone's pretty grounded, and we all think that we're getting away with murder charging money for things. So, I think it probably comes from that.

Steven Bartlett 49:10 But from what you said as well, you spent the first at least 15 years of your life being, uh, indirectly told that you shouldn't aim so high and not much is gonna happen in your life, right?

James Smith 49:20 It was when I first became a PT that this changed, where I remember listening to podcasts, reading books, studying topics, and one day it clicked. I was like, "I'm never gonna be in the best shape. Never gonna be the most muscular, never gonna be the most experienced." And I was like, "I could be a good communicator, because these podcasts I'm listening to are dull as fuck."

Steven Bartlett 49:41 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 49:41 I listened to a 56-minute podcast on caffeine. I managed to turn it into an academy module that was two-and-a-half minutes. Right?

Steven Bartlett 49:47 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 49:48 That's all they needed. And I thought, "There's a gap in the market here." And it becomes a snowballing effect, where maybe even the same with yourself, where at the beginning you were like, "I understand the operational part of the business. I understand investorship." And when you see the returns on your efforts, you're like, "Oh, I'm actually quite good at this." And you get all these confirmations that occur along the way, and I think it's more that, if I'm honest. I still struggle to communicate with myself that I'm an authority on things. I actually need external validation still quite a lot, which I've never really told anyone before. We've spoken about quite a few things today that I've never really-

Steven Bartlett 50:21 Hmm.

James Smith 50:21 ... spoken about. And even, there are always little battles that can be won and lost. And some days I'm like, I do lose belief in who I need to be.

Steven Bartlett 50:33 Hmm.

James Smith 50:33 And do you know what? Actually, content creation for me really helps me with that, because whenever I'm having a day where I'm like, "Fuck, do I really know what I'm talking about?" I will just express something I feel wholeheartedly about and see how it goes. And when it fucking blows up, I go, "Oh, maybe I do know what I'm on about." Carry on.

Steven Bartlett 50:48 That's a dangerous game to play, because on the other end, if your- if external validation is moving you up, it's, like, impossible for it not move you the other way. So if someone DMs you and goes, "You are- you're a- f- you don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

James Smith 50:59 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 50:59 "Vegans are-"

James Smith 51:00 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 51:00 "... you know (laughs) this, and keto, uh, keto vegan is the best way to be," surely that moves you too, no?

James Smith 51:06 It does. And sometimes if I, if I do get a really, you know, harsh criticism, I don't take it from an emotional level. I take it from an objective level. I d- I actually do this a lot. If someone criticizes me on something, I go, before I think he's a dickhead, he could be right. So I give him the benefit of the doubt and I'll go to someone smarter than me. I'm like, "Just to double-check, I'm right on this topic." And I think that's a good way to protect myself from it. Every time someone says, "You're wrong on this subject," I don't go, "Hey, fuck you. I've got more followers than you." I'm like, "Oh fuck, I best go away and research this." And I actually use the little troll attacks sometimes to reconfirm my position on something.

Steven Bartlett 51:42 Hmm.

James Smith 51:42 If someone goes, you know, "You swear too much in your content." I'm like, "I'll- I'll reflect on it. Am I swearing too much? Is this how I got here?"

Steven Bartlett 51:50 Dangerous game to play, that. Like-

James Smith 51:52 It is.

Steven Bartlett 51:52 ... we all play it.

James Smith 51:53 It's volatile.

Steven Bartlett 51:53 I'm not, I'm not pretending. I'm just playing devil's advocate to ask you questions here, but that... Yeah, if you- if you're reliant on other people to validate you, then their words can also invalidate you, theoretically. So do you struggle with that? Being-

James Smith 52:07 Then, then I would just remove myself from the situation on the social media side of things.

Steven Bartlett 52:12 Right.

James Smith 52:12 I'd be like, "Okay." I'd sit with my thoughts. And again, do you know what? I remember you saying this word just before we went live. Psychedelics really help me with this, but psychedelics also got in my head a couple times. For people that don't know too much about psychedelics, I've always said to people, "It's like therapy with yourself." You're not always the, the guy that holds all the answers, but you're at least the person that has the questions. I remember I did a magic mushroom trip, and one of the questions I was poised with was, "Do people like you for who you are or what you do?" I was like, "Whoa, I'm gonna need a few weeks."

Steven Bartlett 52:47 Fucking hell.

James Smith 52:48 "I'm gonna need a bit of time for this." Because I was like, "How many of my followers actually know who I am?" It's my first defense when someone criticizes me, I'm like, "You don't know me." I'm like, "Ooh, if they don't know me, what do they like me for?" It's like, "Fuck." I'm still figuring it out. So I think that there's definitely a lot of conversations and internal dialogues in which that I'm still breaking down. And that's another thing that people can't understand about psychedelics. Some of the things you're poised with and questioned with can take months, sometimes years to unravel.

Steven Bartlett 53:18 Hmm. It's one of the things with building an identity, isn't it? You then... It's easy to th- to start to believe you, you are your identity. And that's not always a helpful thing, 'cause it can take you further and further away from who you actually are. And I think all the, the mental health th- research is clear that when we abandon ourselves, because we've built up a persona, then it can be very costly for the person we truly are. And, and I actually think that continual faking, from what I've learned from my guests, is, is really, really harmful. So it must be somewhat difficult, right? Like, creating the separation. 'Cause you are not... The guy that I've met today is not the guy that I've seen on Instagram telling me that I'm a fat prick. Like, it's not, these aren't the same... (laughs) I'm joking. These aren't the same individuals. So how'd you kind of disassociate from that?

James Smith 53:59 I think Jim Carrey said, uh, something about taking the mask off.

Steven Bartlett 54:02 Hmm.

James Smith 54:03 He goes, "Depression is when you have to take the mask off and say, 'I don't wanna do this anymore.'" And for me, very fortunately, it's three minutes a day on this person. It's not hours on TV, it's not in front of loads of people. But then sometimes what I do like is, I purposely... I c- (laughs) I call it a cunt-cive. I do a post that catches all the cunts in a sieve. And I sometimes purposefully, as hard as I can, try and get people to unfollow me. With, I just say something brutally honest. I go in as hard as I can with the objective of losing a few thousand followers, 'cause then I can kind of tighten the, the, the area, the remit of people which I talk to. And I remember in middle of summer, I was like, "This is shit." Just honestly, I was like, "We're kind of out of lockdown, but we're not. Still got to do tests to go travel. We're pretending it's the new normal, but it's not the new normal." And I, I just expressed my emotions without the facade.... and no one barely even noticed. And I was like, "That's, that's good." That means there's not this big transient period between I am just in, it's not a different person, it's more enthusiasm, which I think, again, is a very important thing. Because like, pa- I always say that my talks are between a TED Talk and standup. I need to ensure that I can tiptoe the line of retaining the audience, keeping them in, entertaining the audience at the same time. So, there is a requirement. Jimmy Carr, when you met him, you wouldn't, if you listened to that podcast the first half an hour, you wouldn't go, "Oh, he's a funny fucker."

Steven Bartlett 55:29 Yeah. (laughs)

James Smith 55:29 He's great. This is a very intelligent person. So I completely appreciate where he comes from as well. For me, I don't think there's too much separation. I think you wouldn't sit with me now and go, "That's a completely different person."

Steven Bartlett 55:40 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 55:41 You would go, "Okay. This is an Instagram James."

Steven Bartlett 55:43 Yeah, it's a caffeinated, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 55:45 Um, you, you said the, the word depression. Now, one of the things you wrote about in your book is anxiety as well, and your own experience with anxiety. Tell me about that. That's something that, uh ...

James Smith 55:53 Well, you sleep with people and they can say anything. That's one that creeps up on you over time, where you can have ... I remember once waking up to a, to a message saying, "Relax, this is fine. It's all being dealt with, but one of your ex-girlfriends in a Facebook group community for mums has said, 'Do you think it's okay if I make up a story about my ex? I will take the money from the story and give it to my son.'" So, we had that screenshotted. We had that locked down, so if it did go to the press, straightaway we could have it taken down. And I was like, "Wow, I thought we were on good terms 10 years ago," or whatever it was. And I, that then gets your mind working. You go, "What if I rub someone the wrong way? What if someone changes their stance on you? What if, you know, I have a joking altercation with someone in a bar, which they then misconstrue? What if I genuinely want to, you know, be ignorant on a subject, and someone construes that as a facetious attempt to insult someone?" So, there's a lot of anxiety that I carry because not everyone watching is watching you succeed. A lot of people watching you wanna see you fall.

Steven Bartlett 56:59 Yeah.

James Smith 57:00 And they're waiting at that very opportunity. And that is quite tough because there are gonna be a lot of people that are out to just not see me be happy. So, that's where the anxiety stems from a lot of the time. You have the general life anxiety, like, "Oh, I hope, I hope I don't get cancer this year." You know, one of those things. I've had friends that never made it to 30. Some of my rugby teammates, uh, that, you know, find a lump in their testicle on a Friday, both off by Sunday, dead within 10 months. And I think about that a lot. So, I think it's important to have that anxiety as well. I'm not guaranteed to live to 60. You know, I'm not guaranteed to see my book release. Let's hope for the publisher's sake that I get it finished, but ...

Steven Bartlett 57:38 Hmm.

James Smith 57:39 So there's, there are anxieties, but I work proactively to override them. You know? Uh, Mark Twain, "I've had many worries in my life, most of which never happened."

Steven Bartlett 57:52 Yeah.

James Smith 57:52 So, I, I think that I've got the wisdom, especially of Stoics, to these anxious traits are not new. They've existed for a lot longer than we could imagine. So, you do carry that around. I get drunk, you know, "Oh, did I put something on the story?" You know, I know that drunk James can say things, but I know he'd never do things. He's not inappropriate, he's not a groper, he's not disrespectful to women, nor any of those things, so I'm fine with that. But then I do carry this small amount of anxiety because the higher you climb, the further you fall. And when you feel like your life is a fairytale, you hope it has the fairytale ending. And you're like, "I hope I'm not the one that ..." You know, this is going too well. It's like you're at a gambling table, you keep winning on red. Eventually I'm gonna lose everything. I think about that a lot. So, I think that's what keeps me straight.

Steven Bartlett 58:41 How do you defend yourself from being canceled? What's your sort of philosophy f- f- uh, for that? For me, my, my thing, and Ant Middleton, I think reaffirmed this for me, Jordan Peterson ref- re- reaffirmed this for me as well, is if I never c- try to convince anybody that I'm something I'm not, if I never try and convince them that I'm, like, a really good guy or that I'm, like, morally perfect, they'll never be able to call that a contradiction. And really, a lot of the time, people getting canceled is because they, um, tried to pull the wool over your eyes about their, like, moral compass. And it explains why Jimmy Carr can sit here and go, I mean, this is slightly different 'cause it's comedy, but Jimmy Carr can sit there and go, "Oh fuck the over 70s. The Delta variant wiped them out," or rappers can talk about all the misogynistic things they talk about, whatever. No one's gonna leave any hate on their videos or on their, because they never gave us the expectation of other otherwise. It's usually the people that, quite often it's the people that are our prime ministers or our politicians or have inherited this moral high ground that we go, "Oh, you had a Christmas party."

James Smith 59:41 It's, I'm, I stand with very controversial opinions as well surrounding, I'm very pro drug legalization. I think that, you know, I've got family members in the police force I wish they were dealing with real cri- real crime.

Steven Bartlett 59:52 Yeah.

James Smith 59:52 And I think that we could abolish a lot of drug-related crimes by legalization. I think we should tax and we should quality control. I don't think it's gonna be a net positive for society, but I don't think exactly right now it is any better. So, with standpoints like that, people go, "James, have you done cocaine?" I go, "Yes." You know, "Have you done MDMA?" Um, you know, "Last weekend." You know? I'll always be honest with people, and that does give you a drop-off of followers, but I can't sit here-

Steven Bartlett 1:00:17 You can't sit here ... (laughs)

James Smith 1:00:17 I have to fil- I filter them out early so that they can come in, they can go, and that's not to be sexist or to talk about female genitalia, that is to use another polarizing word, so I'll be transparent with that. Similar to Danny Dyer got caught on CCTV doing a line. Everyone's like, "Oh, it's just Danny." You know? What did you expect?

Steven Bartlett 1:00:32 That's what I mean. He, he never tried to

Narrator 1:00:34 ... fool you.

James Smith 1:00:34 There is, there is the, the anti-, you know, cancelable effect of that, uh, you know, even when single, being very transparent with needs and wants through messages so that if someone was to look through, you know, a trail of it, you'd be like, "Well, he made it very clear that was the position he was in." So, I'm always trying to maintain an anti-cancelable thing. I haven't got TV, I haven't got radio. I've actually probably had 12 minutes of TV time in four or five years.I think because a lot of TV networks don't wanna (laughs) get canceled, so, um, if you were to pull the plug on all my media tomorrow, I'd probably see a 1% drop-off in, in engagement. And, you know, I'm very honest with all my clientele that the people that really matter to me are book buyers, academy members, and talk attendees. I don't believe that any of my actions would ever deter them from their interest in me-

Steven Bartlett 1:01:25 Hmm.

James Smith 1:01:25 ... which kind of makes me uncancellable. You know? Yeah. And I'm not too worried about that.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:31 I've been thinking a lot lately about, like, the, the, there's a few types of imprisonment in life. There's physical imprisonment, you can put me in a jail. And the other type of imprisonment, which I think is probably even worse, is like the mental imprisonment, which is, "We're gonna decide what you can think and say, um, and who you are." And like, I really don't want that. So how do I have to design my life to make sure that I never get mentally imprisoned? I never go to mental jail. And one of them is building enough resources so that even if you turned off my revenue streams, the ones you could turn off, I'm still good. The other is things like this, which is this is my own show. Don't sell it to Spotify or someone else because then there is a guy that could pull the plug. And I really, I've really started to think about this idea of like designing an uncancellableable life so that you could be mentally free in a world where we're all fucking virtue signaling and trying to fit in and be correct. You know what I mean?

James Smith 1:02:21 Mental jail. I like that.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:22 Like it is-

James Smith 1:02:22 I'm putting, I'm putting that in book three. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:02:24 (laughs) Yeah, yeah, yeah. huh. Well, it's a race-

James Smith 1:02:25 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:02:26 ... wasn't it? You can get it in a book first.

James Smith 1:02:27 I think, um, yeah, you're, you're incredibly correct, and I think that, you know, I don't have a huge amount in savings, but I think I could live three years on that.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:34 Hmm.

James Smith 1:02:34 You know, I went to, I went to Asia for six months when I was younger, and in six months, I spent three and a half thousand pounds.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:41 Yeah.

James Smith 1:02:41 I wasn't staying in the nicest places, but-

Steven Bartlett 1:02:43 You had a great time.

James Smith 1:02:43 ... I spent time there. So sometimes I'm like, "Hey, if the world goes to shit, I got 10 years in Thailand. Let's go."

Steven Bartlett 1:02:49 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 1:02:49 I'll just train jujitsu.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:50 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 1:02:50 Won't cost me anything. Laundry or whatever. So I always do that. And I actually, I wrote about this in one of my books. I remember I ate in a steak restaurant in Sydney once on the beach, and the waiter that served us, really nice guy, young guy, and, uh, I looked at him, and I went, "Oh, I could have your life, you know?" You probably serve steak in the restaurant, probably get good tips. You're in Sydney. You probably work 6:00 PM to 11:00 most nights, maybe five, six nights a week. I could surf during the day and get a dog and train jujitsu. If I was to do that every day for the next 30 years, I would have a better life than 99% of people on the planet.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:25 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 1:03:25 So with the cancelable thing, I almost think, like, if I was to get canceled, oh, well, I wouldn't have to use my phone as much. You know?

Steven Bartlett 1:03:32 (laughs)

James Smith 1:03:32 As long as I can get into a country that I, that I genuinely love. I always say to myself, "I'll open a jujitsu dojo in a small town in Australia." I've got door-knocking experience. I used to door knock for NPower. I used to have to knock on a hundred doors to sell gas and electric to people that already had gas and electric. How much easier would it be to sell jujitsu memberships? "Hey, come down. First week's free." Whatever. I, in the same way, not only like to have the uncancellableable life, I like to have a get-out plan that can sometimes be better than my current existence.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:00 (laughs)

James Smith 1:04:00 So it's one of those things where I was like, um, yeah, I, I do think about that a lot. And that's why you have family trusts, isn't it?

Steven Bartlett 1:04:06 Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

James Smith 1:04:07 Right? But, no, I think it is one of those things where, especially with Dragons' Den and you going on BBC, there is a expectation of, of who you are. And the mental jail you talk about, I experienced in the corporate world where I was in recruitment, high-end recruitment, and they said, "What'd you get up to at the weekend?" The truth was, I was on an away bus to Exeter playing rugby, and I got Dick of the Day, so we had to do Edward Cider Hands where they duct-taped bottles of cider to my hands, and I had to drink about three liters of cider-

Steven Bartlett 1:04:34 Hmm.

James Smith 1:04:34 ... pretty much to break myself free. They put a bin bag around me, and I puked in it for the most of the way back. They put a bin bag around me, and I puked in it for the most of the way back. I was like, "Yeah, I just went out for dinner with my friends."

Steven Bartlett 1:04:41 Yeah.

James Smith 1:04:41 And then having that same conversation with everyone. "Good weekend?" "Oh, lovely, thanks. Went out for dinner with my friends." I couldn't even express myself, which is... You do feel like you're behind bars. And I used to have to wear a shirt and tie, clean shaven. I wasn't even client-facing most of the time, and I'd get, I'd get shit for not shaving. And where I just wanted to go, "Why do I need to fucking shave?"

Steven Bartlett 1:05:01 (laughs)

James Smith 1:05:01 I'd be like, "Okay, yeah, of course. I'll get the Bic out tomorrow." It-

Steven Bartlett 1:05:04 Yeah.

James Smith 1:05:05 And that builds up. That angst builds up. And for a lot of people that do suffer mental jail, I think that's another reason martial arts saves them. They can save that angst. They can save that frustration and channel it later in the day.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:18 Hmm.

James Smith 1:05:19 I have big worries over people that don't have an outlet for breaking out of jail.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:23 Oh, yes. Yeah.

James Smith 1:05:25 And they probably then turn to alcohol and violence and getting in punch-ups or whatever it is. So I feel that human beings, I believe we're, we're quite combative.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:32 Mm-hmm.

James Smith 1:05:33 I think that you watch kids who have play fights, they're not trying to hurt each other. Sometimes they are. Give them a set of rules, get them into it, let them express that. But yeah, there are two things. One, if people are in that mental jail, they need a way out to express them. And if they are in a mental jail, they need to create long-term solutions to not be in there because not expressing yourself in life, like you say, I've never thought of it like that. I think that's really profound. Mental jail, where, in some sense, being mentally behind bars must be harder than-

Steven Bartlett 1:06:00 Even worse.

James Smith 1:06:01 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:01 You see it in... One of the examples I've given on this podcast a number of times is in the LGBTQ community where because they are, when people are unable to express even their sexuality, the suicide rates go up, you know, before they've, quote-unquote, I don't like the term, but "come out the closet." And when you look at the things that are prescribed in the more holistic mental health treatments as being good for mental health, it's things like, um, creating music or doing art or even, like, dancing and, like, things like yoga. An expression for me is something that I learned later in life is actually writing books or doing a podcast. Well, I mean, that's therapy, right? That's... When people go to therapy, they do com- they, they express themselves. They let it out. Look at men that don't express themselves. It's the single biggest killer of suicide. So let's think... So we know mental prison is a real thing, and we know the consequences are severe. The question becomes, how much are you imprisoning yourself mentally? How much are you doing that in your day-to-day life? How much, like... And you're completely right, and I'm so glad that's where you went with it, which is like you need to find a way in your life where you get a chance to express yourself. The, the cell walls are closing in on that jail. You've got to find a way, whether it's... Fucking this is why, this is why I've got a, a bit of a problem with the nature of social media in the- (clicks tongue) And the-- you're marked on how correct you are, not how true to yourself you are. It's all about correctness, typically. It's funny, because it's actually not, but it feels like it is. We've seen it. I mean, the reason, part of the reason why you, uh, identified yourself as winning was because you weren't correct. But it feels like the, the, the rewards are reserved for those that are correct. Piers Morgan's the same. The most uncor- like, uh, uncorrect person you'll meet in our... Look at the fucking numbers, he's this guy does, you know? So I ju- I don't know. I'm very passionate about that topic of-

James Smith 1:07:40 It's interesting you say that, because today, if people go back and actually listen to me talking about adoption, they'll see that I'm struggling to talk about it, because I've never... I've spoken about it maybe 10 times in my life to that extent, ever, online, offline, whatever. Yet, we've never met before, but the medium in